All That Burns

by Ryan Graudin

  Anabelle’s mouth pulls to one side, wry. She snaps her laptop shut. “I know it might be hard to believe, but there were times when these palaces felt like a prison.”

  Kieran keeps watching the angels. Taking in every intimate detail of the artist’s brushstrokes.

  “I mean—it’s not at all like the maze you live in. But there were so many times growing up when all I wanted was a normal life. I spent hours looking out windows watching children play in St. James’s Park. Scraping their knees. Getting dirty. I wanted more than anything to be out there with them. Chasing ducks and fighting with stick swords and not caring about manners or harp lessons or whether or not my stockings had runs in them.”

  Even from here, with one ear smudged against velvet, I hear the thickness in her voice. Kieran hears it too. His stare has fallen from the angels, drifted to Anabelle. The princess looks down into the teacup, as if she’s really telling all of this to the leftover sips of Earl Grey.

  “People see this life and they want it. They think it’s something out of a fairy tale: castles, pretty dresses, magazine covers, and all the rest. But they don’t realize how much it weighs. My life—it’s never really been mine. I’ve always had people telling me how to act. Where to study. Who to be friends with. I have to be flawless all of the time or else I get pounced on by the press and my mother.

  “Richard always hated the pressure. He ran away from it. But I’ve tried to please everyone. To be Britain’s perfect princess. And it’s just bloody exhausting.” Her last few words are edged with anger. She places the teacup back on its tray with such vigor that it rains amber drops across her wrist.

  Kieran shifts; the bed creaks under his weight.

  “These past few days . . . they’ve been awful, but they’ve also been illuminating. For the first time in my life I’ve felt free,” she drifts off.

  “I know what you mean.” His hand rubs up the ridged muscles of his bare arm. Over his mark. “Not all prisons have bars or walls. To be someone you’re not is a prison in itself.”

  He says this and those eyes cut over to my chair. I wonder if he knows I’m awake, if he hears the extra-heavy patter of my heart. How it flutters and stings under his words.

  “But I can’t just stop being a princess.”

  “I suppose not.” Kieran frowns. His fingers are still on his mark, tracing it round and round. Following the silver lines without even looking at them. His eyes are still latched on to my chair.

  It’s no use pretending anymore. I’m awake and he knows it.

  “What if who I want to be and who I’m meant to be aren’t the same?” Anabelle goes on. “What if they never fit together?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Kieran asks my chair, my barely closed lids.

  I sit up, as if I’m just twisting awake: all limb and yawn. “What are we talking about?”

  Anabelle flinches, puts on a face. The softness from just moments before hides behind curtains of tense brow and a cocktail-hour voice.

  “Dramatic, philosophical things.” Her voice goes deep. Like a play narrator. “Fate versus free will. What if the person you were born to be isn’t who you want to be?”

  I give her the only answer I can think of. “Then I suppose you must decide which life you want more. Make your choice.”

  Kieran slides off the bed, leaves the princess alone in the downy waves of comforter. He moves back to his window perch, where the first hints of dawn smudge against the glass.

  “Easy words,” he says softly. The icy light blooms and spreads across his face, making him look like some sort of winter god. “Not all of us are strong enough to fight fate. To wage war against the nature of things.”

  Fate. The nature of things. Is that what I’m battling against? Is that what’s dragging Richard away? Wrenching us apart?

  No.

  “It’s Mordred,” I say suddenly, replaying the final moments of my dream over and over again. Silver-scratched runes branding my eyes as the black knight plunged his sword into Richard’s chest. Plunged me into waking.

  How many more times will I have to watch him die?

  “What?” Anabelle chirps from the bed.

  “Mordred,” I force the name out again. “He’s the one pretending to be Julian Forsythe. The same sorcerer who killed King Arthur.”

  Kieran looks over at me, painted in frosty surprise and morning sun. “How do you know?”

  I’m about to tell him. About to let the truth slip out, when I catch myself. The dreams, they’re the last corner of my life that belong to just me and Richard. The last hint of mortality I can cling to when I’m around the Ad-hene, listening to the siren call of other choices.

