Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Vaasa shook.

She shook and shook and shook.

Coldness racked her bones, and faintly she heard her own retching. Felt her knees crack against a stone floor. Smelled the atrocious scent of her own sickness, of her own memories: rotting flesh. Burning hair. First she pictured her lifeless mother, and then Ozik’s twisted grimace, and then her brother. That smell followed her.

Consciousness came and went like the flow of water.

Still, she felt it again. The feeling of arms around her. Of warmth. Of the blackness smothering her as something soft consumed her body.

Vaasa shook.

She shook so hard she worried her teeth would shatter.

And then finally, she stopped.

When she sank into the warmth and buried her nose in it, she slept.

Rays of sunlight flooded through Vaasa’s lids and she shifted, her body light and warm. Blankets up to her neck, she pulled herself deeper and curled her leg up. Like that she stayed, heat coating her bones.

Until she shifted and felt the rigid body of someone beside her.

She sprang to a sitting position, and soreness ripped down her sides and she released a small cry, hands flying to her ribs. At the same time, Reid popped up, his face racked with worry and sleeplessness, red eyes blinking a few times as if he couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep. He sat above the blankets in a pair of soft pants and no shirt, his inked chest glaring at her.

Vaasa looked down at herself, at the oversized shirt falling to her midthighs. Her bare legs breezed against the sheets she’d been tucked under.

Fury spiked in her chest and she opened her mouth to speak, but Reid lifted his hand. “Amalie undressed you, not me,” he insisted. “Now, are you okay?”

Her lips parted and she let out a harsh breath, the events of the evening barreling back to her. The outburst. The sickness. The crippling lack of sleep he must be enduring. “You… you have a meeting with Marc and Mathjin—”

“Fuck the meeting. Answer my question.”

“But you have to discuss the ships and—”

“Vaasa.”

“I don’t know if I’m okay!”

He finally closed his mouth, no trace of that amusement anywhere to be found. Just a harsh pull of his lips and tightness of his shoulders and jaw. “What do you need to be okay?”

What sort of question was that? How could anyone know the answer? Stumbling to her feet, she almost lost her balance and he lurched for her, hands on her waist. She pushed his touch away and backed up. “I…” She looked around at the sheets. “I slept in this bed, with you?”

He raised his brows and leaned back. “Well, I’d hardly say you slept, but that’s a summary of about a tenth of your night, yes.”

“What about the other nine parts?”

“The other nine parts you spent vomiting and shaking so hard you almost cracked your head on the marble in the bathing chamber. It took my mother hours before she decided you would not die.”

Humiliation washed over her. Had she been that sick? The magic had given her some tough moments. Hours, even. But all night?

And he’d seen the entire thing?

“You could have slept on the couch,” she snapped.

His jaw dropped.

Vaasa spun away from him. “Go to your meeting.”

“Oh no,” he growled. And right as Vaasa ducked behind the changing screen, she heard the harsh sounds of his feet hitting the floor. “You don’t get to go back to this.”

Go back to what? What did they even have to—

Reid came around the changing screen so fast Vaasa barely had time to blink before he was in her space. Looming above her, he practically had her pinned to the wall again.

His voice came low and angry. “If I hadn’t been in that bed right next to you, you could have choked on your own vomit. You were shaking so badly you could hardly hold yourself up. You’re lucky I broke your little rule about that stupid bed. So you are not going to go back to pretending I am your enemy.”

“You’re going to be late,” she said.

Reid shook his head. “I got word from the High Temple that Isabel and Marc fucked so loud they could be heard until the early hours of the morning. I expect I have plenty of time to discuss this.”

She wanted to be angry with him, but the realities of last night beat against her. He’d spent all night awake with her—he must be exhausted, too. His eyes were red and bleary, his breath uneven. She could grasp at bits and pieces of her consciousness, and much to her dismay, he was at the forefront of most. Holding her hair. His hand on her back. The only warmth she’d felt the entire night had been from his body.

Maybe she wasn’t angry about them sleeping in the same bed at all. Tears welled in her eyes that she should have smacked away. But she couldn’t bring herself to. She was exhausted from forcing herself to be neutral.

Wasn’t that what Melisina had said? That these awful emotions were only pain, and she’d been disguising them for too long?

Vaasa looked away, finally wiping those escaped tears.

Reid straightened. “Why are you crying?”

Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I lost control.”

Softness took the place of where his anger had been. Shaking his head, he reached for her tentatively, hand brushing her cheek. “But you didn’t. You pulled it back into yourself. You didn’t let it harm anyone but you.”

