by May Dawson
But my father wasn’t truly evil, and neither am I.
I can use the dark magic he taught me for good. With every spell he taught me, it felt like something healed in the space between us. He’d done things that changed Avalon forever, and things that changed me forever.
I’ll always carry the scars of his spells that twisted my mind to his will and of the memories of those days. But I have other, softer, sweeter memories, too. I have other spells.
As I chew absently on my fingernails, I glance around the cell. All I see are simple gray stone walls. There’s no hint of how I’m being watched.
Reluctantly, I unfurl my magic, feeling tentatively across the room for someone else’s enchantments.
Oh, there’s the spiny edge of another mind, jutting into my brain, spiking an instant headache. I touch my temple again, where the bruise still aches. This headache is never going to heal. I keep hurting myself all over again.
They’ll feel the tug of my magic against theirs when I try to break their spell. I need to wait until the last possible second to make my move. I won’t have much time.
Instead, my eyes drift shut as I explore the edges of their magic. The face of one of Devlin’s sorcerers rises to my mind. I saw him before; he was there at the edge of the sea.
That magician stood at Mycroft’s right, his hands up, chanting desperately to hold my men in place while my magic struck them down. He was an old man, white-haired with a lined face.
My magic, butting up against his, begins to unspool the story that I was unconscious for. I see him casting the spell in this cell while I was knocked out unconscious on the bed, my head lolling to one side, my mouth open.
Two guards searched me, their hands slow as they patted across my corset, as they oh-so-slowly unbuckled the sheath from around my thigh…
The images make my stomach tighten with fear. My skin crawls.
They didn’t see Devlin when he came to the doorway. He watched them, his jaw tightening, rage flickering in his eyes. When the sorcerer turned and saw him, he almost dropped the spell. The guards froze.
Devlin’s cold gray eyes flickered to him, then to the guards. His voice was a low rasp when he said, “Remember who she belongs to, boys. If you touch her one more time, I’ll burn your hands off.”
No wonder people are scared of Devlin.
It warms my heart, though.
The guards stumbled over themselves to apologize, then hastily left my cell.
He glanced at the magician then. “I don’t suppose I could ask you both to hurry up, and not to fumble this for once, and have any chance in hell of getting both my wishes?”
“I’ll be done in just a second, your majesty.” The man stuttered.
“Good.” Devlin glanced to me again, allowing the sorcerer to see the spark of cruel hunger in his lingering gaze. Then he whirled, his cloak swishing, and strode out of the room.
“Wouldn’t want to be you,” the magician muttered. His hands shook as he finished the spell. He ended it badly, leaving cracks in his magic.
Devlin threw him for a loop just as he was working the spell to watch my movements…
…albeit, Devlin chose the most disturbed and creepy possible insinuation, but still. Was his intent to give me a better chance of escape?
I probe the magic tenderly, and find myself jolted back into the magician’s head, in the present.
He’s dressing for dinner, his one true delight of the day. His hands shake with nervousness about being before the queen as he buttons his cuffs. His nerves conflict with his appreciation for the royal dinner itself. He glances again at the mirror, the one that reflects me. I’m sitting on the bed, chewing on my fingernails, looking forlorn and hopeless.
It’s jarring to see myself looking that bedraggled and pathetic. I pull my fingers away from my face, swipe my hair back behind my ears. But I’m still in his head…
The prince is the one to get a real treat, though. He remembers that tasty morsel lying in her bed, helpless and waiting. He can imagine being the one to press his lips to her desperate mouth, to tear down her pants…but the prince would have his head. She isn’t worth it.
My stomach roils—I don’t like what I see while I’m in his greasy head—but an idea sparks, one that might be even better than my original intent to twist the magic watching over me.
Yes, think of me. I imagine myself the way he’d like to see me again. I imagine myself knocked out: still slack-mouthed, my breasts heaving out of the top of my corset. Sick asshole.
And then, as his mind opens, as he savors the image, I slip a niggling doubt into the back of his mind. What if you didn’t do the spell right? What if you left an opening for her? You’d better go down. You can see her and double check the spell. After dinner, at the guard change.
No one ever comes to bring me dinner, though I heard guards in the hall.
Apparently, I’ve been sent to bed without dinner, perhaps for kicking the crown prince in the crown jewels. Could not be helped. Devlin will forgive me if he’s actually a good guy. And if he’s not, I’m glad I drove my knee into him. So really, I can’t lose.
Can’t lose. A grim smile twists my mouth as I lie still on the bloodstained mattress. Now I can see myself in the reflection of that magic. I realize how pathetic I look with my blood-crusted strawberry-blond hair and the dirt smeared across my pale skin and the pink swelling under my eyes from all the tears I’ve cried.
I don’t look like the Vasiliks’ worst enemy, behind their castle walls. They don’t see what I am.
I wonder if he’ll really come.
It’s only because I’ve found his magic that I feel the moment when the magic watching me changes. He’s altered the spell. He’s turning it into a loop, maybe? He doesn’t want anyone to see him visit me.
Fear twists my guts, remembering another time that a magician paid me a visit. The man from Avalon, Moirus Neal. What have I done?
