The Crown Prophecy

Chapter 7

T he ballroom was quiet the following day. A firm sense of competition had settled in amongst the contestants, and many of them had begun training in their rooms to avoid being analyzed.

This afternoon, Colette and Vanessa were joined by Fork Girl (whose real name I had learned was Lucy,) Freya the fire-Wielder, Anissa, who manipulated light, and, to my dismay, Marisol.

She was working diligently with her cloth, which she had finally been able to coax into wrapping around her mannequin to pull it towards her. It was actually very impressive and more practical than I would’ve thought tailoring magic could be in such generalized circumstances.

Liang, a contestant with long, shiny black hair I had seen in the training room several times this week, strode in and began to work on animating a chair in front of her. It stepped forward on its four wooden legs like a newborn colt, moving a few feet before stilling. Wiping her brow with an air of satisfaction, the Wielder reset her configuration and repeated the performance.

“Quinn!” Colette called from across the room, waving an arm over her head.

Avoiding Marisol’s line of sight, I walked over to where she had stationed Vanessa on a platform made of vines with fragrant purple flowers. They looked like supersized versions of the blooms I had seen climbing trellises in the city, their shoots as thick around as my wrist. As I watched, the platform rose several feet off the ground, stopping when it was about waist high.

“So sorry to bother you, but could I borrow you for a moment?” Colette asked.

“Of course!” Now that the newness of Wielder-watching had worn off, refreshment table duty was becoming a bit dull. I needed to track down Mellie tonight and talk to her about reducing the portions for these sessions. Maybe she would finally agree since so many of the contestants were keeping to their rooms.

“Wonderful,” she bubbled, bouncing on her toes. “I need to test the weight of this. I know it can hold Nessa up just fine but I’m thinking with the improvements I made to the base structure it should easily lift two now. Will you be my test subject?”

I didn’t love heights, but I liked Colette, so I agreed, stepping onto the platform beside Vanessa. A few feet wouldn’t kill me.

“It feels solid,” I said.

She beamed, raising her hands into a casting position.

The platform rumbled and started to lift higher and higher. I clutched Vanessa’s arm, any self-consciousness I might have felt dwarfed by my fear, and tried not to look down.

“Is she growing the stem of this with us on it?”

“She’s been working on it for days,” Vanessa said, unperturbed by the fact that we were now a good fifteen feet in the air.

“Any chance your Gift is something that would help us out if this thing collapses?”

“No,” was her only reply.

Great.

Though I was hyper aware of how awkward and stiff Vanessa felt under my grip, I couldn’t bring myself to let go. I counted to ten, taking deep breaths in and out, and the platform slowly started to lower.

As soon as we were within reach of the ground I scrambled off, trying not to look as panicked as I felt.

“Oh, Quinn!” Colette exclaimed, worry in her eyes. “You don’t like heights! I’m so sorry; I had no idea.”

I thought about bluffing and telling her she didn’t need to worry, but I was fairly certain I was turning a shade of green that would give me away if I tried to lie.

“It’s fine,” I said, still gulping down air. “No harm done.”

She looked at me, doubt written all over her delicate features, and I gave her a weak smile.

Turning toward Vanessa, who stepped smoothly off the platform and stalked over to where we stood, Colette’s face lit up once more.

“How was it? Did it feel stable?”

“Very,” Vanessa promised, and Colette gathered her into a hug, which Vanessa returned with much more ease than I would’ve expected.

“Thank you again, Quinn,” Colette beamed at me. “I promise I won’t ever do that to you again.” Her light laugh sounded like tinkling bells.

“It’s fine,” I said, the last of the tension in my shoulders dissipating. “Being out of my comfort zone is good for me. It seems as though we’re both growing. ”

“Booooooo!” she yelled at my terrible pun, smacking my arm.

The two of us dissolved into a fit of giggles that Vanessa decidedly did not join. In fact, the way she was looking at me made me feel uncomfortable. Like I had deeply offended her.

I extracted myself, making an excuse about needing to get back to work, and wondered what I had done.

. . .

Back in the kitchen, I found Serena waiting for me, her arms crossed. She was tapping her foot impatiently, as if she didn’t know precisely when my shift in the ballroom ended. Resolved to ignore her, I started toward the pantry to gather the ingredients I needed for dinner.

“Quinn! Wait!” She followed me into the storeroom. I braced myself for more nastiness, but it didn’t come.

“Thank you,” she said curtly.

All I could do was stare at her.

