The Unforgiven

by A. Katie Rose

  I almost passed out until his fist shook my head rapidly back and forth. “Who?” I managed, confused, thinking he meant he’d kill Iyumi. He wanted me to marry her, but he threatened to kill her?

  His hot breath tickled my ear. “Fainche,” he murmured, his dark eyes alight with malice. “I’ll cut your sister’s throat while you watch.”

  Fainche? His own daughter? He’d kill the one offspring he loved just to intimidate me? I tried to gaze past his shoulder. Enya and Fainche had vanished, yet Sofia still stood where she was, watching me. Her cloak trembled visibly, though no fear expressed itself on her pale features.

  “Yes.”

  Finian grinned, his mouth close enough to kiss my cheek. “I’ll tell her it’s your fault, boy. She’ll strangle on her curses, knowing you’re to blame. Your wife and mother, too. If you’d see them live, you’ll bring that royal whore to me. Understand?”

  I could only nod, defeated. Voice deserted me, as did my defiance. Only my rage survived. Courage, a stranger to me, crept into my hand like a friend I never knew I had. I will beat you, I thought. Somehow. I watched him through a reddish haze as Finian jerked his head once, acknowledging my surrender.

  Finian cut the ropes that bound me to the wood frame, and shoved his dagger into his belt. I lowered my arms to my sides, and forced myself to stand upright. The blood returning to my wrists tingled, yet the harsh sunlight on my ripped back burned my flesh anew. I let none of that show on my face, however, as I stood toe to toe with him.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I said, as conversationally as I could.

  He guffawed. “You haven’t the guts, boy.”

  His fist in my face slammed me into the dust and cobbles. “Crawl, worm,” he snarled, kicking me onto my face. “Crawl, you filth.”

  His boot struck my ass and slammed me face-first into the cobble stones. Distantly, as though from far away, I heard the derisive laughter of Finian’s cronies and hangers-on, of Blaez, of my father’s soldiers. Even Sergei’s nasal titter reached through the roaring in my ears. I tried to rise, but his heel between my shoulders slammed me back down. “Crawl to your beloved.”

  So I crawled. On my elbows, my knees, my chin and cheeks raw and bloody, I crept across the keep. Like the worm he named me, I wriggled my way over the rounded, dusty stones until her boots wavered in my half-sight. Only when her strong hand slid under my shoulder could I rise. Her slender form caught my weight as I collapsed, my wet, oily hair hanging over my eyes, blinding me. Cat-calls, mocking taunts and scornful jests I heard as though from a dim distance. Her soothing voice and words of encouragement helped me to regain my balance, my feet, and the shattered remains of my dignity.

  With her aid, I staggered through the postern door, and shut the evil away.

  “Flynn,” Sofia said, her voice in my ear. “Wake up.”

  Groggy, resentful, I covered my head with my arm, trying to shut her out. When I closed off her insistent voice, I also shut out the pain, the memories, the rage. I drifted on a cloud of nothing, seeking its empty solace, its lack of grief and its comforting desolation. Death must be like this, I half-thought. No life, no emotion, no gut-wrenching grief, no life or death choices. Just coasting along a tide of soothing emptiness –

  Until her hand dropped to my shoulder, gently shaking.

  I reared up, hissing in agony, my jaw clenched to prevent a scream from erupting.

  “Gods, woman,” I gasped, dropping my face into the warm pillow. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Oh, Flynn.” Sofia’s voice choked with tears and fear. “I’m so sorry. I thought –”

  “Thought what?”

  Easing myself onto my side, I blinked rapidly until the three Sofia’s I saw merged into one. My head spun sickeningly, and my belly threatened to heave absolutely nothing onto her pristine lap. Though the ointments she soothed into the raw cuts on my back the night before cooled them enough to permit me to sleep, they hadn’t yet healed me. I felt the dried herb concoction break apart at my movement and with them any semblance of scabs over my wounds.

  “That – you know, it helped –”

  Her blue eyes feigned a tear or two, but I knew fakery when it dripped onto my neck. She loved my rank more than she did me, but at least her aid the day before was sincere enough. A living, breathing prince husband brought her more status than a royal widow. If Fainche inherited my father’s title, Sofia’s standing fell to that of a distant cousin, thrice removed. Sofia needed me alive and healthy if her social ranking were to survive. Only as my queen could she find true satisfaction and security.

