Princess of Death

by Cortney Pearson

  Cali hadn’t wanted to return his claim of love last night. She hadn’t understood what he meant. But something was stirring inside of her now at the thought of him leaving. Something she knew she wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.

  “You can’t control everything,” he said.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You can’t control me.”

  “I can.” She stuck up her chin as an impulse seized her. “I command you to stay in Zara. You are never to set foot on another ship as long as I’m alive.”

  Indignation tripped through his gaze. “You can’t do that.”

  Straightening her shoulders, she elevated her head and brushed her wet hair behind her back. She pounded the tip of her parasol to the wood, feeling childish and exactly fourteen in that moment, but continuing anyway. “I am your princess, the daughter of King Marek Brahmvir, and one day I’ll be ruler of the land of Zara. It is my wish for you to stay near me. Is that understood?”

  Darren’s face hardened, squeezing dry the humor and adoration that often lingered there, replacing it with stone. He didn’t answer immediately, waiting for her to rescind her command.

  She didn’t.

  “As you wish, Your Highness.” He stormed away from her.

  She knew she’d commanded something he could never fulfill. Someday, she wouldn’t be fourteen. She would be a woman. A princess. A queen.

  And queens didn’t marry their servants.

  But she couldn’t risk him leaving her. The very thought carved her out in an instant, and she wouldn’t back down. Not ever.

  But nothing stayed the same forever. Her nurse had told her—it was one of the true pains of shifting from child to adulthood. A ripple gusted over the rolling waves, guiding their way, rocking the deck beneath her and proving it was impossible to remain standing still even when one wasn’t moving.

  Darren went below and didn’t return, not when they arrived at the opalescent boundary and dropped their homage of blossoms and fruits, of hair and teeth and scraps of fabrics, to float aimlessly across the water. He didn’t emerge from his room until the next day in the galley for supper where he refused to so much as glance in her direction.

  The snub thickened the knot in her chest. No matter how hard she tried to fight it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that one day she would lose him to the sea. One day, it would stand between them. There would be nothing she could do about it.

  Cali would never let that happen. She would never let the sea—or its witch—have any kind of hold over her. All that day, and all through the return voyage to Zara’s shores, she vowed this would be her final venture near any part of the sea.

  She would never go near it again.

  After

  Dr. Bauer lifted the sheet over the kitchen maid’s head. While the ghostly fabric concealed her lifeless eyes and the telltale spots speckling her skin like poppy seeds, it did nothing to staunch the smell of ammonia, sweat, and rotted cabbage permeating the infirmary. It was the smell of shattered hopes—of death—and it knotted in Cali’s chest like something tangible.

  “That’s one more,” Dr. Bauer said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. His voice was too tired to be fully audible. “Might as well be claimed by the sea witch herself.”

  A tear trailed down Cali’s cheek. “Her name was Hannah,” she said, feeling this was a crucial detail in the moment.

  Hannah wasn’t just another who’d fallen victim to the necrosis, and neither was she just another kitchen maid—she’d been Cali’s friend. They’d giggled together, played cat’s cradle, and romped along the palace grounds. Time passed as childhood faded, and their friendship took on a different hue made of delicious palace gossip and heart-kept dreams. Hannah had even snuck forbidden notes from Darren beneath the silver-domed lids covering Cali’s trays of food, in order to help keep their correspondence hidden from the king and queen.

  And now Hannah’s form lay lifeless beneath a sheet.

  Cali shuddered, an entire realm of sadness burrowing deep inside of her.

  “Yes, it was,” Dr. Bauer said, “and I fear who might be next.”

  “Can nothing be done?” Cali asked, wondering where Darren was. Violent coughing erupted behind her, and she knew she’d see the uncontrollable convulsions ravaging the invalid bodies of the patients if she were to turn. The necrosis plague swept its way through the system like a storm, leaving damage and disaster in its wake. She was tempting fate even being in the same room as the inflicted, but when she’d heard Hannah was nearing the end, Cali couldn’t stay away.

