That day I came to realize.

Love wasn't the strongest magic in the world. It was the oldest.

Pa.s.sion was what could really topple or shatter anything. Pa.s.sion changed people, made them do the most impossible things, things love couldn't even touch.

I'd always loved Ashe and she knew it, and I knew she felt the same way. But it wasn't love that broke our barrier; it was a single act of impromptu pa.s.sion.

An act I'd cherish no matter what happened next.

Twenty-Six.

The Guffawing Gnomes "Haven't we had enough of water?" I complained while s.n.a.t.c.hing my hand into the stream with immense frustration rather than deft skill. It had been at least an hour of daylight spent trying to snag a fish from a river like a bear, with no luck.

"You slay dragons and got the girl with your amazing axe skills and you can't manage to catch a single fish?" Goldie mocked as she shot a hand in the stream and yanked out a flopping scaly lunch, for the sixth time already.

"I'll show you my *amazing axe skills'..." I growled while flailing at the river and kicking some water. I glared back at her as she laughed and added, "Besides the last thing I'm doing is any dragon slaying. And I had magic too."

She shook her head before looking across to me and wiping some droplets from her face. "You rely on magic too much. How did you even manage all that time without it?"

"I honestly have no idea. Luck? I wasn't constantly dealing with faeries, that's probably why." I shrugged and sat down on a rock near the stream.

My eyes fell to Ashe just through the point of two trees. Her hair was flas.h.i.+ng across her sweat dripping face as she sliced into a tree with the axe I gave her, and then repeated the process from different angles. She looked so focused and intent; the exact opposite of me.

"Well you better hope that luck comes back or you aren't eating." Goldie grunted before tossing another fish to the side.

"Uh-huh..." I sighed. All my attention became focused on Ashe training. Why was I bothering with fish when I could have been helping her learn? That was more important than failing at catching something I should have been able to do in my sleep.

The moment the thought crossed my mind, Hue stood up from the stump he sat at and walked over to Ashe, stopping her mid-swing. He said something I couldn't hear that made my... roommate's face light up with such life.

Before long he was adjusting her body as she swung, and showing her follow-through moves with an axe of his.

He even sparred with her while I just sat there swiping half-heartedly at the water. I never wanted to punch Hue so much as I did right then. What was he even doing here, anyway? I had expected him to come, but I didn't expect him to help us when he showed up.

I watched them mock fight a little longer while I mostly ignored Goldie yelling at me to catch some d.a.m.n fish. Finally I just stood up from my rock when Hue pulled her into a head lock right against his body with an axe inches from her neck. It was his reverse guillotine technique.

I couldn't take it anymore and stormed through the river, splas.h.i.+ng everywhere as I stomped over to them. That blue jerk did this to me every time when we were growing up, as soon as I had even looked at someone with a certain glance he'd steal them right away from me. I swear he solely used his otherworldly charisma to steal women from me.

I hadn't even noticed my fingers were pulled in to fists and my jaw was set hard until Ashe broke from Hue and ran to hug me. She leaned down and kissed my cheek too, even though it made her blush.

"Prince Hue was showing me such wonderful tricks and telling me about what you were like as a kid. Why didn't you ever tell me the two of you used to train together when you were younger?" Ashe asked excitedly.

"Because he usually never mentions his past let alone the fact that I was in it and I respect his privacy." I explained with my teeth gritted and glaring to Hue.

He just smiled at me.

I grinned wickedly right back at him. "Did he also tell you about the time he blew up an entire storage of gunpowder while I was still inside? Or how he made me deaf for a week from blowing a magically enhanced horn in my ear? Or my absolute favorite was the incident he blames me for and even got the faeries to place a magical binding on me since they would do anything just to ruin my day."

My eyes finally fell back to Ashe as she frowned, "Um... no." Then she glanced to Hue briefly before asking, "What incident?"

"Care to explain, Hue, since you seem to be so talkative today?" I continued with my vindictive a.s.sault. He said nothing and shook his head like he was disappointed in me.

That only grated my nerves more. "Hue used to have a wife before he was adopted into the princely throne. He was unaware for the longest time that this wife was playing games with people that often resulted in their deaths. She must have killed twenty people before Hue even discovered it. And when he did, he just helped cover it up."

Hue stepped away from us, pulling his hat from his head and lowering his face as he sat on the stump again. Ashe had a hand on my arm and a deep frown set against her dimples. I continued anyway, since she seemed to be focused on it.

