by Cara Coe
Amelie knew she must rectify the damage.
Her sister’s door was blocked by two of the royal guard. Amelie could recall their names. Owen and Finnigren, two of the captain’s finest. Claudia must feel the heat of the cabinet on her neck now if she felt the need to watch her safety within the palace walls. She approached with a wry smile.
“Step aside. You will allow me entry.”
Skeptical, they twitched but did not move. Used to following Amelie’s orders when the two girls were on the same side, their hesitation illustrated the divide. Who to obey now that Amelie had returned?
“I have no wish to harm you forcing my way in,” Amelie told them. “I need only the captain’s ear to have your guard duty switched to Lord Westling.”
Lord Westling. The cabinet member whose food was always digested poorly and whose evidence of such polluted the air.
Owen and Finnigren scowled but stepped lightly away from each other, parting from the door and granting reluctant permission.
Amelie smiled sweetly. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
Entrance into the chambers revealed a sullen girl, cloaked in dressing robes, sitting upon a straight-backed chair, staring listlessly out the balcony window. If Amelie’s presence surprised her, she didn’t know for no more than a dismissive glance was cast her way before Claudia focused her attention on the purple twilight sky in the distance.
Amelie tried to speak first, but Claudia beat her to it. “Even now, with all my anger towards you, I worried over your temperature in the dungeon. You were always so cold.”
Amelie knew her frequent coldness was due to the expenditure of her persuasive power but she made no comment, not wanting to touch on any sore topics.
“Your power holds fast to me as well, it seems,” Claudia continued. “Would I too die coming to your aid?”
“I do not know,” Amelie answered. “But I would die coming to yours.”
This seemed to stir Claudia out of her lethargy as she read the sincerity in her sister’s eyes. Still, she was rankled over what this last year had held. “A weak statement when you abandoned me all those months ago.”
“I am sorry. My regret will haunt me for years to come. I can promise you, it was not abandonment that drove me to leaving. I thought I was helping you.”
“The cabinet is murderous.” Claudia’s eyes glittered. Her lethargic countenance was replaced with anger. “They clawed at me, piece by fighting piece, pulling apart my orders, my methods, my inheritance with their twisted logic until there was nothing left of me as a ruler but a scared wench hiding behind foreign royalty. I could not stop them on my own. Your so called help has me in fear for my life in my own kingdom.”
“I see my error now. My help was for your immediate happiness. I did not think how you would have to face the burden of the kingdom alone. I am here now if it is not too late.”
The young girl harrumphed. She was set to spar but Amelie’s lack of fight deflated her vigor. Her righteousness hung unsatisfied in the air between them.
“Well, your methods did not serve any purpose,” she replied. “You cannot control the feelings of another. As I have found out.”
Guilt stung Amelie’s chest. She needed to amend all of it. “I should have told you,” she said. “I should have told you my feelings for Seth. Our feelings for each other. The kings had made their decision. I thought distancing myself would give the two of you the best chance at happiness.”
“He thought of nothing but you.”
Happiness swamped with sorrow flooded Amelie and made her dizzy. “I am sorry,” she repeated. Maybe she’d come too empty handed. All she had were apologies and Claudia still scowled at her like a stranger. And perhaps they were strangers. A year and separate realms was certainly proving to have made them so.
Chapter 31
Seth
Seth stood before the cell a good while watching Talon sleep. He was pressed into the corner where a measly pile of hay had been pushed together in the pathetic attempt at comfort. His arm was slung over his eyes and his body moved up and down rhythmically. As if sensing his presence, Talon stirred. He lifted the crook of his elbow from his face and turned his head slowly.
Seeing Seth, he let out a slow sigh and creakily pulled himself up to a standing position.
“Three days?” Talon asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand tiredly. “A bit much, don’t you think?”
Seth remained still, a quiet anger coursing through his limbs. His hands remained fisted at his sides, fingernails creating moon-shaped creases on his palms, so badly did he want to strike at his friend.
Talon sensed the anger in the prince and the teasing lilt left his voice. “Seth.”
“You will address me as your Highness,” Seth growled through clenched teeth.
Talon shook his head. “Is this where we are now?”
“You saw what I endured.”
Talon lowered his eyes in guilt.
“You saw what I had to conquer. You let me suffer and you could have ended it with a few simple words. You, who I trust above all else, above my own brother.”
Talon responded solemnly. "Your suffering is mine, friend."
Enraged, Seth's hands grabbed the bars and rattled them. "You were supposed to bring her back!"
"And I have!" Talon burst out in a scream. Never before had he voiced his words in such a manner to the prince but the accusations ripped apart his seams and it seemed everything exploded from him at once. "I brought her back, but it was not on your time schedule. This was not for you! It's not about you. Not anymore. She was where she needed to be. I only pulled her from there because now this is where she needs to be. Damn your feelings. She damned hers a long time ago."
The words stunned Seth into silence. He stared bewildered at Talon for a moment before he shook the look off his face, turned, and started up the stairs.
Chapter 32
Talon
It was many hours before the scrape of the key in the lock woke Talon from a fitful sleep. Derrick entered the cell with a flask of brandy.
