by James Tate
“You don’t need to heal me,” I assured him. “I’ve dealt with a whole lot worse than a rough backhand before.” The words escaped me without thought, but Lee’s raised brows made me pause. “Red tide poisoning, remember?” I quickly covered, and he nodded slowly.
“Still,” he whispered, darting his eyes to our closest guards to check that they weren’t listening, “I have the ability to take your pain away, so just let me.”
I bit back a smile at the stubborn look on his face. “I would say your brothers need healing more, but perhaps they deserve to suffer a bit for that ridiculous fight earlier.”
A small smile touched Lee’s lips, too, but an angry snarl from our wolfish guard shut us both up pretty quick.
We didn’t risk chatting again until we had been securely locked in a cell underneath a building that must have been the Ironforge town hall at some stage.
* * *
“All right, spill it,” I ordered after our beastly guards had slammed the doors shut with a heavy thud and the distinctive sound of a bolt shooting home echoed through the room. “What in Zryn’s nuts is going on? Starting with you.” I levelled a glare at Sagen, who glared back at me while Lee worked his magic on her wounded shoulder. “What the fuck is your deal, anyway? One minute you’re this bitchy princess who is hell-bent on winning the Trials, and the next you’re... I don’t even know what. Someone needs to explain.”
I turned my accusing glare to Zan, remembering how Sagen had been creeping into his bedroom before dawn and how he called her Sage.
Jealousy bubbled inside me as a little corner of my mind whispered that they could be lovers, and the idea made me want to vomit. I was such a hypocrite.
“Sage is an old friend,” Zan responded in a flat tone of voice. Blood dripped from his split lip, and I needed to ball my fist to stop from going to him and dabbing it.
“Old friend,” I repeated from behind clenched teeth, trying really damn hard to rein in the insane level of jealousy and suspicion I was experiencing.
Sagen snorted a laugh, tossing her silky hair over her undamaged shoulder. How she managed to still do that while Lee was patching up a fucking arrow puncture blew my mind. “Not like that, Callaluna. You can quit with the possessive thing you’ve got going on; they’re all yours.”
My jaw tightened, and I swallowed a couple of times to refrain from taking the bait and ending up in an argument.
“Sage is an old family friend,” Lee elaborated, finishing with Sagen and wiping his bloody hands on his pants. “When the first lady—”
“Hyacinth,” Ty murmured.
Lee gave him a nod. “When Lady Hyacinth tried to break the oath so early in the Trials, we saw an opening to stack the deck a bit. We knew our father was sabotaging the traditions, but we didn’t know who to trust. We needed an insider on the ladies side.”
I frowned. It sort of made sense, but there were a whole heap of unexplained factors going on. “So what were you doing in Zan’s room that morning? And how did you bring him back to life?” This was directed at Sagen, and she snorted a laugh.
“I was there because Zan didn’t for a second believe you would choose him over these two hopeless romantics. We were going to talk strategy for this week’s trial. As for bringing him back to life, that’s nothing to do with me. He was already fine when I came in.” She shrugged, but the look she gave me said she was pretty certain either I had done it myself or I was lying about him having been dead, no matter how briefly.
My gaze flicked to Zan, who was staring at me with an intensity that made me shiver.
“But you did,” he said softly. “You did choose me that night.”
The pain in my chest as he said this was almost debilitating. How had I been so careless as to let myself fall for three different men? Brothers, as if it weren’t bad enough. I could see what was about to happen, and I knew it was going to break me... yet I couldn’t find the words to stop it from happening.
“No, I didn’t,” I replied in a gentle voice. “I chose Alexander with the intention of destroying whatever this is.” I waved my hand between the four of us, totally ignoring everyone else in the cell with us.
Zan’s fists clenched at his sides, and he swallowed visibly.
“You need to make your mind up, Luna,” he told me, his jaw set with determination but his eyes full of pain. “I can’t keep feeling like this toward my brothers. That rage I felt, watching you with Ty... I’ve never wanted to hurt him as badly as I did in that moment.” He paused and sucked in a shaking breath. “I can feel myself falling in love with you, but I won’t be the cause of my brothers’ pain. Either of them.” His gaze darted to both Ty and Lee.
