by Tara Brown
He offered me his hand. "Let's dance then, and you can have the chance to tell me about these obligations."
I nearly turned him down, but the group of men on the other side of the room had my interest piqued. I had yet to see the man in the locket and was starting to believe him to be on the other side of the room. I looked back at the man before me and curtsied, taking his hand.
Dancing was an excellent way to find the man the locket would reveal. I let him lead me to the dance floor, though I was certain I wouldn’t have been able to talk him out of it. I placed my drink on a table as we passed it.
He was smooth in the way he glided across the floor, like dancing with my brothers who had been formally trained by our mother. The difference was the way he would have made my heart leap, had I not been wearing the necklace.
He spun me once before speaking, "What is your name?"
I watched his dark-blue eyes behind his black masque, realizing that the way he spoke and the look in his eyes were familiar to me. I knew him from somewhere. I frowned, wondering if we had been introduced in my castle. "Millicent. Everyone just calls me Millia."
A puzzled look crossed his face. "You never hear that name anymore. More of an old-lady name, isn’t it?"
"It is. It was my grandmother's name." I was glad it wasn't my real name or that would have stung. Millia was indeed my grandmother’s name, the name for which I was named Amillia.
"It probably suited her, as it does you. The name is delicate like a delicate flower.” His voice changed slightly, growing throatier, “The kind of girl every man hopes to make his, even when he knows he has no right to that type of happiness."
I laughed. I had no other response. My emotions were tied away. His flattery and indecency would have been offensive without the necklace. I knew it was, and yet being in his arms seemed normal. His firm grip and the way he pressed me against him was somehow familiar. His lips—I knew them, but I couldn’t place from where.
"You must have men begging you to be theirs." His voice was piquing my ear. I knew him.
A frown crossed my lips as I started to remember where I last heard his voice. "I'm sorry, but have we met?"
His dark eyes flashed. "I am offended. I am certain if we had ever properly met, you would remember it."
I glanced over at the locket, catching a glimpse of a face that was trying to show itself. The forest would appear and then the man's face. I glanced back at the room with the men in it. As we neared it, the locket cleared. The picture of a dark-haired man with a mustache and bushy eyebrows appeared. His lips were thin and cruel.
My focus drifted away from my partner.
"Did you hear me? What I said?"
I glanced at him, realizing I had missed everything he had said. "Sorry. I just thought I saw a man I knew in there."
His eyes flashed in a way that should have startled me. "What man?"
"An old friend of my father's."
"Is your father here?" The way he asked it was odd.
I shook my head. "He's dead."
"I am sorry." He said it like he meant it.
"Everyone dies at some point." The words left my lips nonchalantly, regardless of how much I knew it hurt me.
"Was it a long time ago?"
"Not so long ago." My swords brushed my legs as he spun me masterfully.
"Would you like to get a drink?"
I nodded, watching him. He was up to something. At the very least, I knew him from somewhere. Something was wrong. I had no instincts to go on. The necklace was confusing me. I slipped it from my throat and immediately pain and grief flooded me. I nearly buckled as he led me from the dance floor, tossing the wretched necklace into a plant as I passed it.
I had to cope with the second cost of the necklace as we walked—the flood of emotions that hit when I removed it. The cursed jewelry hadn’t turned out to be such a smart plan.
I glanced down at the locket, again seeing the face of the man I was to murder. "I-I-I'm sorry. I have to go." I turned and walked quickly to the powder room to get a good look at the locket. The forest scene was back and it flickered once to the man’s face. I couldn't help but wonder if all magic was this useless.
I needed to just murder the man and leave.
I took deep breaths, giving myself a quick study, hoping I didn't look too worse for wear after the crippling feelings had assaulted my nerves.