“Come, my friend,” he told Talon, offering a hand to help him to his feet.
Talon swiped the flask and took a long swig. However much this flask held was not enough. He’d been stretched too thin, his loyalties too divided, his patience too worn to be satisfied with one flask of brandy.
He needed the jug.
Derrick knew him so well. Even now, the large man offered a hint of a smile through his rough beard as he produced a second flask from his pockets.
“He has left,” he informed Talon. “With orders to release you. And when you see him again, he will have recovered.”
Talon took another drink as he followed Derrick out of the cell and up the stairs.
“We exchanged words as we’ve never done before,” he pointed out wearily. “We’re in new territory.”
“Aye,” Derrick agreed. “But he needed those words, as much as they cut him.”
“You don’t even know what was said.”
“But I saw his face before he left. Whatever you said to him, he needed it. He just doesn’t understand that yet.”
Chapter 33
Amelie
It was Millie who woke her. Amelie opened her eyes sleepily to behold blond strands and a grim face. In an instant, the sleep evaporated. She sat up quickly and quietly, the years of training gripping her and employing her stealth. Millie placed an unnecessary finger over her closed lips and jerked her head towards the door.
The girls moved silently towards it. Amelie discarded her shift as she did so. A pair of lean slacks and a loose shirt were never far from reach. She shrugged into the clothing and set her daggers at her waist.
“A man entered my room in quiet,” Millie whispered as Amelie dressed. “I was not what he was looking for and he quickly left. I came straight here to warn you.”
As she finished, the door creaked open and both women ducked down behind the tall four-posted bed. Amelie’s sheets w
ere rumpled open, revealing the bed’s occupant had clearly woken and vacated the space.
The intruder saw this and turned towards the bath, squinting into the darkness. His movements made no sound. With a quick motion of her hand, she and Millie crept to his back.
An instruction for silence was not needed. Millie gripped the man’s hair and pulled back, exposing his jugular. Amelie sliced a clean, quiet cut across his neck spraying his blood. They worked quickly to gain surprise and avoid being overpowered by his strength.
Amelie tried not to grunt as she caught the dead weight of him and both girls struggled to lower him to the floor soundlessly.
Amelie looked at her friend gravely. “My sister.”
Together, they made their way through the halls, slinking along walls and darting through passageways in case the intruder had accomplices.
“Should we split?” Amelie asked. “We are hosting Draeden royalty as well. Will you see to Prince Seth’s chambers?”
“Fear not,” Millie whispered back. “The Draeden princes can hold their own. Besides, Prince Seth departed this morning.”
Amelie concentrated on getting to her sister’s room quickly, pushing thoughts of Seth from her mind. It was no concern of hers now whether he was here or left. He did not owe her the knowledge of his movements.
An expansive space lay between her and the west wing. It was in the courtyard that the girls spied Captain Lucas making haste across the gardens. Amelie pumped to her legs to follow him.
“Captain!” she exclaimed breathlessly and as quietly as she could. He turned and stopped when he saw her.
“Princess,” he greeted, nodding his head. “We are tracking an intruder.”
“Just one?”
Captain Lucas nodded. “We have killed the other two he was with.”
“My quarters in the east wing. You will find the third.”
A look of approval crossed his face and his nod was deeper. “Still Candor’s quietest and most valuable asset I see.” His admiration spilled to Millie as well as he said this and even in the darkness Amelie could see the flush that rose high in her friend’s cheeks.
“My own men clanged loudly with swords and it took six of them to corner and kill the first two intruders,” he said, unable to keep his glance from darting to Millie. “I shall embarrass them tomorrow during extra drills as I give them the account of two slight women discarding of the third so quietly that we chased his ghost unawares.”
“Not too hard, Captain” Amelie said. “I rattled Owen and Finnigren yesterday with threats of guarding Lord Westing.” Recalling her visit to her sister’s room reminded Amelie of her original destination. “My sister. Is she all right?”
The captain nodded. “The intruders never made it to her door.”
“I shall go there now.”
“And I will join the Captain in the perimeter search to ensure there are no more threats,” Millie volunteered.
With a quick nod, Amelie turned and continued her hurried pace to her sister’s quarters. This time Owen and Finnigren stepped aside wordlessly when they saw her approach. She once again slipped into the room without knocking.
Claudia sat on her bed, her hands clenched in front of her. Amelie knelt before her and rested her hands on her sister's cold ones.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Claudia shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes. Amelie pulled herself up, taking a seat next to the young girl and gathered her to her chest. Claudia cried freely, wetting Amelie’s shirt and expelling heavy sobs. Her hardened face melted into the younger sister that she was and Amelie rocked her, soothing her with long strokes on her dark hair the way she used to before the chasm formed between them.
Amelie kissed the top of Claudia’s head. “They’re gone,” she promised. “We’ve seen to it.”
Claudia noticed the blood on Amelie’s hand and drew back to look at it. Amelie followed her gaze and hastily wiped the smear of red on her shirt. “They’re gone,” she repeated more firmly.
