Shielded

by KayLynn Flanders

  I had killed a man.

  “Leinn—” Chiara’s frightened whisper didn’t penetrate my shock.

  Mari tugged on my hand, and a shout from the direction of the front doors pushed me to action. I wiped my blade on the brown tunic of the man now staring lifelessly at the ceiling and led the princesses through the first doorway on the left, the main drawing room.

  I closed the door, but I could hear a group of men coming toward us from the foyer.

  “Come on.” Mari’s frightened voice pulled my attention to the empty fireplace. It was grand, extending from the wall several feet, and almost tall enough for me to stand upright in. The commotion outside the room grew louder.

  She reached up and pushed on a brick in the mantel. A small door opened on the side of the fireplace, near the wall.

  She waved for Chiara and me to follow her. We ducked through the hidden door, clicking it shut just as the drawing room filled with clomping, laughing, shouting men.

  I slumped against the closed door. The invaders were boasting about their victory—they hadn’t seen us. I shut my eyes but opened them with a start when my mind replayed the sight of the life draining out of the man’s eyes. And the flicker of something within me that had stirred while killing him.

  A set of small hands rested on my cheeks, and I focused on Mari’s face. Only the tiniest bit of light filtered in from a slit in the floor. Mari and Chiara watched me with worry on their faces. I held my finger to my lips. They settled down on the floor, and we waited, listening to the men.

  We were in a small alcove between the fireplace and the walls. There was enough space for the three of us to sit shoulder to shoulder, and it was long enough that we could lie completely flat. The ceiling was too low to stand up straight, and the walls were dusty, bare wood and stone.

  I killed him. My thoughts careened through fragmented moments. My stomach dropping when I saw the soldiers running toward the palace. My sword sliding through that man’s flesh. The magic shielding us from being seen. The blood staining the ground, my sword.

  “—find the princesses, but do not harm them,” a voice in the drawing room said. “When the remaining guards are locked in the barracks and the servants locked in the dungeon, we will begin your search.”

  Pounding steps faded into the hallway, but we remained still.

  “I received your letter. I hope you are impressed with the loyalty my men have shown.” He sounded different, but I knew Koranth’s smooth voice. The condescending lilt when he’d spoken to me at the ball. Who was he talking to, though? What men did he have?

  “The position you desired in Riiga recently became available. I’m sure Janiis will reward you for your help in this matter,” replied a voice I’d never heard. It was soft and deep, like the glassy surface of a lake with no bottom.

  A feather-light stirring caressed the spot where the tethers had been, but I pushed the feeling away. It wasn’t Graymere’s voice. Yet chills still skittered down my neck.

  “But between the weakness at the west gate, letting someone escape to warn the king, and your lack of ability to find the princesses, I am beginning to doubt your desires, Lord Koranth. I thought Riiga’s reward was important to you.”

  “It was only one man—”

  “It only takes one!” The other voice yelled, knocking dust from the walls around us.

  “Everything I have done is for the welfare of Riiga. The king will see that,” Koranth snapped, moving farther from our hiding spot. “Please make yourself comfortable in a guest chamber. I’m confident we will soon find what you seek.”

  “But we will not have as much time to search as I expected because of your failure,” the man continued. “You must…”

  A door clicked shut, and their conversation faded.

  Riiga had attacked the palace? Were they mad?

  Mari fiddled with the ribbon on her dress. I shook my head and put a finger to my lips. We needed to be sure there was no one in the room before we moved or made any sound.

  I tried to make sense of what had happened, what we’d need to do. Everyone would be searching for the princesses soon, when they realized they hadn’t been captured in the initial assault.

  Our hideout was on the ground floor, which was ideal, but we had no access to windows. Regardless, we’d never make it by the guards at the wall. And then there were Koranth’s men positioned throughout the palace. We were trapped.

  The surge of energy rushed out of me, leaving me even more drained and empty than before. I blinked slowly, trying to stay awake, to keep from seeing the man’s death again, from feeling the horror and power I had felt in that moment, but I couldn’t fight my body’s exhaustion. The magic, or whatever had shielded us, had left me gutted. I gestured once more for the princesses to stay silent, and then my chin hit my chest.

  * * *

  When I woke, everything ached, but I felt less empty inside. Chiara and Mari were whispering to each other as they sat on the floor across from me. My entire body groaned in protest as I shifted on the stone floor, bringing my knees up. Whatever had shielded us had emanated from the place where the tethers had been. My ring hadn’t been warm like it had been when I fought the shade mage. The magic hadn’t come from my sword. It had come from me.

  But the tethers were broken.

  Then I remembered the icy wound from the shade mage’s blade that wouldn’t heal—my wound had been poisoned, but Luc’s hadn’t. The black blade had reacted to my magic, even though the tethers were no longer there.

  I closed my eyes and focused inward. The pain was still there, but something else was as well. A connection—faint like a single silk thread—and an emptiness. I’d thought feeling full in the Wild was a trick of its magic, but what if it was the Wild’s magic itself filling me up?

