The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (17 page)

“And my dagger,” I admitted. “I was able to hit the spider with it. And my skirts, so they wouldn’t stick in the webs. And the lantern, so it’d stay lit.”

“And the torches,” he added after a moment. “Is that what you were doing every time you grabbed one from me? I couldn’t figure it out.”

“I wanted to make sure they stayed lit,” I said, feeling rather self-conscious under his scrutiny. “Like I said, it’s just very small magic.”

“It’s amazing,” he began.

“Oh, now really,” I retorted. “I don’t see–”

Alek's hands grasped the sides of my face, and he leaned in and gave me an exuberant kiss. “Amazing,” he declared again with a laugh.

I stared up at him in surprised shock. He’d kissed me again? His mouth had felt firm and warm against my own, and I’d caught a hint of his warm breath against my cheek. The funny coil began in my stomach again.

His thumb brushed my cheek, and he stared down at me with a thoughtful expression, then leaned in to kiss me again. Alek's lips brushed against my own, and my entire body tingled into alertness. At first, the brush of his mouth against my own was gentle, exploring. He pressed a light kiss against my upper lip, then my lower one, as if gently exploring my mouth. I remained there, frozen in place. I hadn’t expected Alek to kiss me.

I hadn’t expected to like it so very much, either.

I held my breath as he gently leaned in and pressed his mouth lightly against my own once more, and his tongue brushed against the seam of my mouth. Warmth began to flow through my limbs, and I clutched at the sleeves of his jerkin as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into my mouth. I didn’t know what to do – no one had ever kissed me before. I remained frozen in place, wanting to kiss him back and not knowing how to do it.

Alek pulled away from me and got that flushed look on his face. “I apologize, Rinda.”

“What? I–”

He gave me one last, light kiss on the mouth, silencing my protests. “I just wanted to tell you that you were wonderful. You saved my life.” His warm, soft smile seemed to melt straight into my body. “And we’re here, now. In Lioncourt. We’ll be in the city tomorrow.”

My resolve melted into a puddle, and my good mood vanished. For some reason, I didn’t like hearing about Lioncourt. When we got to Lioncourt, I’d be leaving Alek. I’d request the divorce and introduce myself to the Lioncourt king. I had no doubts in my mind that he’d want to marry me – especially after traveling all those long days to marry me in the first place.

So why did the thought fill me with such pain? And why did I keep looking up at Alek, hoping that he’d kiss me again? Especially if I wanted to get our marriage annulled?

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do anymore.

Chapter Fourteen

After a sleepless night, I awoke before the sun came up. Alek was quiet, which suited me well – I found myself tongue-tied around him, still thinking about our kiss. In silence, we split a breakfast of carrots and dried venison, the last of our supplies from Joanne’s small cottage. They had not lasted the week, but it mattered little when we were in the bright, open sunlight.

We set off across the sunny plains. The sun had always seemed pleasant in Balinore, if not brilliant. Here in Lioncourt, on the other side of the mountains, the world was golden with sunlight, and the air thick with warmth. I loved it. It didn’t matter that it soon grew too warm to be pleasant – I’d welcome all the sunshine on my face I could get. As we walked, I tilted my face toward it, trying to soak in as much light as possible.

This side of the mountains seemed vastly different from Balinore. The grounds at home were cold and rocky, the sea-coast grey and stormy. Here it was all rolling plains dotted by low flowering trees, and waving green grasses. If I put my hand above my eyes to shield the sun, I could see about us for what seemed like leagues on end. It was all lovely and colorful and bright. In the distance, a cluster of colorful shapes dotted the horizon.

Alek pointed at it. “That’s the outskirts of the capital city. We’ll be there by the end of the day.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

The silence between us grew awkward again, and I glanced up at him between my lashes. Aleksandr seemed thoughtful today, though his ever-present smile had returned. His hair was dark with travel grime and a shadow of beard stubble traced along his jaw. It made him look a little different. Again, I got the odd feeling that I’d seen him somewhere before. It was disconcerting. My gaze strayed to his smiling mouth, and I thought about the kiss from last night. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

As if sensing my thoughts, Alek glanced over at me and smiled. He no longer blushed when he looked at me, though I suspected his shyness was not completely gone. “So…does everyone in Balinore have magic?”