  “I’m sorry, it did,” I admitted, raising myself onto my elbow. “My thanks, last night – “

  She frowned slightly, her lips trembling, as she stroked her fingers lightly down my skinned cheeks and jaw. “Flynn,” she began, her voice broken, “what he did – it was wrong. I hated him for – for – that.”

  She dropped her eyes to her hands, clasped in her dressing gown, a red-brown affair that matched the color of her braid. “He shouldn’t have done that. You’re his son.”

  I never told once her I loved her. I knew she’d use my emotions against me, beat me with them for every day of my life. In her selfish need, she’d blackmail me for her own gain. Yet, in that moment, I loved her more than ever. And those little words, ‘I love you’ trembled on my lips –

  I held them back.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said instead, my heart slack in my chest. “Nothing does.”

  I rested my head on my elbow and wished fervently that Malik’s knife slit my throat rather than my cheek. To me, death was far preferable to this living hell the gods sentenced me to. Hey, let’s make this guy suffer every known pain imaginable, I heard them snigger. Let’s break him to pieces and see what happens.

  I’m in pieces, I wanted to snap. Happy now?

  “He says I have to marry her,” I said, my voice dull, my eyes shut.

  “Marry?”

  Sofia’s voice rose in volume and sharpness. “Marry whom?”

  “Princess Yummy, er, Iyumi.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  I paid little heed to the threat in her tone, and caught only her fear and grief. “I don’t want to,” I said slowly. “I have to. Or he’ll kill Fainche.”

  “You’d set me aside? Me? Your wife?”

  I heard the danger now, recognized the menace in her voice, felt its peril along my nerve endings. Opening my eyes, I fully expected a knife at my throat. But the only danger lay in her fury, her glance, her tight jaw. The full bore of feminine jealousy and hurt attacked me not physically, but emotionally. My words wounded her to the core, and there was no healing them. Not with words, not with ointments, not with magic.

  “I’m sorry, Sofia,” I murmured, lifting my hand to her delicate brow. “It’s not what I want.”

  She slapped my hand aside. “You bastard,” she hissed, her eyes gleaming with rage. “You planned this – planned it from the start –”

  “No, I – “

  “You and your conniving father and your bitch mother –”

  I slapped her then. Not a quick, light reprimand, but a hard, bare-knuckled back-hand to her left cheek. Her face flew sideways, my signet ring cutting her cheekbone, as her spittle spun off into the air. Her right hand rose to swiftly protect her wounded cheek. I heard a choked-off sob, as Sofia reined in her pain and her fears as I never could.

  My guilt rose to condemn me. Did I do anything useful save hit women? Did my sainted mother raise a serf or a prince? Did I have the guts to apologize, be a man, and acknowledge I acted in the wrong? I did, but did I have the balls to admit it?

  “Sofia,” I said, my hand cupping hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –”

  “Set me aside, you bastard,” her voice hissed from behind her sheltering hand, “and I’ll inform your father you have magic.”

  Icy cold dropped into my gut like a ton of lead. She knew. All this time she bloody knew.

  Since
birth I protected this most dire secret. My folk feared and hated magic in all its forms. Laws condemned those who practiced it, executed them with fire, with steel and with rope. Our race sought the eradication of the Bryn’Cairdhan people and the magical stain they represented. Magic was, and always shall be, banned and anathema. Those who wielded it should be burned as demons and witches. Their enchanted cohorts: the Centaurs, the Griffins, the Minotaurs and their bright magical companions, the Faeries, were nothing less than evil incarnate. We Raithin Mawrn would purge the world of their stain and remake it with human purity and magic-free.

  Such was the teachings shoved down my throat since I arrived in this wretched world.

  On that day when I innocently changed a hated barn cat into a rooting, snorting piglet, I knew I was different. I did things no other man or woman could. If I misliked the clothes my nurse put me in, I simply changed them with a thought. I tamed the wildest, meanest stallion in the stable with a mere touch. I called an eagle from the blue sky and watched it land on my wrist without cutting me with its deadly talons. I felt different, apart, and unique.

