by K. A. Linde
Her heart fluttered as the power slowly drained out of her, like molasses dripping from a tree. She felt an arm on her shoulder as someone hoisted her onto her feet.
“Are you out of your mind? Next time a Braj attacks, why don’t you let me take it out? If his blade had touched you, what would I have done?” Dean asked very seriously.
Cyrene’s eyes glazed over and then refocused as she tried to hold on to consciousness. “You…you know about Braj?”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” he said, wrestling the sword from the fallen Braj.
“No one knows at home. Everyone thinks…thinks they’re…”
“Monsters? Well, they are.”
Her legs gave out, and he adjusted so that he was holding her up against him.
“How did you even hold my sword? The bloody thing is too heavy for most of my men, and you handled it like a professional. Did you learn that from your father as well?”
She shook her head, but her body felt sluggish, almost like she was wading through a heavy current. Her powers hummed softly in her, and just as she went to release them at the loss of the threat…another heartbeat filled her ears.
“Dean, there’s another,” she said softly. Then, she collapsed.
“Tell them you can’t go to Eleysia, Sera,” Viktor said.
This time, Cyrene realized immediately where she was. The mind and body connection between her and the last Domina Serafina registered instantly. Perhaps it was because this was the third time that she had been in the woman’s thoughts in the past couple of months. She should be worried about her ability to do this, let alone the ease in which it occurred, but Cyrene only felt curiosity.
“You know I can’t do that.”
There was something in Serafina’s voice that hadn’t been there the last time Cyrene had been in her head. She seemed stronger, more resilient. Though she still looked upon this man with tender devotion.
“They claim that you have more power than any of the others, and you still let them make your decisions.”
For the moment, Serafina looked away from Viktor and down at the slimming red satin dress. Cyrene wished she knew what they were talking about.
“I have no choice. I have not completed my training, so I have very little political clout,” she told him.
Viktor took a step back. “You want to go.”
“No,” she corrected him, “I must go. I want to stay here with you.”
“Then, stay!”
“Is it always this argument, Viktor? It becomes so draining.”
Cyrene noticed their surroundings for the first time. They were in some kind of cottage. It reminded her of the holiday home her parents owned in the country.
“You were the one who separated us, Sera. I’ve been fighting for us from the beginning.”
“By marrying Margana? My best friend?” Serafina snapped angrily. “Your wife is with child, and you stand here, begging for me to do what exactly? I cannot give up my powers any more than you can leave your wife and child.”
“I would do it for you.” He held his arms out for her.
“Oh, Viktor,” she said, falling into his embrace. “Why must this always be so difficult?”
“It has been difficult since the day you stepped into the castle. I feel you drifting away from me more and more, Sera. I can’t bear it. You are my one true love. Margana is the person my father chose, not who I chose. My choice will always be you.” He grasped her arms and drew her back, so he could look at her. “Find a way for us to be together forever, my love.”
“We will be,” she whispered.
“No. Use your powers. Then, you will know my love never wavered.”
Cyrene woke up to the feel of a soft cushion under her head and silk sheets covering her body. Her mind was hazy. Her head pounded. Her throat felt dry. Her fingers tingled. She blinked away her blurry vision and allowed the room to come into focus.
Where am I, and what has happened?
Her mind was still filled with Serafina and Viktor Dremylon. Why did they keep coming to me? She had always adored history, but no history she had ever read said that the supposedly evil Domina Serafina was in love with her archrival and the man who destroyed her, Viktor Dremylon. But the more Cyrene had these visions, the more she questioned if the history she had grown up with was accurate. And how could Serafina use her powers to make their love eternal? Cyrene doubted there was a force on this earth that could do such a thing.
“She’s awake,” a voice called out with relief.
Cyrene turned her head and saw a young woman looking down upon her. “What’s going on?” she croaked.
The woman didn’t say anything. She just rushed out of the room. Cyrene looked around at her surroundings and tried to remember what had happened.
Everything came back to her in sharp focus. Avoca had reached with her magic. The pulse of the Braj. Slaying the beast with Dean’s sword.
Dean!
She gasped aloud and tried to sit up but crashed back down into the bed as her body tried to recover.
She covered her face with her hands. She had passed out and left him there to fend for himself. He hadn’t acted surprised that one was there, but everything she knew about Braj told her that he couldn’t hope to defeat one without powers unless he was one of the best swordsmen in the world. That meant…he had likely perished. Her chest tightened at the thought.
Dean couldn’t be dead. Creator! She couldn’t even fathom that. She had only met him twice, but she just couldn’t believe it. The first man who had ever shown interest in her without any motivations…and she had likely led him straight to his death.
Cyrene slid slowly from the bed and walked across the small room to bring life back into her limbs.
She had just made it back to the bed when the doorknob twisted. Cyrene turned to face the door, wondering who exactly she was going to see. When the door opened, in strode Queen Jesalyn, and right behind her was Kael.
Jesalyn was smiling like she had just won a prize. Kael looked like the overconfident, mischievous Prince he was. Cyrene stood her ground even though she wanted to drive Jesalyn’s smile into the nearest bedpost.
