Kingdom Soul

by Brittni Chenelle

  “Maybe welcomed as an old friend.”

  “Friend? Are you serious?” I laughed at the absurdity. “There’s only one thing I can think of that could make you a bigger ass than you already are—and that’s come back after all this time—after I’m already okay.”

  He tossed a shaky hand through his hair. “Charlotte.”

  “Where was this friendship when I’d just lost my whole family? I don’t need you anymore.”

  “I need you,” he said, his voice so gentle it would have made my teenage heart flutter. But those days were long gone—dead and buried with the rest of my past.

  “Ah. This again. If I recall, you wrote me a letter once, remember?” Minseo’s gaze softened. I continued. “You said you loved me.” Tears glittered in his eyes but none fell. My mouth dried as I stepped closer, lowering my voice so only he could hear it. “You know nothing about what it means to love someone.”

  All the softness in his eyes vanished. He stepped closer, his chest so close I could feel the warmth of it. “Me?” He scoffed. “How long after my brother died did you replace him?”

  Crack. He stumbled back, stunned. His hand rushed to his cheek. My palm stung.

  He nodded and looked around the crowded square, his eyes glazed over with sadness.

  “Do—” my voice cracked, “do what you’re good at and return to Vires.”

  I turned away, feeling a heaviness in my chest that I hadn’t felt in many years. It might have seemed heartless to some, but what heart did I owe to Minseo of Vires? What heart could anyone expect me to still have after all I’d lost?

  When I returned to the inn, I knew they’d heard. The guards avoided eye contact, and one of the men looked as if I’d struck him as well.

  Gabriel sat up. “Char, are you okay?”

  I faked a laugh and a smile. “Of course I am. Are you okay? I was so worried.”

  Overwhelmed and constantly checking the door for Minseo’s return, I decided to get some air. Gabriel had fallen asleep and I wanted him to rest before we tried walking home.

  Not a moment after I stepped outside, I knew I was headed to see Lynn. I didn’t know how upset my run-in with Minseo had made me until I looked at her. Her eyes widened. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  The bar was empty except for a man sleeping in the corner and a bar hand who rushed in and out of the kitchen preparing for the night rush.

  I threw myself into a bar seat and nestled my face in my hands. “No,” I said. “Gabe was attacked.”

  “What?” She dropped her washcloth. “Why? Is he okay?”

  “He’s recovering. I should be able to take him home tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s a lot.”

  I nodded. “Yeah and… he was saved by someone from my past.”

  “Like an ex-lover?”

  I shook my head. “No, definitely not. But I think he was here in Wellwood looking for me.”

  Her eyebrow rose. “Definitely not?”

  “I just...” I put my hands on my hips and stretched my back. “I’m so angry. How can he even show his face here? You know?”

  “Nope. There’s clearly more to this story. I’ll grab you an ale and a cookie and we’ll unpack this.”

  “Thanks, Lynn.” A thud on the door drew our attention, and I looked up to see Minseo fumbling with the handle. I leapt over the bar and lay flat on the floor behind it.

  “It’s push,” Lynn yelled. I could hear the long, inconsistent steps of a drunk man walk into the bar.

  “Ale,” he said.

  Lynn said, “Right away.” She knelt next to me on the floor. “Is that him?” she mimed. “He’s hot,” she mouthed, fanning herself with her hand. She pulled an ale mug off the shelf next to me, filled it with ale, and handed it to him.

  “Tough day?” she asked.

  I reached my hand out to hit her ankle. What was she doing? I eyed the kitchen; if I crawled quietly enough, I could probably make it without being spotted.

  “The worst,” he said. “I got kicked out of the tavern across the square.”

  I began my crawl, inching towards the door.

  “Bennigans?” Lynn asked.

  “I don’t know,” Minseo slurred. “And the only woman I’ve ever loved…” I froze. “...is married to this other guy.” He slurped his ale. “She hates me.”

  “Tough break, sugar,” Lynn said. “Hate is a funny thing. At the end of the day, it’s not that different than love.”