"Eventually, as I followed the bodies I discovered Hue first before his wife, suspecting he had been the one to cause the damage. Because he refused to give away his wife he had been locked away for her crimes. Until more bodies turned up in the style I always follow, beheaded victims." I stopped when Ashe gasped noticeably.

"Yeah, Hue's wife was Gabbi. Hue was let go, while I tracked down Gabbi. But of course she wouldn't give up without a fight. Hue showed up just in time to see me magically redirect Gabbi's own claws into her body and straight through the backside. She died before he could even reach her. But as she did she said one thing to me."

Hue jumped up, his blue eyes burning with tears. "You never told me that!" He accused with a finger that he quickly retracted.

"She said, *You're next, Gnidori'. So I didn't think it mattered to you." I growled. He turned around and started pacing.

"But Gabbi isn't dead. How is she alive if she died?" Ashe asked after she managed to get her eyes to a normal size.

"I have no idea. But there's always a way to bring someone back from the dead. It's just a matter of picking the way you need most."

"That thing is not her!" The blue prince exclaimed turning back to me.

"What?" I laughed. "Of course it was. I could smell her, down to the gentle taste of my magic that let you have her as a wife in the first place!"

"The Gabbi I knew is dead. That was the wolf, just the wolf." Hue continued, shaking his head and sitting back down as he wiped the tears.

"They were always the same person, Hue."

He looked up at me, with his eyes still watery, "Just like you and Red are the same?" He scoffed.

"What are you talking about?!" I finally just yelled at him. Ashe shrunk away from me.

He shook his head and laughed harshly, "You never understood the price of being a legendary, Gnidori."

He just kept shaking his head continually. I wanted to lay him out right there.

"What price?!" Ashe squeaked up for me.

"Why do you think you can still enter my Kingdom without your cloak? I barred Red, not you. The price is who you are, Gnidori. You had to become someone else, just like every other legendary."

That had to be the most I'd ever heard Hue talk to me. I couldn't believe it.

"Including you?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And Ashe?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

I was suddenly reminded of something Ettie had said to me; that she was finally seeing Gnidori, not Red. Had she understood what it meant to be a legendary before me?

"So your wife is back and you don't even want to see her? Even if she is the wolf, some part of her is still Gabbi!"

"Not the part that wanted to see me again, or she would have come to me not kidnapped your new fling!" Hue raised his voice to a level that was nearly frightening.

"Ashe is not a fling!" I cried back at him. "She's..." I began but I wasn't sure how to end that sentence.

I swear it must have been divine intervention at that point as the ground creaked underneath me and gave out. I sunk right into the earth, up to my neck. I felt the ground surround me like it was trying to keep me there. Ashe was immediately next to me on her knees digging at the ground, before a gnome squirted out of it and she jumped back.

"Gnomes..." I breathed fiercely as the one that appeared in front of my face guffawed before bending over and farting in my direction...

As if I didn't have trouble breathing already with all the ground packed around me.

Ashe jumped back up and kicked at the side of the gnome, but it was already gone back into the ground. It appeared right behind her and grabbed her leg just as she stepped to me. She hit the ground hard with her face next to my head.

I smiled and she glared at me so seriously. I probably shouldn't have been smiling.

Ashe flipped around only to have two gnomes standing on her chest, grabbing at her. She reached up to s.n.a.t.c.h them but they were at her hair, pulling at it as she cried in pain.

I tried blowing toward the earthen creatures but quickly realized it was better I conserved my breath and thought of a way out of the ground so I could be more help. I struggled but I didn't even budge and my fingers wouldn't even move through the soil.

Ashe roared as she jumped up and shook her head, tossing both the gnomes from her hair. Hue seemed to be fighting off another horde of the vermin as well when he backed into my roommate after she turned around to look at me again.

"Do something, Gnidori." Blue boy called over Ashe's shoulder.

I heaved a breath as deep as I could manage. "Can't. Magic is somatic."

I could hardly draw in another breath after that. I tried pus.h.i.+ng back against the dirt with my body but it made me feel more compressed. I just needed a little room to move a hand then the ground would be mine.

A few gnomes leapt from tree to tree, das.h.i.+ng past Ashe and Hue and knocking them around. Hue yelled to Goldie, "Anything to fight gnomes?"

