by Ann Denton
He leaned back down, his hands falling on my hips. “I’m a switch, sweetheart. But that? That was me hurrying you the hell up in your seduction of Connor. So we can wed and I can …” his fingers circled my hips suggestively.
“What about all that talk of war?” I nibbled his ear, on the side away from Connor.
“That’s me being overly cautious. I did get up a few hours ago, to hurl my guts out again. The ambassador had been hinting at an interest in courting Avia. But an official request from Macedon arrived yesterday.”
I pulled back so I could look in his eyes. “Do you really think—”
“We’re not gonna let it come to that, Bloss. Now, go do your job and seduce your fourth husband.”
“If I do, can we play tutor and student sometime? Because I like bossy you.”
I get to watch, Quinn chimed in. And maybe be the angry monarch who walks in and decides he wants in on the—
Declan grinned. “Get out of here, before I decide fairness is overrated.”
“Fairness is overrated,” Ryan grumbled as he poured water in a basin and then splashed his face.
“What the sard are you talking about?” Connor grumbled.
No one answered him. I went to the bell pull and asked the responding maid to summon my handmaiden so I could get dressed.
I turned to Connor. “Want to go to the kitchens and have them pack us a lunch? And ask Jace to get us a pegasus?”
“Gargoyle,” Ryan interjected. “They’re safer.”
Connor glared at all of us, cursed, and turned on his heel and stomped out the door.
We landed in one of Willard Ward’s fields and spent the day speaking to the farmhands. For once, I didn’t stumble all over myself. Connor looked an ass a few times, using uppity words. But eventually, he learned to tone it down.
It was a brilliant afternoon as we walked through the harvested fields of hay, brisk and warm all at once.
I smiled at the sky. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the sun on my face in the afternoon.”
Connor grunted and squinted beside me. “Do you smell that?”
“What?” I tried to subtly check my breath. We’d eaten with the local burgmaster, and the luncheon meal had been fish.
“Not you,” he sniffed the air again. Then he bent down and put his nose to the earth.
“This field is full of cow patties—” I grimaced.
Connor rolled his eyes. “I’m not such a palace bumpkin as to think that! Get down here.”
I rolled my eyes and got down on my knees next to him. I inhaled the dirt. “Nothing.”
Connor held up a finger. “Wait,” he sniffed, and crawled. And sniffed again.
I held in my laughter, but only just.
“Here. Come smell here.”
I stood and walked over to him and then bent down to the earth again. I sniffed. There was a hint of something … “Is that sulfur?”
Connor snapped his fingers. “Yes! That’s what it is.” He stood and brushed off his pants, then helped me stand. “Perhaps they have hot springs running under this area. Or sulfate salts in the ground.” Connor began to walk and look at the ground.
“What does that have to do—”
“Declan will have to verify, of course, but if the cows are desperate due to lack of rain and they’re drinking water with sulfates … that could be a big part of the problem. Why didn’t Declan just make more rain for them?”
I sighed. “Something to do with the fact that I believe the opposite of rain is earth. He was worried he’d cause a giant sinkhole. Though he did work on control yesterday. I wonder if I could come back with him and he could try just a small area. One bit at a time.”
“So, you admit that me coming out here was useless. Why the ploy? And don’t lie to me Bloss. I can feel your emotions. I can tell when you’re lying,” Connor’s eyes blazed.
I took a step backward. “I … um…” the truth spilled out without my meaning to say it. “They want me to seduce you.”
“What?”
“Declan wants me to seduce you. He wants to get married. All of us.” I shook my head. “They won’t listen when I tell them I can’t be queen. They’re determined …” my heart swelled at the thought of my three sweet, idiot husbands. There. I even thought of them as my husbands. Gah!
They had argued with me long into the night that they could prevent war and stop my power from eviscerating us all. They were so naive.
