by T. J. Klune
He rolled his eyes. “Glad to know you’re just as you always are.”
“Amazing?”
“Maybe not quite the word I was going to use.”
“Yes, well, abusers probably don’t.”
“I didn’t abuse—you know what, no. You are not going to distract me. What the hell was that about?”
And I could see it then, the pinched look on his face, the way the corners of his mouth were drawn down. He looked scared and worried, and even if he beat me, I swore I could change him and make him love me. “I’m fine,” I said. “Your forehead is doing that wrinkle thing when I’ve done something dumb and you don’t know whether to hug me or yell at me.”
“It is not,” he muttered, forehead wrinkling further. “I wasn’t even worried. And fair warning, I am going to probably hug and yell at you.”
I snorted. “I see no problem with any of that. How long was I down for?”
“Five minutes? Maybe a little more. What happened?”
“And I was always here? I didn’t… disappear or anything?”
That certainly didn’t make the expression on his face go away. If anything, his eyes narrowed further. “Disappeared where?”
“Fuck if I know,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face. “I was in the middle of the Dark Woods, I think. Some place I didn’t recognize. After she—wait. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “One minute she had you up against a wall, and the next it was like she wasn’t there. You fell and you wouldn’t wake up. You were shaking and I couldn’t—”
I reached up and cupped his face. “I’m okay,” I said.
“I know,” he said, but he leaned into my hands. “It’s just that—fuck. Don’t do that again, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “I won’t let old women press me against walls and make me have weird visions. Got it.”
“Asshole,” he said, sounding disgustingly fond.
Gods, I loved the fuck out of him.
And I was about to tell him as much when another thought hit me, one far more important. “The King,” I said. “Oh fuck, we have to get to the King.”
Ryan’s eyes hardened because he immediately went to the same thought I had: assassin. A change overcame him, skin thrumming, hands tightening. I wasn’t dealing with a concerned boyfriend anymore. This was the Knight Commander of the Castle Guard, whose one job was to protect the Crown and all its extensions.
And he was fucking pissed.
Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart looked up at the guards down the hall and barked, “Sound the alarm. Now.”
Chapter 3: The King is Such a KILF
BELLS WERE clanging throughout the castle as Ryan and I raced toward the King’s offices above the throne room. A section of the knights were already in motion to take any member of the King’s Court to the lower levels where the dungeons were fortified against any outside attack. My parents and Tiggy and Gary would have been corralled either way, depending upon where they were in the castle. I tried not to think of them too much, instead focusing my attention on the job in front of me: protecting the Grand Prince and Good King Anthony of Verania.
It was one of the first lessons Morgan had taught me when he had taken us away from the slums: the walls could crumble around us, the floor might shake beneath our feet, the stars could rain down atop our heads in blazing bursts of rock and fire, but nothing would matter more than protecting the King. “He’s the reason Verania stands tall and proud,” Morgan had said as I’d stared at him with wide eyes. “Without him, or without someone to take his place like the Prince, Verania could fall into darkness. The people are what make Verania great. But it’s the King that holds us all together.”
Granted, the King wasn’t one to just stand aside and let others protect him without lifting a finger, much to Morgan’s consternation. It certainly didn’t help matters when the King would rather be in the thick of things than standing on the sidelines. He knew of his own importance, but he wouldn’t let others fight his battles for him. He’d be side by side with his people if at all possible.
And so it was that I had to trust Ryan’s knights to take care of my family if they weren’t going to be with us. I had a job to do, one job, and that was to make sure the King and Justin were safe. Morgan would be doing the same.
We hit the second floor of the castle and turned left, running down a long hallway with high ceilings. Flags decorated the walls on either side of us, symbolizing the major cities of Verania. Maids and butlers were scurrying around us, trying to make their way to the throne room where they’d be surrounded by the Castle Guards.
A group of Ryan’s knights stood in front of the doors leading to the King’s offices, Pete, who had known me even before I’d come to the castle, amongst them. He looked wary as we approached, sensing that something wasn’t quite right. “Report,” Ryan snapped as we got within hearing distance.
“Secured, sir,” Pete said. “Nothing in or out except for known personnel. King and Prince in the safe room.”
“Morgan?” I asked.
“Already here,” Pete said. “Just appeared out of nowhere, like he usually does.”
“One day he’s going to teach me how to do that,” I muttered.
Pete smiled at me. “Don’t rightly know if that’d be something we’d want, you being able to sneak up behind us.”
“I’m a delight,” I told him.
“Is now really the time for this?” Ryan growled.
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, Pete. You know how he gets when he’s all worked up over something.”
“Oh boy, do I ever.”
“I don’t get like anything—”
“You kind of do,” one of the knights said, voice muffled through the armored helmet over his head. “Mostly.” He withered under Ryan’s glare.
Gods, I loved the knights.
I turned at the sound of hooves on stone and immediately had a weight lifted off my shoulders.
Gary was trotting toward us, followed by Tiggy, who carried a person under either arm as carefully as he could.