That realization sat heavy in her chest as she stared up at him. He didn’t have a scratch, not anywhere on his skin. She checked every inch of what she could see. Whatever she’d built from the raw magic had cocooned her and somehow left him alone?

“Good,” she said, though she needed to pull away. To distance herself from him.

“Vaasa.” Reid bit his lip, then let out a breath of resignation. “What did he do to you? Why are you so afraid of him?”

Her spine locked and a ball formed in her throat, expanding until barely any air could pass through.

She jerked her head away, shaking it only once.

Silence.

Then, “One of these days, I would like to hear what caused that sort of desperation. On your terms. When you’re ready.”

She would never speak it out loud—never hand him the keys that opened the door to either an empire or her freedom. They would stay in her hands, so she could choose when and how to use them for as long as she lived.

When she didn’t speak, Reid sighed. “You are the only reason I made headway with Marc. I’ve spent half my life trying to break through to that man, and you accomplished it in one night.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, giving in to his change of subject.

“You did. Your idea worked perfectly. Isabel told me as we left that she couldn’t wait to come home so she could spend time with you . Which means Marc’s vote is ours, otherwise you and I wouldn’t be here when they returned. It was you who won them over, not me.”

“She told me that, too.”

“And that bothers you?”

“How is she going to react in three years, Reid?”

He paused. Then, voice lower than before, he said, “Is that what this is about?”

Vaasa didn’t say another word. She’d already said too much. It didn’t matter what any of them thought of her, what he thought of her, if she was just going to leave anyway. That she’d found herself wanting to be here at all was a vulnerability she would keep tucked to her chest until the day she died. The things she wanted had a way of slipping through her fingers.

Reid’s hand snaked beneath her chin as he tilted her face up to his, forcing her to meet his gaze. Immediately, her heart leapt into her throat.

“I rather enjoy having you on my side.” He paused. Smirked. “I’d like to do what I can to keep you here.”

Keep her… where? Here by his side? Here in Mireh?

He must have seen the confusion on her face, because he straightened his spine and dropped his hand. “You’re right. I’m going to be late,” he said, stepping out from the changing screen and leaving her stranded in nothing but confusion and his shirt.

Ambling across the stone floor, he swept up his clothing and moved into the bathing chamber.

Vaasa took large breaths with the minute and a half she had alone.

What was she supposed to make of those words?

All she knew was that it was colder now. That her bones hadn’t warmed nearly enough.

Reid emerged from the bathing chamber, and she heard his footsteps move toward the door. “My mother asked that you go see her when you woke up.”

“Reid—” She lurched from behind the screen, stopping just outside of it and regaining her composure.

He raised his brows, waiting.

“Thank you,” she managed. “For… for helping me last night.”

She owed him that much. She owed him more.

His face softened just a touch, enough for her to want to fidget, but then he shrugged with such nonchalance she wondered if her thanks meant anything at all.

Until he said, “Dismissing your emotions doesn’t make them disappear, it only gives them reason to rise later without your consent.”

Vaasa blinked, and then crossed her arms. “You really are Melisina’s son.”

“Through and through,” he agreed, pulling his hair up and securing it with one of his leather ties. Hand on the doorknob, he paused once more before opening it. “What I mean is this: here, with me, you don’t need to hide anything at all. I promised you safety, and I intend to uphold my part of our bargain.”

With that, he swung the door open and clicked it shut behind him.

Vaasa’s hands dropped to her sides and she forced her shoulders to roll, trying to shrug off whatever feeling crawled down her spine. Tried to push the sound of his voice in Icrurian from her mind.

You don’t need to hide anything at all.

I’d like to do what I can to keep you here.

Words like that would be the death of her, she decided, and resolved to go see Melisina.

Resolved to do anything but stand there half naked in his shirt, thinking on what he’d said.

Melisina did not let Vaasa use magic. When she’d tried to pull Romana and Mariana onto her side—a last-ditch effort and her ace of spades—even that failed.

Not an ounce of power could be exerted today, apparently, and Vaasa was silently grateful for the reprieve. Much to her surprise, the group didn’t focus on her outburst for more than an introductory two minutes. Amalie often disappeared after lunch, but this time she asked if Vaasa wanted to join her.

“Where are you going?”

Amalie smiled with a bit of mischief and gestured for Vaasa to pick up her notebook and pencil. “Trust me.”

