He leaned down to kiss me, and warmth tumbled down my body. I wondered how I could have ever let the Spark take control of me when I had such a bright future to look forward to. After using the Pull to connect me more directly to my control over the Spark, and using raw energy to cushion my fall and send me soaring up to the height of the balcony, I couldn't relinquish my command of it. My Ability fought against me when I tried to send it back to hibernation. It was unsettling. Losing control like that could prove to be a deadly error. It had only recessed sometime after Kyle had accepted his role as Prince Varion.
Once he'd healed Dylan, Rune, and the other soldiers, Kyle had been taken away in a great procession. That was a day and a half ago, and I hadn't seen him since.
“How are you feeling?”
I slid back down into my seat. “I'm fine. I think.”
“What you did back there, I've never seen anything like it.”
“I scared myself.” It was difficult to admit. “I don’t know what’s come over me. Ever since we left Breakwater, I’ve wanted to fight. It’s like something is taking me over. I’ve changed, and I don’t like what I’m seeing.”
Rune nodded patiently. “It’s revenge.”
“Revenge? What do mean?”
“We were taught all about it in training. Because Dragoons have no bonds with one another, it is an emotion I had never felt… until Lina.” He grew quiet for a moment. “Hussars, on the other hand, are extremely vengeful. We needed to learn about such responses to foresee retaliatory attacks on the battlefield.
“Hest killed Sterling, and herself along with him. You had no one to fight but a prince you couldn’t touch. Your anger needed to go somewhere.”
“So it’s gone everywhere,” I sighed.
“Whether it is a temporary reaction or a permanent change is up to you.”
What he said was impressively insightful. I took his message to heart, relieved that I might not be turning into a raging monster.
“That wasn’t the only thing that frightened me.” I leaned my head against the windowsill and looked up at him. “Have you ever lost control?”
“Of the Sear?”
I nodded.
“When I was very young. Nearly burned down a building, remember?”
“How did you stop it?”
He cleared his throat and thought about it. “How does a person stop themselves from doing any wrong? Willpower and understanding. Your Abilities are a part of you, control yourself, and you control that power.”
“I lost it the other day,” I admitted, glancing back out the window. I didn't want to see any disappointment in his eyes.
“I know.”
“Why didn't you say anything?”
“What could I have done to help? Controlling your Abilities is something that no one else can do for you. I knew you'd bring yourself back. You always do. If the Spark could truly take you over, you would have burned yourself out and died with Stakes.”
His calm mention of my brush with death echoed familiarly in the tone of his Dragoon training. I didn't care. He didn't need to pad his words with me. “Burned out? That can happen?”
“Abilities are like any physical action, exert yourself long enough and you'll exhaust your body. Most people will become too tired to form their Ability at that point, but few have learned to push through the fatigue. It should never be done. Ever. If you use an Ability beyond the limits of your energy, it will begin to feed on your life force. Suicide fighters have done this in battle, but both kingdoms discourage the action. No one should take their own life when they can still fight, and no one should ever die of their own Ability.”
“That's horrible!” I blanched, remembering too well the burning sensation just beneath my skin. “Is that what was going to happen to me?”
“I don't know. You're a Lodestone. I can only guess the limit of your energy. It's vastly higher than my own, I can tell you that much.”
I looked at him through the corner of my eye. “And you're okay with that?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“Some guys don't like being with a girl who can beat them up.”
“Their loss,” he grinned and squeezed my waist. “Besides, Abilities are the least important aspect to any battle.”
I gave him a fox's smile. “Says the weakling.”
That made him laugh. “Exactly.”
“How's your side?”
“Like nothing happened at all. The Empty didn't hit anything vital, so the healing went quickly. I don't think it will even scar. We owe Kiteman a great deal. It must be taxing, healing us so frequently.”
“He's a Lodestone.” My smile was thin and nostalgic.
Rune folded his arms and looked out the window. “Or a prince.” The way he said it was cool and contemplative.
