by Kaylin Lee
“What’s that?”
The screams drew closer. I rushed to the window and hovered just beside it, peeking around the edge to see what was happening. The morning clouds were gray and hazy, as usual, hanging low over the city. I could see nothing beyond the thick grove of trees and bushes of the garden around my tower. The screams came from the Wasp villas within the compound on the other side of the garden.
The Wasp Queen was under attack at last.
“Gather your things,” Darien said. He had appeared beside me holding the empty canvas food bag. “This is it.”
“What?” I stared at him blankly. What was he talking about?
“Your mistress hasn’t come for you yet. If she is killed in the attack, your command will be lifted. We can flee before anyone else comes for you.”
“I…” This? Now? I didn’t… I wasn’t… “How do you know she won’t come for me?”
Darien put his hands on my shoulders and gripped me tightly. “I don’t. But if she’s under attack, she no doubt needs your assistance. And she hasn’t come, which means she can’t get here. We might finally have our chance.”
My confidence grew under the comforting touch of his hands on my shoulders. Now? This might be my chance.
My thoughts couldn’t catch up. One moment, I’d been eating victus and preparing myself to face death again today. The next moment, I was staring freedom in the face instead. “Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll… I’ll pack my things now.”
I shrugged off his hands in a daze and took the bag from him and then looked around the room. What did one need for freedom?
“Spare clothes. Spare shoes. Anything you can’t bear to leave behind in the tower.” Darien answered my unspoken question.
I laughed under my breath. I didn’t want to bring anything with me. No reminders of the past. No belongings. I wanted to leave it all behind and start again. Start fresh!
I limped to the wardrobe, the thrill of possibility finally energizing my steps. I swiped my loose black training shirt and pants from the wardrobe and stuffed them into the bag, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed my worn journal from its hiding place behind the books on my shelf and added it to the bag. I didn’t look at Darien to see if he’d noticed. Perhaps I did want a reminder after all, if only so I’d never forget what she’d done to me.
I slipped on my boots and laced them tight, wincing as the laces aggravated my sore ankle. I’d endured worse pain. We’d escape, and for the first time in years, she wouldn’t find me.
No one else knew my True Name. I didn’t know whether to weep or laugh with joy at the thought. Once she died, there’d be no one else who knew my True Name. I’d be truly free for the first time since I was six years old.
I picked up the canvas bag and went to the window to stand by Darien. His pack and bedroll were already on his back. He’d been ready. Perhaps he’d been waiting all along for a moment like this one.
My stomach twisted, and my hands shook. I gripped the strap of the canvas bag and slung it over my shoulder, keeping my focus on the garden outside the window. The sky was too smoky to see beyond the nearest trees in the garden, but we could still hear the screams. What was happening out there?
I focused on the feel of the Wasp’s final command to stay in my tower. There was not the slightest hint of give. Wherever she was, she was still fully alive. The bright, smoky white of the sky outside hurt my eyes and made my head pound. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my nerves, but only succeeded in beginning a string of too-fast breaths.
It was too much. It was just too much. I turned away from the window as my lungs sought more air.
“Zel.” Darien’s voice came from a distance, as though he spoke from far above me.
I shook my head. What was I denying? “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I whispered. I gripped the strap of the bag tighter and focused on the command. How would it change when she died? Would it weaken slowly, or would it suddenly disappear?
I was dimly aware of Darien placing his hands on my shoulders again. “Breathe,” he said. Why did he feel so far away?
“Where are you?” I heard myself ask.
“I’m right here.” He gripped me tighter. “You need to breathe.” He shoved my shoulders down, and I yelped, then sat hard on the bed behind me. How had I gotten here? Darien pushed my back down so that my head was between my legs, and then he rubbed his hand on my back. “Breathe,” he kept saying.
“Stop it,” I wanted to say. But the room was going dark and hazy. I had to stay awake. I had to escape. This was my chance. Why was it all too much for me?