I freshened myself and opened the door to leave the powder room, but the man I had danced with rushed me in the hallway. He grabbed my hand and spun me from the doorway, pressing my back against the wall where no one could see us. I didn't react the way I had when Herrick attacked me. I let him lower his divine lips onto mine. His kiss consumed me, and for a reason I didn't know, I let it. I let his hands roam me as my own fingers ran through his hair and over his face. I pulled down the masque—his face startling me but making sense of my attractions and familiarity with him.
"Maddox," I whispered.
He grinned but pulled away. "I needed to see you—to tell you I was okay."
“Okay?” My mouth hung open. "You're not dead? How are you here? Are you a ghost? Have you come to haunt me?" It was like having every wish I’d ever made come true.
"I am not dead—I’m just not meant to be with you. We are not each other’s destiny. I am sorry I deceived you.”
I blinked tears, completely lost, and yet somehow refusing to believe what I saw or heard.
“Can you forgive me?”
“No.” I shook my head, answering before I had even thought it through properly.
He ignored me, again pressing his face against mine. It was intense and magical, and then it was over. He turned away from me, getting lost in the crowd of dancers.
I stood alone in the hall.
My heart didn't believe. It sat there like a lump of coal, broken and useless. It refused to come back to life or celebrate the taste that still sat upon my lips, the taste of his kiss.
I gasped for air as if I had been under water since his death. Tears streamed my face and panic filled my heart. I had no direction, no understanding, no plan.
In desperation, I ran back to the planter and fished the necklace out of the dirt, scraping my ears as I pulled it on. My eyes scanned the room as all the pain left me immediately, sucked into the metal of the jewelry.
Maddox was again nowhere, but I could taste his kiss on my lips.
Looking to the left, searching for Maddox, I saw the man from the locket. He drank, laughed, and was merry. I wanted to hate him, but I was unable. I was grateful Herrick seemed to be nowhere to be found. The night was a disaster already.
I smiled at the man from the locket. He noticed me and smiled back. So I did the thing I assumed would be right and floated across the floor. Confusion and pain should have been destroying me. Millions of questions were attacking my mind, but I cleared it all away and smiled at the man with the mustache.
I held his eye as I walked past him, and just as I had been assured he would, he followed.
"Have we met, my dear? You seem familiar to me." He wore no masque, thankfully, making my job that much easier.
I laughed, shaking my head as I walked to the back of the massive house and out into the garden.
"You must have been to my vineyard in the south of Alderney, in the kingdom of Montagne?"
I shook my head again, looking back at him. I giggled as if intoxicated.
His dark eyes smoldered. He was ready to attack.
The fresh air felt refreshing on my skin. I leaned my back against the garden wall that was covered in richly scented flowers.
He leaned his face into my neck. "Then I must have you—visit me there." He pressed his lips softly into my nape.
"My father has been to your vineyard," I whispered.
He pulled back. "Yes. Of course. What is his name?"
"King Henry Morgentstein. Surely you've heard of him."
I watched his eyes as terror crossed them. I shoved him back, pulling my s
words in one fluid motion, opposite hand to opposite sword. I sliced as I swung and made a deep X across his chest. He gasped as I sank my right sword into his left breast. He stumbled, coughing blood and wheezing. He tried to cry out but his wind was gone.
I dragged my sword slowly from his chest and whispered, "You killed my father. You betrayed my people. I will burn your vineyard to the ground and sell your wife, sir." I sheathed my bloody swords and turned away, climbing the garden wall quickly. I was on one of the roofs when the screaming started.
Standing there alone in the breeze, I whistled and waited.
I needed to find Maddox, but I needed answers first. How was he alive? I had pulled the sword from his back. He didn't breathe. We burnt his body. He wasn't alive; I was being fooled. Dark magic had tricked me. I was sure of it.
"Leaving so soon?”
I spun around to find the ghost, or doppelgänger, of Maddox standing on the roof behind me. “I don't know who you are, or why you would play such a cruel trick on me, but I will kill you if I ever see you again.”
