The other girls screamed as she dropped to the ground, and Lis screamed with them.
The courtyard disappeared as her own room slowly came into focus. Warm arms held her too tight, and she could feel the magic ebbing through her.
‘That’s not helping,’ she murmured, and she looked up to see Wei-Song shake her head.
The prince moved quickly from the bed and bowed.
‘Forgive me, Your Highness,’ Lis said quickly, turning and bowing back, and she winced at the movement.
He stepped forward and then froze. ‘I thought you were getting better,’ he said.
‘As did I, but I fear my dream has…’ She stopped and looked at the fear on Wei-Song’s face. ‘What has happened?’
The prince turned to the maid and then back to Lis.
‘Why?’
Wei-Song shook her head again. She bowed and backed up.
Lis shook her head, trying to rid the sounds of screaming that still filled her senses.
‘What is it?’ the prince asked, leaning forward.
‘A bad dream—nothing to concern you,’ Lis said, then turned and took in the hurt on his face. ‘Please forgive me.’ She bowed again. Coughing to clear her throat, she motioned Mu-Phi forward who stood with a cup in her hands.
Lis looked to the prince first and let her hand drop. ‘I was screaming,’ she said, her throat still feeling raw. ‘I’m sorry if I woke you.’
Wei-Song appeared beside her with a cup in her hand, and Lis gave her a warm smile as she took it. The prince turned an angry look on Mu-Phi, but she remained where she was.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lis said again.
‘You weren’t screaming,’ Wei-Song whispered.
‘It felt so real,’ Lis said, turning to her.
Wei-Song nodded slowly, but her eyes were on Mu-Phi.
‘What wasn’t helping?’ the prince asked.
‘I felt trapped in my dream,’ Lis said quickly.
‘You woke feeling trapped,’ he murmured. ‘I take liberties I should not. I come to watch over you, but I cannot maintain the watch.’
Lis shook her head, unsure what he meant.
‘I fall asleep too easily,’ he said.
Lis handed the cup back to Wei-Song and slid from the bed. ‘At least there are many others to watch for the magics. Will I be able to leave this palace at all, or am I to remain trapped here?’
‘Trapped,’ he said. ‘Unless you wish to pray. Although the new high priestess has not requested you yet.’
Lis was unsure if he meant this in jest or if his words were true. There was a black gate somewhere on the Palace Isle, and she wanted to find it. Although she wasn’t sure what it would mean for her if she did.
‘Until we know where they have gone or what they plan, you must remain here where I know you are safe.’
‘Am I safe?’ she asked.
‘Of course. The men…’
‘What if they know what I am and want me dead like the other magics? I think you have proven that they can’t be held if they don’t want to be.’
‘Will you run away again?’ he asked, and she could hear the anger in his voice.
‘I couldn’t if I wanted to.’ She clapped her hands together, more for effect than anything else. As she became a smoky, thready ghost of what she was, Mu-Phi sprang at her, and the prince put out his hand to stop her. Lis put her hands back together and then placed them before her. ‘Oh, I feel very safe,’ she said.
‘She won’t hurt you as long as you don’t try to run.’
‘I wasn’t running; I was proving a point. For I have lost what I had, thanks to you and your sword. I couldn’t run if I wanted to, because I can no longer hide.’
She didn’t mean for the anger to be so clear in her voice, but she couldn’t hide it. She’d had so little before, and now she had nothing. Again, Wei-Song shook her head, trying to give her a gentle reminder to hold herself together. But as Lis had no time to herself, it was getting harder to do that. Now she didn’t even have her bed to herself. If it wasn’t Yang trying to heal her in her sleep, it was the prince.
She looked at him closely then, wondering just what he had as a hunter. ‘How do you know when there are other magics around?’ she asked.
‘I can sense them, like you do.’
She shook her head. ‘Not like I do. What do you feel?’
‘It is as though I can feel them, like the air becomes solid around them, reaching out to me.’
She nodded once. He was different, but there was still a form of magic there, and he didn’t know it. They didn’t sense the other hunters. Maybe some of them were Hidden, and maybe they had an idea of what they were. Although when Lis thought of Te-Sze with his burnt face, she doubted that he’d considered such a thing.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I can feel you of a night,’
He blushed and she scowled. ‘I can feel you hunting,’ she snapped. Although that wasn’t quite right, it was more like she could feel his energy flowing across to her. Like it was when Yang tried to heal her, and when Wei-Song helped her defeat the magics in the palace by lending her more energy.
She’d had the feeling before, only she was certain of it now. When she had woken not long ago, it had felt as though he was pushing it on her, which had only served to press her dream more harshly upon her.
She looked at Wei-Song, who stared for a moment and then looked at the floor. She understood. She knew what he was, and she was worried what might happen if she told him.
‘I need to prepare for my day, Your Highness,’ Lis said, trying to move beyond the wonder of what she had learnt.
He bowed stiffly and headed for the door.
‘Perhaps Mu-Phi could use the break as well,’ she called after him, and the woman stepped forward. ‘Just until she remembers who she works for.’
