Charles. He was still unconscious on the floor. Fabulous distraction.
I got down on my knees and lifted my brother’s head off the floor, cradling his shoulders in my lap. His nose was bleeding, so I used his black shirt to stem the flow. I pried open his eyelids, exhaling when his pupils dilated.
“Why?” I asked his sleeping form. “Why did Uncle Rick go through the portal? Did you work out some sort of plan none of us knew about? Why put us through all this just to… Why?” I brushed the black stringy hair away from Mace’s face and kissed his forehead. Though he was skinnier and shorter than the other guys, he was still uber tall to me. A solid 6’4”, at least. His long legs stretched out on the cold floor, and I longed for a pillow or a blanket or something to help him.
I pushed the jillions of questions I had about Uncle Rick out of my head, lest I go into shock over it all. I hugged Mace to my chest, letting out two large tears – one for confusion, and one for terror. “It’s okay, big brother. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for… why he would… He can’t be really in Be, can he? Why would he fight so hard against it? Why bring me over here?”
A rat skidded across the floor, and I mashed my lips together through a scream. My fretting inadvertently woke Mace to coherence, and I held him close as he tried to blink his world into focus. “Lucy?”
I don’t know why, but I mustered up a tight, cheery smile for him. “I’m here.”
“Where? What? Alrik?”
I shook my head. “He’s gone. Crossed through the portal and into Be.”
Mace covered his beaten face with one hand and let out a mournful cry I knew would haunt me until the end of my days.
Thirty-One.
The Love of Charles Mace
“We’ve been through this,” Mace said bitterly. “He’s gone. He left us for Be. What’s there to get?”
I folded my arms over my chest at his cross tone, taking up residence on the far side of the eight foot by eight foot prison cell. The air smelled like wet rocks, mold and oxygen that was too thick to move around properly, with none of the suspended gold dust to distract me. “I just don’t get it, is all. Why the entire mission? Why put us all through this, just to walk over to the enemy’s lair at the last second?”
“He did what he did. He left. Surprised it took him this long. Not exactly a lot to stick around for.” He motioned to himself. The chip on his shoulder was so heavy, it physically weighed down his posture.
“It just makes no sense!”
Mace shrugged, the hurt stabbing through his shirt and into his heart, carving out a hole I wasn’t sure how to sew back up so he could keep the organ he so desperately needed. “What doesn’t make sense? People leave. That’s life, Lucy.”
“Would you knock it off? That kinda talk isn’t helping. I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re in a prison. Maybe we should focus on getting out of here.”
He rolled his eyes, and I could tell he’d been putting on his company manners around me up until this point. Now I was getting a glimpse of Charles behind closed doors. “I’ll just whistle us out once they come back down.”
“Just like that? You’re not worried about the whole off-with-their-heads thing?”
“I really couldn’t care less about that right now. The man who raised me just jumped ship on me with no warning. The guillotine would be a welcome distraction at this point.”
The heavy door opened, and an elf guard stepped into the room. Charles jumped to his feet and pursed his lips, letting out the beginnings of a whistle.
It wasn’t quick enough. The guard shouted in fright, covered his ears, yelled “Huldra!” up the steps and ran back out, slamming the door shut behind him. I made out the words, “This door stays shut until we get the halfy a collar!”
That seemed to snap Charles back into the present. “I can’t… it won’t work now! They know what I am and what I can do.” He shook his head, and then slammed it into the metal bars. “They’ll take precautions. They’re coming with that noose!” He cried out in agony and clutched his neck, feeling the phantom pains of the collar that had enslaved his gifts and marked him as an outsider. “I can’t wear it again, Lucy! I can’t! Not after everything we’ve been through. Not now that I know the power I have.” His tail swished around like a panicked dog’s, seeking any way out we had not thought of. “Our mom, I can feel her power in me! It’s the closest I’ve ever been to her, and I won’t give it up!”
When he started hyperventilating, I ran to stand in front of him, breathing deep so he would remember not to pass out. “Let’s not think about that right now.” I wrapped him in a hug, rubbing his back and willing him to deflate. “Jamie’s nearby. He’s trying to reason with the officials to let us go. I’m laplanded to him. That’s gotta count for something.”
