Chapter 17

Asha goes to the royal practice yard every day after the mid-day meal and so it’s easy to find her when I need her. She’s in the center of the ring using one of the practice dummies for sword work. Her speed is unmatched within the royal army and she’s cut several new notches into the wood in the handful of minutes I watch her from the fence.

“Care for a partner?” I ask her.

She sheaths her sword and comes over. “It’s never good to wield a blade when you’re distracted.”

I unhook the iron latch on the gate and enter the ring.

The royal practice yard is behind the castle but within the curtain wall. It’s tucked between a tall hedge row and the giant Wonderland oak known as the Scarlet Giant. Only the higher-ranking soldiers from the army or those with direct permission from the royal family are allowed to utilize the more private yard.

“Practice swords then?” I ask Asha and she finally gives me a nod.

I select one from the storage cabinet and spin it around the way Asha taught me, warming up my muscles and my muscle memory.

For mid-day, it’s rather dark and gloomy and the air is crisp. There is no one else around and we’re far enough away from the castle that it would be hard to spot us from a window.

I’m grateful for the reprieve.

I’ve changed into my fighting trousers and the tight-fitting tunic. It feels good to be out of that damnable dress. I’ve never loved the traditional attire for a queen. I would much rather dress like a man, but Everland customs frown on it.

“Are you ready, Your Majesty?” Asha asks, stretching out her neck, then rolling her shoulders.

“I’m ready.”

There was a time when I believed myself to be weak. When I sat in that prison cell in the Tower, wishing for someone to save me, I thought that was the only way I would escape.

Training with Asha has given me more confidence. When I admitted my fears of my own inadequacies to her, she told me, “If you know how to properly knee a man in the balls, you will never be without a weapon.” And I’ve held on to that all these years later.

I take my fighting stance and Asha circles me.

The fighting begins.

It’s always been impossible for me to keep up with her. Her movements are fluid but calculated. They are the practiced movements of a woman who grew up with a sword in hand.

I am envious of Asha most days even though I suspect that what brought her here was pain and despair.

She never speaks of her family or her life in the Winterland Mountains and who am I to press? There are secrets about my past that even she doesn’t know.

I suspect that’s why we trust each other so much—we are not ones to pry for secrets we have not earned.

The flat of Asha’s practice blade catches me across the shoulder and I hiss out in pain, trying not to let it distract me.

Asha pulls back because I’m the queen and she’ll never give me her full might even if I beg for it.

Using the footwork she pounded into me for weeks and months, I get in a jab to her ribs, then aim with a slicing motion on the back of her thigh. She catches me though, blocking the blow and our wooden swords let out a loud crack.

“You are still distracted,” she tells me, not the least bit winded.

“I am not,” I argue and swing the blade around over my head, then cut down in a diagonal. She blocks. We separate and dance back, circling one another.

I’m determined to prove to her that I’m not distracted, and feint left, then pull back to the right with the edge of my blade.

But Asha has her own plans and steps into my guard.

The clash of movements results in my sword whacking her across the knuckles and the hilt of her sword hitting me just below the eye.

The blow sends a shockwave down my neck and I stumble back as Asha cradles her hand to her chest.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, my cheek still smarting.

“Of course I am.”

I let my sword drop to the dirt. “Let me see.”

“Wendy,” she says in an admonishing tone that only Asha can get away with.

“Just let me see it.”

With a sigh, she holds her arm out before her.

There is a sizable bruise blooming across her knuckles with the middle swollen twice it’s size like it may be cracked.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be foolish,” she says. “We were fighting. It isn’t as if you escaped unharmed.”

Instinctively, I bring my own hand to my eye and then wince when my fingertips hit tender flesh.

“I’ll be fine.”

“It’s a black eye. People will talk.”

I don’t bother reminding her that it will heal within the hour. It’s one more of those secrets we don’t talk about outright for fear of the truth of it.

I take her hand in my left, then cover her knuckles with my right.

I don’t even have to think about it anymore — my power comes easily.

The air takes on the smell of vetiver and wet moss and fresh cut flowers.

Heat radiates out from both of my palms and Asha lets out a contented sigh.

When I let her go, the bruise is gone, the knuckle no longer swollen.

“Thank you,” she says and rubs at the spot.

It’s this secret, mysterious power that got me onto the throne. But it wasn’t until I was hung for treason and then refused to die that even I became aware of it.

Ultimately, this power saved my life not once, but twice. The first time from the end of a noose. The second time when King Hald made me a deal—heal him, become his wife, dedicate my power to him and only him, and he would make me queen.

I had never felt safe. Not even as a child. I had always known Peter Pan would come for me. His specter haunted me until one night, he was finally there, tearing me away from my home.

Hald had given me something I had never known: safety and security.

And so I agreed, lending him my power for decades and then some.

Until one day my power no longer worked on him.

And like a dam breaking, his illness and his age washed through.

Within days, he was bedridden, within weeks, he was comatose.

“I don’t understand why it works on you but not him,” I say.

Asha picks up her practice blade. “You know I come from a practical village. They embraced action, not magic. So take of this what you will: if I had to guess, something is blocking you.”

Yes but what? Am I self-sabotaging?

Deep down, I am afraid that maybe the rumors are true. Maybe I am a dark witch, maybe I possess something rotten at the core.

Maybe I deserve everything that’s coming my way.

And if my future promises only death and destruction, I have to do everything in my power to drive James and Roc away so they aren’t swept up in the mess that has become my life.