by K. M. Shea
“You’re uninjured,” she said.
Benjimir buried a hand in her hair. “Unlike you. You idiot!”
Gwendafyn tilted her head up to squint at him. “What did you say?”
Benjimir scowled at her. “How could you risk yourself like that?”
“You were captured.”
“So? You should have sent Arion,” Benjimir frowned.
Thad and the guards surrounded Gwendafyn and Benjimir in a circle, though they exchanged nervous glances as the bickering continued.
Gwendafyn snorted. “Oh yes, because Arion possesses secret, hidden skills that let him bust down magic barriers. There was no other way—we didn’t have any wizards or mages in our pockets that we could conveniently pull out at a moment’s notice.”
Though Benjimir narrowed his eyes at her, his hands were gentle as he ran them down her arms and prodded her waist. “There is always another way.”
“Quiet—the rescued doesn’t get to vote on or criticize the method in which they are rescued,” Gwendafyn complained. “And what are you doing? I am not a cat to be stroked!”
“I’m checking for wounds,” Benjimir snapped as he eyed a tear in her sleeve. “Because apparently you can’t be trusted to think of your own welfare.”
Gwendafyn seriously studied him for a moment.
He didn’t meet her gaze; his eyes were too busy scanning her. Though his hair was a little mussed, and he had a smudge of dirt on his cheekbone, he looked entirely unruffled by his kidnapping, and his handsome features were strong with focus.
“I should break your nose,” she said reflectively.
“Your Highnesses, I realize the both of you are having a charming reunion,” Thad said.
“In what country does this constitute as charming?” Gwendafyn asked.
“Next time if you come with a squadron of men and a calf that is not bleeding so heavily it’s dying your whole boot red, I’ll be positively charismatic,” Benjimir scoffed.
“There shouldn’t have to be a NEXT TIME!” Gwendafyn shouted.
“Your Highnesses!” Thad said in a voice that was one pitch away from a wail. “We really ought to leave!” Despite his upset tone, he whirled his blade with expertise, dispatching a bandit with ease.
Benjimir seemed to reluctantly release her as his hands lingered on her ribcage. “This is not over,” he warned.
“I agree.” Gwendafyn twisted away from him, lunging into a jump-slash and pouncing on a bandit.
The air of the area had altered.
The bandits no longer charged forward, but ran with panic, tripping over one another and shouting in fear.
What changed? I alone couldn’t have inspired this sort of fear.
Gwendafyn cocked her head as she blocked an attack from a bandit. Pushing up against her attacker’s sword, the bandit had to throw his arms wide to keep from falling backwards.
Benjimir slid in as smooth as butter, brutally kicking the bandit in the gut and sending him flying.
Above them, the yellow barrier sputtered, then rippled before imploding. Magic fell from the sky—though it faded before it reached them.
“Did someone take out the mage?” Benjimir asked. He snatched up a spear and whirled it overhead before jabbing it in front of him—stopping a bandit who was running at a preoccupied guard.
“I never came across him as I fought my way through,” Gwendafyn said.
Thad ducked a spear, then slashed a man across the shin. “Do you hear that?”
Gwendafyn strained her ears, and faintly she could make it out over the terror of the bandits.
“Calnor!”
“Charge!”
“To the South!”
“To the North!”
“Sounds like the Honor Guards,” Gwendafyn said. “But where are they?”
Benjimir opened his arms. “Want to take a look?”
Carefully holding her spark-spitting sword away from him, Gwendafyn hopped into his arms.
She craned her neck and maneuvered herself until she sat on his shoulders.
To the south, Colonel Arion and King Petyrr led a charge, descending on the bandits with shouts.
North of the fight, Grygg led a second charge, attacking the bandits’ flank side and trapping them between Calnor’s forces.
The Honor Guards moved with measured efficiency, marching in sync in tight formations. They pierced through the panicking bandit forces with ease and swept the battlefield.
Very few of the rogues were fighting. Mostly they tried to flee, but the guards boxed them in like well-trained herding dogs and subdued them.
