Her visions had been intermittent and unclear. Partly because of where she was, she thought. She longed for the cool white stone of the temple. But the Empire believed them all gone, and although there were only soldiers on the island, she didn’t want anyone making guesses as to what she did.
‘His father has forgiven him,’ a magic said, rushing up to them at the pond.
‘How can you be sure?’ Chonglin asked.
‘He wasn’t wearing shackles, and he walked with the hidden princess and her men as though he was part of the group. He even walked beside her for most of the journey.’
‘Did the fire work?’ the priestess asked.
He nodded. ‘Just as you said, she could deflect it, but she had nothing left and the general carried her back.’
‘Not the prince?’
He shook his head.
‘Interesting. I wonder what she has told him.’
‘Why did he go to her?’ the man asked. ‘Is he finding information?’
‘He was certainly searching for something,’ she said.
‘He was turned once…’
‘I don’t think he can be again. He went to her to ensure she was alive, and she is. He will not be parted from her again.’
‘And what will that mean for us?’ the younger man asked. ‘You said we couldn’t defeat them together.’
‘They haven’t quite come together yet, and she isn’t able to do anything in her current state. Attack them now, and you might have a chance of destroying this partnership before it takes hold.’
‘They are surrounded by soldiers,’ Chonglin said.
‘And you have magic.’
‘We are a lot like the princess—worn out. I fear we would lose more badly if we were to attack now. We know where they are. Go and rest,’ he said to the younger man. ‘We can defeat them when we are stronger. Who else was with them?’ he asked after the man.
‘The general and a group of soldiers.’
‘The healer? The little princess?’
He shook his head.
‘Better and better,’ the priestess said. ‘I will take your advice, but if more of the Hidden arrive on the Palace Isle, we may not be able to stop them all.’
‘It will be over long before then,’ Chonglin said.
Chapter 12
Lis walked slowly through the hidden princess compound. She was certain she could sense someone, yet she was unnerved as she couldn’t see anyone. Taking a deep breath, she turned around slowly. Still no one. She could smell sweet grass, and the flowers that bloomed on her little island. She turned again and found herself in the throne room. She knew she was dreaming, but she also knew something was very wrong.
She tipped her head towards the emperor on his throne, his fingers curled tightly around the arm of it, the skin white and stretched. His other hand pointed beyond her, and she turned to follow his finger to find Remi standing before him. His hands were chained, but the chains disappeared when she shook her head.
Murmuring surrounded them, but she couldn’t see anyone else. The shadows moved in closer around them and then leapt back as flames consumed the prince. She could feel the anger and uncertainty ebbing from him.
‘Remi!’ she called, but he didn’t look at her, didn’t appear to know she was in the room. Only him and his father.
The emperor released his iron hold on the throne and stepped closer.
‘Stop!’ Lis cried, but he didn’t stop or turn, or appear to hear her.
Remi continued to burn, as though out of control. Flames like a monster licked over his skin, as she remembered seeing in the main square. Maybe together, they could tame the monster. She stepped closer, the heat from the flames slowing her steps. Her skin burnt, and she was sure she blistered, but she continued towards the prince, knowing only that he needed her.
Despite the heat of the flames, she stepped up to him and closed her arms around his neck. He looked at her with panic in his eyes, and then the flames vanished.
She opened her eyes and patted along her arms. She wasn’t burnt; in fact, she was quite cool. She sat up slowly. The moonlight shone through the high windows, marking out rectangles of light across the floor. She was still in the laundry.
She looked around slowly and nearly squealed with fright at the prince sitting beside her, his head resting forward. After a moment, she realised he had fallen asleep watching over her.
She reached out a tentative hand, and his skin was cool to the touch. ‘Remi,’ she said softly.
He looked up and then shook himself a little.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Watching,’ he murmured.
‘You need sleep,’ she said softly.
‘I’m worried something might happen,’ he said.
She reached forward and brushed a loose strand of hair from his face. ‘You can’t watch over me forever.’
‘I can try,’ he said softly, capturing her hand in his and pressing it to his face.
The guard by the door coughed quietly, and Remi released her hand. She let it linger against his skin for a moment before she pulled it back.
‘Do you still burn?’ she asked softly, and he gave her a quizzical look. ‘I dreamt of you burning.’
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked quickly.
She shook her head. ‘They are going to find us,’ she said.
He nodded once.
‘I’m not strong enough,’ she whispered, feeling the uncertainty of what might happen if they were attacked. ‘And I think they know it.’
‘Together we will be fine,’ he said, patting the bedding. She lay back slowly.
‘Neither of us are what we were,’ she murmured, watching him, and he nodded slowly. He looked so tired. She moved across a little and patted the bed beside her, but there was a noise by the door. A muffled noise, and then something heavy fell to the floor. She wanted to call out, but the prince put a finger to her lip. When she glanced at him, he looked around the darkened room. He slipped from the platform, and then the white dress of the priestess appeared to glow in the moonlight as she stepped into the moonlight.