  “I—I just remembered,” I say. “He used rune magic. The symbols were etched into his armor the day he invaded Camelot.”

  Anabelle looks too pale, almost sick as she asks, “Do you think he’s going to kill Richard?”

  The question—same but different—circles in Kieran’s eyes like a wolf around prey. Is it worth his death?

  “I don’t know.” I look down at my ringless finger, lined up with all the others in a tight fist. Ready for a fight.

  But if it truly is fate I’m up against . . .

  Am I willing to accept the cost?

  Twenty-Two

  Anabelle keeps plowing through the day. Before breakfast her invitation to Julian Forsythe is sent and she’s perfected basic memory modification spells under Kieran’s careful tutelage. By lunch she’s already agreed to an exclusive interview with the nation’s largest news network to tell her version of the kidnapping and cement her innocence in Mordred-Julian’s mind. Kensington Gardens become overrun. Extension cords wind alongside leafless vines. The hustle of the camera crew sprays gravel off the neatly raked paths.

  Kieran and I stand on the edge of the garden. Watching as camera techs set up their equipment and a makeup artist erases the sleepless night from the princess’s eyes. Eric stands watch from the opposite side of the garden, looming like a dark omen in the middle of bare rose brambles. His eyes rove the gravel paths; his hands stay rigid by his stun gun.

  “Are you really going to let the princess go through with this plan?” The Ad-hene’s eyes are anchored on Anabelle’s back, as attentive and alert as Eric.

  I take a deep breath, look down at the flowerbed by my feet. I can’t be certain, but I think this is where the marigolds once were. Before the frost settled in, turned everything to black and wither.

  “You think I shouldn’t?” I ask him.

  “You know the risk as well as I. Mordred is a powerful sorcerer. Cunning. If he catches the princess in her deception . . .” Kieran’s jaw tightens, an intricate weave of muscles. “Are you really willing to let the princess risk everything?”

  “Anabelle’s right. We have to try.” The Ad-hene looks down at me as I say this. His silvery attentions pouring like a storm over my shoulders, into my awareness.

  We’re not alone, but with the veiling spell wrapped tight and the princess’s back to us we might as well be.

  Futures are branching out before me. Forking with every breath. Every fresh pulse of Kieran’s follee-shiu.

  “We’re running out of options,” I keep talking, as if more words could keep what’s coming at bay. “The Frithemaeg are gone. The princess is too new in her magic. And you yourself said you weren’t strong enough.”

  “Not alone.” Kieran’s words hang like ripe fruit, begging to be plucked. “We could face Mordred. Together.”

  There’s no mistaking his meaning. Not with the gleam in his eyes which reminds me so very much of the tunnel. The words still echoing off of those rune-struck tiles: He’s not your only choice. The empty space that’s slowly collapsing between us.

  “I—I can’t.” Why do these words feel like molasses stuck on my tongue, the back of my throat? So hard to get out?

  “You’ve trapped yourself, become what you’re not.” He reaches out, fingers ghosting along the ends of my black, b
lack hair. “I still see the fire in you. You’re only hurting yourself by trying to put it out.”

  It’s as if the world has melted around us, fallen away. It’s just Kieran and me, standing in the hot cocoon of his veiling spell. I’m so very aware of his fingertips. How they hover just a moment from my skin.

  The pine-needle prickles in my gut have grown, swallowed everything. The whole of me is a forest aflame.

  “You gave up magic for love. But what if you don’t have to?” His whisper slides around my neck. Possessive, gripping, desperate. “I know you feel it too. There’s something here. Between us.”

  I can’t tell him there isn’t.

  “Take back your magic.” He leans in. Closer, ever closer. “Set yourself free.”

  Sweet, sickly poison: the taste of these words. It crawls sluggish through my veins, makes me still. Unable to move or even breathe. I’m simply standing in front of the Ad-hene, drunk off of his magic, his words, my mind spinning.

  Richard. I love Richard.