  “What do you mean?” Minseo asked.

  “Well, you can’t really get that angry if you don’t care. If you’re sure she still hates you, you probably still have a chance.”

  She was talking to me. I knew she was, but she didn’t know everything. She didn’t know that I’d mourned the loss of Minseo along with the rest of my family. She didn’t know that I asked him to stay. She didn’t know that he was the only thing I lost that elected to go, and somehow that made it hurt more. I’d had enough. I pulled myself through the doors to the kitchen and stood, earning a puzzled look from Lynn’s bar hand. Lynn might have been right about love and hate, but I didn’t hate Minseo—I just wanted him to leave and never come back.

  A few hours later, Gabriel and I returned to our house with a few Viran guards to escort us. Junho had insisted. Annie, our closest neighbor, opened the door with a smile that faded when she saw Gabriel’s bruised face. She was elderly, with soft wrinkled skin and a neat braid I’d watched turn from gray to white over the last few years. Her eyes were filled with understanding but never surprise.

  “Thank you, Annie,” I said, handing her a silver coin. “Did she give you any trouble?”

  “Nothing aside from the endless stories. That child could talk herself dizzy.”

  Annie patted Gabriel gently on the back before hobbling out the door and back to her home a few yards away. She wasn’t one for questions, which in a sense made her the perfect neighbor.

  I was glad to find Morgana asleep. I knew she’d worry when she saw Gabriel in such a state. I kissed her head and triple checked there were no candles lit near her room. When I returned to our bedroom to check on Gabe, he was already asleep.

  Not wanting to disturb him, I moved into our living room.

  Our house felt a little drafty, so I set a fire. I lay in front of it, feeling the warmth on my face as it grew in size, engulfing logs two at a time. I’d need to add some soon, but before I could, I’d drifted off to sleep.

  Gray haze again, the familiar warmth of the fire gone from my face. In an instant, I knew where I was. This was the place we met, a world so empty it could only possess one thing: us. “Young!” I called into the emptiness. A gust of wind swirled around me, spinning the mist like a cyclone. “Young!” I called, scanning the empty horizons.

  “Charlotte!” I heard him call. I raced toward his voice, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I saw his silhouette in the mist just before he burst through, his hands reaching for mine. My body surged with warmth.

  A loud crash burst through the grayness, sending me crashing back to the waking world. Stunned, I shook my head to make sure I was awake. The door crashed loudly. “Charrrrrrrlotte!” Minseo bellowed from outside. Afraid he’d wake Morgana or Gabriel, I leapt from the floor, my blood boiling. I swung open the door. Minseo stumbled back, swaying back and forth. He squinted at me.“Charlotte,” he slurred, and the prickle of ale filed my nose.

  “Lower your voice,” I warned. He stumbled forward, almost knocking us both over. Now in my house, I closed the door behind him and crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re drunk. Go home.”

  Minseo fell to his knees and sobbed. “Charlotte,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  I sat down in front of him. “You don’t have to do this. I’m fine. I made it. I didn’t need you to stay.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice both strained and quiet. “I lost my brother and you were hurting too.”

  “Don’t,” I whispered. I bit down on my bottom lip
to stop from shaking.

  Tears lined his face. “He was my brother.” His breathing skipped. “I couldn’t be strong for you. I couldn’t be the father of his child.”

  I knelt in front of him, keeping him at an arm's length. “Stop,” I pleaded.

  He inched closer. “I died with him and so did you, so when I heard you were alive and that Arthur was hunting you—I knew I had to come.”

  I lifted his face. “Minseo, what do you want from me?”

  “Fall in love with me,” he blurted, his eyes wet.

  I dropped my hand. “I can’t. I still love Young. I can’t love anyone else.”

  “I know,” he said, an inkling of a smile on his lips. He wiped his face on his sleeve in a way that reminded me of Morgana. “But you can love me. I know it. We can bring each other back from the dead.”