‘You switch sides so easily,’ she said, her voice soft and friendly. ‘Is your bride willing to accept a man so fickle?’
Lis remained where she was and said nothing. Despite the concerns of everyone around her, she trusted him. Yet Remi stepped closer to the high priestess. He shook his head a little, as though trying to clear his head.
Could she turn him so easily? Lis wondered. Did she have power over him?
‘You are still needed,’ the priestess said. ‘You have work to do as a magic.’
‘I am not what you want me to be,’ he said. He stood tall and confident, yet Lis noted he had moved another step closer to her.
The priestess smiled up at him, and Lis realised in that moment that the priestesses were all the same, that they all had visions and worked for their own agenda, not that of the gods. Had they been behind this all along, or did they only want to save themselves? They were another form of magic, another form hidden from the Empire for so long.
Lis felt a moment of loss, as though she was working against so many without the energy to face even one of them. Her heart stuck in her throat, feeling useless and helpless, and then the prince was wrapping his arms around the woman before him. She threaded her hands up through his hair, pulling it loose about his face and directing him towards her.
A sharp pain sliced at Lis’s chest as their lips touched. She wanted to scream, but her voice wouldn’t work. Then a flash of light filled the room. Remi burned, and the priestess staggered back. Her hand on her chest, she looked up at him as the flames licked over his skin, lighting the pale horror on her face.
‘I would have thought you would have seen what would happen if you came here,’ he said softly, and Lis thought for a moment that he carried a sword. But she hadn’t seen once since he had returned to her.
The world turned into chaos
as the priestess dropped to her knees. The blood slowly leaked down through the white robes she wore, and soldiers pushed on the door as they called out. Remi burned brighter than he had before.
He had kissed her, but then he had killed her. As the soldiers managed to push the door open, Lis moved from the platform between the strangeness in the room and those filling it. She felt more drained than she had before. She staggered forward, and the general called out.
‘She worked with them,’ Remi said, his voice calm despite the flames that appeared to be consuming him.
The priestess dropped to the side, looking far less refined than she had ever appeared. Her blood marked her clothes and slowly spread across the floor.
Lis reached out and took Remi’s arm. The heat danced over her skin. It was hotter than she had expected, but she kept her hand there. The flames raged around her and, like in her dream, she was lost to them as much as he was. As he turned to face the men behind her, a sword of flame held tight in his hand, Lis stepped into the heat of him, wrapping her arms around his waist and closing her eyes to it.
The magic ran through him directly into her, and it gave her a strength far greater than his pushing the magic on her ever had. She pulled it to her and felt her own strength returning, but she didn’t want to take too much and leave him vulnerable. On the edge of her senses, she could hear the soldiers, the concern, the worry, the uncertainty as to what to do.
The heat intensified around them. But it no longer burned. She knew it grew hotter, but she couldn’t feel the heat. Then the flames died down around her and the silence grew heavier, and she wondered if they had burned away to nothing.
As his hands closed around her shoulders, holding her closer, she peeked out between her lids and found the soldiers on their knees. She pushed away from Remi and turned to them.
‘It wasn’t what I intended,’ Remi said softly. Lis looked back at him, then down over the body of the priestess. ‘She gets in my head.’
‘You kissed her,’ Lis said before she could say anything else.
‘She twists my thinking, convincing me that it is what I want—that she is what I want.’ He turned back to Lis, taking her by the shoulders. ‘You are what I want,’ he whispered. ‘It was the only way to get her out of my head.’
‘Where did you get the sword?’ Lis asked.
‘Where is it now?’ the general asked. Lis looked back and noticed Hui Te-Sze in the doorway, standing behind all the others who still knelt before them.
Remi shook his head.
‘It was made of fire,’ Lis whispered.
He closed and opened his hand but shook his head. Then he looked at her closely. ‘You stepped into the flames,’ he said. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘You needed me to,’ she said. ‘I knew it wouldn’t burn me.’
‘How did you know such a thing?’ the general asked.
Lis shook her head. She wasn’t sure if it was the dream or something else, but she knew it was where she needed to be. Where Remi needed her to be.
Remi rested his hand on her shoulder, and she sighed. ‘I feel like we have been here before,’ she said softly. ‘Only I never dreamed of this.’ She looked up, and he nodded towards the men still kneeling before them. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘We can see what you are,’ the general said.
‘And what is that?’ Remi asked.
Silence followed. Lis looked at the priestess again, wondering just what she had thought she could do to take Remi back to the magics and turn him against the Empire. The sword was bright in her memory. ‘Do you fear what he can do?’ she asked.
‘That isn’t it,’ the general said, clearly lost for words.
‘The two of you were destined to come together,’ the hunter said from the doorway.
‘You sound like Yang,’ she murmured, trying to indicate that the men should stand again, but they remained where they were.
‘He might have known more than he was willing to share.’
‘What did you see?’ Remi asked.
‘The phoenix,’ one of the soldiers whispered, and they all leant forward and touched their heads to the floor at the same time.
