The Prince and the Ice King by Amanda Meuwissen

Chapter 12

LOMBARD WASkissing him.

Lombard was kissing him!

It was like all Reardon’s adolescent fantasies come true….

But no—this couldn’t be real! Lombard was the one who found the city’s deviants, who locked them away or made sure they were banished.

“Stop!” Tearing his lips away, Reardon pushed at Lombard’s chest. “I-I… I’m imagining this or… or I’ve fallen asleep!”

“No, my prince,” Lombard whispered, so close despite Reardon’s wriggling, still holding his chin and smiling. “You are very much awake and seeing nothing but the truth.” He tried to kiss Reardon again.

“It’s against the law!” Reardon sputtered, shaking Lombard’s fingers from his face. “I’ve watched you cart people away who were caught with another as we just were.”

“I know,” Lombard said with pain in his expression, relenting finally and pulling back. “I am a hypocrite. I would never, ever have acted if you hadn’t confessed first. You’re like your mother and wish to do away with the old customs, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Reardon said softly.

“Then know this, my future king.” Lombard lifted his hand slowly, allowing Reardon to deny him if he so wanted, but when those cool fingers touched Reardon’s chin again, he stayed frozen within their grasp. “I will not condemn you if you do not condemn me.”

It was everything Reardon had ever wanted. “Never,” he said, and had his breath stolen when Lombard renewed their kiss with an eager lunge.

Passion was easy to feel springing to life inside Reardon with the tightening of Lombard’s grip, his other arm looping around Reardon’s waist to hold him close and his tongue boldly seeking Reardon’s own. The worktable they leaned against shook from Reardon sagging more weight against it, and he heard the vials he’d been working with clink in their holders.

He’d only ever known one other man’s mouth and tender touch, and this felt… different.

Lombard’s hand at his back tugging his shirt from his trousers, his whole body encompassing Reardon’s as he kissed him deeper, felt different too.

It felt wrong, with a twist of shame in Reardon’s gut.

The vision could mean Lombard. It could mean anyone. Lombard’s face had looked so white last night, and his eyes were beautifully blue, but that was when Reardon realized the truth, as his stomach bottomed out at the mere thought of his love being anyone else.

Because, deep down, the vision didn’t matter. All Reardon cared about was how he felt, and he loved Jack.

“I can’t.” Reardon tore away once more, more harshly and certain in his dissent.

“You can—”

“No. I can’t.” Even held tight in Lombard’s embrace, a place Reardon had once longed to be, he pulled his head out of reach. “Not because I think it’s wrong. I don’t. I never did. And please, please forgive me, but… I’m in love with someone else.”

Lombard stared, not seeming to understand. “Barclay?”

“No! Barclay and I are merely friends.”

“Then someone else at the Frozen Kingdom? One of those monsters?”

“They’re not monsters!” Reardon defended. “They’re… not what you think. I swear, Bardy, I found my love there. I’m sorry.”

Lombard drew back, the hand that had held Reardon’s face so sweetly falling to the table, though his other remained loose around Reardon’s waist. “I never expected this. No matter, though.”

Reardon meant to apologize again, but his words caught in his throat as Lombard continued.

“I only thought to do something nice for you before the end.”

The pain was so abrupt and cloying, Reardon’s mouth fell open in a silent scream.

“Shhh….”

Lombard’s hand on the table had claimed the dagger and stabbed it into Reardon’s heart.

“I know it hurts.” He used his grip to twist the dagger hard, springing tears to Reardon’s eyes. “But it won’t kill you. Yet. This dagger is special. It will keep you very much alive, until I’m ready to use you.”

Reardon stared, and within Lombard’s clear blue eyes, a darkness seemed to swirl, cold and terrifying.

“Let the spell take hold,” Lombard whispered, hefting Reardon from the table, kicking his sword belt from the nearby chair, and setting him down upon his crumpled cloak. “If you do try to remove it, rest assured, you will bleed out and die in even more agony than you’re feeling now. If you want your suffering lessened, then don’t fight.”

Moving back to the worktable, Lombard left Reardon as a splayed heap, frozen from the pain, arms dangling at his sides, as the dagger he’d loved with such naivete stuck out of his chest. Lombard, meanwhile, acted completely unfazed, not only from having been in a heated embrace with Reardon moments before, but from stabbing him with his own gift.

He didn’t even look at Reardon.