  I wasn’t sure which, but one of the emotional daggers he’d tossed tonight had struck me and filled my body with a heaviness that reminded me of exhaustion. “I’ll never be able to love you like I love him.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want that. I want you to love me differently. Let’s build something different. Maybe...” His gaze brushed my cheek. “Maybe love is different every time. It has to be.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, my throat tightening.

  “Please, Charlotte. I’m not Young. I’ll never be him, but I understand better than anyone how it felt to lose him—how it still feels.”

  I reached out to touch his face but stopped, clenching my hand into a fist and drawing it to my chest like a barrier. “And I suppose you still want me to go with you to Vires. You want me to throw away everything I’ve built and go back to the royal life that once took everything from me?”

  He laughed. “Yes, that would be ideal.”

  I smiled. He was as ridiculous as he ever was. He lay his head on my lap and, in a few deep breaths, he was asleep.

  I’m sorry, Prince Minseo of Vires—love is over for me.

  15

  Merlin

  The church filled with awe as the veiled bride walked gracefully down the aisle. Her long, white dress glimmered in the sunshine and a diamond-encrusted crown shone proudly atop her head, but the atmosphere didn’t feel jubilant like it looked. My stomach quaked nerves as the bride passed my seat in the pue. Then, as if I’d lost control over my body, I stood, pulling the attention of the room. I held my arms out toward the bride, unsure what my hands would conjure. Would it be wind, mist, or plant? What was I doing? My hands ignited and blue flames shot from them, engulfing the bride. Her excruciating shrieks sent the room into a panic.

  I awoke with sweat beaded across my forehead. I looked down at my hands. Fire? It was an element I couldn’t conjure, so why the dream?

  I wasn’t able to get back to sleep after that, so I spent the dark bits of the morning training in the forest. Blue fire? Perhaps I was thinking about the dream too literally. The same sense of doom I’d felt in the dream remained throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. Even after I returned to the inn, I felt it under my skin, like a lurking demon waiting to strike.

  “Are you alright?” Lance asked, scooping a large bite of porridge into his mouth.

  I nodded.

  He put down his spoon. “Look, if this is about that thing I said—”

  “No,” I said sharply. “I had a vision. It was a wedding.”

  He blanched. “Woah, woah, woah, I said you were beautiful. That doesn’t mean that I—”

  “I set the bride on fire.”

  He squinted his hazel eyes. “Fire? That’s a new trick.”

  I stared at my hands, remembering the euphoria I felt as the blue inferno manifested from them.

  A knock at the door startled me. Lance smirked at me as he stood to answer it. A young soldier stood at attention outside. “Sir,” the soldier said, “ you have mail.”

  “Finally,” he said, thanking the man and taking his seat at the table. I felt my stomach tighten as his face gleamed as he opened it. My pulse quickened, blue fire. Blue fire. Blue fire in time with my heart. When his smile faded, I knew the dream had been an omen and that the letter was here to deliver evil into our lives.

  I leaned forward, unable to wait. “What is it?”

  “Arthur has chosen a wife. He wants us to return to his castle to attend the ceremony.”

  My stomach sank. “Who do you think it is?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe some princess he’s trying to make an alliance with.”

  I reached out and put my hand on his. “Lance, I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe we should skip it and resume our search for Charlotte.”

  “He may not be acting like it lately, but Arthur’s like a brother to me.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No, you don’t,” he said with such conviction it startled me. “I promised him I’d never tell this story, but I need you to understand why he’s more to me than a king. Why I’d do anything to serve him.”

  I nodded, afraid to speak.

  “After my parents died in the war with Be—” His gaze scanned the room and he lowered his voice. “The war at Hiems castle, Arthur convinced his family to take me in. For the next few years, we were raised like brothers. Arthur’s father taught us his trade, blacksmithing, but neither Arthur nor I had much interest in it. We did, however, love sparring with the weapons.”

  I inched my chair forward. Despite Arthur’s boyish appearance, it was difficult to think of him as an ordinary kid. Especially one with ties to Lance, though it did explain why someone so inexperienced was given a knighthood quest.