This was a much safer topic than kisses. “Everyone,” I agreed. “From the farmers all the way up to royalty.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled over at me. “Joanne and her carrots.” At my nod, he gave me a curious look. “So why were you hiding yours? Why did you think your magic was not important?”

I shrugged, feeling the prickly discomfort I always did when I had to talk about my Birthright. I stared down at my shoes as I walked so I wouldn’t have to look over at Alek. “My hair is dark,” I said finally, forcing the words from my throat.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Now he was just making fun of me. “The nobility has the greatest Birthright magic in Balinore. As a sign of purer bloodlines, pale hair is treasured. The darker your hair, the more polluted your bloodline and the smaller your magic. My mother was not noble – she was a peasant.”

“My mother was not noble either.”

“Yes, but you’re not royal,” I bit at him. “My sister has pale golden hair. Mine’s just a mousy brown.”

He glanced over at me with a slight smile on his face. “And your sister has great magic?”

I nodded. “Imogen can find water anywhere. She can call it forth from the ground without effort. The farmers love her. We have not had a drought since she came into her Birthright.”

“So?”

I frowned at him. “So? My sister’s Birthright is amazing.”

“For a land that is in need of water, sure.” He gestured at the rolling green hills that we walked through. At the small flowering trees. At the river that glittered in the distance. “Lioncourt is full of streams and rivers and lakes. We get rain regularly. Your sister’s Birthright – while impressive – would not be a necessity here.”

“You’re just saying that to cheer me up–”

“I’m not,” he said in a cheerful voice. “I mean, you’ve magicked everything we’ve had lately. We can start a fire in minutes thanks to your magicking of the flint. My sword can now strike without me having to think about it. Our torches never blew out while we were traveling.” He turned and gave me a serious look. “You saved me from a marauding spider. Now who’s to say that your magic isn’t powerful?”

“I…” I swallowed hard and stared up at him in surprise. “No one, I guess.”

“Perhaps you should stop thinking of yourself as less than your sister and start thinking of your magic as powerful in its own right.”

“But my hair,” I protested, lifting a tangled strand.

“Is a lovely shade of brown,” he agreed, reaching out to tug on it. “My eyes are brown. My hair is not blonde. No one in my country is. We are all brown with brown hair and brown eyes and not a speck of magic. It doesn’t bother anyone there at all.”

“So are you trying to tell me that I’ll be the most magical person in Lioncourt, simply by the fact that I happen to have magic and no one else does?”

“Lovely girl,” he said, lifting the lock of my hair in his hand and kissing the strands. “You are already the most magical person in Lioncourt.”

I couldn’t help it. This time I was the one that blushed.

~~ * ~~

The roads that led in to the city sprawled on the horizon, like the center of a vast spider web. While there were trees dotted here and there, for the most part, Lioncourt was made up of lush rolling plains and plowed fields. The world was green and growing and lovely, and I found my spirits lifting even higher as we walked. Alek seemed to be struggling with this aspect of the journey – his hand constantly went to the pommel of his sword, and I knew he was worried.

As for me, everything was better now that we were out of the cave. I liked the look of Lioncourt, very much. It was so different from home, where the ground was rocky and the soil poor. The world here was verdant, and though it did not have the wealth of skinny trees that Balinore did, I couldn’t be sorry. I liked the green openness of Lioncourt. As we walked, I saw farmers working in the field, oxen yoked to the plow. The farmers waved at us as we walked toward the city, their faces brown with the sun, and I smiled and waved back at them, thrilled to be nearing the end of our journey.

The rolling grasses gave way to plowed field after plowed field, and the dot of houses turned into a patchwork quilt of homes scattered about the countryside. The jumble of buildings grew thick as the city itself came into view, small squares of homes seemingly stacked atop one another.

As we walked, carts would roll past, and travelers would greet us. Merchants offered us a ride in their carts, but Aleksandr declined them all with a friendly wave and a shake of his head. I knew he was thinking of the soldiers that had been captured, and I kept a little closer to him at that point. Lioncourt was sunny and warm and green, but it was still a dangerous place.

