Page 51 of Enchanted Kingdom
Now Owen flat out snickered.
I paused to look at the ceiling. “That dress, that gorgeous but wretched piece of art that Flora designed, lit up.”
“It what?!” she exclaimed.
I nodded. “She designed small lights into the fabric somehow. I had been laying low and toward the back of the mass of skirts and perfume, and then my dress went and lit up, with me having no way to shut the damn thing off.”
My mother’s eyes were huge.
“So that was what caught Prince Keiran’s attention.”
“What is he like?” she asked carefully.
I thought for a few beats. “He is far different than I thought he’d be.”
Her forehead creased and her hands stilled. I could just see that she had a thousand questions to ask but wasn’t sure with Owen there what she could and couldn’t ask.
I decided I needed to explain better all that had happened. “The thing that bothers me most, Mother, is that I had this thought that if he wasn’t a prince, if he wasn’t Enchanted, if he was just any other man who wasn’t dating a few dozen women, would I give him half a chance?”
“And?” she asked.
I sighed. “And I don’t like the honest answer. He is kind and welcoming and unlike the majority of the people on that mountain. He exudes warmth. Not cruelty.”
She cocked her head and looked at me for a long time. “Do you love him?”
I thought about that question. “It has only been six days. I don’t know. I don’t think I know him well enough to really know if I love him or not. I just know I don’tdislikehim, Mother.”
Her head went back. “Considering how you feel about the Enchanted—” she cut herself off in a panic as if realizing what she just said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Raikes. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Owen turned and gave her a smile. “Your husband was killed with magic; I don’t hold it against you or against her.”
Her eyes went wide as she realized all he knew.
“There’s more,” I told her. “Magic does not work on me.”
She looked like she might be ill. “Iron Will?”
Now I was the one looking surprised. “You know the term?”
She nodded. “Someone we both know also has Iron Will and is immune to the magic of the Enchanted.”
“Who?”
She pressed her lips together while putting her hands in the air. “It is not me, but I cannot tell you as I am trying to keep her safe. Many years ago, the people of Nerede stopped using the term entirely. We collectively tore it from our vocabularies to keep our children safe.”
“The missing people?” I asked. “I remember you whispering about them. Actually, I remember everyone whispering about them. But I was what? Twelve or thirteen at the time?”
“Missing people?” Owen asked, spinning toward us.
I gave Mother a small smile as if to tell her it was okay.
She let out a breath nervously. “The king had requested a few Nerede families to relocate to Kavan Keep. That in and of itself wasn’t odd—it did happen fairly regularly, though servants from Rallis were far more common. Just usually not that many people at once, so that was a bit strange... but what was most bizarre about it was that all four families went at the same time and none of the families, not a single person, was ever heard from again. Normally a letter or some sort of correspondence was sent to let us know they made it. These people just seemed to vanish the minute they went above the wall.” Her eyes went to mine. “Your father and some others always suspected it was the ones immune to magic. Those with Iron Will.”
“So why do I have it?” I asked her. “Why me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that. Around that same time we all began to suspect that there were more and more children being born with it in Nerede....” She paused. “That was when we all stopped using the term or talking about it. Not even a whisper. We didn’t even use the term stubborn to describe our children. Nothing. We acted as if Iron Will didn’t exist to keep our children safe. We should have all been rejoicing in the streets that you were immune to magic, but instead, we were all terrified for you.”
My eyes went to Owen. “A puzzle the king can’t figure out?”
