Claiming the Prince: Book One (18 page)

She dreamt of a thick black mist coiling around her. Through the mire, she heard Endreas calling her name. She ran and ran, but never came any closer to the sound of his voice, never found him.

She woke, cringing against cracks of pale light weeping through woven branches surrounding her. The bed, soft and scented of lavender, groaned as it swayed.

A twitchy pink nose popped up at her side. He placed his little paws on her breast, looking into her eyes.

She almost sobbed. “Hello, Hero.”

“
I am glad you are awake.
”

“Me too,” she said.

“
I must apologize for my cowardice.
”

“Cowardice?” She grimaced, pushing up onto her elbows, displacing him. The room around her continued to rock. Only it wasn’t a room. It was more like a basket cocoon, barely big enough to hold her.

“
I ran. I should’ve fought at your side. You were wounded.
”

“Don’t worry about it. There was nothing you could’ve done.” She touched his furry head lightly. “Where are we?”

“
The door is there. The Prince lofted us, so you will have to use the ladder.
”

Hero bounded over her lap and pressed his paws against a simple loop and clasp on the wall of the basket, and then he scurried up her chest and onto her shoulder, his tail curling around her neck. She grasped the branch that served as a hitch and freed the bit of twine lashed around it, opening the hatch.

Her hand locked around the edge, clinging as the cocoon swung with her shifted weight. Far, far below the forest floor sprawled, a dark green swatch some fifty or sixty feet down.

She leaned back, wrestling the vertigo.

Across the space before her, enormous branches sprawled, some as wide as she was tall. Purplish-green leaves, dappled by orange flecks of sunlight, whispered in a soothing hush all around as a cool breeze worked its way through the labyrinth of the treescape. From the edge of the opening, which was hardly wider than her shoulders, a rope ladder hung. It was fastened, not to the ground, but to a wide branch fifteen feet below.

Her heart leapt into her throat. She scrambled back from the opening. The basket pitched as she moved. Her stomach mimicked the motion.

Hero’s claws dug into her shoulder. “
Are you all right?
”

“Just need a moment to catch my breath.” And to stop her head from spinning.

With gentle fingers, she prodded the place where she’d been stabbed. A hole remained in her shirt, stained pale pink where, clearly, someone had tried to wash the blood away. As for the wound, it was healed, but tender. More than anything, she was parched and ravenous. But thoughts of slipping and falling kept her huddled in the back of her cocoon. She could just picture herself, having survived a killing blow, only to die toppling from a ladder that any seven-year-old could’ve climbed without a second thought.

But then the straining moan of the ropes holding the basket started to grow louder in her ears. What if the rope snapped and the whole basket fell?

That was enough to get her moving again.

Pushing back the door so that it remained open, she eased herself out of the cocoon and onto the ladder. The rungs were rope too and gave under her. She clenched her teeth, struggling to keep her breath steady.

“
Is something wrong?
” Hero asked when she remained half in and half out of the cocoon, attempting to convince her fingers to release the edge of the opening.

“Pixies don’t do heights,” she said.

“
Is that so? The green-eyed one doesn’t seem to have any trouble. He’s been coming and checking on you quite frequently. Sleeping here with you sometimes.
”

This statement was enough to pull her out of her anxiety for a moment. “Kaelan was sleeping here with me?”

“
To aid in your healing. I don’t believe he meant to fall asleep, but the large one has been working him quite hard. The Prince complains to the winged one often about it.
”

She shook her head and refocused. She could climb down a silly ladder. It wasn’t that far to the branch, hardly higher than when she was in her tower on the beach.

Once, after getting off duty, she’d flopped under an umbrella to take a nap and overheard a mom reminding her young daughter, who was afraid of wading into the surf, “Remember the story? The Little Engine? What did she say?”

The little girl shrugged, too caught up in her fears.

“I think I can. I think I can,” the mother reminded her. And then she took the girl’s hand and led her to the water. After a few minutes, the girl was squealing and running and splashing like all of the other kids.

Later, Magda had gone to the library and found the book in question. When she’d checked it out, the librarian had smiled and said, “I love this one. Can’t go wrong with a classic like this.”

Magda had read it over and over and over. While she knew it was meant for children, it had struck her.

Humans taught their children that they could accomplish great deeds, even when the odds were against them—in fact, especially then. She’d heard it over and over again at the beach from parents, “Just try.”

But as a child, Magda had not been taught to try. She’d been told what to do, and she was expected to do it. She either failed or succeeded. Nor had there been an expectation that anyone could do anything beyond what was dictated by their race or status. A Rae must fight to become Radiant, because that was what Raes did. And if the time came, the Radiant must contend for the Crown.

Not until her exile had it occurred to her that it was possible to be something other than what she’d been born to be.

As she climbed down the ladder, hands slick with sweat and arms trembling, she repeated the phrase, “I think I can. I think I can.”

Once on the branch, which was wide and flat, worn down like a path, she encountered another ladder. Down and down, all the while queasy and light-headed and far-too weak, until at last, the ground.

Mossy, damp, sweet-scented, the earth had never been so beautiful. Sinking against the deeply ridged bark of the tree’s trunk, she let out a grateful sigh.

A leathery, bat-winged creature with dark green skin and huge green eyes zipped by and then looped back and came to a hovering halt before her.

“You’re awake!” the imp squeaked.

It zoomed away again.

Hero leapt from her shoulder before she could question him about the imp and disappeared into the thick ferns that pocked the forest of giant trees.

A moment later, Kaelan appeared with Damion close at his heels. Both of them were shirtless, sweat-slick, and carrying their swords. Kaelan sported a number of superficial wounds and many, many bruises. Damion’s torso was as scarred as his face, but showed no recent injuries.