Mace stepped back from me, leaning against the wall and wiping at his eyes. “Jamie’s an optimistic fool. His father doesn’t care for him anymore than Alrik cared for me. We’re a means to an end. There’ll be no cavalry coming for him.” He sunk to the floor, doom ringing out in his tone. “They won’t hesitate to kill us. Even with Jamie attached to you, they’ll take action. He’s of no value to his kingdom. Everyone knows it. His title means nothing to his father, so it means nothing to the elves.”
“Don’t say that,” I begged. “It’s our only hope out of here.” I clicked my fingers. “Wait, porting! Can’t you port us out?”
He tapped his shoe to the bar. “Iron. It keeps elves from porting. How else would they be able to hold elfish prisoners?” He looked up at me, pity in his eyes. “Jens would lie to you and be kind, wouldn’t he? Sure, Lucy. They’ll find a way to break us out, sweet girl. We’ll be fugitives, but we’ll have our heads.”
I glared at his patronizing tone. “Don’t talk to me like I’m five. I’m not trying to be naïve. I’m trying to think up something to get us out of here!”
He gave me a sad smile. “To have such optimism. Such hope. Such determination. It must be exhausting, but it’s a beautiful thing to watch.” Beneath the anger and hurt, I could sense a layer of admiration in the way he looked up at me. “You’re always a beautiful thing to watch. I’ll take comfort in that as I die.”
My nose scrunched and I reared up to attack. “Don’t you ever say something so horrible ever again, Charles Mace! We will not die in this cage! We’ll figure this out.”
“I had a family. For a few months, I had a sister. It was everything I imagined it could be, and more. You were always more. More than you needed to be. More than anyone expected. My life before you was filled with less. To have more? It’s the best gift I could’ve asked for. I love you, Lucy.”
Tears welled up in me, and I shouted at him to keep from feeling his words. “Don’t say goodbye! This is stupid! They won’t kill me or Jamie or you.”
Mace was calm now, resigned to his fate. “They know I destroyed the portal, so my fate’s sealed. You would’ve been saved if you’d stayed hidden.”
I bristled. “I would never leave you alone like that. You were in trouble. I don’t regret trying to save you for one second.”
He smiled a sadness that broke my heart all over again. “I know. It’s not in your nature to abandon your family. That’s where you’re different from our parents. They left me, and then they left you.”
I finally sat down, scooting close so I was facing him. I held out my hand and cupped his in an arm-wrestling grip, looking him dead in the eye. “On pain of death, I won’t leave you. No matter what, we’ll live together on the Other Side, or we’ll die together in this cell.”
A flicker of something passed through Mace’s eyes, and finally, he perked up. “Lucy, I… I might be able to save you and Jamie.”
A full beam smile lit my face, chasing away my tears. “I knew you could do it!” I fell forward, embracing him, my chest heaving as the ton of bricks was lifted from it. “When we get to the Other Side, I’m buying you a giant vat of ice cream. Like, with sprinkles and everything.”
“Not me,” he said, smiling through the pain. “You and Jamie. They saw you trying to attack them, true, but I’m Huldra. I could confess that I bent your mind to make you do that. I could tell them you had nothing to do with it.”
“What?” His words were a sour taste in my mouth. “I would never act like I didn’t know you! I can’t believe you’d suggest something so disgusting. You’re my brother! No, Mace. It’s both of us, or none of us.” I nodded, pounding my fist to my chest. “To the grave.”
“Don’t be stubborn. It’s the best I can do. There’s no sense in you dying down here. You can live, Lucy! Don’t die with your pride.”
I shook my head. “Don’t even try it. I won’t leave you. I can’t believe you’d even suggest something like that.”
Charles drew me to sit next to him, our knees pulled up to our chests as we held hands like children in the dim lantern light. “I’ve loved every day of being your brother. To know you? It changed me. I always wanted a real family, but to get you? It made all the loneliness of my life before you fade away. I’m so grateful I got to keep you for a time.”
