Chapter Seven

“The problem is, they’re men.”

“You’ve only just noticed this?” Essa lounged across the bottom of my bed while I rolled clothes and jammed them into my saddlebags.

“No, I haven’t only just noticed.” I sighed and tried to find a way to explain that Essa wouldn’t scoff at. “It was about more than us before. When we were fighting the Stalwart Emperor, fighting for peace and Charnrosa’s future, our focus was on that.”

“They were men then, too,” my sister pointed out. I glanced up in time to catch the smile she wasn’t trying very hard to hide. I flung a tunic at her. “Hey!”

“They were the four kings of legend, and we all had to work together to destroy the Emperor. Their magic and what we had to achieve was more important than … anything else.”

“And thank goodness all that drama is over.” Essa rolled onto her back, clutching a hand to her chest. “Now, we can all relax and enjoy ourselves.” She rolled back onto her front and propped herself on her elbows. “All except my sister, who has spent so long as a slave to duty that she no longer knows how to enjoy herself.”

“That’s not true.” I kept my head down, staring into the nearest saddlebag. I sighed and straightened. My thoughts weren’t any less confused for sharing them with my sister. It was like having a hive of bees trapped in my brain. “Just forget I said anything. Leave me to it, I’m sure you’ve got lots to do.”

“No!” She knelt up abruptly. “I want to help you.”

I looked pointedly at the pile of clothes that I was packing into the saddlebags. “You’ve done nothing but mess up my bed so far,” I told her.

Essa snagged my wrist and tugged me to sit beside her on the bed. “You don’t need my help with clothes. But you clearly need my help where affairs of the heart are concerned.” I would have stood back up, but she didn’t let go of my hand, pulling it into her lap and trapping me beside her. “The kings haven’t changed. So what’s changed for you?”

“Everything has changed. Life has changed.”

“It certainly has. Now, we aren’t fighting for our lives.” She fixed me with an intense look. “Now you can get to know these four, handsome, powerful, delicious men properly.”

My face heated. Essa, who wasn’t yet sixteen, managed to make that sound entirely improper. Indecent, even. Was she forward, or was I backward? I didn’t want to know the answer to that one.

I shifted so I didn’t have to look at her. Conversation was easier that way. “I have to get over my stupid crush.”

“Why?”

Just that one word and my tongue was tied. I was a fool to think Essa would understand. She’d probably advise more flirting. My heart lurched. That was terrifyingly tempting.

“Why not enjoy it?” Essa demanded.

“Because…” All my proper excuses deserted me. I laced my fingers and admitted the truth. “Because I hate it. I can’t seem to behave normally around the kings. I keep blushing, and I can’t even construct a sentence that makes it safely out of my mouth. I behave like an idiot whenever they’re near. I just want to be normal around them. We’ve agreed to run the academy together – how am I supposed to manage that when I behave like a lovestruck thirteen-year-old when I’m in the same room as them?”

I thought Essa would laugh. Instead, she propped her cheek against my shoulder. “Crushes don’t just leave because you want them to.”

“No, I’d noticed that.”

“You either have to wait for them to dissipate through lack of encouragement...”

I remembered the heat in Fon’s eyes when he watched me. The low rumble of … oh, that crush wasn’t going to dissipate soon! “Or?” I prompted.

“Or you get rid of them by acting on them.”

The strangest sensation slid through me. I wasn’t sure whether it was terror, or delight, at the idea of telling the kings how I felt. “I couldn’t tell them!”

“So you’ll make them guess?” She shrugged. “That might be fun, but it would take longer.”

“No!” I pulled away. “I’m not going to tell them, I just want this … chaos to go away.”

Essa nodded, and I was reminded again of the unreality of taking advice from my three-years-younger sister. All her laughter and teasing had fallen away. When had she got so wise? Was it due to surviving a war? And if so, why hadn’t surviving that same war made me as calm as she was? “Sometimes, a crush is just a crush. But sometimes it’s love. You shouldn’t assume it’s just a crush, because you might lose out on something precious.”

Love. Could the heat that rose in me, and the lurch my heart gave, and the tendency of my stomach to flip over when the kings drew near… Could that be a good thing? Could it be love? True and enduring?

Essa was my best source of understanding. “How do you know you’re in love with Osgan?” I asked. “Are you in love with him?”