  Until that day when a young, green-eyed Shape-Shifter healed a deep slash on my cheek with his finger.

  Only then did I feel real fear, real panic.

  For I was no longer alone.

  That the King’s only son and the heir apparent to his throne should possess that unlawful and cursed power – his fearful folk would tear me apart and feed my remains to the dogs. I protected my secret, stilled my abilities, and feigned a hatred for our neighbors to the south they hadn’t earned.

  Magic wasn’t evil. Only people earned that title.

  “Turn me in,” I growled, my hand at her throat, “and I’ll kill you. Remember this, my love.”

  I bent my face close to hers. Close enough to kiss, should I want to. My hand traced its way down her throat to the parting of her breasts, bulging from her simple gold and lace robe. My fingers returned to her chin, and forced her to gaze deep into my eyes. “Your heart is in my fist. When I die, so shall you.”

  Panic filled those twin pools. Her hands clasped mine, cold to the touch. Too much like her soul for my comfort. “You’d kill our child?” she gasped. “Our son?”

  I jerked my hand away, the chill of her hands reaching my heart. “You lie,” I hissed.

  “Do I?” She half-laughed, taunting me, rising from the bed to walk toward the door. “My woman’s bleeding hasn’t come for three months. I’m pregnant with your child.”

  If she’d stabbed me with a blade, Sofia couldn’t have wounded me more. My child? My son, whom I’d raise with the joy and love my father never gave me. I’d teach him to hunt, to ride, to laugh, to sing – to simply love. My only chance to make something of myself that wasn’t twisted or cruel or bitter. Not even my father could take that from me.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice husky.

  Sofia half-shrugged, her expression neutral. The mark of my hand darkened her cheek already. “Time will tell, I expect,” she replied coldly, setting her hand to the door. “The messenger arrived while you were sleeping. Your father expects you at the stables within the hour.”

  An hour? I wasn’t fit to walk much less ride the lands in search of a prophetess. I slumped back into my pillow and covered my face with my arm. Hell’s teeth. I am sooo dead.

  “Flynn.”

  Something in Sofia’s voice made me drop my arm and glance askance at her. She stood in the open doorway, clad in her usual colors of russet and gold. Instead of a coil, her red braid dangled from behind her right ear to drape over her full, ripe bosom to her waist. With the morning sun behind her, she looked lovely and beautiful and as deadly as a viper.

  “You’ve a power he doesn’t,” she said, her tone low. “You can kill him and save your sister, save me. You’ve the ability to change things – forever.”

  She started out the door, then froze, considering. Her pale face turned over her shoulder. “You can finally be the man you want to be.”

  Gods above.

  She shut the door behind her, leaving me alone with my pain and the wild ideas she intentionally planted. Me? Kill my father with forbidden magic and seize his throne? How long before the righteous indignation of the general, magic-fearing populace tore me limb from limb?

  Yet….

  What was it Van said? ‘All magic has healing elements.’ Did that include my own? I’d no idea how to heal, much less heal myself. Since I made the choice long ago to never touch the forbidden pool of power deep within me, I’d zero clues on how to tap into it. Folks like Van, Malik and Iyumi no doubt practiced every day.

  Practice.

  The echo of a whisper seemed to float down from the vaulted ceiling to drift, like a feather on a warm breeze, into my ear. Watch and learn. Set free the wellspring of power you were born with.

  I inherited this, I reminded myself. How can magic be evil if the one who wielded it wasn’t? It made no sense to believe, now, that fundamental magic contained malevolence. If it can heal, well – wasn’t that a good thing? I have to, I thought. I can’t let him win, let them win. If I’m to save not just myself, but Fainche and Sofia and my blessed mother, I must heal myself.

  What did Van do?

  He ran his finger down my cheek and my wound healed. Though I couldn’t very well run my fingers down my back, I touched the cuts and abrasions on my face and chest. Hmmm. Perhaps I might experiment on them first.

