The Consort

by K. A. Linde

  All heads whipped to the side as a maniacal laugh came from the dungeon. Rhea shivered at the sound. No one moved.

  “Bars can’t hold me. Nothing can hold me.”

  Rhea gasped as she realized who was in the next cell.

  “Brother,” King Edric said, stepping past Rhea.

  “Well met,” Prince Kael said. He leaned into the bars with his arms dangling forward.

  “I didn’t think the bars could hold you.”

  “Yet I am behind them.”

  “I wanted to know where you would be if…when you awoke,” the king said. He hadn’t stepped within reach of the prince though. He was smart enough for that.

  “And here I am,” Prince Kael said with arms spreading wide.

  “You have been keeping a many good things from me, it seems.”

  “Only as many secrets as I could.”

  “We have a lot to discuss.”

  “Do we?” Prince Kael asked.

  Rhea could see his sharp grin at the king’s arrogance.

  “I believe we can work together,” the king offered, dangling the carrot before him.

  Rhea thought he would laugh it off. After all, if he did have magic, what use would the king be to him?

  “What’s in it for me?” Prince Kael asked instead.

  King Edric smiled, but it was bitter and angry around the edges. “I never thought you had any interest in ruling.”

  “And now that I do?”

  Rhea couldn’t believe he had said that. What he’d said was treason!

  “I believe we can do this together. We’ll get her back and break everyone who has ever stood in our way,” King Edric said with vehemence in his voice.

  “I’m listening,” the prince crooned.

  “I want to start with the backstabbing murderers…Eleysia.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  King Edric grinned like a madman. “I want to raze them to the ground.”

  Cyrene landed in darkness.

  All kinds of shapes and shadows seemed to move all around her. Touch her, taste her, know her. As if the very air she breathed physically knew her. The wind roared around her, whipping her hair into a frenzy and stinging her eyes.

  “The time is now,” a female voice called.

  Cyrene didn’t bother responding. Her voice would surely be caught by the breeze and carried away from her. She felt trapped, as if she were in a box, being pushed in on all sides.

  “Come to me, Cyrene. Come to me.”

  She ducked down and put her hands over her head. Her ears were pounding. Her vision was blurry. She was torn and tight and twisted. Constricted and beaten and lost. There was only the air and the wind and the nothingness. Only lost hope and death.

  No air. No sound. No breath. Nothing.

  Then, it all stopped.

  As if something had reached out into the heavens and stilled the world.

  She glanced up from where she was crouched, only to see a hooded figure standing before her. The shadows seemed to bend and swirl around the woman. And Cyrene knew intuitively that this was a thing of nightmares. Was this the woman Serafina feared?

  “Who are you?”

  “Your salvation.” A soft and feminine hand reached out from the deep sleeve and touched her chin. The hand was cold as ice and made of marble. “Come to me.”

  “What…what are you? What do you want from me?” Cyrene whispered.

  “Do not be afraid,” she said, smooth as a siren’s call from the cowl of the hood. “I will temper you like steel. Forge you into something more. Make you who you were always meant to be.”

  “What if I don’t want any of it?”

  “You will need answers. I have the answers.” The disembodied hand reached for Cyrene’s hand. She flipped it over, exposing her palm, and placed something there. She closed Cyrene’s fingers around it. “You will come to me. Use it.”

  When Cyrene uncurled her fingers, she gasped. She was holding a gold coin.

  When she looked back to demand answers, the figure was gone.

  And she was entrapped back in the shadows once more.

  “Try to keep her steady,” Matilde bit through her dream. “If she doesn’t stop shaking, this could kill her.”

  “I’m doing the best I can!” Avoca shouted back at her.

  Cyrene felt pressure on her legs. Something hard pressed into her shoulders.

  “She’s waking up, Mati!” Vera cried. “You’re doing it.”

  Cyrene’s eyes opened to a room full of people. Her eyes hurt. Her body hurt. Everything hurt.

  Then, she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. They dropped closed, and she shook violently. Her teeth clattered together. Her skin was hot and heavy on her body. As if, at any minute, the heat would burn through so quick, it would rip her skin and leave her muscles and bones exposed.

  A hand touched her center, and a wave of cool pressure suffused her. As if someone had stuck water under the surface to cool the fire. It was wonderful. Calmed her for a whole minute before her teeth started up again.

  Then, she was freezing.

  And then screaming.

  On and on.

  Endless.

  Screaming.

  “You try!”

  Another wave hit her, and she felt free. Free as a bird. Soaring away high into the skies.

  And then it was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

  She ripped her arm away from the pressure on her shoulders and vomited up everything in her stomach. When she finished with that, she dry-heaved until all she had left were tears and coughing and choking and stomach acid.

  Another hit of the energy poured through her veins.

  Sweet reprieve. Sweet, sweet bliss.

  Her jaw was pried open, and water was poured into her mouth. She sputtered around the water before finally getting it down. Another mouthful and another.

  Where it all ended up on the floor once more.

  The shaking intensified, as if she could rattle the earth. As if she could shake so hard, she could force the stars out of the sky.

  But there were no stars. There was only pitch black night. And the hell she was in.