I shook my head. “You’re doing it again. You’re saying goodbye. Knock it off.”
“I’m dying soon, Lucy. They don’t bother with trials for capitol offenses like this. Now’s the time for any goodbye you’ve got.”
I cuddled into his side, the tears flowing as I confronted my mortality yet again. “You know, I’ve almost died kind of a lot, especially on this trip. Every time I thought I was close, I was okay with it to some extent. I didn’t have a whole lot to live for.” I squeezed his hand. “But now that we actually might die?” I shook my head, hiccupping through my words. “I want to live!”
It was then I realized the veracity of my words. I was no longer tempted to check out and leave sanity or the world. I wanted to fight, if that’s what it took. I wanted to grab onto the people I still had left and never let them go, cherishing them to the hilt. Irony of all ironies to realize all of it on death’s door when I had no choice in the matter anymore. I used the back of Mace’s hand to wipe my tears away, kissing it twice before I returned it.
Charles was shaking as he put his arm around me. He kissed the top of my head and whispered into my hair. “If that’s what you want, then live you shall.” He kissed my cheek. “I want you to know that you’ve been deeply and truly loved. Till my last breath, I’ll hold your love in my heart. It’ll give me strength and peace as I pass on.”
“I won’t let you die,” I argued. “I love you, Charles. Everything my parents and Alrik did? Messed up. I know your worth. Like stumbling on a treasure chest no one knows is there. You’re generous and sincere, and I can’t believe anyone ever tried to hold you back. I love you. I love you so much.”
“I know.” He pulled me closer still, a note of finality dripping over the hug. “I’ll hang for this. You won’t. And you don’t get a choice in this, because you’ll make the wrong one.”
“Stop talking like that, Charles.”
Tears slid down his angular cheeks as emotion rose in him, puffing up his chest and deflating it as he began to truly cry. “I can make you forget me. I can make it so you won’t die for being tied to all this. I’ll confess I mind-warped you and Alrik, and they’ll be satisfied with my death. They’ll turn you free, and you won’t have to carry my death around your neck like a talisman.” He fingered Linus at my throat.
“What? Obviously not, Charles. That’s a terrible plan.” I wiped a few of his tears away, but more replaced them. “I would never leave you. We’ll go down together.” I buried my side into his and leaned my head on his chest.
“You’ve had too much tragedy around you. I’ll be the stranger in the cell with you who gets taken to the slaughter. You’ll be the girl with a future, and you’ll take it. Go to the Other Side and live. Be with Jens and take your chance at happiness. You’ll carry on without the memory of losing yet another family member, and I’ll die knowing my sister loves me. I won’t see such a beautiful heart so broken.” He held my hand to his heart. “I love you, Lucy.” He kissed my forehead. “To the death.”
Panic built up in me. “Stop talking like that! Think of a new plan!” I flipped through all the possible scenarios in which anything awesome broke us out of this. Out of desperation and complete loss of reality, I leapt to my feet and shook the prison bars, shouting for someone to let us go.
I heard footsteps, weighted and slow, the armor of the elfish guards coming down the stone steps.
Then I heard a whistle. Low and sweet with a note of the saddest tune that simultaneously broke my heart and put it back together. “No!” I screamed, my hands flying to cover my ears.
Mace spun me around and ripped my hands from my ears while I screamed and thrashed in his arms.
“No! Stop it! I won’t forget! I won’t forget!” I panicked and fought against him with everything I had, but it was ineffectual. “I’ll never leave you, Charles!” I struggled to keep my family, but I could feel them all slipping through my fingers. My protests began to melt, and the lucidity of my words started to fog over.
Charles held my arms at my sides, the worst expression of loss washing his face as he whistled his dark melody inches from my besotted expression.
I stopped struggling, my brain feeling oddly confused, like flipping through too many pictures and seeing none of them in the right order.
I felt lips on mine, and like a reflex, I kissed them. The song controlling my heart muffled against my mouth with a strange insistence I could not make sense of.
Thirty-Two.
