The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

They strained a second pot of water and set it on the fire. Cora opened bundles of dried meat. “We’ll start small. Can you fetch a candle?”

“What? Now?” Harkeld rocked back on his heels, alarmed.

“Why not?” She looked at him, her eyes reflecting the firelight. “You want to be able to control it, don’t you?”

“Uh... I should really help with the packhorses.” He gestured to where Ebril and Justen worked.

“Prince Harkeld.”

Her voice wasn’t scornful, as Innis’s had been. She sounded sympathetic, motherly.
As if I’m a child, not a man of twenty-four
.

Harkeld flushed. He pushed to his feet and went to fetch a candle. Fear built in his chest as he brought it back to the fire. The first pot was simmering. He watched Cora put in handfuls of dried meat, dried vegetables, a scattering of dried herbs; nearly the last of the supplies they’d brought from Lundegaard. She dusted her palms one against the other. “Sit down beside me.”

He did, his legs stiff with reluctance.

“We’ll start with this.” Cora snapped her fingers. A single flame flared on one fingertip, and then went out. “Fire magic is inside me, in my blood, and I choose to release it. I could have it come out my nose if I wanted to, but this...”—she snapped her fingers again—“is simple and safe. My magic is focused on one point that I can see. I’m not going to accidentally burn myself or anyone else.”

She looked at him as if expecting a response. Harkeld nodded.

“When I was learning, I found it easiest to visualize a tinderbox. Flint strikes steel and you have a spark.” Cora snapped her fingers, the flame flared again for an instant. “You try. Concentrate on your hand. Try to feel the magic in your blood. Imagine that it’s warm and stings a little.”

Harkeld took a deep breath. He looked at his right hand. His mind gave him images of what might happen: his hand engulfed in flames, becoming a blackened claw. “What if my hand catches fire?”

“I’ll put it out.”

His gaze jerked to her face. “It can happen?”

“It’s extremely rare for fire mages to burn themselves. It’s... how can I put it? The magic is in your blood, and your blood is in your body, and it’s as if the magic knows it shouldn’t burn itself. Does that make sense?”

He nodded.

“I saw someone make fire come out of his ears once,” Cora said. “A student fooling around. His hair caught alight. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen a mage hurt himself with his own fire.”

His mind shied away from the image her words conjured.

“I doubt you’ll burn yourself, Prince Harkeld, but if you do, I’ll put it out.”

Harkeld tried to swallow his fear, but it stuck in his throat, a choking lump.
Stop being such a baby
, he told himself. He gritted his teeth and stared at his right hand, trying to feel the magic in his blood. Warm and stinging, Cora had said.

The magic hadn’t been warm and stinging in the catacombs. It had been hot, a searing pain that had roared through him.

In a rush, he felt it again: fire sizzling along his veins.

“Can you feel it?”

Harkeld nodded, his jaw clenched. His hand felt so hot the skin should be blistering, smoking.

“Now imagine your hand is a tinderbox and snap your fingers.”

He was sweating, afraid. It was stupidly difficult to breathe. “You’ll put it out if...”

“I’ll put it out.”

Harkeld gulped a breath, visualized a tinderbox—flint striking against steel—and snapped his fingers.

Flame roared high, white-hot, lighting up the campsite like a flash of lightning.

Panic burst in his chest. He rocked backwards, thrusting his hand away from himself. His mouth opened in a shout, but before it was uttered, Cora laid her hand over his, quenching the flame.

Harkeld stared at her, his mouth still open, his heart beating wildly. Behind Cora he saw Justen and Ebril turn their heads, startled. The horses moved uneasily, one half-rearing.

Cora’s lips twitched in a smile. “I see I shall have to teach you how to dampen your magic.”

He closed his mouth, found his voice. “Dampen?”

“You don’t need that much magic to light a candle. Just a tiny amount.” She released his hand. “Now, try again. Feel the magic in your blood.”

