Xania knelt on the floor, letting Derrex hold her and pet her head while she struggled to catch her breath. The tears were spent and now she felt unbelievably tired. Everything inside her seemed heavy yet far away. Where had all these memories been hiding and why were they coming to the surface now? 

A soft touch caressed and soothed her mind. A voice whispered encouragement, telling her to be strong. This was her voice, but different. It felt so familiar. She was pretty sure that this voice was the sure evidence that she was losing her mind. How could she be hearing her voice in her head and be sure it belonged to someone else and not be crazy?

“You alright?” Derrex asked.

She pulled away from him and rubbed at her eyes. Then nodded. Close enough anyway.

“It’s been a long day,” Derrex said while getting up. He stretched himself with a soft groan, then looked at Joban. “Can what you came for wait? I think both of us could use some rest.”

Joban nodded and rose from the couch.

“I’ll check in with you in the morning,” he said. He turned and left.

Derrex offered Xania his hand and she took it. He helped her up to her feet and then pulled her into an embrace.

“You’ve been through a lot in the last few days and I have a feeling there is a lot that you’ve been through that I don’t know anything about.”

She didn’t say anything. She hoped he wasn’t looking for her life story right now. She couldn’t give it to him even if she wanted to. Everything was fuzzy and vague in her mind. She couldn’t recall where she had been before living with Enero. It never seemed to matter. But now, it felt urgent. She wished she could open up her past and read it like a book to discover everything that she had pushed away. Would her past explain all the strange things that were happening to her now? She thought that might be the case.

She stepped away from him and looked at him. His blue eyes met hers, but he said nothing. “What are you thinking?” she asked him in her thoughts. 

“Thank you,” is all she said out loud.

She still didn’t know how she should feel towards Derrex or what she should think about him. He had protected her and he was kind, but Joban had ordered him to do those things. Perhaps it was Joban that she should be thanking, since Derrex seemed like little more than an extension of Joban’s will.

“Be strong?” Xania thought.

“So, your people can teach me how to control my power?” Xania asked.

“Yes, there are plenty of mages within the resistance that can teach you,” Derrex said.

“The resistance?” Xania asked.

Derrex sighed.

“We really could both use some sleep. Can we save this discussion for tomorrow?” Derrex asked.

She nodded. 

He headed to his room and she watched him leave. If she was going to stay here and learn how to use her magic, then it wouldn’t matter much if she waited until tomorrow to figure out who these people were and what they wanted from her. She went to her room and closed the door, then laughed. The large hole in it made it pretty much useless. 

She crawled into her bed, still dressed and let the fatigue claim her.

Dreams came to her in bits and fragments. When she woke, she could recall very little from them except the overall impression that she was watching a review of history. What a strange dream.

Rolling out of bed with a groan, she got up and paused again at the door to her bed room. She touched the edge of the hole and smiled. It was funny now that she was no longer stuck in the wood. She wondered what the limits of her magic were.

She was not surprised to find Derrex in the kitchen. He was busy making something that would cook all day and be their dinner tonight. She watched him cutting vegetables and tried to think of him as her body guard and guide. He seemed so happy here in the kitchen, taking care of other people.

“Why didn’t you just work as a cook somewhere?” she asked as she snagged a pepper from his cutting board.

He paused long enough to look at her, then he returned to his work. He was silent long enough that she figured he wasn’t going to answer her question.

“I can’t ignore all the terrible things happening to the people in this kingdom,” he stated as he scraped the vegetables from his cutting board into the crockpot.

“That’s why you joined the resistance?” She asked.

“That’s the very simple answer,” Derrex said.

He started chopping more vegetables. These he tossed into a bowl. He said nothing when she snagged bits from what he was cutting up. 

“What’s the complicated answer?" she asked.

“My father died trying to protect a group of people that he believed could help heal the division between Techies and Mages. They were children and they were being killed because they were feared.”

He added a few large handfuls of spinach to the bowl of vegetables. He then began to cut fresh herbs which he added to both the crock pot and the bowl.

“I didn’t think much about what my father had died for until I heard the rumors that Carner had brought one of the Aelorian here.”

Stopping what he was doing, he looked up at her.

“I joined the resistance because I knew that I had to help that girl. I owe that to my father.”

“I’m that girl,” Xania whispered.

Derrex nodded.

Xania wasn’t sure what to say. He had been fighting a war in an effort to find and free her? Had Enero known who he was passing her over to when he asked this man to help her? She put her fingers against her temples and stared down at the table. Everything was so complicated. She had a hard time imagining Enero betraying his father for her, yet here she was.

“I spent years getting close to Enero. I never expected that he would defy his father and help us take you away from the palace,” Derrex said.

He squeezed an orange into a strange tray that seemed designed just for that purpose. Adding the orange juice and some oil to the bowl seemed to be the finishing touches. He mixed it together then scooped a large portion of it into a bowl which he set in front of her. 

“He knew what you are,” he stated.

She stabbed her salad angrily with her fork.

“Seems like everyone does but me.”

The other half of the salad went into a second bowl which Derrex started eating out of. He paused a moment with his fork pointing at her, but then said nothing and went back to eating.

“So, now what? You got me out of the palace. You just going to leave the resistance and whisk me away to some secret safe haven?” 

She shoved a large fork full of salad into her mouth and was surprised at how wonderful it tasted. There was entirely too much in her mouth as she struggled to chew it. Laughing at herself, she covered her mouth with one hand and said “This is really good.”

Derrex laughed with her. “I’m glad you like it.”

There was a long period of silence while they ate. Derrex went about cleaning the kitchen. Filling the sink and washing dishes like nothing unusual was happening in his life.