Rosemary and Joshua Haversford.
My mother and father.
“Do you hear this ruckus?” Gary said, standing in front of me, nostrils flaring. “There I was, partway through my beauty bedtime regimen, which you know I don’t need because I am beautiful and always have been, when what should I hear? Alarms, Sam. Alarms. And I would say that my first thought would have been for you or the safety of the King, but that would be a lie. No, my first thought was about me. How this would affect me. Sam. Sam. I have come to the startling realization that I am a self-centered bitch and even better, that I would do nothing to change it.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Whose idea was it to grab my parents and make sure they were safe?”
“Mine, of course,” Gary said.
“Ah. Not as self-centered as you might think, then.”
Gary frowned at that. “Godsdammit. I care too much. It is my gift. It is my curse.”
“I helped,” Tiggy said. “I have feelings too. Many, many feelings.” He squeezed my parents tighter to him. “I have feelings right now.”
“He does,” my mother said, patting an olive-skinned hand against his chest. “He told us that he would smash anything that would try and hurt us.”
My father looked grumpy. “I don’t see why I had to be carried. Especially in front of all the knights. This is so embarrassing. I can smash things too. I’m almost as big as Tiggy.” Which really wasn’t too much of a stretch. My father’s people came from the snowy North, and it showed by the sheer bulk my father carried with him.
“I love you, tiny human,” Tiggy told my father.
“Gah,” Dad said. “I can’t even with your face right now. It’s unfair. I’m trying to be cross and you’re just sitting here looking like you do. I don’t even care if the boys saw this now. You can carry me all you want to.”
Tiggy looked inordinately pleased at such a prospect.
&
nbsp; “Where’s Kevin?” I asked.
Gary rolled his eyes. “Said something about defending my honor and blah, blah, blah. He’s probably circling above the castle right now, snapping at nothing and calling it a success. I love him with a fire that burns within me. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to choke the life out of you?”
“That escalated quickly,” Pete said.
“It usually does with them,” Ryan said. “Let’s just be thankful Gary isn’t glittering yet.”
“Do I need to glitter?” Gary asked him, narrowing his eyes. “Does Gary need to bring the—”
“Nope,” Ryan said. “Absolutely not. Everything is fine. There’s nothing—”
And since I felt just awful about this whole thing (and was probably not the most sensible person to have existed), I blurted, “A strange woman broke into the castle and bad-touched me and I had a vision about a white dragon in the middle of the Dark Woods and then Ryan domestically violenced me back to reality and now we think there’s an assassin trying to murder all of our faces.”
It was rather quiet after this pronouncement.
Then:
“You got to third base with a woman?” Gary screeched.
“I didn’t domestically violence you. Stop saying that,” Ryan snapped.
“I smash Knight Delicious Face?” Tiggy said, frowning at Ryan.
“Assassins?” Dad asked. “I hope they don’t try and assassinate anyone I know. Why, that would just be rude and uncalled-for. And cool, because I’ve never seen an assassin before.”
“Visions of white dragons?” Mom repeated. “That’s not ominous or anything. And why can’t you have visions of white weddings like I want you to have? You would look so good in white.”
“What woman?” Pete asked, and since he was the only sane one out of the bunch (mostly), I turned to him.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.” I glanced at Ryan, who shrugged. “She was old. Dark skin, dark hair. Bracelets on her wrist.” There was something else. Something that she’d— “She called me chava.”
“Chava?” Mom said, sounding slightly choked.
“And dook?” I said. “She said it couldn’t touch her? I don’t know what that—”
Dad paled as he looked back at Mom. “You don’t think…?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s—I suppose it’s possible. Why here? Why now?”
That didn’t bode well for me. “What are you—”
The door to the offices opened behind us. The knights spun on their heels, drawing their swords, closing in around me. While my focus was Justin and the King, theirs included me, which was touching but extraordinarily uncomfortable.
But it was just Morgan, glaring at all of us, though it softened slightly when his gaze fell upon me. “Do I even want to know why you’re all just standing around out here? Let them through. Quickly, if you please.”
“We were trying, you old codger,” Pete said. “Except we learned now that Ryan beats Sam or white dragon assassins or something. Who even knows anymore.”
“I don’t beat him, oh my gods, that’s how rumors start—”
“He punched me in the face,” I said morosely. “But he’s gonna change for the baby, I swear.”
“I taught him that,” Gary said quite loudly. “In case you didn’t know.”
“Would you get in here,” Morgan said as he pushed through the knights. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and started pulling me toward the offices of the King. It was meant to be rough, his grip harsh, but as soon as his hand touched my neck, I felt calmer. Stronger. The tripping of my heart slowed, and I thought maybe I could finally catch my breath. Morgan was like that for me. He always had been, ever since the beginning. He knew it too, if the way he gently squeezed my neck meant anything. “Knight Commander, make sure your knights are prepared and then join us inside if you please. Gary, Tiggy, bring Joshua and Rosemary. Step to it.”
When Morgan spoke, everyone obeyed.