  She fell down a rabbit hole as the people around her tried to yell in disembodied voices. But she couldn’t reach them.

  And then they were gone.

  “Creator! I got you,” Serafina said.

  They were standing outside of a manor home on the foothills of a mountain with the Nit Decus castle in the distance.

  Cyrene flinched when Serafina moved to touch her. “Why am I here? What do you want with me?”

  “I am trying to protect you.”

  “Then, tell me the truth. Tell me everything I need to know. I am blind to what is going on out there. No one even knew that you and Viktor were together!”

  It was Serafina’s turn to flinch at the name. “I have been trying. You do not know how difficult it has been to relive these memories with you. The happiest times of my life were tainted by what followed.”

  “And what did follow?”

  “Viktor destroyed me to rid the world of magic,” Serafina said. “That part of the story is true.”

  “But magic still exists. I am proof of that.”

  “Yes.” Serafina took her hand. “Yes. It has been passed down to you through the ages. The blood that runs through your veins could have manifested generations before you, but now that we’re here, I see, it had to be you.”

  “Why?” Cyrene asked desperately. “Why me?”

  “It is the mark of the chosen to question the Creator’s judgment. I constantly asked the same thing,” Serafina said with a sad smile. “In times of hardship, the world needs a dreamer with their gaze cast to the stars to right the wrongs of this limited existence.”

  Serafina flickered before her, as if she were an image that Cyrene could pass her hand through.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re waking up. Or someone is drawing you away from me again.”r />
  “By who? Who is the shadow in the darkness?”

  Serafina shook her head, but then she disappeared again. Cyrene was still standing before the manor house. Suddenly, all alone.

  No answers. Just riddles. Again!

  Then, Serafina reappeared. Her face was pale, and she looked exhausted. “The reason,” she gasped out. Her knees buckled, and she went to the ground.

  “Oh Creator, are you all right?” Cyrene asked, reaching for her.

  “Listen to me, Cyrene. I know you want answers. I will tell you everything I can when you are able to reach me, but the things that we say here are not always safe. Others might be listening.”

  “Who could be listening?”

  Serafina frowned. “An evil. I will shield you from her the best that I can. Right now, she is contained. So what matters is that you know you are on the right path. And I know…I know that it is hard. But I have faith in you because the reason you have magic…”

  Her skin started flickering again. She shook her head and tried to grab Cyrene’s hand. But she went straight through Cyrene, as if she were made of air.

  “Sera, please,” she gasped.

  “The reason you have magic,” Serafina rasped out, “is because…I had a child.”

  Then, she disappeared once more in a flash. Cyrene glanced around, trying to process what she had just heard.

  Serafina had had a child?

  That must mean…Cyrene…was descended from that ancient Doma line.

  Her thoughts became muddy, and then the scene before her disappeared entirely.

  Cyrene gasped and shot straight up in bed.

  It was nighttime, and the room was empty.

  She opened her hand, only to find it empty. No coin.

  “Just a dream. Just a dream,” she whispered.

  A twinge in the pit of her stomach said she’d not eaten in a while. She took stock of her surroundings—small wooden room with one pallet bed, a chair, and a water pitcher. She eased out of bed and then nearly fell to her knees. Reaching for the chair, she hoisted herself back to her unsteady feet and poured herself a glass of water.

  After drinking a full glass, she forced herself to stop. The last thing she wanted was to get sick. She was weak and ached all over, but she was clearheaded. That was a first in a long time.

  Cyrene eased open the door to the room she was staying in and found herself in a tiny log cabin. The large living space had a clean stone floor, crackling fireplace, and a small kitchen. An old woman Cyrene had never seen before was seated in a rocking chair, fast asleep.

  But no one else.

  Not her friends.

  Not her family.

  Nothing to indicate where she was or what she was doing here.

  Alone. All alone again.

  Cyrene bit her lip and then decided it was better to get out of there than to ask questions. She edged past the woman and out the front door with no trouble at all, breathing a sigh of relief when she got the door shut behind her.

  But what she was looking at was as foreign as could possibly be. Maybe more foreign than anywhere else she had ever traveled. She wasn’t in a city or on the water or at court or really any of those things.

  She was in a…village.

  A small, small village.

  The setting sun revealed mountains off to her right. The scant log cabins were clustered off the edge of a forest. The air had a bite to it that made her think she was in the north, but otherwise, she couldn’t have placed herself on a map.

  Cyrene suddenly heard laughter from not too far off. She marked the cabin she had woken up in and then slunk through the shadows, down the lane, until she finally came upon a bonfire blazing high. And it was surrounded on all sides by people…dancing, drinking, laughing.

  Happy people.

  She hung back and observed the festivities. Bare-chested boys younger than her picked girls in flower crowns out of the crowd. They danced in circles, swinging their flowing skirts to the up-tempo beat. Men and women alike were circling around barrels of spirits and drinking merrily. Food was spread out on a long wooden table nearby. But of her friends, she saw nothing.

  As the song ended, an old woman moved forward. Her limbs were stiff, her shoulders hunched. A youth helped her onto a stage. She brushed her waist-length braided hair off her shoulder and raised her hands.

