Claiming the Prince: Book One (54 page)

His hands fell from her and he stepped back. The guards corralled him down into the pit.

Before she could catch her breath again or think about what he had said, the Crown’s voice echoed over them.

“Present.”

She turned on her heel, unleashed her daggers at her sides, and inclined her head towards the Crown.

And, after a long second, the word came.

“Engage.”

Lavana didn’t wait, she charged and leapt.

Magda spun away before Lavana’s flying kick could connect.

Lavana landed and spun, setting Magda immediately into a defensive posture. A flurry of hand strikes came at her, knives met knives, clinking and scraping.

Lavana was fast—that was her strength.

A barrage rained down on Magda, daggers cutting so quickly through the air as to be nearly invisible. Already her breath labored, her vision tunneled so there was nothing but the flash of knives and Lavana’s glittering eyes. Behind her, the press of the wall, Lavana driving her towards it to pin her.

Blocking one strike and then another, her hand came up directly before Lavana’s face, and she retracted her blades.

Lavana’s brow plunged—a moment of confusion.

Magda threw an elbow across her face, knocking her aside. She dodged back to the middle of the field.

The dueling grounds seemed to shrink and expand from second to second. So that Kaelan appeared a lifetime away, but the precipice only steps, when she knew that in fact he was closer.

Lavana gave her no respite, no chance to think or plan.

She attacked and Magda defended, until Magda was at the edge, heels pushing dust down into the mist.

This was one of the reasons she’d lost to Alanna all those years ago . . . avoiding the ledge at all costs had forced her again and again to sacrifice advantage.

But she wasn’t afraid now, not of heights anyway.

She spun from Lavana’s swiping attack and backed into the center of the field again.

All she needed was one good strike. The ironwood wasn’t very long and wouldn’t penetrate Lavana’s armor. Magda needed to get in close and fast.

Lavana was the only one attacking. And so it was inevitable one of her blows caught Magda eventually, slicing across her hip, below her breastplate and above the scale shielding her thigh.

A searing pain shot into her chest and down to her toes, pumping even more adrenaline into her bloodstream. The wet burn of blood ran down her leg, soaking into her clothes.

Her teeth gnashed, but she refused to cry out.

The crowd’s voices grew distant. Was Kaelan calling her name? Through the blur of battle, the drum of her heartbeat, she couldn’t be certain.

She staggered.

Lavana slowed to smile at her impending victory—just long enough.

That single moment, pain-filled as it was, was the second she needed.

She dodged Lavana’s next strike, raking her knives as she feinted, tearing through the buckles fastening Lavana’s breastplate and through her clothes, to the tender flesh beneath.

Time slowed, Magda could make out each drop of blood that flew from Lavana’s body into the air.

Lavana stumbled, clutching at her wounded side.

Then Magda spun and attacked.

But Lavana had recovered from the shock of injury and held her at bay, not allowing her to get in close enough to use the ironwood.

Still, Magda drove her back—downward slice, upward cut, sweep the ankle.

Lavana blocked and blocked and spun away, right into the wall.

Magda unleashed another spate of strikes, keeping her pinned, seeking an opening.

But Lavana wasn’t to be overwhelmed. In spite of the sweat rolling in crystalline beads down her forehead, off her thick eyelashes, around those eyes hard as gemstones, her focus remained unwavering.

And then the chance came and Magda rushed into it, slim as it was.

The longer the fight went on the worse her chances. She simply didn’t have the stamina.

Strikes came in fractions of heartbeats, blocks just as fast.

When she saw Lavana’s face would be left open in the next move, she snapped back the blades of her left hand, all but the ironwood, and drove it towards Lavana’s throat.

In that moment, the world melted away, until it was only her arm tracking through the air to Lavana’s pulsing vein.

Sounds went mute. All sense of her own wounds, her own breath, her own pulse, vanished. Time seemed to stop.

And that was when she saw her mistake.

