by Erica Ridley
Predictably, the stranger slumped against the closest wall and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead in a gesture of disbelief. Less predictably, he started to… laugh?
“No treasure,” he repeated as if it were all a grand jest. “No magic mushrooms, not even a gold coin. But hey. I found the princess in the very first castle.”
She nodded slowly, mystified.
He cast his gaze heavenward. “This never happens to Mario.”
She frowned. “Who is Mario?”
“A plumber. You don’t know him.” He rubbed a hand over his closely cropped hair. “Let’s take it from the top. You’re Princess Marigold of Castle Cavanaugh. Which means what? You live here? This lovely domicile is your property?”
“Aye. My forebears have been birthed within these walls for countless generations.”
“Wonderful. Are they here now?”
Marigold hesitated, unsure how truthfully to respond to that query.
“Stumper question. Let me ask another way.” The stranger tapped his chin in thought. “Does anyone else live in the castle? Any cousins? Pets? Maybe a pool boy?”
She shook her head. “’Tis only myself. And now you as well.”
“Lance,” he prompted with an engaging smile. “Lance Desmond, soldier of fortune, at your service. And the first service I intend to provide is: getting out of this castle.”
He pushed off from the wall and strode out into the corridor.
She had to hurry to keep up with him.
’Twasn’t easy. Now that the sun was overhead, the heat was intense.
This Lance had spoken true about her odd choice in apparel. But while the outer chambers of the keep sweltered beneath the rays of the noonday sun, the innermost chambers remained frigid. One could either stoke a banked fire several hours in advance, or simply double up on hose and sables beneath one’s gown. The latter was faster and more practical, particularly if one only intended a brief stay in the inner chambers.
And Marigold always intended a brief stay. But once she’d settled in with a few torches and a good book, the banality of her endless days faded against the rich worlds illustrated upon the page. ’Twas the only way she experienced any excitement. Well, usually.
This morn, she’d stepped from the hidden chamber to find… Lance Desmond, apparently. And as was fair, she found his attire equally as puzzling.
His dark hair was close-cropped black curls, like the soft nubs of a freshly shorn sheep. His eyes were the color of melted chocolate and his teeth a dazzling white, but the rest of him was hidden beneath vestments of bluish black.
His tunic was of some thin, form-fitting material. In place of a cloak, he wore a full-sleeved, waist-length outer garment. Straps of supple leather crisscrossed his chest and shoulders and hips, providing a multitude of loops and pouches to house every manner of indecipherable object.
Marigold shook her head. Clothing—much like language—had become more incomprehensible by the century.
He was taller than most men of her acquaintance, and well-muscled in a trim, rather than burly, sort of way. Like the rest of his ensemble, his long black trousers bulged with pockets. Only his feet—clad in boots of a strange leather—were without tools and gadgetry strapped to this side or that. Verily, the only normalcy she could find in his person was the scabbard at his flank and the quiver of arrows upon his back.
Despite these idiosyncrasies, he was a handsome specimen. Winsome in a boyish yet manly sort of way. Although she could only comprehend every other word when he spoke, his manner was open and easy, and his eyes and smile engaging. Forsooth, he took the tidings of his unwitting captivity without shouts or tears. Rather than succumb to a quite understandable depression, he seemed to already have a scheme well afoot.
Having attempted escape every day of the first few centuries of her imprisonment, Marigold well knew all such plans were destined for disappointment. Nonetheless, his very optimism—the fact that he hadn’t entertained the probability of failure for even a moment—brought an exhilarating flutter of foolish, foolish hope to her belly. She did her best to tamp it down.
Marigold knew better than to hope.
And yet she dashed down the twisting stairs right on his heels, heedless of her skirts trailing against the walls.
He fairly flew out of the narrow tunnel the moment he stepped off the bottom stair, and was halfway down the corridor to the great hall before she caught up with him.
She imagined the door had still been a door when he’d opened it from the outside. ’Twas now a solid sheet of ice. His boots drove him thither without falter, as if the force of his will were powerful enough to vanquish any curse, no matter how evil.
He donned black leather gauntlets with curious cutouts for the fingertips over each hand, and retrieved some sort of harness from one of the empty torch hooks. Without pausing for another second, he shoved the great ice door.
It didn’t budge.
He pushed with both hands. When that didn’t work, he leveraged his shoulder. Then he backed up for a running start, slamming into the solid wall again and again until she was certain he’d knock his arm from its socket or shatter it completely. He grunted with the pain of each impact, which only seemed to make him try harder.
The door held.
That foolish little frisson of hope was gone from her belly, replaced with the same dull hopelessness she’d carried around for the past six centuries.
She knew better than to hope.
Lance had not yet learned the lesson. He was still launching himself at the solid wall of ice, panting and sweating and hurtling headlong into the immovable barrier despite all reason.
Marigold reached out to stop him. Though her fingers managed to grapple one of his many leather straps, he broke free from her grasp to throw himself into the solid ice once more.
Something cracked. It wasn’t the ice.
