I dropped to one of the chairs, which was of course stone. Like miniature thrones, all of them, and every single one needed a cushion. I pressed my palms against my eyes, keeping the tears away just barely by remembering that Mihas was in the room with me.
I was, for the first time, glad of his company.
While my head had been buried, he’d made a fire in the hearth. “This will take the chill off the room. I must go to serve my lord now.”
“Our lord,” I said, but not very loudly, more trying out the words than anything.
Mihas heard me anyway. “Our lord,” he repeated.
After Mihas left, the Darkness pushed in close around me. I was having a hard time breathing. I closed my eyes, selecting a darkness of my own choosing . . . though my presence here, that was my choice, too, wasn’t it? I’d saved Pa, ended the curse—tried to save Mihas, not that the stupid cowherd would stay saved. . . .
The wave of palpable Darkness rolled back just enough for me to crawl into bed, so crawl into bed I did, though I made sure to turn the bear’s head as far away from mine as possible. I didn’t want to spend the night feeling like it was going to eat my face. Or kiss me.
I thought about crying but just went to sleep instead. I didn’t sleep terribly long, and I certainly didn’t sleep well. I dreamed of earthquakes, and falling buildings, far too vividly.
Chapter 24
When I woke, the fire had warmed the room to a tolerable temperature. So that was something. But the Darkness dimmed the light of the fire and pressed me into the bed. I lay feeling paralyzed by the weight of endless night. It took me a long moment before I could convince my limbs to move. Wondering if I was awake or dreaming, I tried to say, “Get up! Your eyes are open! You’re awake! Move!”
But even my effort to speak was strangled by the Darkness, and I could only grunt.
Hearing my own voice freed me, though, and I was able to wiggle my fingers, and from there to sit up.
I crawled stiffly out of bed and went to crouch by the fire. I stayed there for what felt like a long time, until I wondered if anyone was ever going to remember me. Probably not. Lord Dragos had indicated that the enchanted footmen were the only servants he’d employed, and if Mihas was now doing the work of thirty men, it was unlikely anyone was going to come in and solicitously ask if I needed a chamber pot. Or a fresh change of clothes. Or a bath.
I shivered. I doubted proper bathing facilities existed in the Underworld. And if they did, a “proper bathing facility” probably meant a cold bath with sandpaper towels.
And yet, the pavilion below had been well-appointed and delightful to the senses. And warm enough. Couldn’t this castle be made as comfortable?
Well, I was used to shifting for myself. I jammed my feet into my shoes, supremely grateful for my thick woolen socks. If I were dressed like a princess, I’d probably freeze to death here. On a hopeful hunch, I dug under my bed and found a chamber pot, and used it.
I wondered if I was allowed to leave my room at will. I tried the door, and it opened.
“Of course,” I said airily. “You’re the future queen. And where would you go, anyway?”
I grabbed up a candle and lit it from the hearth. It was not difficult to find my way to the hall from the night before. A fire crackled there now, and a wolfskin rug had been added to the floor, along with a few rather hairy cushions. “How delightful,” I muttered, lifting one of the cushions to my stone chair and settling down on it.
The Darkness pressed on me, pressed on my eyes. In spite of fires and candles, the shadows crawled ever closer.
I heard hooves on the stones of the hall and braced myself.
“Did you sleep?” Lord Dragos asked, entering the room.
“A little.”
“It’s morning in the World Above.”
I frowned. “Already? Perhaps I slept longer than I thought.”
“Time does not run reliably on the same track below as it does above,” he said.
I should have expected time to be different. There are stories about people who dance with fairies for a night and in the morning find a hundred years have passed and everyone they loved is dead of old age. But . . .
The Darkness crept closer, seeped into my pores, wrapped itself around my waist like a bodice.
I moaned, and the Darkness broke over me like a wave. The walls swayed around me, and I found myself slumped in my chair, limbs stretched out as I attempted to bear the weight of the Darkness. I lay still for a long moment after it released me and moved on.
No wonder people drank Lethe. It would be a sweet relief, after moments like that.
When I could breathe and see again, Dragos was watching me gravely. He extended a silver goblet. “I’m sorry. Drink this.”
“I don’t want it,” I said, feeling ragged. I levered myself up to sit on my hands, so they wouldn’t betray me by taking the cup. “And what are you sorry about?”
“I forgot what it was like when I first came here. I apologize. I should have remembered. . . .”
His eyes were still not Prince Frumos’s eyes. Not that it mattered. I didn’t trust Prince Frumos any more than I trusted Lord Dragos. Or King Dragos. Or whatever he was calling himself. Only, there was something sad and honest in his expression now.
I looked at the goblet. “When you first came here? Haven’t you always been here?”
He lowered the cup and stared into it. “I am as newborn to this world as you are, in the grand scheme of things. Drink,” he said. “It will make things easier. It is the same water that you drank from the Little Well in Castle Sylvian. The fact that you once drank that water is probably all that’s kept you from going completely under by now.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand. You told me not to drink from the Little Well a third time.”
