Borrowed Magic

by Shari Lambert

  “Stop it!” someone very close by shouted. “Can’t you see this is bothering her? We all need to calm down and decide what to do. I refuse to let her die.”

  “None of us can do anything. You can.”

  A hand clamped around her own hard enough that she might have winced if she could have.

  “No. What if we’re wrong? What if it kills her?”

  “If you don’t, then she’ll die for sure. It’s her only chance.”

  Were they talking about her? She tried to open her eyes again with no success. Everything felt hazy, and not just because she couldn’t seem to fully wake up. As if something were missing.

  She heard a long sigh. “Do you think it will hurt?”

  It took a long time before someone else answered. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Pain. She picked through the impressions floating around her mind and knew pain was something she was familiar with. She did a quick inventory of her body. Nothing. She didn’t hurt anywhere. That struck her as being strange.

  If nothing was physically wrong with her, why couldn’t she move, or see, or fully grasp her own thoughts?

  “You have to do this if you want to save her. We can’t do anything more for her.”

  “I know.”

  Someone pressed their lips against her forehead, and then she felt hands against either side of her face followed by words she couldn’t make out. Then a strange sensation, that wasn’t entirely physical, began pushing against her temples, and she realized it was trying to get inside her.

  She struggled to fight whatever it was, not even knowing exactly why. It was uncomfortable but it didn’t hurt. She fought it more because of something that had happened before, something she couldn’t remember but that tugged at her subconscious.

  The hands against her face tightened. “Please, Maren. I’m not Kern.”

  Something deep inside her responded to the desperate plea in a way she didn’t understand, and all her defenses dropped. An indescribable force wove its way through her mind before spreading throughout the rest of her body. It wasn’t harsh, or abrasive, or overpowering. Instead it flowed through her, filling in gaps she hadn’t even realized were there.

  The hands at her face reached to grab her own, but the calmness that had engulfed her remained. Something had shifted. She let out a sigh of pure contentment.

  She was whole.

  * * *

  Her room wasn’t any different. At least not any different than it had been – before Kern cast his horrible spell. And yet as she looked around at the familiar surroundings, she felt disconnected, as if she were looking through someone else’s eyes.

  She’d woken a few minutes before to find herself alone and managed to push herself up against the pillows, which took more effort than she would have imagined. At least she wasn’t in pain. It was a start.

  Someone whispered in the hallway outside her door, but she couldn’t pick out the words. She was glad they were outside. At least for now, while she tried to make sense of what had happened, why she was still alive, or if the dreams she’d had, the sensation that she was whole, was actually real.

  Kern was dead. She did know that. So was Daric.

  She sucked in a deep breath, surprised at how good it felt, as if she hadn’t truly breathed for a long time, and then scooted to the edge of the bed and sat up. After the initial light-headedness passed, she pushed herself to her feet and clutched at the bedpost until she felt confident she could move. Her knees didn’t actually shake, but they were weak, and she had to keep one hand on the bed as she walked.

  She wanted a mirror, to see if something there would give her answers to why she felt like a shadow of her physical self. Because that’s the only thing she could find that was wrong. Inside, she felt wonderful and alive.

  Her dressing table was a few steps from the end of her bed, but she managed without assistance and fell into the chair. Then she looked in the mirror and gasped. Her cheeks were sunken, her red eyes rimmed with shadow, and her hair lay in snarled clumps around her shoulders. She looked as if she’d been ill for months and had a brief moment of alarm.

  The door clicked open behind her but she didn’t turn, too horrified by the image in front of her.

  “What happened to me?” she whispered to whoever had come.

  She didn’t get an answer. Instead strong arms lifted her from the chair and held her tight, conveying in more than words his fear and relief. Then he whispered against her hair in a voice rough with emotion.

  Philip. She recognized the feel of his arms and the sound of his voice, but it was more than that. She recognized him. She didn’t know how else to explain it. Even if he hadn’t held her or opened his mouth, she would have known it was him as soon as he came near her.

  She pulled back and wiped away his tears. He did the same for her. And then she just stared at him, absorbing the shadows under his eyes and noticing that his hair was disheveled and he wasn’t shaved.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  He bent his forehead to hers. “Eleven days.”

  It wasn’t as long as she’d feared, but it was still too long. “What happened? Why do I look like…”

  “Like you almost died?” he finished for her and pulled her back into his arms. “Because you almost did.”

  But she should have. “Why didn’t I, though?”

  He ran a hand over his face as if he didn’t want to remember but knew he owed her some kind of explanation.

  “As soon as Kern was dead, everything went crazy. People were screaming and running as they saw Kern for who he truly was and as the magical façade he’d created crumbled. But all I could think about was you. You were barely breathing, and I could feel you slipping away.”

  A shudder rippled through him.

  “I did what I could, but healing was something I never focused on. I didn’t know exactly what to do. Kira gathered every healer she could find. She even braved the magical section of the city, begging for anyone who might be able to help. And they came. It took days, but eventually all your physical ailments were cured.”

