“Victor took all your magic. It blocked your Channel like an Eradication . . . The magic of the Bond was enough to give you a spark of life and get Elecia’s healing to take. But it was only a spark . . .”
“I’m a Commons now, aren’t I?” Aldrik’s pained expression told her everything.
There was a time when that was all she wanted, and now the knowledge threatened to crush her. She remembered the pull of Achel, of Victor using his magic as a Waterrunner combined with the crystals to steal her magic. It was all gone.
Panic welled up in her and threatened to burn her eyes. She wanted to scream and shout and rave like a lunatic. Her magic was gone and it now sat in the hands of the most wicked creature she’d ever met. The thing that had been the catalyst for so much in her life over the past two years had vanished as though it had never been there. It was so unfair.
Vhalla pressed her lips together and let the moment wash over her. She let the panic fizzle and die without being given life by escaping between her lips. Her heart shattered into pieces that would be put back together in a new shape. She had lost her magic. But she lived to fight another day.
“Victor—” Aldrik spat the word with an instant malice. “Victor took everything. That bastard stole your magic from you. Curse him, damn him, fu—”
“Aldrik.” Vhalla cut off his justified tirade. Nothing could be solved with his rage or her panic; all it would result in was waking everyone else. He conceded, the anger vanishing just with a look. “I understand. And you have yet to tell me, are you all right?”
“What?” Aldrik blinked.
“Are you all right?” She moved her own fingers to touch his beautifully high cheekbones. Her hands were now in further contrast to the flawless alabaster of his skin. She had raised and ugly scars covering her fingers, the skin stretched thin to the point of shining. Burn scars from his fire. “The Bond, the magic, when you gave it back, did it hurt you?”
“Vhalla.” His brow softened, and his eyes widened. “How, why, why do you worry for me when you have lost so much?”
She smiled softly into the morning chill. He didn’t understand the precious thing that still clutched her.
“Will my magic return?”
“Not without enough of your own magic to call to your Channel and activate it once more. Usually, it would take a Vessel. But, we never made one for you. The only ones you ever created were unintentional and sent to me, and that magic has been exhausted. I’m certain Victor had a hand in seeing that overlooked, I should have—”
She spoke again, stopping him before he fell back into anger and self-hating, “Then that’s that. And the Bond can never be reformed.”
Even if she still possessed her magic, that fact would likely remain true from what she now knew of Bonds. It was not worth their lives to try to rebuild it. Sorrow threatened to consumer her again and Vhalla vowed not to let it. The Bond may be gone, but he was still her prince. She did not need to feel his emotions magically to know he blamed himself when that was the last thing he should be doing.
“But I live,” she breathed in disbelief. “I live, and you live, because of you. Aldrik, you are amazing.”
“Aldrik,” came a sharp whisper. “Are you awake?”
“Yes, Elecia.”
“What’s the . . .” Fritz rubbed his eyes, sitting. He looked at Elecia first, but it only took half a second for his head to snap over to Vhalla’s and his eyes to become twice their normal size. “Vhal!”
With a straight arm, Fritz gave a shove to Aldrik’s shoulder to push him aside. Fritz’s hand fell across Vhalla’s stomach, his palm on her pallet. He was sitting next to her before the flurry of blankets had time to land across the room. Fritz completely ignored the offended scowl coming from the prince. His bright blue eyes were glued to hers.
“You’re alive!” Fritz almost shouted after a long moment of staring at her.
“You doubted me?” Elecia huffed in mock offense.
“I am.” Vhalla struggled to sit, scooting up under Fritz’s arm.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I just had an axe in my shoulder.” Vhalla brought her left hand across her chest, lightly massaging the bandages that lurked beneath the oversized shirt she wore.
“Sleeping beauty wakes.” Jax roused and sat up on the opposite side of Aldrik.
Vhalla’s eyes fell on the two Northern women in the corner. They had been woken by the commotion and regarded the Imperials with guarded attention. Vhalla’s lips pursed at Za. Vhalla knew that if Za posed a direct threat to her life, Aldrik would allow the archer nowhere near her. But that only made the woman’s presence all the more confusing.
“Let me see, Vhalla.” Elecia walked over. It was now Fritz’s turn to be unceremoniously shoved aside to make room for Elecia to access Vhalla’s chest.
“Yes, why don’t you take off your shirt and let us see?” Jax cocked his head to the side with a crooked grin. The action caused a cascade of perfectly straight black hair to slip over one shoulder and fall just below his pectorals.
“Jax,” Aldrik gave a low growl.
He smiled sweetly. “What, my prince?”
“You know what.”
“I don’t think I do.” Jax snickered.
“Boys.” Elecia clicked her tongue. “I was serious; I wish to check her. All of you, out.”
“All of us?” Fritz pouted. It was his turn to earn a warning—and slightly confused—stare from Aldrik.
Vhalla bit her bottom lip as she tried to hide a tiny grin, remembering her friend’s delicate hand in helping her wash up after Baldair’s death. The memory wiped any levity from her face fairly quickly. Like ice in her veins, the younger prince’s untimely demise sobered her.
“All of you, yes.” Elecia sighed and shook her head.
Aldrik stood, as if to lead by example. Vhalla was relieved when the two Northerners followed him as well.
“Now, off with the shirt,” Elecia demanded the second the last of them had vanished through the curtain that served as a door into the unknown room beyond. Vhalla blinked at the other woman, startled by her directness. “I know you’re hardly modest, and it’s nothing I, or the older girls, haven’t already seen.”
“Older girls?” Vhalla paused, halfway done with unbuttoning the front of the oversized shirt, a shirt she had never seen before. Her movements were still painfully slow.
“Fritz’s sisters,” Elecia elaborated. “After Aldrik was a reckless idiot and nearly killed himself giving you the magic back—”
“Nearly killed himself?”
“Yes.” Elecia scowled. “I will never forgive you for making him the reckless fool that he’s been.”
Vhalla had no retort.
“When I saw the mountain wall sliding to close up the caverns, I thought you all were dead. But, no, you were alive and, despite dodging fate once more, Aldrik was determined to save you. After Aldrik gave you the Bond magic back, he collapsed, and I could do nothing. The princess was equally spent doing . . . whatever she does with her Northern magic. We couldn’t ride back to the capital in such a condition,” Elecia’s words spilled out. “Luckily, Fritz could navigate us here. You were a bloody mess, more than anything I had ever tried to heal, and Aldrik wouldn’t wake for a whole day, leaving me to guess if he would ever wake again—I thought he was dead because of you!”
“Elecia . . . I’m sorry.” The other woman’s pain was sudden and intense.
“First, it was Baldair, and I couldn’t, I wasn’t fast enough to get there.” Elecia balled a fist in the blankets. “Then I thought I lost the man who has been like my brother. I shouldn’t forgive you!”
“You shouldn’t,” Vhalla whispered, looking down at her hands. “For Aldrik, and for Baldair. I couldn’t save him either.”