My mind whirled, and panic clawed at my throat. If they really forced my hand, if they really made me choose... it would be myself. I refused to pick which of the princes I cared for more. That would be like choosing between oxygen, water, and sleep—or some other equally imperative items.
“Wait,” I blurted out, grasping at straws. “That’s something I didn’t get a chance to tell you. What happened in the meadow, there was more going on than what you could see.”
Lee grimaced and wrinkled his nose. “Calla, babe, we saw a whole lot more than you think.”
Fighting the blush at his comment, I shook my head. “No, not that. I mean, remember when I was staring at something you couldn’t see? Right before Sagen showed up and caught an arrow through her shoulder?” The guys nodded slightly. “There were other people there, and I’m pretty sure they had something to do with our, uh, heightened emotions.”
“Other people,” Zan repeated in a flat tone, as though he thought I was making shit up to avoid the confrontation he was shoving in my face. “Explain that.”
Rolling my eyes, I folded my arms—both in frustration and because it was damn cold in the cell we’d been locked in. Off-the-shoulder riding dresses looked great on horseback under the sunlight, but weren’t super practical for cold, damp dungeons. Not to mention the drafty breeze serving as a reminder that my underwear was back in a magical meadow somewhere.
“A pink-haired girl with red wings and an older guy with a beard and old-fashioned armor. They were sitting in a tree watching us and laughing. The girl said something to the guy about how your fight was ‘amusing,’ and it sounded a whole lot like they had something to do with it.” I bit the inside of my cheek, remembering how my body had responded when the girl had blown a kiss at me. “In fact, I’m positive they had something to do with all of it.”
Lieutenant Greenjoy stood from his position in the corner of the cell where Jules had been clinging to his arm like a monkey. I’d almost forgotten we had company until he spoke.“Describe them again,” he urged me, frowning intently. “What did they look like?”
Shrugging, I repeated my descriptions of them, remembering to include the inner glow and the fact that I was the only one who could see them. “The woman called the man ‘Walt,’ if that’s of any relevance.”
Greenjoy nodded, but he was staring at me with a little bit of awe. “And you saw them. Did they speak to you?”
“Uh, more at me than to me. They definitely noticed that I could see them, though. You seem to know who they are?” I arched a brow at him, and he nodded again.
Lee made a soft sound beside me, and I turned to him. “Just how bad is your knowledge of the gods, Calla? I think most people would know you’ve just described Rayventh and Gewalt. The question remains, why could you see them? And why would they suddenly be back when no one has seen them in thousands of years?”
Anxiety twisted in my stomach as his words confirmed my suspicions. Admittedly, my knowledge of gods, outside of the abstract concept, was pretty rough. Especially gods I never really thought I’d have any need to pray to, like Rayventh, goddess of love. There was really no excuse for me not to have known Gewalt, god of war, though. My only reasoning was that I didn’t want to believe it was really them.
“So it stands to reason,” Greenjoy commented,
“and I apologize for drawing assumptions off the conversation you just had, but it stands to reason that Rayventh somehow influenced some level of, uh, intense arousal?”
“And then Gewalt pushed Zan to start a fight with me,” Ty added, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It makes sense.”
Zan winced. “I don’t know that I needed any help in that department.”
“Nah, bro.” Ty shook his head at him. “You were angry, for sure, and I can get that. It’s not like we’ve never had a fight before, either. But you’ve never come at me off-guard like that. If Lo saw Gewalt and Rayventh talking about it like they had a hand in it, I think they pushed you into it.”
Ty seemed totally convinced by this, but Zan’s expression was shuttered and stubborn. A sick feeling pooled in my stomach, and I just knew that he wasn’t letting his ultimatum drop so easily. Godlike interference or not, it didn’t negate the fact that I had just had sex with his brother.
