“Fine,” I grumbled as my heart tightened. It didn’t take a scholar to know that he meant Henry.
“I’m sorry that I drove you away,” said Ashe. “The last thing I wanted was to make you feel as if you had to escape.”
I bit my tongue to hold back the tears. I didn’t want to be the reason for someone’s anguish, especially someone that I hardly knew. Someone on whom I’d taken out my anger toward my mother. I was better than that. I was.
“Can we start over?”
Reluctantly, I nodded. “Yes, Prince, we can start over.”
“Ashe.”
“Fine. Ashe.”
He stepped forward slightly. Heat rushed through me, but I was in too much pain to act on it.
I caved in a weak grin. “Get out.”
He laughed softly. It was a good laugh, and it creased his eyes. “I’ll fetch your maid. You don't look so good. Awful, even.”
“Go away and rest. You look like a piece of garbage a stray dog would cough up.” I gathered up my blankets and pulled them to my chin. “And stop smiling all the time.”
He smiled.
I groaned.
Crim appeared behind Ashe and put a meaty hand to his shoulder. The door shut behind them both. When I heard the tell-tale click, I buried my face in my hands and groaned again.
“Great job, Izzy,” I said to myself. “First you almost get yourself killed, and now you’ve made a prince sad at your expense.” I laughed through my nose. “Whatever will I do?”
I scratched an itch on my collarbone. The memory of my attacker’s hands around my throat flickered and faded. I wanted to feel normal again, but I didn’t feel much of anything for a long time except fear.
Chapter 8
Five days passed before I could gather the courage to move my shoulder. It was so stiff that I grunted through the ache until my muscle loosened. Gods, I thought, the things you take for granted.
Seated in Pyrus’ chambers, he poked and prodded and gave a few “hmms.” Pax replied with a corresponding caw from the windowsill. The wind blew keen and eager from his perch.
“You’ll catch your death down here,” I commented.
“You healed nicely,” Pyrus said, inspecting the hole in my skin, ignoring my comment entirely. Since the arrow had pierced straight through, dislodging the other end had been easy. It hadn’t hit any major arteries, thank the heavens.
“‘Nicely’ is a nice way of putting it,” I replied. “Hurt like a—"
“I am glad that you were unconscious through the cauterizing,” Pyrus cut in. A grin to my grimace. “Well, you won’t be swinging any clubs any time soon, but you’ll be just fine.”
“I guess the wood chopping competition is out this year,” I joked, replacing my bandage and the strap of my dress and pulling on my wool shawl. Crim, Stormwall’s very own Woodchopper, had carried me everywhere since the night I was injured, even when I explained that my legs were just fine to walk. I was a bag of feathers to him, and he made me feel safe. I joked that I was getting out of shape. I didn’t realize how true that was until I found myself out of breath walking up a flight of steps.
I told Pyrus what I had witnessed that night. He reacted better than my mother, but still, doubt reflected in his eyes. I didn’t have the time or the energy to convince him, though. I had an afternoon planned with Ashe, and I was already late.
Pyrus lingered with me as I strode toward the door. “I’d like just one person to believe me,” I said.
Pyrus pushed up his glasses. From the window, Pax was surprisingly quiet. “My friendship with you, Princess, only goes as far as that. I will defend you to the right people and maybe only in private, and I will assist you to the best of my powers. But if I stand up and say that there are magic users in Mirosa and they find no evidence, I will be branded a liar and thrown into the prisons. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. “Do you believe me, Pyrus?”
Pyrus shook his head and used a finger to push up his glasses. “The king has ears everywhere. I’m not the only one who can speak to crows.”
Ashe waited for me in the courtyard, sitting on the edge of a bubbling fountain beside two white mares. He wore high black boots and a silk tunic embroidered with the symbol of the Paratheon house on his chest—a simple black fish with silver scales. He flashed a smile that lit up his green eyes when he spotted me. The sun shone and made his sandy hair glow.
