Unspoken

by Celia Mcmahon

  Archibald rose his glass in a toast. “Here, here.” He pushed himself to his feet and gave a clumsy bow. A pride to his kingdom, I was sure.

  The prince rounded the table and extended his hand. I gave him my own, and he promptly kissed it and led me away toward the exit of the dining hall. His hand, stronger than every bone in my body. Had I not been in a hurry, I would have loved it. Had I not already been past the guards and through the doors out of the dining hall, I would have thanked him.

  Had he never mentioned my beloved brother, he might have had a chance.

  Chapter 6

  My body reacted before my mind had a chance to catch up. First, I went to my room for my cloak, and then down to the stables where I retrieved my bow and dagger, grabbed a lantern, saddled a horse, and blindly rode from the castle grounds.

  Two guards were posted at the front gate. I pranced by on my horse, commenting on a quiet night. It wasn’t strange for me to take an evening ride, so they didn’t inquire further. The pounding in my chest slowed to a dull ache the further down the King’s Road I traveled, the castle lights were nothing but flickers in the inky evening sky. I wiped my eyes along the sleeve of my cloak and gave my horse a tap in the side. The stars were out and guided me toward the mountains.

  “She’s insane,” I told my horse. “To invite the prince here knowing that he—” I stopped and swallowed the lump in my throat. “—that he and Henry have been friends. How embarrassing. How—utterly unacceptable!”

  Sure, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Henry was well-loved, and made friends wherever he traveled. Someone was bound to come into my life who had known him in ways that I hadn’t, to tell me stories of what he was like when I wasn’t with him. But I wasn’t ready for that truth. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.

  I steered off the road and into the forest. I knew this path—it led to the river that cut between Stormwall and the mountains. Henry taught me to fish there. It seemed a fitting place to go to find his ghost meandering the mortal world.

  I dismounted minutes later and tied my horse to a tree. I’d walk from here since the ground was too dangerous and uneven to risk injuring my horse. I lit the lantern and looked down at my stupid dress and shoes and started laughing. At that moment, the sky decided to bless me with rain, and I laughed even harder.

  I stood with my mouth wide open, gulping down every drop, wondering if running had been the best decision. They’d come after me, and then I’d be drilled as to why, as if my emotions could be filtered down into a sentence. I’d give them a paragraph—a novel, even. A never-ending almanac of why running away was better than a royal dinner with my mother and a stranger from some island.

  I took cover under a willow tree and pulled my hood over my head. It wasn’t much protection from the elements, but that was neither here or there.

  It was mostly stubbornness that kept me in the pouring rain as the fierce wind blew the tops of the trees. But even though my feet drenched to the bone and my butt hurt from sitting on a root, I noticed the stars shone brighter, if I dared to look up and risk drowning.

  Much to my surprise, the rain didn’t hold out long. At the very same moment it stopped, something sounded from inside the trees. I trained my ears and kept still for a moment until I heard it again. The second time it was more readable. It was the distinct sound of clanging pots and pans.

  I froze, a statue.

  But because good sense was never my strong suit, I cast off my hood, blew out the lantern, and walked soundlessly toward the noise. I began a four-legged crawl as I neared a rise in the earth and then sidled up to a tree, keeping it between me and whoever was on the other side.

  I peered around it.

  A camp. In the center of a clearing.

  Ten men in dark robes were gathered, and in the center, a massive fire that didn’t appear to have been doused by the sudden downpour. Strange. Other than the sounds of several men cleaning up their dinner, the woods were silent as the dead.

  Voiceless.

  One of them signed to another. From this far away, I couldn’t make out all of what they were saying. I barely made out two words: The sky.

  Just then, one of the robed men stood from a stooped position and raised his hands into the air. This one spoke, but in words I couldn’t make out no matter how hard I trained my hearing.

  This man was not Voiceless.

  I held my breath without knowing why.