Further discussion about meddling gods and complicated relationships was put on hold as the outer door slammed open and one of the beast-women came back through holding a heavy ring with several keys attached. She lumbered over to the barred door to our cell and unlocked it, holding it open and standing in the gap.
“You, you, and you.” She pointed to me, Jules, and Sagen. “You’re free to go.”
She stepped aside to allow us out, but none of us moved.
“Are you deaf?” The half woman, half bear snarled at us. “Go! We have no desire to keep you here.”
“What about our companions?” I demanded, tightening my arms across my chest to try and stop the shivering that had started up. “We’re not leaving here without them.”
The beastly woman shook her head. “Not up to me. I just do what I’m told, and I’ve been told to turn you three loose.”
Jules climbed to her feet but hesitated, glancing between me, Greenjoy, and the open door. Her own sense of survival was surely doing a number on her as she debated saving her own skin versus sticking with the rest of us.
“Who is it up to?” Zan asked, but the woman didn’t even glance at him as she stared back at me with flat, unwavering boredom.
I cleared my throat. “Who is it up to, if not you?” I repeated Zan’s question, testing my theory that she wouldn’t acknowledge or respond to any of the men. “Who is giving the orders around here?”
“The high priestess of Barmzig,” the woman responded with a small hand sign, which I recognized as the prayer to our goddess of mercy. I wasn’t totally ignorant of our deities and their customs. “She spared us when our men were wiped out thanks to the greed and corruption of the usurper king.” She spat on the ground at Zan’s feet, and I got another clue as to their actions. They blamed King Titus for whatever had happened to them, which lined up with the conversation Titus and Taipanus had had about villagers mutating.
“Well then, can we speak to her?” I pushed, trying not to snap at her with my exasperation. We were officially running out of time if we wanted to make it back to the palace with the crown by the time the second trial ended in less than a day.
The guard glared at me. “You’re going to stay here in this cell until you can see our high priestess?”
I nodded firmly. “We are.”
Sagen muttered something under her breath, but sat back down where she was leaning against the wall. Lee had healed the worst of her wound, but it was clearly still paining her.
Jules just gave a small shoulder shrug and stepped back to take Greenjoy’s hand.
“You realize our priestess doesn’t just sit around waiting to chat with prisoners we catch in our borderlands? It could be a long wait.” The guard let out a small growl with her words, and I bit back the spike of fear it instilled in me.
“So be it,” I replied with a confidence I was not feeling. What if their priestess left us to rot down here for months? What would happen to the trials? To the kingdom? I could only hope that this guard was full of shit and it wouldn’t take too long at all to gain access to this priestess.
The bear-woman shook her head but slammed the cell door shut again. “Suit yourselves,” she muttered, locking the door and exiting through the outer door once more.
“While I admire you not wanting to leave us,” Lee said in a you’re-in-trouble tone of voice. “You should have just taken the girls and gotten out. We are perfectly capable of handling ourselves.”
“I know you are,” I assured him. “I’m actually surprised no one tried to talk over me there.” I shot a look at Zan and Ty, both of whom glared back at me with their bruised faces.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Zan informed me with an edge of sarcasm, “we’re not totally vapid, self-absorbed royals. It was pretty damn obvious that these people won’t acknowledge or interact with anyone possessing a penis, so it would have been pointless trying to argue with you.”
If anything, the princes willingness to accept my leadership in the current situation was only making me fall harder for all three of them. Curse them all to... ugh, I had no idea which gods I could even pray or curse to anymore. I’d never have thought Aana—my patron goddess—would turn out to be such a psychopath, so who knew which other gods the people had gotten wrong over time?
“So now we wait,” Captain Jefferson murmured from the corner, where he’d been sitting so quietly I’d forgotten he was there. “Perhaps if we play our cards right, we might learn what is actually happening to our world’s magic. I for one, don’t believe for a second that this is all happening without someone else’s hand in it.”
Ty grunted his agreement. “Someone like our father.”