The two women entered the main halls of the Sodality of Setar, and Vaasa felt out of place in her soft brown breeches and sheer white blouse while everyone else who scurried past them wore sweeping amethyst robes. Still, as they ascended the main hall stairs past the artists’ wing, a place she wondered if her own great-grandmother had frequented, Vaasa settled into Amalie’s side. Through the gardens, the familiar smell of salt wafted around them. Chocolate lilies and black hollyhock swept through the olive- and forest-green vines. Plunging through a set of enormous oak doors, they entered one of the cathedrals Vaasa had yet to explore. Oak and indigo decorated every wall, iron curling in over itself in filigrees upon the wooden banisters and staircases.

“Sage Vaughan,” Amalie greeted a kind-looking older woman in ink-black robes as they approached a lecture hall. “I was hoping our consort could observe your class today.”

Vaasa’s back straightened at the same time the sage’s eyes darted to her. Smiling with more openness than she expected, the silvery-blond-haired teacher gave a wide sweep of her arm as she gestured into the room. “Of course, it would be an honor.”

“The honor would be mine,” Vaasa replied. “I apologize for my lack of dress.” At the Sodality of Una, they’d have turned her away.

Yet Sage Vaughan only winked. “You have a writing utensil, it’s a good place to begin.”

Amalie chuckled as she threaded her arm through Vaasa’s, pulling her into the enormous lecture hall. Three rows of tables, each at least twenty desks long, took up the entirety of the marble floor, while stained glass covered the far wall. A lectern sat at the front with papers strewn along it. Chandeliers strung from the ceiling emitted soft light upon each of the shiny, light brown desks. People turned over their shoulders to watch them, and Vaasa immediately thought of the sodality in Dihrah. She’d spent her time there hidden, hoping to avoid stares such as these, and the scholars had been content to ignore her. But Amalie walked as though it brought her pride to be standing next to Vaasa, and warmth bloomed in her chest.

No one had ever loved her in the light.

“What are we learning today?” Vaasa whispered as they sat at conjoined desks.

“Linguistics. I’m studying the etymology of the first Icrurian languages, before we had the commerce tongue.”

Letting out a little laugh, Vaasa opened up her notebook. “Hoping to learn another language?”

“I already speak three, what’s one more?”

“You do?”

“Icrurian was my first, I speak the old tongue of Wrultho, and I speak Asteryan.”

The pencil might have slipped from Vaasa’s hand had she not gripped it tightly. “You speak Asteryan?”

Fluently, with precise pronunciation that may have put Vaasa to shame, Amalie slipped into Vaasa’s first tongue. “Since I was ten years old. Today’s lecture is on Hazut, though. Maybe you’ll learn something we can use against their foreman.”

“Amalie, I…” She paused, speaking Asteryan for the first time in months. She had to admit, it felt good to let the Asteryan out to play, to feel it roll off her tongue. “I didn’t know.”

It earned her a shrug. “I heard you speak four.”

“Six,” she said honestly—for the first time, she realized—and Amalie’s brows rose. Vaasa muttered, “But that’ll be our secret.”

Letting out a soft chuckle, Amalie turned her attention forward as Sage Vaughan started to pace up the center of the room. In Icrurian, the lecture began, and Vaasa leaned back and listened.

The feeling of learning, that stunning moment when the world fell away and all Vaasa had was the thrill of new information, had been long lost to her in Icruria. It had evaded her for months, even in Dihrah, where she should have taken advantage of the opportunity.

But here, she gripped it between her fingers just as hard as she did a pencil.

Language was one of the most telling records of history—the words pointed to the people. Hazut was no different; they were inextricably linked to Wrultho, the two eastern territories trading among themselves long before Icruria united under a headman. In those years of trade, the commerce language took shape out of sheer necessity; the rest of Icruria had those two territories to thank for paving the way to the words spoken in this very sodality. But as she studied the familiar roots, she knew it wasn’t so far removed from the other smaller nations that had existed before Asterya swept through the continent. Before her father had stolen that history in front of everyone’s eyes. While Icruria united generations ago, Asterya had been nothing but a snow-trapped nation, steeped in tradition and ice before her father took the helm. It was under his rule that the empire took form: he’d conquered the smaller nations around him with ease, always playing the long game but never truly satisfied.

She thought back to the languages he had insisted she be taught. Each one was used purposefully, for the negotiations that brought those nations to their knees. But he’d focused on the words, never delving too far into the history. She realized now that the stories of others were a threat to him, greater than any weapon or fortress.