‘The phoenix,’ Lis said, turning back to Remi. ‘That is what it is.’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘The fire that surrounds you.’
‘It threatens to consume me.’
She shook her head, but then she had thought the same thing.
Hui Te-Sze moved through the soldiers and bowed low to both of them before he sighed and knelt directly before Lis.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ she said, leaning forward to take his arm.
‘I do,’ he said, waving her off. ‘There was something around the prince, something that could have been seen as a creature of fire. And although I sensed that the priestess did something to him, I couldn’t sense any magic about her.’ Lis opened her mouth to give her opinion on the priestesses, but the hunter held up his finger, and she pressed her lips together. ‘When you held him in your arms, he changed. The flames pulled together and the phoenix was revealed.’
‘A phoenix?’ Remi asked. ‘You are saying that I am a phoenix?’
‘No, Your Highness. I am saying that the two of you together are the phoenix. The great and wise creature of our history, returned to save us all.’
‘It is a myth,’ Lis said.
‘We all saw it, Your Highness,’ a soldier said. Murmuring started amongst the group.
‘We did, Your Highness,’ the general added.
‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that title. We are friends,’ she said, squatting down before the hunter. ‘You were to call me Lis.’
‘You are the hidden princess of Rei-Een,’ he said, bowing low before her, ‘and the phoenix.’
Lis shook her head and stepped back to stand beside Remi.
‘Do you think this is what they meant by us working together?’ he asked.
‘I don’t understand,’ she stammered.
‘We need you to show the ministers,’ the hunter said.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘The crown prince burns, you step in and…’
‘Who do you want him to kill?’
‘You only need to show them. They will understand. It will end any concerns they have that he should not be the crown prince.’
‘And how do we do that?’ Lis asked. ‘Do you know how you did that?’ She turned to Remi.
He shook his head.
‘You can’t hide it. This could be just what we need to save the Empire.’
‘Leave,’ Remi suddenly said, stepping around Lis and pointing to the door. ‘Let us work this through.’
The group stood as one, bowing again, and backed from the room. The soldier who had been knocked to the floor when the priestess arrived was hauled to his feet and carried out. The door closed behind them and then almost immediately reopened. Two men moved quickly in to collect the body of the priestess, part dragging her across the floor. A thick trail of blood showed the path they had taken.
The door closed, and Lis sat heavily where she was on the floor. She had seen something around Remi before. She had sensed a creature, and she had dreamt of it. But she hadn’t thought she was in any way a part of it. How could they be something that could save the Empire when she would have to be standing between Remi and whatever danger threatened with her arms around him? It didn’t make any sense.
She jumped when he rested his hand on her shoulder again, and he withdrew it quickly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.
He sat beside her and pulled her against his chest. ‘You have found a way to save us all.’
‘Hardly. I have only found another way for them to try and attack us, you. How can we be a phoenix?’
He didn’t say anything, just held her tighter.
‘If we are, they will want proof. The magics will try harder to defeat us, and I haven’t got the energy…’
‘You have,’ he wh
ispered, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
‘I took it from the fire,’ she murmured, then pushed out of his arms. ‘You kissed her,’ she said.
‘She got in my head,’ he said again. ‘She creates this wanting for her that I can’t resist.’
‘She did this before,’ Lis said slowly, unsure why the idea hurt her as much as it did.
He swallowed loudly and nodded.
‘I have no right to ask anything of you,’ she said, standing slowly.
He reached out and grabbed at her hand. ‘You are the hidden princess. You don’t need to ask—I would willingly give.’
She nodded once and pulled from him. But he was on his feet and, despite the fact that she wanted to be there with him, she stepped out of his reach. Her heart beat fast, and he worried her as he stepped with her. And then her the back of her legs was against the platform, and he closed his arms around her.
‘I chose you,’ he whispered. ‘I need you. I didn’t choose her in any way. I was magicked into believing I wanted her.’
Lis tried to shake him off, the lump forming thick and large in her throat. There had been too much confusion between them already. A fear of what the priestess might have made him do worried her more than she could admit. Would a woman of the gods really be so determined to have the crown prince do her bidding?
His hands closed around her face and he forced her gaze up to his eyes. ‘I choose you,’ he whispered. ‘Again, and again, I always come back to you.’
Then he bent towards her, and as much as she wanted him to, she leaned back. Almost in that instant, he burned bright and hot. She could feel the confusion and the hurt that fuelled the fire.
‘I chose you too,’ she said softly, placing her hand on his chest. An uneasiness settled on him. ‘But I just saw you willingly kiss someone else. Whether she magicked you or not, I can’t…’
The flames seemed to consume them for a moment, and he pressed his lips to hers. An overwhelming clarity filled her. The flames continued to burn around them, and in some distant place in her mind she sensed the fire leaping and spreading around them. But she also had the sense that this had happened before. That she had been in this safe place, surrounded by Remi and his fire, and his lips pressed against hers. She had never been so content and so scared at the same time.
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 61
