Legacy of the Curse

by Deborah Grace White

  “How are you, Lucy? You look well.”

  He spoke with a studied carelessness, but his eyes shone eagerly. Jocelyn privately thought his expression made him look much like the younger boys who hero-worshiped him.

  “I’m very well, thanks, Eamon. And have you been in good health? It’s so kind of you to accompany Jocelyn for the start of her journey.”

  Jocelyn rolled her eyes openly at Lucy’s suddenly demure demeanor, and she exchanged a look of disgust with Matheus, the oldest of Lucy’s brothers. There was no need for words—the two of them had a sporadic but recurring alliance through which they attempted to keep their older siblings from monopolizing each other’s attention.

  “Run along now, Eamon,” she said, shooing her twin energetically with her hands. “The question of Polo sounds pressing, and don’t think I’m going to share Lucy with you. I only have three days, then I’ll be gone all summer. And you needn’t think I don’t know that you’ve arranged to stay on for longer on your way back through the forest.”

  “You see how I’m spied on, Lucy,” said Eamon in a tone of mock hurt. Lucy laughed, but had no opportunity to respond, Miles cutting in before she could do so.

  “You’ll probably be gone longer than the summer, Joss. You’ll probably be gone forever! Aren’t you going to have to marry the Valorian prince and stay over there?”

  “Nonsense, Miles, don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” snapped Lucy, but Jocelyn could already feel her face growing hot. Had everyone already decided her fate? If she came back without having formed this alliance, would the whole kingdom assume she had been found wanting by the Valorians?

  “Jossie, Eamon, you made it!”

  “Hello, Uncle Jo.”

  Jocelyn turned with relief to the dark-haired man who had chosen that propitious moment to approach them. He greeted Eamon with the traditional Kyonan clasping of arms, then pulled Jocelyn into an affectionate hug. She returned the embrace warmly. She and Eamon were both extremely fond of “Uncle Jonan”—who was no actual blood relation—although there was no denying that it was Aunt Scarlett they adored most.

  Uncle Jonan pulled back from the hug and held Jocelyn at arm’s length to study her, much as her father had done that morning, but with a twinkle in his eye instead of the anxious expression that had become so familiar over the past few weeks.

  “How are you, sweetheart? I hear you’re off on your own adventure. It’s about time you had some excitement! Look at you—you’re all grown up!”

  “Tell that to Father,” said Jocelyn with dry humor.

  Uncle Jonan laughed delightedly. “Don’t take it to heart, Jossie. Cal was always a worrier, even when he was as young as you.”

  Jocelyn smiled. Uncle Jonan’s characteristic cheerfulness always set her at ease. To one brought up in the sometimes stifling confines of the court, his irrepressible impudence was a balm. Despite the fact that her father had now been king for almost two decades, she had never heard his oldest friend use his title outside of formal state occasions. And Lucy confided in her that he only did so then because Aunt Scarlett made him. The strangest thing about it was that her father didn’t seem to mind in the least.

  “Why is it that Jocelyn is all grown up, but I’m still a child anytime I want to do anything you don’t like, Father?” quipped Luciana, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, you’re younger than Jocelyn, Lucy,” reasoned Uncle Jonan, attempting to draw his daughter into a hug, which she did not welcome as Jocelyn had done.

  “By one year,” she protested as she danced out of reach.

  “You say that like it’s nothing!” countered her father winningly. “But one year is an age. One year can change your life. In one year I went from a nobody in a fishing town, to an almost king bandying about with dragons, back to a nobody, to an adventurer in a foreign land where I became a rebel and a spy, to a well-respected leader and a—”

  “And a husband, which was the best adventure of all, yes, yes, we know,” muttered Matheus, unimpressed.

  “Well, I have to say that when your mother is around,” said Uncle Jonan, winking confidentially at Jocelyn, “but to tell you the truth, the dragons were also pretty exciting.”

  “I heard that,” said a musical voice, and Jocelyn and Eamon both turned eagerly to greet its owner.

  “How are you, Jocelyn?” Aunt Scarlett asked after embracing both twins warmly.

