“No, they need you. You’re the one who’s brought peace to the nation. You’re the one they left their oppression in Province 1 for. They got along without me just fine for two decades. Now that I’m back, there’s full-on war.”
“Um, hello, that was happening when you were gone, too. Province 10 has a chance now.”
“Because of you! You’re the one who thought of the aqueducts. It’s you and Lane who united more than half the kingdom and set them free from Morgan’s tyranny.” Kerdik reached out and fingered one of my curls, staring at it with longing. “If Morgan kills the Avalon Rose, what is there left to fight for? You’re the symbol they’ve left their homes for, fought for and died for. You’ll not hand yourself over to death so easily. You’d be slaughtering the hopes and dreams of the hundreds of thousands who only realized their freedom because you fought for it.”
I drew in a steadying breath. “Look, I’m not seeing many options, here. It’s either me, Lane or my cousin Gwen who can pull the trigger on Morgan.”
“Gwen’s not a blood daughter of Avalon. She was adopted.”
“Okay. That leaves Lane, who’s too jacked up to make the trek. It’s got to be me, and you know it.”
Kerdik glared at me, his nostrils flaring at my logic, which was pretty solid. “No.”
“I don’t need your permission. I’m giving you a heads-up.”
Kerdik moved to where the door used to be, and pressed his palm to the stone. The rocks grew thicker and more impenetrable, bubbling out as if to mock me. “You’ll stay in here until I say so, which will be after I’ve rescued Brìghde. Morgan will get her own little stone prison in her castle, so she’s nice and contained, and can’t cause more trouble.”
“Right, because that’s all it would take. She can’t cast spells from inside a room. She can’t murmur incantations. Come on, Kerdik! She’s clearly got magic you don’t even know about, if she can trap and strip the power from an immortal!”
Kerdik’s anger rose to a shout. “You’ll not throw yourself into harm’s way for a country you plan on leaving! I don’t know what patience you imagine I possess, but you’ll find a new topic before I lose my temper.”
“This is you holding onto your temper? Stop throwing a fit and think logically, you big baby!”
“You’re being a child!”
“You’re being controlling!”
“Because you’re suicidal if you think this is a good plan!”
“I’ll go!” came a female voice from the other side of the wall. It was only then I realized that the sledgehammers had stopped trying to tear down the wall, and my plan wasn’t the only one that could be entertained.
3
Over my Dead Body
My head whipped around to stare at the stone. “Lane? You didn’t hear anything. Go back to bed.”
“Don’t you use that tone with me, girlfriend,” Lane spouted back with attitude. I could practically see her head swiveling like the valley girl she sometimes was.
My neck shrank at being corrected by my mom, but Kerdik postured. “Excellent idea, Duchess.” He waved his hand, and the stone blockade disappeared.
Bastien tumbled inside, his face sweaty and his expression surly. I thought he might put down the hammer he’d been trying to break the wall with, but he charged forward and took a swing at Kerdik’s head.
Kerdik held his hand up, mutating the hammer into a bouquet of flowers that bashed him over the head. Hard and thick vines sprouted from the stone floor where the petals fell, and wrapped around Bastien’s wrists, tugging him down to his knees. “Tell me why I shouldn’t tear your head off right now,” Kerdik asked, miffed.
“You don’t lock yourself in a room with my fiancée ever again!”
I pressed my hand to Kerdik’s puffed chest, and my dad moved into the room to stand in front of Bastien. “You’ll not harm Rosalie’s fiancé, Kerdik. If you did, she would never forgive you.”
Kerdik scoffed incredulously. “Oh, but he’s allowed to take a swing at me?”
Bastien was fuming. “As many swings as it takes to knock some sense into you! Stay away from Rosie!”
Kerdik’s hand started out between my shoulders, and then slowly sloped downward to take up the coveted space on the small of my back. He cast Bastien a superior smile just to make him rage. “Go on out into the hallway, darling.”