I glanced back up at Connor, who was staring at me in shock. I shrugged. “They want me to seduce you, but I don’t know how. How do you seduce someone you’ve just always loved?” My voice broke a little, though I tried to hide it.
“How do you know we were ever in love?” Connor’s voice rang out bitterly. It felt like it echoed through the empty field.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your mother’s spelled every other damn thing in our lives. How do you know that wasn’t a spell, too?”
My mouth dropped. My heart dried up and shriveled. It felt like a peach stone hanging in my chest. Dead. I’d thought leaving Connor at eighteen had been hard. This was worse.
I stood still as a statue and watched Connor tromp away from me, across the field. I didn’t call out to him because I had no answer for him. Because I honestly had no idea. Was everything we’d shared just an illusion?
Chapter Eighteen
The trip back was made in painfully awkward silence. I carried water and earth samples, so we could have Wyle test them and let us know what was hurting the cattle. My arm held Connor’s waist as lightly as possible. I swallowed tears the entire flight.
I was so grateful to see Quinn when we landed. Immediately, I went over to him and grabbed his hand.
I’m not the emotion-reader in the group, but he doesn’t look happy, Dove.
I clutched at Quinn’s hand. He thinks Mother spelled us to be in love.
Quinn raised an eyebrow as he turned to escort me into the main hall. Well, that puts a damper on things.
Just a bit, yeah.
I came out here to tell you that the Sedarian ambassador has burst into your mother’s chamber.
I took off at a run.
Ass! Mother’s too ill for that, I thought.
Quinn and Connor followed, so I assumed Quinn filled Connor in, but I didn’t bother to ask as I hurried, in an unqueenly fashion down the great hall. I ducked around a corner and shooed a few guards out of the way so I could enter the secret passages. I hurtled up to Mother’s hallway and exited, panting.
“—with aar enemies! Thaar haave been blatant attacks! Blatant! And you’ve taarned a blind eye! Did yaar think it would go unnoticed?”
I stopped, wiped my forehead, and tried to catch my breath. Then I turned the doorknob and stomped like raging giant into the room.
I glared down at Meeker, who had been waving his fist at my bedridden mother. “What the hell are you doing, you gnashdab! Why are you in the Queen’s chambers when there are plenty of knights you can jabber on—”
“Those knights of yaars are all locked up. Planning a waar, it’s whispered.”
I snorted. “Coudn’t be the ball that’s coming in two days time with the arrival of Abbas, could it? Couldn’t be that my own husbands—whom I haven’t seen for four years in a quest to keep your wretched hide safe—might also be planning something special for us on that night? You are aware, you ole’ windbag, that we never did have a wedding ball of our own?”
Meeker stopped. He froze, torn between his anger and a bit of doubt. But anger won out. The old man pointed a finger at me. “Yaar hosting our enemy.”
“Enemy? There’s been one confirmed instance of aggression this past year, I believe,” I stared Meeker down, grateful for all the tutoring sessions with Declan.
“One confirmed, but you and I both know thaar’s been many more than that. Thaar an enemy.”
Connor and Quinn strode up behind me at that point. And Connor did what Connor does best. He read
Meeker’s emotions and played the old man like a fiddle.
“You’re right, Meeker. We are bringing Abbas here. But they say to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. What an opportunity to get one of the princes, on his own, away from his brothers, ripe for … questioning,” Connor raised an eyebrow.
A slow, devious smile spread across Meeker’s face. “Ahh. Now I see.” He strolled toward us.
Connor clapped an arm across Meeker’s shoulders. “Come, have a drink with me, and we can discuss everything we aim to find out during this ‘visit.’”
Meeker rubbed his hands together like a play-actor portraying a villain onstage. He nearly forgot to bow to my mother on his way out.
“Apologies, Yaar Majesty,” Meeker’s hair flipped forward when he bowed.
I turned to my mother, who maintained pretense until Meeker was out of the room. But she collapsed onto her pillows as soon as he was gone.
