Claiming the Prince: Book One (32 page)

Honey appeared next to her at some point.

“Panchress,” she said, shaking the white flower under Magda’s nose. The scent was light, powdery. “The Sun Goddess’s healing flower.”

“Careful with that,” Damion snapped at her. “Do you realize how valuable that flower is? I mean, it . . .”

Kaelan blinked, his chest heaving.

Magda’s legs moved of their own accord, lifting over logs and roots, skirting the cold weight of a manticore corpse, until they folded and she dropped next to him. Through slitted eyes, still flooded red by suffocation, he watched her.

She touched his chest.

Warm.

A thump. And then . . . two more in rapid succession.

His hand, slow, weak, covered hers.

Honey skipped over and settled down, pristine white gown puffing around her. “You see?” she said. “I brought him back.”

Magda snatched her hand away. The thump continued to echo in her palm, up her arm, into her chest, filling in the hole and stalling the creeping chill that had been invading her.

Honey wrapped her arms around Kaelan’s neck, kissing his cheek.

He blinked, wincing at Honey’s touch.

Damion joined them. “You were dead.”

Kaelan opened his mouth. A strangled grunt was all that came out.

“The water,” Honey said.

Damion handed it over. Honey poured it into Kaelan’s mouth, dabbing what dribbled down his chin with her trailing sleeve.

As he swallowed, his eyes slid shut. Magda’s breath held, as if not expecting them to open again, but they did, and refocused on her.

“I . . . fell,” he said to her.

And you took me with you, you son of a bitch,
she wanted to scream, and then knock him flat on his ass. Instead, her hands bunched in her lap, her teeth grinding.

“It will take a little time,” Honey reported, stroking his hair. “But he’ll be healed completely soon. Like nothing happened.”

Magda surged up to her feet. The grieving chill had been replaced with furious burning.

“Let’s figure out how to get the venom,” she said to Damion. “I want to be gone before midday. Where’s the third manticore?”

“By the camp,” Damion said.

“Let’s go.” She strode towards the stream, not looking back.

Blood spattered everything.

“Looks like some battle,” she said, stepping around the prostrate body of the manticore, which had too many wounds to count.

Damion lifted his spoon from the bowl left by the campfire, frowning. “I need to wash this,” he said and started back towards the stream.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” she asked, gesturing to the scaled tail of the creature.

“I’d say the venom’s in the stinger. Cut it off,” he said. “I still haven’t cleaned my swords either. Besides, I really don’t want to be here when you . . .”

Her eyes narrowed. “When I what?”

He took a step back. “I’ll just go wash my spoon.” He hustled away.

She scowled after him and then hunkered down and started to cut away the tip of the stinger. Once she’d sawed it off, she packed leaves around the tip, tying them with a bit of the rope that Damion had left in a slender coil by his kit. She salvaged one of the trampled and blood-spattered blankets to wrap it in. All told, it was the size of a healthy baby. She wasn’t sure if they’d be able to bring the others—if it was wise or worthwhile or even feasible.

Plucking up one of the water gourds that had been kicked off near the trees, she tipped the trickle of remaining water into her throat. Light slanted down, shining bright on the destroyed campsite and the sundered flesh of the manticore—black and red and purple.

Her stomach lurched into her throat when she focused on it. She leaned against a tree, catching her breath. Killing had never bothered her in the past, the sight of gore and blood . . . never from battle anyway. Only when she’d seen meat eaten had it knotted her up inside, but she’d been too sheltered from the carnage all these years.

How was she ever going to survive, let alone triumph, when her strength kept rising and falling like this? One moment she felt as though she could conquer the world, and the next, she could barely keep her legs upright.

“Magda?”

She flinched, pushing away from the tree.

Kaelan stopped in the midst of the battle-broken camp, not coming any closer.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She laughed, a humorless huffing sound. “Am I all right? You’re the one who was dead.”

The red had started to fade from his eyes, the discoloration of his skin too. He moved closer, slowly.

Her teeth scraped over her lip as he approached. When he came close enough to touch, she skirted away from him, back towards the camp. He stopped again.

“Magda, listen . . .”

“Where’s Honey?” she asked, glancing towards the stream. “And Anqa? I haven’t seen her since the battle.”

“I don’t know—”

“We can’t stay here much longer. Who knows what kind of creatures will be drawn to all this blood,” she said. “Are you strong enough to leave?”

“I think so, but—”

She gathered up the ends of the blanket with the stinger inside. “Does Honey still have some of the panchress—?”

“Magda!”

She froze, clenched.

He closed the distance between them more quickly. By the time he reached her, sweat beaded on his face and his breath was ragged, as if he’d run miles instead of walked a few feet.

“I don’t know what I did,” he said, “but I’m sorry.”

Her throat ached, tears prickling across the surface of her eyes. If she spoke, she was afraid the tears would start to fall again. She began to turn away, but he sidestepped into her path.

“I died,” he said.

She kept her gaze trained on the trees on the other side of the stream. “It’s a good thing Honey was here or else you’d still be dead.”

His hand moved up as if to touch her, but she stepped back.

He frowned. “Are you angry?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her fingers brushed her chest. The cold hollowness was gone, yet a bruised tenderness remained. “Do you know what a heart-place is, Kaelan?”

