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k_a_webbFollows on from Calix: Felicia Blooming; Part 2; and Part 3.
After one last look around the room Calix left it behind for the last time. Everything he needed was packed, as well as several things he probably didn’t, and it was time for him to leave his old life. He always knew it was going to happen eventually – he just hadn’t thought he’d be travelling to the mountains with his younger sister. Thanks to his friend’s prophecy he’d believed he was going to be executed, by the two people he cared about most, but it turned out that, no matter how that acted, they still cared about him too… as did Tuula. Part of him still wasn’t certain that he should trust her, that this was all something she’d had planned, but he did his best to ignore the worries he had, because she was right. Felicia’s magic meant they had no other choice. Her safety came first and she would be safest in the mountains.
Quietly Calix made his way to Felicia’s room, to make sure that she wasn’t still there, before heading to the clearing he said he’d meet his sister. He didn’t doubt that Vance and Tuula would be there as well, to say goodbye, even though he’d told them it would be simpler, for them, if they just left whatever it was they wanted him to take. They had enough to deal with. Sighing, he tried not to think about what life would be like in the mountains, because he’d heard enough stories to wonder if, maybe, death was preferable. He would be safe from execution, yes, but he’d spent his entire life living as a prince, because that was what he was. Living in the mountains was going to be… hard. If it hadn’t been for Felicia he would have simply waited until the day came when Vance couldn’t put it off any longer.
Now, thanks to the luck of the bloom, Calix was going to be taking his baby sister to the only place she would be safe. Safe from being found to be a magic user. Safe from execution. Safe from a fate that she didn’t deserve, because of bad luck. He bit his lip. She wouldn’t, however, be safe from the cold, or from illnesses she would never have had to have dealt with before, or from the difficulty of living rough. It was something he’d done before, taking other magic users to the mountain settlement he knew of, because he knew the time might come when he would have to make the same journey and it would be better for him if he already knew who he might end up living with, although there were at least three settlements he and Felicia could, in the end, call ‘home’.
Felicia was already in the clearing when he got there, talking to Tuula. It was something that never would have happened before, but it was possible, as he kept telling himself over and over, that she really was the person she said she was. Learning how to act was the only thing that would have saved her from execution, or worse, if someone had found out that she could feel people bloom. There was just this niggling doubt he couldn’t put to sleep, because he knew he was leaving Vance and his father alone with her. Her story could be just that – a story. Something she had made up to get Vance to lower his shields, so that when they were alone he would give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe even make her his true Queen, rather than just a consort…
“Stop worrying, Cal,” Vance said, his voice pitched so that it wouldn’t travel to the clearing. “I don’t trust her and I don’t believe the story she was telling us before, but it might be true, so I will do my best to make it appear to her that I’ve accepted her word as the truth until she does or says something to make me think otherwise. Unfortunately she is my wife, she will be the mother of my child, and that means there will be a connection between us for the rest of our lives, no matter how hard I wish for it not to be.”
“It’s not that simple.” Calix sighed. “I hate leaving you here with her.”
“We both know that Felicia comes first and you are the only person I trust with her. She’s going to need you up there, to guide her. Her life has changed in a way she wasn’t expecting, so having someone there, someone she knows and cares about, is going to make things easier for her.”
“None of us were expecting it.”
“Tuula was and that makes me think she was at least telling the truth about her ability to feel people who are going to bloom. When we got back to our room earlier she showed me that she had all the books she thought were worth saving already packed and when I went through them I realised she’d thought of things I hadn’t. She’d found certain volumes I thought were lost, from the last time something like this happened, but she found them somewhere.” Vance bit his lip. “I have a feeling she might not be telling me everything.”
“You think she has magic?”
“Maybe.”
“Keeping it hidden in a kingdom like hers would have been difficult.”
“That doesn’t mean she couldn’t.” Vance sighed. “When I married her, Cal, I thought it was going to be simple. She was a woman who was being sent to us to make certain that we followed the path that the rest of the kingdoms are, because they know that Atecia is the home to a royal family with magic. Now… who is she? Tuula is not the woman I expected her to be and I hate that. There’s already enough confusion in my life and I don’t need to deal with more.”