“You’ll be able to move in time, but every step will be excruciating, so I don’t recommend it. That’s why I told you to keep that dagger close. I never knew when the time would be right after you came of age. That time is now.” Lombard lifted one of the vials to inspect and glanced at Reardon finally with a wicked smile. “You’re quite close. You might even have already gotten the answer if you’d trusted Wells instead of falling for my misdirection. I killed that soldier, by the way. Such a pity.

“You knew to test transmutation. Impressive. Would you like a hint?”

The slow advance of Lombard back to Reardon churned his stomach, as he remembered that he’d kissed him and loved him, even if it wasn’t the same love he felt for Jack.

“The correct answer is transmutation into fire, which you would have realized eventually, but what makes any trace of this deadly poison vanish after the person dies is… well, I guess you’ll never know.”

The tears in Reardon’s eyes were from far more than pain, as Lombard dared to stroke his cheek before returning the vial to the table.

“Wh-why…?” Reardon croaked. This man had heard every plea Reardon ever made to his father, begging for magic to not be blamed for his mother’s death, and internally, he must have been laughing all the while.

“Your mother wanted to change things.” Lombard leaned against the worktable, as casually as if they were still talking civilly. “But I wasn’t ready then. I needed the condemnation of people with magic and the yearly sacrifices in order to quietly siphon their power without anyone caring what happened to them.”

“For… magic?”

“I was born without any, like you. That wouldn’t do, not if I wanted to live forever. When I was younger, centuries ago, I went to the Fairy Queen and pleaded to be given eternal life. She said I was welcome to stay in her lands, and that, there, I would never age. But then I would have had to stay in her lands, giving up my freedom. I wanted immortality I could take with me, and she could grant me that, but she refused.

“I knew there were other ways to get what I desired. Alchemy is so useful for doing what magic can’t.” He turned his sly smile to the worktable. “I started siphoning power from others to add to my life. But killing and having people constantly going missing gets tricky. The first bit of alchemy I learned after I drained the magic from a young elf was how to change my face.”

A ripple came over Lombard’s features, and he was one of the guards, then a wizened merchant Reardon remembered from the square, then the tavern innkeeper, then Reardon’s own father, before he returned to the handsome blond that Reardon couldn’t even say was Lombard’s original face.

If he even was Lombard.

“Did you… kill the real Bardy?” Reardon asked.

Lombard grinned terribly.

“Y-you… replaced him? When?”

“Does it matter?”

Reardon supposed it didn’t, since the switch had to have happened before his mother’s death. The man he had first thought he loved had never been that man at all.

“The right face can make anything effortless,” Lombard continued. “Start a war here, point fingers there, and everyone turns on each other. It was simple to twist people against magic and those who wielded it. And once those unfortunate souls were in prison, they’d die so easily, I’m afraid, and no one suspected it was because I was sucking the magic from their bodies.

“I couldn’t have your mother interrupting that, or your father in his grief over your disappearance when I was so close to finally being done with all this. You thought you fooled me when you replaced the sacrifice? I knew. You’ve made this all so much easier, because you’ve helped set the stage. Those sacrifices are my true purpose. They’ve been getting fat on the power of their cursed land, enough now that it is time to cull it—through you.”

“What?” The limpness in Reardon’s body started to fade, allowing him to lift his hands into his lap instead of dangling. Even moving that much made him ache with a pulse of the dark power working within him.

Lombard tilted his head, like every cringe of Reardon’s was amusing. “The Fairy Queen never paid much mind to the distant Emerald lands, compared to the Sapphire Kingdom so much closer to her own. She had no idea what I was doing, but I was always watching her. When she cast her curse, I made my move. She’d set things in motion for me perfectly, and I’d gathered enough power over the years that, once she returned home, I erected a shield to lock her away. I wasn’t strong enough to fight her, no, I couldn’t risk that, but I could keep her from interfering and force her to watch.

“Then all I had to do was keep the status quo, fed from the sacrifices ever since the first, when I chased a drunken nobleman’s son to the Ice King’s door.”

Oliver.

“I merely needed to wait for all that power and immortality to reach its pinnacle and for the right vessel to filter it into me. Only someone completely without magic will do. Do you know how rare that is? The people trick themselves into believing magic is gone, but it is never gone. You and I are the rare ones, Reardon.

“But I also needed it to be you, the Emerald Prince, so that when the people see you destroyed by magic after being corrupted by the Ice King, they’ll embrace me as their new ruler without question.”

