Page 46 of Stolen Magic

My nod in confirmation wasn’t a lie. Iwascurious about this prince, this strange anomaly born from the rot of Eldoria’s court. Somehow, in a place that only seemed to grow weeds, a single rose had survived and I wanted to know how.

As we walked, I let my fingers brush lightly against his—tentative, testing. His gaze flicked down, then back up to meet mine, curious but unafraid. When he didn’t pull away, I slipped my hand fully into his. His brief surprise confirmed that he also didn’t remember the first time we’d held hands…but he didn’t let go, as if something deeper than a memory guided him.

We slipped past the sculpted hedgerows, leaving behind the polished elegance of the royal gardens as the path gave way to wilder terrain—ferns spilling over moss-covered stones, brambles threading through the underbrush. Something flickered at the edge of my awareness, leading us to a crescent grove of gnarled, ancient trees.

With boyish enthusiasm, Callan guided me to a small gated alcove tucked behind the rose hedges, hidden from the court’s manicured perfection. He withdrew an ornate key from his pocket and unlocked the door, pausing in the doorway as a shimmer of magic briefly brightened across him before fading, as though checking the identity of the intruder before he could enter. I leaned forward, curious what valuable secrets required such magical security measures. Soft moss grew between ancient stones, and at the center bloomed a low circular bed of herbs and flowering plants that stole the breath from my lungs.

I knew these plants from the half-forgotten memories of a childhood spent wandering the hillside meadows and riverbanks of the land that had once been mine.

These were not herbs one typically found in a palace garden. The first rows were comprised of herbs medicinal in nature: silver-rootedduskherb, known to soothe fevers with a single petal; bell-shapedmoonthistle,which only grew beneath a crescent moon, often used to suppress coughs.Ironroot,mourning root,breathbind. My fingers brushed the serrated leaves of the plants Mother used to dry above our hearth,all steeped in the rituals of a magic this kingdom had long outlawed.

The faintest pulse of magic shimmered at the edge of my vision from somewhere just beyond the ordered rows, thrumming faintly with that unmistakable song that only magic could carry. I stilled, breath catching. Its familiar hum drifted from deeper in the garden, near a tangled thicket untouched by any gardener’s hand—a hidden current buried in the earth, so subtle it might’ve gone unnoticed had I not been searching for it every moment since arriving in Eldoria.

I walked closer, following the trail, not daring to hope. Growing in the farthest rows were plants I never expected to see again:sunmist, whose translucent petals shimmered with the glow of dawn light no matter the hour;starleaf, whose dew shimmered like captured starlight and was said to reveal true names;sable fennel, whose dark fronds were often used by witches to cloak scent and sound; and curling up a trellis in the corner grewwishvine, its delicate blossoms said to amplify intention in spellwork.

I drew in a breath as I remembered the village sketches Callan had shown me, marking the places he’d discovered magical plants. He must have brought these back from his travels, nurturing this garden full of magical potential.

I took a few more slow paces, admiring the familiar plants, until one stopped me in my tracks. Blooming at the center of the garden, as if untouched by time, stood a rareflame-lily—a flower sacred to my family’s bloodline, thought to have been lost in the fires that had turned my world to ash.

My hand trembled as I reached towards a familiar blossom, pulling my hand back before I could risk marring such a precious plant. Each leaf and petal was a reunion with an old friend. Despite being far from its native soil, this lone plant thrivedhere…giving me hope for the first time that a witch, planted in the soil of her enemies, could still find a way to bloom.

Emotion swelled—grief, wonder, guilt, gratitude. I sank to my knees and let my hand drift through the moss beside the flame-lily, heart aching with the memory of my mother. I could almost hear her patient instruction naming each plant as she guided my tiny fingers through the leaves.

For a heartbeat, it felt as though I’d stepped back into the past. Only now, I wasn’t alone. A prince stood beside me, one who had unknowingly recreated a piece of the world I had lost.

“I can’t believe you have magical plants growing here too.” I didn’t realize my mistake until the words left my lips, but it was too late.

Callan’s gaze snapped to mine. I caught the flicker of confusion, then concern. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing—not in accusation, but with a careful curiosity that somehow felt far worse. “Magic?” he echoed slowly. “You can recognize magical plants?”

My breath hitched and I heard a low growl from Myst. I cursed myself for letting his warmth lull me into forgetting the charade of who I was supposed to be.

Callan didn’t immediately speak, but continued to observe me with thoughtful intensity that made me scramble to continue my false explanation.

“It’s only a guess,” I said hastily. “The way they shimmer reminded me of the fanciful stories I heard as a child. I suppose my imagination got the better of me.” I forced a smile I hoped passed as sheepish rather than evasive.

“The way they shimmer…” His eyes searched mine, quiet and perceptive, as if measuring each word I hadn’t spoken. I could feel his doubt take root, subtle and unsettling, like the weight of a gathering storm on a windless day.

He didn’t press me further. Instead, he turned back to the garden bed, expression pensive as his gaze moved over the tidy rows. “You seem to know a lot about plants,” he said, voice softer now, almost tentative. “More than I expected for a princess.”

I swallowed. “My mother had a garden,” I murmured. “It was the one place I always felt safe.” The words came too easily, more honest than I intended. “She taught me their names, their uses. Those are some of my most cherished memories. I haven’t seen some of these plants since...”

I couldn’t finish, not when the truth belonged to a girl who had once lived in a cottage now scorched to ash, a girl whose life had been stolen and who now lived a life of poverty and loneliness far removed from the gild and glamour of the Eldorian court, a girl whose magic had been hunted and whose kingdom had been broken. Certainly not to the princess I pretended to be, the imposter wearing her crown while standing beside the prince whose family had helped destroy it all.

The garden blurred. I blinked hard, grounding myself in the scent offlame-lilyand the soft scratch ofironrootbeneath my fingertips.

“I actually have an interest in magic and herbalism.” Callan’s admission beckoned my thoughts from their journey across time to return to the present.

My eyes widened. “You do?”

He shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, the movement a touch shy. “Magic is becoming a more integral part of our kingdom. As its future king, it’s my duty to understand it, just as I would any other political matter. But as my studies progressed, it’s become more than an obligation and grown into a passion of its own.”

For a moment, I could only stare at him, speechless, but the faint blush on his cheeks was far too sincere to be anything but genuine.

It took me a long moment to process this revelation. When I’d first begun this deception, I hadn’t expected to share any interests with someone from this gilded world steeped in blood and betrayal. Of all the unlikely commonalities I could have discovered about my once enemy, I hadn’t even considered he held a genuine fascination with magic beyond his kingdom’s thirst for conquest.

If I’d dared to imagine any connection between us, healing herbs and old enchantments would’ve been the last possibility. He was already far too easy to fall for, but this bond made the risk to my heart unbearable. I wanted to seize the opening his words offered—a shared love for something deeply special to me—but doing so would risk revealing too much of my true self, a truth I couldn’t afford to share, no matter how much I longed to.

I should have looked away or said something to dispel the connection building between us, but instead I lingered in the warmth of his confession, studying the earnest lines of his face—the way his eyes lit when he spoke of something he cared about, unguarded and real.

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