“I got a lot of compliments on the croissants this morning,” she said. “Apparently the prince said they were the best he’s ever had.” She rolled her eyes before narrowing them at me in suspicion. “When I left yesterday, I was half convinced you’d do them poorly just to spite me. But you didn’t. And you didn’t even take credit for them.”

“That’s not how I operate, Serena.” How was I still the one on the defensive?

She huffed an exasperated breath. “I’m gathering that. At first, it irritated me. I spent ages trying to figure out what you were playing at. But I mentioned it to James and he told me I was being ridiculous.”

I couldn’t refute that, so I stayed silent.

“He said the fact that I thought you had a nefarious ulterior motive was probably a sign that you weren’t the problem,” Serena winced. “So . . . thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I managed. What strange alternate reality was I living in?

Serena sighed. “I know I’ve been hard on you, and that’s probably my own shit I need to work through. It was just hard to see you come in here and take the assistant post with no formal experience, and then you got privileges to commute on top of it . . .” she trailed off.

I wasn’t sure how to respond without apologizing for something I didn’t have any control over, which seemed unfair. We stood there in tense silence for a moment before she continued. “When I was hired on here five years ago, I had to leave my family behind, and I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen them since. They only allow us to go back into the village on the Solstices.”

Wow. That was . . . harsh.

“I’m sorry,” I said. No wonder she was so bent out of shape.

“Yeah, well, that’s the policy. And even if I could see them more often, I couldn’t afford to take the time off. Money’s scarce at home. I have four younger siblings and my father’s not around, so I took this position to help support them.”

“That’s a lot to have on your shoulders, Serena.” It was hard not to feel sympathetic, even if she had been horrible to me.

“It is what it is.” She tossed her blonde braid over her shoulder, apparently at her limit of vulnerability for the day. “I’m doing what needs to be done. I just wanted to thank you for . . . you know.”

“Serena, if you need me to take something to your family next time I have a day off, I’d be happy to.”

Her lips parted slightly, then closed. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” She turned on her heel and was gone. When I returned to my workstation, everything looked exactly the same as it had before, but I had the feeling that something monumental had just shifted for our little crew.

. . .

At a quarter to six I started my trek up to the prince’s quarters, trying to quell the jitters I was already feeling. I was working. Doing my job. That was all.

But after two weeks of swapping novels and developing a rapport, I had to admit to myself that the banter was feeling increasingly flirtatious. Which was a terrible idea, obviously.

Halfway down the hallway on the third floor, I was intercepted by a breathless Colette.

“Quinn!” She pulled me to the side of the hallway where we had partial cover from one of the carved marble columns that lined this stretch of the floor.

“Do you know what happened to Liang and Emory?”

“What do you mean?”

Leaning in, she dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Two girls went home today, and the rumor is that they both lost their magic. Vanessa was friendly with Emory, who was working on projection, and she said she just felt empty when she woke up this morning,” she shuddered. “Liang was the same.”

“Oh gods, that’s awful. This is the first I’ve heard of it, but I’m headed up to deliver dinner to the prince’s quarters, so I can ask if he has any information.”

Colette raised her eyebrows. “You can just ask him something like that?”

Could I? The idea didn’t make me nervous at all, and I hated how comfortable I had become around him.

“The good thing about being a servant is that you’re not intimidating enough to withhold information from.” Mostly true. “I’ll try to get some answers for you.”

“Thank you, Quinn.” Colette pulled me into a quick hug. “Let me know if you hear anything. I’m scared. We all are.”

. . .

A few minutes later, I was knocking on Evander’s door, tray of now-cold food in hand.

I followed him back to his study and perched in one of the chairs opposite him in what had become a well-rehearsed dance.

“My apologies,” he said without looking up, “I’m a bit distracted this evening, so I’m afraid you won’t find me a very good conversation partner.”

“Is this about what happened with Emory and Liang?”

He sighed, drawing his hands down his face in a gesture of weariness. “So you’ve already heard about that. Excellent.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked.

“If I did, do you think I would be sitting here pouring over every book I can find on magical depletion instead of eating my dinner?”

It was a fair point, but I didn’t appreciate his tone. I cocked my head and stared at him pointedly.

“Contrary to popular belief,” he ground out, “having a crown does not mean that I have all the answers. I would think someone as smart as you would be able to come to that conclusion on your own.” Ignoring the flutter in my stomach that accompanied his compliment, I focused on his less-than-cordial attitude.

“This isn’t about me,” I challenged.

The fire in his eyes extinguished when he looked up at me, the hard lines around his mouth falling as he sighed again.

“You’re right. It’s not.”