Behind them, the green-eyed imp bobbed, her leathery wings flapping quickly to keep her aloft.

Damion stowed his swords and knelt before her. “Mistress—”

“Damn it, Damion. Can’t you just call me Magda?”

“No.”

Kaelan knelt beside her as well.

“Put those things away when you approach a Rae.” Damion flung his hand towards the swords in Kaelan’s hands.

“Oh . . .” With an awkward backward thrust of his arms, he hid the swords away.

Damion frowned at him, but refrained from further comment, though Magda could tell from the steep peak of his brow that keeping his mouth shut strained him.

“You shouldn’t have climbed down on your own,” Kaelan told her.

“How are you feeling?” The imp landed and waddled over to Kaelan on bandy legs. The deep creases on her bald forehead showed concern. Her ears were overlarge and floppy, drooping off the sides of her head. Her nose was nothing more than a pug’s, and she had no lips to speak of to conceal a mouth of very sharp teeth. A hairless tail lashed behind her naked, squat body. Both her hands and feet were webbed with sharp claws.

“My boy was very concerned he would not be able to heal you,” the imp said to Magda.

“You’re Kaelan’s . . .
mother
?” she asked, ignoring the way Kaelan’s face hardened and Damion’s showed amusement.

“Yes, yes! Poppy. Call me Poppy.”

“Is this your home, Poppy?” she asked, gesturing up to the towering tree.

“Yes.” Poppy clasped her knotty fingers together before her, exposing her multitude of dagger-like teeth in what Magda assumed was meant to be a smile.

“Thank you, Poppy,” she said, “for your gracious hospitality.”

Poppy launched up into the air. “I will bring you food and water. You must be very hungry. Yum, yum! Wait here!”

She darted away again.

Kaelan stared fixedly at the ground, jaw working.

“Your mother is very kind,” Magda said to him.

His gaze cut up to her, as if he thought she were teasing.

“Thank you for healing me,” she said to him.

The hard expression on his face softened.

She pressed her hand against the tree as she rose to her feet.

“You don’t need to stand,” Damion told her as he stood too, hands out to catch her if she fell.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “How long have I been sleeping?”

“Three days,” Damion reported.

“Is that all? It feels much longer,” she said, leaning her shoulder heavily upon the tree. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” Damion said. “You’ve been healing, and I’ve been doing my best to get this
Prince
”—he struck Kaelan’s chest with the back of his hand, causing Kaelan to stumble a few steps—“up to form.”

“Lavana?”

“She’s left the forest,” Kaelan said, rubbing the spot where Damion had hit him. “Gone west.”

“Towards the Spire,” she said.

“We don’t know,” Damion said.

Magda shoved her bangs back from her face. “She will attempt to lay claim—”

“Even if she does, the window remains open,” Damion said. “The year is not done.”

“But the Crown is ill,” she said. “Isn’t she?”

Damion’s shoulders sagged.

“In such circumstances, Lavana could make a case to have the matter settled sooner.”

“Only if it is known the Crown is dying,” Damion said. “Right now it’s only a rumor.”

Magda plucked at her lip with her teeth, lost in the brume of her thoughts, until the weight of Kaelan’s gaze drew her out of herself.

“How is Honey?” she asked.

His brow fell and his lips pursed.

At that very moment, she heard a sing-song voice.

“Oh, look, it’s you!”

Damion and Kaelan parted, so that Magda could see Honey skipping towards them, smiling broadly, flush and golden as ever. She slipped between the two men and grasped Magda’s hands, clasping them to her chest as if they were long-lost sisters.

“I am so glad you’re not dead,” Honey said. “Would you like to dance with me?”

Though she seemed vivacious enough, her big blue eyes shone eerily translucent, like little blue shards of glass.

Magda extricated her hands from Honey’s warm grip. “Not quite yet. Still weak. Thanks.”

Honey curtsied. “Of course.” Then she pranced away, skirts fluttering around her.

Magda stared after the nymph. “What the hell happened to her?”

Kaelan’s face was as dark as a sea under storm clouds. “Ouda happened.”

“C
OME HERE,
sit, sit!” Poppy returned with a finely woven basket hung in the crook of her arm. She corralled them to a raised flat of rock surrounded by soft moss. On the stone table, she laid out broad leaves. On top of those, she piled berries, mushrooms, and nuts.

Damion plopped down and began stuffing the mushrooms into his mouth.

Magda lingered next to Kaelan, watching Honey dance around the trees, singing sweetly as she twirled.

“I’m sorry, Kaelan,” she said.

“What for? She’s alive, isn’t she?” Damion said through a mouthful of food.

“Sit, sit,” Poppy said gently, giving Magda’s shoulder a nudge.

Magda lowered herself to the ground. Kaelan’s misery hung as thick as smog around him, and even though they were not empathically connected, it weighed on her, leaving a restless itch in her legs.

Still in flight, Poppy wrapped her arms around Kaelan’s neck briefly. “Eat, eat.”

Magda popped a smooth red berry into her mouth. The skin snapped and juice flowed down her throat, thick, like cream and sweeter than pineapple. The tension in her shoulders melted as the sugar rushed through her. She’d forgotten how much better food in the Lands tasted.

Kaelan sank to the ground next to her, but didn’t touch the food in front of him.

Poppy flew off and returned with a water jug crafted from more waxy broad leaves. She landed between Damion and Magda, setting the jug down and, with quick fingers, made boat-shaped cups out of more leaves. Once filled, she held one out to Magda.

Magda took the cup, her fingers grazing the sandpapery skin of Poppy’s hands.

“Thank you.”

She drank. The water tasted cool and rich. She smiled.

Poppy placed a leaf-cup before Damion and another in front of Kaelan, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

“As soon as you’re able, we should leave for the Spire,” Damion said to Magda after washing down the last of his food.