He made no cry, as if oblivious to the pain. When he scrambled backward to take yet another running start, she threw herself before the great door. With her back flush against the ice, she splayed her legs and spread her arms, blocking him from the barrier.
He rushed forward as if he intended to spear straight through her, the ice, and anything else that dared get in his way.
She held her position. At the last second, he slowed, slumping into her like a lost child rather than barreling through her like a battering ram. Her arms closed around him of their own accord and he winced, as if even that slight pressure was too great after he’d misused his shoulder so badly.
He allowed himself the comfort of her touch for no more than a second before he was straight of spine and fearsome of face once more.
Cautiously, she stepped away. She recognized a warrior’s determination when she saw it. He would not surrender easily. He approached the ice, warily, as a griffin might stalk its prey. He inspected the door from all angles, rising to his toes, crouching on bended knee.
She let him look his fill in peace. After so many centuries within these walls, she already knew what he would find. The slender channels demarcating the door from its frame and each rectangular block upon the walls were naught but illusion. The grooves were merely indentations, not points of weakness between two smaller, exploitable parts. There were no icy cobblestones; only the illusion of such. And there were no hinges or gaps about the door. There wasn’t even a door. There was only ice.
He whirled to face her.
“Where are the torches?” he demanded, gesturing at the bare walls.
She cupped her palm over her eyes to pointedly block out the sun’s blinding rays and repeated, “Torches?”
“You know. Fire. Don’t you have fire anywhere in this castle?”
She nodded slowly. Of course there was fire. The embers never fully died at the foot of her bed, and even now a cauldron of stew was a-boil in the kitchens. Alas, ’twould not help. Fire had—
“Never mind.” He motioned her aside with the opposite hand, clearly favoring his domina
nt shoulder. “You’re going to want to stand back for this. Trust me.”
Although she doubted he would succeed where so many had failed, she took several precautionary steps backward.
From his belt, Lance unfastened a long gray cylinder about two hands’ widths in length, with the approximate circumference of a scabbard. A small red nub protruded from one side. When he glanced over his shoulder as if to confirm she stood at a safe distance, she took a few extra steps back. If he was worried, that device must be powerful indeed.
He aimed the cylinder at the wall of ice and pressed his thumb to the red nub.
A blinding flash filled the chamber, a light brighter than the sun, and her ears rang with the long-forgotten boom of cannon-fire.
Nothing else happened.
Lance stared in utter disbelief at the smoking cylinder in his hand, then hurled it into the unshaken ice with enough force to shatter the device into a thousand pieces.
Marigold held her tongue. Having grown up surrounded by lords and knights, she could well recognize a man unused to having his will thwarted. Especially by an inanimate object.
Then again, Marigold didn’t believe the castle was inanimate. Or even insentient.
It had taken centuries to break her will, but she was convinced that the castle had enjoyed every interminable moment. It taunted her with its very existence. Transparent exterior walls constantly mocked her with a full view of a world she could never again join. Forever held captive in a dungeon of ice, clear as glass and hard as crystal.
She wouldn’t be surprised to learn she wasn’t immortal after all, but trapped in the depths of Hell.
Lance appeared to be reaching a similar conclusion.
Rather than unfurling a white flag, he unfastened a second gray cylinder from his belt. His expression was no longer one of hope and determination, but disbelief bordering on despair. Marigold took another step back. He aimed the device and depressed the red nub. As before, a loud boom and a bright flash reverberated through the great hall.
And as before, he hurled the spent cylinder into the closest wall.
“Maybe it’s not firing,” he said with sudden, mad hope. “Maybe something about the low temperatures with the cheap plastic and… Didn’t you say there was fire somewhere? Let’s get some fire, then let’s find the weakest point in the ice.”
Although she knew from soul-deadening experience that there were no weak points in the ice, Marigold also remembered the driving need to try everything, no matter how slender the odds, on the slight chance that mayhap, this time, ’twould have an effect.
She led him to the kitchens.
“Are you cooking?” he said in surprise, taking in the cauldron and the sideboard. “How much can one woman eat? You’ve got, what… twelve loaves of bread and twice as much on the way? Good Lord. This is the biggest kettle of soup I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and that block of cheese is even taller than I am. More than enough to feed an army. I’d love to see what you’d whip up if you actually expected guests. Do they not practice moderation here in Castle Cavanaugh? Where do you even get groceries?”
He didn’t seem to expect responses to any of his queries, which was a boon, since Marigold was disinclined to provide any answers. There were certain things he needed to know—like being imprisoned with no hope of escape—and there were other things he was better off not knowing.
Things she wished she didn’t know either.
He found the torches hanging outside the scullery and lit the wick ends as dangerously as possible—by shoving them all into the fire at once. She opened her mouth to warn him, then clapped a hand o’er her lips before Do you wish to burn down the keep? could trip from her tongue.
A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to escape her throat. Aye. He very much wished to burn down the keep. If only he were able to!
He handed her a torch for each hand and took two for himself before gesturing her to follow his lead. He trekked from hall to bailey, and from outer chamber to inner chamber, thrusting the orange flames at each embossed window or angled arrow slit they passed.