  But that doesn’t stop Kieran from pressing his lips to mine.

  He kisses me. Hard.

  Kieran is all storm and sea. His lips draw me in like a whirlpool, spin me. Deeper into the rawness of his spirit—the pieces of him no body could convey. The true, wild danger of the Ad-hene.

  It’s like catching the crest of a wave, plummeting through the water’s foamy fury. Fast and fierce and uncontrollable. I feel Kieran’s magic tugging my soul, riptide strong, wanting to consume. Carry me away to the other shore.

  Back to where I started.

  Kieran’s hands glide like water down my neck, my shoulders, my arms. His palm passes over the five crusty nail marks. They call out—sharp pain—howling Guinevere’s words back at me:

  The circling sea will swallow us whole. I flipped wrong.

  All of me goes stiff. The Ad-hene’s kiss becomes fraught. Beyond hungry.

  The only other soul in the world like me screams, screams, screams in my memories: I flipped wrong and the world burned.

  Like me.

  I tear away. My hair is a tangled mess over my eyes—webbing black through the sight of Kieran. His face belongs to someone who just lost something important—jigsawed with emotions. Furrowed brow for confusion. Hard jaw for anger. Shining eyes for pleading. Chin wrinkled for hurt. And something else I can’t seem to place—swimming in the tension of those lips which just touched mine.

  “No. No. This is all wrong.” I shake my head, as if that will clear it. All it does is set me spinning. Everything inside me is so far from north.

  I look away from the Ad-hene, try to get my bearings. Down at the churned soil where the marigolds used to root: an empty bed full of holes. Over to Eric’s stern, knight-like vigil.

  And then I see Anabelle.

  The princess stands alone in a crowd of people, staring at me with eyes that could pierce stone. They hit me like twin javelins, sink deep into my gut.

  She saw everything.

  Kieran’s breath goes silver-edged, as if Anabelle’s eyes have gutted him too. “Emrys . . .”

  But whatever the Ad-hene has to say, I don’t want to hear it. I step away from him, into the dirt of the flowerbed. The loose, broken soil swallows my feet, just like the mud from the dream. Only instead of running to someone, I’m fleeing.

  Soil clings to my steps, leaving trails of filth where I walk. Veiled dirt only Anabelle can see.

  But she isn’t looking anymore. She’s sitting on the garden bench, getting her microphone fitted to the collar of her designer dress. Her hands are folded into her lap like a neat valentine. Her long hair is wound up tight, showcasing the beautiful sculpt of her face.

  There’s nothing in her expression, not a flicker or flinch to indicate what she just saw.

  I halt only a meter away from the bench, where I’m drowning in a sea of gravel, grips, and gaffers. So close I could speak to her. But she’s not alone. On the other end of the bench is the same brunette reporter who interviewed Edmund: Meryl Munson.

  Even if I could speak to Anabelle, I have no idea what I might say. No apology, no excuse can wash the stain of Kieran from my lips.

  With one shout from the crew Meryl Munson looks straight into the camera, all smile, telling her viewers the story they already know. How, the very same day King Richard disappeared, Britain’s princess was snatched straight out of a high-security bunker, a victim of the very magic her brother swore to protect.

  Anabelle’s smile grows tighter and tighter—a rope on the verge of snap. It’s winched as taut as possible by the time Meryl turns and finally asks her a question.

  “You’ve had quite a past few days, Your Highness. Can you tell me a bit about your ordeal?”

  The princess takes a deep, steady breath. “After Richard vanished, my protection team took my mother and me to a secure location. I insisted Emrys accompany us. Once we arrived at the bunker she overpowered the guards and kidnapped me.”

  Meryl Munson leans forward, yet somehow manages to keep her face angled always at the camera. “What was going through your mind when you realized Emrys had betrayed you?”

  “I couldn’t believe it at first. Didn’t want to.” Anabelle swallows. The short golden charm on her necklace dips into the base of her throat. “She seemed to love Richard so much. . . . She was already a part of our family. I thought of her as a sister. To see her true nature come out so viciously—it was a shock.”

