WITH ANNOYANCE, VHALLA wiped the confusion off her face.
“Of course I’m real, and I was just leaving.” She turned, starting for the door.
“Wait!” He was on his feet, papers scattering across the floor. She looked back at his clumsy and haphazard movement. “Wait.”
“Is that an order, my prince?” Vhalla focused her gaze on the door handle. A quiet anger rose in her.
“Yes. No. No, it is not. If you want to go then go; but please, just—wait.” He sighed and ran a hand over his hair, adjusting his long double-breasted coat.
“Why?” she demanded. Vhalla half-turned toward him, her hand still on the door handle.
“Because,” he cleared his throat, attempting to continue with more conviction, “I want to talk to you.”
“And if I don’t want to talk to you?” she sighed.
“Then go.” He stood, his posture slack. When she made no motion in his direction, he knelt and began to pick up his papers.
Vhalla stood in limbo, watching this strange, frustrating, and infuriating man on the floor, collecting his scattered parchment. With another soft sigh, the apprentice within got the better of her, and Vhalla walked over to kneel across from her prince, collecting a few papers within reach and holding them out expectantly.
He looked up at her and took the papers from her hands, his jaw slightly slack and lips parted.
She waited for a moment. Receiving nothing she stood and turned for the door, frustrated. What had she expected? He was a prince, and—if the palace gossip was to be believed—he never thought of anyone beyond himself.
“I am sorry.” It was so soft she barely heard it over the rustling of the trees. Vhalla held the halfway open door. Surely she’d only imagined it, she took another step. “Vhalla, I am sorry.”
She turned slowly, looking back at him, one foot outside, one foot in. The words sunk into her, and she waited to see if they could be enough to soothe the anger she felt toward the black-clad man.
“I should not have lashed out at you, magically or verbally, as I did,” he continued. There was a spark in his eyes that was pleading with her for something she didn’t know if she could give. “I was eager—and foolish. I did not think of how it would affect you.”
Vhalla took a step back in, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for much needed support.
“I am certain you have heard all of the stories about me.” Prince Aldrik rested his folio on the bench behind him. Vhalla wondered why he seemed unable to meet her eyes. “I assure you, they are all true. I am not exactly versed in, in...” He paused, looking for words.
“In creating real relationships with people?” Vhalla finished spitefully. If he wanted to cast her from the palace for her lack of proper decorum, he would have already. She had no idea why he didn’t. But Vhalla was ready to find out and wash her hands of royalty.
“I have hurt you with my words—and actions. I know that. And, it likely means nothing to you to say that I did not intend to.” He sighed, looking away.
“They say you are the silver-tongued prince.” Her voice was fainter than she would’ve liked. “You already spoke me onto a ledge. How can I believe you now?”
“Because there are things you do not know about us,” Prince Aldrik responded cryptically.
Vhalla shook her head, there was no “us” between them. “You could’ve thrown me to my death and— what’s worse—you didn’t even care.” Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. Vhalla clenched her jaw; she had been the one who suffered. He had no right to look so pained.
“You are wrong. I did care. I knew you were a Windwalker, so I never realized the possibility of you dying.” The prince took a small step toward her. Vhalla glared at the toes of his boots as though they had offended her.
“Fine,” she started, trying to turn his logic back on him. “Even if you knew my Affinity—which not even the minister himself seemed to know—how did you know the fall wouldn’t kill me, that’d I’d be strong enough?”
“Because air cannot hurt Windwalkers, like fire cannot hurt Firebearers,” he pointed out.
“It seems we know almost nothing about Windwalkers. You didn’t know that fall wouldn’t kill me.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I knew you would not die, because you saved my life.” The prince’s voice was slow and deliberate, as if he struggled to speak. Her arms dropped to her side. “When I first arrived home, I was going to die. The... weapon that pierced my flesh was laced with a strong poison. Were it not for an immunity I have built up over many years, it would have killed me halfway home. The clerics did not know what to do, so they called on the library and the Tower for any clues as to an antidote or course of treatment.
“I knew it was the end. The clerics could not make sense of the poison and how it had been altered magically to affect me.” Aldrik clenched a fist and Vhalla listened to his tale intently. “Yet I began to stabilize as they pulled certain notes from the books. Some were comprehensive, others devolved into gibberish, but somehow they all made sense to me, and I was able to guide my treatment. They were all yours.”
“That’s impossible,” Vhalla protested. “How did you know they were mine?”
“I had the minister ask the guards who wrote them. A guard led Victor to you,” the prince explained. “I knew you were exerting a fair deal of magical energy to keep me alive, and I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“What?” she said weakly. The minister had kidnapped her because the prince had been worried for her wellbeing? It was backwards and hardly made sense. But if it was true, Vhalla began to paint a different image of that night and the events that followed.
“I was not completely enthused about Victor’s methods,” Aldrik mumbled. “But he found you, and I knew who to look for.”
Vhalla was finally stunned into silence.
“For lack of a better explanation, you wrote magic. I do not know why you did it—or how. But you cared so much about saving me that it forced your powers to Manifest. You made vessels and sent them to me. As utterly impossible as that should be for someone who was not even Awoken, you did it. And if it had not been for that, I would not be standing now.” The prince’s voice had found strength.
“How do you know?” She found her words once more, still trying to find a flaw in his story. It all seemed so impossible.
“Because when a sorcerer saves another person, a part of them—of their magic—takes root. It is called a Bond. You are likely too recently Awoken to understand it or feel it, but I could.” He folded his hands behind his back.
