Claiming the Prince: Book One (14 page)

“You think that you love this bee-weed?” Damion flung his hand at Honey.

Honey’s lower lip trembled.

“Damion,” Magda said more strongly.

“Fine.” Damion said. “Let him find out the hard way.”

“Find out what?” Honey said.

Magda put her hand on Damion’s chest. “Don’t—”

“You are very pretty,” Damion said to the nymph. “But you are no Rae. And you never will be.”

“That’s enough.” Magda gave him a firm push.

Honey wrapped her arms around her slender waist, hanging her head.

“Where is this Ouda?” Magda asked.

“Not far from here,” Kaelan said, matching her tone. “To the west.”

“To the west, just the direction I was going,” Magda said. “Finally, some luck. We will travel together to speak to Ouda. If you are who this nymph claims you are, then we will discuss what must be done.”

Hero paced at the edge of the gully. She reached up and put her hand on his head.

“I’m sorry for all of this.”

“You’re apologizing to a rat?” Damion said behind her.

Hero burrowed his head under her hand. “
That one used to throw rocks at me
.”

She glanced back at Kaelan who was in tight conference with Honey, their voices soft, yet strained. He ran his hands down her bare arms and Magda looked quickly away.

“I’m doubly sorry,” she said, heaving herself up onto the soft ledge. She crouched next to him, lowering her voice. “You can bite him if you want.”

T
HEY MADE
camp not far from the gully. Tamia had kindly provided plenty of dry wood for their fire. Exhausted as she was, Magda’s mind was restless. While Kaelan and Honey cuddled in their slumber on the far side of the fire and Damion patrolled, she sat and watched the firelight dance deep into the night.

“How did you become so muddy again?”

She shot up, the tips of her knives pressing under his chin, his back to a tree.

“Mistress?” Damion called in a hush from the distant darkness on the other side of the fire.

“I’m fine,” she said to Damion, glaring into Endreas’s sparkling black eyes. “I’m stepping away for a private moment.”

Damion was silent, but she knew he wouldn’t disturb her.

“Who’s that?” Endreas asked softly, his breath settling over her lips, tugging at them.

“My warrior, my cousin.”

“No, I mean that.” He gestured to Kaelan’s back.

“You know who that is,” she said. “Lavana’s lost Prince. We made a trade.”

The lights in his eyes darkened. “If he’s yours, why is he spooning a nymph?”

Keeping her knives at his throat, she hauled him away from the firelight, deeper into the shadows and pushed him up against another tree.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I told you to stay away from me.”

He seemed to think on it. “I missed you?”

“Are you telling me or asking me?”

“I can’t sleep,” he said, running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I keep thinking about you. Is that why you’re awake too?”

Her face burned. “No.” Half-truth. She had been thinking about him, some. Mostly, she’d been trying to figure out how she’d gotten into this mess and brooding over how much she missed her quiet, pointless life back in California.

“You’re lying,” he sing-songed, brushing his finger down her lips.

“Stop that.” She batted his hand away. “How is Riker?”

“Lavana’s Prince?” he asked with a smirk. “He’s quite docile, isn’t he? Lavana likes him. I think he’s starting to like her too.”

“Of course he is. Princes are fickle that way.”

“Perhaps Pixies are—”

“We’re not different,” she said, pushing closer. “Pixies and Elves are the same race, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Once we were,” he said, “but we’ve grown quite different in all these years, wouldn’t you agree?” His hand slid around her waist and drew her near, even though this also pressed her knives closer to his throat. “Except in the most important respects.”

“Tell me about the prophecy,” she said.

“What prophecy?”

She pressed her pinky finger, the fairy knife, into his skin, small but sharp and precise. A drop of blood rolled down his neck, black in the darkness of the woods. “The unification of Alfheim under one rule.”

“Oh,
that
prophecy,” he said.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You don’t want to join with a Radiant. You want to join with the Crown. So you can rule all of Alfheim.”

“That would be rather . . . ambitious, wouldn’t it?”

“And you’re very ambitious, aren’t you?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “And the birth of the child. What does that have to do with it?”

His hand slipped along the curve of her hip, catching in her waistband. His tone cooled. “What child?”

“The oracles were wiped out because they prophesied the birth of a child who would be some kind of threat to the Throne.”

“Who told you that?”

She dragged the knife along his throat, a shallow wound, avoiding the major veins, leaving a thin trail of blood.

“Now who’s the one using torture to get what she wants?” he said without flinching.

“I should be killing you right now.”

“And yet, you’re not.”

“The prophecy.”

“It’s old,” he said with sigh. “Very, very old.”

“The Third King,” she said, remembering what Python had told her.

Endreas’s eyes poured over her, dragging her down. His grip tightened on her hips. His fingers skimmed under the hem of her shirt, pressing into her flesh, flooding her with that swept-up, wave-swallowed breathlessness. She shoved back, unsheathing all of her knives. Her heart was both the hammer and the nail, pounding and battered, wanting to be near him, hurting because she wasn’t.

“Tell me,” she said, attempting to keep her breath even and steady.

“It’s not important, magpie.” He took a handkerchief from his vest and pressed it to the cut on his neck, wincing ever so slightly. “There are more prophecies that never manifest than grains of sand on the Wending Coast.”

But she refused to feel guilty. “Isn’t it important? Isn’t it why the Third King exterminated the oracles?”