“I just can't bring myself to believe it. Even knowing what I do.” I picked at the torn end of my orange scarf. The edges were beginning to fray all the way around. We weren't so different, the scarf and me. “Maybe Kyle is related to him somehow. If Varion really did die, it could explain why the Pull led to Kyle instead.”
“Trust your instincts, Kat. What do they say?”
I didn't want to trust them. It was true that I'd found Block instead of my mother. It proved that I could be manipulated or tricked into finding the wrong person, but whenever I thought about my mother instead of the specific code name I was given, I'd turned back to Haven. At times I’d wondered if I was losing control of my Ability, but it turned out that I’d been right all along. Professor Block was Paperglass-To-Be and my mother sat in Haven, no doubt furious that she'd lost me as a resource when I'd gone out on my own. What did my instincts say?
Kyle is Prince Varion.
Still, it called forward too many impossible questions. It insinuated betrayal. What if he'd always known? What was he?
My discomfort burgeoned until it began to affect me physically. I didn't feel comfortable at the window seat anymore, no matter how many pillows I sat upon. I was freezing cold, even wearing my trim coat. I couldn't answer him, so I asked a question instead.
“How are you handling all of this? You've been forced to fight in this war for most of your life and now we're having tea with your enemies and debating whether Kyle is Prince Varion.”
Rune stiffened at the reminder of his origins and relationship with the North. He rubbed a hand against his forehead and exhaled. Had I pushed him too far?
“I'm not the same person that I was.” His eyes searched the world outside the cold window. “I can't allow myself to feel fear or anxiety or anger. If I do, I'm afraid that I'll lose myself. Being free, trying to learn to live normally again, it hasn't been easy. I want to be who I was before I was recruited for training, but I'm also a Dragoon. Dylan was right– that is an inescapable fact. But the choices I make in life, I want them to be mine– the real me, not the person who took orders without question and marched against cannon-fire.
“I won't allow myself to hate these people because of what was done on a battlefield. I won't allow myself to hate Kyle if he is Varion, because... maybe he's like me. He could be struggling to reconcile two lives.”
I could tell it wasn't easy for him to say the things he did. “I hadn't thought about it like that.”
“The Hussars, many of them know what I am now.” His eyes drifted back to mine. “They haven't killed me. They are great in number and proud to represent their capital. It wouldn't take much to ambush me in the night, or poison my food. But they haven't done it. I would have never thought them capable of mercy. It seems we may not have been as different as I first thought. Everyone is worthy of a second chance. If all of the people of the North and West had the same patience and restraint, there might be hope for a united future.”
“Rune, when we arrived they beat you unconscious.”
He brushed it off like it'd been nothing serious. “They were under orders.”
Under orders by Headly... and Deasun. “When the General came t
o us, I sort of... shocked him across the room.”
Rune's eyebrows lifted. “You're aggressive for a diplomat.”
I almost laughed, but not quite. I was the punch line of that joke. Lord Brendon should have never made me ambassador or emissary. “I thought he was going to kill you.”
“You shouldn't worry about me.”
I gave him a flat look. “With what had happened, how was I supposed to do that?”
“I don't worry about you, I believe in you.” He ran a hand through my hair, and let it drift to my shoulder and down my arm. I lifted my hand to clasp his, and his smile was faint and serene. “And you should believe that I will never let anything keep us apart.”
Inside I melted like a block of ice left out in the sun. I felt myself smile. “And if I was suddenly struck by lightning?”
“Nothing would happen.”
“It's a figure of speech. If the world came crashing down around us...”
“It wouldn't change anything.”
“If it did, I'd haunt you.”
A grin flashed by, exposing his single dimple. “Promise?”
Outside, the unfamiliar city pressed on in its routines without regard for us. None of them had even known there had so recently been a battle for the throne in the keep of their capital city. None of them could know that somewhere above, despite the worst circumstances, a girl named Katelyn Kestrel had been made blissfully happy by the words of an ex-soldier.
