The Essence (27 page)

I ignored the spasms of pain that came with each shallow breath I took, and I drew the warm coat closer around me. Neva’s clothing was much better suited for the climate, and I adjusted fairly quickly. My fingers were tucked inside the fur-lined gloves and my head was concealed by a hat that protected my forehead and most of my cheeks. I tugged the scarf up so it covered my mouth.

Zafir remained silent, staying behind me.

I moved quickly, making my way down the most traveled trail of prints in the ice-crusted snow. I stopped in front of a large white building that had smoke billowing from several chimneys in its roof. Leaning forward, I brushed at the sparkling crystals that covered its every surface, scraping it away with my glove and revealing the black stones beneath.

I had no idea where I was, or if I was even allowed to be there.

Inside the tall walls, I heard laughter and voices, loud and riotous, and I assumed I’d reached the gatehouse—where Brook wanted to be. The smell of ale and burnt meats reached all the way to the entrance, and I staggered backward, not sure if it was a good idea for
me
to be there at all.

Even if Niko was inside.

I turned away, ignoring Zafir’s curious scrutiny.

Ahead, I saw a wonderland of topiaries and statues and fountains, all glittering and covered in that same layer of frost. Everything was white. Ghostly and beautiful, beckoning me.

He’s there,
Sabara told me. And I doubted she was wrong. She’d been here before. She knew this place.

She knew Niko.

When I found him, standing silently beside a patch of brilliantly flowering shrubs—brilliant red blossoms that stood out sharply against the frozen landscape, as if defying nature by their very presence—I knew he’d been waiting for me.

He looked up, but said nothing.

I turned to Zafir, silently telling him to wait.

My boots crunched loudly through the snow, the only sound now. Even the birds were still.

I stopped before Niko, and we stayed like that for too long. Quiet. Just our breath, visible puffs between us, to fill the void.

A part of me wanted to flee, knowing that I was letting her win just by being here. The other part of me couldn’t. I felt as frozen as one of the statues.

All of me wondered what was about to happen.

He moved then, reaching for my gloved hands and clutching them in his. I watched silently, not caring that Zafir could see us, that he was watching my every move.

“I’ve waited so long,” Niko said on a crystalline puff, his eyes holding mine as he leaned toward me. “And I would’ve waited forever.”

I tipped up on my toes then, everything inside me straining to be near him. Needing to feel him.

A sound shattered the air, first one ear-splitting boom, followed immediately by another.

That was when I heard him—Zafir—screaming my name, “Charlie!” just as he collided with me, shoving me into a soft mound of snow.

I blinked so many times I felt like I was having some sort of seizure or fit. For the first few moments it was the snow that blinded me. And then it was something black and oily—something close to rage—as Sabara erupted within me, furious at being interrupted just as she was about to get her way.

Sick shame choked me as I remembered what I’d been so close to doing for the second time. I would have let Sabara take control.

Max’s face appeared behind my eyes as I blinked again, rubbing away the ice and trying to blot out my humiliation.
How could I?

“Your Majesty? Are you hurt?” Zafir asked as he dragged me up, curling his entire body around mine. He hauled me, clutching me like a rag doll, toward a low wall near the edge of the garden.

I tried to focus, but the world tilted sideways. “Hurt? Why would I be hurt?” I noticed the chaos then. The teeming clots of bodies running toward us, filling the space around us. The barking shouts. Soldiers formed around us like a barricade. “Wh-what happened?” I thought of the sound, like an explosion of thunder, and remembered what Brook had said last night:
There’s never thunder.

“Someone tried to shoot you.” Zafir answered, scanning the
perimeter and nodding to Brooklynn as she raced through
the snow in our direction. “The first two missed by a mile. The third one . . .” He glared at the splintered tree trunk I’d been standing in front of. If Zafir hadn’t tackled me, I wouldn’t be here now.

I didn’t even remember hearing a third shot. But I had heard Zafir. “You called me Charlie,” I told him, brushing snow from my face.

“I did no such thing,” he denied.

I grinned, my concentration shifting elsewhere as I searched for Niko. “You did. I heard you.”

I found Niko, standing just inches from the tree, exactly where he’d been when I’d nearly let him kiss me. He stared back at me, concern etched in every feature of his face.

A small part of me, a part of me I didn’t want to listen to, couldn’t help but wonder if he might have some hand in all this.

But Sabara heard me.

He would never hurt me,
she countered.

She wasn’t lying, I knew. He loved her. I held that truth somewhere that even I couldn’t reach. And even though I didn’t understand it—didn’t understand him—I knew it in a way that made it more real than anything I could hold in my hands.

Sabara settled down as she sensed my acceptance, and a part of me hated that she could read me so easily.

“What were you thinking, coming out here without an escort?” Brook scolded as she knelt beside me.

“
I
am her escort.” Zafir’s voice boomed from above us.

“Yeah, well, nice job, escort. How ’bout next time we try not to get her shot?” She reached beneath my shoulder and pulled me up, none too gently. “C’mon, Chuck,” she jeered, using the nickname she knew I hated. “Let’s get you someplace safe before Round Two starts.” She jerked her head around to face Niko then. “You,” she shouted. “Meet us inside, I have some questions for you.”

