I grimaced. “There hasn’t been a chance.”
“It’s wonderful news about your sister being safe, though.” She smiled, although the worry didn’t entirely leave her eyes.
“Do you think the fallen kingdom’s protections could have been what killed that raider woman?” Nikolas asked, gazing down at his healed hand. “She must have come from across the border, or near it, at least. Maybe she was hit like we were, and that’s why Hayes had never encountered anything like it. I’ve certainly never heard of anything like what happened to me.”
“It seems possible that’s what happened to her. Maybe Colton will work it out while we’re gone.” My own eyes strayed to Nikolas’s healed fingers. “Are you all right now? We wanted to help, but…”
“Neither of you are healing mages, so there’s nothing you could have done,” he said matter-of-factly. “As I’ve already told Gia several times. And thanks to Hayes, my hand is now back to normal. There’s no need to consider the matter further. We would all be better off putting our mental efforts toward considering how we can prevent any future such incidents.”
“There you are, son.” Annora rounded the corner of the cabin, stopping to survey the four of us. She inclined her head toward the twins. “Your Highnesses, I believe your parents would like to see you, to reassure themselves of your safety.”
Gia sighed faintly but nodded. Grabbing her brother, she towed him away, murmuring something too low for me to hear.
“I’m glad you weren’t swept overboard,” Annora said in a calm tone, although I detected true worry in her eyes.
“Zeke was steady as a rock,” I said. “He kept us both anchored to the rail.”
“Excellent work, Zekiel.” She smiled at him. “Without your efforts to protect Cadence, we might all be in the river right now.”
I frowned, looking between them. Zeke looked irritated, his gaze carefully steering clear of mine. I gulped.
“But of course the main thanks go to you, Cadence,” Annora said in a quieter voice than she had yet used. “I assume you took some sort of action to bring about such a sudden end to the incident. It was well-timed as some of the mages inside were faltering from exhaustion.”
“I…” I once again looked toward Zeke.
“Really, Mother?” he asked.
She raised a quelling eyebrow. “I hope I am not so rude as to fail to thank someone for potentially saving my life.” She looked at me, her severity falling away. “But I can see you’re not ready to talk about it right now, and I assure you I don’t mean to push you.”
“Th…Thank you,” I managed to stutter, frustrated at myself for sounding like such a fool. But it had been a long half hour, and I wasn’t thinking straight.
Annora smiled graciously, giving Zeke a quick embrace before disappearing back down the side of the barge.
“You told your mother,” I said, as soon as she was out of earshot.
He winced. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you she knew before she—” He sighed. “I should have told you earlier—I know what’s she like.”
“She was very forbearing about it, at least,” I said, placated by his obvious frustration with his mother on my behalf.
“Of course she was.” He looked after her, although she was long gone from sight. “She can be extremely forbearing if she judges it the right strategy to get what she wants.”
“And what does she want with me?” I asked, going for directness now the issue was finally out in the open.
“I—” He paused. “That you’ll have to ask her.”
I looked at him skeptically but didn’t press the matter further. Given that they’d just spent nearly two years apart, perhaps he really was unsure about the answer.
But I didn’t intend to ask Annora anything of the kind. Not yet, at least. She had said she was willing to let the matter lie, and I intended to take advantage of that offer.
“I’m glad you got a thank you from someone other than me, though,” Zeke said. “You saved everyone, but no one even knows about it.”
I shrugged. “That’s the way I prefer it. It would only make the pressure worse if everyone was looking to me to keep them safe.”
Zeke hesitated. “I don’t like even asking this because I saw what it did to you, but…Do you think you could keep us all safe if it happened again?”
I paled, considering whether I could knowingly let tainted power infect my ability a second time. But after a moment I nodded reluctantly.
“I’m not saying I want to. But if it came to it, I could. And, of course, I would.” I shuddered, despite myself.
Zeke placed an arm around me, pulling me tight against his side. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder and allowing myself to enjoy the unusual contact. I didn’t know if he was offering support or trying to warm me up, but either way, I relished the calm steadiness of his presence.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again,” he said into my hair, and I nodded without lifting my head.
It had been an inauspicious start to the tour, but right now, sitting alone in the stern of the boat with Zeke, it didn’t feel so bad.
Chapter 11
Airlie
I paced back and forth across the small living space, not worrying about who I might disturb. With Dara gone, and Quirin returning only to sleep most days, I was alone.
At least the food I had been leaving out on the table each evening was gone the next morning. It was the only sign I had that Quirin was doing the bare minimum to keep himself alive.
With a sigh, I stopped pacing as I once again reached the far wall. Endlessly thinking in circles was getting me nowhere. How many nights had I paced the living room of my old home in a similar fashion—always after Cadence went to sleep? The feeling of being trapped was a familiar one from then, as well.
Cadence had been so desperate to leave, without a thought of what might be waiting for us out in the world. But I had been terrified, knowing I was responsible for more than myself.
My earliest memory was of our father telling me to look after my sister. Protect Cadence, watch over Cadence, was the constant refrain of my childhood. According to our father, she was the future of our family—the one who would make every sacrifice worth it.
Except then he got sick and died. Without a healing mage to assist us, I would never know what it was that consumed him from the inside out. He had tried to hide the pain from me, but I had spent too many hours nursing him not to see it in his eyes.
But even on his deathbed, his focus remained the same. I needed to keep my sister safe, to prepare her for a glorious future. But now I would be alone in the effort.
When he died, I froze. He had made me promise to find someone powerful to activate me—had even told me how to trick a mage into doing so, if necessary—but I was paralyzed by uncertainty. In our home we had always been safe, so there we remained.
But the closer Cadence got to seventeen, the more I realized we had to leave. I had always known the plan—our father would activate me, but we needed the most powerful mage possible to activate Cadence. I couldn’t cower forever in our safe haven, letting everything our family had fought for turn to nothing. And so we started to lay plans to leave.