  I know this is the story she meant to tell when she agreed to the interview. The words she planned on saying. Yet every one of them tears into me, until I’m riddled through with holes. All of me feels uprooted.

  “Not everyone seemed so shocked.” Meryl says this like an admonishment. “Julian Forsythe has been preaching the dangers of immortals ever since Emrys first appeared. Wasn’t he the one who rescued you?”

  “I was very fortunate he came into his office when he did. Without him I’d still be out there, a prisoner.” The princess’s brown eyes don’t move from the reporter’s face. She doesn’t look at the camera. Or at me.

  “He’s certainly become the hero of the hour.” Meryl’s smile is saccharine—sugar cubes dunked in syrup. “The emergency elections are scheduled to take place tomorrow and according to polls, the tides have turned in the M.A.F.’s favor. Julian Forsythe will become prime minister, which should make it much easier for all the mortal defense and anti-integration bills to pass through the houses of Parliament. Do you have any thoughts on this?”

  “Richard believed we could live in harmony with the Fae. That their presence would enrich our lives and launch us into a new age of progress. But my brother believed many things which have turned out not to be true. It seems he was being deceived.” There’s a slight tremor in Anabelle’s voice. She’s an excellent actress. If she’s acting. Her eyes don’t find me again. Not even once. “I think we should do what we must to keep this kingdom safe. If that means appointing a new prime minister, then so be it. The Fae are dangerous. They can’t be trusted.”

  Kieran is still standing in the ruin of marigolds. Staring. Even from here I can see the rawness of his face.

  Meryl stumbles into the long stretch of Anabelle’s silence with a squeaking question. “So you would say this experience has swayed your stance in favor of segregation?”

  Anabelle’s face tilts farther toward the camera, but her stare lodges straight into me.

  “We’re better off without them,” she says.

  I follow the princess around like a desperate puppy all afternoon. She’s pacing the way Richard used to when he was upset. Round and round the maze of Kensington. Past the ghosts of old men looming in oil portraits. Past all the many windows which look out on the world’s bleakness: London passing, trees stripped and crippled by autumn.

  Eric follows the princess too, copying her wordless march around the palace. And Kieran—I haven’t seen him since we left the gardens. He can’t have gone far; his veiling spell is still choked tight around me. The on
ly thing between me and an army of stun guns. I keep waiting for her to return to the bedroom, where Eric’s eyes and stun gun cannot reach.

  But Anabelle does anything she can to avoid the bedroom. She has tea with her mother, who spends half of the hour talking about all the dead ends Protection Command has hit in their search for Richard and the other half talking about me. After that Anabelle speaks with the kitchen staff, going over the dinner menu for the tenth time. She confirms the florist and edits the guest list as responses trickle in.

  It’s not until she ticks a neat check beside Mr. and Mrs. Julian Forsythe that I finally speak. I don’t care that any odd movement or word of hers could give me away to Eric’s falcon eyes. I have to get this out.

  “Belle, please.”

  Nothing. Her face is motionless as she guides her pen over the paper.

  “What you saw,” I go on, push past the thickness in my throat. “It was a mistake.”

  The line she’s striking through a couple’s name wavers; her hand is shaking. The princess puts down the pen and folds the list away.

  “I think I’m going to retire for a bit,” she tells Eric. “Last night didn’t bring me much rest and I want to make sure I have plenty of energy for the party tonight.”

  I follow her wake to Richard’s old bedroom, Anabelle shuts the door and marches across the carpet, her heels digging deep—punching through fruit and warriors’ faces. The staccato of her step, the cold, clear blaze in her eyes reminds me so very much of her mother.

  She stares and stares. Without a word.

  “What you saw in the garden. It was a mistake.” Did I say that already? My words feel scrabbling and useless, like a tortoise on its back. “He kissed me and—”

  “I saw it all,” she says.

  “I love your brother. Very much.” I offer this up like a sacrifice. Wait for her knife.

  The princess shuts her eyes. Her fingers press like spindles against her temples, the way they did in the bunker.