Curse of Stolen Flame (Firebird, #1)

CHAPTER 20

She did not speak to Jasper for an entire week.

On the first day, Helena came to visit her. The princess tried desperately to make amends on behalf of her brother, joining Kindra for breakfast in the morning.

“He’s so sorry, Kindra,” she insisted. “He didn’t mean it—”

“Didn’t he, though?” Kindra replied, too tired from a night of fitful sleep to snap at her. “I think he meant it very much.” She took a sip of her tea; they were sitting at her dining table. She didn’t have much of an appetite, nibbling at her food like a bird.

“Jasper says things he doesn’t mean quite often, really. He’s so kind, he just tends to put his foot in his mouth—”

“It’s not my fault that he is insecure and ashamed of the fact that I am more capable of defending him from his vulture brothers than he is.” Now she was snapping, annoyed out of exhaustion.

“Oh, because you have always conducted yourself so perfectly?” Helena fired back, and Kindra was so startled by the hard edge her voice suddenly carried that she flinched.

“I only—” she began, but Helena cut her off, speaking with sharp authority. Gone was the gentle woman who’d pleaded for forgiveness for Jasper. Before her now was an angry older sister sticking up for her little brother.

“You might think that Jasper’s attention issues” —Kindra flinched again— “are miniscule compared to the struggles you have faced. And perhaps they are. But he has spent most of his life aiming to please a man who has always viewed him as an afterthought while being the punching bag of two brothers who delight in intimidation and bullying.” Helena paused to take a small bite of food. Kindra didn’t dare speak. Swallowing, Helena continued, “So yes, what he said was hurtful. He knows that. But what you said was hurtful too, and you’re deluding yourself if you think he has no right to be upset about it.”

Kindra was speechless, her face heated with shame. “This has just been—”

“Very hard, I know.” There was sympathy in Helena’s gaze, but it faded as she continued, “Believe me, we all know. Jasper more than anyone. And he has received your vitriol and disdain for him and this whole situation with much more understanding that anybody else in this castle would provide, me included.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Kindra murmured, so embarrassed she could cry. Getting reprimanded by the princess was not something she’d ever wanted to experience, especially after Emeline told her Helena was a force to be reckoned with when angry. And gods above, was she. She’d left no room for argument at all.

Helena sighed, the fight bleeding out of her now that she’d made her point. “I’m not trying to minimize how you feel about this, Kindra. But a little grace would go a long way, or your life here is going to be miserable forever.”

Kindra, sufficiently reprimanded, nodded in agreement and picked at her food silently until Helena graciously changed the subject.

Jasper did not come apologize that day. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.

And with every passing moment he remained out of her sight, the kernel of fear that had taken root in her stomach that night grew larger. Fear that he would not come apologize, and their marriage was already doomed, their fragile, meager relationship already ruined beyond repair. Fear that he would instead decide to be crueler, that the charming, gentle side she’d just begun to see would vanish forever.

Fear that she had scared him away entirely.

She worried that he’d go to King Leofric and declare her dangerous—a threat. And what would happen if he did? They wouldn’t let her go—no, nothing could be that simple. They’d lock her up, probably. Dangerous or not, the king had made it clear that he expected her to break the curse, and she doubted he’d change his mind because of something as minor as her threatening Jasper’s safety.

She would never have tried to burn him. Even as angry and distraught as she’d been, she’d known she wouldn’t lay one flaming hand upon him.

But he didn’t know that. He’d only seen her screaming, flames leaping from the fireplace.

Of course, she could apologize to him. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that, either. Partly because she was afraid of being rejected, but also because, despite Helena’s scolding, she was not quite ready to show him any grace for what he’d said. He’d done a lot more than just saying rude things.

She could admit that she’d also spoken unkindly, that she’d diminished and mocked his own struggles, and she’d apologize for it, but not before Jasper did.

Be it foolish pride or stubborn arrogance, she just could not bring herself to go to him first.

She had taken to dining by herself in her rooms or with Helena and Emeline, both of whom mercifully did not bring up Jasper. Helena was happy to act as though their conversation had never happened. In her free time, she took walks with Emeline or, if the Wavebreaker was unavailable, with Sala or Cerulle, exploring the castle and the surrounding grounds.

She also had training sessions with Tess each day, which were quite often the only few waking hours of distraction Kindra got from her twisting thoughts. But by the fourth day, when her anxiety had rendered her barely able to eat or concentrate, even the exhilaration of wielding could not distract her.

