He didn’t reappear until it had been agreed that Nicholas would travel with a small contingent of soldiers throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. Oliver would accompany him, and soldiers would be stationed throughout the city and on the roads to make sure travel was halted. Once they were finished, Everard pulled him aside.
His eyes had deep dark bags beneath them that hadn’t been there before, and he looked more spent than Nicholas had ever seen him. “I have made sure the Sorthileige that was spilled during the fight is gone.”
“Are you—”
“Don’t worry about me. A few days, and I’ll be good as new.” He pressed his lips together. “I only regret that I cannot join you in your search. I received a message just before the ball that I am needed at home. It is a rather delicate situation, I’m afraid. One that must be dealt with immediately.”
“I understand. What shall I do if I discover more Sorthileige?”
“Do what you must to keep Elaina safe, but at all costs, try not to engage with the Sorthileige or anyone who wields it directly.” A shiver moved across the king’s large shoulders. “As much as you can, let it be and wait for me to finish it off as soon as I can return.”
Excusing himself from the others, Nicholas walked the king to his horse. “I’m just grateful that you would answer a call from your son’s reckless old friend. We’re not exactly neighbors with an easy distance to travel between us.” He paused. “And I’ve not always been the most considerate of friends to Henri.”
The king put his big hand on Nicholas’s shoulder, and despite Everard’s obvious exhaustion, Nicholas felt a slight tingle of power flowing through it. “I may not always agree with your methods, but you have heart, Nicholas. You will make a good king, and I am glad my son will have you as an ally one day.” He nudged his horse forward.
“How did you survive the ambush?” Nicholas called out after him. “Alastair said he had all sorts of men in wait for you.”
Everard scowled. “I may have some gray hairs, but I’m not that old.” As if to prove it, he drew his sword and held it up. Blue flame engulfed the blade, and Nicholas grinned.
His grin disappeared as the king rode away and Nicholas walked back up the steps, his grip tightening on the glass slipper as he did. Part of him knew he should be afraid, but there was no time for fear. Elaina was probably alone with Alastair as he attempted to get his beloved gifts back from her.
You’ve given me a second chance, Nicholas told the Maker. Now I need your help to find the one who fits the slipper. And if I do, I’ll never let her go.
61
Vessel
Elaina scrunched her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the casum balls exploding all around her. How long their barrage had gone on, she couldn’t say, but at some point, whether that was ten years or ten minutes after she had been thrown into the carriage, another sound broke through the chaos. This sound was a familiar one. Did that mean the explosions were growing farther away? Shaking, she slowly lowered her hands from her ears.
When she forced her eyes open, however, there weren’t any casum balls at all, nor was she in the carriage. She was alone in a room with a single window and no furniture. The floorboards beneath her were beginning to rot, and through the haze clouding her eyes, she could barely make out thick trees rising up like serpents outside the window.
She rubbed her eyes, trying to recall how she had come to be there and why the world seemed so incredibly loud.
Though she couldn’t recall where she was or even what she had been doing before the assault, an instinct told Elaina that she needed to leave. Wherever she was, it wasn’t safe. So she rolled over and tested her strength. She was able to push up onto her hands and knees and rock a few times, but when she tried to stand, her ankles collapsed, and she hit the floor hard.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t crawl, let alone walk. Every part of her body felt as though it were wilting. Her skin was as hot as the glowing lava she had seen once on a deserted island in the middle of the sea. Her senses still screamed that every touch, smell, taste, color, and sound were too heavy, too painful to fully comprehend. Whatever relentless force had invaded her body, it was killing her slowly, for her blood and skin and bones strained unnaturally to contain it as it raced about. It would only be so long before the foreign power burst through everything in order to get free. And as it fought for freedom, pressing out all the while, death was creeping in to take its place.
As she lay there, panting, Elaina realized that if nothing else, the death that was seeping into her bones was quieting the chaos enough to hear. Voices, individual ones rather than buzzes or rings, were coming from downstairs.
“Did you hear that?” a woman’s voice said.
“She’s awake,” replied a man.
“I’ll go up.”
“No, we had an arrangement. She’s mine now.” Footsteps followed, and her door opened then closed.
She could sense someone beside her, but Elaina decided to keep her eyes shut.
“I would have killed you already if I knew how to get my gifts back. Unfortunately, your little show spilled what was left of my Sorthileige, which means I cannot retrieve my gifts from you until I get more.”
Elaina winced as he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head so she would face him, but she refused to open her eyes. Alastair. That was his name. And he had tried to kill Nicholas.
“I know you can hear me, so pay heed. If you decide to disobey me, I know exactly where your mother, aunt, and cousin live. Cross me, and I will kill them even after you are dead. And then I will kill the prince, and I will make sure his death is even more creative than theirs.”
He shook her again, and her arm bumped against something beneath her. It was freezing. But as its shocking cold moved through her, the entire previous night came back, and Elaina’s eyes snapped open. Holding his gaze, she glowered at him with as much rebellion as she could muster.
He let go of her hair and her head hit the ground, making the pounding in her ears even worse as he stomped out.