“Would someone mind explaining to me,” Dylan’s voice creaked like worn floorboards. “Why I'm naked without intimate company?”
I peeked around Rune to see a bare-chested Dylan scooting to sit upright in his bed. Warped metal twisted from one of his collarbones, the only ugly feature of his physique. I rubbed my eyes and leaned against the window seat in relief. We hadn't lost him. My joy was so focused that I nearly cried. It was Dylan, and sometimes I really hated him– but sometimes I didn't. I was glad he was okay.
Rune strode to his bedside and gave him a hearty smack on the back. “You survived a battle!” He was genuinely proud.
Dylan coughed and peered up at him with a bleary mixture of amusement and irritation. “Your face is not the first thing I'd like to see upon waking. Practically a near-death experience in and of itself.”
“I'd be offended, but it’s obvious that your broken skull has dimmed your already compromised intelligence,” Rune slung back.
“Big words for a toy soldier. Did Katelyn read them to you from a book without pictures?”
“No, I learned them myself– reading to you while you urinated in the bed-pan built into your cot.”
“You son of a–” Dylan's face went red and he thrashed in his sheets, weakly struggling to fling himself out of the bed and at Rune.
Well, that deteriorated quickly.
I slipped between them before Dylan could fall out of his cot. He was barely well enough to sit up straight, let alone get into a fistfight with Rune. “Fight's over, guys! Leave it on the battlefield.” I never thought I'd be saying that as a figure of speech.
“Ah,” Dylan said letting himself sink back into his tower of propped pillows. “Our trusty mediator.”
“They didn't know how long you'd be unconscious,” I told him. “It was simpler to leave you... well... naked, until you awakened. Your clothes were ruined.”
“A true shame,” Dylan said mournfully.
“There's a fresh set on your bedside table.”
Dylan turned to look at the aforementioned garb and scowled at the fabric. “Pitiable. Saved my coat though, didn't I?”
“I'm amazed there wasn't any blood on it. It's right over there, draped over the chair.”
The thin wooden door to the recovery room opened and Hussar Prie entered. Her side and one of her wrists were bandaged, and the scrapes and swelling on the side of her face had begun to mend. As always, her hair was tied in a neat plait that reached past her waist. “Ah. You're alive,” she said sounding chipper.
“Why does everyone seem so surprised by that?” Dylan complained.
Rune smirked and crossed his arms. “What can we do for you, Hussar?”
“Little enough, Dragoon. General Deasun, however, has requested your presence at once.”
I nodded to her amicably. “Lead the way.”
“Wait– wait,” Dylan said, swinging his legs over the bed. I spun quickly around before his sheet fell completely away. “I'm coming with you.”
“An Empty just used you to break a wall half open,” Rune chided him. “You should rest.”
Dylan let out a slow, breathy laugh. “I'm no withering daisy. I'm a Commander and a Lord. I'll be fine.”
He didn't look like it.
Prie arched an eyebrow at Dylan as he changed into his clothes behind us. She didn't seem at all abashed by his nudity. “As you will.”
With Dylan dressed in garb that was far too common for his nature, we followed Hussar Prie through the long, windowed passages out of the medical wing. This time, when I walked down the halls, the Northerners didn’t stare. Not only was I dressed in their own fashion, my scarf covered the scars on my chest. I wasn't hiding them. It was a cold day, but still, I didn't mind being ignored for a change.
Barely through recovery, Dylan struggled to match our pace. I stopped at several points to give him time to catch up to us, and while I waited for him, Rune waited for me, and Prie was forced to wait for all of us. Our guide was frustrated, to say the least.
“This way,” Hussar Prie said, leading us down to a set of heavily guarded oaken double doors.
Pressing them back on their hinges, I could see hints of Prie's back and shoulder muscles beneath her armor. The doors creaked open. Inside sat General Deasun, Varion's bodyguard, and the reinstated Prince of the North... Kyle Kiteman.