But for the first time, she wondered: Why her? Why not Dominik? Wouldn’t it have been far more strategic on her father’s part to arm his heir with this knowledge? Why would he spend so much of his life teaching her one of the most fundamental elements of survival: the ability to communicate?

Vaasa hadn’t expected to take seven pages of notes or to hang on every word the sage said. She’d never jotted these questions down in the margins of a notebook, giving life to words simply by putting them on paper. It would have been too dangerous to write such thoughts. But within minutes, it was simply out of her control, and hours passed without Vaasa caring about the chime of the clocks.

When the sage finished her lecture, Amalie led Vaasa out onto one of the patios near the second dome. Mireh was a beating heart around them while they dug into their lunch. Green lettuce and pine nuts covered Vaasa’s plate, the salad full of fresh vegetables and dark red beans. Lime burst on her tongue and she sighed, leaning back in her chair.

“I… I’m sorry you had to come to the villa last night. That you had to deal with that,” Vaasa said.

Responding in turn with a smile, perhaps knowing the use of Asteryan was a pleasure Vaasa hadn’t gotten in months, Amalie set down her fork. “Well, I once lost control and brought down an entire building, so I have no room to judge.”

Vaasa relaxed just a touch. “A building?”

“Three stories—an entire tower of the Sodality of Unir. That was when Melisina and Romana came for me.”

“You studied there?” Vaasa asked, considering all of the new information she had just learned about the region’s languages. If Amalie had studied in Wrultho, she’d have been so close to the violence along the border.

“Um, no. I was born in Wrultho, but we couldn’t afford for me to attend a sodality.”

“I thought the sodalities were free to attend,” Vaasa said.

“Well, they are, if your family can afford for you to take four or more years not working. That’s the real catch. Most families in Wrultho can’t.”

It was foolish of her never to have considered that barrier. Of course it would be a factor. “Is that why you left Wrultho, then? The tower?”

Amalie paused, face tightening.

Insecurity threaded through Vaasa, but she knew better than to ask for answers that weren’t voluntarily offered. Instinctually she reached for the witch, placing her hand on Amalie’s hand. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Shoulders rising, Amalie regained her composure. Practiced, intentional confidence shone in her eyes. “The choices of others are not a burden I carry any longer, and neither is their shame.”

Those words settled in Vaasa’s stomach, mixing with the prowling magic.

If she’d been born in Wrultho and been impoverished there, Amalie had lived through the violence. Had probably seen it firsthand.

The witch adjusted her weight, setting down her fork. “It’s a long story, but in the east, magic is a commodity. And while it is illegal for witches to be forced into the armed forces or even a territory’s personal corps, it doesn’t stop people from finding other ways to barter and trade the poorest of us who happen to live through the acquisition of magic. While the bloodlines once ruled the land, the wars before unification scattered our ancestors, and many of them went into hiding. Wealth used to be passed down in tandem with magic, but now the bloodlines are no longer the wealthiest families in Icruria.” Amalie ran her tongue along her teeth and then uncurled one leg to sit more solidly. “That was what Melisina and Romana saved me from. I… I was meant to marry Ton of Wrultho. To bring my magic to his bloodline.”

Vaasa’s lips parted, and her heart dropped into her stomach. The foreman of Wrultho. “What happened?”

“I was in love with someone else, a childhood friend, one of the guards. Eventually, Ton realized I was still seeing him, though he never learned who it was. He threatened to kill any man who got too close to me, and I couldn’t control the magic. In the imbalance of it all, I destroyed part of their sodality. Ton wanted me gone, and Melisina gave him an out.”

Visions of that couldn’t form—Amalie, exploding so large she brought down a building. The girl had never so much as raised her voice. Yet Vaasa felt a deep sense of familiarity with her suddenly, in knowing that they faced the same questions.

But Reid had given Vaasa a way out, while Ton had sought to control Amalie.

She felt less and less guilty about the violence at the shared border. “Our magic, it’s truly that rare?”

“Think about it. In all of Icruria, we only know of six Veragi witches. Only two of us under the age of thirty.”

Vaasa awkwardly shifted her weight. “Melisina said young witches often die. But they are more powerful in the long run.”

The past took the shape of grief as it coated Amalie’s eyes. “That is true, and why we are grateful to have found you. Why I am especially grateful to have found you. There is…” She took a small breath and lifted her chin. “I’ve told you of selfish people, but there are equally desperate people, too. My mother was one of those people. She inherited her magic after never knowing her own mother, never knowing of our Veragi bloodline. But my mother was poor, and she lost my father to one of the many battles with Asterya.”