“Sorry for the lateness,” I told him. I wasn’t, really.
“Princesses are allotted at least thirty minutes before the search party is called.”
I smiled as I mounted my horse. It felt strange not having my bow. My mother had confiscated it and banished me from its use. I would have felt significantly better had I still had Henry’s dagger, but that was lost the evening of the attack. My heart dropped into my stomach just thinking about it.
There wasn’t any talk about what happened. If there had been any soldiers deployed to look into the attack, I didn’t know. And if my mother had sent a crow to my father, it would be at least another week before we would hear back.
That she hadn’t believed me irked me more than I thought it would. The very idea of magic was something that only existed in story books, and telling myself that magic was what I’d seen felt like believing in something only a child would. As much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, the truth of it nudged its way closer and closer to the forefront of my mind. I would not be convinced otherwise.
I rode alongside Ashe in silence, looking at the sky, wishing for at least a cloud from which to make shapes. I listened to the sound of the hooves, the wind, the way the birds announced our presence. The way he breathed and the way he looked at me.
I thought about the way his lips felt upon my hand.
Still, I was shaky inside. During the past five days, I’d spent every second searching the faces of everyone I passed, wondering who had saved me.
Was it you? I thought as I passed every guard.
Was it you…to my father’s own captain of the guard, Tamir Tremaine, a solid, bull-necked man with the look of a bear. I searched for a glance, a smile, any sort of indication that my savior was here and alive. There had been far too many men that night for just one person to stave off. The fact that my rescuer might be dead pulled at my heart, and I shook the thought away.
There was no denying the man in the woods had turned into a wolf.
I gave Ashe occasional glances. He acknowledged each one with a sideways grin. Ashe was uncomplicated. We were comfortable in the silence between us. He hadn’t mentioned Henry at all yet. Maybe he’d gotten the hint.
When I found the place, I led him off the road. He didn’t question it, which was good because I wasn’t quite ready to explain what we were about to do. I mean, in ten words or less, how do you say that we are going to track the Voiceless bastards who could control the weather, one of whom was a wolf who dipped my arrows in poison, and tried to murder me? I had a feeling he wouldn’t respond with that heart-racing smile of his.
I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. A camp? A secret hideout? Maybe a body or two?
And my dagger.
We came to the willow that I had taken shelter under after the first bout of rain. I dismounted, scanning the ground where the dead leaves had been disturbed. There. Footprints. Mine and my horse’s.
“Can you tell me what we’re doing out here?” asked Ashe. He sat atop his horse, steadying it, his body swaying with the movement.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” I said, crawling on my hands and knees, reenacting my path from that night. I heard him give a heavy sigh, and then there was the thud of steel-toed boots as his feet hit the ground. “Don’t disturb anything, all right?”
The woods were full of the sounds of birds high in the trees, and the scurrying of rodents in the underbrush gave the impression that nothing tragic could ever happen there. This was a place for basking, a place I ran to when life overwhelmed me.
I came to the sm
all rise overlooking the grove where I had seen the men. Dread coiled in my stomach like a snake. Still on my hands and knees, I brushed away leaves and examined the soil for any trace of what had happened. But there was nothing. Not even a drop of blood, and certainly not my dagger.
“Is this where it happened?”
I pushed myself to my elbows and turned. Ashe stood ten feet away with his arms crossed. How silly I must have looked to him. I forced myself to my feet and brushed my palms together to get the dirt loose.
I swallowed, but my mouth was dry. “Over this rise was where I saw the men,” I said, pointing. Ashe approached me slowly, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. “That is where I caught them using magic.” I twisted back to him and gestured to the region where we stood side by side. “This is where I almost died. I was hit with my own arrow and then nearly dropped dead by the blade of my very own dagger.”
Ashe said nothing. I went up the mound and slipped on my hindquarters to where the camp had been. Even up close, there was no evidence that anybody had been there. There were no traces of a fire. Not even a footprint in the earth.
