Heiress of Light: Magic Reborn (Reverse Harem) Read online

  “Nice try. What?”

  Her face scrunched up before she said in a dismissive tone, “A bunch of old tales is all. People like to think they’re real. Gives them hope.”

  I gave her a perplexed look. “And how do the old tales apply to me?”

  “It’s nothing, nothing,” she said, pretending to give her full attention to the dough. “But be sure to take your guards today. Don’t give them the slip like you usually do.”

  I was about to argue that Christa and I could manage, but I heard footsteps running down the hall to the kitchen. Seconds later, one of my mother’s servants stood in the doorway, her hand on her chest as she tried to catch her breath. “Oh, Princess Elena! I’m so glad I found you. The queen is requesting your presence. Immediately.”

  “Is she now?” I said, lifting my brow.

  Christa gave me a horrified look, but Mrs. Putney tried to hide her smirk. She had eighteen years of dealing with me under her belt. Tina, my mother’s new servant, barely had a month.

  “Tell my mother I’ll be there in due time.” Then I headed toward the pantry with Christa in tow. We put on the capes we kept hanging on hooks; then I picked up one of the baskets, amazed at the weight. Mrs. Putney had been generous over the last few days; but then, the children had been even needier lately. Christa usually just tagged along when I headed to the village, but today she picked up the second basket and rested it on her hip. “Maybe we can get one of the guards to carry these for us.”

  I shot her a look, then walked out the back door. “We won’t be taking the guards.”

  “But you heard Mrs. Putney,” Christa said, following close behind.

  “Of course I heard her, but she loves to worry. We’ve been going to the village nearly every day for the past three years. Why would I suddenly be in danger?”

  “And you’ve brought your guards over half the time . . . when you couldn’t give them the slip,” Christa said. “But Mrs. Putney’s right. We need them today. Something’s off. Don’t you feel it too?”

  I did. It was like a tickling on my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. The sky looked dark and brooding, as though it wanted to weep with sorrow.

  But then again, maybe I thought that because it matched my mood.

  We walked through the side yard to the alley that led around to the back of the castle, and I noticed a dozen or so chickens hopping around the yard. A young girl was chasing after them. She was the new kitchen apprentice, sent over from Prince Leonardo’s kingdom.

  “Looks like it’s chicken for dinner,” Christa said under her breath.

  “Maybe. If she actually manages to catch anything.” I set down my basket and walked over to the girl who was clearly flustered.

  When she saw me, her eyes widened with fear. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, Your Royal Highness.”

  “You didn’t disturb me,” I said with a laugh. “Did no one show you how to do this?”

  She kept her gaze on the ground. “No, Your Royal Highness. They just told me to catch the chickens.”

  “Well, I’m sure they set you up for their merriment, but we’ll show them.” I put my hands on my hips and glanced around. “There’s a wooden staff with a hook on the end.” I spotted it leaning against a small shed and walked over to grab it. With the staff in hand, I slowly approached the chickens. “You have to sneak up on them and extend the pole. Then you snag their leg.” I swung the pole out and caught one of the chickens, then lifted the pole, the bird dangling from the hook. I moved closer to Marietta and let the squawking bird hang in front of her. “I draw the line at killing it. You’re on your own for that task.”

  She grabbed the bird but nearly dropped it as she removed it from the hook.

  I narrowed my eyes. “How is it that you’ve no experience catching chickens? How did you get hired as a kitchen apprentice?”

  “Just lucky I guess,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine. They were a dark gray, the color of the stormy sky. She seemed absorbed with me, her eyes widening.

  “What is it?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

  “You are the one who was foretold.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  The chickens in the yard became quiet, and the one in her hand stilled, as though it was already dead.

  “You are the princess of the legends.”

  I felt a strong hand grab my arm and practically drag me away from the girl as two of my guards positioned themselves between her and me. I looked up at the man who had dragged me and was not surprised to see Liam, the captain of my guard.

  His touch was sending sparks of awareness through my body.