“Oh, yes.” Her cheeks turned a gentle shade of pink. This was an Essa I barely recognised. “Because … because I feel good when I’m with him.” She took a breath. I could almost see her trying to put her thoughts into words. “I like him, and I respect him. Osgan Hullar is a good man. But I don’t just like him, I like myself when I’m with him. He makes me a better person. I feel like … like I can change the world because he believes in me.”

I blinked, silenced. I hadn’t expected my sister to be so … intense. Better with him? Well, that was the kings all right. I was capable of all kinds of things with them that I wasn’t alone.

She nodded, reading something in my face that I probably hadn’t intended to share with her. “You should tell them.”

“I’ll … think about it.” The words of a coward, because I knew I had no intention of sharing my chaotic thoughts with the kings. I wanted them to like me. But if they didn’t like me, I wanted them at least not to think I was a complete fool.

“Are you still worried that you don’t have a preference?” Essa said. Her arms were crossed and she looked just how I remembered our mother appearing. Except scarier.

“A little.” Would that make it better? If only one of them set my heart racing? But the idea of picking one and turning my back on the other three… It was impossible.

“So tell them that,” Essa recommended. “Tell them you’re attracted to them all. They might be able to help.”

My mouth dried. I couldn’t… That conversation wouldn’t even happen inside my head. There was no way I’d be able to tell them that. I shook my head. “They probably aren’t interested in me. Not that way.”

Essa regarded me sidelong, lips pursed, eyebrows arched in disbelief. “Believe me, Kyann, those men are interested in you. That way.”

The air in my lungs evaporated. I couldn’t have replied if my life had depended on it. If I didn’t dare speak to them, I’d have to hope the in-depth exposure of the month to come would kill off my crush. If I could just look on them as ordinary men, the way I did with Osgan Hullar, well, then everything would be all right and I could get on with my life.

I pushed away the thought that chipped at the corner of my mind: that if I ever looked on the four kings as ordinary men, I could consider myself officially dead – or at the very least, senseless.

~

I finished filling my saddlebags and we made our way to the entrance by the bridge. The four kings were already there, horses saddled and waiting.

“Give that here.” Axxon lifted the saddlebags effortlessly off my shoulders.

“I filled you two waterskins,” Rey said, patting the front of the saddle where they hung ready for me.

“I’ll help you up.” Fon laced his hands, ready to help me into the saddle. I looked across them. Vashri was already mounted. He didn’t say anything, but the warm expression in his brown eyes made all the confusion I’d told Essa about fly through me.

“Thank you,” I managed, meaning all of them. I gripped the reins and settled my feet in the stirrups.

Fon patted my knee, then crossed the grass to his own mount. Essa took his place, and I was glad to lean down for a final farewell that hid my flushed face from the four of them.

“Have a wonderful time,” Essa told me, beaming up at me. “I got you a present.” She pressed a slim volume into my hands. “A little light reading.”

I couldn’t help it. My gaze flicked to the kings.

Essa smiled wickedly. “If you get time for reading, that is. It’s just bedtime stories.”

I twisted to push the book into my bags. When I straightened, I was surprised Essa didn’t have another gift waiting. “That’s it?”

“Should there be something else?”

“I was expecting a potion, actually – to excite love in its drinker. That seems entirely your style.”

Essa laughed, and all eyes turned at the sound. “I don’t think you need a love potion, Kyann,” she told me, her voice low as she looked past me to the kings. I chose not to follow her gaze. I could picture them all perfectly well without needing to look at them. She stepped back. “Don’t hurry home.”

“Make sure the academy is ready for students!” I called as we began to clatter towards the bridge.

Essa waved a hand dismissively. “Work, work, work – enjoy yourself, Kyann, that’s an order!”

I set my eyes forward, watching Fon and Axxon in front of me. Rey was just behind, his horse’s nose nudging Windspeed’s rump. And Vashri was last, reliable as ever.

The four kings and me, and three weeks to crush my crush, if there were any chance that I might gain control over my unruly emotions. Right now, the possibility of that seemed smaller than our chance of beating the Emperor had been. The kings had woken something deep inside me, and whatever it was, it didn’t want to go back to sleep.

I stilled as the truth cut through my whirling thoughts. My problem wasn’t that I’d suddenly become aware that the kings were men. As Essa pointed out, that had always been the case. The real problem was that now the Stalwart Emperor had been vanquished and Charnrosa was safe, and now that my little sister didn’t need me and we weren’t constantly in fear for our lives — well … now, a more significant truth occurred that I’d pushed into the background previously: I was suddenly aware that I was a woman. With feelings and needs that were entirely those of a grown female.