I fight the rise of panic. I’ve done what I have to do. I’ll do whatever it takes to give myself a chance of getting free and rescuing my men.
When I think of Airren, and Cax, and Mycroft, who loved me even as I was murdering them, strength washes over me. That’s the kind of love you can do anything for. That’s the kind of love that makes you someone new, better, braver.
I’d hoped for a love that was sweet and comfortable. But maybe love is meant to burn through your veins and change you forever.
If this wizard really has looped the camera, if there’s no one seeing us now, then this is my chance to escape. That’s worth the risk of being hurt in his hands.
There’s a low rumble of voices outside in the hall. Quickly, savagely, I bite into my own hand. As my skin—and the pain—swells against my teeth, self-preservation almost takes over. It’s hard to force myself to bite deeper, to draw my own blood.
Airren’s face flashes into my mind, his warm eyes the same color as the sea as he told me he loved me that last time. I wrench down hard, breaking through the skin until I taste the salty, coppery flavor of my own blood.
The door swings open. I catch a glimpse of a white head above tall, stooped shoulders, and I turn away hastily. My face might give me away.
I lick my lips quickly and press my hand against the hard boning of my corset to stop the flow of blood. I don’t want him to realize I’m working a spell.
“Don’t be frightened,” he says. “I came to check on you. Have you had anything to eat?”
“No.” I face the wall, my shoulders bowed, and I mouth the words my spell. Hopefully they count, even if my voice is barely the faintest whisper in the room that I can’t even hear.
“Pity.” He doesn’t seem inclined to change that as he takes a step into the room. I still, afraid he’ll feel my magic, but I haven’t completed the spell yet.
From the corner of my vision, his hand grips a wand that he weaves through the air in an elaborate dance as he checks the magic he set. He brought me a wand. He brought a wand into my cell even th
ough no magician is supposed to do that.
The fear in my chest is crowded out by energy, by resolve. That wand is mine. It will channel my magic for me to fight my way out of here.
I just have to get close.
It feels ridiculous to try to be sexy right now. Then I remember that he likes the way I look broken now, with my face still tear-stained and blood crusted along my temple.
I look toward him, letting my face crumple. “Please help me.”
“I wish I could,” he says. “I wish I could take you with me.”
It’s not all that comforting a thought, given what I know is going through his mind.
“Please.” When I rise from the bed, my head swims; it’s been a long time since I ate, long enough that I’m not hungry, just exhausted. It’s easy to let myself surrender to the darkness that lurks at the edge of my vision.
I fall to my knees in front of him.
The fool can’t resist taking a step toward me, then another, until he looms over me. His wand dangles from the fingers of one hand as his other hand brushes over my hair. “There, there. I knew your father, you know.”
That’s almost never a good thing. I look up at him through narrowed eyes.
“I know what you’re doing—” he begins, and the words are an instant pit in my stomach.
But I stumble up to my feet, pressing my ragged, bloody hand against his lips. I quickly murmur the last words of the spell as his eyes widen in horror.
I don’t think he actually knew what I was doing.
I reach for the magic with my mind. I can see, in my mind’s eye, the second that the mirror cracks and shatters. Fuck.
That will probably set off some alarm bells, somewhere, but I have no time to muck around with the magic. If anyone has seen it, they will realize I’m making my move now.
My fingers wrap around the wood of the wand, and I yank it from his hand. “Thanks for the wand.”
I duck my weight down, kicking him away from me as I whirl for the door.
The guard at the door is already slamming it shut, but he’s not fast enough. For a second time today, I slip out into the corridor.
He races at me, putting down a big shoulder to knock me down. I raise shadows around us both, then slip to one side so he loses me in the dark.
I slide close to him in the shadows. His eyes widen as he senses me, but I dig the tip of the wand into his side. Sleep.
My magic flows through him, and he drops to my feet.
The other guard is in the shadows somewhere too, and I press myself against the wall, listening. Neither of us can see each other now.
I don’t have the keys out to get out, but it doesn’t matter. I have enough power to blast down the wards and knock down the wall, and so I do just that.
The ceiling groans above me, and a creepy feeling slides down my spine like so many fingers. I might have just destroyed a load-bearing wall. Wherever I am—is this Castle Fucking Devlin?—I might be about to bring the whole place down on top of me.
If the castle falls, it will come to pieces around Devlin, wherever he is. My heart seizes in a strange way when I think of him.
God, let him really be on my side. Let my men be safely on their way to Minsk as cargo, whatever that means.
I step through the rubble and climb the now-uneven stone stairs toward the gate at the top.
A sorcerer stands there, his black hood almost covering his face entirely, just as Devlin warned me.
He pushes back his hood, his eyes widening.
It’s Rian.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss.
He swings open the gate for me. “I thought I was rescuing you, but apparently you are a complete force of destruction all on your own.”
“You can’t be here. You’re in danger.”
He shrugs, just before he wraps his arms around me and kisses me hard. There, as the castle groans around us, I kiss him back, my fingers tangling in his hair.
The groan sharpens to a scream.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I say, but he’s already catching my hand in his. The two of us race for safety.