Just as we were disappearing beyond the garden’s walls, she bellowed to the soldiers who were still behind her. “And someone better find the bastard responsible for this mess!”

Brook was a champion pacer.

I’d never seen anyone pace and mutter, and then pace some more with so much vigor.

I paced too, but less enthusiastically, stopping to warm my hands, my feet, and my face in front of the fire. I was still shivering, even after nearly an hour of being indoors.

Brook stopped only when Avonlea and Aron came into the enormous library.

The library of Vannova was the most incredible place I’d ever seen. Like any library, there were books. But unlike other libraries I’d been in, this collection was vast, seemingly unending. Haphazardly they lined shelves in stacks and double rows that reached all the way to the ceiling and covered every square inch of wall, almost without order or reason.

I’d plucked several free from their spots, and found myself perusing topics from art to war to animal husbandry, and pretty much everything in between. The variety of languages was just as diverse as the topics themselves. I suddenly wished I had time to spend days—maybe years—flipping through the tattered volumes to discover the secrets of the world beyond the borders of Ludania.

When Avonlea burst through the library doors, she practically knocked me to the ground as she thrust herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck. “I heard what happened,” she breathed against my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” She turned her teary gaze toward Zafir. “Thank you,” she whispered, and I thought I saw his chest puff up ever so slightly.

“Oh, brother,” Brook said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you dare thank him. If he hadn’t let her go out there in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.”

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “Come on, Brook. We all know it’s not Zafir’s fault. Besides, if he hadn’t pushed me out of the way, I’d have been . . . well, you know . . .”

Brook glared at the royal guard, who glared back with equal animosity.

“Avonlea’s right,” Aron told Brook, dropping onto a chair near the fireplace. He slouched down, looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. “Zafir should probably be rewarded for his heroics. . . . Not cursed.” His mouth twitched, and he winked at Avonlea. But I saw the way he glanced sidelong at Brooklynn, and I wondered why he was provoking her.

“Look,” I intervened. “It was bound to happen eventually. Let’s call it like it is: Someone wants to kill me. And clearly they’re taking any opportunity they can. Maybe it’s better this way. . . .” I wondered if any of the optimism I was shooting for was making its way into my voice. “Who knows, maybe they left a clue behind.”

“Yeah, right. And maybe whoever it is’ll just step forward and turn themself in. Save us all a lot of trouble.” Now Brook was glaring at me. “I highly doubt that, Charlie.”

At least I wasn’t “Chuck” anymore.

Brook shook her head, more exasperated than I’d seen her in ages, and then she threw her hands up. “Whatever. You guys sit here and pat Zafir on the back.” She stormed toward the door. “I’ve got better things to do.”

brooklynn

Brook stalked down the hallway, her boots pounding against the marble and giving away her position. Making her less than stealthy. Not that she was trying particularly hard to be stealthy. If she’d wanted to go unseen—unheard—she could have. She’d have been a ghost. A mere whisper.

Now, however, she didn’t care who heard her. She’d convinced herself that her foul mood was because of the conspirator in their ranks, that she was on edge and irritable because she was still no closer to discovering just who had been planted among her soldiers to assassinate Charlie.

She’d gone through the list a dozen times, and then a dozen more: counting the reasons it could be each of her men, and then discarding those reasons one at a time, because she knew these guys. She’d served with them and trusted them with her life. She’d handpicked them for their valor, their superior skills, and, above all, their loyalty.

She’d been unable to come up with so much as a single name.

Her mood darkened, and she clamped down on her lip, assuring herself once more that her temper had nothing at all do with Aron. That it meant nothing to her that he continued to tease and taunt her. That she
felt
nothing at all for him.

Of course she didn’t!
she insisted, as she caught herself stomping her foot in hallway, the sound echoing sharply.

The low rumble of laughter made her jump and she turned to locate its source.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Ambassador Bartolo’s voice drifted from the shadows.

Brook’s cheeks flushed when she saw him there, wearing an amused expression as he watched her. “Of course not, Ambassador. I was just trying to sort some things out. I needed a minute alone.”

“Call me Niko, Commander,” he said smoothly, stepping out from the shadows and into the sunlight. Brook could see the way he wore his easy charm, like a suit or a skin he could shed if necessary, and she wondered what was hidden beneath. What secrets he concealed there.

She decided to play along. It was an easy game for her, a role she’d grown accustomed to during her years with the resistance. “Then call me Brooklynn.” She pasted a small, languorous smile to her lips. “What are you doing out here, Niko?”

“Brooklynn,” he repeated her name, letting it roll off his tongue, tasting it. Almost absently, he reached out and pushed a curl from her cheek. She didn’t pull away, but she could feel him mentally circling her—sizing her up—in the same way she was him. “I came to check on Queen Charlaina. To see how she’s holding up.”

“She’s fine,” Brook answered, her smile becoming tighter. “I guess what I should have asked is what, exactly, are you doing here, Niko Bartolo? Not much to do at a summit without your queen, is there?”

He studied her from beneath hooded eyelids. “More than you’d guess,” he answered quietly. “There are many things to learn, much news to carry home. And there are other matters to consider, things that have nothing at all to do with my queen and her land.”