  The man, wearing a bright red robe, lit only by their campfire and silhouetted against the black forest, bent forward as if he were about to vomit. But he fell forward instead, bracing both palms onto the ground in an upward dog position. He then began to expand, like a loaf of bread in an oven, until he doubled in size and finally shed the robe that covered his body. A flash of lightning illuminated the thing he’d become. I knitted my brow, focusing my vision, but I was nearly certain that the man had transformed into an animal. Without a clue of how or why or even who, I was sure of one thing.

  I knew a wolf when I saw one.

  They were devils, Uncanny. What other explanations was there?

  The sky lit up and down came the sudden downpour once again. I gasped and wiped the rain from my eyes. The fire seemed to glow even brighter. The Voiceless clapped as the rain came to a halt once again.

  Tricks. It had to be. Nobody would be so stupid as to practice magic this close to Stormwall.

  A deep breath. I inched closer through the darkness. In the back of my head, good sense begged me to turn back. Gods, even my legs felt heavy. But I needed to see what they were signing. Besides, it was all tricks. Harmless.

  But the wolf was massive. Large enough to form claw marks like the ones I’d seen in the village.

  Sweat formed on my brow. I counted to three, willing my breaths to slow, but it didn’t have much of an effect. Maybe if I didn’t move, kept utterly still and observed from the safety of the darkness, I could wait out the fear. If I could make time stop, nothing could go wrong.

  A sudden surge of pain, and my knees buckled. I hit the ground face first in the mud, cursing loudly.

  I forced myself to my knees and steadied my breathing. The pain originated from my left shoulder. I reached my hand around and caught a thin strip of wood. I covered the length of it and stopped at the pointed end of an arrow.

  Somebody shot me.

  It felt as if I were on fire. A suppressed scream ripped at my throat as I gripped the side where the point punctured my flesh and cracked it in half. I couldn’t get a good grasp on the back to pull the rest of it free even if I wanted to.

  I heaved myself to my feet, wobbling, the pain unlike anything I’d ever felt. The gods had decided that seventeen years had been enough for me. I always wondered how it would happen. But never like this.

  This was too feeble a way to go. Not even an audience? Applause? A bow before I rest?

  I whirled around just in time to see my attacker emerging from the darkness. Still holding the back end of the arrow I’d broken off, I heaved it toward him just as his arms closed around me. It struck flesh, and I let go. The man stumbled for a moment and pulled the broken arrow from his side. Even in the darkness, even though he wore a hood, his eyes gleamed with something feral and dangerous.

  He charged, and this time I was unable to subdue him. I slammed down onto my knees. Almost instantly, the man took me by my shoulders and lifted me into the air. I managed one measly kick to his stomach before he let me fall. I screamed just before he closed both hands around my throat and squeezed.

  “I am the beast,” he said. “We are all beasts.”

  I choked, “Please, don’t,” before my focus began to slide in and out. Everything went so slow and then, for a moment, there was a reprieve. My feet touched the ground, and I managed to keep standing.

  Until I felt the cold blade against my throat.

  I’d know that steel anywhere. Henry had designed it himself. Though he did have help, of course. He was in no way a master craftsman when it c
ame to weapons or anything of that matter. I remember the day he gifted it to me, in a beautiful leather sheath that I’d since ruined. I remembered the look of pride on his face when eight-year-old me cut the air with it for the very first time.

  My dagger.

  Then, everything slowed, and I saw him.

  Henry.

  He raised a lazy hand to greet me, as if he’d just come home from sword practice or a hike. He looked the same as the day I saw him last. Maybe this is all a dream, or maybe I’m already dead.

  I didn’t have long to wonder. The blade left my throat and someone heavy thumped to the ground. The world went silent and still. My breath puffed like smoke and colored spots, like holiday bulbs, flashed and faded across my eyes. I crumpled to my knees and lowered myself to the ground. If I was going to pass out, at least I could do it without breaking my skull in the meantime.