I don’t want to.
Harkeld took a deep breath. He looked at his hand again and tried to sense magic there. This time it came quickly, a painful flood of heat.

“Is it hot?”

He nodded, gritting his teeth.

“Dampen it.”

“How?” His voice was tight with pain.

“Tell it.”

Harkeld snarled at the uselessness of this advice.
Not so hot,
he said in his head.
Not so hot
. But it didn’t make any difference. His skin felt like it was sizzling, his blood boiling. Panic rose in him. Any moment now his hand would burst into flames and—

“Not working?” Cora reached out and took his wrist. “Come with me.”

Harkeld stumbled to his feet and followed her, down into the riverbed. Her fingers pinched his wrist, pinched back his panic. Curse it, but his hand
burned
—

Cora crouched, pulling him to his knees, and plunged his hand into the stagnant pool.

Harkeld hissed. He half expected to see steam rise.

“Keep telling your magic that you don’t need all of it,” Cora said. “You only need enough to light a candle.”

He did, over and over in his head.
Not so hot. I only need a little. Just enough for a candle
. The water helped. His hand began to cool. His panic trickled away, leaving him feeling foolish.

“Better?”

Harkeld nodded.

Cora released his wrist. He could barely see her in the dusk. “Now, try snapping your fingers again.”

Harkeld lifted his hand from the water. He felt the magic in his blood, warm, pulsing in time to his heartbeat.

He shook off the drops and took a deep breath.
Just enough for a candle
. He imagined his hand was a tinderbox and snapped his fingers.

A flame appeared, steady and orange, dancing on the end of his forefinger. The light it cast showed him Cora’s face. She smiled. “See? You control your magic, Prince Harkeld. It doesn’t control you.”

He nodded, too relieved to be able to speak.

“You have the candle?”

He fished in his pocket with his left hand.

“Light it.”

He did. It became even easier to see Cora’s face. “Well done,” she said.

He felt no sense of accomplishment. The flame burning quietly at the end of his finger, the lit candle—they weren’t things to be proud of; they were the first steps to becoming what he’d reviled all his life: a witch.

No. It was the first step to having the magic stripped from his blood. The first step to
not
being a witch.

Cora stood. “Let’s get back to the fire. I think the stew’s about to boil over.”

The flame still burned on the end of Harkeld’s forefinger. “How do I put this out? Douse it in water?”

“Pinch your thumb and finger together and imagine you’re snuffing a candle.”

He did. The flame vanished.

“You won’t always need to use imagery like that,” Cora said, as he followed her back to the fire. “But for now it’s easiest. Like the tinderbox.” She crouched and stirred the stew. “Put out that candle and try lighting it again.”

“But the pool—”

“You shouldn’t need water to dampen your magic, now that you know you can do it. That’s a lot of what magic’s about. Knowing what you can and can’t do. If you doubt yourself, if you’re afraid, it becomes a lot harder. Magic is in the blood, but our ability to use it comes from up here.” Cora tapped her forehead.

A black owl glided low over the camp and landed beside the tents.

“Ah, Innis is back. She’ll need her clothes.” Cora gave him the wooden spoon. “Keep stirring. And once that drinking water’s boiled for five minutes, take it off.”

Harkeld had just removed the water pot from the fire when Cora returned with Innis. The girl’s face was pale and tired beneath her tangled black curls.

“You must be starving, Innis.” Cora rummaged among the bundles of food. “Here, have these nuts.”

His own stomach gave a quiet rumble, but Innis would be hungrier than he was; witches were forbidden to eat when they were in another shape, and she’d flown more than a hundred miles today.

“The water’s too hot to drink. Wait, I’ll fetch my waterskin.” Cora hurried off into the darkness.

Which left just him and Innis at the fire. Harkeld put all his concentration into stirring the stew, ignoring Innis sitting on the other side of the orange flames.

“Sire?”