“Haenah, it’s so good to see you,” Jesalyn cooed. “Or should I call you Cyrene now that we’re familiar?”
“Why are you holding me hostage?” Cyrene demanded.
Jesalyn snorted. “We gave you a proper bed and a nice room in the palace, and you say you’re a hostage.”
“Jess,” Kael said softly from her side.
She straightened, and it was easy to see that she really was only sixteen. In Byern, she wouldn’t have even reached her Presenting day, and she was here, trying to rule a country. Cyrene would have felt bad for her under different circumstances.
“We’re here to bring you back to Byern, where you belong,” Jesalyn said.
Kael sighed. He looked frustrated with his sister, but it wasn’t like he was letting Cyrene go. “At the present moment, your captors and friends have been detained.”
“Detained?” she asked with a cold pit in her stomach.
“Maelia is perfectly safe in the room next door. However, Orden will be charged with kidnapping. Aurum will hand over their Lord to the throne for trial. His accomplices—Ava, Roran, and Ahlvie—will be charged with aiding and abetting a known criminal. I will be escorting you back to Byern at first light. So, get used to your accommodations. You will be home soon.”
Cyrene stared at him suspiciously. Charging all of them for kidnapping? Kael knew that she hadn’t been kidnapped. He wouldn’t have spoken to her in such a way…toyed with her, if he had thought that someone was going to spirit her away. Is he doing this because, like Maelia had said, he needs to prove to himself and to Edric that he can do this right?
“Kael, I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“You let her address you like that?” Jesalyn asked, raising her nose.
Kael’s blue-gray eyes bored into Cyrene, like he was trying to tell her something,
but she didn’t know what it could possibly be.
Did he worry that since Cyrene really hadn’t been kidnapped, there would be an issue with the fact that Byern had sent all these guards onto foreign soil for no reason? Well, that was not her concern.
“You’ve spent a long time in the company of your kidnapper. Your judgment must be impaired.”
“My judgment?” she asked, taking a step toward him. “What happened to Prince Dean? Is he okay?”
When Kael didn’t speak up, Jesalyn sighed. “He’s fine. He brought you in himself.”
Cyrene’s hand went to her mouth. No. She had trusted him. And he betrayed me? Well, at least he was alive, and she hadn’t sent him to his death.
Jesalyn huffed. “By the Creator, you are annoying. Why does Edric even want her back?”
Cyrene sagged slightly with relief. She had thought Dean was dead. Knowing he was alive seemed to lighten her, ease some of the tension in her heart, even if he had betrayed her and given her over to Kael.
When she met Kael’s eyes a second later, she was shocked by what she saw there. Uncertainty and confusion, and then a second later, there was red-hot jealousy.
She didn’t even know how to respond to that when Kael turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. Jesalyn stared after him in confusion. Clearly, this was not part of their plan.
“Well then, tomorrow, I’ll have you out of my city,” Jesalyn said with a smile before slamming the door shut and locking it.
Cyrene twisted the handle and searched the room to see if there was something she could pick the lock with. But there was nothing. She was trapped in a windowless room, alone, without any hope of finding her friends and escaping to Eleysia after all.
She paced back and forth across the carpet, trying to figure out a puzzle that had no solution.
It was the only reason she heard the click of the doorknob. She took a step back and waited to see what Kael had to say this time. A few endlessly long minutes later, the door cracked open, a torch was thrust into her room, and a familiar face sprang into view.
“My lady,” Dean’s friend Darmian said, bowing at the waist. He pushed the door the rest of the way open, revealing Faylon and Clym.
Cyrene’s eyes searched for the person she was hoping to find, and a second later, Dean appeared, whole and intact with little more than a small bruise on his cheekbone.
“I said I would find you again,” Dean said with an enchanting smile.
Cyrene backed away a step. “You betrayed me to Prince Kael.”
Dean frowned. “After I dispatched the Braj, I was overrun by Aurum guards. I had to make it seem like I was handing you over. But I was always coming back for you. You can have asylum in my country. In Eleysia. No Byern guards would dare try to take you from there.”
Cyrene nearly wept with joy. “You mean it?”
“Of course. You were not kidnapped. That much is clear to me. The rest of the story is your own, but I am free to take you safely away from here, if you will join me.”
“Yes,” she said with a nod.
Darmian pursed his lips. “Then, let’s make haste.”
“My friend Maelia is being held next door.”
Two of the men dashed to the room next to hers, and soon, Maelia was with them.
“But I have to get the rest of my friends, and I fear they are in the dungeons,” Cyrene said.
“Then, we will do what we can to get everyone out of here,” Dean said.
“Servants stairs now. As quietly as possible,” Darmian said, ushering the girls down the stairs.
Cyrene remembered their mad flight out of Strat only a couple of weeks ago. This time, she swore she wouldn’t leave anyone behind. They wound down the stairs until they reached the bottom level and rounded the corner to the dungeons. Darmian, Clym, and Faylon immediately engaged the guards who stood at the entrance, and just then, Cyrene felt a magical pull at her center.
Avoca.
