Fire Falling (14 page)

“
That
was no trouble.”

That
wasn’t, but how Vhalla had acted was. “I’m sorry also for snapping at you.” She did her best to keep eye contact with Larel, but shame eventually won out and Vhalla avoided the other woman’s gaze. “I didn’t mean it, I was just, I was exhausted and—” Vhalla swallowed her stalling “—Larel, you’re my friend. I couldn’t have done this without you. I wouldn’t have survived this long without you.”

Vhalla choked on emotion. It was true. If it weren’t for everything Larel had done and was continuing to do for her, Vhalla would have been alone. Sure, Aldrik was helping her and he could bring Vhalla as much joy as he could frustration. But things were strange there, because of their own hesitations and the world’s expectations. In comparison, the bond Larel had built with Vhalla was perfectly simple.

Larel’s hand closed around Vhalla’s tightly. “Don’t think on it any longer,” Larel said finally. “I forgive you.”

Vhalla took a shaky breath, clinging to Larel’s palm.

“You are more than a protégé to me, you know. You are a dear friend.” The Western woman ran a hand through Vhalla’s hair lovingly. “I don’t have many friends.”

“I never did either,” Vhalla laughed weakly.

“Aldrik was one of my first friends.” The prince’s name from anyone’s mouth gained Vhalla’s attention, and Larel said it even more easily than Vhalla could. “You shared your secret with the prince. I’ll share mine.”

“You don’t have to.” Vhalla could sense an unfamiliar aura around Larel, one of discomfort.

“I know.” The woman smiled. “But I want you to know I trust you as you trust me.” Larel shifted, her eyes growing distant. “I suppose nothing will make sense unless I start at the very beginning. I came from a very poor family in a small town called Qui.”

“I don’t know it,” Vhalla confessed.

“You wouldn’t, not unless you’ve studied Western mining. Qui is a town around halfway to Norin. At least, if you took the old routes before the Great Imperial Way was extended. Back then many would stop through for supplies or to rest horses.” Larel rolled onto her back, her fingers only lightly entwined with Vhalla’s.

“It’s a town that’s full of more shit than a cow pie.” The woman was uncharacteristically bitter. “My father was a miner who never amounted to anything other than turning alcohol to piss. My mother was a broken woman, and all I think she could do was stare into space, especially after my father hit her.”

Vhalla blinked in a stunned silence.

“There was no money, no future, and no joy there. Mother help me, I hated that shack they called home. One day, I was five, maybe six? My father brought home a man I’d never seen. He said that the man would give us all the money we needed and all I had to do was be a good girl and do as I was told.” Larel placed her forearm on her forehead, staring at something far beyond the canvas above them.

“I didn’t understand until I was alone with that man. I screamed, I cried, and no one came. In that moment, I just wanted them all to die.” Larel sighed softly. Vhalla could hardly process what the woman was implying. “They found me sitting among the ashen remains of that home. I don’t think I mourned once.” She turned back to face Vhalla. “That was when I first Manifested. I was just a child, and a sorceress at that. So I was given to the mines. Every day I was lowered into a hole. I dug
and dug
. Or made fires, melted things away, or whatever else I could do.”

“I’m sorry,” Vhalla whispered. Those two words didn’t seem to even come close to enough.

“This was a different life, Vhalla.” Larel shrugged. “Honestly, the mines paid me a copper for every day I worked. It was enough to buy dinner, and I slept in empty storage sheds.” Larel returned onto her back, her eyes glassed over with memories. “Then one day there was an Imperial company riding through. The Emperor himself was there, and they made a stop to rest their mounts and resupply their stock. I’d never seen anything as amazing as the gilded carriages and horses covered in dyed leathers.

“The Emperor said he wanted a tour of the mines. They were headed to Norin but Emperor Solaris knew our mine was one of the West’s primary silver veins and he was kind enough to at least feign an interest. Aldrik was there.”

Vhalla struggled to envision what a child-Aldrik would look like without his adult demeanor and presence.