  Besides, Darren was down here, and she hadn’t spoken to him in days. She’d been so ensconced in her upcoming birthday, in coronation preparations, she hadn’t had the time to sneak away or even to respond to his missives. Her mother had forbidden him from attending the ceremony. Cali had to see him one last time before the coronation took place.

  “The necrosis acts quickly,” Dr. Bauer said, cleaning his glasses and guiding Cali from the infirmary to the corridor. The air was cooler, less stifled. Inhaling deeply, she sucked in a clean breath that did nothing to suppress the quivering of her stomach. Hannah was dead. How many more would it take before a cure could be found?

  “Hannah only began to show the spots a week ago, and now…”

  One week. That was all it took for the spots to spread, to shrivel a person’s fingers and render their fine motor skills useless, for the symptoms to devastate a person’s body completely. In his last note, Darren had told her how busy he’d been in the infirmary, how sleepless his nights were, how diligent they’d been in testing different combinations of herbs and remedies to find something that might quash the effects.

  “How long do the others have? Has this spread to the rest of the kingdom?” After Cali’s ceremony on her birthday tomorrow, she would officially be crowned princess of Zara. It would become her responsibility to resolve this matter.

  “I’m afraid so,” Dr. Bauer said. “Several cases have even been reported in the Wild Rose and Wheaton sectors of the kingdom.”

  “So far out?” Wild Rose was closest to the ocean, the farthest from where the palace stood on the border between Zara and the Pereo Desert. It was why the air was so much drier at the palace than near the harbor.

  Tiredness dragged below Dr. Bauer’s eyes. “I’m afraid no one stands much of a chance unless a cure is found.”

  “And you don’t have one.” She already knew as much.

  Perhaps there was a way to appeal to the sea witch. Her father had recently paid the homage at the boundary, but Cali had yet to actually see Undine Daray. Her presence was always spoken of—Undine was the author of all ruined things. A decimated crop, plagued by hailstones. An ink blot on parchment. Unrequited love. Whether the witch was at fault for the mishaps personally, it was still her name they cursed. People needed someone to blame. Cursing a being no one had ever seen was the best option.

  Cali thought of the bedazzling boundary, an expansive borderline of an impenetrable, metallic substance that diverted light and blasted it across the radiant sky like shooting stars. She’d only ever seen it once, during her voyage almost exactly four years ago. It had hummed with sheer, untouchable power—had stretched as far as the eye could see and reflected the sailors’ images back to them the closer they got. But Cali hadn’t felt mesmerized. She’d been too distracted by her argument with Darren to pay much attention.

  She glanced around once more. “Where is Darren?” she asked. “Is he resting?”

  Dr. Bauer’s weary gaze turned piteous. It carved inside of her, nodding at the worry she’d felt at not seeing him in the infirmary immediately.

  “Where is he?” she asked again.

  “Princess,” the doctor pleaded.

  Why wouldn’t he give her a straight answer? Either Darren was here, or he wasn’t. But the chances of him leaving now when things were at their worst were unlikely. Either he’d gone in search of more herbs or…

  Cali’s eyes locked with th
e doctor’s. His expression said what he refused to speak aloud.

  Her tongue swelled to the roof of her mouth, trapping in the fear attempting to escape. It couldn’t be. Darren couldn’t have it, too.

  “You shouldn’t even be down here at all. Why don’t you return to your rooms?”

  “Undine’s wrath, I will,” she cursed, turning away from him and breaking for the servant’s sleeping quarters.

  “Princess,” Dr. Bauer called, but she allowed the sound of her footfalls to drown him out.

  One, two, three, four doors down, and she didn’t bother knocking. She rammed her way through the feeble wooden door, skimming the familiar room Darren shared with the other apprentice. Their amenities were so much simpler than the extravagant spread of furniture, fine fabrics, and unrestrained trimmings in her chamber floors above. Washbasin below the square of window cut into the stone, thin, frail rug woven by Darren’s sister and snuck in at Caliana’s bequest, two brass beds with the barest white bedding, and a single occupant.