  Stiffly, cursing, the flesh over my back ripping like rotten linen, I slipped from the bed and staggered to my feet. Nausea, mixed with the hot, flaring agony, threatened to spill me onto the richly carpeted floor. The room spun, and noxious sweat dripped into my eyes. I almost raised my voice to call Sofia back, insist she help me. But that new stone in my heart, rage, kept my tongue behind my teeth.

  Its potent fury sent new will into my legs, stiffened my spine, and lent me the aid I needed to walk stiffly to Sofia’s dressing table. The rooms we shared since our marriage were simply and tastefully decorated. Abhorring my parents’ private chambers, I insisted on pale cream carpeting over the cold stone slabs of the floor. Colorful tapestries depicting successful hunters bringing home fearsome boars, gallant stags, hawks returning to leather-wrapped wrists. Scenes from ancient battles, warriors riding snorting, violently rearing stallions and standing tall and bloody over the defeated enemy covered the boring stone of the castle’s grey inner walls.

  I permitted one armored knight to stand in a corner, his visor down over his featureless face, his sword angled high. The armor belonged to a distant relative of Sofia’s line, and reminded her of her noble lineage. It stood beside the great hearth, a huge white fur covering the broad flagstones a its’ feet. The fireplace itself could roast not one, not two, but three whole oxen if we were hungry enough to utilize it in such a fashion. A small fire was enough to keep us warm on the coldest of winter nights.

  My apartments rested within the curve of the great west tower of the Castle. On the opposite side, my parents called their museum home. Fainche’s chambers, smaller and with no outer balcony, lay on the far side of the curve, between my rooms and those of the King and Queen. The other chambers belonged to guests of the royal family – of which there were few and far between – lay mostly empty. I suspected many an ardent guard or army officer brought their willing liaisons to those rooms for privacy and illicit hanky panky. Sofia knew of these, I often thought, but never bothered to ask her.

  Sofia departed through the two heavy oaken doors that swung onto the inner corridors. Another door, lighter and smaller, opened onto the massive, walled balcony. I often liked to stand there and watch the sun set, gaze over the town that surrounded Castle Salagh or dream of riding free over the distant hills. In times of strife, guards stood their watch on both entrances. Per my order, no guard lounged around my chambers for ten or more years. I never did like their spying eyes nor their unctuous smiles.

  I liked warm, dark wood, and all our furniture captured that ess
ence. The huge bed I just rolled from held four tall posters, with dark red hangings made from heavy satin. A servant’s pestle made lay at the foot, though I hadn’t permitted a servant to sleep there since I moved in. Any attendants who looked after us resided in the outer chamber with a stout, barred door between us. Sofia’s personal maid saw to her needs once I left the rooms.

  I had no manservant. I dressed myself every morning and undressed myself every evening. I could brush my own hair, and tie my own boot laces, thank you. Never able to tolerate the fussiness of servants, I routinely sent them away as often as my mother assigned them to me.

  With a sigh, I sat in Sofia’s chair amid her scents, hair brushes, face, foot and tooth powders. Various jars and vials of ointments, creams, and medicines, topped with wax seals lay in an organized clutter. I half-wondered of within one of those vials lay a prevention of pregnancies. We’d been married more than three years. I lay with her almost nightly. The timing of this conception seemed almost too good to be true.

  If it’s too good to be true, then it generally wasn’t.

  Using her polished mirror, I examined my face. Swollen, red abrasions raked down my left cheek. A huge, purple-black goose-egg rose over my right eye, and my nose looked like the naked ass of a bottom-of-the-rung chicken. Scrapes and dark bruises all over my face gave me a hellish appearance. The scar left behind by Malik’s blade and Van’s mercy only intensified the evil monster I’d become.

  For your own good, don’t heal what’s visible. Heal what isn’t.

  “I have to experiment first,” I replied.

  Picking a small cut on the left side of my jaw, I ran my finger over it.

  Nothing happened.

  It remained red and raw and oozing.

  Try it again, but this time flex your will.

  Concentrate, I told myself. Again, nothing. I pondered how I called the eagle to my wrist. I didn’t use words. I merely looked up at him – and called. I don’t recall willing him to come, but I suppose I had. Thus, if willpower is needed, perhaps I should focus my mind on thoughts of healing and will my cut to heal.