  The question was accompanied by a piercing look that was entirely absent from her greeting to Eamon. Jocelyn held back a sigh. Clearly everyone was well informed as to the fraught nature of her venture into Valoria.

  “I’m well, Aunt Scarlett,” she said aloud. “How are you? Other than as beautiful as ever.” The last part came out almost involuntarily—no matter how many times she saw her, she was always a bit dazzled by Aunt Scarlett’s stunning appearance.

  “Tut, tut, Joss, you’ll get yourself in trouble,” chided Uncle Jonan jokingly. “Don’t you know Scarlett doesn’t like being told she’s beautiful? Much better to point out her flaws. If you look closely, you’ll find that one eyebrow is slightly higher than the other.”

  “Thank you, darling,” said Aunt Scarlett dryly. “You are as chivalrous as ever.”

  “I’m just trying to endear you to the youngsters,” Uncle Jonan explained helpfully. “The girls don’t want you outshining them now they’re all grown up.”

  Luciana of course pounced on her father’s admission that she was grown up after all, and the scene descended once more into chaos. Jocelyn couldn’t hold back her smile as she watched on. She had always felt jealous of Lucy for how free her family was to argue and joke and just generally carry on, and she always enjoyed her time with them immensely.

  Jocelyn wasn’t fooled by the banter, and not just because the sparkle in Uncle Jonan’s eyes as they rested on his wife said more clearly than words that she still outshone everyone as far as he was concerned.

  And he wasn’t wrong. Aunt Scarlett was as gorgeous as she had been from Jocelyn’s earliest memories. Her caramel skin, so unusual in Kyona, where Balenans were rarely to be found, seemed to reflect the warmth of her personality. It always made Jocelyn feel pale and sickly by comparison. Her face was set in perfect lines, and the chestnut hair, perfectly matched to the color of her eyes, was as thick as ever, with no hint of gray. It was pinned up in a braid at present, but on Aunt Scarlett the style was as attractive as it was practical.

  It was no wonder that, underneath his joking words, Uncle Jonan was clearly still as smitten as a love-struck youth. Jocelyn had never seen any couple look at one another the way Lucy’s parents still did, with the exception of her own parents in rare private moments. Having been raised in court, she understood perfectly that the difference was simply that Uncle Jonan and Aunt Scarlett had the luxury of less exalted positions, and could therefore afford to show affection more openly.

  But still, while she would never admit it to Eamon for fear of being teased, she had always found both their story and their manner terribly romantic. Much more romantic than having a marriage arranged by foreign royalty, she reflected glumly.

  “You must both be tired after your ride,” Aunt Scarlett was saying, ignoring the ongoing banter of her husband and children and smiling warmly at the visitors. “Don’t let my brood carry you off for shenanigans until you’ve had something to eat and gotten settled in.”

  “You’ll be staying in my room, of course, Joss,” said Lucy quickly, stepping up and claiming Jocelyn’s arm in a proprietary way. “I want to keep you to myself as much as possible before you escape over the mountains.”

  “More likely she’ll be trying to escape back across the mountains by the end of the summer,” chimed in the incorrigible Miles. “I bet the prince is boring and old.”

  “That’s enough, Miles,” said Aunt Scarlett, frowning at her middle son. “No one is going to need to escape from anywhere.”

  “We’ll see,” Miles muttered, but at a sharp glance from his fath
er he desisted.

  Jocelyn once again felt a flush on her face, and she could only be grateful when Lucy carried her off without further delay. Glancing back, she saw Eamon being instantly mobbed by the boys, their mother attempting to ward them off. He was watching the girls leave with a disconsolate expression that had nothing to do with his sister’s departure. She rolled her eyes at him. Speaking of love-struck youths…

  Not that she could really blame him. As well as being the sweetest person Jocelyn had ever met, Luciana was as lovely as her mother. Her skin was a shade lighter, somewhere between her parents’ two tones, and she had inherited her father’s dark hair. But she had her mother’s huge brown eyes and perfect features. She was striking, as much for her unusual coloring as for her beauty. Her foreign heritage might have made an unattractive girl an outcast. It earned Luciana recognition as an exotic beauty.