“You—”

“Shhh,” Lombard shushed Reardon again, pushing from the table to saunter toward him. “You’re staying here, I’m afraid. The dagger will do its job no matter the distance. When it’s over, there will be no dagger or wound remaining, and everyone will assume you died from magic like your parents. All I need now is to pass the Ice King’s gates and complete a simple incantation tied to the alchemy that made that dagger, and it will begin.

“I’ll bring the whole army this time, so that when I—pure of heart, as they’ll believe—breach the castle, and all its inhabitants fall dead at my feet, I’ll be lauded a hero.”

“P-please… have mercy,” Reardon tried.

Lombard bent over him, never before having seemed so looming. “My prince, do you not remember what I taught you? Mercy merely means you might end up the dead man instead—and I never intend to be the dead man.”

One of Reardon’s tears stubbornly streaked down his cheek. “I… would show you mercy.”

“I know. That’s why I won. I will honor you, though, I swear. After this, the laws can finally be changed.” Lombard crowded in closer, so that Reardon knew long before his lips descended what cruelty he meant to inflict.

He kissed Reardon, and Reardon fought through the pain to turn his head away.

“Don’t… touch me.”

“So unkind?” Lombard breathed upon his cheek. “I’m going to let you say goodbye to your father. You should be grateful.” He hooked one arm around Reardon’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees to lift him. The jostling filled Reardon with so much pain, he gasped, especially when Lombard draped his cloak across the dagger to hide it. “You know, I only made them hate magic. Their hatred for you, simply because you long for another man’s touch, that they learned on their own.

“I never could have predicted you’d fall in love with one of those cursed creatures. Or is it merely one of the sacrifices?”

Reardon didn’t answer.

“No matter. They’ll all be dead soon.”

Every step Lombard took to leave the tower filled Reardon with more shooting pains throughout his chest and limbs and everywhere. It was becoming too much to bear, and he was so tired. He could feel his head swimming with the urge to sleep, his vision dimming.

“Now, as far as anyone knows, I am carrying you to bed, and I will tell them that you’d like to stay in your father’s room and not be disturbed by anyone, no matter how many days pass. Don’t fight, Reardon. I’ve already won.”

Reardon could barely move, let alone call to any guards. Darkness was taking him swiftly, and he almost longed for it, if only to be free for a few brief moments from the pain—in his body and his heart.

Reardon used to think that all men could be reasoned with. No longer. He had doomed everyone in the Frozen Kingdom, thinking he could somehow be their salvation, and his own kingdom was doomed now too, for he was going to be caged with his father, the both of them left to die by the hand of a friend.

JACK HADreturned to his chambers before sunrise, but now he left for his throne room like any other morning, surprised to find that he was not alone.

“Barclay,” he rumbled at the diminutive man who stood ringing his hands in front of the throne. “What do you seek of me at such an early hour?”

“I’m sorry, Majesty.” Barclay bowed. He looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept. “Terrible dreams kept me awake, concerning my last vision.”

“Oliver said the Emerald Prince left with his soldiers to prevent it, your vision of a war.”

“Of worse than war—our destruction. Reardon thought he could fix things by leaving, but he’d be home by now, safe in the Emerald Kingdom to see his father, and my vision hasn’t changed.”

Jack didn’t truly believe Reardon would return at the head of his own armies, leading a war himself, but he had to wonder—who else might they have to fear from that kingdom?

“Tell me what you’ve seen.” Jack took his throne with a creak of the ice that made up his long limbs. “Tell me exactly.”

REARDON ROUSED,wishing it all had been a dream, but when he tried to move, the searing pain through his chest proved how real the torture was. He’d fallen asleep, overtired and aching, but that didn’t change the truth.

Lombard was a traitor. He’d killed Reardon’s mother, Caitlin’s husband, and was trying to kill Henry, and Reardon was helpless to stand against him. His old mentor was readying Emerald’s armies that very moment to leave for Jack’s kingdom.

As Reardon painstakingly moved his head to take in his surroundings, he saw that Lombard had laid him on the lounging sofa in his father’s room. He could see him upon the bed, frowning within what looked to be a fitful sleep. At least Lombard hadn’t lied about that much; he had brought Reardon to say goodbye.

But Reardon couldn’t accept this literally lying down. He couldn’t say goodbye from so far away. No matter how much it pained him, he had to make it as far as the bed.