  A hush fell over the crowd, and Cyrene felt a brush of magic touch her skin. She jolted in shock.

  “Come closer,” she said, her old voice so frail yet somehow amplified beyond the stretch of her vocal cords. “Old Mana wants to tell you a story.”

  As if under a spell, Cyrene felt her feet moving. She came out of her hiding spot and stood among the people of this strange village. But no one seemed to notice her. Everyone’s eyes were caught on Mana and the tale she was about to weave.

  “Long ago, at a time before our people, there was a lone wolf. His pack had abandoned him in the dark mountains to starve. They had found him nearing the human settlements, risking them all, and he had been cast aside to fend for himself. Without his pack, the lone wolf was lost, broken, and desperate.”

  Mana waved her hand in the air, and the dark sky shimmered with an image of the wolf. Cyrene’s eyes were glued to the display.

  “He ventured deeper into the mountains. Farther and farther, he went. He was determined to find people of his own sort. Ones who knew the value of knowledge, the taste of freedom, and had the heart of a believer.”

  She cast her hand forward in a sweeping motion. This time, three objects floated in the air before her—a book, an arrow, and a heart.

  “Alone on that mountain, he spent one week searching for a way out and a way to begin anew. When he climbed out of that mountain pass and found this land, he knew he had found his salvation. A new way of life and a deepened belief in who he was.”

  She raised her hand, and stars ignited over the heads of the bare-chested boys. “Lone wolves, assemble.”

  The boys moved to stand before her. Not a one of them was older than fifteen. Some, it seemed, were much younger. And then, out of nowhere, a girl scrambled into the fold. She wore nothing but a scrap to cover her breasts and the tight-fitted pants the other boys were wearing.

  Mana gave her an outraged look but seemed to decide to berate the girl at a later date.

  “Lone wolves, you honor your people and your heritage today by venturing back into those mountains to find whether or not you have the heart of a believer.”

  “Aye!” they all cheered as one.

  “You have one week in the mountains. You may take nothing with you, save one book, one arrow, and your own beating heart. May you return with all of them,” she said rather ominously.

  “Aye!” they shouted again.

  “Good luck.”

  The crowd erupted into applause and cheers. As one, the boys trotted off into the darkness, toward the mountains beyond. The spell was broken as Mana grabbed the girl by the shoulder to stop her from following after them. Cyrene shook her head as everyone began to move again.

  Cyrene was trying to get her bearings on the situation as the party started up around her again. There were enough people that she could blend into the crowd but not enough that they wouldn’t notice an outsider. Her feet moved out of the circle and away from the group, but when she heard what the people near her were saying, she slowed.

  “It is too bad that we have to send them this week,” someone said behind Cyrene. “I don’t feel safe, having Barton out with all the attacks.”

  Attacks?

  What attacks?

  “I agree. We should have followed the wraiths farther into the forest and taken back our land. We give up more and more of the trees every day.”

  “The more we chase, the more of us that die. If we leave them alone, they only—”

  “Take one of us a month?” someone else shouted. “That is not acceptable. Not with our numbers so low since those southern Byern bastards keep stealing our best and brightest.
”

  Cyrene’s head was reeling. She must be in another kingdom for them to think of Byern so poorly.

  A cold northern kingdom perhaps.

  Carhara?

  Mastira?

  Cyrene heard the next comment as she slunk away, only because the man was shouting in his inebriation.

  “What we need is to mount an attack. Send men into the woods to stop this. Then, we can actually pull up the harvest. Because, if we do not work soon, snow will be upon us, and then we’ll go hungry all winter!”

  Cyrene had been about to turn around to demand answers to all of her burning questions when Ahlvie exploded through the group. She gasped at the sight of him, and then he pulled Cyrene into a bone-crushing hug.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Yes, I’m alive,” she choked out.

  Ahlvie was squeezing the life out of her.

  “But, if you keep hugging me, I might not make it.”

  “Oh, right,” he said, abruptly releasing her. His eyes stared deep into her own. “And you’re…you’re really okay?”

  “Weak and hungry, but, yeah, otherwise okay.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Wow.”

  “What?” she asked.

  But she was promptly cut off by Avoca slamming into her. “Do not ever do that again!”

  “Okay,” Cyrene gasped.

  “You’re crushing her,” Ahlvie observed.

  Avoca reluctantly let her go. They both stared back into her eyes, as if they were seeing a ghost.

  “Seriously, what is up with you two? And where are we? Some Doma magic was used by an old woman, and they sent kids up into the mountains, alone, with just an arrow. Not even a bow! I’m wondering if we should go after them. Plus, they wouldn’t let the girl go with them! How backward is that? Women can do anything men can do.”

  And then Ahlvie was doubled over on his knees, laughing hysterically. Avoca clapped him on the back twice. Maybe a little too hard.

  He straightened and held up his hand, as if he couldn’t keep it together. He wiped his eyes. “Phew! That was…wow. I’ve missed you.”

  “I don’t…what did I say?”

  “Cyrene,” Ahlvie said, gesturing to the bonfire, the people, and all the tiny cabins, “welcome to Fen.”