Goldie grunted somewhere behind me, "Fish. They sure seem to like my fis.h.!.+"

"Great..." Ashe sighed before she managed to time a perfect smack with a gnome pa.s.sing by.

"Good aim." Hue praised before he sliced through another. The one Ashe struck, hit the floor stunned and melted into it. The second landed in three pieces on my head and exploded in to ash.

"Of course." Hue laughed lightly as he glanced at my head.

"They need to die away from the ground." He yelled as he took up another hatchet and slashed a gnome into the air before chopping it up. It was ash before it even hit the ground.

I sputtered some of the ash away from my mouth and made a mental note to punch Hue when I got out of the ground.

"We need to get Gnidori out, she could die if she stays in there any longer." Ashe cried as she whipped around and slashed through two gnomes before she was tripped to the floor again. She spewed some dirt and blew locks of her hair out of her face, to reveal smudges that reminded me of the cinder ashes she used to have on her cheeks when I first met her.

"You do it. I'll cover you." Hue said.

Ashe only lifted up to her knees as she set her axe to the side and started clawing through the dirt again. The gnomes must not have liked that because a few moments of Hue knocking them away, and they were grasping on my roommate and savior and yanking her into the ground with me. One of her hands was against my chest and her head on my shoulder, with her legs dug deep below and her back just barely sticking out.

We glanced to each other just as I heard more gnomes guffaw. "Uh...hi?" I breathed.

Ashe didn't pay any attention to me and just kept clawing at the ground around me as I felt the earth s.h.i.+ft and give me at least some room to breathe again. She had such a serious expression and so much focus like I'd seen earlier with her training. It meant it was important to her to do this.

"Lower." I breathed.

Her eyes s.h.i.+fted to me and she gave me a funny look, like it wasn't a time to ask for something like that. I tossed my head to the side.

Her face grew apologetic and she nodded against my shoulder, and then frowned in thought as she dug. The only reason her hands could even do it was thanks to the freedom the gnomes caused by pulling her in the ground practically on top of me. I just needed her to reach a single hand and I could manage the rest.

I saw the intent and focus return in her eyes and smiled. "You're something more... Ashe... something special..." I gushed in three quick breaths as a whisper in her ear.

She nuzzled her cheek against mine and the dirt moving around my body increased to a more fine degree.

"I know." She whispered, before adding just as I felt the ground free up around my right fingers, "But it's nice to hear you say it."

Her fingers slipped around mine and she held them for a moment before probably realizing I'd need the hand to be able to do anything.

I grinned and swirled my fingers around in a circle, letting the magic spin away from me and into the earth. It swallowed the dirt around us and took over within seconds as the earth hummed and pulsed with my energy.

We were spewed from the ground like magma from a volcano. As soon as we landed on solid ground, gnomes started being thrown high into the air around us, as the ground continued to reject them.

Hue took no time at all to slash them through, and as much as I would have liked to beat him at *who could cut down more gnomes', I had something else to be done.

I dropped my hand to the pulsing ground then swiped it across the dirt, causing the remaining magic in the earth to gather and freeze the top of the ground.

So as the sliced in half gnomes. .h.i.t the frozen ground, they exploded into ash without their contact to their precious earth. I smiled as I whipped out my hatchet and cut down a few of my own while Goldie ran up to us and slipped on the icy ground, hitting the floor and sliding.

Gnomes bounded after her and jumped at her, but Ashe and I both slashed them from her before they could even finish landing. Instead ashes just spilled over the thief.

The rest of them didn't even wait around as they saw the ground frozen and many of their dead as dust. They made no more noise and darted off into the woods before anything else could befall the remainder.

At least the gnomes happened to be a little smarter.

"Now what do we do?" Goldie groaned as she stood up and nearly slipped again.

"Get used to the ice; we'll want to stay here until night fall at least. Gnomes aren't out then." I explained while the others just all looked at me.

"They ran off too quickly. Most elementals do exactly what they are told, even to their death." Hue added, looking deep in thought. He was certainly talking more...

Then I remembered my mental note and walked over to Hue, and slammed my fist across his cheek. Ashe and Goldie just stared at me with wide eyes while I gritted my teeth.

"What are you even doing here Hue? I know you; you didn't just come to help out of the goodness of your heart. Did you know you weren't supposed to give me Goldie when you did?"

He reeled his eyes back to me, his face taking on a cherry chocolate hue around where I had smacked him. "Yes. I did."