This will be fun, p.15
This Will Be Fun, page 15
The Western Coast warmth dried her watering eyes. Elowen only watched, cauldrons of emotion churning under her unflinching gaze. “And Galwell . . .” she elaborated, reconstituting the past her former friend had carefully kept hidden, “Galwell saw through it, because he didn’t have my magic, so he wasn’t fooled the way I was.”
Beatrice exhaled one racked breath. Wasn’t honesty supposed to ease the heart? Instead, she only remembered the consequences of what she’d done more sharply. When she’d confronted van Thorn, ready to die under his enchanted sword, Galwell had interceded, literally. Reaching her with not one instant to spare, Galwell the Great had caught the swing of the sword she’d meant for herself.
Ever in the right place.
The strike would have slain her cleanly. It did not kill Galwell the Great cleanly. Larger and stronger, he had died slowly from the mortal wound—slowly enough that he could with his own sword impale the stunned van Thorn, killing the head of the Order. When Myke Lycroft, not far from the confrontation, had come upon them, he wept for his fallen friend—and his tears on the magical blade he had forged drained the Sword of Souls of its dark potency.
Sacrifice, she’d quietly realized, was not the only way the sword could lose its power. She’d made a horrible mistake. If Galwell had slain van Thorn in honest combat, the same would have happened—without Galwell’s own death.
Galwell the Great had died for nothing, except for her.
“You should hate me, Elowen,” she whispered. “Ghosts know it is your right. But I will not have you thinking our entire friendship was a lie any longer. It wasn’t.”
Under the Keralian sun, Elowen watched her. The other woman’s face held the strangest combination of feelings. Loathing pity. Resentful regret. Embarrassment even now, remembering Beatrice’s rejection.
It made Beatrice want to flee—so she did.
She strode off, ending the conversation, hating the memories she knew would never leave her side.
13
Elowen
Elowen’s anger lived somewhere cold and damp inside her—a cave with endless pathways and no light coming through. She’d long ago accepted that the feeling would be there forever, so she’d learned to avoid the bottomless places where it had rotted her all the way through. Until Beatrice had now forced Elowen down one of the worst paths of all—the way their friendship had ended—and Elowen had no choice but to surrender to the depths of her fury.
“You were happy to die having me believe we had no real bond?” Elowen asked, gritting her teeth on the last word. At least anger motivated her. If she’d succumbed to the sadness instead, she’d have crumpled into a ball in the middle of the road. Instead she walked with clearheaded intention. Actually, she sprinted, because Beatrice was half an iron taller than Elowen, and she used that to her full advantage, her long legs covering ground in twice the time.
Elowen fought to keep up without heaving for breath. She refused to show the effort it required to match Beatrice’s pace. She hadn’t moved this fast in years. It didn’t help that the memory Beatrice had projected on the Conjurall highlighted how quick Elowen had once been.
“It meant saving you . . . and the entire realm, of course. So yes, I was,” Beatrice informed her, as if that was an obvious choice for anyone to make.
Perhaps it was. But Elowen could not understand how Beatrice had gone on living—knowing the entire time that Elowen thought their whole friendship was a lie—and never correcting it until now.
“If I had known how you felt about what my family provided you, we could have worked something out to put you at ease,” Elowen said. “These days, I have nothing myself. I understand it now, how uncomfortable it is to rely on someone else to help you through. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She fought off the traces of pain in her voice.
Beatrice did not respond, which helped keep Elowen’s hurt at bay. She could focus on her anger more when Beatrice did rude things such as ignore her.
“That’s rich,” Elowen said baitingly. “Saying nothing to me at all. Very mature.”
“I have no answer that could ever satisfy you,” Beatrice said. “I’ve done many things I’m not proud of.” Finally she turned to look at Elowen, slowing her pace for once, only to pale in fear.
Elowen glanced back, hoping to identify the source of Beatrice’s horror. A handful of men in dark cloaks were running toward them, half their bows pointed at her head, half pointed at Beatrice’s. They were about to be attacked, and they had been so immersed in their fight they’d almost missed out on noticing.