  His deep brown eyes locked on mine, and my lungs involuntarily filled, making my chest rise. The movement attracted his attention for only a fraction of a second, but I saw his eyes dip, then hold my gaze again.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” I asked, but the words came out breathless, not that I was surprised. It was hard to remain in control when he’d been in my dreams the night before.

  “Protecting you, Your Royal Highness, as always,” was his smooth reply. His large hand was still wrapped around my upper arm.

  When I heard the girl whimper, I came to my senses, jerking from his hold.

  “And what are you two doing?” I asked the two guards in front of me, although it was easy to figure out. Each man held one of the girl’s skinny arms in their hands.

  “They’re doing their jobs,” Liam said, moving next to me.

  “Protecting me from a child?”

  “We sensed danger,” the blond one said, his earnest blue eyes on my face. Tobias.

  “From a child?” I repeated.

  Tobias remained silent, but the raven-headed man on the other side of the girl spoke up. Matthew was over twice her height and had the strength of a bull. “It is our job, Your Royal Highness.”

  His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and he appeared to be on full alert.

  “She’s the new kitchen apprentice. The one from Prince Leonardo’s kingdom.” I still thought it strange that he would send a kitchen apprentice, but Mrs. Putney said he wanted a cook who could make dishes he loved after we were married. But if she was an apprentice, how could she know how to prepare them? But my guards were still waiting for an answer. “For heaven’s sake, I showed her how to catch a chicken. That chicken is the only one in danger,” I said, waving toward the bird still hanging from her grasp. “Let the girl go.”

  They maintained their hold while the two other members of the guard stood off to the side, their hands on the hilt of their swords. All four men seemed to be splitting their attention between me, the girl, and their captain.

  I turned around, starting to get pissed. “Liam. Tell them to let her go.”

  His emotionless gaze held mine for several seconds before it shifted to the men holding the poor girl. “Do you still feel it?”

  “No. But things still aren’t right,” Matthew said.

  Tobias nodded. “I agree.”

  “What do you mean things still aren’t right?” I demanded.

  Liam waited another couple of seconds before saying, “Let her go.”

  They released their hold, and the girl scampered off, the chicken still in her hand.

  I turned my full attention on the captain of my guard. “What was that about, Liam?”

  He moved closer and lowered his voice. “You can’t call me that, Your Royal Highness. You must call me Captain.”

  “I’ve been calling you Liam since we sparred with wooden swords back when we were younger than the poor girl you just scared half to death.”

  “It’s not proper. Especially with your impending . . .”

  “Marriage?” I finished, scowling. I had to figure a way out of that particular predicament. I walked over to my abandoned basket and bent down to pick it up. “I suppose there’s no way to get out of your coming with us now.”

  “I prefer you not go at all,” Liam said.

  I lifted my
chin and gave him a haughty look. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not bound to what you prefer, Captain.”

  He moved closer, and I stared up into his face, prepared to battle with him, but he reached for the basket and lifted it off my arm. “Then we’ll escort you into town, Your Royal Highness.”

  The guardsmen fell in around me and Christa. Finn, one of the guards who had stood to the side, took Christa’s basket from her. She gave me a look of triumph.

  Traitor.

  Liam handed my basket to Dax, the last of my five guards. It seemed carrying the baskets was to be their punishment for nearly tackling a child. But then again, Finn and Dax had merely stood by and watched. Maybe it was their punishment for not reaching her first.

  My guards were overzealous, but what was all that talk about things not feeling right?

  And why could I feel it too?

  2

  We walked from the castle to the village in silence, Liam taking the lead with Christa and I behind him. Dax and Finn walked behind us with the baskets, and Matthew and Tobias walked on either side of us. We filled the narrow alley, so anyone coming up the hill had to move aside.

  “This is ridiculous, Captain,” I said. “Why are we filling the road?”

  “We’re protecting you, Your Royal Highness,” Finn said from behind me, sounding apologetic.