“Ah!” Trying to sit up resulted in him immediately falling back onto the cushions. Lombard hadn’t lied about that either, that moving would be excruciating, as if, from the point of entry of the dagger’s blade, Reardon’s own blood had turned against him and seared him from the inside out.

It wouldn’t kill him, though, and if pain was all he had to fear, he had to face it.

“Ahhhhh!” Reardon broke off his howl through clenched teeth. He’d call for the guards, but voices didn’t carry well through these walls, and he didn’t know if he could trust anyone.

Lurching up into a sitting position took much out of him, but he eventually got up, and moved with tears in his eyes the entire way, until he collapsed at his father’s side upon the bed.

“F-Father…?”

Henry did indeed appear to be in a fever dream, looking far worse than Reardon had seen earlier. The right transmutation for their final version of the potion was fire. Reardon would have come to that conclusion himself, but what made it undetectable? Conflicting transmutation would simply cause the potion to evaporate right away, which wouldn’t give it enough time to have any effect.

Sea of white.

Sea of white….

Wraith’s teeth!

Ice.

“Of course,” Reardon said, taking his father’s clammy hand in his, much as that movement and any utterance of words made him wince.

Other opposing elements would have a similar effect, but only ice could work latently, melting over time. Once everything mixed in the victim’s bloodstream, it would eventually cancel out and vanish like vapor. In Henry’s case, Lombard must have been poisoning him slowly, with very little of the potion each time, to hide his tracks.

There was a cup beside Henry’s bed, and Reardon knocked it to the floor with a pained cry. Lombard might have poured more down Henry’s throat before he left. Reardon’s father may only have hours. Minutes. And now Reardon knew how to save him but had no way to make the cure.

Lombard must have enchanted the Fairy Queen to not speak of what kept her and her people behind a veil, but she’d tried to say all she could. She’d told Reardon to trust… something. Obviously not Lombard.

To trust something that Jack hadn’t….

Himself.

Reardon had to trust in himself as future king. Lombard didn’t think he could handle so much pain to be a threat, and oh, it did hurt, but Reardon had to act. He had to. He had to save his father and hurry on to save Jack.

Rising with a whimper, Reardon looked to where Master Wells and the physicians had been trying out possible cures. A handful of healing potion variants and herbs lay on a table. It wasn’t enough to make the potion Reardon needed or the subsequent cure, but it might be enough for something else.

Looking to his father once more, Reardon forced quiet words to pass his lips, “I love you… and I will defeat our enemy and prove my love for Jack is worthy.”

JACK HADgathered his court in the throne room, as well as his best advisors—Barclay, Caitlin, Nigel, Shayla, and Oliver. There was little time, and the humans in their midst shivered to be so near Jack without having taken resistance draughts.

“None of us believe the Emerald Prince would betray us, but we know a traitor lives in his kingdom,” Jack declared. “Many of you have worked on the potion to prove it. If his presence returning home has not changed Barclay’s vision of a dire future, then that means Reardon is the one who has been betrayed. We must expect an army and a battle ahead that we might not win.”

“What should we do?” Josie asked, golden before Jack, and while she was always lovely, he kept picturing her true form, now that he’d finally had the honor of seeing it again.

He longed for her to be like that always. His friends too.

“Everything we can,” Jack said. “Prepare the people. Fortify the castle. Have lookouts at all times and keep our fortune-teller on hand to keep telling fortunes.” Jack looked to Barclay with reverent respect, who tensed nervously but nodded. “If the future begins to change, we must know immediately.”

“If they’re turning right around with reinforcements,” Oliver said, “we can expect Emerald troops within two days.”

Not everyone in the room was a fighter, but each person’s expression hardened as Jack gave the final order: “Then be ready.”

REARDON BURSTout of his father’s room, and the pain was so blinding, he feared he would collapse, but he refused to lose faith.

“My prince!” a guard cried, taking hold of him. “What have you done?”

“General Lombard warned you were unstable,” another said.

“But to stab yourself—”

“No time!” Reardon screamed as he threw them from him, simultaneously hurling a concoction to the floor that burst with a cloud of thick smoke.

The guards scattered, and Reardon pushed onward. It caused more pain than he had ever known, but he knew this castle better than any guard. He could get to the alchemist tower blindfolded; through smoke was easy.

The physicians had been sent away, not a soul left in the tower when Reardon reached it—but his work was gone too! Lombard must have returned and destroyed it all.