“I did what you wanted,” Elaina whispered as soon as he was gone, rolling over to stare up at the crumbling ceiling. “I kept him from getting the dagger.” She paused, licking her cracked lips. “So why are you letting him win?”
The stars didn’t answer, of course, for it was day. The Maker didn’t give her any other sign, either. All she could do was wait as hours passed and her pain turned more and more to a still quiet that began to slow the beating of her heart. Conrad came up once with a cup of water, but he only allowed her enough to wet her mouth before taking it back again.
Several times, Elaina tried to call for help, but her voice was nearly gone. She could feel her strength and sense of control slipping away as the raging sensations and urges and abilities inside her warred for dominance over the ever-encroaching death.
“They will be here any minute.” Matilda’s voice rang out from below. “Go get ready!”
Shrieks sounded, mostly likely from Alison. “They’re on the bridge! The prince is almost here!” she squealed.
If only Elaina could see what they were talking about. Then it came to her. Maybe she could. Of all the conflicting desires churning inside her, Elaina found that invisibility was one of them. She had never tried to become invisible before, but perhaps now was the time to listen to the sudden urge that made her want to. Pushing against the floor until beads of sweat had formed on her brow, Elaina rolled over, put the slipper in her apron pocket, and began to crawl to the door. Conrad must have thought her completely immobile, for he had forgotten to close it.
As she inched toward the banister, she could hear Matilda again from below. But this time, Elaina’s heightened hearing picked up even the woman’s whispers.
“I made good on my word to help you catch her. Now you need to make one of my girls fit the shoe!”
“I don’t have much power left!” Alastair retorted. “Whatever I use now will be gone forever. If we don’t g
et her out of here, we’ll all be imprisoned or worse, whether the slipper fits or not!”
“Maybe not.”
Elaina let herself roll onto her side and rest for a moment. The thoughtfulness in Matilda’s voice made her nervous, and she prayed for the strength to run, should she get the chance.
“If the prince thinks he has his bride, he’ll lift the border blockade. We can all leave. You can take the brat wherever you want, and I will have a daughter on the throne. By the time he realizes he’s got the wrong one, they’ll be wed and it will be too late.”
“Madame, I fear you overestimate my abilities.”
“Make sure I don’t, or the prince and King Everard will find you, if it’s the last thing I do.”
He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was weary. “What do you want me to do?”
“Make Alison look like Elaina. And make sure her feet are the right size. That girl has absurdly small feet.”
“I told you, I don’t know that I can make the illusion last—”
“Just do it. Or you’ll never see another penny from me again!”
Alastair huffed. “You then, come here.”
Elaina watched as he moved into her line of sight. Taking Alison’s hand, he closed his eyes. His hand trembled so hard that her arm began to shake as well. Before Alison could protest, though, her eyes grew wide and she let out a yelp as her face began to contort. Slowly, familiar features began to take shape, and Elaina found herself peering down at an exact double of herself.
Just as the transformation was finished, someone rang the door pull. Its song echoed through the house like a wail in a tomb. For a long second, everyone stared at the entrance. Matilda was the first to fly into a fit as she arranged the girls in the nearly empty drawing room, and Alastair bounded up the stairs. Elaina must have forgotten to stay invisible, because he grabbed her by the arm then dragged her down the stairs and out a side door that led into a dilapidated stable built against the side of the house. In it were two horses.
“You and I are going to ride to the nearest port.” He hauled her up onto one of the horses. “Then we’re going to hire a ship to take us away from here as soon as the borders are open again. And you are not going to say a single word to a single soul.”
Elaina slowly pushed herself halfway into a sitting position while he thrashed around, throwing random objects into a sack.
“I’m going to die,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are.” He didn’t pause in his work.
“There’s too much power.” She looked down at her hands. They were beginning to flicker. Orange, blue, pink, yellow, green. Her horse stamped nervously as she clenched her fists, trying to pull the power back in. “People will die.”
He didn’t respond.
Elaina had heard the stars for as long as she could remember, but the danger she felt boiling in her blood now didn’t need their warning. If she disobeyed Alastair, her mother, aunt, cousin, and Nicholas would die. But if she didn’t, they would still all die. So would hundreds of other people. For the powers within her that were fighting to get out were far too great for any one human to contain. They needed vessels, bodies to course through. And though she wasn’t sure how she knew it, Elaina understood that such powers would be dangerous if unleashed from a body. When they killed her and made their escape, everyone around her . . . everyone in Kaylem, possibly, would pay.
Praying for one last burst of strength, Elaina pulled the glass slipper from her apron and stuck it on her foot. Then she yanked the rope from the hook where Alastair had hung it. She clung tightly to the horse’s mane as she reached out far enough to shove Alastair to the ground. Her hands flickered again, and the horse whinnied, but this time Elaina didn’t try to rein him in.
“Go!” she shouted.
The horse took off like a dart fish into the evening sky. Elaina held on with all her might, leaning into the horse’s neck for support. Though she didn’t know where exactly they were, she knew that her greatest hope lay within the ocean. So she pointed the horse to the west and closed her eyes.