Her control was slipping; Tess was once again able to yank her fire away with ease. The first time it happened, Kindra had brushed it off as an accident. But she couldn’t focus her mind enough; her thoughts were scattered, erratic. Even the hour a day she spent trying to practice deep breathing and calmness couldn’t save her. When Tess bested her again, she growled in frustration and held up a hand to stop.

Tess jogged over to Kindra as she bent over, resting her hands on her knees, panting. “Are you okay?” Tess asked. “You’re not doing as well as you have been. ”

For a moment, she debated saying nothing. But she was tired of bottling it up. “We had a fight,” she forced out, “Jasper and I. Four days ago. And he hasn’t sought me out since.”

“Ah,” was all Tess said at first. Then, “Maybe he’s waiting for you to seek him out.”

“I will not go to him,” Kindra shot back. “It was his fault, so he should apologize to me.”

“Yes, but he is a prince, used to being treated in a certain way.” Tess shrugged and reached out a hand to help Kindra upright.

Kindra frowned as she took it, standing tall. “I don’t think he is, really. He’s not—he hasn’t had the best upbringing.” Shame coursed through her as she remembered how she’d completely dismissed that truth.

Tess rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare me.” She turned and walked over to the water basin, and Kindra followed.

The urge to defend Jasper crashed over her like a tidal wave. “I’m not denying his privilege. He’s rich and comfortable and always has been. But his family—my family now, I guess—they are horrible, Tess, which I know you know. But—except for Helena and Emeline—they’ve been horrible to him. And his mother, before she…” She waved a hand, unsure of what to say about the queen and her emptiness. “Anyway, all the riches in the world can’t buy you a loving family, that’s all.” She wiped her face down with a rag. “Besides, I don’t think I made things any better. I wasn’t exactly nice.”

Tess studied her for a long moment. “You are kinder than I am to grant him that understanding.”

“I think I have to be, if this marriage is going to be remotely pleasant.” Helena had been right about that. Kindra met her orange gaze. “Besides, surely you do understand, at least a bit. You’re close with Helena and Emeline—”

“Emeline,” Tess corrected sharply, “I’m close with Emeline.” At her bewildered stare, the Firefury shrugged. “They may be married, but they’re not one entity. One doesn’t have to be attached to them both.”

“You don’t like Helena?” Kindra found it hard to believe, but then again, she’d only known the princess for a week.

“Helena and I are not… the most compatible. I think I may be a little too vocal about my disdain for her family. ”

Kindra grabbed onto to the subject change gratefully, sitting down on the bench next to the basin. “Emeline seems to be plenty critical of the Annalindis family, though, and Helena doesn’t seem to mind.”

Tess grimaced, settling next to her. “She does mind. But she also loves Emeline too much to say anything about it. And she understands why Em would be so critical—she spent the first several years of her life in poverty, and the nobility have made a massive effort to not let her forget it. Antone and Sebastian were some of the worst offenders. So she can’t say Em is wrong because she’s not.”

“But it hurts to have to admit she’s right,” Kindra finished for her, and Tess nodded.

“And with me, well.” She gave another shrug. “It already sucks enough that your wife doesn’t like your family, and that she’s not wrong to hate them, so why make it worse by being friends with somebody else who also frequently expresses how awful they are? I get it.”

“Hmm,” Kindra said. “I mean, you could just not say those things around her.”

Tess barked out a laugh. “Oh, we also just don’t get along. We haven’t from the time we were children.”

“You’ve known her that long?”

Tess smiled bitterly. “Indeed I have. I’ve lived on the grounds since—” Her voice faltered. “Since I was eight.”

“If I can ask, how did you come to live here?” Kindra asked softly, recalling the spiff Tess and Emeline had had when she’d first come to the training grounds, how they’d switched between referring to the Council and then one singular person.

Tess gnawed on her lower lip, looking down at the ground. For a moment, Kindra didn’t think she’d answer, but then she began to speak.

“I was found on a farm outside Greymont by Councilman Avis when I was four years old. He said he found me while helping clean up after a storm, back when he was still of lower rank and did a few good deeds a year to keep up his reputation. He told me that lightning had struck my home and burned it to the ground, killing everyone inside but me.” She paused, then gestured to her burns. “It’s how I got these.”