“No,” Reardon lamented, resting against the worktable with a suffering sag. There were barely any ingredients around to be of any use. He needed alchemist supplies. He needed….

Master Wells’s shop. It wasn’t far from the castle, but the journey would still be arduous. Royal tunnels led from the palace, like the secret tunnels in Jack’s castle, and could bring Reardon close, but he had to hurry and be discreet. Lombard could have the whole kingdom against him.

Every step was agony, and covering himself with his cloak to hide the dagger put stinging weight on it, yet Reardon persisted, vision swimming all the while, until he met the cold air of the brisk winter morning. It was morning, but it was late. Lombard might have already left.

Hurling himself onward, Reardon snuck around everyone he could, hoping that those who spotted him didn’t recognize who he was in such a rumpled state.

He found the shop blessedly unguarded but locked as he’d requested. Thankfully, Zephyr and Nigel had taught him a few tricks for remedying that, and he’d come prepared. Once inside, he raced to find everything he needed. He knew his way around this place almost as well as the castle, and soon had the poison simmering, adding in Wraith’s Teeth that immediately began to melt.

Before the ice was gone, Reardon had to transmute the entire potion once more in order to create a proper antidote. With such singular focus, the pain that lingered was not nearly as important as his goal. He couldn’t be certain how much time passed before it was all complete, but with a triumphant puff of smoke rising from the vial, he knew he’d succeeded.

“Yes!”

“What are you doing?”

Reardon spun, cringing at not having taken the movement slowly. It was Wells, standing at the bottom of the stairs leading up to his private quarters with wide, accusing eyes. “Please… I had to—”

“You are bewitched, aren’t you?” Wells backed away. “The Ice King controls your actions and would have you poison us all….”

“No, I—”

Reardon fell forward at moving without thinking, the cloak already loosed from so much shuffling, finally unwinding from his shoulders and falling open.

Wells gaped—and turned to run.

“No!” Reardon snatched the antidote and sprinted after him, gritting his teeth as the pain renewed tenfold. “Please! It’s for my father!” He ran, but the pain spiked so terribly, he stumbled over the unwound cloak and crashed to his knees, barely keeping the antidote from crashing to the floor with him.

Pained breaths kept Reardon from passing out, but he saw the darkness encroaching.

“Lombard… did this to me… please… please believe me….” As Reardon pitched forward, a sudden firm pair of hands grabbed hold of him.

“That can cure the king?”

“Yes….” Reardon looked up, still swaying within Wells’s hold. “Forgive me for believing you caused this. Lombard made you look guilty, but I should have trusted you. Whatever else you believe… please make sure my father gets this.” Reardon thrust the vial toward Wells with a shaky hand. “If something happens to it… use Barclay’s notes, transmuted into fire, then add Wraith’s Teeth. Before the ice melts, transmute it again.”

“Barclay’s notes…?” Wells repeated, accepting the vial with deeper remorse.

Reardon handed that to him as well.

“He’s safe then, at that castle?”

“He is.”

“There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of him. I knew, so much longer than I admitted, about his visions. I didn’t want to turn him in, but a customer was beside me when Barclay saw something and blurted what he’d seen without thinking. I feared if I didn’t act first I’d be called a conspirator. I am so sorry….” He was a good man, always had been, if somewhat stern. Now he looked filled with the shadow of regret.

Reardon understood. “He forgives you, but you owe him, happy though he may be, and he is happy. If you don’t trust me… trust him.”

Wells gave a solemn nod and helped Reardon to his feet. “I will,” he said, and seemed as though he might try to pull the dagger from Reardon’s chest.

“You can’t.” Reardon pulled away from him and moved to the door. “But I swear my mind is my own. Thank you,” he said, before hurrying outside.

A solid body stood in Reardon’s path, and he crashed into it and nearly ended up on his knees again.

“Highness!” the guard cried, seizing his shoulders.

Reardon had to keep him away from Wells, or risk the cure never reaching his father. “I… I must see Lombard!”

“He’s left to slay the Ice King in time to free you and your father,” the guard said, eyes widening at the sight of the dagger’s hilt. “It’s true…. Please, Highness, you must—”

“No!” Reardon fought to shake him away, but his vision spun again, everything around him a bright blur in the morning light—or perhaps that was the many colors of the crowd beginning to gather. “He lied to you!”

“You’re delirious—”

“I’m not!” Reardon fought that much harder, but realized quickly how futile it was, because he looked every bit the madman, and struggling only made him weaker and the pain that much worse. “I… I must reach the square. Let me tell the people what is happening. Then, if you’re still against me… you can take me to wherever Lombard told you.”