  The world went quiet as the dead. My body jerked from the pain of my shoulder wound. Or maybe from the fear and panic. Every inch of me wanted to get up, run, or even fight. But I was too overcome by a sudden fever. No, not a fever, I realized. Someone was holding me, using their arms to lift me from the ground. My vision faded, but not before one last beautiful sight.

  Two bright, blue eyes lit up like rescue beacons against the black sky.

  Chapter 7

  Follow the fire.

  I stood in the hall that led to my father's chambers. The voice called to me, and I was drawn toward it.

  Flames. Everywhere.

  The streamers that hung along the rock walls were all set ablaze. I could feel their warmth. I even reached out to touch them but felt no pain.

  Follow the fire.

  The voice echoed from the ramparts, the roof. Above. Beneath. All around me.

  “Henry?”

  My brother stood at the closed doors of my father’s chambers, just as I remembered him. Tall and handsome in his uniform, sword at his hip. His dark eyes begged for me to stop walking.

  “Go away, Izzy. You can’t see this.”

  “See what?” I took a step, and he held out his hand. “See what, Henry?”

  He vanished. Gone like a phantom. My father’s chamber door stood unguarded and slightly ajar. I moved forward again. Something emanated from inside. Fire.

  I broke into a run and threw myself against the door, desperate to save anyone who was trapped on the other side, and stumbled into the room. The smell knocked me back right away, but I covered my nose and mouth. I looked around. There was the giant, triple paned window, the desk, the dresser, the closet, the table. Nothing burned. Nothing seemed of out sorts. Except for the steady stream of blood from the side of the covered four-poster bed.

  I moved slowly, less than ten feet from it. But it seemed a universe away.

  Netting draped over the bed like the leaves of a weeping willow. I reached out, took a deep breath, and moved it aside.

  There lay my father, soaked in blood. His stomach was torn apart, gutted to shreds. His eyes were open and gazing upward, his mouth set in a horrified shriek. My father...there was so much blood.

  Before I could scream, from the other side of the bed came a shadow. It rose into pointed ears, matted, bloodied fur, dozens of teeth, and eyes full of fire.

  I screamed within my dream and then again as I plunged to the surface of reality, gasping until my lungs filled. Pain tore through my body, reminding me that I wasn’t dead, that something had happened.

  Hot tears ran and chilled on my cheeks. I glanced down to find my left shoulder bound with bandages and my entire body swaddled in blankets. I tried to turn my neck, but it hurt—undoubtedly covered in bruises. There may even have been slight damage to my throat because it ached just to swallow. My hands racked with tremors as I lifted my blankets to find myself stripped of my silk gown and dressed in a thin nightdress. I breathed in a shuddering breath, forcing myself to try and remember what had happened. I couldn’t recall a great deal of anything, save the sensation of being close to death.

  I also felt like a concrete slab had hit me.

  “It’s the poison,” said Pedoma, nearing my bedside. In one breath, she had grasped my arm. I felt a needle enter my forearm without a word of warning. I exhaled as the drugs took effect. “An incapacitating poison. A weak dose at that.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky one?” I croaked, sinking further into my pillows. My good hand drifted to my collarbone, where my necklace lay. I gave a sigh of relief that my attacker hadn’t taken it.

  Pedoma gave me a look that resembled pity as the doors to my chambers opened and my mother entered. The queen gestured for my maid to leave. Once we were alone, she hiked up her skirt and sat on the edge of my bed. “A poisoned arrow hit you,” she stated.

  I blinked and swallowed. It didn’t hurt quite as bad as it had minutes ago. “So I’ve been told,” I chuckled. The drugs were good. “I saw men in robes doing magic. One of them turned into a monster.” The words slid freely, the memory coming back to me as I spoke them.

  My mother studied me carefully, undoubtedly trying to discern whether I was serious. “Magic? What sort of magic?”

  I managed an entire sentence before my mind went blank. “They were controlling the weather.” Was that right? Is that what I saw? Everything seemed so hazy. The bewildered look on my mother’s face wasn’t helping, either. In fact, it made me doubt myself more.

