Shadow Heir

“He’s in love,” said Keeli, expression softening. “With a girl back in the Oak Land. She loves him too, but her father doesn’t approve. That’s why he joined the king’s guard—to prove himself.”

“Movie quality,” I murmured. “Can you go talk to him? Remind him of all he’s got?”

She did, and Jasmine went on to Pagiel. I decided to repeat my pattern and start with Rurik again, hoping that Shaya and Davin would have more impact with the mistletoe. The other women and I rotated through the men, each hoping we might think of something that would be the key to unlocking this spell. Neither Keeli nor Jasmine would talk to Kiyo, however. That was all on me.

The sky was turning red when we finally called a dinner break. The three of us were exhausted mentally and physically. We’d lost a day here in the Mimosa Land, but that was nothing compared to the fact that none of our efforts had yielded any results. The men sat there, unchanged. There’d been no time to search for other food, so dinner was simply more fruit.

“I’ll call Volusian soon and see what else we should do,” I said, biting into a papaya. “Maybe we have to replenish the mistletoe or something.” It sounded lame, even to me, but I didn’t know what other options we had.

“I hope those dryads come back,” growled Jasmine. “After I make them fix all of this, I’m going to rip their hair out and wreck their pretty little bitch faces.” Jasmine had even gone as far to unravel some of her braids while riding to and from the Yew Land. They’d been bound tightly, though, and her haphazard efforts had left her hair looking pretty ratty. I appreciated the zealous initiative, though. Both Keeli and I had been too busy to bother with our hair.

“I doubt they’ll be back,” I said. “They did what they intended. Got revenge on men and took out strangers to their land at the same time.”

This was merely met with nods. We were all too disheartened to make much conversation and simply ate in silence as night fell. The hum of the forest made a background of white noise I hardly even noticed anymore, which was why it was so startling when a voice spoke out of the shadows.

“You are not going to replace me with that pretty boy Davin.”

I nearly choked on my berries. Hastily swallowing, I spun around to look at Rurik. He was still sitting but no longer in a frozen, blank way. He was shifting, working the kinks out of his arms as he blinked the world into focus.

“Rurik!” I ran over and knelt before him, Keeli and Jasmine right behind me. “Rurik, are you okay?”

He started to speak, and then a grimace came over his face. Turning, he spat onto the ground. “What was in my mouth?”

“A necessary evil,” I said, grinning like a fool. “Oh my God. You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

“I hear that a lot from women,” he said, wincing as he shrugged his undoubtedly stiff shoulders.

“Do you remember anything?” asked Jasmine. “From this morning?”

“I remember ...” He frowned and suddenly looked confused. “Those women ... the green-haired women. I remember them coming to us, and then ... I don’t know. It was like I was in a tunnel, and there were voices coming to me from a long ways away.” He glanced at the three of us. “Your voices.”

I was so happy that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “This is the best news ever. Now that we know the enchantment can be broken, we can get the others out of it too.”

“The others ...” Rurik looked around him and noticed his fellow men. The sun was nearly gone, but our campfire clearly illuminated the statuelike quality of the others. Rurik jumped to his feet with amazing speed for someone who’d been catatonic all day. “What the—? My lord! My lord, what’s wrong?”

He flew to Dorian’s side with a devotion that almost brought tears to my eyes. Much as we’d first tried, Rurik began shaking Dorian in an effort to wake him up.

“It won’t work,” I said.

Rurik turned to me, and I think it was the most scared I’d ever seen him. “What’s wrong with him? With them?”

We explained, and Rurik wanted to waste no time in helping. I urged him to take a moment to recover from his ordeal, but he’d hear nothing of it. His energy and awakening inspired the rest of us, and we continued our efforts with new vigor.

And miraculously, over the next couple hours, the men began to wake up one by one. Blessedly, only Danil got sick from the mistletoe, and it was hardly “fantastically ill.” Like Rurik, all the men were eager to help, and before long, we had everyone restored to their original states—except Dorian.

“Why won’t he wake up?” I asked. The flickering firelight cast weird shadows on his face. “Volusian said it was tied to strength and will. Dorian’s probably the strongest person I know.”

Alistir frowned as he sipped water from a skin. “I seem to recall ... I feel like there were two of those dryads with him?” There was uncertainty in his words, but they sparked a memory.

“You’re right,” I said. “There were two with him when we approached. Would that do it? Two dryads—double the power?”