Through Reardon’s hazy vision, the guard looked sympathetic, as loyal as any could be after whatever lies Lombard spread. “I suppose it can’t hurt to let you speak, but… the state of you—”

“I’ll manage,” Reardon said, allowing the guard to loop an arm around his waist and carry him toward the center of the city.

It was only him and that single guard. The small crowd that had gathered at their exchange gasped and whispered, but whatever they thought the dagger in their prince’s chest meant, they followed with eager interest to learn more.

Allowing only a furtive glance back, Reardon saw Wells slip out of the shop and head for the castle entrance. That was one burden lifted, even if Reardon failed the rest.

Other guards they came across went silent at the sight of Reardon. There weren’t many. Lombard likely had most of them with him as part of the legions headed to conquer the Frozen Kingdom.

Word spread of the wild, wounded prince before they reached their destination, and by the time the guard brought Reardon to the center of the square and up the merchant platform, the streets were crowded and the din of voices hushed.

“Your prince is not dying!” Reardon called, weak but forcing each word to be as loud as he could. “Whatever you’ve heard… this dagger is enchanted, and it will kill me, but not from the wound. And it is not the Ice King who wielded it.

“General Lombard betrays us. The villain is him, not me, and not our neighbors. He wielded this magic and means to take more from the Frozen… from the Sapphire Kingdom to the north. Yes, that is where I’ve been these many weeks, but I am not bewitched.”

“Then where are our men?” someone called—a woman, old enough to be someone’s grandmother. “Two men went missing looking for you!”

“I know. I saw one of them die,” Reardon admitted, “and I am so sorry for it. So is the man who killed him. The soldier threatened a member of the castle at sword point, and her love merely meant to protect her. Would you have not done the same?”

The woman might have been that soldier’s mother, or the mother of the younger soldier, but though grief claimed her features, she didn’t speak again.

“The other was killed by Lombard to prevent him from telling my father that I was safe. He is your enemy, not the Sapphire Kingdom or its people. I have seen our loved ones that were cast so cruelly there, and for what? Magic? Destitution? Love for another that does not fit the molds of the many?

“If you need to steal to survive, then you have not failed your kingdom. Your kingdom failed you. And who someone loves or what power resides within them, however frightening it may seem, is not worth condemning. I… I have no magic, but….” Reardon closed his eyes to take a breath and steel his nerves to finish this, though it was not the same as admitting his deepest secret to a kinder kingdom weeks before. “Should I be your king someday, I would stand before you with a prince or other king at my side, not a queen.”

“Deviant!” a voice said in alarm, and when Reardon opened his eyes to look, he could not say who had cried it, for many more rose up to call similarly punishing things.

“Corruption!”

“Cursed!”

“The Ice King controls him!”

“No,” Reardon snarled, lurching forward from the guard who held him and nearly toppling right off the platform. “No… I am no more worthy of vile words or banishment than any other! And I know I’m not alone. Not only in my passions, but magic exists among us, as prevalent as in any age before.”

He said it without thinking but knew it to be true as soon as the words left him.

“Lombard uses magic in the despicable way you fear, but he did speak one truth before he plunged this dagger into my chest. He said I was the rare one, having no magic at all, which means far more of you than those put in chains or sent from our kingdom as exiles and sacrifices have magic within you, right here amongst us.”

That stirred the crowd to cast their accusations on each other.

“Do you wish to hide? To pretend forever? To wait for Lombard to return victorious, claim the throne, and continue to pick you off? If you have elvish blood or some hidden ability you think dooms you, know that I will never allow someone to be sent to the dungeons for such things again.

“Speak! Show yourselves! Please…. And we can be a larger army than those who call us corrupt. If you don’t… then I have no one to help me stop Lombard, and when he destroys our neighbors, he will destroy us too.”

Reardon sank down on weak legs, but the guard was there to catch him. Expecting a few more volleyed insults, Reardon was surprised to hear only silence, eerie within the square when it was usually so bustling.

Perhaps silence was worse….

“I have magic,” the guard blurted.

Reardon tilted his head up at him, and the guard shucked the helmet from his head, revealing a handsome elf as the glamour lifted from his ears, rippling like the veil of the Mystic Valley, to show how they were pointed.

“My whole family are elves, taught to hide it until a time when the ruling power would learn sense. I’m also in love with a fellow guard.”