  Whatever power I had used today, I was now completely drained of it. I silently cursed my lack of knowledge. My father said using magic was like exercising a muscle. I’d have to hope that it would rejuvenate with rest, because I had no idea how to fill my reserves on my own.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “At least an hour,” Chiara whispered. “No one else has entered since Koranth and the other man left.”

  Mari spoke up this time with an even quieter whisper. “Koranth sounded different.”

  “Different?” I lowered my voice to match hers.

  “He sounded…mean.”

  It had been Riigans visiting Koranth who had attacked Chiara in the garden. Koranth had made a point to speak to me when I’d attended the ball. Marko and Cora and Enzo had left the palace to avoid Koranth’s influence. Was Koranth also responsible for Chiara’s guard abandoning her? I cursed under my breath.

  “Does this have something to do with the tariffs?” Chiara asked into the darkness.

  “Tariffs?” I asked absently. Koranth had to have soldiers positioned at the gate—there had been no warning from the outer wall of an attack. How many more Turians had he bought?

  “Riiga tripled its normal tariffs on our grain, and the farmers are starting to panic.”

  I nodded in the dark. Enzo had mentioned that when we first met. Riiga pressured Turia from the outside with the tariffs, and Koranth pressured from the inside with a forced union.

  The wide, scared eyes in front of me reflected what little light seeped into our hiding place. Keep the princesses safe. Gritty, dried blood scratched against my hands, and I scrubbed them against my trousers.

  “I’m not sure what Koranth is after, but your safety is our priority,” I told them. “We’ll find a way to escape—we just need to be patient and smart. This will be a grand adventure.” I tried to lend excitement to my words. I had spent over a week surviving the Wild alone. The initial fear that had paralyzed me was not something I’d easily forget. I had to keep the princesses positive and calm if we were to get out of this
alive.

  “Leinn?” Mari’s quiet voice almost blended in with the blackness around us.

  “Yes, Mari?” I rubbed my eyes with my wrists, trying to figure out what to do next. We couldn’t trust anyone—there was no telling how many servants and guards Koranth had bought out. We were trapped in a tiny hidden nook with no food or water. There was no chance of making it out of the palace, through the gates, and into the city without being caught.

  “How did you keep the men from seeing us?” Mari asked timidly. Was she afraid of me? Should she be? “They ran right by. Some looked right through us. Was that magic?”

  I remembered the power I’d felt as the life drained out of the invader’s eyes, and I tugged on my braid. Years of keeping my secret made me hesitant to share where the magic truly came from. And if they were captured, I didn’t want them knowing.

  “I’m not exactly sure, Mari. I knew I wanted to keep you safe, but I don’t know how I did it, or if I can do anything else. When my father gave me my sword and my ring, he said they were special, but he never told me exactly how to use them.” I missed my father and Ren with a fierce ache. They knew about the tethers, about magic. They would have known what to do.

  “Have you done it before?” Chiara’s voice was braver than Mari’s, like she thought this was something out of her fairy stories.

  “No, nothing like this.”

  “Why did your father give you those?” Mari asked, scooting forward so she could sit cross-legged.

  I licked my dry lips. “I used to guard the princess of Hálendi.” It was mostly the truth.

  “Enzo’s betrothed?” Chiara asked, shifting.

  “Yes. I was given these heirlooms to better protect her.”

  “But, Leinn, the princess died.” Mari’s quiet, innocent voice cut my heart into shreds.

  My tongue stopped any reply—I wouldn’t lie to them. I took a deep breath instead. “I will do everything I can to keep you both safe. But I need you to stay close by me and do exactly what I say.”

  I felt more than saw them both nod in agreement. I needed something else to think about besides my lack of ability to save Aleinn. “Okay. We are hidden safely here, so we may as well stay. But we need food and water. Maybe if I practice, I could shield myself again and make it to the kitchens. I would only be gone for—”

  “Wait, Leinn,” Mari said. “I have food here.”

  My mouth dropped open at the same time Chiara hissed, “What?”

  “I…I keep some, so if anyone comes into the drawing room while I’m hiding, I won’t get hungry.” She wiggled closer to me, reached onto one of the exposed beams, and pulled out what looked like a bowl. “It’s only dried fruit and nuts. Things Cook wouldn’t mind me snitching from the pantry.”

  My dry lips cracked as I started to smile. We were hiding with the single person who knew every nook and cranny of the palace. Who had a secret stash of food.

  Then she pulled something else from her makeshift shelf, felt for my hands, and set something supple and leathery in them.

  My lips cracked even more as they stretched into a full smile. “Is that…water?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she said, puffing out extra air on the p. “It’s not very fresh, though.”

  I laughed softly. “Mari, you are a wonder.”

  Chiara hugged her tight, and we set the bowl and the water back on the shelf to save until we needed it.

  We were trapped and alone, but Mari had just bought us time.

  * * *

  There had been constant movement in the palace all afternoon. We’d been keeping still in the hot, cramped space behind the fireplace for hours with no end in sight. It seemed the drawing room was now a strategy room for setting guard rotations and discussing any murmurings of uproar from the servants who had been kept out of the dungeon to wait on them.