  He continued, his gaze locked on his hands. “More than anything, we loved to visit the sword Excalibur. For Arthur, it was a bit of magic in the dreary, unforgiving world, but for me, it was a way to change a man’s fate. We made the climb to the sword every month, and it never budged an inch, until one day—”

  “Arthur pulled it,” I said, the story finally catching up with what I knew.

  The silence dragged between us, and Lance’s hazel eyes glinted more brown than green, his wide jaw flexed.

  “Oh,” I said, reading the hesitation on his lips. “He didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “It was like any other trip to the sword, only there was a man there. He was tall and had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a near-permanent smile.”

  My voice shook. “Prince Emmett of Algony.”

  “Yes, he stepped to the sword and the sun cut through the overcast, illuminating him like a god. He lifted the sword as if it had always belonged to him.”

  “That’s how Emmett became king.”

  Lance said, “No. After Arthur explained to him that pulling the sword meant Emmett was the rightful King of Drethen, Emmett tossed the sword aside. He claimed it was a stupid way to earn a crown and found his own sword to be of superior quality. In those days, Drethen had a new king every week, each king dethroned by the next in a series of assassinations. With how often they were killed, it was amazing anyone wanted the job, but Emmett stepped right in, publically challenging anyone who would oppose him.”

  My heart thudded.

  “The sword was our secret. We were too afraid to even speak about it until Emmett died. Drethen needed a king, and it was discovered that the sword was no longer in the stone.” He sighed. “With a slew of dead kings, I was too scared to take the sword to the castle and claim the title. But Arthur, with his belief that the magical sword would protect him, came forward—Excalibur in hand. And I vowed to protect him. After all, he had given me everything.”

  I swallowed my disbelief. “Then why hasn’t he made you a knight? He must know that’s your dream.”

  Lance’s expression softened, the green in his eyes returning. “Like any good brother, he knows that if I don’t earn it, it won’t mean anything.”

  “You mean kind of how Arthur didn’t earn the throne?”

  “Careful, Merlin,” he spat. “That sounds an awful lot like treason.”

  How coul
d it be true? How could the sword Excalibur have fallen into the hands of children under such bizarre circumstances? It had done its magic in uniting Drethen behind Arthur and helping him transform it into Camelot. But it could have been anyone. Even if Emmett had kept the sword, he might’ve been the true king. He might’ve survived his battle. The possibilities and potential outcomes swirled within me, and I found myself unable to accept reality as I knew it.

  Lost in thought, and without another word, we packed for Bullhorn, the city once a part of Drethen, where Arthur’s castle was the crown jewel of a glittering city.

  This was a mistake, maybe even dangerous, but the promise of a few stolen nights together with Gwenevere blinded him from trusting my vision. The only other time I’d had such a powerfully negative vision was the night before we found Charlotte.

  Back then, I’d dreamt of Charlotte's location, the sign to Canburry, clear as day, only it was overgrown with plants. A dead and forgotten place. When I’d told Lance about it and warned him of the feeling, he disregarded it. He was too eager to catch Charlotte, so he barreled into Canburry, questioning every bypasser at knifepoint. Perhaps that’s what tipped her off; when we got to her home, she had cases of supplies loaded to a single horse wagon and her home engulfed in flame.

  Lance would have caught her that night if not for the frightening cry of a small child. I searched through the smoke and burning light, and there I saw a small girl covered in black ash, surrounded by flames.

  The world slowed and I breathed in cool air into my lungs that didn’t come from my surroundings. I felt the flow of blood in my veins. A gust of misty air started in my chest and left through my hands, smothering the fire around the child. I saw the little girl run to safety—picked up by a muscular man—before my vision blurred from overuse of my power. Lance made a choice that night, to save my life rather than pursue Charlotte. Perhaps he regretted it and maybe carried it ever since. One thing was for sure: he would face another decision at the wedding, one that might result in the death of either him or his dream.

  16