The Goblets Immortal by Beth Overmyer (highly recommended books txt) 📗

He almost told her that he didn’t want her help, but his lips could not form the words. “Give me time. Slaíne, please. I know I’m a hard man to deal with, but some things….” He waved his hand about vaguely, a gesture he knew she probably missed in the darkness.

Slaíne sighed, and Aidan felt her retreating. “Not everyone’s going to betray you, you know.” It was said barely above a whisper and with an emotion Aidan couldn’t bring himself to decipher. “I’ll keep first watch.”

Aidan shivered. The night air was cold, and the closer they drew to the dawning, the colder he knew it would get. “No, we’ll both rest. But there is a caveat.”

Silence.

“Slaíne?” He turned, just making out her tense silhouette in the afterglow of the setting moon.

“I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

Aidan sighed and rubbed his scratchy chin. “The dew should fall soon.” He puffed out his cheeks and took Slaíne by surprise by snatching her hand with his good one and pulling her closer. “You take my meaning?”

The girl frowned, but didn’t flinch away as he lowered himself down next to her. She was as warm as a peach tart he’d stolen from the cooling rack as a boy.

His body shivered as he snaked his arms around her and pulled her intimately close. With her hot breath on his wounded shoulder, almost all the pain leaked out of him, and he fell asleep, aware how improper and bizarre his current position was.

* * *

He was back in the throne room, standing in the middle of the Seeing Pool, if Slaíne had been right. But there was no Meraude this time. In fact, there seemed to be no one within sight.

“Hello?” Aidan called out, but his voice made no sound. Something was different. He turned and was prepared to rouse himself, when he spied movement from behind the throne. A flash of blue light filled the room, and a small voice screamed.

“Larkin, you know better than to hide back there,” said a familiar cold voice.

Aidan jumped as the mage herself stepped clean through him. “Blast.” He frowned. Something was different about her than what he’d seen before, but Aidan couldn’t place his finger on it.

“Away from the throne. It’s not yours, nor will it ever be.”

A scowling girl with dirty blonde hair crept out from behind the great chair. “Sorry, milady,” she said. “But why bring me here if I’m not to have the throne?”

Meraude’s brow puckered. “The throne was built for someone else. Someone powerful. Not naughty girls who won’t do their mistress’s bidding.” The words were tart and round, and they gave the speaker obvious pleasure when the little girl cringed and hugged herself.

If Aidan hadn’t made up his mind about Meraude, it was made now: the woman was a bully. He took a step forward without thinking, and was able to leave the Seeing Pool altogether.

The girl spoke. “Is the throne for you, then?”

The woman ran a hand through her long hair. “Yes, of course it is.”

“Then why don’t you sit on it?” With a wicked smile, the little girl looked up at her. Aidan knew that smile; there was a gap in those teeth, right between two of them.

“Where have I seen you before?” he asked, circling closer, but avoiding stepping through Meraude by accident.

The mage struck the girl’s grin away with the back of her bejeweled hand. When she pulled away, there was blood on the girl’s face. “You know very well that I cannot. Not yet.”

The girl, Larkin, ignored her gushing nose and the gash on her face. She regarded the mage for some time before asking, “Then why did you steal me? Why bring me here?”

Meraude’s back straightened. “You have something that I don’t have. Yet.”

The girl considered her. “You don’t know things.” Before the mage could answer, the girl laughed a terrible laugh, something too frightening and awful to be coming from a child. “You’ll try to use me to get what you want. I see that.”

Meraude regarded the little girl coldly. “What else do you see, Larkin?”

The girl did not answer. Instead, she posed her own question. “Why here, though? I’ve never seen this place.”

They both looked past Aidan to the Seeing Pool, a dip in the middle of the floor cast in silver. He had a bad feeling about what was to become of the girl. He knew her. How did he know her?

“Step over to the Pool.”

When the girl did not do Meraude’s bidding, the mage grabbed her by the ear and pulled her over to the basin. Aidan stepped out of the way just in time.

“This will amplify your ability.”

The girl regarded the Seeing Pool without saying anything, her expression blank. “What am I to do?”

Meraude let out an impatient groan. “You know, fool girl. Look.” The girl did not. “Look!”

Shaking, Larkin leaned over the Pool. Her shoulders heaved. “I see nothing.”

Curious, Aidan circled around to the other side of the basin so that he might watch the two of them, the mage and the child.

“You’re not trying,” Meraude accused.

Larkin peered up at the woman. “That’s not how it works.”

Meraude raised her hand again, but seemed to reconsider her tactics. She lowered the fist and took a step back. “Tell me, how does it work?”

The girl’s lip quivered, and she swiped at her eyes with anger. “Why should I tell you? I want my mama.”

“Your mama is dead. I think you already knew this, Larkin.”

Tears filled the girl’s eyes, and Aidan could bring himself to watch no longer. “I wish to wake now,” he said, raking a hand through his hair as he stepped back inside the basin. His voice still made not a sound, and he could not feel his own hand in his hair. “What sort of trick is this, Meraude? Why show me this?”

But the mage still seemed unaware that he was even there. Besides, hadn’t she informed him that he wouldn’t