He stepped toward me, his face so like Maddox’s I was grateful I wore the cursed piece of jewelry. “It’s me, Max.” The cocky-looking man in a suit, the man I never would have seen as Maddox, not really, instantly became a boy in the woods. I no longer saw the suit or the combed hair or the confidently smug grin. All I saw was him. “Your Max,” he muttered.
I felt nothing.
His words should have sliced through me. I wished they had. Almost tempted to rip the necklace from my body, I fingered it, staring at him. I searched his face for a difference, a flaw. But it was him. It truly was him.
I gagged—a reflex even the necklace couldn't control. "How?" My words were a whisper the wind tried to steal.
He looked pained. "I can't explain it.”
Slowly, not noticing the pins and needles covering my body, I walked to him. When I was close enough I reached for him. My hand dragged across his face. I didn’t understand. "You are real."
He shook his head but still pressed his rough cheek into my palm. "It's better if you don’t know. Your mission is important. Just know I will always have your back and you can rest easy knowing I am safe. I am alive and well and loving you from the shadows, like I always was before."
I didn't control the reaction; there was no feeling or rage but my hand whipped back, slapping him hard across the cheek.
He took the hit, not even flinching as I pulled back, still numb as a stone.
“You’re angry, I understand that. I have lied to you for a long time.” He grabbed my hands in his, holding them tightly. “Just know, the biggest lie I ever told was that I didn't love you. I need you to know that.”
I jerked free. “I’m not angry. I’m confused. If you can’t answer anything, and you don't want to be with me, why are you here?”
“I thought I could live in the shadows, watching you, letting you live your life. But I can’t. I’m weak. It’s why I never left your kingdom when I knew how I felt about you. I’m selfish, Amillia.”
I backed up, shaking my head but stuck staring into his eyes. There was a war inside me, and my body was vibrating because of it. The necklace’s grip was firm but the severe pain in my chest was stronger. Little sips of anguish slipped in. "We—I burned you. You were dead. I know what I saw. I pulled the sword from your back. Don't tell me you have my back, Maddox. I don't want you there. My whole life you have had my heart. All of it. I gave it to you, and you let me believe it burned with your body." I couldn't fight the tears welling in my eyes. “You let me live brokenhearted, half a person, for over a month. You knew how much I loved you.”
He lowered his face. "You must take it back, take your heart back. I am not worthy of it. I never was."
I wanted to spit at him with my words but I remained calm. "Lies. I saw you. I know you. I know your worth. I gave my heart to a man who was worthy."
He blinked and I swore I saw a tear shed from one of his dark-blue eyes. "It doesn’t matter what you see, Princess. Your role in all this is so much bigger than you can imagine. You cannot be with a man like me."
Realization hit me again, harder, as the necklace wavered and more pain seared its way into me. I stormed across the roof, shoving him. "I burned you! You burned! How are you here?”
He sighed. “I cannot die, Amillia. I wasn't dead.”
“I burned you!”
He leaned in. “The way I remember it was more like you lit the pyre and left. The heat woke me as you were walking away. I watched you leave. I had to flee for the forest when the guards came." He watched my reaction, which was nothing and leaned in, staring into my eyes. “How are you so calm."
I hadn’t thought I was being calm, and I desperately wanted to feel the horror and pain I was being dealt so I ripped the necklace from my throat and threw it to the rooftop, stomping on it. Tears poured from my masque as the storm hit, washing me with the worst pain a person can feel. My hands let loose, slapping and hitting him in blind fury. "Y-y-you tell me how this has happened. You tell me why you can’t die!”
“Amillia!” He grabbed my arms, lifting my chin so our eyes met. “What just happened? What was that necklace? Why are you acting so strange?”
I closed my eyes as a bitter laugh ripped from me. “Why am—why am I acting strange? Surely you are joking?”
He narrowed his gaze. “I am truly sorry.” He lowered his face and pressed his lips onto mine.
I let it last a moment before I shoved him back. “Stop! Why are you doing this to me?”