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “You think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t,” said Ashe, coming up behind me. He had slid down on his butt, as well. “I have no reason not to trust you. You say it happened, and so it did.”
“Do you think they were Uncanny?” I asked him.
“I don’t think demons walk the earth as you and I do, Izzy.”
“Have you met my father?”
Ashe looked away, a smile forming on his lips.
I bit the inside of my cheek as a hawk screeched. “My dagger—Henry’s dagger, it was called Muaeve,” I said grimly. “In the old language, it means fire.”
“A fine name,” said Ashe with raised brows. “Except Muaeve means fruit. Not fire.”
I raised my own eyebrows. “You know the old language?”
Besides Henry, I hadn’t come across anybody who still knew a word of the language of the former land. He had taught me in secret. Our parents would never have sanctioned it. It’s called ‘old’ for a reason, they would have said.
Ashe smiled gently. “Better than you do.”
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my pants. “Well, I suppose I have to tell you that I didn’t bring you out here because I wanted your company,” I told him, walking the circle of the grove. “I’m sorry for the false pretenses.”
“It’s all right,” said Ashe. “It doesn’t matter why we’re out here.” He cleared his throat and squinted against the sunlight. “How about we get out of here, and I can take your mind off all of this.”
“Do tell.”
“Well, there’s a market in town that I hear sells the juiciest fruit in all of Mirosa.”
I finished my circle and stood to face him.
“You want to go into town?” I asked, cocking my head. “I didn’t think princes did that.”
“Did what?”
“Mixed with the commoners.”
“Well, you’ve met Archibald. Being around him all day long does make me yearn for civilized conversation and an atmosphere that isn’t so—"
“Stifling,” we both said, and laughed.
“All right,” I conceded, “I will allow you to buy me fruit.” The day was not one to waste. Just because I hadn’t found what I was searching for didn’t mean I had to dwell. I was stronger than what tried to kill me, even if it was my own weapon. Mysteries would have to wait for another day.
We rode in silence until we could see the tops of Stormwall’s buildings below us. That was when Ashe whistled and hitched up his reins. His horse sidled against mine. He reached out a hand and took my arm. His look was dark. “I’m concerned that your mother has allowed the both of us outside of the castle when you have reported magic users in your kingdom.”
“She doesn’t believe me.”
He searched my eyes. “Or she does. What mother wouldn’t?”
“If she does, why let us out? We would be locked down. The army would be deployed.”
His grasp tightened. “And so far, none of that has happened.”
I suddenly felt strange having this conversation with him. Part of me wanted to think he was merely humoring me—that there was no way magic could exist here, within Stormwall’s borders. But then part of me felt the sting of the arrow-wound, and I knew that I’d grown exceptionally in the past five days. If I had to be alone in this, then so be it.
Nonetheless, the need for an ally trumped the doubts I had in the prince.
“The queen is covering it up.”
Ashe released his hold on my arm. “You don’t know me well, but most of the time when I have a feeling about something, I am usually correct. When I walked into your castle, I felt a stirring in the air and the feeling of something that rattled my very bones.”
“What do you suppose it is?”
“I don’t know.” Ashe fell silent after that, marking the end of the conversation, and took his horse ahead. I matched his pace as we approached the open gates of the city. There, the congested crowds inside spilled out in a trickle as people left with their goods. The tide of the crowd pulled us down a narrow walkway. From there, I could smell the fresh breads and hear the roars of vendors announcing their sales from the market ahead. Usually, they would be enough to fill my mind, but today, the only things racking my brain were Ashe’s words, and they made the brightness of the sun feel like a dark hole in the world around me.
Chapter 9
It was a weekday afternoon in the center of town. Between the vendors on the streets shouting out their wares, to the businesses with bells on the doors chiming at every new customer coming and going, to the low, mottled sound of a thousand words from a thousand different conversations, I’d have to shout to hear my own voice.