Claudia nodded, eyes wide.
“Do you have any idea who they are?” Amelie asked.
“They could have come from any one of the cabinet members,” Claudia muttered. “That group has dissolved into a mess of squabbling men. I could imagine any of them making good on a threat. The sooner I leave, the better.”
Amelie blew out a tired breath. “I don’t know, Claudia. I can’t stomach leaving Candor to such a fate. They need someone who will lead them. Fairly. And with the kingdom’s well being in mind. Not by someone jostling for power.”
Claudia watched her sister carefully, a slow smile playing on her lips. “You, Amelie,” she said. “You lead them.”
Amelie looked sharply back at her. “Father didn’t choose me. He chose you.”
“Father would have chosen you if he hadn’t been sick on your power. You are the eldest. You are the strong one. I am the diplomat but I’ve long since learned it’s not enough to talk around peace. I do not have the ruling hand that’s required. I cannot make swift, hard judgments. That’s how all of this got out of control.”
“I do not know if I have the ruling hand you speak of,” Amelie said shakily.
“The blood on your hands says you do. In your place, I would have been killed for my hesitation. The throne was supposed to be yours. Take it now. I can leave in peace. I do wish to go to Draeden. I can now go with the peace of mind that Candor is safe.”
The thought of ruling never occurred to Amelie. Not since she was stripped of the possibility under the treaty last year. But she could see the weariness in Claudia’s face. It lifted a bit as hope grew in her eyes that she could step out from under this burden that ruling had thrust on her. Amelie had tried to help all that time ago leaving and she saw what that decision had cost Claudia. If releasing Claudia from Candor’s weight is what her sister needed, then she would do it. She would ascend the throne and squash the rebellion.
Amelie rubbed her sister’s shoulders. “Do not worry,” she assured her. “Candor will be safe. I will see to it.”
Claudia grinned, the first true smile Amelie had seen directed at her since her return. The expression sent waves of warmth through her.
“You don’t know what this means to me. Amelie, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve had no one to talk to. About anything. With you and mother gone, I had to remain content unloading on my chambermaid.”
“Reyna is a good listener,” Amelie agreed.
“But she is passing sixty. She does not share in a young woman’s excitement. Her face barely twitched when I told her about my first real kiss.”
Amelie’s heart stuttered. Claudia prattled on, oblivious to the stillness that overtook her sister.
“I’ve kissed stable boys before,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “But that first kiss when you’re truly in love. And the night when your innocence is lost but replaced with the deep, passionate transition into womanhood.” Claudia sighed. “Oh, we can truly be husband and wife now. I can be with him safely in his kingdom without Candor’s worry on my head.”
Amelie gulped. “Claudia, please. I do not think I can discuss this with you.”
Claudia pulled herself from her reverie. Her eyes narrowed on Amelie. “I am not that girl you left a year ago, sister. I am eighteen. I’ve become a woman in the time since you left.”
“No.” Amelie swallowed hard. “No, it’s not that. I’m trying, dearest. I am. But my feelings are still too raw. I’m glad you are happy but please give me more time.”
Claudia cocked her head. “Time? Your feelings? You mean it wasn’t enough to ensnare Seth? You desire the hearts of both princes?”
Amelie drew her eyebrows together in confusion. At the same time, dawning lightened Claudia’s face and she clapped a surprised hand over her mouth. “Oh, Amelie,” she exclaimed. “You think I married Seth!”
Amelie shook her head. “I was informed of your marriage.”
“No, sister. I did not marry Prince Seth.
I married his brother. Prince Kernan.”
Chapter 34
Amelie
"Where is my horse?"
The stable hand was a gentle soul, a boy no older than fifteen. Quiet and dutiful, he served the royal family alongside his father, his favorite of the members being the equally quiet and dutiful elder princess.
But today she was neither. Amelie's face was twisted into an impatient scowl and her words bit his ears. She caught herself as she saw the look of shock register on his face and asked the question again with more control.
"Where is Swift?"
"The Draeden prince took her," he replied obediently. "He has taken a liking to her these few months."
This could be helpful. Amelie posed her next question. "In which direction did he ride?"
The stable hand pointed north. Pointed to the familiar break in the trees that led to the familiar broken path, a small thin trail of dirt that was often clouded in overgrown shrubbery. He pointed towards the convent.
"Please," Amelie said hurriedly. "Saddle another horse. The fastest you have. Quickly."
The run was dark. The moon hung heavy and dim in the night and the shadowy clouds covered her swift tracks but she didn’t need light or markers for this journey. She kept an eye out for her white mare but the stable hand informed her he’d left several hours earlier so she didn’t expect to overtake him.
She hoped the convent was his destination. If he kept going, she didn’t know which direction to take. And she had to see him.
She needed to see him. Desperately.
Her heart pounded with thoughts of him. After a year apart, he was so close. Her fingertips could brush him. One last hurdle. One last barrier and she could wrap around him. If he’d let her.
She gulped nervously. She would tell him everything she learned. She would tell him of his parentage. If she reached him, she would tell him he was half mage.
