Refusing to agree with this now infuriatingly polite guard, I simply stare forward, lost in a trance of failed fires and botched escapes. If he’s disappointed in my lack of response, he doesn’t show it, only loosens his hold around my chest and slides off to the side like some expert horse wrangler. I’m about to rudely question if his grace applies to all animals when I turn to look down, taking in his awaiting face for the first time in this unfortunate journey.
Shock must surely register in my gaze, but for the moment, all is still, except for the neatly shaped, honey-blond strands that lift and fall with the light movement of the wind as it escapes through the surrounding trees. Limbs creak above, and my eyes dart up, thankful for the easy distraction that I didn’t even know I would need. Through the thick leaves, what’s left of a pink sky begins to fade, making way for what must be a clear night. The sight of it calms the heat that I didn’t realize was already beginning to build.
Suddenly, the pink is replaced with a spotted black, and my body sways back with the weight of my upturned head.
“Whoa, Penelope,” he calls, latching onto my hands and pulling me straight. “You’ve already spent enough energy as it is. Much more of this, and I’m honestly not sure that even rest could help.”
My eyes flash down as he meets my stare with a brilliant green of his own. Though the numbing cool of his touch starts at my hands, winding its way up my arms and through my chest, it does nothing for my actual temper or my sanity. While Reeve assured me that the Theron prince would retrieve my sorry hide, he also said my captor wouldn’t arrive alone. Maybe it’s the blurry vision, or the cursed fire that has seemed to suck the oxygen from my brain, but I have a hard time believing that a prince of any kingdom would subject himself to the guard duty of a burned-out wild woman. After all, Aras is a guard to someone important, so why wouldn’t the prince have one as well?
I decide that it’s best to check.
“And what does it matter to you?” I ask the very same young man who confronted me by the fire. “If your beloved prince cares so much, then why isn’t he here to escort me to my new prison?”
His rich eyes widen before a shy smile perches on his lips. The sight alone would prompt me to badger him more, if it weren’t for the faint hue of red now painting his pale cheeks. “Oh, he cares alright. A little too much if you ask me.”
I fight against the stir that the intensity of his gaze brings, and this time when the warmth comes, it’s a completely new kind of heat. One that has nothing to do with cursed fires or magic, but something else entirely. Something dangerous.
Not only is the young man handsome, but he’s blissfully unaware, too. Perfect. At least he’s only a guard. It will make what I have to say next a tad bit easier.
I lean down, grabbing hold of the horse’s reins and narrowing my unsteady gaze on what I pretend to be the most completely ordinary man I know or at least, I hope that’s how it comes across. “Listen, friend, why don’t you tell this prince of yours that while I appreciate the help, I’ll be parting ways now in an attempt to continue my sorely interrupted trek to Orien. You might have seen my fellow travelers by my side when I took my dramatic fall by the fire. Yes, I’m sure they are right on our trail, ready to lead me away at any moment. In fact, I think I may take this fine mare of yours and turn back just to make things a little easier.”
His smile widens, and I get a glimpse of teeth so white that the shine almost knocks me from my precarious spot on the saddle, though it may also have something to do with the pesky dots that won’t leave my sight. I wait for what I’m sure will be his excruciatingly kind reply, but to my surprise, he’s still nothing but a full set of lips and bright teeth.
Curse Theron and every last soul in it.
“Alright then.” I smile sweetly, understanding full and well that my last-ditch effort to escape has about as much of a chance at succeeding as my fire did. “Goodbye.”
Straightening my back, I make the unfortunate mistake of yanking a little too hard on the reins, and I tilt dangerously to the right, leaving me struggling to keep hold to the pesky horse-beast below.
“Oh, give it a rest, Brave,” a familiar voices calls from behind. “Everyone knows that you’re about as steady on that horse as Aras was on his feet the morning he woke up from that tonic. You’re going nowhere—fast.”
My head pops back, and the murky image of Lo holding tightly to a horse skids across my vision and back again. Cool hands reach up to steady me, and for once, I don’t find the urge to push them away. An uncomfortable smile flits across her face, and I notice the pale hue of her normally tanned skin.
So this is the friend my guard alluded to? And he’s right that she doesn’t look as though she can take much more jostling. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was the one who lit the woods on fire and passed out.
“Why in Ashen are you holding her hostage, too?” I ask, confused by the lack of reinforcements within our mists. “And where are the rest of the prince’s men?”
Lo simply shrugs and looks away, but not before I see the nervous bite of her lip. My stomach pinches tightly, though I can’t tell if it’s from actual fear or motion sickness. My eyes dart around for Papa, hoping I can spot him within the clouding hues of black that still battle for my vision. There’s a small movement to the left of Lo’s mount, but by now, everything within my sight looks like a giant, dark smudge. I don’t realize that I’ve fallen forward until I feel the careful hands griping my shoulders and holding me up.
“Alright, I think that’s enough for one day.”