Nothing in the world would have been more welcomed than sleep. But every time she started to drift off, the glass slipper in her apron pocket would shoot the sensation of frost through her clothes and into her leg, keeping her awake, as persistent as the stars had ever been.
Hold it in a little longer, it seemed to say. You’re almost to the ocean.
Once there, Elaina would be free to die in peace. And no one would be coming with her.
62
Lying Eyes
Nicholas stared doubtfully up at the house before them. Calling it a house was generous, really. Holes dotted its roof, and most of the windows were broken or missing completely. Dense weeds sprawled across the lawn, and the large tree stooped over the entrance as though to eat its guests.
They would never have even made the trek out to such a place if there hadn’t been a note in the treasury from a local landowner that the house had been let for the ball.
“You’re sure you wish to waste time here, sire?” Oliver made a face at the house. “No one seems to be home. They’re not answering the bell.”
“Try again.” Nicholas had sworn that he would try every house in the land. And if that meant searching dilapidated messes like this one, then that was what he was going to do. He would never forgive himself if he missed her because he wasn’t in the mood to search an ugly house.
This time, the door opened.
“His Royal Highness Crown Prince Nicholas Whealdmar has decreed that every maiden of marriageable age in the land is to try on the glass slipper,” Nicholas’s page called out.
Drawing a deep breath and willing himself to go through the motions for the hundredth time that day, Nicholas prepared himself for another disappointment.
“Sire,” Oliver called from the porch. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Nicholas hurried to the door. His men moved so he could walk through, but as soon as he did, he froze.
There, sitting in a fine, albeit ugly gown of green silk, was Elaina.
As Oliver proceeded to explain the rules of the slipper fitting, Nicholas studied the young women before him. The girl beside Elaina looked vaguely familiar, but in his exhaustion, he couldn’t place her face. As his captain finished the explanations, though, Nicholas realized she was one of the girls Elaina had dumped him with at the second ball. But where was her sister? And why did she look so disgruntled?
Elaina’s smug expression changed to confusion as Nicholas turned his back on her and began to walk about the room, examining the empty halls. Why was she staying here when her aunt was so close? When he had questioned Lydia that morning as he made his rounds, both she and her aunt had denied that Elaina was staying with them, or that they had even seen her since she was exiled.
He stepped closer to study the girl that looked like Elaina. Everard had warned him not to trust his eyes, but in this instance, they were telling him everything he needed to know. Elaina would not have been sitting there calmly, mooning over him as the older woman looked on in silence. She would have been glaring at someone, though whom her anger might have been directed at more, he didn’t know.
And Elaina’s eyes were blue.
Nicholas’s heart pounded as he realized just how close he had come. This girl certainly wasn’t Elaina. But if she was using the Shadow’s powers to impersonate her, that meant Elaina was close.
Still, Nicholas allowed each girl to try on the glass slipper as he struggled to come up with a strategy. The sister tried on the shoe first, but her foot was too wide. The imposter tried it on next. Her foot was small, like Elaina’s, and for a moment he was sure it might fit. But the longer she tried to shove her foot inside, the larger her own foot seemed to grow. She looked up at the woman, whose expression went from shock to outrage when Oliver declared that the shoe simply wouldn’t fit.
“Come back!”
Everyone jumped at the shout. It had come from the west s
ide of the house. Nicholas sprinted down the hall toward the sound. He burst through a door just in time to see the silhouette of a woman slumped along a horse’s neck as it galloped away from the house. Nicholas sprinted back to his horse, slowing only to claim the glass slipper from his captain.
“Arrest that woman and her daughters,” he yelled to Oliver as he mounted his horse. “And anyone else who is with them!”
The sun began to set as Nicholas chased her through sandy hills of wild grass. He should have caught her easily, but the sand slowed his mount’s chase. By the time he crested the final hill, they had come to the ocean. He was still several hundred yards behind, however, when she came to a stop at the edge of a deserted dock.
The girl got off the horse, though her dismount was more like a collapse. She pushed herself up just enough to roll off the pier and into a large fishing boat. She looked on the point of fainting, but she managed to untie the rope that held the boat in place and weakly shoved off using one of the oars.
Nicholas’s horse hadn’t even come to a full stop when he flung himself from the saddle. Keeping his momentum, he gathered his strength and made a flying leap into the water. Somehow, he landed in the boat as it floated out to sea.
She was trying to row, but the oars hardly moved as she pushed them. She was half-lying, half-sitting on the boat’s floorboards, using the bench to prop herself up. A single glass slipper already rested on one of her feet. The other foot was bare. Her eyes were mostly closed as her arms struggled to move the oars. Strange flickers of light were beginning to spark all around her, but Nicholas was beyond fear of strange magic.
“I know you’re not one to listen to anything I say.” He made his way over to the bench across from hers. “But I believe my order was that every maiden was to try this slipper.” He reached for her one bare foot. When he touched her skin, though, blistering heat seared his fingers, even through his leather gloves. Her skin was hot enough to set a wick on fire. Clenching his jaw, he reached down again and worked to ignore it. Slowly, he placed the slipper upon her foot.
Cinders, Stars, and Glass Slippers: A Retelling of Cinderella (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Book 6) Page 42
