by M. Lynn
He snorted. “No, you didn’t. When I met you at the tournament, the only thing on your mind was glaring at Alex.”
Her lips curved up into the barest of smiles. “After that. At the palace.”
He nodded. “You’re my sister.”
“And you’re my brother.”
A disgusted look crossed her face. “That means I’ve been sleeping with my brother’s brother.”
He held up a hand. “First of all, ew. Don’t ever say that again. And second of all, Alex said the exact same thing. Weird.”
“You’ve seen him?” She grabbed the young prince by the shoulders.
He nodded. “If you come back in the cave, we can all talk and you can meet our cousin officially.”
He turned to head back in but she turned him back around and pulled him into a hug. In his surprise, he released his magic, and the rain pelted them mercilessly.
He hugged her back just as hard. “Do you think we can get him back?”
“I do, Etta.” He paused, resting his chin on her shoulder. “But it isn’t going to come without a cost.”
She leaned back. “Then it’s a good thing the only life I’ve ever known is sacrifice.”
His lips pressed into a thin line, not quite a grimace, and he walked back into the cave.
Maiya was healing Matteo’s split lip and Edmund glared at them from across the cave where he sat spinning a knife on its blade.
Etta pushed back her hood and removed her dripping cloak. A fire struggled to stay lit in the corner near Edmund and she dropped down as close as she could without being burnt.
Her clothes began to dry so suddenly she startled. The water was pushed down her shirt, leaving it looking as though it hadn’t rained at all. Her hair lightened as it too was drained. She touched the short golden tresses and met Tyson’s eye. He shrugged, a satisfied smile spreading across his lips.
“What the hell?” Edmund jumped to his feet, looking around. “Dammit, Tyson, I’m never going to get used to that.” He breathed out heavily.
Tyson’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Because your whole wind thing is the epitome of normal.”
“You two are messed up,” Matteo groaned. “We’re about to go against everything that is evil and you’re making jokes.”
“What would you know about it?” Etta snapped. “You may be a Basile, but only one of us carries the curse of our family.”
“Etta,” Tyson warned.
She brushed him off. “Where have you been while I’ve been living out our family’s curse? Hiding? Living your life?”
“Etta, stop.” Tyson’s voice was strained.
“No.” Matteo got to his feet and walked over to look down on her. “She doesn’t have to stop. Go on. Tell me what it’s been like for you in Gaule serving a king you love so much you’re risking everything. Tell me how much better it was for me as a puppet of La Dame’s since the day I was born. With a father who is more beholden to her than his own people. You think you’ve lived your life in chains, but have you felt the manacles cut into your wrists? Have you been beaten and starved? Has anyone ever owned you so completely you had no identity?”
Etta’s eyes softened as her head bobbed up and down. “I have.” She flashed back to her time in the dungeons. “But only for a short time and it was my choice. We’ve both been prisoners, cousin. I’ve come to set us free.”
“By getting us killed?” He sighed. “Death isn’t freedom, Etta. It is only death.” He went back to his spot beside Maiya and sat against the wall. “Let me tell you a story of a king. When the Basile line was cursed, Phillip was not without power. His magic fought against La Dame’s creating unintended consequences for her curse.”
Each word he spoke had a bite like he was chastising a child, but Etta let him continue because she knew so little about her family’s history.
“La Dame cannot just take you. That’s why she has taken the Gaulean king. It’s why she didn’t just kill every member of the Basile line when they took up the curse.”
“What are you saying?”
“The cursed must come to La Dame of their own free will.” His eyes pinned her to her spot. “Alexandre Durand is the bait and you’re giving her everything she wants.”
Tyson scooted next to her and put his arm around her still form.
She couldn’t abandon Alex to that fate. He was imprisoned because of her.
“I don’t think you’re going to get us killed,” Tyson whispered.
“What would he have me do?” she asked. “Go into hiding?”
“He doesn’t think we should be saving Alex at all because he’s a Durand and the purge still weighs heavy on the minds of all magic folk.”
“I know. It weighs heavy on me as well. If this was your …” She stopped herself.
“My father?” Tyson asked. “That’s what you were going to say, right? I guess he still is my father. I did grow up in his household.” A grim smile flash across his face. “I never did want to be a prince.”
She laughed softly. “Ty, technically you’re still a prince. Just of Bela, not Gaule.”
His face fell. “Right.”
She hesitated for a moment, wondering how much she should tell Tyson of what was happening in Gaule. He had a right to know.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” She leaned her head back against the wall and began to recount the siege and events leading up to it. They had no way of getting information. Had the palace fallen to the traitorous nobles?
Tyson was silent as she talked, but his eyes widened as the story went on.
When Etta finished, he swallowed hard. “Amalie. My mother. Are they okay?”
“When we left, they were as good as could be expected.”
He nodded slowly. “My mother will win this.” His statement held such a faith that Etta had never felt about anything and she envied him. Tyson found it easy to believe in the people he loved.
She was trained to question everything. To trust nothing. It wasn’t the way anyone should live.