Endreas’s brow fell, his dark eyes turning darker. “He killed the oracles because they refused to cease hunting the dragons. They ate the hearts of the dragons to prolong their own lives and sold the rest to the other small folk who used the pieces in their potions. Dragons were hunted nearly to extinction. We passed laws to protect them. The oracles knew the price for poaching, but they did it anyway. That is why they were arrested and punished, and many of them were executed for that crime, yes. But most were not killed. They died off, as they should have died, when they no longer had the hearts of dragons to keep them alive.”

Damn him. She shouldn’t have allowed him to talk so much. She should’ve known he would have an answer. Yet, when he continued, she didn’t stop him.

“But yes, they had prophecies, many, as I said. That’s how they justified their actions. They had been so busy hunting and murdering dragons they’d forgotten to procreate and then grew so unnaturally old they were no longer able to do so. But they thought since they could see the many futures they had more of a right to exist than the dragons. The Throne disagreed. So it was not surprising, when the oracles were being punished for their crimes, that they suddenly had new visions concerning the time of unification. They had always said a certain child would be born who would signal the beginning of that time. But in their new visions, they claimed that if said child survived to pick up a sword, then that child would assure war and great bloodshed and that, ultimately, the Throne would bow before the Crown. But not all of the oracles saw the same future.”

“Because it changes.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Would you like to hear the other prophecy, about how the unification will occur?”

“Let me guess,” she said. “An Elf Prince and a Pixie Rae are joined?”

“Not just any Rae,” he said. “The Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs. Together, they will bring about a new age . . . one of peace.”

“Is that what you really want, Endreas? Peace?”

“My father is dying, magpie.”

Feel nothing
, she told herself.

“And so is the Crown,” he said. “But that’s not surprising to my kind, because that is how it has always been. The Throne and the Crown rule and they die concurrently. But until now, they’ve done so apart. That will not be the case for me. I will be King, but my queen, my Crown, we will rule together and we will die together, as it was meant to be.”

“My people would die before they bowed to the Throne. I don’t know what the oracles saw, but they were wrong. And the small folk, after what your kind has done—”

“Ah, yes, those poor small folk, just as innocent as the oracles,” he said, glancing down at the bloody handkerchief. “Or so I’m sure they’ve told you.”

“You’ve been razing their forests, their homes, driving them out—”

“Yes, we have. We do not tolerate criminals and insurrectionists. If they do not wish to abide by the laws of the Realms, then they will have to leave.”

“Brownies are criminals?”

“Brownies have long conspired with the oracles, both to continue the dragon poaching, funneling the hearts to those who have survived in exile, and to undermine and weaken the King. They themselves set the ancient woods of Green-upon-Thrushtun, killing thousands of innocents because they discovered it was one of my father’s heart-places, and they knew it would weaken him.”

“So the Elves are innocent. Do you expect me to believe that?”

“If you did, you would be a fool,” he said. “We both know better. No one in Alfheim is innocent. Not even you, magpie. Have you not killed to save yourself or those you wished to protect?”

The ghostly sensation of blood running over her hand, hot and slick, returned.

“I know you have.” He held up the bloodied handkerchief. “And I know you will again if you have to.”

Her head throbbed. Resisting her attraction to him was the least of her headaches. She no longer knew what to think or to believe, who was lying, who was telling the truth. She was torn between wanting to run back into exile and wanting to beat everyone bloody until they told her the truth or stopped talking altogether.

“Lavana’s warriors are close,” he said.

She pushed through her headache to meet his gaze again. Some weak, aching part of her lurched, wanting to fall into his arms, but she didn’t move.

“You give me back my knives. You warn me about Lavana. Yet you’ve already told me that no matter who becomes Radiant, you will attempt to join with her. What am I supposed to do?”

“Become Radiant,” he said.

“That won’t change anything between us,” she said. “I don’t trust you.”

“Because I’m an Elf?”

“Because you’re manipulating me,” she said, “to get what you want.”

“And what do you want, magpie? You want me to be someone else? That’s the one thing I cannot give you. I am an Elf. My father is the King. My duties come before all else. I’m doing what I can to help you, but yes, if you fail, I will take Lavana. The Realms are on the brink of war. My people, my father, your Crown, your people, they are restless and afraid. Skirmishes have been increasing on the supposedly neutral border islands. If I don’t succeed, there will be more bloodshed, on both sides. And no, I don’t want that.”

Her chest tightened around the helpless feeling within her, keeping it down and away from her thoughts.

“I’m helping you as much as I can, but already my counselors are calling me home. They think I’m interfering too much. They say I must allow you and your cousin to resolve this matter on your own.”

“They’re watching you?”

“In a manner. They are connected to me. They know my thoughts. My feelings . . .”

Another trembling twist inside.

“But my father does not know I’m here,” he said. “My counselors also fear that I will give myself away and my father will send his troops across the gulf preemptively.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he does not want peace, magpie. His heart-places have been methodically attacked and wounded and some destroyed altogether.”

“What is a heart-place?”

“You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

He was quiet for a long moment.

She tensed, heaving herself out of the lulling haze of his presence. Hadn’t she sent him away? “You don’t need to explain—”

“A heart-place is where an Elf leaves his heart, pieces of it. Not literally, but the spirit of his heart. The more an Elf gives away of his heart, the stronger he will be. So long as those places remain strong, so shall he. If they are weakened and destroyed, so shall his heart be. There are many aspects of it that would take a long time to explain.”

“That sounds dangerous,” she said.

“It is very dangerous,” he said. “But it can give you strength that you would never be capable of on your own.”

“And do you have heart-places?”

He winced as if she’d shouted at him.

“My counselors,” he said with a weary smile, “just reminded me that an Elf does not speak of his heart-places with . . .”