  “From whom?” I asked. “The laundress? We need to move to the side.”

  “We stay in formation,” Liam said in a taut voice, his gaze straight ahead.

  I walked a little faster to move closer to him. “What has prompted this decision?”

  Liam didn’t answer, but Finn spoke up. “We can feel danger around you.”

  My jaw dropped. “Feel danger?” I glanced at Finn behind me. “Does this have anything to do with what you were sensing earlier?”

  None of them said anything.

  Knowing he was the most likely of my guards to cave, I stopped and turned to face Finn. All the guards came to a halt around me, maintaining formation. These men had been my guards for three years, although they rarely spoke to me, and then only if they were making requests of me or issuing orders. Nevertheless, I’d known them over half my life.

  The guards started their apprenticeship when they were ten. When I was eight, I’d spent a year watching the first-year apprentices train in the fields. Christa was the daughter of my nanny, and she was my only friend, but she hadn’t been allowed to spend much time with me. After watching the guards training in the fields and seeing the fun they had, I’d decided I wanted to be friends with them too. I convinced my tutor that I needed to learn self-defense—and where best to learn but in the guard school? I’d been naive enough to think I would attend classes with the apprentices, which was never going to happen. However, after much pleading, the guard school master finally agreed to let me train one hour a day, three times a week. He assigned five second-years to work with me—the best in their class: Liam, Tobias, Matthew, Finn, and Dax.

  Most eleven-year-old boys would have resented having to train an eight-year-old girl—even if she was a princess—and some of my guards-to-be weren’t very happy about it for the first few months. But Finn . . . he’d always been kind, offering me a hand when I fell, making sure I was okay. Finn had always been the gentlest of the five. The one most concerned with my feelings. He would be the most likely to answer me now.

  “Finn, am I in danger?”

  His gaze jerked to mine, and his mouth set into a firm line. “We will protect you with our lives, Princess.”

  “Of course you will,” I said. Of that I had no doubt. “But who will protect you?”

  He grinned at that, and a few of my guards snickered.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked with attitude.

  “It’s our job, Your Royal Highness,” Dax said.

  I still didn’t have an answer to my question. I kept my gaze on Finn. “What do you know? Why do you think I’m in danger?”

  “It’s just a feeling, Your Royal Highness.”

  “A feeling?”

  “Finn!” Liam barked. “Enough talk. Focus on the job at hand.” He signaled for us to move, and we resumed our walk to the village.

  I snuck a glance at Christa to gauge her reaction, but her eyes remained firmly on Liam’s back. Or more like his butt. I was surprised at my surge of jealousy.

  Liam was the captain of my guard, and he used to be my friend, although I still liked to think of him and the other four as my friends. But how much of that was childish wishing?

  Maybe my father was right. Maybe it was time for me to grow up—although I’d already grown up the day I started my work with the orphaned children in the village three years ago. Someone had to care for them, and I was able to help.

  Maybe I could convince Leonardo to fix up the orphanage, something my father refused to consider.

  Had I just resigned myself to marriage? Did I have a choice?

  I fell silent, lost in my thoughts as we continued the fifteen-minute walk to the village. An influx of gray clouds moved in, the sunshine vanishing, as we passed through the town gate, and my guards tensed, staring up at the darkening sky.

  “The orphanage is not secure enough. We’ll have the children come to the temple; then we’ll head back to the castle,” Liam said in a terse voice that suggested it wasn’t open for debate.

  “The temple?” I asked in surprise.

  “It’s the most secure location with this short notice.”

  My guards had me spooked. I didn’t argue even though I worried about some of the younger children walking to the temple. The wind had picked up, bringing an unexpected bitter chill so early in the fall. I wrapped my cloak tighter as we climbed the temple steps.

  For a few weeks over the summer, when it had been unbearably hot, we would set up at the top of the stairs in the cooler shade, but today, Liam continued into the temple portico.