  Lucy chatted away as they wended between the buildings that dotted the large clearing at the hub of the forest community. The family lived in an enormous wooden house at one edge of the open space. It was raised up on stilts, and children from the community were playing underneath, their laughter wafting contentedly through the air. Lucy’s room was on the second story, at the back of the house. Jocelyn had always loved being able to look out her friend’s window and feel like she was high up among the trees of the forest.

  Lucy raised her eyebrows at the way two of the royal guards followed them and then stationed themselves underneath the house, causing the children to hastily remove themselves and find somewhere else to play. But she waited until the girls were ensconced in her room before commenting.

  Jocelyn grimaced. “I’m sorry about that. It’s not that anyone doesn’t trust the people who live here. I think it’s more in case there’s any unpleasantness directed at the community from outside as a result of the royal visit.” She gave her friend a searching look. “Have you been caught up in this sudden prejudice against the freedmen?”

  Lucy shrugged, busily unpacking her friend’s things with a fine disregard for Jocelyn’s privacy.

  “Not really. I mean, I know my parents have been concerned about it all, and some of the freedmen who live here are a bit offended. But no one in the forest is siding with the ones complaining, obviously, so everyone just mutters a bit then gets over it.” Looking up, she saw Jocelyn’s expression of concern and stopped, clearly surprised. “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just…it’s getting worse apparently. My father thinks we’re on the point of a crisis. I don’t want you to be caught up in it, and I know your family is sort of at the heart of the issue.”

  Lucy frowned, a small measure of alarm making its way onto her previously cheerful face. “Maybe I should be worried,” she said slowly.

  “No, no,” said Jocelyn quickly, her own alarm growing at the look of confusion that, while it was most familiar, she had rarely seen on her best friend’s face. It really was getting stronger. “No use in worrying. No one has a grudge against you, I’m sure.”

  Lucy still looked uncertain, so Jocelyn tried a different approach. “Your family aren’t really freedmen, after all.”

  “That’s true,” said Luciana with a smile. “Father was never actually a slave, and Mother is, you know—”

  “Balenan,” supplied Jocelyn with a grin. “Which means that you’re not a freedman. Just a half-breed like me.”

  Lucy laughed musically at the reference to their private mockery of the fastidious subset of the court that still took issue with Queen Elnora’s common blood. Lucy’s mother, who came from nobility herself, had very scathing views on nobles who looked down on commoners. And Jocelyn’s mother had taught her when she was very young that if she could brush off the criticisms of such people instead of taking them to heart, she would find that she could use their low expectations to her advantage.

  “Do you think the Valorian prince really will be old and boring?” Lucy asked, the sudden change in topic catching Jocelyn off-guard.

  “Probably,” she answered, her tone instantly subdued. “I overheard Father saying he’s at least twenty-five.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s not too old,” said Lucy hesitantly. Jocelyn just shrugged, so her friend pushed on. “Maybe he’ll be great. Maybe you’ll fall in love with him on sight.”

  Jocelyn snorted. “No thanks. He’s their crown prince—he’s sure to be serious and responsible, with no sense of humor. Not at all love-at-first-sight-worthy.”

  “You don’t know that,” argued Luciana. “I mean,” she paused, her cheeks tinging with color, “Eamon is our crown prince, and he’s not at all like that.”

  Jocelyn gave her friend a pointed look, but kept her mouth firmly shut. Lucy sighed and dropped the subject, resigned from long habit to Jocelyn’s perpetual unwillingness to discuss the budding romance between her brother and her best friend.

  Jocelyn hoped Lucy didn’t think she disapproved—nothing could be further from the truth. And as much as she didn’t particularly want to discuss her twin’s romantic appeal, Jocelyn would have been willing to do it anyway, for Lucy’s sake. But Eamon had flatly forbidden it. Too dangerous, he said. Too risky.

  “It doesn’t really matter what Prince Ormond is like,” Jocelyn hurried on. “There’s no formal offer, you know, Lucy. My mother is convinced that there will be no obligation just because I’ve visited. Honestly, my hope is that they’ll show me a pleasant summer and give me a chance to see a little of Valoria, then send me home unattached with polite greetings for my parents. They just need to get to know me enough to see that I’m not queen material.”