“Would you like to try that again?” I asked. “Maybe I can help,”

He laughed bitterly. “Believe me, I wish you could. Because I’m at a complete godsdamned loss about what to do here.” His hair fell into his face as he dropped his head, interlacing his fingers on the back of his neck.

“What’s really going on?”

Evander assessed me for a moment, and I could see him arming himself with his best placations and excuses. “It’s nothing, the castle is well, all will be fine, don’t trouble yourself.” It must be exhausting to carry all of that on your shoulders.

I met his eyes with as much kindness and understanding as I could muster, and something behind his mask cracked, his piercing blue eyes filling with tears.

“She’s dying, Quinn,” he whispered.

My heart sank. His mother.

I was under the impression he didn’t want to talk about the queen, and given the threat from Maddox after our last conversation, I wasn’t sure what I could say that would be safe. I don’t know what made me do it, but I slid my hand across the desk and put my hand on his. Hoping it would communicate my support, I squeezed once and pulled it away quickly, blushing.

Evander grabbed it back like a drowning man who had been offered a life preserver. His grip was strong, palm surprisingly calloused.

“It’s true that the Crown is stronger when there are two on the throne,” he continued, “but there’s more to it than that. A lot more that I didn’t know until this year.”

He took a deep breath, his next words spilling out as if he couldn’t contain them any longer.

“The reason both a king and queen are needed to rule is that the monarchs channel the people's magic for the kingdoms’s protective wards.”

“Channel?”

“You’re aware of how the Wielders of Enorias contribute to the protective wards around the kingdom?” he asked.

“Vaguely,” I said, thinking of the woman I’d heard complaining about it in the tailor shop.

“Well, all that power needs to be melded and refined. The monarchs work as a kind of conduit to turn all the raw magic into the barrier,” he explained.

“I’ve never heard that before,” I said, trying not to let my surprise show. Had Mother truly sequestered me from magic so completely that I didn’t even understand how our own government worked?

“The process is kept a secret so that we don’t become targets for an internal attack. There are still some fanatics who support King Orobas even within our wards.”

A stone settled in my stomach as I thought of Mother’s tirades. What would Evander think if he knew my own mother was among those who prayed for his downfall?

“After my father passed a few years ago,” Evander continued, “my mother argued that times were peaceful enough for her to hold the throne by herself, at least until I was old enough to find love.” There was an undercurrent of anger in his voice that I understood all too well. Being controlled, even by someone who wanted the best for you, wasn’t comfortable. Even less so when you were kept in the dark about it.

“But it’s too big a task for one person, even without a war,” he continued. “She’s hung on much longer than she should have and she has almost nothing left.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, heaviness settling in my chest.

Grief and anger warred on his face with his next words. “I fear it may already be too late for her. The wards are already weakening. Every report I receive tells me Falerin is creeping closer to our borders.” He rubbed his temples. “I can’t help but fear the Time of Darkness is upon us.”

“Time of Darkness?” One revelation after another had my head spinning.

“There’s a prophecy,” he explained. “It was made when I was young, but I only learned of it a few months ago.”

He pulled a worn piece of parchment from his desk drawer and handed it to me.

In a hasty scrawl, it read:

“There will come a Time of Darkness when the kingdom is at its weakest. The fated halves of the Crown must find each other before the Deceiver seizes the Gifts of the people. Only the powers that sing to one another will be enough for the Protector to wipe The Evil One from existence and bring stability back to Enorias.”

My breath caught as I read the words. So many vague, unfamiliar terms made it difficult to decipher, but what I understood right away was that I had been very, very wrong. All this time I had been worried about my employment status and petty squabbles with my coworkers while Evander was dealing with this. More than just the responsibility to rule, the fate of the kingdom had fallen on his shoulders, and he had been kept in the dark about it until things were dire. The stress he must be under was far beyond what I could imagine.

“Your mother kept this from you, too?” I asked.

He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “She convinced herself that the time the prophecy mentioned hadn’t yet come, but the disappearances are ramping up again and now it seems that the magic of the castle is weakening as well. If my fears are right, that’s why two Wielders were Extinguished today. The castle must’ve drawn on them to keep the inner wards up when my mother’s power wasn’t enough. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not.”

“It is!” The words were a barely-restrained explosion of anger, not at me, but at himself. “If I had been more focused on my duties I could’ve ascended to the throne long ago and she wouldn’t have gotten to this point.”

“You didn’t know,” I said, once again wishing I had more comforting words to offer him.

“It doesn’t matter whether I knew. The result is the same.” The self-loathing was thick in his voice.