“That was when you were for the World Above, when you were to live and die there. Down here . . . The Underworld is for the dead. Mortals who come here have a particularly hard time adjusting. You will be susceptible to the influences of the—well, let’s call it the air.
“My servants, of whom Mihas is the only remaining representative, were given the waters of Lethe to help them forget the world they came from, so they would not mourn what they had lost and to decrease their confusion. Some call it the Water of Death. But myself, I drink Alethe, which is the opposite of Lethe in every way and is what we call the Water of Life.”
“What did the princesses drink?”
“Alethe as well,” Dragos said. “Because they needed to remember their life in the World Above in order to return to it at the end of every night.”
I frowned.
“In any case, the Little Well in Castle Sylvian draws from the river Alethe, and you have already tasted it. If you drink more of it, things will only be easier for you in this world.”
I cocked my head. “So you will allow me to remember my life above? Even if I mourn what I’ve lost? Even if I grow confused?”
“This water will keep the confusion at bay. The Darkness already presses on you, yes? And soon it will cloud your mind. You will go mad if you don’t drink either Alethe’s waters or Lethe’s. The choice is yours: remembering or forgetting. But you must drink something.” Dragos held the cup out to me again. “And if you mourn, it is only proper.”
I reached for the cup, but I still hesitated.
“What if this is Lethe?” I whispered. “What if you are lying?”
“I do not lie,” he said, fingering the brooch on his cloak.
“Never? Not to spare someone’s feelings or even to save your own life?”
Dragos took the cup out of my hand and drank deeply, then handed it back to me. “There. Proof.”
“But you’re a zmeu. It proves nothing. I am human.”
He sighed, exasperated but not angry. I raised the cup, and it did smell like the water of the Little Well. But I didn’t drink. I remembered the last time I’d had the opportunity to drink after him and had thought, like a foolish ch
ild, that if we drank from the same spot, it would be like kissing. How stupid I’d been! I’d been thinking about kissing a zmeu.
“I swear, it will do you no harm,” he said.
“Because I am young?” I said. “That’s what you said when I drank from the Little Well. You said I was young, and innocent. And . . . well-intentioned and fair. Oh! You lied there. I’m not fair at all. I’m quite dark, and have never been pretty.”
“As to that, by fair I meant fair-minded. Just and true, in your convictions and assertions.”
Well, farts of Easter. I’d rather enjoyed the memory of being called fair, even though I’d known it was untrue. Now I didn’t even have the memory of a false compliment to enjoy.
I took a sip.
The water was sweet and stony, and my stomach welcomed it.
Immediately, the Darkness took a step backward. Another sip, and I could breathe without constriction. I drained the goblet. I fell back into my chair, eyes closed, breathing heavily.
When I opened my eyes again, Dragos was sitting quietly, wings folded neatly around the back of his armless chair.
“I have found servants for you,” he said, as though we had been having an entirely different conversation. “They will be difficult to communicate with at first, as they are eidolons—ghosts—the souls of pagans who died long ago. The lands above have been Christian since Roman times, when the language was very different, and since Christian souls move on, it is only the ancient pagan souls who stay here.”
“Pagan souls,” I repeated. I remembered a conversation I’d overheard among the princesses. They’d been talking about accepting a proposal—Lord Dragos’s proposal, I understood now—and Lacrimora had said, no, no, they’d come too far to give up then, for any one of them to to surrender their immortal soul. . . .
Was I giving up my soul? My chance at an afterlife? As the bride of a lord of the Underworld, how could I possibly still hope to go to Heaven?
Dragos hadn’t noticed my reverie and was continuing. “Mihas will be one of your footmen; he has asked to be, and I see no reason to refuse him. But you must also have handmaidens. This has been a bachelor residence for too long. I’m afraid we’ve forgotten to supply many amenities. Is there anything you’d like? To be more comfortable? Clean clothes, obviously.”
“Clothes, yes, and warm ones.”
“Of course.”
“And I need to know where to empty my chamber pot.”
I couldn’t tell if he looked confused or horrified. He was awfully aristocratic, even for a dragon-demon, so probably he found the thought of emptying one’s own chamber pot as mystifying and terrible as I found his cheek spines and red skin.
Or possibly, zmei didn’t poop.
“Yes, well, I’m sure that when you have a handmaiden, she will take care of that. . . . Until then . . . Mihas, perhaps . . .”
“Well, what about bathing facilities?”
“That I can do.”
“And . . . rugs for my bedchamber floor, curtains for the bed, perhaps a blanket or two that doesn’t have a face attached? And perhaps . . .” I hesitated.
“Ask, and if it’s in my power to grant, you shall have it.”
“An herbary?” I asked in a small voice.
Dragos’s cheek spines lowered. “Perhaps it could be arranged, but I don’t see why you’d want one,” Dragos said gently, as if trying not to hurt my feelings. “There’s no call for herb lore down here. The mortals you may encounter are already long dead, and the immortals do not sicken. They have no need of healing here, in the land of the dead.”
This, more than any other thing I’d yet contemplated about the choice I’d made—more than the potential loss of my immortal soul—was too much of a blow. No true marriage and no children with Dragos? All to the good. But the prospect of no herbary—of nothing, nothing at all to look forward to, nothing at all to comfort me?