A Queen’s Pardon
There was a tall boy crying in front of me, and my heart tugged for his plight. I reached out to him, but he shrunk back from me as the door at the end of the hall burst open and eight hulking elf guards and officials with fur-lined apparatuses covering their ears came marching toward us.
The gate was thrown open, and the emo boy dressed in all black in the cell with me was wrestled to the floor. He thrashed against them with all his might, shouting the most agonized sound I’d ever heard. I couldn’t tell if the pain was more physical or emotional, but either way, the trauma was thorough.
I backed up to the wall, trying to make sense of who he was and how I’d gotten into the cell in the first place. My brain worked furiously to put events in order, but they were scrambled. Nothing made sense. I whimpered as they latched a black collar around the guy’s neck. He clawed at it, but the lock was firm. The boy barked out a cry of agony, and my heart wrenched for the stranger’s plight.
A familiar man clad in all his armor boomed out, “Charles Mace, you’ve been charged with destroying the portal to the Land of Be, which is property owned by King Hallamar. How do you plead?”
It was Kristoffer. The Head Guard whose pocket I picked when I’d been Queen Lucy in Elvage before. Alrik had needed a key on his ring for… something. Alrik never told me his plans, and now he was in Be. Yet another plan of his I’d been a part of, but been kept in the dark about.
Kristoffer kept his eyes from me and shook the man on the floor. “How do you plead?”
The boy lifted his red face and choked out, “Guilty. I finished my work. I tore down the portal. You all saw me do it.”
Without blinking, Kristoffer ruled, “You will be taken to the guillotine.” Then he turned to me, hurt and sad as he addressed me, and I felt impossibly small. “Lucy, Queen of the Other Side, you’ve been charged with aiding Charles Mace in his nefarious quest to destroy the portal to Be. How do you plead?”
I backed up against the cell wall, tears streaming down my face. “I don’t know what happened! I don’t know how I got here! My uncle went through the portal, but I don’t think he was supposed to!” I hugged myself, shrinking into the corner and praying for Jens to save me somehow. “Please don’t put a collar on me! I don’t know what I did! If I broke one of your laws, I’m sorry! I’m not from here, so I don’t know the rules!” I shrunk to the ground in the corn
er, hugging my knees to my chest as I cried. “Please don’t hurt me!”
They eyed me, suspicious and confused. Kristoffer stared me down, trying to be cold as he calculated my response, but I could see how much he hated that I was in his cell.
The emo guy shook his head, his hands around his collar. “I’m Huldra. The son of Rolf Kincaid and Hilda the Powerful, and you had her banished. I mind-warped Alrik into destroying the portal, but he only did it halfway. Queen Lucy was my backup. She had no idea what she was doing. She met me once, and has been under my control ever since. I stole the key to my old collar. Alrik and Lucy have been mine since then. All of it, my plan.”
“Take him to the block!” Kristoffer ruled, helping me off the ground in a manner I deduced to be kind and not a threat. The lanky boy with the black hair gave me an unfathomable look that stayed my heart in my chest before a black hood went over his head and he was dragged off by two of the guards.
“He did what to me?” I asked Kristoffer, who checked my pupils and felt my hands. He stood too close to me, letting me know he was slowly not seeing me as a threat anymore.
His detached expression melted into relief. “Cold! Her hands are cold and her pupils are dilated. She’s been controlled! Kill the halfy now!” he bellowed down the hallway to the two guards, making me jump in my fragile state. Kristoffer wrapped one burly arm around me, rubbing heat into my back to soothe me. “It’s alright, your majesty.”
“How can he mind-control me? I don’t even know him!” I blubbered, burying my face in Kristoffer’s armored chest. “What’s happening?”
“Queen Lucy, let me take you to the surface. I apologize for your treatment. We had no idea you were being controlled. We had to take precaution, you understand.” The apologies came at me from a repentant Kristoffer, but I didn’t really process them.
“Jens? Can I see Jens? I don’t want to be here! I just want to go home! Can I go back to the Other Side now? I don’t know what just happened!”
Elvage Page 17