Too late.

The opening had been there, but she wasn’t fast enough to seize it.

Time leapt back up to speed.

Lavana ducked the ironwood, came back up on the outside of Magda’s left arm, spinning.

All five of her daggers drove deep into Magda’s exposed side.

She lurched.

Pain exploded and then ebbed away just as fast, tricking her for half-a-breath.

The fleeting thought skated through her mind—
That didn’t just happen
.

But it had happened.

Her whole left side went weak. Her leg gave out. Her arm turned limp. She buckled and crashed to her knees.

Pain like oil lit aflame rolled through her, sucking the oxygen from her lungs.

Every desperate beat of her heart, grasping to hold on, only seemed to push her further away.

Away from the field and the Spire and the world all around.

Away from her breath and her body and her life.

Lavana gripped her hair and yanked her head back.

She had drawn her daggers back into their sheaths. Blood dripped over the metal—Magda’s blood.

In Lavana’s hand, Magda’s three-sided ghast blade. It flashed with some reflected light, a torch maybe, lightning perhaps.

A second, two, had passed since Lavana’s daggers had sunk deep into her flesh.

Time warped, speeding and slowing at once.

Sweat or tears or rain traced the vicious sharp planes of Lavana’s face that were filling her vision.

Without a word, Lavana brought the ghast blade down towards her throat.

A single brilliant burst of pain, so intense it spun a delicate spider-silk bridge across that chasm between agony and revelation—the physical left stranded while the light of consciousness rushed onward, breathless, freed, towards the High Road and the Godlands.

And so it ended.

She died.

Or so it seemed.

For somewhere along that rushing road, she heard a voice say,

“Oh, that’s no fun.”

She fell and crashed into a mad cacophony, a clash of blurred images, discordant senseless screams, a firestorm of pain.

“Stop—!”

“Seize—!”

Kaelan’s voice. “Stay with me.”

Darkness swept around her, and with it, relief.

The fight, the quest, was over.

She had failed, she had lost, but at least, she was done.

She fell into the sweet silence of the shadows.

A
FAINT, HIGH-PITCHED
CHRICK-CHRICK
broke through the thick dust of silence that had settled upon her.

Why couldn’t she move? Where was that sound coming from?

Chrick-chrick-chrick.

Fighting through the leaden darkness, forcing her eyes to peel open, they immediately tried to shut against the burn of light. Though it didn’t take her long to realize, as far as light went, this was not terribly bright—little more than a soft orange-ish ebbing glow. Still, her eyes ached.

A terrible silty scum coated the inside of her mouth and swallowing hurt so much she groaned, though she’d meant to scream.

“Off. Damned pest,” a haughty little voice ordered.

The movement drew her eyes to it, allowing her to focus on something in a room of nothing but fire and shadows.

A slim tiny man with a wild tuft of hair and pointed ears flung his hands at a grasshopper, which leapt away, dropping out of sight.

The sandpapery scrape of her vocal chords made her wince as she forced out the name. “Kirk?”

He turned towards her, standing on a night table. “Oh, you’re finally awake, I see. Wonderful.” Though he sounded mostly disgruntled, there might’ve been a note of relief in his voice.

She blinked, attempting to clear the hazy film from her vision. Blinking hurt. Everything hurt.

As she began to feel out her body, each bone and muscle ached in protest, fighting off her attempts to rouse them. She was heavy, yet limp, sunk deep into the mattress, but there was an extra weight across her torso and more warmth on one side than the other.

With what seemed a herculean effort, she lifted her head, pain lancing up the side of her neck, causing her to suck a sharp breath, bringing tears to her eyes.

Next to her was Kaelan.

The firelight slipped over the scar on his cheek and highlighted his paler gold locks while leaving the rest of his tousled hair dark, almost black. His arm rested over her, holding her, his head close enough that she couldn’t see all of his face at once.

“Did I hear her?” another voice asked. “Is she awake?”