A shapely form stepped into view.
“It's about time you arrived,” Carmine said with the kind of smile that could crush the hearts of a thousand men.
Chapter 47: On the Word of a Prince
I bounced up on my toes and practically leaped upon Carmine, squeezing her into a hug. “I was worried about you! Is everything okay?”
She pried me off of her by my upper arms, but smiled happily back. “Of course. I'd gone out on a stroll and returned to a troop of Hussars on the deck of the Flying Fish. Using the common sense I was born with, I simply slipped away until the chaos had passed. Took the time to visit with some old friends. Sent word to family. That sort of dreary stuff. I've been told your experience was far more eventful. Thayer. Axton.” She nodded a hello to each of them in turn.
The linen dress she wore was decidedly simple. She'd taken on the civilian's plain fashion, and somehow still transformed it into something purposely sweet and feminine.
Dylan looked her over with a curl of the lip. “Rousseau. No one's put you in manacles yet? I see wishes don’t come true after all.”
Another familiar face appeared to greet us. A long, lean body stretched, all muscle and stripes. The Lurcher yawned her eel's jaws open wide and trotted up to see us.
“Sadie!” I beamed, likely the only one of the three of us happy to see the fearsome beast. I gave her a good long scratch on the neck before Rune nudged me to keep moving.
Prie closed the doors behind us, shutting out the white noise of the keep. A huge, oval table on brass legs separated us from the leaders of the North. The room was double as tall as it was wide, and though it had no windows, a metal sculpture of four disembodied wings took up the rear wall. Each wing was at least ten feet long, and all were underlit. I'm sure it was meant to be an awe inspiring piece of artwork, but I couldn't stop imagining what a person with the Steel, like Stakes, would have done with such a resource. Curtains that bled from burgundy to tangerine burst outward from the focal point of the room, suspended like ribbons caught in a breeze. A skylight lent the room natural light, though it was dimmed by the weight of the storm above us. Rain tapped on the glass like a visitor, eager to come in.
&
nbsp; Kyle sat with Deasun at his left, and the bodyguard on his right side. The robotic construction looked as human as he ever had, with mannerisms and micro-movements that made him seem unfailingly natural. His panels of armor were all sealed, and his helm was down. As he turned his head to regard us, I found it eerie to think that he was actually hollow on the inside.
“Oh, good! You're here,” Kyle said, standing at once from his seat. Sadie padded her way back to his feet, her nails tapping all the way along the hard floor. In moments she was curled up behind his chair as though it had been her only duty in life.
Kyle's trim, high-collar coat was clasped at the throat. The immaculate tailoring enhanced his lean frame, and the brilliant gold thread-work made him look the part of a prince. All of that did nothing for his posture or his casual manner. His hair remained the same too, a curly tumble, too wild to submit to any comb. I half expected him to look like a different person entirely. In some ways he did, and in many others he didn't. Judging by his expression, he wasn't comfortable here.
There were charts and scrolls and loose papers scattered across the table before him. Pens lay in neat rows at his right, along with stamps, ink-soaked sponges, and wax seals. On the left, across from Deasun, was a polished typewriter with swaths of paper curling out behind it.
“Come, sit down,” he said, waving us nearer. “I'm so glad to see you guys. Thank you, Hussar.”
“Highness,” Prie bowed and remained beside the doors.
As we walked to the chairs available to us across the table, I felt a quiet anxiety rising up through my chest. Moments ago, I was happy enough to dance through Caraway's halls, singing about the joys of survival. I'd been glad that we'd lived through yet another trial, and this time, we hadn't lost a single person. But I'd lost Kyle, hadn’t I?
I pulled the chair aside, sat, and found I didn't know what to say. I couldn't bring myself to smile. I didn't know what to do with my hands. Carmine took her seat beside me and gave me an encouraging smile.
War of the Princes 03: Monarch Page 28
