Claiming the Prince: Book One (10 page)

Before he could get the key in, he collapsed. The key clattered to the floor.

Lavana grabbed the other guard’s collar. “Pick it up!”

The guard paled, but bent to scoop up the key.

“Do all Pixies heal so quickly?” Endreas asked as if he were in the midst of a dinner party conversation.

“What?” Lavana snapped at him.

“How has she recovered?”

The guard grasped the key, letting out a growling howl through his teeth as the reek of his burning flesh filled the cell.

“The Prince must have healed her, obviously,” Lavana said.

“Oh, you’ve lost your Prince too?”

Eight inches . . . nine . . . was that enough? She stared down at the black hole, trying to determine if she would fit.

“I don’t need him anyway,” Lavana said. “I’ve decided to claim Riker.”

Magda almost stumbled into the bars. “Riker is here?”

Lavana bared her teeth in a savage smile. “That’s right. I caught him. He’s mine now.”

“And Damion?”

“Open the damned door!” Lavana barked as the guard swayed where he stood. The key hovered in front of the lock, and then finally, he pushed it in. The lock thunked.

Magda gave the cage one last shove, clearing the drain. The guard stumbled back as the cell lurched, dropping the key, clutching his wounded hand. The door swung inward.

Magda reached through the bars, grabbed the cover, and then dragged it through to her side. She dropped onto her butt, legs dangling.

As she slid down, Kaelan grasped her waist to help her down.

Lavana had to wait for the cell’s door to stop swinging. She stood on the other side, white-faced, hands fisted, two slaps of red high on her cheeks, her aquamarine eyes full of cold fire.

Behind her, Endreas smirked and winked at Magda.

Magda dragged the iron grate over the opening once more.

She caught Kaelan’s shoulders as she splashed into the wet muck. They were chest to chest in the tight space. She couldn’t tell if it was his heart pounding or hers. Though it was pitch black, his eyes glowed like dewy grass in starlight. His breath slid warm over her face. A woozy tingle spread under her skin.

“The tunnel is small. But we should fit,” she said. “We’ll have to crawl. We need to hurry. There will be guards.”

“There’s another way,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“We don’t have—”

He slammed her against him, stealing her breath and covering her eyes with his hand.

The weight of her body seemed to lift from her, so she was only a whisper of herself. Cool, sweet air trailed fingers over her skin, evoking shivers all through her. A faint breeze seemed to murmur in her ears, as if she were running. But, other than a vague sense of floating, she didn’t feel as though she was moving at all.

And then she eased back into the heaviness of her body. The shivers remained, goose bumps pricking over her skin.

Kaelan let out a soft huff as his hands slid from her. He slouched to the ground. She grabbed his shoulder in time to ease his fall.

“Are you—?”

“I’m all right,” he said as she laid him down on the mossy ground.

Moss.

She gazed around. They were at the edge of a forest, upon a tussock, overlooking a meadow. She drew away from him, standing, taking in the starlight falling like silver snow upon the tall grasses and slumbering flowers.

Real stars.

A river of light streamed across the sky. From some distant perch, a fairy flute played a quiet lullaby, and an ache that she hadn’t known she felt abated. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she drank in the wine of the night air. The clean, rich taste ran down her throat and filled her lungs. Her chest hitched and then clenched around her swelling heart.

Finally, she was home.

Her fingers pressed to the smile on her lips as a whisper moth fluttered by her. The face on its wings shone in the starlight. Every beat of its flight shook secrets from the air that murmured like hushed fairy voices.

She held out her hand and the moth lit upon her palm, tickling her skin with its delicate feet before taking flight once more.

Then she noticed Kaelan watching her from the ground, propped up on his elbows.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, sitting up fully. “Not far enough.”

She crouched next to him. “How did you do that? What did you do?”

His gaze slid away. “Your Prince could not . . . travel?”

“Well, my Prince is a poor example,” she said. “But I suppose he is Lavana’s Prince now . . .” She sagged. “Poor Riker.”

“Will you go back for him?” he asked, pushing up to his feet.

She rose as well.

An iron weight fell onto her chest. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous. What I don’t understand is why she needs him when she has Endreas. You must be right. The Elf King must’ve given her . . . something. For a Rae to find one Prince is difficult enough, but three?”

“She didn’t exactly find yours on purpose.”

Lifting her hand to tug at her lower lip, cool metal grazed her skin. She was still wearing the gloves. She pulled off one and held it out to him.

“This should fetch quite a price, wherever you go.” She peeled the other off and jammed it into her back pocket.

He took the glove. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Trust me, Prince. You don’t want to know,” she said.

“For the Enneahedron?” he asked, brow slant rising to a steep incline. “I thought you didn’t want power.”

“I don't,” she said. “But the idea that Lavana will become Radiant . . .” She chewed her lip. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

In the star shine, she could see every lash framing his eyes, every line etching his lips, and the woven edges of his scar, threads of it twisting like a curling tendril of heart-ivy. Fresh tears pricked her eyes as she gazed at him, at the dark beauty of his face in the glittering light.

Her stars. Her home.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Everything is so beautiful here. I’d forgotten.” Her throat constricted. “I’ve forgotten . . . too much.” She rolled back her shoulders. She had to find Kirk and Enneahedron before Lavana. “Thank you, Kaelan. For everything.”

She kissed his cheek. The taste of him slid over her lips and melted on her tongue—warm butterscotch and smoky, aged whiskey and fresh-cut grass. But she didn’t linger, though it would’ve been easy to do so.

When she stepped back from him, his eyes were green fire, his cheeks so taut the bones looked as though they might slice through his skin.

“Sorry,” she said, unable to keep herself from smiling. “I forgot you were a Prince.”