Gwendafyn squirmed on Benjimir’s shoulders and described what she saw.
“Can you see the bandit leader?” Benjimir called up to her. “A pasty-skinned man—tall as a tree and wearing leather armor.”
Gwendafyn more carefully scanned the crowd, pausing when she realized why the barrier had gone down.
Seer Ringali and Tarinthali stood to the east, effectively barring the way as their magic flickered around them and their expressions remained cold.
They stood apart, and together circled a woman in a mud-colored cloak like wolves circling their prey.
Occasionally the woman tried to make a break for it. Whenever she did, Tari would throw out her arm, making a wave of white magic peel off her and fan out across the field, blocking the woman’s path.
Sius stalked in Tari’s shadow, and if the woman veered too close he hissed, flattened his ears and brandished his claws.
Evidently, they got bored.
“Fyn,” Benjimir shifted beneath her, making the world tilt. “Have you found him yet?”
Refocusing, Gwendafyn went back to scanning the battlefield. All she saw were bandits—a few fought back, but some were now raising their hands in surrender to the incoming guards.
I don’t see anyone with armor—wait.
A man wearing a black cloak expertly twisted his way through the hoard of bandits, making for a bay-colored horse picketed away from the turmoil of the fight.
“I see him. He’s to the west.”
“I will signal to Grygg,” Thad said. “We must prioritize getting you to safety, Your Highnesses.”
Gwendafyn swung off Benjimir’s shoulders as if she were dismounting a horse. “There’s no time for that. We’re the closest force to him, and he’s about to escape.”
Thad frowned. “You two are the future of Calnor. A bandit leader is not worth the risk.”
Gwendafyn barely heard his words as power sang in her ears again. Since finding Benjimir, her magic had started to relax and retreat. But the sight of the bandit leader rekindled it with a silent roar.
“I understand your concerns,” Benjimir said to Thad as he watched Gwendafyn adjust her sword belt and her hand position on the hilt of her borrowed sword. “But I don’t believe it matters at all to my wife.”
“It doesn’t.” Gwendafyn blinked as some of the magic still swirling around her sword leaped to her. She felt it crackle up and down her body, reawakening her muscles.
Benjimir sauntered past her, pausing just long enough to murmur to her, “Go. I’ll brow-beat your trainer into following.”
Gwendafyn nodded once, then made a break for it.
“Princess!” Thad called in an aggravated tone, but Gwendafyn was gone before he could say more.
At the behest of her magic, she sprinted west. She didn’t waste her time fighting off any bandits. Instead, she moved as quietly as smoke as she jumped fallen men and darted around Calnorian Honor Guards tying the rogues up.
Her breath came in even puffs, and once again the sound of her heartbeat filled her ears as she doggedly pursued her target.
She slipped out of the battle just as the bandit leader mounted his horse and turned it away from the chaotic conflict.
Gwendafyn scooped up a fist-sized rock and threw it before the leader spurred his horse into a trot.
It cracked him square on his unprotected skull. He flopped over his
horse’s neck then slid off the side.
Gwendafyn dragged the tip of her sword in the dirt as she ambled towards the groaning man.
“Where are you going?” She asked in the clearest Calnoric she had ever uttered. “The fun has only just begun.”
The bandit leader propped himself up on his elbows and blanched when he saw her stride in his direction.
“P-p-please, don’t kill me!” he begged, his words twisted by a foreign accent.
In the back of her mind, Gwendafyn realized she was leaving wisps of smoke in her wake as her boots started to glow white hot, and she singed the very ground she walked upon.
“Of course I won’t kill you.” Her sword shed white sparks of lightning as she rotated her wrist back and forth. “If I do, who will carry my message back to your king?” She crouched down next to him and smiled, but this seemed to make him feel worse, for he started trembling.
“I-I-I am of Calnor—”
“Do not lie to me.” Gwendafyn’s voice was as cold and unforgiving as sharpened steel. “You were dispatched with the sole task of harassing the people of Calnor, as I’m sure your little mage friend will confirm when we properly welcome her.”