Instinctually, the two women moved toward each other. There was no good place to seek immediate cover. They had to rely on each other for protection instead, crouching low and zigzagging together, hoping to reach one of the buildings in the distance.
Elowen stole a look at the attackers just in time to see a crossbow pointed at Beatrice’s back. She threw herself atop Beatrice, crashing both of them to the ground as the arrow whizzed overhead.
Elowen’s initial shock ebbed long enough for her to realize what was happening. She was helping Beatrice. Disgusted with herself, she pulled away, weaving her own topsy-turvy path to prevent the attackers from hitting her.
“What are you doing?” Beatrice yelled. The panic in her voice almost pulled Elowen back. But Elowen was a cold person. She had to be. If she acted out of habit, working with Beatrice like in the olden days, she would be giving in to the dreary tenderness in her heart, forgiving Beatrice for all the pain she’d inflicted. Sentimentality was worse than anger and sadness combined. It was a curse with no respite.
“Saving myself,” Elowen informed her. “I suggest you do the same.”
“Oh, darling, I’ll be the one doing the saving today.” Vandra sauntered to the middle of the road and shot off a round of arrows the same way certain hand magicians dealt cards—fast and unbroken, with an effortless precision that came off like an act of boredom.
Both Beatrice and Elowen froze in wonderment. Vandra hit each man in the same spot on their lower leg, moving on to the next before a single other person could return the favor. One by one, the attackers fell, unable to continue pursuing Beatrice and Elowen.
“That should do it,” Vandra said. She grinned as she returned her bow and arrows to the quiver slung across her shoulder. She looked . . . well, she looked fucking cool. She really was a badass in the most heartbreaking of ways.
She pressed her finger gently into Elowen’s shoulder. Her concern bloomed through Elowen’s body, a garden of worry lit by the heat of desire. “I turn away from you for one moment.”
Elowen’s legs shook, and she wished it was still from anger. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“I know one way you can make it up to me.” Vandra cupped Elowen’s chin in her hands.
Elowen found herself drawing nearer, and not from absorbing Vandra’s emotions. The want that sparked low in her belly was a feeling she knew to be her own. Vandra’s lips—pleading, present, right there—would be a refuge. And to touch her. Oh, it would be just the delight Elowen needed. It would be a relief.
That was precisely what sobered Elowen up.
She would not, could not, kiss Vandra Ravenfall. She’d already gone and gotten herself invested in Vandra’s emotional well-being. If she gave in to the physical? Who knew what that would mean.
And besides, Beatrice was watching. How embarrassing.
Stumbling back, Elowen faked the kind of quick-pulsed anger she was known for. “How do I know you aren’t working for them?” she accused, pointing at the attackers Vandra had systematically taken down. They were scrambling to stand up and run off. After a few steps, some of them collapsed anew, while others managed to keep going, hobbling down the hilliest part of the road until they were out of sight. “You didn’t wound them fatally! Perhaps this was a ruse to gain my trust, only to betray me in the end!”
Elowen was no performer. She tried anyway. She was already haunted by Vandra’s touch on her skin. If she got the privilege of experiencing Vandra again in full, it would be her undoing. Because Vandra Ravenfall was cunning, and beautiful, and relentlessly social. She could never be limited to someone as prickly and sullen as Elowen True. So even though Elowen knew all Vandra wanted was to create a new life for herself, to give up deception and become someone honest, Elowen still accused her of lying, because she knew that would sting the most.
Vandra’s face knotted up. Mountains of hurt sprouted up between her eyebrows as she turned swiftly on her heel.
“Really? You’re just going to leave?” Elowen called out, unable to get her own words and feelings to sync up.
“I’m not one of the Four,” Vandra said. “I won’t be missed.”
Elowen fought the urge to respond. She didn’t want Vandra close, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit how much she’d hate for her to go.
“Actually,” Vandra said, turning and walking back to Elowen, “I don’t need powers to see through your feelings. When I go, you can tell me that you’re not going to miss me, but that doesn’t make it true.”