Kindra swallowed down her horror. “Do you remember any of that?” Kindra asked .

“I remember some things. I have memories of a family, people who looked like me. A sister, I think. I don’t remember ever being alone.” Tess frowned. “But it’s all very scattered. I don’t know. I don’t really remember the storm or the fire or even being burned. Sometimes I have what I think are flashbacks in dreams—nightmares. But I can understand why my mind might block that out. Regardless, Avis took me in, raised me. He’s a Windspinner, never married. I was his heir, for a time.” She shuddered. “I’m glad his bloodline will be ending with him.”

“Was he cruel?”

“At first, no. And that’s part of why I hate him so much. He doted on me for the first few years. Until we moved here, and he was appointed to the Council. He became cruel then. But those first years… I loved him, Kindra, as any girl would love her father. He was my father, for all I knew, until he told me the truth when I was old enough to understand. And it really seemed like he loved me. I think he did.”

“Why did he change?”

“I wasn’t useful. We arrived here, and within weeks I was in intense wielding training. My magic came to me very young—younger than most, so I think he thought he’d discovered... well, I don’t know what he thought. But I do know he wanted the king to pick me to marry Jasper, and his cruelty started coming out when he realized that wasn’t going to happen, despite his high rank and all his pandering.”

“You would’ve been worthy, though. You’re certainly powerful enough.”

“I’m not powerful as much as I am well-trained, honestly. My fire appeared early but wasn’t very strong until I was in my late teens. I’m strong now, yes, but it took years of brutal training to get here. I was never like you.” Her face shuttered closed, but Kindra caught the flash of envy before it disappeared. “Besides, the king would rather his cursebreaker be pretty.”

“Oh, Tess,” she murmured, reaching out to squeeze her hand. Tess allowed it but didn’t squeeze back, staring intently at the ground.

“Avis proposed an arranged marriage between Jasper and me when I was ten. We’d barely lived here for more than a year. I liked it well enough at that point. Jasper and I had fun together, keeping ourselves busy, and Emeline was just starting to come around more often. Helena was fiercely protective of her—it was years before we were able to really call ourselves friends because of it.” She looked up and rolled her eyes. “She didn’t like me. I was always up to no good, she said, always getting into trouble, and she didn’t want to be part of it. She would scold Jasper for going along with my ‘schemes.’ Little did she know, a lot of them were his ideas.”

Kindra laughed a bit at that. Her heart twinged at the thought of him, but she refused to let her mind stray, not when Tess was opening up to her.

“When the king rejected the marriage proposal with some nasty remarks about my magical strength, behavior, and, of course, my scars, Avis completely turned on me. The kind father figure I’d known for years vanished overnight. He tossed me aside, barely paid me any mind, would physically push me away when I came to him. I spent years confused and heartbroken. I begged for him to treat me the way he used to, offered countless apologies even though I didn’t know what I was apologizing for. I didn’t know about the failed marriage arrangement until I turned fifteen and finally forced it out of him.”

Tess chuckled. “I remember standing there thinking that it was all so stupid. He had loved me before the marriage idea, certainly he could love me after, right? But that was when he told me that the only reason he hadn’t left me to die when I was four is because he’d known I was a Firefury. That ever since adopting me he’d been planning for this. And then he pointed at my burn scars and said that if only I wasn’t so ‘godsdamned deformed’ it would have worked, and that he should have left me in the rubble when he saw how fucked up I was, Firefury or not.”

Fury coursed through Kindra’s veins. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Tess, I’m so, so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve to be a pawn.”

“I know.” Tess’s voice was hard and cold. “And I knew it then, too. The second I turned sixteen, I abdicated my title as his heir—something he was furious about, despite everything, and changed my last name from Avis to Orindyn, effectively disowning myself.”

“A commoner last name,” Kindra said with a soft smile.

“Yes,” she replied, and smiled slightly as well. “I thought it was the perfect way to tell him to go fuck himself. I stripped myself of all noble rank. And then I got into Grydmarth, graduated top of my class, and got appointed to the Royal Guard, one of the most elite Wielder positions in the damn kingdom.”

She laughed loudly then, but it was forced, laced with bitterness. “And now, he is my fucking boss, because he is the Councilman of Defense. He revels in the fact that I tried to escape him but couldn’t. He throws the fact that he saved my life in my face at every turn, undermines every suggestion I make, encourages others to disrespect me. I am one of the most competent people in this castle—my rank at Grydmarth proves it—and yet I am treated as though I am a foolish child. They hardly let me do more than grounds patrol. I have to beg—actually beg—to be of more use.”