Reardon laughed. He didn’t mean to, but he’d never expected—

“Me too!” someone called. “Well… not the guard part, but I’m a half-elf! Most of my family is at least a quarter!”

“I see spirits!”

“I can transmute without alchemy!”

“I want to court the grocer’s daughter!”

The chorus grew into such a frenzy, louder than the jeers against him, that Reardon hardly caught it all, but his smile continued to grow. The racket wasn’t without dissension and wary glances from magicless humans, especially when more and more pointed ears were revealed, but the silent majority wasn’t being so silent anymore.

“Please!” Reardon tried to hush them.

“Quiet!” the guard yelled, and the chorus fell to a murmur.

“Master Wells delivers a cure to my father, but the only way to save me and our kingdom is to stop General Lombard. I must give chase. And so I ask you all, as your prince….”

He’d feared for most his life admitting half the truths he’d spouted today, but without anything hidden from his people any longer, he saw most of them looking back at him with pride.

“Who will join me?”

NOT AGINGmade it easy to ignore the passage of days, never truly feeling them, but for Jack, waiting on his prince, the days since Reardon’s departure moved at a crawl.

Barclay’s vision never once changed, save to say that the shadow over Reardon seemed darker as the expected time for the prince’s return grew close. Whether that meant good or ill, Barclay didn’t know.

Even so, with the castle fortified and Jack’s people as ready as they could be for whatever might be coming, everyone had a remarkable way of staying in good spirits.

It was in realizing that the approaching night might be Jack’s last, his final moment to be the man Reardon believed him to be, that he asked Josie to meet him in the passageway behind the great hall after sunset.

“Are you certain?” she asked, taking his arm. “You haven’t shown any of the others yet. I didn’t tell them you’d shown me. Not even Zephyr.”

“You don’t think he knows?” Jack grinned, dressed in a simple blue doublet, saving the one crafted by Reardon until his prince was at his side again. “If he doesn’t, he’s about to find out, and everyone else with him.”

Together, they entered the hall through the doorway that usually only admitted the court on the first night of a new sacrifice. With stalwart steps, Jack walked with his sister to his center seat at the head table.

The rest of the court was out amongst the people, feasting and drinking as one. As a hush fell over everyone gathered, Jack sought out Branwen, Liam, and Zephyr first.

It was no surprise to find them with their loves—all three at the same table with Caitlin, Shayla, and Nigel respectively. Barclay was with them too, though contrary to the surprised gapes they all wore, he was smirking.

“I may have told Barclay, though,” Josie whispered.

Jack shook his head at her, but he was smirking too, because for the first time since they’d been cursed, he stood before his kingdom as himself and didn’t feel the need to hide his face. “What are you staring at?” Jack called, making sure to maintain a pleasant tone. “Aren’t we here to enjoy dinner and drink, or are you going to gawk all night?”

Without being asked, Oliver and Amelia rose to fill fresh plates to deliver to them, and Jack allowed the gesture, since they looked so pleased to offer it.

Barclay came forward too, bringing goblets and a jug of wine.

When Josie curled a finger at him to join them at the table, the young fortune-teller retrieved his plate and wine to sit at Josie’s side.

“I think this calls for a toast!” Nigel stood, raising his glass, to which everyone followed. “Not only for our king’s handsome face, of course, but for whatever tomorrow brings. Hear! Hear!” he cried, and again, everyone echoed him.

“Hear! Hear!”

“Also!” Nigel said before the growing mutters could rise to a normal dinner din. He set his goblet aside and moved to approach the head table, bringing his hands behind his back where Jack couldn’t see and then bringing them out again with a flourish. “I believe this belongs to you, Majesty. No idea how I acquired it.”

Jack’s crown—glittering silver with inlaid sapphires.

He hadn’t seen it in decades. He’d grown more used to his crown of ice.

Josie rose to take the crown and gently placed it upon Jack’s head. It weighed more than he remembered but felt strangely… right.

“What say you, Majesty?” Nigel bowed. “Shall I spin a tale?”

Only one came to mind, since it was the beginning of this adventure and seemed fitting to be part of the end, whatever tomorrow brought. “Let’s hear once more of the fletcher,” Jack said, and a cheer rose up like always, with Oliver bowing his head from where he’d reclaimed his seat.

Fitting indeed.

Even more so the next day when it was Oliver, the first sacrifice, who sounded the alarm.