  Around what I thought might be dinnertime, the room finally emptied. The minute I whispered that we should stretch while we could, Mari popped up, reaching her hands above her head and shaking out her legs.

  “I thought they’d never leave!” she said. “Can we eat now?”

  I was closest, so I pulled out the bowl and water. We cracked the door open the tiniest bit, and though there wasn’t much light, the cool air lifted our spirits. We each ate only a small handful and took a few sips of water. I coughed when I drank—the water tasted like a stable, but at least we had it. The sisters stared at the bowl after I set it aside.

  “We can’t eat it all today because you’ll want food in the morning,” I whispered.

  Mari’s stomach grumbled in the quiet. She stood and leaned against the wall. “What do you think Mother and Father and Enzo are doing?” she asked. My stomach protested this time, but not for lack of food.

  “Probably dancing. Or eating a marvelous feast.” Chiara tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “Roasted pheasant, maybe.”

  Mari rubbed her belly and nodded. “Enzo’s probably been talking with all the most beautiful ladies, too. I just hope he doesn’t pick someone mean. Sometimes the beautiful ones are the meanest.”

  “I’ll bet there will be lots of nice, pretty people.” Chiara bumped my shoulder as she moved closer to the open door and fresh air. “But he didn’t choose someone before. Maybe he won’t have to choose someone now.”

  I pulled my knees up and rested my arms on them. The sisters kept talking, arguing about the merits of curly hair versus straight hair in whomever Enzo would choose, and I tried to block them out. I could tell whatever well of magic I had was slowly filling, but I was still so tired. Thinking about Enzo only made me more tired, so I turned my thoughts to escape, instead.

  “Do you know of any secret doors through the outer wall, Mari?” I interrupted.

  She sat cross-legged, drawing absentmindedly in the coat of dust on the ground. “No, I’ve never found one, but I don’t get to explore outside the palace very often.”

  “What about your magic?” Chiara asked. “Couldn’t you hide us while we walk out the front gate?”

  My fingers found my braid, smoothing the strands. “I don’t know,” I said. “I still feel weak from the last time. I don’t know if I’d be able to hold it long enough.”

  “I know, the dungeon!” Mari blurted, and Chiara immediately shushed her. We held our breath, waiting to see if someone had heard, but everything remained still.

  “Is there a place to hide there?” I whispered, though I wouldn’t risk retreating deeper into the palace unless we absolutely had to. I’d rather not make it easy for them to lock us up.

  “That’s just an old rumor, Mari,” Chiara said. “And if there was something there, it’s collapsed by now.”

  “It’s not collapsed!” Mari insisted. “I found it last year, and it was fine.”

  Chiara choked and sputtered. “You what?”

  I inched closer to them. “What are you talking about? What’s in the dungeon?”

  “A tunnel,” Chiara said. “A rumor of one, anyway.”

  Mari folded her arms. “It’s a way out. There’s a secret door in the dungeon, and there’s a tunnel that leads to the hill at the back of the palace. It was drippy and wet, but it wasn’t collapsed.”

  My mind raced through the possibilities. I didn’t know if I could get us out the front gate, but the path to the dungeon might be less dangerous. “You said it was passable last year?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her bouncing legs bumped into mine. “Let’s go! What are we waiting for?”

  “Not so fast, Mari,” I said gently, settling my hand on her leg. “Even if the tunnel is passable, we’d have to get to the dungeon unnoticed, sneak past the guards there, and then be on our own wherever it deposits us. There hasn’t been time for word to reach your family yet. Besides, who knows how much of a holding Koranth has in the city?”

  I to
ok off my vest, folded it, and gave it to Mari to sit on. “We are still safe here. We have food and water. Let’s stay hidden a little longer and try to get some rest.”

  Chiara agreed immediately, and Mari relented. I shut the secret door, and we all tried to scoot into separate corners, but it didn’t matter how we lay, the space was too small to not be crowding someone. Mari fell asleep first, her slow breaths settling into the walls, then Chiara.

  I shut my eyes and swallowed hard, reaching inside toward the empty place by the broken tethers. Something stirred, swirling along with the frayed ends of my family, like an ember waiting to catch fire. But what could I do with it? If this was my well of magic, how could I get it to shield us again? And would it work for as long as we needed it while we were exposed? I shuddered at the thought of all the things that could go wrong if we left our hiding spot. Then again, there was plenty that could go wrong if we stayed.

  At Lord Hallen’s Estate

  Graymere stood, an orchard of trees and men behind him, the rising sun before him. The manor house jutted from the land, ivy dripping from its walls, gardens pristine, fresh with dew. All was quiet. Too quiet.

  The stables should have been full, the yard bursting with tents and animals and servants. But there was no king here, no queen, and no prince heir.

  He stalked past his men, who silently awaited their next command. By the time he’d reached his horse, every new apple on every tree had shriveled.

  The shadows swirled at his feet, and he raised another shade, black blade shining against the sun now blazing over the fields. In his mind, his vision split, one half showing the dying orchard and stately manor, the other a blurred, hazy version of the same dull landscape. He would not fail. Could not.

  “Find him.”