  She reached her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “But I still don’t understand how you could heal me at all?”

  “I think once Kern’s magic was gone, once he was dead, his hold over you went away.”

  He skimmed a hand along her hair.

  “I thought that would be enough, that all your injuries were physical, but after a few days you still weren’t waking up.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what was wrong. I went over everything that had happened the day Kern died with the healers. I told them every detail I could remember, but I didn’t know everything. I didn’t know how you managed to get Kern’s magic out of you. I didn’t know what damage that might have done. So I went back further. I told them everything you had told me, about him using his magic to hurt and control you, and your description of how you felt it working its way into your body.

  “One of them wondered if Kern’s magic was embedded more deeply than we realized, if it had somehow become a part of you. When you pushed the magic out, it took a force so powerful it actually ripped it from your body, but it also left a hole. That’s why you were still dying, because a huge part of you was missing.”

  She felt him shiver.

  “I knew he was right,” Philip went on. “I knew it like I’d never known anything before, but I didn’t know what to do.” He paused for a long time. “The healers only thought was that someone needed to fill the gap left by Kern’s magic, to share a part of their magic with you. Someone with enough power to do it. Someone who would be willing to do it.”

  She felt her heart burn inside her.

  “I was the only one with enough power, but I was scared. Not because I wasn’t willing. I would have done anything, given up anything, to keep you alive. I was scared it wouldn’t work, that it would kill you, that it would hurt you more than you’d already been hurt. I knew what Kern’s mag
ic had done to you. I didn’t know if my magic would do the same. If I’d only be prolonging your life. That I’d have to watch you die all over again.”

  He pulled her closer and buried his face in her hair.

  “I did it anyway. I was selfish. I wanted more time with you…however I could get it. I poured my magic into you and merged it with the shredded parts Kern’s had destroyed, and I felt…” He struggled for the right word. “I felt you. Alive. Whole.”

  Exactly as she’d felt herself. It hadn’t been a dream.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Maren stood in what was left of the Great Hall. Philip had wanted her to stay in her room, but she couldn’t. She needed to see where it had all happened. Where it had all ended. And despite her physical weakness, she didn’t want to sit in bed. She wanted to go and make herself feel better – to live.

  So she’d sent for Kira, who immediately threw her arms around her neck and cried. Then she bathed, ate, and dressed, picking a gown of dusty blue. She hoped the color would make her look less on the verge of death. When she peeked in the mirror, she was mildly satisfied. The rest would just take time.

  As her eyes scanned the room before her, she realized it would also take time to heal. Almost every window was shattered, and glass littered the marble floor. Light streamed through a giant hole in the ceiling, hitting the jagged shards and sending rainbows across the walls. It would have been beautiful – if not for the cause.

  That wasn’t the only evidence of what had happened. Scorch marks now decorated various spots on the walls and floor. Chairs were overturned. Torn draperies hung limply on their rings. Even the giant metal doors had somehow been blown off their hinges. It looked like a battleground, which she realized it was. Not with huge armies battling with swords and cannons, but with two mages, father and son, and the help of a girl who wasn’t magical at all.

  She closed her eyes. It was over. She no longer felt Kern’s dark magic inside her. She was free. From everything except the memories.

  She forced her eyes back open and faced the one place she’d been avoiding. The throne was split in two, as if someone had taken an axe to it, but the chair where she’d sat was somehow still upright. With the chaos everywhere else, it seemed out of place. Wrong. She ran her hands along the now-silvery lines that crossed her skin. Even if they no longer glowed eerie blue, they were there, a reminder of what had happened, what she’d endured. There were some things that couldn’t be fixed or rebuilt or forgotten.

  “We tried to take away the scars,” Philip said as he threaded his fingers through hers. “Even the strength of my magic wouldn’t touch them.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s all right. When all of this is repaired, when everyone forgets about Kern, it will help us remember.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to forget?”

  “No. We can’t ever forget. If we do, we allow it to happen again.”

  She forced herself to face the front of the room. “How were you able to kill Kern?”

  He slipped his arms around her waist. “I didn’t. At least not completely. I think it was his own power, the magic you managed to tear from your body, that ultimately killed him. He could protect himself against my magic. I don’t think he could protect himself from his own.”

  A throat cleared behind them. “Excuse me, Your Majesty.”

  Maren’s eyes widened. It seemed more had transpired in the time she was asleep than Philip had told her.

  Philip let out a frustrated breath. “Yes?”

  “Um, Lord Berk wants to meet with you in the Council chambers.” The servant shifted uncomfortably. “He said as soon as possible.”

  Philip scowled, which only made the man take a step back. “And does Lord Berk know that I’m with Lady Maren, that she’s awake for the first time in almost two weeks, and that I don’t care what he wants?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Philip clenched his fists at his side and walked towards the man with the obvious intention of throwing him out and slamming what was left of the doors in his face. “You can tell Lord Berk—”

  “That Lord Philip will be there shortly,” Maren finished.