Tyson was quiet for so long, she thought he’d fallen asleep. His voice made her jump when he spoke again. “Can you tell me about him? Our father. I remember little from when you lived in the palace as a kid.”
Tyson’s eyes latched onto hers and she could have sworn it was her father staring back at her. But it probably wasn’t real. People see what they wanted to see and in that moment, she imagined a piece of her father was sitting beside her. He wasn’t perfect, but he’d crafted the warrior she’d become.
Tyson didn’t even have that.
She took his hand and leaned into him to rest her head on his shoulder. Her father wasn’t what mattered at the moment. Alex was counting on them.
“Let’s get our Alex back first and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Everything,” he whispered. “I’ll want to know everything.”
Gray light illuminated the gloomy clouds in the darkening sky as Alex swung his leg over the sill of the tower’s lone window. He sat, gazing out over the forest surrounding his secluded tower. Parts of the castle could be seen above the treetops, glittering like a diamond in the distance.
The white stone palace perched precariously at the edge of a high cliff. Even in the growing darkness, he could see the sheer drop down to the sea.
He’d never seen the sea. It both terrified and excited him to be this close.
Back when Bela was a thriving kingdom, they’d welcomed ships from across the sea, bringing wares that were then transported to the markets of Gaule. Without the ports of Bela or Dracon, Gaule had become isolated from the world many years before the wards were in place, cutting them off further.
What would it be like for people to return to Bela? For trade to begin anew?
But nothing was that simple. For while Bela thrived, conflict brewed. The history books were filled with wars. Bela was an enemy of both Gaule and Dracon.
People had begun to return. He didn’t know how or wh
y, but each ball was more extensive than the one before and he couldn’t figure out where those people were living. There wasn’t supposed to be anything for them in Bela.
After the beating he took many nights ago, he hadn’t heard another word about Tyson. He listened at every opportunity, but it was like his escape had never happened at all.
He’d been given a sketchpad and charcoal and he didn’t understand that bit of kindness. Even as his hands itched to draw, he refused. It was the one rebellion he had.
The stone below him began to shake, and he scrambled from his perch before peering down at La Dame. The steps formed, but she didn’t come up. Instead, she gestured to her dark-haired companion. His kidnapper.
Esme ascended the narrow steps carefully before climbing through the window. The steps molded back into the wall.
Alex crossed his arms over his chest, waiting as she dusted off her skirt. Finally, she looked at him.
“I’m here to talk.”
His aggravation rose. “I’m not telling you anything.”
His anger began to unravel. His mind tried to hold onto it, but it was no use. A calmness settled in his chest.
“That’s better,” Esme said with a smile.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s how you got me out of the palace.”
She nodded. “I showed you only part of what I could do when I saved you from your attacker. You know, some would say you’re now in my debt.”
Irritation was a fleeting feeling, replaced immediately by acceptance. “You were kind to me.”
She smiled at his words but they sounded wrong to his ears. Why had he said them?
“I see that you have healed fully from your ordeal with La Dame.” Her smiled didn’t reach her eyes. “Your Basile witch’s doing?”
He slammed his lips shut to prevent her magic from making him spill his secrets.
“You don’t need to say it, Alexandre.” Her voice softened as she moved toward him and dipped her head to whisper in his ear. “I already know.”
Her fingers trailed the length of his arm while the other hand landed on his thigh. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
He nodded, enjoying the feel of her touch despite something niggling at the back of his mind.
“Healing power is not found in the blood of a descendant of Bela. Only a select few Draconians have that ability.”
Alarm flashed through his mind even as Esme pushed him back and crawled onto the bed next to him.
She continued. “My daughter has such an ability, but I have not seen her for many years. La Dame sent my husband on a mission fifteen years ago and he took her with him.”
She pressed up against him as her words bounced around in his skull, unable to find a place to land.
Etta.
Etta.
Etta.
He held onto the word as if his life depended on it.
Esme’s hand crept up his thigh. “You’ll tell me all your secrets.”
He shook his head violently, weakening the calming effect of her magic. “No,” he groaned.
“No.” It was more forceful that time.
Her magic shifted. Instead of gliding over him to coax his words, it pulled at him, demanding answers.
He pushed her away so suddenly she fell from the bed with a squeak. Getting to her feet, she growled and stomped her foot.
She cast her magic out again, but he pictured Etta and it failed to take root.
“How are you doing that?” she asked, more curious than angry.
“No matter what kind of power you have, I will never betray Etta or Tyson.”
Something flashed in her eyes and he would have sworn it was respect, but then it was gone.
“Your loyalty will be your end.”
He sat up and rested his arms on his legs. “It isn’t loyalty. It’s love.”
She studied him for a moment and shook her head sadly. “It was love that destroyed Bela.”
“No, it was an evil woman with a vendetta and a king who wanted the weed to cure his queen.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You think Rapunzel was a weed?”
“That’s what the legends tell us.”