  He laid beneath the sheet, still in the lightweight, russet-colored clothing of his trade, his body writhing like an uneasy mountain. A stream of coughing broke from him, and the sound cranked her heartbeat to a gallop.

  “Darren!”

  He flopped to his back and stared at her. Gone was his jaunty manner, the easy smile, and the eager glint in his gaze. Spots speckled up his throat. Infested the edge of his jaw. They prowled down his forearms, though they hadn’t yet reached his wrists. A sheen of sweat hung near his hairline, matting the tawny locks to his forehead.

  “Princess! What are you doing in here?”

  “Not you, too,” she said, approaching his bedside.

  “Don’t—” More haggard coughing erupted, and he turned away. “—get too close, Princess.”

  “I was down to see Hannah. She’s dead, Darren. And you—” Cali’s voice broke.

  Coughing fit expired, he rolled with effort to face her instead of the wall. “You shouldn’t be down here,” he said, clearing his throat. “You should return to your own rooms.”

  Clenching her jaw, Cali sank onto the bed, taking his hand in hers. It was clammy and cool, unlike his usually confident warmth. “Like a pampered princess? I don’t think so.”

  A frightening gleam lit his eyes, as though he were taking her in for the last time. She squeezed his hand. This would not be their final meeting. She refused to allow it.

  “Like the woman about to rule in her parents’ places,” he corrected.

  “You know I wouldn’t abandon you.”

  He coughed again. “Yes, but apprentices can be easily replaced.” His tender tone contradicted the harshness of his words. “You can’t.”

  A rush of emotions beat through Cali’s frame. The bitterness of change collided with the fresh newness of it in her chest, banging like drums. She was born a Brahmvir—was set to inherit the royal line. That had always been a fact. But tomorrow evening was her eighteenth birthday. Tomorrow would make the event a certainty.

  She would officially be crowned princess of Zara.

  Cali both longed for the coronation and dreaded it. Her father had been guiding her for years now about the more serious affairs of the kingdom, from handling taxes to providing for the poor to confronting whatever tough decisions might arise. She felt ready and eager, the way she imagined a well-practiced musician did before a performance.

  But the coronation would make her Darren’s superior in every way. Crowned princess was one step away from queen. The breathtaking crown waiting in Cali’s chamber—with its glistening, blood-red rubies, sparkling silver diamonds, and polished gold—didn’t care one whit about her carefree summers spent in his company, the hopes they’d exchanged, or the burning in her veins just being in the same room as Darren Marcov. That crown demanded rank, propriety, and a specific breeding, all of which were sizes he could never tailor himself to, no matter how badly they both wanted it.

  “Neither can you,” she said, bringing his damp hand to her lips.

  “Don’t,” he cried again, slipping free of her grasp. He turned away from her. “I can’t do this to you. You have to leave.”

  “I won’t—”

  “Now, Princess! Go, please. Before it’s too late.” His words carried an edge she’d never heard from him before. The final plea of a dying man. They were accompanied by another bout of ragged coughing.

  Footsteps shuffled behind her. Dr. Bauer captured her by the shoulders, tugging her insistently. “Come, Princess. He’s right; you shouldn’t be in here.”

  Cali’s eyes stung. She pegged them to Darren, refusing to let him out of her sight while she allowed the doctor to guide her away. A thousand thoughts tumbled through her mind—so many things she’d like to say to him. She didn’t care that none could change her blood, or his. Cali would die before she allowed Undine to take him.

  “I’ll figure this out,” she promised him in desperation as her feet crossed the line between his room and the corridor passing it. “I’ll find you a cure.”

  But he was caught in a coughing fit and couldn’t respond.

  Worry stole Cali’s sleep that night. She tossed and flopped in her bed but try as she might, she couldn’t surrender. Her mind spun like a roulette board, and she felt just as uncertain of the following day’s events as she would if she were actually playing the treacherous game of chance just by breathing.