Silence stretched between us. “I’m sorry,” Dragos said at last. “I’ll have Mihas bring you food.”
He left, and in short order, Mihas arrived.
“Reveka, are you all right?” the cowherd asked. He carried a tray of bread and fruit, and my stomach flopped with urgent desire for it.
“Can I eat any of that?” I whispered.
Mihas set the tray down hard on the table. A few grapes rolled off the plate, and Mihas jumped to catch them before they escaped into the shadows forever.
“I can’t—” I said, and ran for my room.
I forgot to grab a candle, and too soon I was running through passageways I could not see. I didn’t stop running, though; I followed the wall by touch. There were no carpets to catch my feet, and the flagstones were smooth, so it was completely safe to pelt onward into the blackness—
I ran smack into a wall, hitting my nose so hard that blood flooded my face. The blow set me onto my bum, and I flopped backward too hard onto the floor, banging my head as well.
I’d missed the turn. I was supposed to turn left at the end of this passageway, and then my room was the sixth door on the right. But I’d forgotten that this hallway ended in a wall.
I cried then. I cried a lot. Usually when I cry, I remember that it’s not helpful and get up and do something that is helpful instead, but this time, I just didn’t see the point.
I realized pretty quickly that fast-flowing nose blood was seeping down my chin and neck onto my chemise, and of course, this just made me cry harder. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter about the herbary, because Pa was going to rescue me, but I didn’t believe it. There was no way Pa could rescue me. Dragos was a gigantic zmeu with obsidian claws, and he could breathe fire.
I’d been preparing myself to stay because I feared staying was inevitable.
And what a cold and lonely and dark place this was. No wonder Dragos wanted a wife.
I forced myself to my feet, even though I didn’t bother to try to make myself stop crying, and staggered down to my room, counting doors by feel. When I thought I was at the right room, I opened the door—but it wasn’t the right room. There was a fire lit, yes, but the room was enormous, and the curtainless bed was thrice the size of mine, and carved with dragons and wyrms, so intertwined that they looked like they were fighting.
There were books and a few papers scattered on an otherwise neat desk, with a chair suitable in size for a zmeu. There were maps on the walls, but no tapestries. Two swords hung crossed over the bed. A bough of plum blossoms rested in a vase on the mantel.
Dragos’s room.
I backed out and closed the door. I’d counted wrong. I went down one more door, and there was my room, just as spartan as my betrothed’s. More so.
I found my herb pouch and stuck bits of wool in my nostrils, then dosed myself with comfrey to rebuild the blood I’d lost and was still losing. I washed myself with water from the pitcher, figuring that even if it was the water of Lethe, it was probably safe to wash in.
Probably.
I didn’t care right then.
I found the bread that I’d stowed in my herb pouch two nights before. I ate some of it, then crawled into my bed and vowed not to come out again.
Chapter 25
I don’t know how long I hid under the covers before my sobs calmed and I fell into a deep sleep. I woke disoriented, feeling as though I’d slept for days. Time really was impossible to sort out here. The endless night didn’t help, either.
The room was faintly lit by the embers in my hearth. When I slid from the bed, I took a deep breath, and no sob caught in my chest. My storm had passed, then; I’d never yet met a fate so gruesome that a good sleep didn’t put a slightly better face on it. A bath and a meal would have helped even more, but . . .
There was a tap at the door, and when I opened it, Lord Dragos was on the other side. His ears widened in astonishment. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have terrific bruises around your eyes, and your chemise is stained with blood.”
; “Oh.” I looked down and brushed ineffectually at the dried stains. “I ran into a wall in the dark.”
His ears relaxed. “You should have taken a candle with you. Or a torch.”
“Obviously,” I muttered.
“I have brought your servants,” he said, and snapped his dexterous fingers. From the dark of the hall emerged Mihas and several men and women, carrying all manner of things. They swarmed into my room, and in mere moments, the place was transformed—clothes were spread out, carpets were laid down. Several people started hanging bed curtains. Two men carried in a desk; more followed with crates, a chair, and an armload of fabric.
“These are eidolon servants,” Dragos said.
“If eidolons are ghosts, how can they serve?” I asked.
“Eidolons are souls, and in the Underworld, they are as physical as I, or Mihas. But they cannot manifest in the World Above without a blood sacrifice.”
“Oh,” I said. I must have looked a little bit horrified.
“In any case, I used mortal servants while I could because we at least speak the same everyday language. It was more comfortable.”
“How—?” My question was cut off by the noise of hammering. Bang! Bang, bang, bang, bang! Before I knew it, there were pegs nailed high on the walls, and servants were hoisting tapestries onto them.
One tapestry showed the same dragon kidnapping a maiden as outside the Princess Consort’s solar. I squinted and found the mended snag on the maiden’s cheek.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Dragos glanced at the tapestry with indifference. “It is usual for the rulers of a land to pay a tithe to the local lord of the Underworld,” he said. “I hadn’t collected for a while.”
“Wait—does that mean Prince Vasile owes you tribute? Does he know he owes you tribute?”
The Princess Curse Page 14