“To you?” His expression sank. "Forgive me.” He swallowed hard, shaking his head roughly. “I shouldn't have come. I did not mean to add to your burdens. I see now that freeing you of the worry of whether I'm alive or not has not lessened the pain.”
“You came here to make this better for me? You honestly believed this would lesson my—pain?”
"I came because I had to see you. I had to tell you I was alive. I couldn't bear the pain on your face.”
“And yet, we still can't be together? This changes nothing?"
He opened his mouth like he might say something but he closed it. The weak look on his face made me sick. “The day you died to me, I told you that you were a coward. When I found you dead, I took it back.”
He looked confused.
“I regret that.”
His lips toyed with a grin. “Calling me a coward?”
“No, taking it back. You are a coward and you are right, you don't deserve me.” As I said it I heard the sounds of Artan on the wind. I ran to the end of the roof and jumped. Artan swooped and grabbed me. I climbed onto his back. I looked back at Maddox standing on the roof and watched. I refused to cry; I refused weakness. I didn't need a necklace for that.
I was strong enough.
He wanted to be dead to me, so be it.
I hugged Artan and closed my eyes. I knew he would take me to the right place. I had done as the witches had asked—I had killed the man who set my father up by creating the fake war that sealed my family's fate. One was dead and soon they would all join him. I would leave a blood trail right back to the doorsteps of my castle if need be.
By then my rotten brother would know I was coming for him. He would fear me.
I would save him for last and let him suffer with the wonder of when I was coming for him.
My broken heart wasn’t broken the way I thought it was. My love didn’t want me but that wasn't a new pain, it was an old one. One I had spent all of my days forced to endure.
I had always believed he was lying to himself; he loved me but refused to admit it. But seeing him tonight, I knew it had been me that was always lying to myself. He, on the other hand, had been honest every day he had rejected me.
Chapter Eleven
I fingered the deep broken scratches in the hard wooden wall of the cottage, contemplating how closed off I was. The slivers of wood dragged roughly against my soft fingers. It felt like so little progress. Only seven marks in the wa
ll above my bed, seven deaths, each one a traitor.
The numbness of the necklace was overwhelming sometimes. I couldn't even feel the joy of knowing they were all dead.
I wasn’t a person, but a thing.
Seven scratches for seven lives.
The death of the man who faked the war as a diversion was the start of bloodshed that would strike terror into the hearts of every person in the city. And I wasn't even whole enough to feel the pleasure of that fear.
With every death I wished that their pain and suffering would somehow save me, somehow fill the hole Maddox had made.
But it didn’t.
The hole remained the same.
And I spent my days trying not to look for him in the eyes and face of every man I saw.
I tried to not imagine what my life would feel like if it were spent in his arms.
I tried to tell myself he was a ghost and nothing more. It was what he wished after all.
"Millia, love, we are going to town. Is there anything you need?"
I glanced up at the witches and shook my stoic face.
Katy frowned. "Darling, don’t wear that trinket all the time. It's bad for you. It’s for you to kill mercilessly and remove when you are done each one, letting the feelings of the kill soak in afterwards. If you don't take it off, the feelings build up and get to be too much to handle. Then you have a temper tantrum and destroy it in anger, and I am tasked with making you a new one, again."
I shrugged. "I don’t intend on taking it off."
Mani walked across the room, pulling me into her. "This young man you are in love with, it’s clear you are not meant to be with him. And I suspect he is not linked to your revenge. It's been six months since you arrived here. Has he followed you, has he tried to be with you?”
I shook my head, feeling nothing of her words.
“Then I think it’s obvious he wants to be apart for a reason." She pulled back my face, filling my vision with her black eyes, which sparkled like a midnight sky full of stars. "You must move past this. You have worth you cannot see, and allowing a man to be bigger than you are in your own mind or heart is disrespectful to yourself. You are strong and capable. You have the entire city shaking in its boots, and yet you are letting one man's rejection destroy you."