Chapter Five

“My father wasn’t always this way,” Aien said as we walked through the maze following the trail of debris, blood, and broken weaponry. “A villain I mean. Things were different when my mother was alive. She was…” He paused where someone had smashed a statue, the stone rubble scattered across the path and offered me his hand. “Be careful where you step. My mother was beautiful,” he did not immediately release my hand when I had picked my way through the debris and stood looking down at me thoughtfully.

“She was kind,” he said softly. My eyes fell to the softness of his lips and wondered what they would feel against my own. “And she looked after others. She would have liked you. You remind me of her.” He released my hand and continued along the walkway. “An illness came to the village, and my mother went to help the sick. She caught it from them, and… I was eleven,” he swallowed hard. “Old enough that I remember very well what it was like before she died.”

“I’m sorry,” I said reaching out to touch his hand again, and his fingers curled around mine.

“My father changed after her death. He blamed the villagers and became… volatile. More than once, I have thought I’d end up a statue in his garden, myself,” his grin was wide, but without humor. “Whilst I have no wish to be Prince Akyran’s hostage by any means, I am glad to get away from there.”

I pulled back against his hand and pushed him against the wall at the sound of metal against metal. We both listened intently, watching the bend in the maze ahead of us in case the battle tumbled backwards towards us. My hands were braced against his chest, my body pressed against his, and I could feel every breath that he took, and the heat of the cloth warmed by his skin.

I looked up and found him looking down at me.

“I… Ah,” he stammered. “Um. I think…”

“They’ve moved on,” I pulled back from him, flustered. “Let’s, ah, keep going.”

“How many of these have you been in?” He asked as we continued in the wake of the knights.

“This will be my fifth,” I told him. “Tarra, Rue, Cara, and Val started here, oh, five years ago when it started. But I…” I had begged and pleaded not to go, and my parents had agreed to give it a little longer and some private tutorials in the hopes of improving my skills. “I was busy. I came six weeks ago.”

“Why?” He wondered.

“Because of the prophecy. I mean, everyone knows it’s Tarragon. Mother and father are certain of it, or mother wouldn’t have given her the sword. But still, the prophecy isn’t precise about which daughter, and so…” I gestured out with my hands.

We circled around where the knights had become entangled in a vicious battle against each other, leaving them behind us, and looked at each other incredulously. I saw the flash of golden hair and knew that my siblings were embroiled in the violence.

“Do you think…?” Aien said under his breath, catching me by the elbow.

“I do,” I grinned. “Come on.”

Giggling like naughty school children, we trotted along the path, until it opened into the centre and there, on a raised dais, at the top of a pole, was the flag. Aien thrust his hands into his pouches, emptying the seeds out so that the vines grew blocking the way between us and the fighting knights.

“Are you any good at climbing? I am terrible at it.” He asked me as we looked up at the pole. “I could lift you onto my shoulders, I suppose?”

“Can you grow a vine around? I’m sure that would help.” Climbing and archery were the two skills that I had some success with. Rue had nicknamed me Gecko as a result, claiming that I might not have inherited a dragon’s wings, but I had the sticky toes of our lizard cousins. It was a nickname that I was proud of, for it celebrated something I could do rather than something I couldn’t.

“I don’t see why not,” he pulled a bean from a pouch, kissed it, and then dropped it between the slats of the dais. “Stand back a moment,” he took me by the waist, pulling me against him, so that my back was against his chest and his arms were around me.

We watched together as the furl of green pushed through the wooden planks, and the vine shot higher and higher, twining around the pole. When it reached the top, Aien released me. “I am not sure it will take my weight,” he frowned at it.

I was already climbing, using the vine as toe and finger holds.

“You’re… You’re really good at that,” he said, sounding impressed.

I claimed the flag from the top and laughed at the explosion of fireworks that went off overhead. As I slid to the ground, the maze disappeared around us, the magic dispersed, and the bloody, bruised, and filthy knights stared at us in disbelief.

“This is unexpected,” Prince Akyran drawled as he, Ecaeris and my father crossed the courtyard towards us. The crowds watching from the balconies seemed confused. Unlike the previous weeks, there was no cheering and celebrations, but rather a murmuring and restlessness. This was not how the tourney was meant to end and no one was entirely sure how it had come to be.

I felt the heat of Aien’s body against my back, the solid reassurance of his presence, bracing me to meet Akyran’s eyes. “For us, too,” I told him.

Akyran burst into laughter and gestured us forwards. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you our unexpected victors!” He took Aien’s wrist in one hand, and mine in the other, raising our arms overhead.

At this signal, the crowd ceased to be confused by the unexpected event and began to applaud. From amongst the knights, I saw Rue laughing as he clapped his hand against Tarragon’s shoulder in commiseration, and her shocked expression.

“Congratulations, Daethie,” my father stepped forward to embrace me in his strong arms as Akyran released me. “That was cleverly played,” he said into my ear as he squeezed me tight. “And well climbed. I am proud.”

“Thank you, father,” I held him back, closing my eyes and relaxing, the familiar scent of incense taking me to the safety and security of my childhood.

“And who is this?” He asked as he released me, narrowing his eyes at Aien, who visibly swallowed hard.

“This is Aien Verstarjen. His father is Derien Verstarjen,” Ecaeris told my father, frowning slightly at Aien as if puzzled by his presence.

“Father!” Tarragon, Rue, Carraway, and Valerian joined us as the other knights limped away from the courtyards to have their wounds tended.

“We will discuss your prize after the feast,” Akyran told Aien in answer to a question I had not heard. “Celebrate your win my friend. Live a little!”

“Surely you can see that Daethie does not belong here, father,” Tarragon said in dragon as she had promised, however for the first time, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to leave.

“It is true,” Cara agreed. “Watching out for her affects our training.”

At least with them speaking in dragon, there were very few around us who would understand the words, and I was pretty sure that Aien wasn’t one of them, sparing me some humiliation.

“And yet it is Daethie who retrieved the flag today,” our father replied calmly. “It seems that the training is benefiting her after all.”

“A fluke!” Tarra was frustrated with him. “Or because of the Mage, Aien, that she was with.”

The group began to move inside, and I trailed along unhappily with them. At least I wasn’t the only one miserable, I thought, my eyes meeting Aien’s. He was caught between Akyran and Ecaeris and had pulled his hood back up around his head as if wishing himself anywhere else.

In the grand hall, the feast was being served, and talk between my father and siblings shifted to Tarragon’s up-coming campaign. Over the past five years, the knights produced by the academy had been scattered throughout the land with dual purpose – to combat the monster invasion, and to try to locate their source.

For the past three years, Tarragon and Rue had been following grids drawn over the map of the land, seeking to narrow down the origin of the creatures. No one was entirely sure what they were looking for, but they were certain that they would know it when they saw it.

“They are speaking… dragon?” Aien slid onto the bench seat next to me, and leaned over me so that the question was murmured into my ear. “It is not Fae. I understand enough of Fae that I would recognise it…”

I turned to look at him, and he was leaning so close that our cheeks touched, the faint stubble breaking through his skin rasping against mine and our lips almost brushing. We both caught our breaths, and his eyes darkened as the pupils widened.

“Yes,” I said. “They are talking about the campaign.”

“That is why Akyran came to see my father.”

“Mhm,” I wondered if he resented us for that. If Tarragon and Rue weren’t so set on following their grid lines, Aien would not be Akyran’s prisoner.

“Do you think they will notice if we leave?” He wondered.

I glanced at them. “No,” I told him honestly. “I don’t think that they will notice at all.”