She shifted her eyes to the window where La Dame was no doubt waiting down below. “Because the legends were told by the Belaens. The truth would change everything you think you know.”
“What’s the truth?”
Her eyes flicked to his once more. “I’ve said too much. Just know La Dame will destroy you. She will take the ones you love. She will force you to follow her. No matter how much you fight, in the end, she wins.”
When Esme looked to him once more, it was not the hard eyes of the woman who’d kidnapped him, nor the calculating tool of La Dame. There was fear swirling in her depths. She had the power to control the emotions around her, but not her own. She could force others to do her bidding, but something was still not right.
“What have you lost?” His voice was soft. “Is it your daughter?”
She shifted her eyes away. “You cannot take what someone does not have. My family never belonged to me. Their hearts, their very souls were always hers. You aren’t the only one with no control over how your story goes.”
“You could have control. Persinette Basile is coming for me. Soon, everyone will have to choose a side. Soon, your choice will be freedom or death.”
Her hair swung as she shook her head. “Only the young can have such faith. The rest of us must live in reality and my reality is shaped by La Dame’s power.”
She leaned out the window as the steps formed once again.
Stepping out the window, Esme didn’t turn back.
Had she wanted him to be able to resist her magic? He focused on each word she’d said. Each secret she’d revealed.
One stuck out above all else.
Etta traveled with a traitor. Everything had been planned from the start. Her friendship with the healer. The healer’s betrayal that got Etta thrown in the dungeons. Her aid in freeing other magic folk so her father could bring them to La Dame.
Etta was coming for him, but it was a trap and there was nothing he could do to help her. He pounded his fist against the bedpost and threw the pillow across the room as hard as he could, never feeling more helpless than he did right then.
Chapter Sixteen
A hand covered Etta’s mouth and her eyes snapped open to find Matteo hovering over her. Instinct had her reaching for her knife. Matteo held a finger to his lips and released her, motioning her to follow him to the mouth of the cave. She rolled to her feet and silently padded past the still-sleeping forms of Edmund, Tyson, and Maiya.
“Where are we going?”
Matteo jerked his head around. “Quiet.”
Narrowing her eyes, she trailed him out into the early morning light. A chill hung in the air as they clambered over a boulder. Etta’s feet slammed into the dirt as she dropped from the rounded rock and prepared to climb the next. Matteo stopped at the top and crouched low as his eyes focused on the valley down below.
Was he going to kill her? She didn’t know her cousin. He could be in league with La Dame. She opened her mouth to speak and then she saw them.
Four soldiers urged their horses across the flowering fields, toward the pass where their cave sat.
“How much time do we have?” Etta whispered.
“Not much.”
“And yet you wasted some of it by bringing me out here?”
He slid down from the rock. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
As they sprinted back, she veered toward the horses while Matteo went to wake the rest of their friends. Verité reared up excitedly as she neared.
“We need to get on the move, boy.” She patted his neck as she began to saddle the others.
Tyson appeared to help her and they’d managed to saddle every horse except Verité when Edmund, Maiya, and Matteo came running. “They’re coming,” Edmund yelled.
His words were punctuated b
y the sounds of their pursuers entering the rocky outcropping. Etta flicked her eyes from Verité’s saddle on the ground to the round brown eyes boring into her. Shaking her head, she gripped the ragged mane and Edmund gave her a boost before getting into his own saddle.
They took off, wanting to put distance between them and the soldiers behind them. Squeezing her thighs together, Etta lifted her rear higher and bent forward.
Quickly prying one hand from Verité, she flung it back. Roots erupted from the ground behind them, splitting rock and dirt alike. It slowed their pursuers, but they kept coming. The path widened as they rode in the shadow of the great hills. Forested hillsides rose up around them, stretching all the way to the base of the mountains bordering Dracon.
“Come on, Verité.” The horse sped up and led the others onto a path that veered off the main road and wound up higher.
A creek ran down from the hill, blocking their way. Verité leaped easily, landing with a jarring impact on the other side. As soon as they all made it, Tyson pulled up on his steed and concentrated.
The water began to bubble and rise, spilling over edges of the creek. Etta pushed Verité up beside Tyson and closed her eyes, feeling every branch, every root, every bit of living earth in the ground. She jerked her hand and it shifted, cracking open the land, sucking the water back in.
The creek became a lake, too wide to jump, too long to go around. Their pursuers appeared on the other side, pulling their horses to abrupt stops.
Etta slumped back. She’d never attempted magic of that size. It’d drained every bit of energy from her bones.
Tyson let out a whoop beside her. “That was cool.”
Giving him a weak smile, she nudged Verité and continued moving along the path. As they reached the hill’s apex, the trees gave way to an open glen. Etta slid from Verité’s back and fell to her knees.
Maiya scrambled from her horse and dropped down next to Etta. “Are you okay?”
“How am I supposed to face La Dame if my magic drains me so completely?”
“Oh, Etta. No one expects your magic to be able to beat her.” Maiya’s eyes widened as the words left her and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