Chapter 3
Rian and I knock Vasiliks out of our way as fast as we can to escape the castle, leaving them behind to chase us as long as we can get out of there. The rock walls are beginning to crack.
You destroyed my fucking house. That’s Devlin’s voice in my ear.
Get out of my head.
You’re the worst girlfriend ever.
I’m not your girlfriend. You choked me!
You like it. His voice is amused. Sail fast—my mother’s already sending out her fleet.
We’re not even to the boat yet!
Then do that faster as well.
Rian frowns at me. “Does he nag you too?”
“He’s in your head?”
“Yes,” he says as the two of us race through the dark, twisted pines for the shore.
Normally, I’d be afraid to enter the water as a swimmer, knowing what monsters come through the rips to haunt the ocean.
Right now, the glint of silver-blue ahead of through the trees is the most precious thing I’ve ever seen.
“How much should we worry about the Vasilik navy?” I ask Rian.
“The entire navy?” he demands.
“Go big or go home, Rian.”
As we race across the green expanse of waist-high, waving grass that leads down to the sea, I glance over my shoulder.
There are dozens of Vasiliks chasing us. Magicians and soldiers with swords drawn. I stumble, and Rian grabs my hand, helping me keep my balance. His hand on mine feels so sure.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I tell him, my voice hot. Avalon needs him. “Your life is worth more than mine.”
“That’s not how it feels to me.” His words are calm, relaxed, no matter how angry I am or how many people are trying to kill us.
The glittering blue ocean spreads in front of us.
The two of us splash into the water with a horde of Vasiliks at our heels. I’ll brave the sea monsters. As the water grows deeper, I throw myself forward into a dive, swimming with all the strength I have.
There’s a whoosh of wings overhead. I crane my neck, trying to see, but I lose the shadow in the brilliant glare of the sun overhead. I’d like to think that’s Penny and my unicorn, but there are some monsters that take to the skies, too. Vasilik has proven itself to be a good home for monsters.
When water sprays over me, and wings beat against my face, I realize it is my unicorn. She’s almost drowning me with her attempt to skim the water. Her wings raise the seas around me, creating choppy waves I can barely rise above to get a gulp of air.
Rian is to my left. He tossed the cloak at some point, and his sodden white shirt clings to his arms and back.
I finally manage to heave myself out of the water and grab the stirrup. She soars above the water, flapping her big wings frantically to avoid going down into the waves.
Beneath us, I see the dark shadow of something moving. It’s moving very slowly, but it’s an enormous shadow, the size of a bus. Fear seizes my throat.
“We’ve got to get the prince,” I tell her, clambering up the saddle—dear god let me have cinched this tight enough—until I can get my damp, grasping fingers onto the pommel. With a grunt, I manage to throw myself up onto her back.
She whinnies at me in irritation, as if she’s saying finally.
“Where is he?” I’ll have to thank her later—unicorns are temperamental—but first, we have to save Avalon’s heir.
She takes a tight turn, her wings extended fully catching the air, and we head back.
Rian swims steadily forward, his movements elegant and rhythmic as he slowly outpaces the Vasiiks that have dared to follow him into the water. He can’t see what’s beneath him.
The enormous shadow circling slowly beneath him appears to be growing ever larger as it comes toward the surface.
Penny flashes low, her leathery wings
outstretched, and catches his jacket in her mouth.
The prince of Avalon screams as the dragon carries him haphazardly over the waves, just as behind them, an enormous black mouth, filled with broken teeth, breaches the surface of the water.
Chapter 4
By the time my unicorn lands unsteadily on the bow of the ship and I jump off, Rian has stopped screaming. He dusts his hands off against his trousers.
He shakes his head, his lips tightly pressed together, without meeting my gaze. “I’m never rescuing you again.”
“I don’t plan to need rescuing again.”
He looks up at me and grins, as if he’s already forgotten the trauma of that trip. “Sure, Tera. Sure.”
“We need to get to Minsk,” I tell him. “Devlin’s got my men there.”
He whistles. “What I wouldn’t do to be included in that. My men.”
I hesitate. After we rescue my men, the next step is to overthrow his father, isn’t it? The king is the one who twisted my father to make him into a villain—and a fall guy.
If we manage a successful coup, then maybe I could build a life that includes the prince of Avalon. But there’s a long way to go between here and there.
He must misunderstand my hesitation, because he says, “I know you don’t know me too well yet. But—”
“Oh, I do know you, Fox.” I press my hand against his chest, pushing him against the wall of the wheelhouse behind him.
“Devlin’s the Fox.” His eyebrows arch innocently.
“A lie of omission is still a lie, Rian.”
“Kiss me and see if you recognize me, then.”
I’ve heard those very words before from the Fox. It’s all clicked together for me now. Rian and Devlin might play at being enemies, but I think their boyhood bonds go even deeper than they’ll admit to. The princes of two kingdoms defy their heritage and work together to make peace for us all.
Of course, there’s a lot of war between us and that dream of peace.
“Fine.” I take his challenge. My hand knots in his shirt as I draw him close to me. My lips brush his tentatively.