“I don’t recall sending for you,” Kirk replied coolly.

“Oh, shove off, you old crank.”

Magda gritted her teeth as she turned her head again.

In that instant, Meer popped away and then reappeared next to Magda’s shoulder. The brownie held a cup as tall as she was with apparent ease.

“Drink this,” Meer said, tilting the cup to her lips before she could speak.

An herbaceous, bitter liquid washed over her tongue and shoved down her throat, causing her to sputter and grimace and moan as a cough shook loose more pains from where they’d been lodged deep within her.

Meer drew the cup away. “Oh, it’s not that bad.”

“No, it’s absolutely disgusting,” Kirk said.

“Shows what you know—”

“Magda . . .?” Kaelan’s voice was sleep-thick.

The coughing subsided. At least the brew had cleaned the foul taste from her mouth.

He propped up on his elbow, pushing her hair back from her face, brushing his thumb across her temple.

“You’re awake,” he said heavily. “I wasn’t sure you’d . . .” His lips pressed together. “How do you feel?”

“Awful,” she wheezed. “Where . . . what . . .?” Her head began to throb as she attempted to gather her mind together. “I died.”

“Find Damion,” Kaelan said to Meer. Then his gaze turned to Kirk. “Tell the others.”

Both brownies disappeared. Magda’s gaze had a moment, freed of Kaelan’s attention, to wander above his head.

Wooden beams glowed in the crackling firelight. The musty air of damp earth mingled with the oily warmth of wood smoke and crisp sweetness of cedar.

Kaelan’s head bowed suddenly, his cheek pressing to hers. “You’re not dead.”

She wasn’t sure if he was telling her or reassuring himself.

He drew back, eyes bright in the shadows, seeming to draw the fire into their depths. They were rung with heavy sleepless shadows, and yet, they were too intense. She had to drop her gaze to the space between them, where his chest hovered over hers.

“But I was . . .”

“Yes,” he said. “Lavana stabbed you in the throat with your ghast blade.” His fingers brushed low on her neck, just above her collarbone.

A cold pain shuddered through her. She grimaced, moaning.

“It still hurts?” he asked.

She nodded, or tried to, she wasn’t sure if she managed it or not.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as though it were somehow his fault. “I’ve been doing the best I can, but after the journey, bringing you here—”

“Where?” she asked.

“The human world,” he said, sitting back, giving her some more room to breathe. “I healed the wounds as best I could in the moment, but I had to get you out of there. I couldn’t do both at once. You were fading so fast, just hanging on. Whenever I stopped healing you, you’d start to slip away again.”

She didn’t know what to do with the pain straining his voice, tightening the edges of his face. She had too much pain of her own, twisting and throbbing through her, to process his too.

“You took me from the grounds,” she said, trying to focus only on filling in the gaps, “through the Shadow Realms.”

“I had to. You were dying.”

“I was dead, you mean.”

Another twitch of pain flicked across his brow. “Yes.”

“Then they saw you, the real you?”

“No . . . Flor has managed to convince the family that I am still Caden, that I have this power to travel through the Light Realms.”

“Endreas won’t believe it,” she said. “He’ll suspect the truth. And Lavana too. Anyone who’s seen an Elf move through the Shadow Realms will know what it looks like.”

His gaze turned away and a cold space formed between them.

“And you’ve broken the law,” she said. “We’ve both broken the law. I was defeated. You left the pit—”

“Do you think I give a damn about the law? Would you rather be dead?”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. Thank you.” Her fingers, bereft of her knives, lifted from the bed and touched his arm. “Thank you.”

He seemed to watch her from the corner of his eye, as though reluctant to look at her directly. “It’s not just you, Magda.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when you died. I could feel it.” He touched his chest. “That part of my heart that I’d given to you, I felt it dying. Except, it felt like the whole thing had been ripped out. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t think. I just did it. I had to save you.”