His frown deepened. “No. What?”

How could she explain? She only knew what Endreas had told her and what Ilene had said. It never would’ve occurred to her that a person could be made into a heart-place, but the aching wound within told her Kaelan had done just that. And even though he hadn’t done it on purpose—how could he have when he didn't even know what one was?—it still felt like a violation. Because losing him . . . it hadn’t simply hurt, it had killed a part of her too. He had connected himself to her somehow, given her a piece of himself and then ripped it away in the next moment. Just thinking about it brought a sob into her throat. If she had to go through that kind of loss again . . . she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to survive it.

“There has to be a way to undo it,” she said.

“Undo what?” he asked. “Magda, if you’re angry with me—”

“Oh . . . shut up, all right? I
am
angry.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain it right now. Just . . . give me some time.”

His pain knotted through her, stiffening the muscles in her neck. It wasn’t just that he’d accidentally made her his heart-place; they’d grown far too connected. She could feel his emotions even when they weren’t touching . . . it wasn’t right. It wasn’t safe.

“I’m happy you’re alive, Kaelan,” she said.

“Are you sure about that?”

She growled. “If you hadn’t just been killed, I’d . . .”

He crossed his arms, glowering down at her. “What? You’d send me back to my forest with my nymph? That’s not your decision. And I don’t want to go back—”

She set the stinger down, so she could knead her throbbing temples. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up? I’m trying to think.”

“No, Magda, I need to tell you—”

“You have to change,” she said as the thought suddenly appeared in her head.

His brow furrowed, glancing down at his clothes. “I don’t have—”

“No, not clothes,” she said. “Your face.”

He touched his jaw. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing. Don’t you see? Ilene thinks you’re dead. Which means the King will think you’re dead.”

His eyes widened. The green finally grew brighter than the redness. “They’ll stop hunting me.”

“And stop worrying about that damned prophecy,” she said. “If we can change your appearance, you can live freely and no one will know any better.”

He turned grim. “We’d need a witch for that. Or another empusa or some other dire creature. And the price would be steep.”

She snatched up the blanket-wrapped bundle of stingers. “I just happen to have some very rare manticore venom that I’m sure will be irresistible to a certain witch I know.”

“What about Lavana?” he asked. “You don’t have time—”

“I’m in no shape to face her. We have time.”

“But what if—”

“I know,” she said. “But this is more important. If Lavana isn’t Radiant yet, I need you. And if she is, then I need you. But I don’t need the King sending anymore of his menagerie after us.”

She turned. He caught her arm. The bruise on her heart seemed to bloom, both deepening and healing all at once.

“Something changed,” he said.

She extricated her arm from him. “We’ll talk about it later. Clean up, try to eat something. We have to go.”

“W
HY THE SWITCH?”
Damion asked in her ear as they flew north. “Prince getting too familiar?”

“None of your business,” she said. “Are you holding up all right?” She nodded down to the bundle swinging below Gur’s belly. The rope was secured around Damion’s waist. It seemed the safest way to transport it.

“This is nothing,” he said, giving the rope a tug. “I’m more worried that we are yet again delayed.”

“This isn’t a delay,” she said. “It’s necessary.”

“That’s what you said the last time, and how many times have you almost died since then?”

“That seems to be a form of employment for a Rae,” she said.

Below, white frothy lines etched the gray steel of the ocean. The air grew cooler as they traveled. Far behind them, the rocky jut of the peninsula—the southern finger of the Eastern Cliffs—proved a welcome site. Anqa, with Honey and Kaelan, flew ahead and above, joined by some drafting gulls. None of the birds came close to Gur though.

“Do you really think Eris will help us?” he asked.

“Eris will help anyone for a price,” she said.

“Don’t give it all up,” Damion said. “We’ll need something to trade for supplies, and bribes.”

“I still have the ichor-gold glove. We can sell that if we need to,” she said. “And Honey has the panchress.”

Damion lapsed into a heavy silence, which she guessed meant he was placated.

“What did he do to you, coz?” he asked after a time. “What did that Elf wench mean about the heart-place?”

She chewed on her answer, not sure she wanted to talk about it, not with him, not with anyone.

But since Damion had pledged his life to her, she felt she owed it to him.

“Right before Kaelan died,”—the wind tore at her words, forcing her to raise her voice, though it was hard enough to speak at all—“he gave me a piece of his heart.”

She could hear the sneer in his voice even though she couldn’t see his face. “A piece of his heart?”

“Not literally, of course,” she said. “Some energy of his heart’s essence, I suppose. I don’t exactly know how it works. And neither does Kaelan. He didn’t mean to. He didn’t know what he was doing. Apparently, giving away their hearts in this manner is expected of Elven Princes. Supposedly, it strengthens them, so long as the place they choose remains unharmed. It's also a part of their Ascension rite. A Prince cannot become King if he hasn’t given away pieces of his heart.”

“So you
still
have it? A piece of Kaelan’s heart?”

“Yes.”

“What does that feel like?”

She touched her chest reflexively. The bruise was fading. “I can’t feel it as much now as I did.”

“So when he died, that’s why you were so . . .”

“Yes. That’s why. It was as if . . . I had died too.”

“And is that going to happen again?”