She stood, but the quivering bandit leader remained splayed on the ground. Her voice lofty, Gwendafyn pointed her sword at his chest. “Tell your masters this.”
She drove her sword into the ground just a hand’s width from the bandit leader’s head.
The sword radiated power, flooding the ground with her scorching magic. It ignited, and the ground beneath them exploded sending rocks, clods of dirt, and dust into the air. The smell of burnt grass and hair wafted through the clouded air, and it took a strong wind to finally clear the sediment and reveal the aftereffects of Gwendafyn’s little show.
They no longer were positioned on the smooth, flower-covered ground of the meadow, but in a jagged crater at least a foot deep. For two horse lengths in every direction, the ground was gouged and cracked, as if a gigantic clawed paw had scooped the ground away. The occasional spark or bolt of magic streaked across the indentation with a hum.
Gwendafyn left her sword where it was, planted her foot on the bandit leader’s chest and leaned in so her voice was barely more than a murmur. “Calnor does not stand alone. And if more forces are sent, they will be greeted by me, Princess Gwendafyn of Calnor and Lessa.”
Sweat dripped from the bandit leader’s nose, and he cried as Gwendafyn stood straight.
She yanked her sword from the ground, sending out several more bolts of her blistering magic as the blade pulled free.
The bandit leader yelped.
Gwendafyn lazily hopped out of the crater and noticed with a half-smile that the dip was heart-shaped. “Go,” she ordered when the bandit leader finally peeled himself off the ground. “Warn your king, little man. Your life depends on your success.”
Somewhere behind her Sius roared, and an explosion of magic made the ground tremble—Seer Ringali and Tari, most likely.
The man stumbled to his feet and sprinted to his horse, which had fled Gwendafyn’s assault. The bandit leader grabbed it by the bridle and threw himself at its side. The beast snorted and shied away, but the man held tight and scrambled into the saddle.
Gwendafyn watched as he spurred his horse, bolting from the deteriorating fight. The farther he got, the more her magic settled, until finally her skin stopped tingling and her hair no longer floated in an unseen breeze.
“You let him go?” Benjimir asked as he sauntered up to her side. “Father will be so disappointed.”
“I wanted to send a direct message.” Gwendafyn rolled her head as her muscles loosened and felt almost jelly-like. “Besides, you’ve figured out which of your ‘allies’ is behind this, haven’t you?”
“The accents were easy to place given all the traveling I did before we were married,” Benjimir said. “But I am honored you think so highly of my intelligence that you thought I would be able to discern such a thing.”
Gwendafyn snorted. “If I didn’t know you were capable of that small thing, you would have eaten me for breakfast when I first proposed.”
“For certain.” Benjimir nodded seriously. “But we won’t have to rely on my word anyway. I encountered Wilford on my way to you. It seems Lady Tarinthali and Seer Ringali have taken it upon themselves to frighten the mage into spilling her guts.”
“Ahh, I expect that explosion was them, then.”
“Yes. They have an interesting way of inspiring a flow of information.” Benjimir kissed her temple. “And I do owe you a thank you.”
“You have finally made peace with the method of your rescue?” Gwendafyn raised her eyebrows at him as they turned around to observe the last remnants of the battle.
The bandits had been put down. There were only one or two remaining pockets of resistance, but as Gwendafyn watched, they, too, were subdued.
“To a certain extent,” Benjimir said wryly. “I am thankful you came for me. You were the only one with the ability to do so.”
“And yet you still object to it?”
“Not really. You have the power. It is more that I do not like you running around by yourself. Perhaps I shall follow Arion’s example and invest in a Snow Cat, though maybe a wolf would better suit you? I imagine it would be easier to train to come find me if you were in trouble…”
Gwendafyn had been watching Arion end the last fight by slamming two bandits’ heads together, but at Benjimir’s words, she curiously glanced up at her husband. “Wasn’t Sius meant to be just a pet—albeit an exotic one?”