His expression faltered, as if he was wondering if he should be insulted.

“I wish you and your nymph all the luck in this and every world,” she said, stepping back. “Goodbye, Kaelan. Fair winds.”

“Fair winds, Magda.”

She tromped down into the meadow, studying the stars, finding the same ones she’d left behind all those years ago.

“Magda,” Kaelan called from the shadow of the trees.

She turned.

He raised the glove. “Thank you.”

The shadows rose out of the trees and surrounded him, twisting like a shroud. When they unwound again, he was gone.

T
HANKS TO
some familiar old ruins near a stream, she soon knew exactly where she was—the edge of Lavana’s family’s hunting grounds, which meant Lavana was not far. So it might’ve been prudent for her to run as far and fast as she could from that place, but she was too exhausted.

So she set about it with all the focus and energy she had left. The Greengast River was not far. North of that were the estates of Damion’s family. And in the Brackwood, deep in the wild heart of the forest, was Tamia.

Primordial trees, ancient creaking dinosaurs, towered above her. Much of the Eastern Cliffs, a narrow province on the massive claw-like continent of the Lands, was hemmed in by deep forests. Their territory touched the high Northern Plains, the primeval woods of the central Heartlands, the southern canyons and golden coasts of the Bright Edge, and their jagged curving peninsula jutted out into the South Gulf, beyond which lay the Elf King’s Realms. If they were not bickering with the Heartlands about the exact boundary or with the Northern Plains over who was required to maintain the crossroads, they were watching the seas for exiles . . . or invaders.

Brittle needles crunched under her feet, which seemed to be moving slower and slower. Until, finally, she was forced to sink against one of the monstrous trees and close her eyes.

Sometime later, a glint of light blinded her as the sun shouldered away the night, gold rays cutting through the thready gaps in the trees.

Her throat ached and her head hurt, not from iron, but from too little sleep and lack of food and water. Pixie though she was, she was not immune to the needs of hunger and thirst. While she knew these lands, she was not so familiar with them as to know every small stream. The Greengast was still a day, maybe more, away.

A rustle in the underbrush stopped her breath. Shoulders tense, she scanned the rusty red floor of the forest. The blanket of dried needles glowed warmly under the sun’s burgeoning light.

She forced breath back into her lungs. The forest was full of whispers and creaks. Thousands of hidden creatures were either on their way to bed or just waking for the day. But their noises were far off and muffled.

“You’ve been away too long,” she chided herself after a moment.

But then a dark figure darted out from behind a tree.

She flinched, heart leaping into a run, though the rest of her body was too tired to even push off of the ground.

The furry little figure stopped just out of reach. He sat back on his hind legs, his nose twitching in her direction as if attempting to catch her scent.

At the sight of the rat, she eased back.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “You followed me all the way out here?”

He dropped to all fours again and ran to her, insinuating his head under her hand.

As soon as her palm touched his head, a word leapt into her mind.

“
Yes
.”

She snatched her hand away. Rats couldn’t speak. Not like that. At least, no rat she’d ever known. For a moment she wondered if it was a trick, some other creature in rat form. But he looked just like the rat from Lavana’s sewers with the ragged little half-missing ear.

Tentatively, she placed the tips of her fingers against his head. Memories of his flight from the guards came back to her, the pulse of fear zipping through his tiny body, the dull metallic flavor of ichor-gold in his mouth, images of her swooping him up, and the oddest sensation, when she had kissed him, as if being jolted out of a slumber. And after that, the world looked a bit different, clearer. Scents, too. They hadn’t changed, and yet, they weren’t the same. He wasn’t the same. He’d started to think. And he hadn’t been content down in the tunnels with his family anymore. So he’d decided to find her.

Drawing her hand away, she gazed down at him. Somehow, she’d opened up something in this rat’s head, bringing him to another level of consciousness, making him something . . . new.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

He pushed his head under her hand again. This time, he was the one who gave his thoughts to her. Though they were not as fully formed as words, they were clear. He did not want her to be sorry. He only wanted to know what he was supposed to do now.

“Whatever you’d like to do,” she said to him, now that he understood her.

He sat back again, cocking his head, as if thinking about this. Then he turned and scampered away.

She sank back against the tree, allowing her eyes to close again. She’d brought a rat to consciousness. How such a thing was possible, she had no idea, but magic was like that, especially Pixie magic. It could grow and change, fade and disappear. It was as alive as they were. And since she had not used hers in such a long time, it wasn’t really surprising she had abilities she wasn’t aware of.

Unbidden, her mind turned to Kaelan. As rare as Princes were, being among the nobility, she’d known more than a few. Yet, she’d never seen one vanish as he had. His magic was strong, even though he was physically weakened. When he’d healed her . . .

An ache spread through her chest.

A Princely healing would’ve been quite useful at the moment. Even Endreas’s cool, lapping touch . . .

She pushed those memories away, disgusted. No wonder Kaelan wanted nothing to do with the Raes. Even though Endreas had hurt her, tortured her, the memory of his breath was still sweet, the thought of his touch still twisted some knot of need deep within her. The power of the connection between Princes and Raes wasn’t healthy if it filled her with yearning for someone as cold and manipulative as Endreas. But then, was he really any different than the rest of the Pixie nobility? What Lavana had done to her was excessive and cruel, but not unheard of. This was the way of the Raes. Lavana had decided she wanted the Enneahedron and nothing would stop her from claiming it, even though she didn’t actually require it to vie for Radiant. It would merely make her claim almost impossible to challenge. Yet instinctively, Magda understood, even respected her cousin. If she had been living here all these years, instead of in exile, she might’ve been the one torturing Lavana. She hated to admit it, but deep down, she knew it was true.