I scoffed at the scene and clapped my hands to diffuse the fight. “Everyone, chill! Bigger things are going on right now. Morgan’s got Brìghde, and she’s lost a fair amount of her power. Maybe all of it except her immortality. She can’t get out of Morgan’s trap.”
Kerdik released Bastien from his hold, and quickly laid out our vision after the gasps settled. “I’ll be leaving to see if I can’t rescue her and set Morgan straight.” Kerdik looked around to my dad, Bastien, Lane, and now Reyn and Draper, sighing that so many people would now know a treasured secret he’d only told a few about. “Only a Daughter of Avalon can kill a Daughter of Avalon. If another person tries, it doesn’t work. It was a failsafe Urien asked me to put in place back when he was in love with his wife. Morgan vexed me too often, so he asked me to put a protection on her against my magic.”
“A mistake on my part, for certain,” Dad allowed with a contrite downward tilt of his head. “Rosalie’s right; Morgan needs to be put down. I don’t relish the thought of it, but Avalon has suffered enough.”
“Good. It’s settled. I’ll see you all when we get back.” I raised my chin in defiance, but my dad shook his head in time with everyone else in the room.
Lane spoke for the group. “I’ll go. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over ending my sister. I won’t put that on your conscience.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t actually sleep, so that grand declaration’s all hyperbole, you know. I’m going. You’re still not at one hundred percent, and this needs to get taken care of now.”
Lane met Kerdik’s eyes, her posture straight and queenly. “You say you love my daughter?”
Kerdik straightened and met Lane’s gaze with the resolve of a promise. “I do.”
Bastien fumed, but remained quiet at my side.
Lane nodded. “Good. Then you’ll protect Rosie from all of this. Take me to Morgan, and let me end this for Avalon.”
Reyn’s fist tightened, and he stepped forward to stand at Lane’s side. “Where you go, I go.”
Draper moved to her other side, posturing like the prince he was. “Same for me. I’ll help Lane get to Morgan.”
“Over my dead body, Lane!” I shook my head, frustrated. “No, guys! This is my fight. It’s me she wants, so I’ll be the one ending it.”
Lane’s tone softened when she turned to me. “Honey, if it’s you Morgan wants, then you’re the one person we can’t let her near. Don’t you see that?”
“You’re barely upright!” I pointed out, wishing I didn’t have to hurt her pride to make her see reason. “How can you not see what a terrible idea this is?”
Lane ignored me and turned to my dad. “I’ll need my sword, and armor for all three of us.” She gripped Kerdik’s hand, though I could see her visible discomfort at being so near to him. “Thank you. We’ll gather our things and be ready in ten minutes.”
Kerdik nodded. “See that you are. I don’t fancy waiting a second longer than we have to.” His gaze flicked to my dad’s. “Morgan’s army’s all been doused with her acid that makes the soldiers stronger and bend completely to her will. They’re marching on Province 10 as we speak. They have orders to kill your people and take your daughter to Morgan. I’ll do what I can in the next ten minutes to fortify your city, but beyond that, you’re on your own.”
My dad moved in to grip Kerdik in a hug I could tell my bestie needed, but would never ask for. “Thank you, old friend. Thank you for sparing my daughter. Please take care of my sister while she’s with you. The Lost Duchess is the last respectable one in all of Avalon. We cannot lose her.”
My dad was more than willing to le
t Lane throw herself to the she-wolf rather than let me try my capable hand at saving our province. I grumbled at the injustice of it all, but no one paid me any mind.
Kerdik nodded solemnly. “As you wish it, old friend.”
“Stop this!” I shouted, angry that a whole plan was happening without me being able to lift a finger to help.
My dad turned away to go after Lane. “I’ll see they have all they need, then I’ll ready the soldiers.”
“Wait, Dad! I’m coming with you. I’ll help you with the soldiers.”
Urien turned and embraced me, planting a kiss to my forehead. “I love you, my dear. All these years, I never dreamed I’d be so fortunate as to have such a fiercely loyal daughter to claim as my own.”
“I love you, too.”