“Are you alright?” I rushed to her, ignoring my fathers’ protests.
I grabbed her hand and held it, in a way I hadn’t since I was eight.
Mother coughed. Peter dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. He folded it over, but I could see it was speckled with blood.
She took a drink of water from a cup Gorg held out. And then she inclined her head to me. “You two offset each other well.”
I pinched my lips together. “He doesn’t think so.”
She shook her head. “You always have. You always will. It’s meant to be.”
“He thinks you spelled him to love me—”
Her hacking cough cut me off. Blood didn’t just drip from her lips that time. It sprayed out. I was forced backward. I reached for a handkerchief, but Gorg waved me off. “Go, little one. Let us take care of her.”
My heartstrings were already stretched tight from the confrontation with Connor earlier. Seeing how frail my mother was just reminded me the end was near. And my chest grew as taught as a violin. It felt as if one more thing, one more tiny minuscule thing, would be all it would take for me to snap and break.
Quinn took my arm and led me away. He could tell my mind was elsewhere, because soon, the woodland creatures popped out of the walls to play.
We passed several doors with woodpeckers chewing the wood and spraying bits onto the floor. And at the end of mother’s hall, a guard stood on duty. Another woodpecker hammered steadily at his helmet. That finally drew a smile.
I pulled Quinn around to face me and gave him a gentle kiss on the lips. Thank you.
He smiled. Will you come with me to see Wyle? I need to pick up some things—
Oh! Perfect. I need to drop off the samples we got today. Oh, wait— I patted my wrists. I’d had a little coin pouch with the samples in it.
Shite! I must’ve lost it when I ran, I thought.
You need this? Quinn held up a pouch and smiled. We followed you. Connor figured you’d lose it. Apparently, it was a habit growing up?
My cheeks reddened. I always forgot my assignments. I’d set them down somewhere and forget. Connor always found and brought them for me. The memory took on a bitter tinge. Now that I wondered if the sweet gesture might not have been his at all.
When we reached Wyle’s room, our exchanges only took a few minutes. He said he’d have some test results back to me in a few days. And he handed Quinn a new set of Flight and Invisibility potions and a closed crate.
Stocking up for the prince’s visit, Quinn winked at me.
I followed Wyle to his work bench.
“How are you doing on breaking all those spells mother set?”
He sighed. “It’s on the list, Princess. But I did have to finish these orders from Quinn and your fathers placed a few more about chains and rings and whatnot. Everyone’s in a tizzy over this visit. I’ll get them finished soon.”
It was the best I could hope for. I nodded. “Thank you.”
And then I asked, in a low voice, “Wyle, what can undo a geas?”
“Well, now, there’s no human magic that can undo it, that’s certain. I won’t be able to help you. You have one you need to undo?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Just curious. In case I ever need to set one. If magic can’t undo it, what can?”
Wyle smacked my back. “Oh, come on, Princess. You know that. We went over it the first year I tutored you. Only the natural magics can undo a strong mage’s spell like a geas. Elves and djinn have natural magics of their own. But for humans like you or I … you’d need love. But only the truest kind of love. Born of trust.”
My throat constricted. Connor would never trust me. The other men might like me. But love me? Could they possibly come to love me … before the war between Cheryn and Sedara—the war brewing overhead like a thunderstorm—rained down hellfire?
I was doomed.
If I couldn’t break the geas, I couldn’t tell them. My power might not only kill me. It might kill others, too.
Quinn took me back to my room, and I curled up in the middle of the bed, three of my husbands wrapped around me. It had been delicious the night prior. But, that night, three men and all their body heat became unbearable.
In the middle of the night, I gently extracted myself. Once I was free and cooled down, I was wide awake. I decided I should go bother Squawk and see if she was excited for her suitor’s arrival. I tugged on Declan. He was the lightest of my knights. He was also a bit prone to sleepwalking, as I’d discovered the night prior.