“Even now, I can’t do anything about it. I keep trying, forcing myself to attend endless dinners and pointless training sessions, making empty small talk and playing the part, but I can’t make myself feel anything for any of them. It’s as though the harder I try, the less success I find. In the beginning, I had hope, but now–nothing. It’s maddening.”

“Could you share the Crown with your mother until you decipher it?” It might be unconventional to have a mother and son on the throne at the same time, but at least she wouldn’t have to channel power for the wards alone.

He shook his head. “I suggested that, but the two Wielders on the throne have to go through a tethering ceremony for their Gifts. My mother’s magic is too weak to attempt it. Besides, it’s a lifelong bond, so it’s really meant for a married couple.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“So your plan is to just wait until you feel something?” I hadn’t meant to put it so indelicately, but it didn’t seem like the most proactive solution.

“Well, that's not the phrasing I would've used,” he glowered, “but yes, that is the general idea. My magic hasn’t done anything unusual yet, but most of these women don’t have a good handle on their Gifts. We’re giving them access to our resources so they can hone them into something sharper. We’ll just have to keep trying.”

The logic didn’t make any sense to me. It sounded as though he was thinking of the women and their magic as separate entities. Rather than trying to spend time with them one-on-one and form an emotional connection with any of them, he was relying on his magic to choose for him.

A cowardly strategy , I thought, but I kept the unkind observation to myself this time. Especially as the idea of him doing otherwise brought up an emotion in me that I’d rather not examine at the moment.

I scanned the paper again, moving on to the other words on the page.

“What do we know about this prophecy? Who are the Deceiver and the Protector?”

“I wish I knew. It certainly seems like we’re entering the Time of Darkness, so I can only guess that I’m supposed to be the Protector. A great job I’ve done at that,” he scoffed ruefully.

“What about the Wielder who made the prophecy? Could they tell us?”

Evander shook his head. “I don’t know. The man disappeared shortly after he Saw this. No one knows where he is.”

Well, that wasn’t helpful.

“Let’s break it down,” I suggested. “Maybe a pair of fresh eyes would help.” I didn’t know what I of all people could do, but I couldn’t just leave him dejected and alone. “Are we sure the Time of Darkness is now?”

“Our wards are failing, my mother is dying, and I’m completely unprepared to take the throne. My mother refuses to even speak about succession until I find a queen, hence this contest, but I don’t even have a ghost of an idea of what I’m looking for.” He pointed to the next line on the sheet. “The powers that sing together. What does that mean? The language is enough for me to narrow it down to another Wielder, but beyond that I have no idea.”

“Could it be powers that complement each other, like fire and ice? What kind of Gift do you have?”

“That’s not something I’m at liberty to share,” he apologized. “Security and all that. Not my choice, but all I can say is that there isn’t a simple foil to my abilities.”

We spent the next four hours combing through the prophecy word by word, making guesses at who the Deceiver might be and what the imminent threat to the kingdom might look like, discussing how Evander might fortify the castle to take some of the burden off his mother, and how he would know when a power “sang” to his, whatever that meant.

Although we didn’t get very far, having a new point of view seemed to help Evander feel less hopeless.

“You should spend some time with the contestants individually,” I said, ignoring how my traitorous heart grew heavy at the thought of him taking my suggestion. “This connection you’re looking for may not be purely magical. What about love? Surely that’s a powerful force in itself.”

Evander gritted his teeth but said nothing, and I pretended not to notice, moving onto the next part of the prophecy.

It was nearly eleven when he finally dismissed me, insisting I get some sleep before my shift in the kitchen started at sunrise.

“Are you going to get some as well?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

A sad smile appeared on his face. “I’ll rest better when we’ve figured this out.”

My chest warmed at the word we, and it was almost enough to make me forget that I was now actively helping him find another Wielder to wed.

I paused at the doorway, taking a moment to look back at the scene: he sat hunched over the desk, dark waves falling onto his forehead as he poured over the reference texts we had pulled. His left hand flexed and unflexed, as if grasping for the answers we couldn’t find. There were dark bruises under his eyes; it seemed impossible that I had missed them before. My heart broke for him.

“Evander,” I called. “We’re going to figure this out. She’ll be all right.”

“I hope you’re right. Truly. Thank you for your help.”

“Of course.”

He cracked a genuine smile.

“I just realized you called me Evander.”

“I suppose I did.” I couldn’t help the corner of my mouth from listing slightly in return. “Goodnight.”

I closed the door and then leaned against the other side for a moment.

Shit.