“A man!” Valona said in disgust, her face filling with rage. “Do you know what his essence would have done to me?” She glared at Aradella. “I’ll teach you to try to fool me,” she screamed at Aradella and lunged for her. She raised her arms, her hands holding the old blade in a striking position.
In her training, Aradella had been taught that if someone leaves a body part unprotected, you can take advantage of it. The middle of Valona was open, completely uncovered. With all the strength Aradella possessed, she plunged the jeweled knife into Valona’s stomach.
Valona looked astonished. She put her hands on the knife and staggered back. Everyone watched in shocked silence as her beautiful face began to age, showing the many years of her evil life. She gave a keening cry of disbelief, then the sound changed as though she was begging for mercy.
It took only minutes before Valona was a withered carcass. Her last breath escaped and she was dead.
Aradella looked at the crowd of women. They were all staring at her, too stunned to react.
Then someone said in astonishment, “She is dead.”
In the next second, the women started rushing toward Aradella—and she felt faint. She’d just stabbed someone! That the woman was evil was beside the point. Her knees wobbled, she felt dizzy, and she knew she was sliding down. She almost smiled at the irony that she was about to be trampled to death by the happy, grateful women.
But she didn’t hit the ground. Mekos was there, and he put his strong arms around her. He lifted Aradella up into the air and soared above the joyous women. He took her away, out of sight of them all.
5
“You are the stupidest man on this planet. No! Onallthe planets! Including Earth. I should tell Kaley what you did, then she’d tell your father, and he’d tell your grandfather. I can’t imagine what they’ll do to you. Something with swans. Can they drown you?”
“No,” Mekos said.
They were at the waterfall, he was stretched out on the sweet grass, and he didn’t stop smiling in a contented, pleased-with-himself way. “Papá would be angry, but he’s always glad when I come out alive. Grandpapá would be slapping me on the back in pride.”
Aradella gave him a look that should have singed his hair, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You drugged me! You left me out of all of it! If it hadn’t been for yourmotheryou’d be dead now.”
“Actually, it was the kits. They understand more than I thought they could. I shouldn’t have underestimated them. It was clever of you to guess where I put the knife. If you hadn’t covered it, Valona would have seen it when the dress disappeared.”
“It wasmydress! Of course I knew where the pocket was. I’m the one who sewed it in the skirt. And as to finding it, even I know that men love pockets!” She ran her hand over her forehead, then looked back at him. “You’re missing the point. Youshouldn’t have excluded me. You should have told me what you were going to do. You should have...” She trailed off and sat down on a rock.
“The oddest thing was that when I looked like you, inside I was still myself. I could see and hear as well as always.” He took a breath. “The real mistake in all this was that neither Ian nor I guessed that they’d poison your bedroom. We thought that Valona would want me awake through it all so they’d come and get me, I mean you. But they blew gas in on us and we were paralyzed.”
Her voice lowered. “Where was I when you were inmybedroom?”
Mekos shrugged. “I took you to a safe place. You were meant to stay there while Ian and I took care of Valona.”
“But thankfully, your mother found me,” she said angrily. “It was stupid of you to try to do it all alone.”
“The problem was that the gas smelled like flowers. I thought it was your perfume.”
“You think Olina allows me to have perfume?” she shot at him.
“So what I smell is your natural scent? It’s like you’re made of flowers. Next you’ll tell me that little space behind your left ear is also natural to you, that you use nothing to make it as soft as the down of a newly hatched swan.”
She was looking at him in disbelief. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing that others haven’t heard. Ian and I argue about whether your eyes are like the moon or the sun.”
“Ian?” she asked. “A Never spoke of me?”
“Well, he talked about Arit, but I meant you. But we did agree about our women.”
She was looking at him with her eyes wide. He was lying on the grass, so relaxed that it was hard to believe he’d been close to death. The good thing was that her anger had filled the void inside her—which had been emptied by jamming a knife into a person and seeing her turn to dust.
Mekos was smiling in contentment. “I think you should kiss me again,” he said.
“Kiss? Again?” Her face turned red.
He smiled in a knowing way. “Do you think I didn’t know it was you who kissed me?”