He kept his eyes on the pot for a moment, then glanced at her. It was the first time they’d been alone together since the anchor stone, when she’d shoved his cowardice in his face. She’d been fierce then, her gray eyes blazing at him. Now she looked fragile and exhausted.

“I want to apologize for what I said to you in the catacombs.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I apologize,” Innis said. “I was trying to make you angry enough to use your magic.”

Harkeld looked back at the stew. It was bubbling. Lumps of meat jostled one another, pieces of carrot, peas. “It worked,” he said flatly.

He tried not to remember, but it was impossible not to. Her words had been like slaps across his face:
I thought you were braver than this, sire
.

Harkeld stabbed the stew with the wooden spoon. She’d been right to call him a coward.

“What I said wasn’t true. I shouldn’t have said it.”

He lifted his head and glared at her. “It was true.”

“What? No! How can you think that? I was there when your father said he’d cut out your tongue if you disobeyed him. Even when he said he’d take your hands and your head, you stood up to him! You did what was right.”

Harkeld looked back at the pot.

“And in the Graytooth Mountains, at the pass, you came back to fight, even though Dareus told you not to.”

Harkeld stirred the stew slowly.

“What I said in the catacombs—it was to make you angry, sire. And I apologize. It was badly done of me.”

Innis meant what she said. He could hear it in her voice.

Harkeld looked up, met her eyes and nodded.

The apology shouldn’t matter—she was only a witch after all; what did he care about her opinion of him? But somehow it did.

Innis held the nuts in her hand, uneaten. She seemed thinner, as if she’d lost weight in the three days she’d been gone. “Eat,” Harkeld told her brusquely, and turned his attention to the pot again.

I
NNIS HAD TWO
bowls of stew, trying to eat slowly and not shovel it into her mouth. She was still hungry when she’d finished, but a glance at the pot told her it had been scraped clean.

“Tell us about Stanic,” Cora said. “Who was there?”

Innis put down her bowl. The food was a pleasant warmth in her stomach. Her eyes caught movement overhead. A russet-breasted owl glided over the campsite, its feathers shimmering with shapeshifter’s magic. Ebril, keeping watch. He drifted out of sight into the darkness. “Five Sentinels.”

“Only five?” Gerit scowled, his beard bristling. “We need more’n that.”

“Who are they?” Cora asked.

“Susa and Katlen. Hew. Rand and Frane.” A yawn caught her on the last name.

“Don’t know most of ’em.” Gerit’s scowl deepened. “What are they?”

“Frane’s a healer, Hew’s a shapeshifter, and Susa’s a fire mage. They’ve just finished their Journeys and taken their oaths. Rand’s a healer. He says he knows you and Cora. And Katlen’s a fire mage. She was an instructor at the Academy.”

“Only one shapeshifter.” Gerit spat into the fire. “Don’t they know we need more’n that? What with that bounty and those thrice-cursed assassins.” He scowled at Prince Harkeld, as if it was the prince’s fault he had a bounty on his head.

Prince Harkeld ignored him. Cora did too. “Two healers, two fire mages, and a shapeshifter?” she asked Innis.

Innis nodded. “Rand said the Council’s calling in all the Sentinels they can. More will join us after the second anchor stone.”

“Where?”

“At the delta, if a ship can get close enough. He said something about shallows making it dangerous. Otherwise, Krelinsk.”

“Dangerous?” Gerit snorted. “It’s not rutting shallows that are dangerous, it’s those Fithian bastards and their throwing stars.” He pushed to his feet and stamped off towards the tents. Across the fire, Justen—Petrus—rolled his eyes at her.

“So once they join us, we’ll be ten Sentinels,” Cora said, seemingly unruffled by Gerit’s bad temper. “Double what we are now. Good.”

“I gave them the list of supplies we need.” Innis tried to smother another yawn. “They’ll meet us the day after tomorrow outside Hradik. I told them you’d like to avoid the town, because of the prince.”