Then Urien’s eyes left mine and looked over my shoulder with a nod. He stepped back just as Kerdik’s arm banded and then tightened around my waist. At first, it was a gentle hug that was more affectionate than I knew we could be in public. When my dad stepped away to follow Lane and the others, the hug became a restraining hold. “Stay with her, Bastien,” my Dad said over his shoulder as he turned the corner and left me with the two bulls.
I struggled against Kerdik, but if you can believe it, the immortal superhuman was stronger than me. “Let me go! My dad needs help out there.”
Kerdik shushed me, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “Tell me you wouldn’t lock the people you love in a tower to keep them from harm. We are the same monster.”
My eyes widened in alarm as I screamed. “No! Kerdik, don’t!”
Kerdik pointed his free hand toward the door, and filled in the gaps with fresh stone, letting me go once there was no way I could escape.
4
Kerdik’s Moment of Weakness
Kerdik ignored my fists on the rock wall and turned a deaf ear to my howls for help. He soundlessly moved over to my tub so he could fill it with water. He didn’t bother talking to me, since I was busy cussing him out, but instead addressed Bastien, who was the only other person in the room. “There’s enough water in here to last you both a few days. I’ll bring you some food before I leave, too. You’ll keep her in here until the water runs out, and then you can bash your way out with this hammer.” He started molding a heavy sledgehammer out of fresh rock that morphed out from his palm like playdough.
Bastien nodded, surprisingly levelheaded about the whole incarceration thing once he’d been released from the vines that had restrained him. “Works for me. Thanks for this. You’re right that Morgan’s gunning for Rosie. She needs her for something, though I don’t know what.”
Kerdik blew out a breath and spoke in a rush, pushing all the words out so he could get out quickly. “Morgan figured out that Rosie’s still got her Compass ability. She wants to use it to find Avalon’s lost magic.”
Bastien rolled his eyes. “If Rosie could do that, she already would’ve. She can’t track something nebulous like that. She tracks people, objects. Morgan makes me crazy. Be sure that Lane makes her suffer.”
Kerdik ignored my scowl and took my hand, jerking it so Bastien could see my ring. “Rosie doesn’t need to track it, because I gave it to her a while ago. In this ring is Avalon’s lost magic, and Éireland’s.”
Bastien’s hand went over his mouth to stifle his howl of shock. “Are you kidding me with this? We’ve been walking around with the power to turn the Fae into any number of incurable monsters? Maybe that’s something you should’ve told us! What if we’d accidentally set the magic loose? What then? Then Faîte’s crawling with creatures we can’t escape because you couldn’t be bothered to keep such a dangerous thing away from the people!”
I didn’t understand why Kerdik looked actually proud of Bastien’s outrage until he replied in a cool, calm voice. “You understand how dangerous this magic would be if restored to the lands, then. That’s good. Some just see more magic as a good thing, and don’t care to think through the consequences.”
“Get it off her! Take it back!”
“Only she and I can take it off her finger without suffering dire consequences. Rosie can be trusted to guard the magic. She can’t access it, anyway. It was becoming too tempting for me, so I knew I had to get it out of my hands.”
“Get that ring off her finger, Kerdik! Take it and destroy it!”
Kerdik shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Destroying the ring would only set the magic loose in Faîte all over again. You can’t destroy magic; you can only mutate it. Containing it is the only way. I’m telling you all this because if something should happen to me, I want you to guard Rosie as if the safety of both Avalon and Éireland depend on it.”
Bastien ran his fingers though his hair, overwhelmed. “Who else knows about this?”
“Brìghde knows Rosie has the lost magic, but not that it’s in her ring. Brìghde and Cailleach helped me trap it all, but I hid it away so they wouldn’t be tempted to set it all loose again. It’s safer this way. No one else can know. Cailleach can’t be trusted with it, because she’ll try to sort out the good from the bad, which can’t be done. It’s what she wanted to do years ago when we were working to round it all up. All higher magic has to be put away. Callie might not see reason with that, and I don’t want to risk it.” Kerdik frowned. “I can only hope Brìghde hasn’t told her sister that Rosie’s got the lost magic.”