A few seconds later, her friends were barreling out of the dungeons and straight toward her.
“Cyrene!” Avoca cried when she saw her standing at the entrance. “What happened?”
They embraced as she approached.
“We’ll talk later,” Cyrene answered.
When Cyrene pulled back, she counted all of her companions. She had sworn that she would not leave unless she had everyone.
Orden. Maelia. Ahlvie. Avoca. Ceis’f.
All accounted for.
Dean touched the small of her back. “We should get moving if that’s everyone.”
She nodded, telling herself that the thrill of his touch was from the adrenaline of the escape. That was all.
Orden knew the hallways better than even Darmian and overtook him for the lead. They took a sharp corner and then another, scaring servants and pushing them out of the way. They didn’t have time for pleasantries, not when they had just been imprisoned by the Prince of Byern and the Queen of Aurum.
The hallway revealed a wide opening. They dashed toward it, heedless of where they were going, and ended up at a guarded entranceway that led out of the castle.
Darmian and Orden made quick work of the men who had the misfortune of standing duty, knocking them out and leaving them to be found in a nearby room.
Orden grabbed a lever and hoisted open a door. Footsteps could be heard distantly in the hall behind them.
“Hurry!” Cyrene cried.
“Just go!” Dean yelled.
“Go now!” Orden ordered as well.
The Leifs were the first to dart out through the open door. Whoever was behind them was gaining just as the rest of their party ran toward the city.
Cyrene could see Avoca up ahead, and she felt the gut-wrenching pull of her magic. It was like a magnet drawing her closer, and it only made Cyrene want to pull from her own source now that she could touch it.
Orden was the last to follow. He cut the rope for the door and then ran at full speed toward them. The gate barely missed him as it tumbled down, blocking the entrance. A group of guards yelled from behind the barricade. Arrows were nocked above them, but in the close quarters, only one or two arrows were fired, and they missed their mark.
Their group barreled through the city, toward the docks. Adrenaline fueled Cyrene forward.
The moon glowed bright overhead, illuminating their every move. There was no place to hide in the city. All she could do was hope that they would make it to Dean’s ship before the guards caught up to them.
The ship loomed in the distance, proud and true, waving the Eleysian flag.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and everything ached. It felt wondrous and impossible that she had come all this way, and she would finally get to go to Eleysia. Even if nothing had gone as planned, they could still get there after all—and on the Prince’s ship, no less.
Dean was keeping pace at her side. She knew that she was the slowest of the bunch.
She could feel her magic thrumming in her fingertips, but she refused to reach for it. Not until she could fully control it. The only time she had ever used it and not passed out was when she found the deer. She hadn’t even done anything with it. She couldn’t afford to pass out at this point.
Cyrene could see that Darmian had already reached the vessel and was commanding the crew to set sail.
“We have to move faster,” Dean said.
She didn’t dare look behind her in fear of seeing the guards approaching. They were on foot, but drawing nearer.
“I know,” she gasped out breathlessly.
“Some more of that magic again would be most helpful,” he insisted.
Her feet stumbled over the word, and her mouth dropped open. He knows. Of course he knows! He had seen her kill the Braj. Miraculously, he had killed another. But still…hearing that word out of his mouth felt like a dream. She had only just told her Ahlvie. She didn’t know how she felt about anyone else knowing, let alone a stranger.
“I don’t…”
“Just use it,�
�� he said.
Her fingertips tingled. Everything tingled. Her body came to life. She breathed in what she had been holding back for much too long. Her lungs expanded, and her body felt lighter. She didn’t know what she was doing or what she was even thinking. All she could feel was the sweet bliss of being filled with the Creator’s blessing. It was glorious and eternal.
The fear that had pricked her mind before vanished.
I can control it. I can do it, she chanted to herself.
Without another thought, she recalled the last thing that she had done and pushed the energy blast out behind her. The earth quaked under her feet. The wind roared in her ears. Her whole world shattered.
She flew ten feet in the air and landed heavily on the shaky ground. Dean was a good twenty paces beyond her on the dock. He had somehow cleared the distance and was on safe ground. But where she lay was still trembling with whatever she had done.
Dean screamed her name and gestured behind her. She turned away, and in horror, she saw what was happening.
The beautiful stone houses that had lined the docks only minutes ago were demolished. Rubble.
Her mouth hung open, and she let loose a cry of despair.
The guards lay on the ground. They were alive. She could dimly feel their pulses, proving to her that they were alive, but they were holding on to anything through the trembling of the earth.
Whatever she had thrown at them multiplied and magnified. A ripple passed through the city. She could see the destruction from her magic in its wake. Nothing as bad as the immediate vicinity but not good either.
“Dean, go,” Cyrene said. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
For the first time, she felt wrong for going on this mission. She had no clue what she was doing. Working with her magic was wrong. It could hurt people. Destroy lives. Wreak havoc. She couldn’t do this.
Then, Dean grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her onto her feet. “Breathe,” he whispered so softly that she shouldn’t have heard him over the wind in her ears. “Breathe in and out. It will be okay. Just breathe.”