“He was twelve and every inch the prince—even then. He followed his father around the mines dutifully. But he was still a child, and eventually he wandered on his own, well, with a guard. Though no one in the West would ever hurt him. He’s one of the West’s own, after all. I saw him making some fires to play with. I’d never seen another person like me.” Larel laughed softly.

“I was such a grubby little thing, Vhalla. I had no business approaching the crown prince. But he smiled kindly and let me show him what I could do. He told me there was a place in the castle, a Tower, where people like us were special—where I wouldn’t have to live in the dark. I remember crying; I cried because it sounded so perfect, I cried because I knew I would never go.

“He looked at me strangely. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t. His guard explained it to him, and Aldrik just said he would take me.” Larel fussed with her blanket. “He took me to his father and told him, in front of everyone there, that I was coming back to join the Tower. At first the foreman objected, saying I was property of the mines. But Aldrik wouldn’t hear it. In the end, I was bought with seven gold pieces and an Imperial thank you. I was eleven when I finally left that town, and I never went back.”

Vhalla stared in awe, but Larel seemed to only be half-finished.

“I joined the Imperial caravan to Norin, and then back to the Southern palace. Aldrik and I were inseparable the whole time. We were kids—and, well—kids don’t understand the world and all the reasons that keep people apart. Right from the start he didn’t want me to call him “prince”, said it made him feel strange. I was happy to oblige. When I joined the Tower, he insisted we trained together. Minister Egmun didn’t—”

“Egmun?” Vhalla interrupted in shock.

Larel knew there was something more to Vhalla’s tone. “Egmun was the Minister of Sorcery before Victor.”

Vhalla sat up. “
No
, not the same Head Elect Senator Egmun?” It had to be a mistake.

“Yes, he stepped down from his minister position to join the Senate,” Larel explained.

“He-he—” Vhalla seethed and sputtered remembering the man who tried to beat her into a submission that would mean accepting death as an alternative to the pain.

Larel let Vhalla’s words fall away. “I hear Egmun changed a lot during his transition to senator.”

“Sorry, continue.” Vhalla shook her head, pushing away the senator whom she considered evil incarnate.

“Anyway, they didn’t think it proper I trained with the crown prince, but Aldrik is Aldrik. So we trained together anyways. Every day I got to spend with him was better than the last. Even the times he was angry or sad, I just enjoyed being with him, seeing him ...” Larel trailed away into nostalgia with a soft, sad smile.

Vhalla’s eyes widened. “Did you love him?”

It would make sense if she had. He saved her, he brought her to a new life, and he stayed by her side as he showed her an amazing new world. Who couldn’t love someone under those circumstances when they were as amazing as Aldrik was?

“Well ...” Even in the dim light Larel’s cheeks were slightly flushed. Vhalla had never seen her blush before and it made her insides clench. “There was a summer, he was barely fourteen and I was thirteen. It was that age when you first start wondering what love is. We had a moment; he was the first boy I kissed.” Vhalla shifted her blankets. “But, it faded just as fast as it came on. We both realized we were kids playing at love and laughed it off.”

Larel sighed softly.

“Right at the start of the war in the Crystal Caverns, he hit a really dark point. I tried to get to him, and he pushed me away. We had a fight, and we both said things we regretted.” She looked pained. “I was proud, I was hurt, and I walked away. I know he needed me—needed
someone
—more than ever, and I withdrew.” Larel’s attention was back on Vhalla, the haze of the past lifting for a moment. “I promised then that I’d never abandon someone in need, if I had the chance again. I’d never ignore a friend because of the foolish things pain could make them do.”

Vhalla quickly realized Larel was speaking about her.

“After that, for many years, things were awkward and cold between us.” Larel was back to her story. “But time heals all wounds, and we found our friendship again. It’ll never be what it was, but what we had created a strong foundation. He knows he can trust me implicitly, and I can trust him.”

Silence filled the air as Vhalla digested Larel’s story. It made her feel heavy, and it put her stomach in a knot. She felt sorrow for her friend; joy, excitement, and a touch of jealousy. She felt like a child when she wondered what it was like to kiss the prince and kept her questions at bay.