  Darren had the fever. Not to mention how many others of their staff filled the beds below, or the countless citizens suffering across the sectors that made up the kingdom. How could they go on with the coronation with so many afflicted? It seemed too heartless.

  Huffing, Cali kicked aside her blankets, hoping the cooler temperature would seep into her feverish skin. But the air wasn’t any cooler outside the blankets than in them. It would do no good to remain here, waiting for sleep to come.

  Strange. There was no glow from the fire. Its coals had fizzled out as they always did in the night. She slipped a robe over her nightdress and silently crossed her chamber, ignoring the dull ache gnawing in her joints.

  Moonlight winked at the crown behind its glass near the dormant fireplace. It shone against the fabric of the prismatic coronation gown on display beside the case, pieced and sewn to fit her every curve.

  The gown had a way of straightening her posture, of steering back her shoulders and lengthening her neck. Sparkling needlework on the soft pink bodice snaked its way along the generous skirts. It brought a glow to Cali’s cheeks as though the gown had been spun from stardust. She’d angled her head in admiration just enough during her fitting the day before.

  “You look lovely,” her chambermaid, Daphne, had said. “The very image of a princess.”

  This was who Cali was. Along with her father’s training, her mother had prepared her in managing the staff, in the approval of meals, and also in disciplinary methods should the need arise. Seeing herself in the coronation gown as old as Cali’s surname—worn by princesses and queens throughout generations of Brahmvirs—had made way for possibility to settle into reality.

  She longed to become princess, more than anything else.

  So why did her heart feel like it was at war?

  It took more effort than it should have to lift her fingers against the glass. Her limbs were heavy, her mouth parched, and this accursed heat still hadn’t left her skin. She couldn’t shake the image of Darren lying sick in his bed.

  The look he’d given her; the calloused tone his voice held when he’d begged her to leave; the honey burn of his too-pale glance; his clammy hand in hers…they were a hint, a warning sign she didn’t want to heed. That had been her fear since he’d kissed her four years before—their first and only kiss—when he’d pledged his intention to sail away and leave her. Their souls would be separated by their status. Cali would take separation now if it meant he would stay alive. She could handle being parted from him as long as she knew he was well.

  “Something must be done,” she told
the darkness. The words smacked like stones in her mouth, crumbling like sand and leaving a desert behind. Thirsty. She was so thirsty.

  She turned to her washbasin with sluggish steps. It was hot—too hot. Her feet grew heavier, dragging as if with a shackle on each. She stumbled, gripping the edge of the basin for support and knocking the pitcher off. It fell, shattering to the marble floor with a thunderous crash.

  Water collected around her bare feet. Strength drained from her, wilting her like a parched tulip in too much sunlight. She collapsed to the floor, curling her arms to her chest, but not before catching sight of the tiny, speckling spots crawling along her skin.

  Chapter 1

  Cali’s mind was a streak of hazy stains and sharp edges. She blinked in and out of awareness until the strong scent of ammonia and perfume brought her to consciousness.

  She coughed a few times, nearly knocking over the small bottle of smelling salts her mother held beneath her nose. It was too indicative of the death below her floors.

  “Thank goodness,” her mother said, touching a hand to her chest.

  The room blurred into focus. Cali was in her own chamber. Her legs were spread beneath the lightweight blanket stuffed with down feathers, usually such a comfort in the chilled nights, but now felt as if it baked her alive. The book she’d been reading the day before sat patiently closed and waiting on her nightstand beside a flickering lamp, the wick dipped in a glass half filled with oil.

  Cali adjusted her legs, but couldn’t shake the incessant ache bedeviling her joints.

  “Darren is ill,” she said. Her mouth tasted like sawdust.

  “Never mind the apprentice,” her mother said, sitting back. Her black hair was laced with threads of silver. Cali had always loved those streaks, imagining they’d been selected one by one by the stars to make her mother appear wiser. “What I want to know, Cali, is what were you thinking?”

  Cali attempted to sit up, but her limbs had other ideas. They shook beneath her weight before giving out, and she flopped onto the sweat-saturated mattress.