“Shouldn’t some sections of ice be thinner than others?” he demanded once it became clear that even windowless “bars” were actually solid sheets of ice.
“Naught that you see is real,” she reminded him softly. “’Tis illusion that makes you think panes of glass should be thinner than blocks of stone. The ice is deep as my arm, and solid as rock. You can apply all the flame you wish, but I have ne’er seen even a droplet of dew form on its surface. ’Tis impenetrable and indestructible. Such is the curse, and has been so for centuries.”
He turned to glare at her, a flaming torch in each hand. “What is the curse, exactly? Tell it to me word for word.”
“Weel…” Her gaze slid from his.
His mouth fell open. “You don’t know?”
“I was sotted!” she protested. “’Twas the anniversary of my birth, and the wine flowed freely. Throughout the Yuletide, ’tis traditional to drink wassail and dance until—”
“You were partying?” He gaped at her in disbelief. “You can’t remember the curse that trapped you inside a castle for hundreds of years, because you were too drunk to pay attention. That’s great. Very helpful.”
She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. There were no recriminations he could inflict upon her that she hadn’t already suffered. And say what he would, her mead consumption was the least of her troubles. “I would nay have heard the words, were I dry as timber. The curse was spoken outside the castle walls.”
“Ah.” He nodded slowly, as if to himself. “Makes sense. I’d stay out of the line of fire, too, if I had those skills. But what about everyone else? I can’t believe no one thought to jot anything down.”
Her smile was as brittle as her heart. “When I awoke the next morn, there wasn’t anyone else.”
“They left?” His expression transformed from outrage to delight. “But that’s awesome! We just need to figure out how they did it, and then do the same thing. Any ideas? I mean, did you see anyone leave?”
She’d seen everything. Been spared nothing. A shudder snaked down her spine. She swallowed hard. “No one ‘left.’ They were just… gone.”
He shook his head as if her words held no meaning. Mayhap they didn’t. ’Twas for the better. She had no wish to explain.
His forehead wrinkled as though a thousand more questions flooded his mind. Something in the bleakness of her expression must have convinced him the answers would only darken his mood, for at last he simply nodded. “Okay. I get that breaking out of here can’t be easy, or you’d have already done it. But there’s got to be a way.”
She made no reply. She would have broken free by now, if freedom were there to find. She’d taken both axe and flame to every inch of the castle grounds, and had gained nothing but disappointment after disappointment. She no longer went through the motions. There was no point.
She still dreamed of finding a way out, but she no longer believed in the possibility. Not for her, and definitely not for him.
Lance rubbed at his temples. “I must be missing something. I haven’t slept since the night before last and I’m not thinking at a hundred percent. The castle will still be here tomorrow, right? That’s the curse. Twenty-four hours is nothing. What I need is a good night’s sleep. Maybe I’ll wake up with the answer.”
That happy moment, Marigold reflected dismally, would categorically not happen. He would not sleep through the night. Nor would he ever wake up. Come morning, he would simply be…
Gone.
Chapter 4
After having raced after him through the castle while wearing a week’s worth of tunics, Marigold began to wilt. The ice amplified the exterior heat a thousandfold. No quarter was given.
Lance’s presence only made things worse. She shielded her eyes and turned away from her dauntless visitor. She could face his optimism no longer. Would that he stood a chance!
But midnight
drew ever nearer, and by the time the sand inside the glass had run its course, so would he. The height of the soaring sun bespoke noontime. Which meant a mere twelve hours remained before he vanished like all the others.
Twelve awful, excruciating hours in which she must keep her heart as hard as stone, for she could not afford to let herself like him. Not even a little. Liking someone was too close to caring, and caring caused far too much pain.
Lance was a stranger, and he must needs remain one.
She ignored the twisting in her stomach and took a slow, measured breath. Strength. She would be stalwart. Unwavering. A fortress as indomitable and merciless as the castle itself.
It was the only way to survive.
“Well, Princess…” Lance speared her with a dazzling grin. “I don’t know about you, but battling ancient curses gives me a wicked appetite. What do you say to going halfsies on that giant kettle of soup?”
Marigold choked on something dangerously close to laughter. Imprisoned until death, and his most pressing concern was his stomach? He was such… such a man.
Her lips curved despite her best efforts. Prioritizing food above all else was something her male cousins would have done. Vicious on the battlefield, yet harmless as puppies when there were fresh pies in the oven. She shook her head. She’d forgotten how simple life could be for a warrior. How simple life had been for her.
Until the curse had stripped her of everything.
Nay. Not everything. She was still Princess Marigold of Castle Cavanaugh. She hadn’t surrendered her honor or her pride, and she was certainly still in possession of proper social graces.
She inclined her head. “Come. If you be hungry, we must break bread at once.”
He immediately proffered his uninjured arm.
She did not take it. He already pleased her far more than she was fain to admit. They were both better off avoiding physical interaction. Yet her fingers itched to settle in the crook of his arm. How would the strange material of his tunic feel to her fingers? Would the muscle beneath the cloth prove as firm and strong as she imagined? She shivered despite her many layers of clothing.