  The servant bowed and threw her a grateful look before retreating.

  “He’s just doing his job,” she said to Philip’s back.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I know. I’m just sick of answering to Berk. Of having him tell me what we should do next, when we should start the repairs, which people need help first, or how important it is that I take charge.”

  “So you accepted?”

  He sighed and faced her. “No. I told them I didn’t want to be king, that it wasn’t a good idea for someone with my power to have that much control over the lives of others. Only they won’t accept it. Even after what happened, even after seeing it with their own eyes.” He frowned. “I think they hope if they call me ‘Your Majesty’ enough, I’ll eventually get used to the idea.”

  She took his hands in hers. “Philip, you’re not your father. You never could be.”

  “That’s up for argument, but even if you’re right, what about our son, or our grandson, or great-grandson?”

  The thought of which left her breathless but also made her want to smile. He hadn’t even realized he’d said “our.”

  “They’re bound to inherit some level of magic. How do we know they won’t be like Kern? Do we want to risk a dark mage-king?”

  She thought for a moment. “No, we don’t. But there’s a solution to that. You could accept on condition. Maybe the Council would have to approve the next king, even if preference goes to the heir. If there were any question of loyalty or fear of what kind of man he was, they could choose someone else in his place. At any time – even after he took the crown. And we invite magic back into Tredare to ensure any magical, ill-intentioned heir can be kept in check.”

  Philip wandered over to a bench that looked stable enough to sit on and pulled her along behind him. “But I don’t want to be king.”

  She gave him a small, almost-apologetic smile. “I know, but better you, who doesn’t want it, than someone who does for all the wrong reasons.”

  He stared at her for a long time and she could see his indecision warring inside. “On one condition.” He finally said as he took her hand. “That you’ll be my queen.”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Always.”

  Then he kissed her. Without fear lurking in the background. Without the knowledge she was going to die. Without anything standing in their way.

  “I love you, Maren. More than I could have imagined. I don’t even know how to show you, or tell you, or help you understand how much.”

  She hugged him tighter. “I already understand.” And she did. She felt the same way about him. But it was even more than that. She could feel his love like a physical force, keeping her alive and holding her together.

  Almost as if it were a part of her.

  Thirty-three

  It was déjà vu. Maren sat in the front row, listening to the excited whispers of the crowd in the Great Hall. A much larger crowd than Philip would have wanted. But this time, instead of being nervous, she was almost surreally happy, despite everything that had happened.

  It had only been a week since Philip had gone to Lord Berk and accepted the Council’s request, and she’d spent much of the time with Adare, who barely left her room. It was just too hard. There were too many memories of Daric. But Maren held out hope Adare would be all right – eventually. The former queen had agreed to exile for the young man who had killed her husband, saying his death wouldn’t make her pain go away. It was a start.

  There hadn’t been enough time before the coronation to repair the damage to the Hall. Berk had wanted to try, but Philip refused. He’d let them clean up the broken glass and clear away the debris. He’d even consented to boarding up the hole in the ceiling and the worst of the windows. Other than that, it was the same as the day Kern had been killed. The
scorch marks, the torn curtains, the throne that still lay in pieces. Philip wanted it left as a reminder of what power could do. Not forever. Just today. The day they’d chosen a mage as their king.

  The room quieted, and she watched Philip walk down the aisle, head bent, hands at his sides. He was all in black and a silver sword hung at his side. There was no fanfare, no pronouncement of his name, nothing. Just him and the people. His people.

  He stopped in front of Lord Berk and knelt. Maren could feel his nervousness and knew that if she could see them, his hands would be shaking. Just like her own.

  She barely heard any of the actual ceremony, too caught up in Philip’s emotions. Something had happened when he’d saved her, when he’d shared a part of his magic. At first, she hadn’t understood why she was so in tune with Philip’s feelings, had thought she was reading his body language or he was telling her more than he was. But as the days went by, she realized it was more than that. She could feel when he entered a room. She could sense his every emotion, even if he wasn’t looking at her, and more recently, even if he wasn’t near.

  She hadn’t told Philip yet. He’d been too busy with everything else, and she hadn’t known quite how to explain it to him.

  Lord Berk lifted the crown over Philip’s head and began the final part of the ceremony. She could feel his apprehension – and his desire to flee – and she couldn’t help but smile. Then Berk lowered the crown. It was as if she felt the crushing weight of responsibility on her own shoulders as it settled into place. She wanted to run to Philip and lace her fingers through his, to reassure him.

  She had to be content to watch as he faced the people for the first time as their king.

  As one, every head in the room bowed and then rose again. Philip looked over the crowd and managed a small smile before his eyes found hers. He gave her a low bow and then made his way back down the aisle.