Darien knelt on the ground before me and pressed his forehead against mine, his hands on either side of my face. “Breathe. Breathe with me. Follow me.”
I tried to copy him, but there was barely any air in my lungs. I gasped inward and puffed out breath as he did. Then I managed to do it again and again—I didn’t know for how long. Eventually, my breathing slowed down. Nausea continued to roil my stomach, but the room was no longer dark and hazy. I was back.
“I’m fine,” I said as I straightened.
Darien didn’t let me go. He pulled me closer, and then his lips met mine in a gentle kiss. “Zel,” he whispered against my lips, “we’re going together. I’m going to take you to my home in Asylia. You’ll be safe there. I promise you.”
“But what about you?” I kissed him back, pressing my lips against his a little too hard. Could he sense my desperation? I leaned away from him, but he held on.
“What about me?”
“Where will you be?” My voice broke mid-sentence, and I forced the rest of the words out with a hoarse whisper. “Will I be alone again in your city?”
Instead of answering, he kissed me again. “You will never be alone again,” he said between kisses. “Not while I have breath in my body. I will be with you, and I will not leave you. I promise.”
Cool air from his sudden absence made me open my eyes. He stood several feet away, his chest heaving, his expression fierce. I stood hesitantly, keeping my gaze locked on his. What was he doing?
He put his fist over his heart, and a rush of anticipation flooded my body. “What …?” I knew what this meant. Hadn’t I read the stories a thousand times? Hadn’t I fallen asleep dreaming that a husband’s love like Butterflower’s and Goldblossom’s would one day come to me? Hadn’t I known it was a foolish, childish fantasy? And yet—
“My heart is yours,” he said, and he thumped his chest once with his fist in the traditional movement. “I am yours.” His voice was hoarse as he spoke the old words of the promise ritual, and his eyes never once left mine. “Will you be my wife?”
Wild thoughts whirled in my head, pelting me with questions and doubts.
I opened my mouth to speak, and then an ear-splitting cracking sound came from outside the window. I turned to the window in time to see a bright white wave rushing toward us over the trees, crackling and sizzling at it drew closer.
“Get down!” Darien screamed. “The bed!” We dove to the other side of the bed, and he shoved it up on its side as a barrier between us and the window just as the crackling white cloud swept into the tower.
My hair lifted from my shoulders, floating around me like a wild, golden cloud. Then my skin burned for one searing moment, as though it had been lit on fire, and everything went black.
Chapter 7
I was awake for several long, uncomfortable moments before I realized what was different. I was lying on the floor, not my bed. The stones were cold and hard, and a heavy, warm weight was preventing me from moving.
Darien and I lay in a heap beside the bed, his body partially covering mine. The room was coated in a fine white powder. Dust? Ash?
I flicked my fingers toward Darien and managed to move my hand to his chest. His eyes were shut, his face slack and strangely red, but his chest was moving. He was alive.
I searched my will for the Wasp’s last command. Had I any possibility of escape now? Had that stra
nge white blast killed her?
No. The command was as tight as ever.
She would never give me freedom. I would never escape this miserable place. Never.
I pressed my hand against Darien’s chest and took comfort in its rise and fall and the gentle rhythm of his heartbeat. Could I marry this man if I wasn’t free? Could I bind myself to him in love, trapping him in this lifelong prison with me?
The Wasp came. I heard her rustling steps through the eerily quiet woods before she issued her first command, so I shook Darien awake. “Get to the bathroom. Go now!”
His eyes were unfocused, but he did as I said, dragging his large body along the floor with his arms. It took all my strength to shove his pack in the room after him. I tossed the blanket from my bed in front of the bathroom to cover the trail we’d left in the dust on the floor. I could only hope she wouldn’t look too closely.
The bathroom door shut just as her commands cinched around me. I let the ladder down and stood obediently beside the window, waiting for the Wasp Queen to ascend it.