The sun began to set, and we still walked deeper into the heart of the city. My feet ached from the walking, and my slippers were ragged and worn through. As the latest wagon passed us, I gave it a longing look. “Are we close to your home?” I asked Alek.

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I do not have a home in the city.”

“You don’t?” I gave him a look of surprise. “Where shall we live? Are we going to sing for our supper in a tavern?” Though I was weary and the thought filled me with dread, I didn’t want to sleep in the outdoors again if we had to. Not with a city full of warm beds nearby.

“No singing,” Aleksandr reassured me with a soft grin. “We’ll find someplace to stay.” He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “I promise.”

“You know, it’s not the sleeping on the ground that I mind nearly as much as the dirt in my clothes,” I said, smoothing a hand along my revoltingly dirty dress. My braid was disheveled with travel and still felt filthy with spider webs, even though I’d tried to wipe it clean. My dress was beyond salvation, the grey hem muddy and ragged, and both of my sleeves torn off up to the elbow. Added to my shredded shoes and I looked a pitiful sight indeed.

No one would recognize me as the fastidious, richly bejeweled Princess Rinda of Balinore. I supposed that was the point, I thought with amusement, and glanced over at Alek. His hair – the odd muddy color of gold and brown combined – stuck up from his head in tufted spikes, as if the wind couldn’t quite tame it. His jaw still carried the dark stubble of several days of travel, and it made his mouth look harder, more adult. What I noticed most, however, was the exhaustion in his eyes. This trip had not been easy on him.

Feeling guilty, I squeezed his hand back. “I’m sure wherever we stay will be fine.”

“Have you ever slept in a stable? I’m sure we can bunk down in one tonight.”

My nose wrinkled at the thought of having to sleep amidst horses and cows, two creatures that tended to defecate wherever and whenever they chose. “Sleep? With those filthy creatures? If that is my choice, perhaps I’d like to sleep outside after all.”

Alek's laughter pealed forth. “You always make me laugh, Rinda.”

My heart began the nervous, sweet fluttering again, especially when the half-smile on his mouth tugged into a full one, and he glanced over at me with warm, smiling eyes. When had I started to feel like
that
every time he looked at me?

I gave him a weak smile in return. “I make you laugh because I don’t like animals?”

“Because you always say what you’re thinking.” His free hand slid over the pommel of his sword again, as if reassuring him it was still in place. “I was only teasing you. I do have friends in the city, and you’ll sleep in a warm house tonight. That is my promise to you.”

“I like that promise,” I agreed.

When night fell, men came out and hung lanterns using long-handled hooks. They provided a bit of yellow light in-between the rambling rows of houses, enough to see the streets by. It was startlingly different from Threshold, where the poor were practically stacked atop each other in the slums. Here the streets were wide and people smiled at each other as they moved past. To my surprise, the streets did not empty when the sun went down, but seemed to fill with an entirely different sort of night life. We passed a tavern full of soldiers and laughing, boisterous men that spilled out of the doors. Instinctively, I drew closer to Alek, and he steered me across the street, wordlessly protective.

“We’re here,” he said a short time later, stopping in front of a small, run down house at the end of one street. The street lamps were plentiful here, casting light on what had to be the sorriest street in all of Lioncourt. Of course, that still made it much, much better than the sorriest street in Threshold.

The door to the small house was warped with age and looked to be barely hanging on its hinges. Aleksandr went forward and stood in front of it. I followed close behind him, and over his shoulder, I could hear the sound of a woman laughing inside, accompanied by a man’s burly chuckle.

Alek looked over at me thoughtfully, and then reached over and threw his cloak over my shoulders. He adjusted the hood and pulled it over my head, then pulled out his sword. “Can you magic your cloak?”

Mystified, I nicked my thumb on the sword blade, just hard enough to draw a drop of blood, brushed it on the edge of the hood, and then put my thumb in my mouth to suck the blood away.

Alek seemed fascinated. “That tingle that ran through me – I felt it. Was that your magic?”