‘I know who I work for,’ she said.
‘And yet the rest of the world believe that it is me. I would prefer you did not run me through before the empress; she might find it upsetting.’
The crown prince looked at Lis for a long moment before turning to Mu-Phi. With a flick of his head, she followed him from the room. Lis sighed before she dropped to the cushion at the table.
‘I know,’ Wei-Song said, ‘but you cannot say a word.’
‘I don’t,’ Yang said, sitting beside her.
‘He is magic,’ she said.
‘Who?’
Lis looked back towards the door.
Yang shook his head madly. ‘He is a hunter—he can’t be magic.’
‘I can feel it,’ Lis said. ‘When he hunts, when he lies beside me of a night.’
Yang raised an eyebrow.
‘He passes more energy to me than you do,’ she said, and Yang bit his lip.
‘He would rather die,’ he murmured.
‘Yes,’ Wei-Song said. ‘And he may take Lis with him.’
Chapter 6
The priestess knelt before the image of the goddess Aga and closed her eyes. The world shifted in the darkness behind her lids as she tried to keep the smile from her face. She had been trained well and experienced visions for most of her life, hence the call to the priestesses. But since she had risen to the rank of high priestess, her world had changed dramatically.
In a way, it had hurt her to deny her skills and lie to the soldiers and the prince when she had claimed no knowledge of what the priestess had been or tried to do. The risk of discovery was very real, but she would gladly risk her own life rather than betray their secrets. The secret had to be maintained, to protect all the priestesses around the Empire.
At times of difficulty, she longed to be back on the Sacred Isle, where they were protected and secure, and where only pilgrims visited. But the priestesses were needed here, to keep an eye on the girl and the prophecy, and to ensure an end to it.
It had been known since the child’s birth what she would become. In some ways, the priestess had thought there would be a simpler way to end this. She
could have been killed as a child, and this could have ended before she grew. But the visions of others claimed that if this happened, she would be replaced by another, and another, until the prophecy was fulfilled. And yet, there continued to be those who tried to stop it.
The hidden princess was the key to the prophecy. And now that this girl was in that position, she had something to work with. The more the priestesses and the magics did, the more the world changed around them. The former high priestess had been determined that with the right influence, the girl would do as they wanted. But she was stronger than that—stronger than all of them, this priestess had realised when she’d watched over her. Yet the girl had shown no understanding of just how strong she was until the attack in the residence.
Now the royal family tried to hide her away, but it was clear where she was. The coming and going of soldiers and the crown prince, the tutors and the empress. The world knew the whereabouts of the hidden princess once more. She sighed. She wondered if she could influence where they put the girl and thus have better access to her, but she doubted the empress would allow such a thing again.
The little princess Wei-Song had been a surprise. The high priestess had felt her, sensed her magic and her family line. She wondered if the emperor knew that she lived, or if the crown prince even knew of her existence.
There were very few worshipers in the temple, but the man at the back tugged on her senses, so she turned slowly to look at him. He stepped forward, bowed low and held out a plate of orange slices. She took it from him and sat it at the feet of the goddess before her, then stood beside him for a moment.
‘They will soon discover you are here,’ she whispered.
‘No one senses magic in the temples,’ he murmured. She looked around, hoping no one had overheard him, then scowled at him.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘I would like to offer my congratulations to your new position,’ he said, giving her a shallow bow. ‘I would ask if you have seen anything to benefit us.’
‘Not yet,’ she said. And she wouldn’t want to tell him if she had. She had certainly seen a lot further, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a future she could promise.
Another priestess appeared in the temple and looked over the man before he bowed again and left. She motioned to the new high priestess, who followed her back out into the private part of the temple.
‘It is not safe for them to come here,’ she whispered hoarsely as she slowed to walk.
‘He knows it is safer than we would like anyone else to know,’ the high priestess murmured, taking her place on the mat at the head of the group, their heads bent in prayer.
The girl opened her mouth to say something further, but the high priestess shook her head. The girl bowed low and retreated to her own place.
The high priestess watched her go, thinking it odd that she considered her a girl when they would have been close in age. But her skills and elevation to the position had given her more than she had hoped for. With the knowledge of the ages to come, she felt far older than her peers.
She had woken from a dream of the former high priestess dying, in which she had felt the magic push through her soul, burning her as it took hold. When she had raced from her bed into the temple to pray to the gods for guidance, the other priestesses had knelt before her. It was clear that she had been chosen, and she wasn’t challenged. It was not a position she had expected, but it settled on her. And with the knowledge of her daily visions, she was the only one who could hold it.
As the images formed in her mind, she knew what she would tell the other priestesses and what she must keep to herself. She had wondered if the former priestess had kept so many secrets, but she now knew what her predecessor had, and the answer was already known.