For once, Helis didn’t follow her inside.
An unnatural energy illuminated the Wasp’s face. Not a single bruise or cut marred its smooth and glowing surface. The gleeful expression on her face was at odds with the dried blood that clumped in her hair and stained her rumpled, dusty dress. “You’re alive, I see,” said the Wasp.
What was I supposed to say to that? I nodded silently.
“Good. You’ve no need of a disguise today, dear pet. I think the city has seen enough from me.” She smiled widely, and my stomach roiled at the glassy, hungry look in her eyes. “Rapunzel, follow me. If anyone tries to harm me, kill them.”
I trailed after her through the woods. A thin, white powder coated the entire thicket. I peered through the trees as we walked, but the haze obscured my view. It was as though the smoky sky that normally hung over Draicia had fallen to the ground.
Near the compound fence, bodies littered the ground. Guards lay limp on the ground, coated in the white dust, their faces red and flushed, their chests unmoving. We drew closer. Bodies in red Wasp clan uniforms intermingled with bodies in Wolf and Tiger uniforms.
I gagged as we left through the small side door in the fence. The same scene awaited us on the street. Bodies, utterly silent, covered in dust.
“They know me now, pet”. She smiled proudly. “They know I won’t hesitate to make the sacrifices required. Everyone knows me now.”
My mind reeled. She’d caused the white storm, and she’d killed her own people to repel the attack on the compound. I swallowed back bile and tried to keep my face blank.
We entered the waiting fomecoach. Someone had hastily brushed most of the dust from its black shell.
I peered out the smudged, powdered windows as we drove. The soundless footpaths near the Wasp compound held nothing but corpses. Fomecoaches huddled at odd angles in the street. The haze diminished as we left the Wasp clan’s territory. Red-faced, tired-looking people watched the fomecoach warily as we passed.
No mage had magic like this—no expellant mover or creator mage, not the strongest absorbent mage. No one. My own absorbent power was the most lethal mage power ever documented, according to Master Oliver. What magic had she used to do this? How had she survived? How could she have sacrificed her own clansmen, killing them along with her enemies?
Monster. She is the true monster.
But I was still her creature. I hunched my shoulders and sank back into the fomecoach’s seat as we drove.
We pulled up to the last place I expected, the front gates of the Wolf compound. I had started the clan war for the Wasp here by murdering the Wolf leader, Rodolfo. And Darien had seen me commit the crime.
The compound scraped the sky, bleak and formidable in the gray light of day. A light dusting of the white powder covered every stone.
We exited the coach and approached the front gate. A small group of guards watched us in silence. The Wasp smiled. They bowed their heads and opened the gate.
I shuddered. Just what was she doing now?
We passed through the solid, wide doors of the largest villa in the compound. No one greeted us in the quiet entryway. The inside of the villa held dark wooden rafters, rough stone floors, and bulky leather furniture. Long, thick, black curtains covered the windows, and the luminous lamps shone dimly. The villa smelled of wood shavings and smoke.
Someone cleared his throat behind us, and we turned around. Five men stood before us. They all wore crisp, black suits with slicked-back hair in the traditional Fenra style. Each one wore a collection of sharp wolves’ teeth on a leather strap around his neck.
The oldest stepped forward. He was about the Wasp’s age with a handsome, golden-brown face and muscular arms that strained his black suit jacket. The Wasp’s shoulders tensed, and her command for protection forced me to move forward so that I stood between her and the Wolf leader.
He growled. “She’s the one, then?”
The Wasp laughed lightly. “She’s the one. And I’ll have your tribute now, Wolves, unless you’d like to meet her personally. Each one of you.”
After an agonizing pause, the Wolf leader sank into a kneeling position and bowed his head, and one by one, the rest of them followed suit and knelt beside him. My feet finally allowed me to move back, and I retreated to the Wasp’s side.