  “Isabelle, the arrow lodged in your shoulder was one of your own. Same carvings.”

  “They took it from my horse.” There was no other explanation for it. “Just like they took my dagger—"

  “Isabelle, why did you run?” The mattress shifted as she crossed her legs. “If this is some pity thing, you’ve sure got everyone’s attention.”

  My head jolted back as if she’d slapped me. “Are you insinuating that I am lying?” I asked. Anger boiled and rippled, rising like a full moon. “What I saw was magic, Mother. There were people out there, and they tried to kill me!”

  My mother, ever so patient and kind, hissed through her teeth. “Magic does not exist. To mention it is an act of treason.”

  “Is it treason if it’s true?”

  The queen rose to her feet, slow and controlled. The first few words were soft and then rose in a crescendo. “This will not happen again. This will never happen again!”

  My breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t even understand how I had ended up in my bed and why I wasn’t lying six feet beneath the soil, never mind my mother’s reaction. All I could manage was, “I’m sorry.” Because I was. If I hadn’t run like a coward, this would never have happened. But the second I spoke the words, the second I regretted them. They felt like a confession.

  Blood. My dream came back to me. Henry was there. In some sense, it had seemed real. Every part of it. Even the bits I begged my mind to erase.

  I looked up. “Who saved me?”

  “Someone left you at the opening of the woods on the King’s Road and whistled. He was gone before they could even see his face.” My mother shifted her balance. “You remember nothing of this person?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, if you do, please be sure to tell me.” She whisked away, straight across the room through my doorway, turning back to add, “I want to reward him for saving the life of a princess.”

  I nodded, but slowly. The drugs made my body light. “How much am I fetching these days?” I asked, too tired to even watch for my mother’s reaction. But I didn’t want to sleep. Not after that dream.

  Still, sleep came.

  I awoke to a knock on my door. The sun was low. I had slept most of the day. I blinked the sleep from my eyes in time to see Crim in the doorway. He signed that Prince Ashe would like to see me. I grunted in reply after taking a sip of cold tea to wash away the sour taste in my mouth. “Just a minute, and not a step past the threshold.”

  The smirking prince stepped out from behind the large man. Yet today, there was not a smirk to be found.

  He held a flower in his
left hand. A tulip.

  “Your mother told me it’s your favorite,” he said as the door closed behind him. He cast a withering stare, all tired eyes and pinched lips.

  “Tulips are okay,” I said. “I prefer roses if I did have to choose, Prince of the Peeks.”

  “Call me Ashe.”

  There was an ache behind my eyes as I rolled them. “All right,” I said to Call-Me-Ashe. “You’ve got twenty seconds left.” There was a tired, vacant look to his eyes that suddenly panged my heart, and his stupid smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

  Ashe set the tulip onto the little table by the doorway. I stared at him, noting the way he stood with his feet planted, aligned with one another, his gaze downcast, staring at his hands, his look, weak and distant. It took everything in me not to get out of that bed and hug him, to apologize for the worry I’d put him through. Instead, I counted the distance between us—fifteen feet, six steps, maybe less with his long legs.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “When you didn’t return—"

  “What do you mean ‘what happened’?” I snapped. My shoulder hurt. I hoped Pedoma would interrupt this and stick another needle into my arm. I pointed to my bandaged shoulder. “Some bastard shot me. What are you still doing here anyway?”

  “I’m here for a month, Isabelle.”

  A month? Great. Lovely. I feigned a smile despite my annoyance.

  Ashe took that as a sign to step forward but stopped when I held up my hand. “I’m not your enemy,” he said, his voice tense, and for a moment he looked big. Bigger than Crim, even. And then, he softened, straining to hold his composure. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t treat me like a piece of garbage coughed up by a stray dog.”

  All right, prominent, tall prince, you have my attention.

  “I, among others, was up all night looking for you. I feared the worst.” His voice caught in his throat, but he continued anyway. “I thought I lost you, too.”