“So that’s why you’re my mentor.” Vhalla saw it with a new light.

“Yes. During your Awakening, Aldrik was obsessive with worry over you. We had to practically remove him by force. He wanted to screen everyone who was allowed to even see you, more or less touch you. Because Victor kept pushing him away, he appointed me to the task. He asked a favor. Of course, now I know why he was frantic. If you’re Bonded.”

Vhalla twisted her blankets between her fingers. It was not the first time she’d been told he called in favors for her. Vhalla tilted her head. “The Bond?”

“You know how a Bond is made,” Larel said delicately. “You are both a part of each other. There are records of people going mad because they lost their Bonded. Some theorize that, depending on the depth of the Bond, should one die the other will as well.”

Vhalla sat upright, resting her forehead in her palm.
It was self-preservation for him
. “He’s keeping me safe because if he doesn’t—”

“He’s keeping you safe because he
wants
to keep you safe,” Larel interrupted.

Vhalla looked over at the other woman, who was now also sitting. Larel wrapped an arm around her friend’s shoulders, pulling Vhalla back, and engulfing Vhalla in her warm safety.

Larel’s voice was sad and sincere. “Aldrik’s been through a good deal, much of which he’s never even imparted to me. But I’ve seen the edges of the darkness he shoulders. I don’t think he worries for his sanity or his mortality. He doesn’t want you to die because he’s afraid that it would mean he’d have to live without you.” Larel stroked the top of Vhalla’s head.

“Listen close. I’ve known him for twelve years. And a good many of those were spent, dare I say it, as his best friend. I know Aldrik—the good and bad.” Larel sighed. “I don’t want to say anything he hasn’t said himself. But he
cares
for you, Vhalla. In a way that I’ve never seen him really care for anyone before.”

Vhalla pressed her eyes closed, imagining she was back in the palace. “Thank you for telling me all this, Larel.”

“Sweet Vhalla, you know I will always be here for you.” Larel squeezed her tightly, and Vhalla slept peacefully for the first time in what seemed like years.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Aldrik kept his promise and rode at her side. They talked the day away, almost exclusively with each other. He asked about her life in the East, her farm, her family. Vhalla probed him for magical knowledge that she had no other way of learning. The man was practically a walking library.

There were no remnants of tensions between her, Fritz, and Larel either. Fritz had caught on quickly that whatever oddities had been going on were resolved, and the Southerner had enough sense not to linger. Armed with her friends at her side and secure in the knowledge of the stability of her and Aldrik’s relationship, Vhalla ignored Elecia throughout training—much to the other woman’s frustration.

Vhalla used her Channeling liberally, to the surprise of everyone but Aldrik. Fritz and Larel were expectedly encouraging. Elecia was obviously perturbed and avoided her for the next three days.

Vhalla was amazed at how easily control came following those first few days of Channeling without hesitation or fear. Supported by her friends and Aldrik, Vhalla found herself finally relishing her magic. The wind slipped easily between her fingers, heeding her will, and Vhalla was quickly surpassing the basic introductions to magic Aldrik had given her months ago. Magic, she was discovering, was like poetry. Once you understood the logic, the meter, the rhyme behind it, you could embellish upon it and make it your own.

On the third night, she was setting up Larel’s and her tent with just her magic alone. That was the first time Vhalla felt eyes on her for her sorcery, eyes that weren’t daunting or scared. The Black Legion began to pay attention to their Windwalker once more, not for the Night of Fire and Wind, but for the daily feats she was beginning to be able to perform. It was a sanity-supporting confidence-booster for Vhalla.

She was in such a high place with it all that when Aldrik paired her with Elecia during training—at the other woman’s request—Vhalla didn’t even blink. She accepted the other woman’s presence opposite her. If it was an actual competition for Aldrik’s attention, it was one Vhalla was winning. The crown prince had rode at her side without stop, and tomorrow they would practice Projection again.