  Dax and Finn set the baskets down on the stone floor, then turned to Matthew and Tobias. “Go tell the priestess we need a rug and some blankets.”

  Tobias stared up into the darkening sky. “This isn’t normal.”

  He was right. The clouds had taken on a greenish-brown cast, making them look bruised.

  “We’re here,” Dax said in a low voice to Liam. “Perhaps we can convince her to just leave the food today and head back right away.”

  “I’m right here,” I said, moving closer. “Please don’t treat me like I’m an child.”

  Contrition filled Dax’s eyes. “I apologize, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Dax.” I reached out and clung to his arm. When I was a girl, I could always count on Dax to tell me the truth. He was never afraid to tell me when I looked like a fool, and he never sugarcoated things when he thought I was afraid. “What’s going on?”

  His steely gray eyes held mine. “I don’t know, Princess.”

  “When have we ever been afraid of weather?” I scoffed, but I was sure he could hear my touch of fear.

  “We’re not,” Liam said. “But we’re being cautious.”

  I turned to Liam. “But why?”

  Liam stood close, looking over my head toward Dax. “You got your orders, guardsman. Move.”

  Dax nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then he turned and disappeared into the temple.

  A crowd was already forming at the bottom of the temple steps, not just orphans, but mothers with children.

  “What do you want to do?” Tobias asked, shooting a look to Liam.

  Liam was quiet for a moment, then lowered his gaze to mine. “Elena, I can’t explain it, but we’ve been tense all day. Call it intuition. Call it paranoia, but we’re on high alert. All we know to do is guard you with our lives.”

  “But I don’t want you to guard me with your lives,” I said. “I couldn’t bear it if any of you got hurt or died because of me.”

  He gave me a soft smile. “We do it freely, Princess.”

  “And willingly, Princess,” Finn said.

  “We volun
teered for this,” Tobias said. “It would be our greatest honor to die for you.”

  “What he said,” Matthew said.

  “Nobody’s dying today,” I said. “No more talk of dying. You’ve got Christa spooked.”

  Sure enough, Christa, who had been standing to the side, looked several shades paler.

  “No one’s dying,” Liam said. “Not while I’m in charge. But I do ask that we don’t spend any more time here than necessary.”

  “How about I make our medicine rounds?” Christa asked. “That will speed things along.”

  “Good idea,” Liam said.

  She took the smaller basket out of the big one and headed down the steps.

  Dax returned with his arms full. “I did better than just a rug and blankets. I got a stool.”

  He dropped a small rolled rug and a couple of blankets, revealing a small wooden stool. My guards quickly rolled out the rug and set up the stool on one side. Matthew reached for my hand and led me to the stool before Finn draped a blanket across my lap.

  “Did you bring gloves?” he asked.

  “No. It wasn’t that cold when we left,” I murmured, my breath coming out in wispy trails.

  “Tuck your hands under the blanket,” he said.

  I chuckled. “Somehow I’ve managed to make it through eighteen years with enough sense to keep from getting frostbite. I think I can survive this afternoon.”

  Dax and Tobias grinned, and even Liam showed a hint of a smile, but then he said, “I want all of you except Matthew in the crowd. Matthew, I need you with me, guarding the princess.”

  Matthew nodded, and the other three descended the steps and told the crowd they could come up to see “the princess,” but only one family at a time.

  I cringed. I hated to call attention to my title, which was stupid. Everyone knew I was Princess Elena. I wasn’t fooling anyone by not using the title, but somehow over the last three years, they’d become less intimidated by the title, and I worried all those years of progress were going to be destroyed by my guards’ overzealousness.

  I made my guards send the orphans to me first, youngest to oldest. I used to hand out food and treats like cookies or slices of sweet bread to the orphanage workers, but then I discovered that some of the children weren’t getting the food I’d brought, so I’d started handing them to each child myself. I’d gotten to know many of them by name, and I asked about their lives. Today, every time I gave a child a hug, Liam and Matthew stiffened, then hurried the child along and asked for the next one to be sent to me.