“Surely he can’t just do that. Wouldn’t the king—”

“What—intervene?” Tess cackled. “No, Leofric loves little games like this. He delights in it even more than Avis does.”

A beat of silence stretched between them. Kindra took in everything Tess had told her. Her heart ached for her friend. “I don’t know how you bear it,” she murmured, “Staying here with these people. Why don’t you leave?”

“Because there is still good work to be done here. And besides,” Tess admitted quietly, “I just don’t know where else I would go.”

This time, when Kindra squeezed Tess’s hand, Tess squeezed back.

Two days later, with Helena off visiting the farms that surrounded Wendrith, Kindra and Emeline had lunch together.

“What’s Helena doing out there?” Kindra asked, spreading jam over a slice of bread. She’d spent the week apart from Jasper asking questions. She wanted to know who did what, when, and why; the ins and outs of the royal family and their advisers and the role she was to play in all of it. She did not want there to be any surprises; she was not going to allow herself to be caught unaware.

“Harvest survey,” Emeline responded, slicing into a large red apple. “She does a lot of the outreach for the royal family. Gets out there and sees things for herself. Antone and Sebastian are too busy with readying the army, especially in the last few years, and frankly, they think it’s beneath them. Jasper does a fair amount of visiting with the citizens as well, when he’s not busy reading some ancient text or studying. I go with her when I can, but…” She seemed to mull over her next words before confessing, shooting her a pointed look as she did, “Well, since you and Jasper still aren’t speaking, you don’t have anybody else here you can rely on.”

“I can rely on Sala and Cerulle,” Kindra countered, choosing to ignore the comment about Jasper.

Emeline nodded. “That’s true, but you can’t spend all day with your servants.”

She bit her tongue. She could, actually, spend all day with them. They were kind and steady and more than willing to answer her endless questions. Sala, in particular, was a joy to be around. She reminded Kindra of home. Their walks together had become a constant exchange of stories, both of them sharing their experiences growing up along the Pryllian border. It grounded her, gave her an anchor to latch on to when she felt completely lost, which was often.

But she didn’t feel like arguing with anybody anymore, so she just took another bite of bread. “Fair enough.”

“Speaking of Jasper,” Emeline said cautiously, “how are you feeling?”

Not this again. Kindra shrugged. “I’m fine,” she lied.

Emeline studied her closely, blue eyes sharp. “That sounds like a load of shit to me.”

“Well, then I’m as fine as I can be, considering he hasn’t spoken to me in a week.”

“You know, Helena and I were hoping the little chat she had with you might offer some... perspective.” Emeline cocked her head. “Were we foolish to think so?”

Great. Another admonishment.

"I won’t go to him, Emeline,” Kindra said stormily, already defensive. “I realize I’m not entirely innocent here, but to equate our behavior is ridiculous. I didn’t take him from his home. I didn’t threaten to kill his mother.”

Emeline was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I’ve known Jasper for a long time. Despite how Helena tried to keep me to herself at the start, I honestly considered him my friend before I did her—if only because I couldn’t believe she wanted to spend time with me. He is… he does the best he can.”

Kindra grimaced, petulant. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be upset. ”

“It also doesn’t mean you can throw his very real pain back in his face like it means nothing,” Emeline rebuked her. Kindra groaned; she was so tired of this conversation. “He’s a good person, Kindra. I honestly don’t know if you could’ve done better—”

“I could have,” Kindra snapped, standing abruptly. “I could have not been forced to marry him. But here we are. So if he’s as good as you and Helena swear he is, then he will learn to watch what he says— as will I ,” she added quickly when Emeline made to interrupt her, “and if he doesn’t, then I will spend my life in luxurious solitude, with no hope for companionship, because gods know I can’t do shit about it.”

“Are you really so lonely?” Emeline asked softly. Kindra only stared at her. “You fill your days with activities,” she explained. “You seem to have taken a liking to Tess, and Hel and I thought…”

“You all have been very kind,” she conceded, “and I am grateful. Though, Emeline, perhaps it has simply been too long for you to remember. But you of all people should know just how lonely this is.”

Emeline was briefly stunned into silence, and Kindra left before the princess could reply.