“Do you have a plan, Callaluna?” Sagen asked, her stare just a little too intense for my liking. I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Not really,” I admitted. “But the crown is here somewhere. Close. If anyone can point us to it, it’s surely this priestess, right?”
Sagen’s perfect brows shot up in surprise. “I guess I missed something. You can sense the real crown? Not that fake one Jefferson is carrying?”
I nodded, touching a hand to the pouch of stones I’d stitched into the pocket of my dress. I hadn’t been willing to risk anyone else accidentally touching them, in case the royal guards’ stories of people exploding were to be believed. More than that, I had found myself constantly touching them myself, absentmindedly becoming addicted to the tingling sensation of them on my fingers, so I’d sewn my pocket shut before we’d left this morning to remove the temptation.
“It’s here somewhere, and it wants to be found,” I murmured, feeling the buzz of the stones’ magic even through the fabric they were encased in.
Sagen made a sound, then winced when she moved her shoulder. “Well then, let’s hope this priestess is a reasonable bitch and this trial doesn’t end with all of us getting hanged in the town square. Then who would be left to rule Teich? Gracelin?”
We all seemed to share a shudder at that thought. Then again, if that did happen, at least none of us would be around to witness it.
18
Thankfully, someone was looking out for us, and it was only a matter of hours before the bear guard returned to announce that the priestess would see us now.
“Uh-ah.” The woman shook her head, standing in the way as Ty made to leave the cell first. “Not you. Just her.” She pointed at me, and I sighed.
“No one saw that coming,” Sagen remarked with heavy sarcasm.
I shot her a shut-the-fuck-up glare, then turned back to the misandrist beast-woman. “Can I bring one other person with me?” I asked her, trying to keep my tone calm. What good it would do, I had no idea. But it just seemed like a smart idea not to go off alone into the beasts’ lair—so to speak.
“You can bring her,” the guard told me, indicating to Sagen. “But that’s it.”
I gave Sagen a side-eye, and she groaned dramatically. “Fine, but this’d better not be some sort of trap.” She pushed up from the ground and glared at the silent yet tense p
rinces. “You three owe me so hard when this is all over.”
Lee gave my fingers one last squeeze before releasing me to follow Sagen out of the cell.
Our guard locked up again and indicated we walk ahead of her out of the building and into the street, where a full, crimson moon hung in the sky.
My step faltered when I saw the rose-tinted hue bathing the shadowed streets, and I shivered. My hands gripped my upper arms, and I peered up at the moon with trepidation.
“Blood moon,” our guard huffed. “The only reason our priestess agreed to see you so quickly.”
I nodded my understanding and saw Sagen swallow nervously.
Blood moons were never a sign of anything good. Throughout our history, they’d only ever appeared before a brutal bloodshed. Some said that on a blood-moon night, the separation between gods and men became almost nonexistent, and until now, I’d always figured that was an excuse for people’s terrible behavior on blood moons.
In light of the past few days, I suddenly wasn’t so sure.
“Come on.” Our guard hurried us along. “I don’t want to be caught out here if that moon is intended for Ironforge.”
I didn’t blame her. Trouble seemed to be finding me at every turn these days, so I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the crimson moon was a warning for the rest of my night.
“Can you tell us what happened to you?” I asked tentatively as we walked through the red-lit streets. Perhaps without the men present, she might tell us more.
The beast-woman cast a long look at me, then grunted. “The usurper king happened, that’s what. Mark my words, he was behind Queen Ophelia’s death, but that was only the beginning. He’s been draining this land of its magic ever since, but the land is fighting back.”
Sagen and I exchanged a glance.
“How so?” Sagen prompted.
“I don’t know the ins and outs,” our guard admitted. “But the way our priestess explains it, his pull on the land’s magic is like a million elastic straps being pulled as tight as they can go. Every now and then, one snaps and causes what we’ve come to accept as backlash over the queen’s murder. Storms of pure magic, darknesses, mutations...” She indicated to her own appearance. “The drain comes from the capital, so its us on the borders that got hit the hardest. It won’t be long until it’s everyone, though. Unless he can be stopped.”