I tugged until Declan slipped off my bed and fell the the floor with an oof. He didn’t wake. I almost laughed. But I tugged him to his feet. His eyes cracked open.
“Declan?”
His response was utter gibberish. Perfect.
I tugged my sleeping husband behind me and we went into the hall.
My slippered feet slid across the marble floor.
I was nearly to Avia’s door, when I saw a shadow. I froze. Fear smacked me in the ribs. There shouldn't be a shadow there. The hall was a dead-end. I slid into an alcove, behind the statue of a satyr. I shoved a murmuring Declan behind me.
Click. Click. Click.
It sounded like claws scratching against the marble.
I craned my neck to peer around a goat ear.
It took everything in me not to scream.
Skittering down the hall, toward Avia’s new room, was a monster.
It was twelve feet tall, with the head, torso, and arms of a man but the body of a scorpion. He was a sickly yellow color and his eyes were black. Soulless. He smelled like burnt oil.
I shook Declan. But he didn’t wake. He just backed away and mumbled. He didn’t respond when I slapped him.
Sard. Sard, I thought.
I called out to Quinn. He didn’t answer. Of all the nights for him to be dead asleep. I yelled at him mentally again. Quinn! He still didn’t respond.
The scorpion man neared Avia’s door. Thoughts flew out of my head.
Rage settled over me like a cloak. And I moved on instinct. My only thought was to stop this monster before it got to my sister.
I stepped out from my hiding spot. I lifted my arms and sent a blast of peace toward the scorpion-man.
The blast was so strong my wrists slit. My leg ripped open along an old scar. It burned like fire. But I bit down on my tongue and ignored it.
The scorpion man turned. He saw me and roared. He charged.
I tried to duck, but with my wounded leg I wasn’t fast enough.
He slammed me into the statue.
My vision went red. Flickered black. And I couldn't help it. My mind screamed, Quinn!
I sent another blast of peace into the monster's torso, my hands searching for his heart. I just needed one direct hit.
He landed one instead.
The side of my face smashed into the wall. My thoughts … started … to scatter.
No guards came running. Quinn wasn't here. Avia hadn’t fled her room. She was still in there. Whoever had sent this monster was going to try to get her. I had to sto
p them.
It was up to me. There was no one but me.
My hands shook as I reached up again. My fingertips touched the monster's rib cage. But before I could send another pulse of peace, he lifted me overhead to throw me.
I shoved my hands down in the general direction of his head. I grabbed fistfuls of his hair. I screamed as I shot out every bit of magic I had.
The skin on my arms shredded like potato peels. My stomach burned.
The monster set me down. He blinked several times and shook his head like he was dizzy.
I stumbled back. The cut in my leg was too deep. I couldn't run away.
I watched the monster closely.
I saw the exact moment that my peace magic lost its hold.
His eyes hardened. The scorpion tail arched behind him.
I scrambled backward. But I slipped in my own blood.
The scorpion man roared as he sent his tail barreling toward me.
I could see the poison glinting on the tip. The hooked barb pressed against the bodice of my gown.
And suddenly, it was gone.
I glanced up, confused.
A golden arrow pierced the monster's torso. As I watched, a second split his throat.
The scorpion man started to tip forward. I dragged myself sideways. But not fast enough.
The monster’s body came crashing down on my leg. Lightning bolts of pain shot up through my spine. I fell back against the marble floor.
Two arms grabbed me roughly under the armpits and yanked me free of the monster’s weight.
That’s when the monster disintegrated, leaving nothing but a pile of ash in his place.
Of course he did, after crushing my leg.
“Piece of turd-walloping nastiness,” I cursed through my teeth. My head spun as I was pulled into a sitting position.
I locked eyes with Quinn.
Behind him Declan burbled and walked into wall, still asleep.
Quinn’s voice in my head smacked me down.
You’re a sarding idiot.
Me? I couldn’t even get out an indignant, ‘I’m a monster killer.’
I collapsed.