Stormwall stretched itself along the coastline. Tall brick storehouses, granaries, churches, inns, shops, and everything else that made the town prosperous. Including the tips of great ships at their docks.
Above it all, peering through the trees on the hill, was Stormwall Castle with its iron ramparts, turrets, massive battlement, stables, soldier barracks, dungeons, and training fields. Inside, the high vaulted ceilings and cold marble floors made it my home. Though built by my ancestors, it was my father who had expanded it to fit several more barracks as he developed his empire. I wondered how long it would be before our walls crept out into the ocean to the west.
Like every town, it had its darker sections. Stormwall’s was called the Barge and stood off the shipyard down a set of old concrete stairs. There, you’d find brothels and gambling and everything else a shifty heart would desire. I was not allowed in such a place, though I’d never felt the urge to go.
Ashe and I left our horses outside of the gates, drew on our robes, and immediately got lost in the steady current of people in the narrow, red-stoned streets. It was hard to lose focus on days like this when the streets were bustling. Vendors shouted their sales, offering up bargains to interested parties. A man leading a horse carrying bags of grain nodded as we passed. A woman chased after her children. A girl carrying a basket swept past me, bumping my leg. She glanced back, bowed, and hurried on her way. Two women gave Ashe a second look, their eyes locked on him appreciatively.
All the while, I stole my own glances at Ashe, doing my best to decipher his words, but coming up short every time.
What could rattle a prince’s bones? Ghosts? Monsters? Monster ghosts?
A woman?
Heat colored my cheeks. I scolded myself. Lulu would have loved that innuendo.
We grabbed ourselves a few apples and window-shopped a few jewelry stalls. We did our best to keep away from large gatherings but found ourselves reeled into a display from an old woman who had put up her table at the entry of an alley that smelled of rotting food.
“Come,” she said, holding both hands out graciously. She was clothed in a teal robe the color of the sea, and her neck hung heavy with jew
elry. Her deep wrinkles indicated her age, but because of the way she moved in gentle, fluent motions, she appeared so much younger. “Tell me, young lady, how happy would you be if you found a silver coin behind your ear?”
The little girl at the front of the small group held onto her mother’s arm like a lifeline. We shuffled forward, Ashe keeping himself mere inches from me at all times. Such a prince.
The old woman smiled. “Don’t be scared now. Let me have a look then?”
She put a finger to her forehead. “Yes, I can see it now,” she said. She reached out and plucked the little girl’s ear, and in her overturned palm, produced a lone silver coin.
The crowd murmured in dissent, although there were a few who were thoroughly impressed by the display. These tricks were harmless, made for entertaining the gullible, but a majority held the belief that any semblance of such devilish acts should be punishable. But my father had better things to do than rally up the poverty-stricken elderly. So, people like the old woman remained, making a fool out of herself for a meager coin.
The young girl’s eyes lit up at the sight of the coin. “Yes!” she exclaimed.
“Cheap tricks,” said Ashe under his breath and bit into his second apple. He turned to leave. “Let’s go. It smells like a carcass over here.”
“You smelled like one that day you came to my room,” I say.
Ashe bit the inside of his cheek, suppressing a beautiful smile. “Let’s go, funny girl.”
“Wait!”
We both turned to the old woman. She reached out ten gnarly fingers to us as she approached, grasping the air eagerly. Her jewelry clanged with every movement. When she finally recognized me, she gave a bow. This small gesture produced dozens of bows that continued even as people moved past us. My cheeks flushed, but Ashe just smiled.
“I understand the need to support yourself. And your games are…entertaining,” said the prince. “But we wish to enjoy the day.”
The old woman nodded knowingly. “As it’s meant to be,” she stated. “I am no beggar, but the day has been unyielding. How about a reading? A boy as handsome as you deserves one everywhere he goes. Even if he’s not a prince.”
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