Elowen blushed.
“You can pretend to think I’m dishonest,” Vandra continued. “That won’t stop me from chasing after those men and learning who they are and why they’ve attempted to harm you. And if I return with that information, and you confirm that it’s real, and I still show up after all the ways you’ve tried to stop me from doing so, maybe then you will know.”
“Know what?” Elowen asked, breathless.
Vandra walked off again, leaving Elowen standing there tortured, arrows scattered around her feet.
Even when Elowen tried to push Vandra away, Vandra still found a way through. Elowen needed to build her walls higher, so that eventually even the relentless Vandra Ravenfall would tire of trying to peer over.
14
Beatrice
Queendom was on the horizon.
Wonderful.
They’d ridden on from Keralia in uncompromising silence. Without Vandra, no one filled the wagon with informative remarks on migratory hamsterjays. Worse, without Vandra, Elowen’s sneering had changed into stony sullenness, which Beatrice found she preferred even less. You should hate me, she’d said. Well, she had her wish, same as if she’d caught a woodland sprite.
She was foolish, Beatrice reckoned. If she couldn’t change the way things were, she’d hoped she could find some measure of solace. Instead, unraveling the whole story to Elowen only hurt differently.
Wishing to fend off such ruminations, Beatrice preoccupied herself with vigilance. For the duration of the ride, she kept one hand on the crossbow the Keralians had gifted the heroes while staring out the rear of the wagon. The men who fired on them in the village were likely just outlaws, she reasoned with herself, considering celebrities easy prey.
Yet why did they fire to kill? she couldn’t help wondering.
No explanations crossed her mind, and no pursuers crossed the wagon’s path on the journey inland. The road wound upward, until finally—Queendom emerged. Beatrice laid her crossbow down, wishing every sort of menace could be faced with weapons.
The palace rose up from the mountains encircling Mythria’s flourishing capital. The city was one of dreams, one for which every Mythrian held pride in their hearts. It combined the finest qualities of everywhere in the realm—the dulcet clime of the coasts, with gentle winds rolling down from the snowy slopes of the mountains, the sophistication of Farmount’s lively reach, the very design of the architecture like something the sculptors of Featherbint would ooh and ahh over.
Of course, for Beatrice, it was no city of dreams. It was one of nightmares.
The Four’s final confrontation with Todrick van Thorn had unfolded here, not far from the elegant white-stone castle, which made this place the location of many dark dreams from which she could not wake—until she did, sweating, panicked, and hoping her nocturnal fit had not woken Robert de Noughton.
As they neared the gates, the city’s high walls reaching magnificently into the clear sky looked as imposing as the day the Four had faced down the Fraternal Order. The day she’d planned to sacrifice herself. While she knew they would not find an army of Order aspirants inside Queendom today, what waited for them instead was, in her estimation, arguably worse.
For nowhere celebrated the Festival of the Four like the royal capital.
The festivities in Keralia felt like practice, like the pony her neighbor lent her when she was first learning to ride. His name was Walter, in honor of the neighbor’s grandson, who’d received a knighthood. Young Beatrice had joked the pony aspired to neighthood. He was nineteen years old. He moved very slowly.
The past few days were the Walter the Pony of festivals. What waited for them now was a stallion, untamed, ready to drag them into oblivion.
With hesitant steps, they walked up to the walls, where incoming journeyers could ring the welcome bells. While Beatrice felt unprepared, she knew Elowen was faring worse. She did not know how Elowen typically spent the anniversary of her brother’s death, but undoubtedly it did not involve the singing and dancing in the streets they were about to witness.
No matter what was stirring uneasily in Beatrice’s own soul, she wished she could comfort Elowen. Inexplicable or not, despite Elowen’s diligent unfriendliness, it was how Beatrice felt. However, when last they’d spoken, she was grateful when they were attacked, for it had ended the conversation. She doubted Elowen would welcome her consolation now.
“How many people do you expect have . . . already gathered?” Elowen’s voice wavered.