The hidden princess became clear in her mind. She watched the crown prince with a nervousness that the high priestess understood. He was a hunter, and they both knew what he was capable of. Despite the secrets of the healers and the apparent skill of the man who remained at her side, the high priestess knew the crown prince had something to do with the princess’s recent injury. It had been inflicted after the priestess had been killed and the magics captured.
She focused on the image of the hidden princess. It wasn’t that the girl worried what he might do to her, she realised, but that she knew something of him that he didn’t know himself. The little princess hid as a maid looked over him as well. Two hidden princesses. She allowed the idea to grow. What might that mean for them? Both hiding their magic, one hidden to be Empress and one hidden by the empress.
Wei-Song was determined to protect the hidden princess, even if it meant harming her own brother, and the priestess knew there was no way to turn her to their cause. She wondered if Lis understood what the priestesses were.
The past flashed before her. The colour was not as vibrant as with her visions of the present or future, allowing her to understand the difference. The former high priestess stood with her hands around the hidden princess’s throat in a cell, and she could feel the crown prince growing closer. She had risked herself and the priestesses for the girl, and the new high priestess felt anger towards her predecessor. She would not make the same mistake.
Too many mistakes had been made in trying to end this. In trying to find a way for them to be what they were without fear. The prophecy may have indicated that she would allow magic to live again within the Empire, but it would be under the rule of others and they would be at constant risk. If they were able to govern themselves, the world would be very different. The former high priestess had endangered that.
One man had attempted to prevent her becoming the hidden princess by saving the prince, but that had gone horribly wrong. If he had survived, that silly, selfish girl would have been Empress. Or at least that was how it would have appeared, but destiny had a way of pushing through their efforts.
The death of the crown prince had been a blow. As soon as he had died, a number of the priestesses had seen a vision confirming that the new hidden princess was coming. His death had ensured the prophecy was closer to being fulfilled.
It was up to her to find the answers they needed to prevent the hidden princess becoming the empress who would destroy everything they worked for.
She breathed in the cool scent of the room. The white stone radiated a magic of its own that leant its power to her. She allowed her shoulders to relax, and her fingers started to numb. She emptied her mind, pushing out her fears and worries and anguish at the mess that had gone before.
She didn’t reach or pull for an idea, an image or even a particular person.
The hidden princess appeared again, as though she stood directly before her. Her hair was wet as she stood in the rain, her dress similarly dishevelled. She looked upset as she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice soft and almost lost on the wind that blew around them.
The crown prince stood looking similarly battered by the weather, but he held out his sword. His hand shook with apparent anger, and tears flowed unchecked down his cheeks. ‘You lie,’ he screamed, a desperate, grating sound, and the priestess felt his heart break before he stepped forward.
The high priestess opened her eyes and smiled. Lis would be her own undoing. She just had to make sure what she had seen would happen.
Chapter 7
Mu-Phi tried to keep her steps light as she followed Remi from the little palace. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t see the danger, but she wasn’t going to bring it up again. She had tried to watch over the princess, whom she knew had done all she could for Mu-Phi when she’d been injured. But Mu-Phi had spent her whole life learning of the dangers of magics, training to fight against such people, and now the prince wanted her to protect one of them.
It didn’t matter who she was, or that he had only just found out. The hidden princess was a magic. She was dangerous, and Mu-Phi was certain she had bewitched him in some way. Mu-Phi stood by of a night watching Remi lie against the princess.
His body relaxed against hers, his arm draped across her. If all was as it should be, he would be nowhere near her and have nothing at all to do with her. His brother had never visited with his hidden princess.
But she knew Remi had felt differently about her from the beginning. He had visited her when he shouldn’t; he had been close to her palace, lingering by the baths or the temple. He cared too much and, now that he’d learnt what she was, it prevented him from doing what he should.
The hunter would have talked him around. He had nearly talked Remi into killing her that night. Yet even he appeared to have turned now, changing his mind as to what danger she presented. She was a magic—she was dangerous no matter what they thought.
‘She can’t go anywhere,’ Remi muttered ahead of Mu-Phi, and she stopped. He turned back and gave her a sad smile. ‘I know what you think,’ he said, kindly. ‘But no matter, we must remember who she is.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Mu-Phi snapped. When his features shifted to show his disapproval at her words, she forgot her earlier promise to herself and allowed her frustrations to show. ‘I think you may have forgotten what she is.’
‘Who she is,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t matter given what she is.’ Mu-Phi said clearly. ‘You have to consider what it means, what it will mean going forward. You can’t marry her; you can’t make her Empress; she can’t produce your heir.’
He blinked away his sudden surprise, but she saw it. ‘What would you suggest? That we kill her and I find another? Or do you have another in mind? Because I think we might have broken enough traditions for my mother.’
‘There were so many at the Choosing,’ she tried.
‘And their families would rather disappear than allow a daughter on this island at the moment. A crown prince dead, one hidden princess murdered and another injured.’
‘By your hand. If you tell them what she is…’
He shook his head. ‘I promised her.’
‘Why?’ she asked, allowing the exasperation to come through in her voice. ‘Why would you promise that to such a woman?’
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 33