“I don’t know what happens next,” he said with his back to her while he finished rinsing the last few items before setting them in the draining board.

While wiping his hands on a towel he turned around to look at her.

“I don’t have some magically safe place to whisk you to. I’m sorry. That’s part of why I haven’t rushed you out of the city. It’s dangerous for you here, but I’m not sure there is any place that isn’t.”

He flipped the towel up over his shoulder and leaned back against the counter.

“I think your best option is to learn how to use the Life Drive so you can keep yourself safe,” he said.

“And who is going to teach me how to do that?” she asked.

Raising his hands in surrender, “I don’t know. I don’t have any of the answers that you are looking for.”

He tossed the towel onto the counter and moved over to the coffee maker. He busied himself with making a fresh pot. She could see the tension across his shoulders and neck in the stiff way that he moved. 

Surprising herself as much as him, she went to him and gently laid one hand in the middle of his back. He stood still, staring down at the coffee grounds.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He sighed.

“You don’t need to apologize to me. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

She groped for the words to express what she wanted to say to him. She didn’t know that she could, but she wanted to try to give him something that would ease his tension and frustration. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his back. He said nothing.

“I know I’m a burden,” she whispered.

“None of this is your fault,” he said.

He smelled like cinnamon and rosemary. Mixed in with that was the smell of the coffee he had opened in front of him. She thought about the way that he had always tried to take care of her. It was with the basic things. Like making up a bed or fixing a meal. These seemed like simple tasks to him, but they felt like warm sunshine. She ran her hand up his back until her fingertips were touching the bare skin of his neck. Willing the image of warm sunshine and cozy beds, she pulled clumsily at her power. 

He sighed again. Then he slumped and fell to the floor.

“Sweet gods, what did I do?”

Xanai knelt down next to him and shook him gently.

“Derrex?” 

His eyes fluttered open and she laughed.

“Thank the gods,” she said.

He sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to help you relax.” She shrugged, not sure what else to say.

He laughed.

“Well, I guess putting me to sleep counts as being relaxed.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. I could have just as easily turned you into a goat with as much as I know about all this!” Xania clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down at them, trying not to cry.

“Well, I’m glad I’m not a goat,” Derrex said.

He laughed again and leaned against the cupboard. 

“This was better than being stuck in the door,” he said.

“There is a hole in my door,” she said.

“It’s pretty common for there to be mishaps while a person learns to use their magic. I turned Joban’s skin green once when I was trying to heal a burn.” 

He shrugged.

Xania looked up at him.

“Was he all green?”

“No, just the part I was trying to heal,” Derrex said. “And another mage had to fix it because it stayed green longer than he had the sunburn.”

“It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one,” she said.

“Learning to use magic is like learning to ride a bike,” he said with a shrug. “There are always some crashes along the way. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any magical training wheels.”

Someone knocked on the door. Derrex grunted and pulled himself up to a standing position. He helped Xania up before he went to answer the door. She finished making the coffee while he was gone. When he returned to the kitchen, Joban was with him.

“Good morning,” Joban said.

“Morning.” She nodded at him. “See you’re here bright and early to have our chat.”

Joban nodded. He sat down at the kitchen table.

“Can I have some of that coffee?” he asked.

Derrex shooed Xania away and took over the hosting duties. She sat at the table with Joban while Derrex made them all coffees. He also produced a plate with a variety of cookies on it.

Xania nibbled at a cookie while she eyed Joban.

“Last night I came to iron out details for getting you out of the city,” Joban said with a heavy sigh. "But the new this morning isn't good."

Derrex set his cup down and then dropped himself into the chair next to Xania.

“What’s the word?” Derrex asked.

“Carner was murdered,” Joban said.

“What?” Xania dropped her cookie. A vicious grief gripped at her chest and she struggled to breathe. He had been an abusive asshole, but Carner had been the only father she had known. Tears ran down her face.

Joban and Derrex said nothing while they watched her process this news. Joban was surprised by her tears, but Derrex wasn’t. Derrex reached his hand across the table to her and gently brushed his fingers along her hand. She clutched at the offered hand and squeezed it tightly while she focused on controlling her breathing.

“And Enero?” she gasped.

“He is alive and unharmed,” Joban said.

Xania nodded her head and laughed a little. 

“He never wanted to be king,” she whispered. “He always said that being king meant standing on his father’s corpse.”

Xania looked up at Derrex. “He’s not ready,” she whispered.

Joban cleared his throat. “There is more.”

They looked at him.

“The news is that it was a Mage that killed him,” Joban said. "They've doubled the rewards catching Mages and have granted kill on sight."

“What?” Xania stood up and covered her mouth with her hands. “They could just legally come up and shoot me now?”

Derrex reached out to her, but she pulled away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and pressing her back against the wall. This couldn’t be real.

“The news said that Enero was present when Carner was murdered and he is angry about how it all played out,” Joban said.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Xania yelled. "How did they even get to him?"

“I have people out trying to get more information,” Joban said.

"There's more isn't there?" Derrex asked.

Joban nodded.

“So, there is a bounty?” Derrex asked.

“Yes, the largest that I have ever seen. The first thing Enero did upon receiving the royal power was to declare Xania the most wanted criminal of the kingdom. Dead or alive,” Joban said.

Xania slid down the wall and sat on the floor. Wrapping her arms around her knees she sunk her head down and wept. How was she supposed to stay and learn magic now? How could she safely leave the kingdom? What was she supposed to do?

Derrex knelt down next to her and laid his hands on her shoulders.

“We will keep you safe,” he said. “We’ll figure something out.”

She looked up at him and sneered, “I don’t need people dying for me.”

“That’s not my plan, but I will if it comes to that,” he said.

She pushed him away, “I don’t want your sacrifice.”