Vaasa stayed entirely silent.

“She was sick, racked with an ever-present sadness that stole light from every corner of her world. She could not withstand the magic. She saw it as something that would give me a greater opportunity than she ever had the chance of finding. So she sacrificed her life and gave the magic to me.”

Something inside of Vaasa fractured at the words, at the horrible memories playing upon Amalie’s face. At everything this terribly young witch had been put through, for the burden of a magic that Vaasa had once sought to extinguish. “I…” Vaasa could hardly speak. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Amalie took a breath and then lifted her eyes again, wiping the wetness from the corners. “I am still working on coming to terms with the weight of grief. But… so are you. In your own way, with your own story. And since I was privy to information you might not have wanted me to know yesterday, well, sharing only seems fair.”

Vaasa didn’t feel as though she could tell her story, could utter a word of it. To anyone. But when Amalie looked at her with such open brown eyes and the sort of kindness that she’d never encountered in a person, she thought if she could someday manage it, it would be with this woman. And she realized that she wanted Amalie’s friendship, no matter how much she denied it. “I’m glad you asked me to come with you today,” Vaasa confessed.

A lovely smile grew upon Amalie’s lips, and her body relaxed in her chair. She picked up her fork and took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I know we’ve just met and that life for you is… complicated. But the truth is that you are the most honest friend I have. Can we be that? Friends?”

Hopefulness and longing rose up in Vaasa, and she didn’t know how to say that it terrified her. That she didn’t think she deserved Amalie’s friendship at all, but that she wanted it more than she’d wanted just about anything. Vaasa dropped her gaze, a bit of shame rising. She could still hear the sound of her father’s voice—the upward lilt of pride and legacy woven into warm Asteryan words. But she also remembered that other tone, the one that turned Asteryan into sharp consonants and mountains at the back of her throat.

Do you want to know the secret, Vaasalisa? Only ever depend upon yourself. The world does not treat kindness with a mirror; it treats kindness with a blade.

But Vaasa had been treating herself with a blade for months, and no matter how hard she tried to cut out the parts of her that wanted and wished and hoped, those parts still lived. Perhaps she should fuel them instead of smothering them. Perhaps she should treat Amalie’s kindness with a mirror instead.

“I am afraid,” she whispered.

Amalie tilted her head with inquisitive eyes, waiting patiently for Vaasa to continue.

“I…” Vaasa took a deep breath. “There is an ancient law in Asterya, one we have not seen enacted in generations. One that allows me, as long as I am married, to ascend the Asteryan throne. It gives the emperorship to my husband.”

Amalie straightened her posture. “I don’t understand.”

“If my brother were to die, then Reid and I have the only viable claim to the Asteryan throne. And Reid doesn’t know it.”

Shock tumbled across Amalie’s features, but she quickly schooled them. “You haven’t told him?”

“I don’t know how. But my brother will be visiting in a few weeks. I fear what he might do.”

“Do you think he’s going to harm you?”

“He sent me here because he believed I was dying. I’m afraid of what he’ll do when he learns I haven’t. Not just to me, but to Reid.”

Amalie nodded slowly in understanding, leaning back in her chair.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Vaasa gasped, suddenly upset with herself for having said anything at all. How stupid was she? She’d only managed to make it a few months without putting her own safety on the line, all for what? For friendship?

But then Amalie said, “Vaasa, I promise not to tell a soul. Not Reid, not Melisina, not anyone.”

And somehow, Vaasa believed her. She had never fully believed someone before.

“We must be prepared,” Amalie asserted.

“Prepared?”

“There must be a way to throw your brother off your scent. What if we convinced him you were dying? Do you think he can be fooled?”

“You… you’re going to help me? Even at risk of danger?”

“You’re in our coven now.” Amalie shrugged. “Your strength is my strength.”

Warmth flooded Vaasa. She’d underestimated Amalie’s soft strength. Her acceptance of something otherwise often brutal—the truth—was anything but. Resilience shone in all of Amalie’s cracks, and Vaasa found herself wanting to be more like her.

“I think he can be fooled,” Vaasa said, a plan starting to take shape in her mind.

Amalie grinned. “Then fool him we will. You’re not going anywhere, Vaasa—one witch is a problem, but a coven is a nightmare.”

A smile crept across Vaasa’s lips. Upon hearing those words, on this little balcony, Vaasa suddenly thought her father may have been wrong about everything he ever told her.