Clare’s reply was gentle. “Sometimes it’s better not to know your odds, right?”
Ghosts, Beatrice thought to herself. It felt no different from walking onto the battlefield. Only now, there was no Galwell to inspire them.
Her fault.
“We might as well get it over with,” she said, reaching for the welcome bells’ rope.
She did not have the chance to ring them. Clare’s hand shot out, clasping hers before she could.
“Or,” he proposed, “we could sneak in.”
Not even the curiosity flickering in her could distract her from the confusing heat of his hand clasping hers. Perhaps this is his magical gift, she contemplated. Making my hand warm where his skin meets mine. For the feeling certainly was not the doing of her own heart. Certainly not.
Rubbing the reminder of his touch out of her palm, she focused on his words. “Sneak in where?”
“Remember? The secret passageways?” he reminded her. “Under the city. How we got in when the Order’s guard held the gates. Look, I know we cannot avoid the crowds forever. Still—it’s something. We’ve had our share of . . . challenges on our journey, and maybe a night of solitude in our own chambers in the palace would fortify us for, you know, facing the entire realm.”
Elowen looked like someone had fed her warm soup on a cold night. “You’ll hear no objection from me.”
While Beatrice wanted to say the same, nagging questions kept her from doing so. She studied Clare. What was he up to? Was he coming to their rescue yet again? “Why don’t you enter in the front,” she suggested, grasping onto her stratagem for uncovering his motives. “Elowen and I can use the secret passageways while you”—she gestured welcomingly—“revel in your fame.”
Clare’s gaze flattened. Except, was droll denial the only note she could read in his eyes? “Firstly, I have legitimate cause to worry that you and Elowen may in fact murder each other if left under the city on your own. Secondly . . .”
Now she saw it with certainty. The lonesome shadow hiding in his shimmer.
“I don’t actually enjoy when I’m lauded for surviving the day my best friend died,” he said.
She hid how the revelation stunned her. “You could have fooled me,” she commented. He’d indulged in every opportunity to profit from their fame, had he not? Never once did she suspect he felt the same guilt of survival himself. How could she, when he squandered his survival on hawking Spark’s Sport Potions?
“Yes, well,” Clare replied with his voice’s familiar edge, “you more than anyone know how convincing a liar I can be when I wish.”
He had her clenching her jaw now. She should have known attempting real conversation with Clare Grandhart was like offering vegetables to wolverlings—useless.
“Ugh. Secret tunnels, please,” Elowen interrupted them. “I can witness your tortured pining for each other no longer.”
Embarrassment flushed into Beatrice’s face. “There’s no—”
“We’re not—” Clare started in overlapping indignation.
“—pining!”
Elowen smirked. On another occasion, the expression would have looked like sunshine past parting clouds to Beatrice. Instead, she felt only oncoming dread.
“I know it’s been a while, but you do remember how my heart magic works, do you not?” Elowen inquired. “I’ve felt the longing rolling off each of you since we got into the wagon. It’s gross,” she informed them. “It feels like . . . slime on my skin.”
Clare reared up. “My longing is not slimy,” he declared.
“It decidedly is,” Elowen replied, having evidently recovered her spirits. “It sticks to you. Like slime. Gooey, glistening slime.”
“Enough with the slime!” Beatrice demanded. Elowen was playing with them, she decided. Vexing them out of resentment or for distraction or . . . Whatever her intention, Beatrice was certain no longing lingered in Clare Grandhart.
She stole a glance at him for confirmation.
No, no longing. Whew. He looked angry, which comforted her. He strode off. She followed him until the corner hooked, finding them along Queendom’s western wall. Clare hunched over, studying the stones.
He made no further movement. Instead, he grimaced.
He’d forgotten which stones opened the magic entry, she realized.
“Move aside,” she ordered gruffly. Clare glanced up, uncomprehending. Nevertheless, he deferred to the command in her voice. He moved, only just enough to permit her to reach for the spelled stones. Was Elowen in her head, or did she feel his eyes on her while she moved two careful fingers over the correct stone? He stood right next to her.