  “Not much chance of that,” said Luciana loyally, if counter-productively. She turned Jocelyn toward the tall looking glass that stood in the corner of the room. “Any kingdom would be lucky to have you as queen. I’m sure they’ll be eager to snap you up.”

  “I think you’re looking at the wrong reflection,” said Jocelyn dryly, her eyes drawn to her friend’s lovely image next to hers.

  Had she been allowed to do so, this was where she would have made a quip about Lucy being unavailable to be Valoria’s future queen because she would be too busy being Kyona’s.

  But Lucy wasn’t interested in either Jocelyn’s compliments or her self-deprecation. She glowered at her friend in the mirror.

  “Don’t pretend to think you’re ugly, Joss, I won’t believe you. You’re lovely, and the Valorians will be sure to see your grace and poise and charm. I wish they wouldn’t, because I don’t want to lose you to them!”

  “Grace and poise and charm?” protested Jocelyn. “Now I know you’re describing yourself instead of me. In fact,” she said accusingly, “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard those exact words in court, after your last visit.” Her tone turned aggrieved.

  “Why is it that when you’re quiet through a state dinner, you get described as graceful and elegant, but when I don’t have anything to say I get called sullen?”

  “What?” said Lucy, outraged. “Who dared to call you that?”

  “Sir Sanctimonious,” grumbled Jocelyn. “Just this morning.”

  “Oh him.” Lucy waved a dismissive hand. “He’s a sour old complainer, don’t listen to what he says.”

  “I don’t, usually,” said Jocelyn. “But…well, I know I said I don’t want a marriage alliance, and it’s true. But if I’m honest Lucy, I still want to make a good impression. I know my father thinks I don’t have what it takes, and I don’t want the Valorians to think I’m an empty-headed peahen.”

  “Your father,” said Luciana firmly, “thinks you’re wonderful. And so do I. And so will any Valorian worth your notice.”

  Jocelyn smiled sadly. She was more relaxed around Lucy than anyone else, except Eamon, and Lucy didn’t realize just how insipid her friend came across to most people. But as she turned from the glass with a lingering look, Jocelyn at least acknowledged to herself that Lucy was right about one thing. She didn’t think she was ugly. She couldn’t hold a candle to Lucy of course, but then who could? />
  It might have been nice to have a little more height, but she didn’t begrudge her mother the inherited short stature, not when it came with the same slim figure. Her hair was darker than her mother’s golden waves, more like her father’s, the color of ripe wheat. With her pale coloring and blue eyes, she presented a sharp contrast to Lucy beside her, but neither girl’s appeal suffered from the juxtaposition.

  On the whole Jocelyn didn’t think that her appearance would disgrace the Kyonan royal house in the sight of the Valorians. If only her manner could be as fitting for a princess as her face.

  Chapter Three

  The time with Luciana and her boisterous family flew by much too quickly, and Jocelyn found herself back in the saddle before she felt fully unpacked. This second farewell was more relaxed but just as momentous to Jocelyn. She had begun to wonder if she had undertaken this state visit too lightly. Somehow she had the feeling that her life would never be the same again.

  She became more withdrawn as they journeyed the remaining two days to reach the other side of the forest, where she would part ways with her twin. She was so quiet even with Eamon, that he drew her aside just before they quitted the trees.

  “Are you all right, Joss? What’s happening in that mind of yours?”

  She looked away, back into the forest where the rest of the group had stopped for a break some time before. They were all starting to prepare for their journey toward the mountains, with the exception of the few guards who would travel back with Eamon.

  “What am I doing, Eamon? I don’t want to be married off to some Valorian.”

  “You won’t be! You’re not signing up for anything, remember?”

  “I’m starting to wonder if that’s really true,” Jocelyn muttered, still not meeting her brother’s eye.

  “Of course it is.” Eamon spoke firmly. “This is just a chance to make new friends.”

  “How can I make friends if I can’t open my mouth?” grumbled Jocelyn.