In one swift movement, the guard has me pulled from the horse and cradled like a lethargic child in his strong arms. His soft eyes run over my dirty face before he looks away and begins walking toward what I assume will be my new prison. As soon as we reach the edge of the hill, darkness falls upon us as he carefully enters the hole within its wall. We’re only a few steps in when light flickers from behind, and I catch the blurry image of Lo as she holds a torch and follows us in from the entrance.
Interesting behavior, I realize, for a supposed hostage.
Deciding to let the mysteries of my friend go for the moment, I shift my gaze back to the cave before us. Barely wide enough for our company of three to fit comfortably, so far it doesn’t look much better than my shack within the trees.
Taking the upmost care, the guard sets me down, propping me against the farthest wall. Then he turns back to Lo and takes the torch from her. He chews his bottom lip as if he has something of importance to say, but still isn’t quite willing to come out and share. Perhaps I can help him find his courage.
“Just what exactly do you have planned for us, friend?” I ask, reaching out and grabbing his free hand before he can leave me in this darkness to rot away.
His shoulders jump at the contact, and his eyes focus on my fingers as they tingle against his cool skin. As if lost in a faraway world, it’s all he sees, and I’m afraid I’ve somehow crossed some line of etiquette between the prince’s guard and his betrothed charge. Taking great care, I slowly start to pull away before his eyes pop up and he reaches out to grab my hand fully in his own.
“For now, rest, because you more than need it. The coolness of the cave will help to regulate your temperature back to its pre-fire range, and with time, your abilities will surface again.” A sad smile escapes at his words, and his eyes linger back down to our clasped hands. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that you came close to burning yourself out. I know very little of your kind’s powers, but I do know that you can’t go around trying to use them all up at once with little-to-no training. From what I understand, even Knox has to limit himself, and we both know he’s been at it for years.”
In the near dark and calming cool, my eyes have regained some of their focus, and out of selfishness alone, I allow them to linger on this stranger’s clean-shaven cheeks and achingly long lashes as he explains what could have been my death. His words make sense, really. For who can truly wield fire
from her veins without becoming a little singed herself? Although in my case, I almost completely extinguished the flame.
“And after I rest,” I ask, drawing his eyes back to my own. “What then? Does the prince plan to let us go, or will you continue transporting me to Theron as I suspect?”
A soft smile teases his lips, and he squeezes my hand before letting it go and rising to stoop before me in the small space. “The prince deems you free to do as you want, Penelope, so long as that hopefully doesn’t involve hurting Theron in the future.”
My heart threatens to leap from my chest, and a wide smile of my own meets his kind expression. “Just like that, he’s letting me go?”
“Just like that.” He nods. “Though I think it’s safe to say that anyone could see it’s what you wanted. Lo explained your reasons while you were out, and it was agreed upon that perhaps your way of thinking was the best, even if it is the riskiest for Theron.”
My back lurches against the wall, and I push up with my hands to try to stand. In one second, he’s back by my side, a careful hand pressed against my shoulder. “I’ll never hurt your city,” I whisper, hoping he can feel the sincerity in my words. “It was never in my plans to hurt anyone.”
“Except for Knox?” he questions.
“Except for Knox,” I agree.
My answer seems to satisfy him because he lets go, standing to a crouch once again and moving toward the exit. Before he leaves, he stops, turning back over his shoulder as the torch’s light bounces against the surrounding walls. “I forgot to explain the absence of your papa,” he says with a slight stumble on the last of his words. “Lo says he’s gone to seek help for when you’re well. We’re near the eastern end of the Orien border, and though it won’t take long for us to get there, apparently, there is someone else who would want to know you are safe. I’m not sure if this person will meet us here, or near the border, but either way, we’ll find out in a few days.”
Aras.
The anguish of not seeing my papa right away is covered by the raw hope of setting my sights on that foolish boy once again. My heart dances happily in my chest, and before I can stop it, a brilliant smile lights up my face.
“I take it you’re excited to see this person?” he says, trying to hide a sad smile of his own.
Confused by his care, I simply nod, fighting against my lips as they smile even brighter. “Though he’d never guess it, very,” I say.
He responds with his own careful nod of understanding and turns back toward the opening once again. Before he can reach the exit, I call to him, causing his shoulders to stiffen with my voice. Though it’s obvious he doesn’t want to discuss anything further, the words I have to say must be heard.
“When you see the prince again, tell him I’m thankful. That I know it must be hard to change the plans he probably thought over so carefully throughout the recent years, but I’m grateful just the same for his understanding. Truly I am. Perhaps the next time we meet, it will be under much better circumstances. I’m sure of it.”
He turns, his striking face half tilted in my direction, and a deep part of my soul aches for the words that I should have known he was going to say all along.
“You just told him.” He smiles as he walks out into what’s left of the dying light.
Forty-Four
Entry Three
On the night you were born, a monstrous storm lit the entire sky on fire, and the rain poured down in buckets, as if it alone had the power to wash away all of our tears. But my tears had started long before your entrance into this world, and though they flowed just as freely on that night as they did on others, I had already decided that this would be the last time they would fall.
I remember the day leading up to your birth so clearly, as if someone had painted a picture of the events that took place and hid it away in my churning mind. Knox was his usual self—full of power, destruction, and selfish mirth. For he thought he had his whole future planned out. Your future. He knew that boy or girl—though I know he expected a male—he would teach you to grow up and rule of his own accord, whether you wanted to or not.