“A Bond?” Vhalla repeated the word in its foreign context.
“Yes, my parrot.” The corner of his mouth curled faintly at her scowl. “Part of a Bond is that you cannot bring mortal harm to the person to whom you are Bonded. It is because I carry a piece of you with me. The body refuses to harm itself. If pushing you from the roof would have taken your life, I physically could not have done it.”
Vhalla frowned, her still-healing joints aching at the memory of that night.
“But,” Prince Aldrik continued, as if reading her mind, “I did not realize the Bond would let me harm you so. I truly believed you would land safely, that we could even speak of it after you did. That was my mistake.”
“Aren’t you lucky to be a prince and not have your mistakes have consequences?” Vhalla remarked sharply. “They do,” he responded quickly and firmly. “The consequence was the loss of your trust.”
Her eyes met his with trepidation. She couldn’t help but wonder if his words were carefully crafted to what she would want to hear. As though he could sense her skepticism, Prince Aldrik’s gaze rested on her almost sadly.
“How many other people do you puppet?” Vhalla sighed.
“Please explain your question,” he requested.
“Larel. The introduction book. Those weren’t chance, were they?” She watched his lips purse together. “She told me you knew each other.”
“Larel is a friend.”
With four words from the prince, Vhalla’s jaw dropped. “You have friends?” she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, and her hands went to her mouth as if to hide her outburst. Anyone else she would have expected to laugh.
The prince only shrugged and looked away, painfully awkward. Vhalla reminded herself that she shouldn’t feel guilty. But she remembered Larel’s words. He had faced the brunt of the stigma against sorcery, despite being a prince. His own subjects seemed to favor Fire Lord over his natural titles. “What about me?”
“I already explained what you are to me,” the prince responded.
It was just enough to push her back toward the edge of anger. “I don’t think you have.” Vhalla shook her head. “Am I another one of your playthings to command? To serve you? To let you train me until you can deliver me to your father?”
The conversation she had overheard came back to Vhalla, the prince and the minister deciding her fate without even asking her. Judging by the furrow to his brow, the prince remembered also.
“You heard?” he asked darkly.
Vhalla swallowed and nodded, suddenly wondering if confessing to such was really a good idea. Prince Aldrik clenched his fist, and Vhalla saw the tiniest sparks of flame flash around his knuckles. He released his fingers with a heavy sigh, and she felt the temperature of the room lower.
“I cannot explain everything now. But I do not plan on telling my father about you. The last place I would want to see you taken to is that sweltering warfront of the North.” He shook his head. “If I may use your words, Victor was the puppet. Not you.”
“Why are you protecting me?” Vhalla asked before she could even think. It did not coincide with his previous actions, if he could be believed at all.
“Because you are the sorcerer to whom I am Bonded. A Bond can never be broken, and it can never be replaced.” The prince looked back at her. Vhalla’s heart seemed to beat so hard it hurt against her still bruised ribs. “For someone who is so important, I did not treat you as I should have; for that, Vhalla, I am sorry. But whatever you feel toward me, and however justified it is, does not change anything for me. I will still use all the powers I possess to see you safe.”
For all his orders and sneers, his commanding presence, and his intimidating always all-black ensemble, Vhalla saw something different. She simply saw someone who was lonely, someone who could likely count their friends on one hand, and perhaps wanted to one day use two hands. He was nothing like the man she first met, the man who wore a mask to meet palace expectations.
She hadn’t forgiven him, not quite yet. But perhaps Larel was right, and Vhalla felt a little sorry for him too.
The prince looked away from her, distracting himself with the flowers. But now he held her gaze. The silence fell between them. He stared at her, and she at him.
In time she realized he was waiting for her to pass judgment. He stood, uncomfortably folding and unfolding his hands, and simply waited.
Vhalla took a deep breath, trying to find the courage to speak. It was easy to be mad, resentful, and argumentative. It was harder to take one step toward him, and then another. She clutched her bag and crossed the space between them, standing before him, and trying with all her might not to fidget.
“I came here to read. If that’s all right?” she asked quietly.
“It is.” His voice was soft and low, no longer making her grit her teeth at the sound.
She moved around him and sat on one side of the bench. He looked at her like a lost child.
“You were here first. You’re welcome to stay,” she offered, pulling out her book from her satchel.
He sat down next to her, situating his ledger back on his lap. Vhalla had forgotten the warmth the prince exuded, and she shrugged off her robes, letting them fall over the bench. He glanced at the leggings and tunic that she wore beneath, but spared her any Southern mention of it being inappropriate dress for a woman. Leaning against the wall behind them, she settled with the book in her lap, thumbing to the first page.
“My prince,” she murmured. He looked at her. “I’m sorry, also, for the nasty things I said to you.” She looked up from the book.
He smiled, and for the first time she felt like it was sincere, that there was no motive, no pretense, and no other hidden emotions behind it. It was little more than the corners of his mouth curling up, but it lit his eyes in a way that Vhalla had yet to see. It made her wonder if she had ever really seen him before. It made her wonder if anyone had ever really seen him before. It quieted the voice in her mind whispering that all of this was the start of some elaborate grander scheme.
“Call me Aldrik,” he said very matter-of-factly before turning back to his ledgers. “At least in private.” Vhalla felt her jaw drop as his pen began to scratch against the page once more, a familiar slanted script left in its wake. “And you are not a little worm, Vhalla.”