She stared down at their bowed heads. I glanced at her. The look on her face wasn’t quite satisfaction. It wasn’t regret, either. She simply looked tired, as though she had completed a difficult task, and now it was on to the next one.
“I receive your tribute, Wolves. You may keep your lives and your clan.”
She strode to the door, and I followed, glancing back once. The Wolf leader raised his head and sent me a gaze filled with sheer hatred. His eyes burned into my back as I left.
On the way back, my thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning. The Wasp wasn’t taking over the other clans. Was she showing her dominance over them? Completing some kind of test?
She’d demanded no money or trade from the Wolves, or at least, none that had been mentioned. She’d only wanted the Wolves’ act of submission. Their tribute, as she’d called it.
“They know I won’t hesitate to make the sacrifices required,” she’d said as we’d stood in the middle of the Wasp territory, bodies in the white dust at our feet. They. Who were they? The Wolves? The other clans? And the sacrifices required for what?
I closed my eyes to shut out the horrific scene as we neared the Wasp compound. I didn’t know what magic the Wasp had used to cause such destruction, and I couldn’t fathom her reason for wanting to show her dominance over the clans of Draicia.
I only knew one thing. She was getting more powerful and things would get worse for me. Not even an attack from the other clans had stopped her, so my chances of escape had dwindled to nothing. Allowing Darien to stay with me in this nightmare and letting him bind himself to me as my husband would be an act of selfish cruelty.
He was a good man. I was a monster. There was no world in which we belonged together. I might be bound for destruction here, but at least I wouldn’t take him down with me.
Perhaps that would be my only act of good in this life. Better than nothing.
~
“Victus?” Darien held a bowl out to me.
I took it without meeting his eyes. “Thank you.” The victus felt gritty and dry on my tongue, and it settled uncomfortably in my stomach. I forced myself to finish, though the lump in my throat made it hard for me to swallow.
It had been three days since the Wasp had nearly killed us with her strange, dusty magic. For the first time in a fortnight, I had returned to the tower without injury only to find Darien unconscious in the bathroom where I’d left him.
I’d cared for him as best I could, and he’d finally awakened later that night. The magic had seared his skin, burning it red and making his body shaky and weak, but now, he’d finally regained much of his strength. He’d taken the brun
t of the magical, white storm by shielding me with his body, and the guilty knowledge pained me.
Darien nudged my shoulder. “How’s your ankle?”
I edged away. “Fine.”
“Fine?” The smile in his voice was undeniable. I couldn’t help it. I checked his face. I’d meant it to be just a quick glance, but then I couldn’t look away. I’d avoided closeness with him since my return. I’d also avoided mentioning his words of promise.
But my heart longed for him, and I wanted nothing more than to be near him every moment of the day.
I leaned further back but couldn’t bring myself to break eye contact. Why was he so kind and good-natured when I had done everything in my power to push him away? Why did I keep falling further and further in love? “My ankle still hurts, of course. And it’s still a bit swollen. But I try to keep my boot laced tight during outings, and it acts as a sort of splint.”
He lost the easy smile. “Swollen? Can I take a look?”
No. Terrible idea. “Yes.” I stuck my foot out and lifted my skirt, curling my lip at the sight of the swollen, bruised ankle. The injury looked no better than it had after that wild leap from the Tiger villa.
Darien sank to his knee and pressed gently on my ankle.
I flinched. “Ouch! What are you doing?”
“Sorry.” He prodded it a few more times, but then he moved his hands up to my calf and stroked my leg gently as though he could sooth the pain away.
I should have moved away, but I was too weak. I couldn’t stay away any longer.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said. “What you’re trying to do. And it's not going to work.” His hands stilled on my calf as he met my eyes. “I love you. That's not going to change, no matter what happens and no matter what your mistress does.”
What did he mean by that? I had treated him poorly. I had pulled away from his touch many times in the past three days.
“How can you possibly still love me?” I blurted out the words without thinking, and heat spread across my cheeks.
