24
MAGIC TO MAKE MAGIC
“It is decided, then.” Elden nodded, then crouched down in the burnt crust of a ground and set about rolling my tent back up neatly.
“Thank you,” I said to the awkward silence.
We couldn’t chance a fire, being so close to the looming mountains and the beast that prowled there, so we brought the horse in and retired into the tent early. We worked in a mutual silence that wasn’t completely uncomfortable, though a tension filled the air more and more like hot air from the oven, the closer we got to laying out our bedrolls and sleeping side by side.
The space inside the tent was quite large, even with the horses in the corner. It was the size of the loft above the bakery back home. And the air was warm, an even and comfortable temperature of a calm spring day. Magic. I’d spent my whole life hating the word, hating how it set the elves above us humans, but now I possessed a magic of my own. I always had. I certainly wasn’t going to complain as I removed my enchanted coat and boots and reveled in the warmth of our shelter.
We sat up in our bedrolls and ate a dinner of Scarlet’s cold meat pie and my leftover pancakes smeared with raspberry jam. Elden tinkered with the buckles on the saddles of the horses laid out in the corner of the tent, then removed his own coat and boots. I was hyperaware of every sound, every slip of the boots from his feet. The sound of the fur sliding from his muscular shoulders. His every breath as he settled into his bedroll beside mine, the light of a citrine gemstone shining between us.
We lay like that for a long time, neither of us speaking. I worked on not breathing too loudly, which caused my heart to pound in my chest as noisily as my mother clattering saucepans early in the morning. The horses had settled, their breaths loud but steady. The snow swirled, brushing gently along the outside of the canvas tent, but the tension between the king and I grew thick. Like flour added into Scarlet’s gravy—ever thickening as the night closed in around us.
“So,” I said. I couldn’t take the silence one more moment. “We are almost to the mountain.”
“Yes.” Elden’s deep voice rumbled from beside me, sending wild chills spiraling through me as if his lips caressed my neck.
“And I have not successfully worked any magic while on our journey.”
“Yes.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” I asked into the darkness, the only light a golden citrine gemstone glowing faintly between us.
Elden was quiet for a thoughtful moment before he said, “No. I have…hope that it will all be as it should.”
“Hope?”
“It could just be the lingering hope I’d felt in your baking before this journey began,” the king said, “But perhaps that is enough.”
Instead of feeling my own hope, a certain dread filled me. Something that had been building in my heart for days that I stillcouldn’t find the right words for. I had magic, and magic could make all the difference. Could I have saved my father?
Silence stretched on for a moment, then Elden said, “You know, I used to blame myself for what happened to my father.”
Could Elden read my mind? I turned to face where he lay beside me. “You did?”
Elden nodded, “My father had just come home from his visit across the Evergate to the human realm. He was…agitated. He hadn’t brought back any humans, and I wondered why. That was the night he confided in me. He told me of the blight and made me promise to do all that I could to destroy it. Then he showed me the black marks on his skin.”
I gasped.
“The infection had almost reached his heart,” Elden continued solemnly.
“I’m so sorry,” was all I could think to say.
“It was not until later, as we studied in the library, that my father fell to the ground, clutching his heart,” Elden said.
The wind howled outside causing a chill to snake down my spine. Elden’s father had died much like my own father. I saw him now, clutching at his chest, falling to his knees. A tear streaked down my cheek.
“I called for help,” Elden’s deep voice rumbled like a thunderstorm through the darkness. “I tried to use my magic to keep his heart beating, which was futile. I cannot work any kind of true transformation on anyone but myself. I called for the royal magicians, the healers, anyone, but by the time anyone had come, my father was”—Elden swallowed—“changed. He had transformed into a mighty black beast.”
I pulled in a sharp breath.
“My own father, he turned on me.”
A solemn quiet filled the tent and lingered for a moment. Words left me like smoke rising from a hot muffin.
“From that moment, I have been fighting for my own life and that of my kingdom.” Elden turned to face me, the golden citrine gemstone lighting both of our faces from where it lay between us, caressing the king’s strong nose and full lips. “I have been filled with pain, guilt and despair for what happened to my father, what was happening to my kingdom, for the past year… until you fed me that pastry in your bakery. Until I felt that true hope.”