Or at least it sounded as if they did. I wouldn’t know, because Morgan wouldn’t let me turn around and look behind us. He kept a firm hand on me, pushing me inside the offices.
Inside, there were three more knights that I recognized, shields and swords drawn, standing in front of a large, ornate bookcase. They nodded at me, relief palpable on their faces.
The office was large, the walls and floors made of stone, the ceiling high, a massive candle chandelier hanging from the middle. There were two fireplaces, one at either end of the room, both roaring. The far wall was adorned with an intricately drawn map of Verania, which had been a gift from the elves upon his coronation. It was supposed to show when the country of Verania herself was in danger, imbued with some sort of elven magic that not even Randall understood completely. It’d never moved, not even once, since the King had received it, not that we knew of. Sure, there may have been a blip when the Darks had tried to take the castle last year, but no one had been in the room to see it. I glanced over it now, just to be safe. It looked the same as always. The frozen mountains of the north. The Luri Desert in the west. The jungles of the east. The coastal south. The Port. City of Lockes. Meridian City. All the villages, no matter how small.
Still, it didn’t move. Not even now. Which, if there was a threat upon the King, I would have hoped it would have done something. But it hadn’t even done anything when Justin had been taken by Kevin. For all we knew, the elves were full of shit, which wouldn’t surprise me.
There was a desk made from trees in the Dark Woods, heavy and foreboding, sitting in front of the wall of bookcases. Scrolls lay strewn across it, the King’s feather pen discarded hastily across the top. Like he’d been in the middle of something and pulled away as soon as the alarms rang, which was probably exactly what happened. It’s what should have happened.
“He’s probably really annoyed,” I said, staring at the bookcase. Behind it, there was a room encased with magic that only Morgan or I could break through. In the event that something happened to the both of us, the King would wait for a sign from Randall before attempting to leave. He didn’t like hiding away very much, but he knew the reasons behind it. Especially in the face of the unknown.
“Undoubtedly,” Morgan said, moving toward the bookcase.
“Do you think he’s—” I started to say but was cut off when Morgan pressed the spines of seven books in quick succession, leaving behind green glowing fingerprints that flared, then faded. There was a large click and the sound of gears grinding together. The bookcase shifted forward, the large hinges groaning as it opened.
“What’s he doing?” Ryan asked, coming into the office and closing the door behind him. “Why’s he letting them out? We don’t even know what’s happening yet.”
“I don’t know,” I said. My mother and father stood off to the side near one of the fireplaces, whispering furiously at each other. They must have felt me staring at them, because they immediately stopped talking and waved at me frantically. “You ever get the feeling that people know more than they’re saying?”
Ryan snorted. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s pretty much the life I lead these days.”
I glanced at him, only to find him watching my parents with a small smile on his face. It did traitorous things to my heart, to see him watching them as he did. After the whole… debacle that was our fucked-up courtship, my mother and father had invited Ryan out to lunch, telling me in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to join them. Four hours later, they returned to the castle looking smug, whereas Ryan was pale. None of them would tell me what they spoke about, only that Ryan said my mother was the scariest woman he’d ever met in his entire life, and that it also had turned him on a little bit.
“Damn right it did,” my father had said. “Why, I bet even Sam—”
“Nope,” I’d said, cutting that off before it went too far. “Absolutely not.”
But since then, there’d seemed to be an understanding betwe
en the three of them. Sure, Ryan still stuttered and blushed his way through conversations with them, like he was nervous and was still trying to find out the best way to impress them. But they treated him just like they’d treated Tiggy and Gary when I’d brought them back from the Dark Woods: like he already belonged to them. He didn’t have anyone else to call his family. His mother was gone, his father only gods know where. He never had any brothers or sisters. And my parents knew this, which is why they loved him the way they did. It gave me feelings that I didn’t even know what to do with.
Like right now.
I sighed dreamily.
“You’ve got that expression on your face again,” Ryan said. “I don’t even have to look at you to know.”
“I would have so many of your babies,” I whispered fervently. “You don’t even know.”
Ryan started choking quite loudly, but everyone ignored him, used to his weirdness by now.
There was a door on the other side of the bookcase made from the wood of an ash tree. It was said that it’d been given by the Meliae, a sort-of wood nymph, hundreds of years before when the castle had been constructed. The Meliae had disappeared into the realm with the elves, leaving behind little tendrils of magic. Dimitri and his fairies were descendants of the Meliae, though they refused to ever talk about it. Fairies were secretive assholes, and I didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
There was an ancient sigil carved into the door, even older than the tongue of magic in which we spoke. Morgan said it’d come from a time when people lived only in the trees, reading bones and stones like they were able to tell the future. It was two lines forming a peak like a mountain, with an off-centered S shape in the middle, bisected by three slashes. I did my best not to touch it, as it always made my skin feel like it was vibrating unpleasantly.
Morgan traced the sigil, the same green glow following his fingertip. Once he’d completed the sigil, another lock clicked and the door swung open.