So when the birth pains reached their maximum, and Knox was quietly asked to leave the room just as I had planned, he was very resistant. At first, he flat out refused and threatened to burn my midwife alive. Though when he heard my strangled cries and felt the cooling of my Theron blood wash over the room, he finally conceded and took to pacing the hallway in a furious march.
When you were finally placed in my arms, I prayed you would remain quiet and still as I allowed my own form of magic to wash over your pink, healthy skin, seeking out the fire I knew ran through your blood. Slowly, your skin lost its rosy hue, only to be replaced with the soft blue of my power. By the time Knox came bursting into the room, I had schooled my features into one of shock and devastation. For the little girl who I held in my arms had succumbed to a deadly condition that Knox had only heard of once it left my lips.
“The Curse of the Theron Blood,” I’d said through broken sobs. “Sometimes, the child’s not strong enough to acclimate to the change, and when they cannot, they simply do not recover.”
Knox merely stared at your pale skin in disgust, thankfully too caught up in his own anger to notice the slight rise of your chest as I cradled you in my arms. His eyes flashed with a terror I’d known all too well, and I rushed to cover you with my chest before he could reach for your little body and throw you across the room. Fire bloomed from his form, only to be cooled by the power that bloomed within my own.
“She’s already dead!” I’d screamed, desperate to push him away before my own magic gave out. “At least let me bury her in peace and not have her burned by the one she would have called father.”
His dark eyes narrowed and his cruel lips pursed with revulsion. “I will never be her father, and she wouldn’t have amounted to anything anyway.”
Then he turned his back, walking toward the grand double doors, and I held back a sigh of relief before he stopped once more.
“We will try again. Soon. And HE will survive.”
This time, true panic rose in my throat. I knew Knox would be angry, yes, but I thought he’d go through another woman to bear him an heir. Never once did I think he’d continue to look to me.
“But the child would be the second heir. You know that he or she would never inherit our magic. It’s impossible,” I’d pleaded.
“Nothing is impossible,” he’d scoffed, “and though he may only be born with a spark, I will nurse it into a flame. You may put her in a box and send her underground, but you won’t do it on Orien soil. That monster will leave this land, and we’ll never speak of it again.”
And with that, he walked from the room, slamming the doors. For the first time, causing you to shudder. Immediately, I let go of the cool, letting your natural heat wash over your body and build you anew again. As soon as the rosy hint of your cheeks came into view, you let out a small cry, and I did, too.
We spent a few spare moments together like that, you and I. You had a head full of dark hair, and I imagined that if you were to grow up by my side, you’d be my exact image. My mirror. My heart. But all too soon, my midwife Bea sent for her husband Lyles, and together, they coaxed you from my arms, reminding me that this was what we had planned all along. That if I didn’t give you to them soon, all would be lost, including our lives. It was only the hope of your survival that finally pushed you into their waiting arms that day, for if things had been different, I would have held onto you forever. I would have never let you go.
That night, while I lay sobbing in the bed, Bea and Lyles rode on borrowed horses through the southern Orien lands, toward the place you would soon call home. They pretended to bury you in the woods of The Lost, but instead, they took the long journey, crossing into Ashen’s territory and handing you into the arms of the one man who should have been your father all along. Emory had been waiting for your arrival for weeks, camping just steps away from his border each day.
He was so honored to take care of you, and by all means, you are his.
Not long after my tears had dried and the storms of the night had started to fade away, I felt a stir by my side, and I looked up to find Bea and Lyles’ son, all of three with his black mop of hair and curious eyes, as he took my hand from underneath the covers.
“What’s the matter, Ingrid?” he’d asked.
“Oh, it is nothing for you to worry with, my sweet Aras,” I’d said, patting the edge of the bed. “Now come, let me tell you the story of a girl called Penelope Brave, and how she grew up to save our lands.”
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My eyes open to a hazy view as the sound of a soft voice floats through the cramped cave, sending chill bumps down my limbs with its sad song.
No, not a song. A story.
Slowly, I turn my head to the side, begging my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. My vision doubles, but not before I see the low lantern sitting by long, lean legs as they’re propped up against the rock wall. Outside, a low fire blinks near the opening, and a dark shape moves about its flames.
“You’re awake,” Lo says, tearing my blurry eyes back to her side.
The worn journal sits across her raised knees, and she rubs a reverent hand on its cover, eyeing me as she smiles with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind, and he could use a bit of a breather.”
She nods her head to the side, motioning toward the shadowy figure who I can now see is tending to a low pot over the fire. She places the journal gently on the ground before rising to a bend and shuffling her feet over to my huddled spot in the corner. Though we’re only two body lengths apart, my head swims with a pounding fog that makes her look as if she’s floating on clouds that slowly drift in my direction. My sour stomach responds with a rolling lurch, warning of the sickness to come, but I can’t even recall the last time I had anything to eat.
Look to the Stars (The Orien Trilogy Book 1) Page 32