“You’re telling me the Cailleach might come after Rosie? You expect me to be able to defend her against immortals?”
Kerdik lowered his chin and leaned in conspiratorially. “Look, back when I first met you and enhanced your body, I knew you would protect Rosie. Do you recall when I broke down your body and repaired it, so you would be worthy of the post of being Rosie’s Guardien?”
“Vaguely,” Bastien seethed with bitterness dripping from his tone.
“I made it so that an immortal can’t kill you. It’s what saved you from death at my own hand on many occasions.”
Bastien’s eyebrow quirked, and he stood up straighter. “You’re telling me I can’t be killed?”
“You can be killed, just not by an immortal. I enhanced you the day I gave Rosie her ring. You were to protect her, sure, but you’re also protecting the lost magic of Avalon and Éireland.”
Bastien’s hand went over his mouth, unable to process all of it with any sort of grace. “Kerdik, man. If I would’ve known, I…”
“You’d protect her with the same ferocity you do now. That you fell in love with her? Well, I certainly can’t fault you for that. Keep her safe.” Then, in a brotherly move neither of us expected, Kerdik reached out and clutched Bastien’s shoulder. “Keep Avalon safe.”
“I promise,” Bastien said with a firm nod.
Kerdik turned to where the window used to be and clicked his fingers, making the stones over the glass tumble to the floor with several bowling ball-sounding cracks. He popped open the window and surveyed the land with furrowed eyebrows. “If I faint, do see that I don’t tumble out the window,” he said over his shoulder to us. “That would be so embarrassing.”
I let out a noise of distress. “Jeez! What are you up to that would make you faint, Kerdik?”
“Protecting what’s mine. I worked for a long time with your little friend Judah to get the aqueducts just the right dimensions. I won’t see an army come and mess up my handiwork.”
I smirked at him. “Admit it. You love Avalon. You want to watch over us.”
Kerdik shook his head. “I want to watch over you.”
Bastien grumbled several curses under his breath, letting me know their little truce was reaching its breaking point.
Kerdik blew out a long breath, and then lifted his hands, stretching them out of the window. I moved to his side, and Bastien peeked over my shoulder to watch the sight that ripped a gasp from us both. Stone walls shot up from the earth, building on the one we’d been constructing with the sweat of our hands. Kerdik took our handiwork and made it taller, thicker and infinitely longer. The wall s
naked on down the edge of the territory, until I couldn’t see its end anymore.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breathless at the incredible feats of nature Kerdik could manipulate. Sure, I could’ve guessed he was capable of such grandeur, but to see it in action was a whole other thing. My eyes were as wide as saucers as my vision picked up the wall circling back to us, enclosing Province 10 in a protective three-foot thick wall that looked to be about twenty feet tall.
It was then I realized that Kerdik was shaking. His hands dropped and gripped the window’s sill, his biceps trembling to keep his body upright. “Stop!” I cried, my arms going around his middle to make sure he didn’t collapse. “Kerdik, no more!”
But just like Kerdik’s love, his abilities were always grander than I could predict. In the same trail the construction of the wall had gone, the earth began to dig itself out along the outer edge of the wall, about a foot out from the stone.
“Moats,” Bastien marveled, amazed at Kerdik’s prowess to think things through in such complete and militaristic fashion. The moats Kerdik dug with his mind were seven feet wide, and looked too deep for a man to stand in. The well for the moats went quicker around the perimeter of the whole province, most likely because that involved moving the earth that was already there, and not manufacturing deep stone walls from scratch.
“Kerdik, you’re going to hurt yourself! The wall is enough to keep us safe. You can stop!”
Kerdik ignored me, his focus sharp as a laser. He was gritting his teeth, and I saw sweat beading on his forehead. When the moat was dug and stretched all the way around the stone wall, Kerdik let out a cry of anguish, and I saw water filling up in the deep divots. He was in physical pain, and after this he had to go fight a battle filled with powerful magic and immortals.
Stubborn Girl Page 2