“Unfortunately it appears that you don’t have much of a choice. She is who she is, whether we believe the story she was telling us or not, and you’re going to have to work out whether you should trust her or not. I wish I could be here to help you, but Felicia does come first, and if she is telling the truth about what she wants to do then Tuula is someone we’re going to have to learn to rely on. We need something like the set up her mother created, to keep the magic users travelling the the mountains as safe as possible, because we were always lucky. I don’t know why this border town was chosen as home of the Royal Family, but at least it means we don’t have to cross the entire country the way some people have.”
Vance nodded. “Even if she doesn’t set it up I’ll do my best to make sure that it happens.”
“Don’t make yourself a target. You are the Crown Prince and the kingdom is going to need you.”
“I know, Cal, and that kingdom includes the magic users. I will keep all of my people safe for as long as I can, I promise.”
“Vance…”
“Yes, I know, that’s a very dangerous promise to make, but I am the Crown Prince and it is my job. I will stay safe, I will take the throne when the time comes, and I will teach my son not to hate magic.”
“The time will come when the king of this kingdom will hate magic.”
“Maybe it will, but that won’t be my son or my grandson.”
Shaking his head Calix stepped into the clearing. There were times when Vance was… well, Vance. Even though he might teach his son and grandson that magic wasn’t innately evil it didn’t necessarily mean they would believe that for their whole lives. It was possible that something might happen to them to make them hate magic for some reason, like the loss of their own child to a failed bloom. Calix knew he wouldn’t be able to explain that to Vance, not when he was in that sort of mood, so it was easier to walk away that it was to argue.
“Are you ready?” Felicia asked, fear filling her eyes as she looked at him because she knew that meant they were leaving soon.
“No, but that doesn’t change anything, sweetheart. We still need to go tonight, we need to let Tuula and Vance come up with whatever explanation they believe will work, and by tomorrow we’ll be starting our new lives.”
“In the mountains.”
Calix reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that our lives are going to be easy, because they aren’t. I never wanted to live in the mountains. I’ve seen how difficult things can be up there. Unfortunately we have no other choice now, as being up there is going to be safer for you than staying in Atecia.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes, I’m certain.” He sighed. “Tuula, you said you’d have some books for me to take.”
Tuula nodded. “They’re here. I just hope it isn’t too much for you to carry, Cal, because I managed to find some that Vance told me had been lost for centuries.” She bit her lip. “Someone had built a hidden shelf at some point and I have this habit of hunting for secret places, because I found several when I was at home. I have included a couple of the books I found there, too, as I think they’re important to keep safe. Most of them I managed to send up to the mountains before I left, but I was still reading these ones when Father told me that I was going to be marrying Vance. I thought it was safer to bring them with me than to leave them there.”
“That’s fine.” Calix made his way over to the bag. “If they are too heavy I’m sure we can split them between the two of us, because Felicia is much stronger than she looks.”
“Of course we can.”
Not certain what was in the bag Calix knelt to have a look, so he knew what was there before they reached the settlement, and as he took two of the books out he couldn’t help looking at Tuula. “A hidden shelf?”
“When I was first looking through the shelves I noticed a few gaps, which are to be expected, and, thanks to what I learnt of the magic users in my own home, I knew how sneaky they can be about hiding things.” She smiled. “I found a whole hidden room in our house, which had a bookshelf that I entirely emptied, knowing that the books would be better off in the mountains, although I did send a couple of Konir, to be put in the underground because they were duplicates.”
“Maybe it would be worth looking into duplicating some of the other books. I know we won’t be able to get them out again, but they would be of use to the magic users in the underground… and from what my friend told me things aren’t always going to go well down there.”
“I’ll look into it, Cal.” Tuula studied him. “There’s a clearing outside the border where I can meet you if you want to talk. At least until I start showing my pregnancy I’ll visit it once a week, to pass on any magic users that need sanctuary and to tell you how well we’re getting on with creating a safe path to tale them from one end of the kingdom to the other.”
“Tuula…”
“No, Vance.” She shook her head. “You are the Crown Prince and you can’t be putting yourself in danger. If someone catches me it will cause your father much less trouble, they’ll let me live until the end of my pregnancy, and then you can raise our son to be the King, because that is your job.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.