Benjimir snorted. “Are you jesting? No, not ever. Arion knows his wife well enough to realize she was likely to continue to mix herself in all sorts of trouble in the future, and unlike you, her ability to fight back is limited. No, Arion got Sius because he was the best disguised bodyguard he could find.”
Gwendafyn laughed, but her mirth died as she watched Benjimir out of the corner of her eye. “But you truly are not angry I fought—or…bothered by my magic?”
“Why would such a thing bother me?” Benjimir asked.
Gwendafyn blinked, shocked by his answer. “…because?”
Benjimir snorted. “I’m not your mincing family, Fyn. You have magic—good for you. Now as how to use it, that I have several ideas we should discuss at a more appropriate time.” He smiled wickedly.
Gwendafyn stared at him, half torn between surprise and amusement. I agonized over marrying him because I knew he was cunning and ruthless. I never thought I would ever be thankful for the twists in his personality.
“But I do have a question for you,” Benjimir continued. He peeled his eyes from the battlefield and peered at her. “How are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t ever shed blood before,” Benjimir said.
Gwendafyn paused. She started to stare at her feet until she saw the blood smeared on her blade, then she immediately raised her gaze to the sky. “I’m fine right now, but I don’t think it has set in yet.” She paused, then added in a small voice, “But later tonight…”
Benjimir curled an arm around her shoulders. “To be one who fights is a burden. You shed blood to protect others and are responsible for multitudes of lives. Regret, sadness—those mean you are a good warrior, Gwendafyn. For if such things do not affect a person, then their soul is shattered beyond repair.”
The metallic scent of blood made Gwendafyn’s stomach curl as she watched King Petyrr stomp across the battlefield, shouting in his booming voice to Tari and Seer Ringali—who had the foreign mage knocked out and sprawled between them. “I hope you are right.”
She would never regret what she had done to save Benjimir and—hopefully—fend off further attacks.
But she would regret that it was necessary, and she would still mourn the loss of life.
It seems I am not entirely taken by my High Elf blood as I thought, Gwendafyn realized. For at least I see the value in life—even in those who have betrayed and
fought. Perhaps that is why I can love Benjimir.
She stiffened. While that realization had brought sharp focus to her before the battle, now it was only the harbinger of pain.
Because no matter how much she loved her sly husband, Benjimir still loved Yvrea.
That night, in the dog-watch hours, Gwendafyn awoke in a cold sweat. She nearly flung herself out of her bed with the force of her nightmare, and her breath came in pained gasps.
Her eyes stared unseeingly in the darkness of her rented inn room of Neice, and she pushed a lock of her hair out of her face.
Her nightmare had been a vivid one. She’d relived the fight—only this time she saw all the ways it could have gone wrong, and the faces of all those she had battled in her struggle to reach Benjimir. She could still smell the acrid, gag-inducing stench of the battlefield. And the cries of the fallen echoed in her tapered ears no matter how she rubbed at them.
Her stomach rolled, and she barely made it to the chamber pot in time.
When her retching finally subsided, she groaned.
It took her a moment to realize her hair was not draped around her because someone was holding it back.
Her heart pounding in her throat, she sat up, surprised when she realized Benjimir was crouched at her side, holding a clay cup of water in one hand, and her hair in the other. His expression was unreadable in what little light was shed by a flickering candle that Gwendafyn did not remember leaving lit.
He wordlessly held out the cup.
Gwendafyn took it, tears stinging her eyes. (She wasn’t sure if it was because of his unexpected kindness or the memory of the nightmare.)
“Can you stand?” Benjimir asked when she finished her water.
Gwendafyn nodded. She rose on shaky legs and watched, more than a little confused, as Benjimir sat down on her bed and leaned against the headboard.
“I thought you had your own room?” she asked.
“I knew you would need someone tonight,” Benjimir patted the space next to him.
Gwendafyn—now cold—slipped halfway under her covers, then scooted towards him.
Benjimir scooped her closer to him so she was half-sprawled across his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
