by Stacey Jay
“But he can speak the vows,” Aurora says. “He can—”
“Even if you find a priest willing to perform the ritual with him in that state,” Gettel says with another sad look in my direction, “the marriage will be invalid in the eyes of the gods.”
“Damn the gods,” Aurora snaps. “I don’t believe in the gods, and even if I—”
“Believe or don’t believe,” Gettel says, her tone harder than it was before. “There is a force that connects us all, binding us together. It is from that force that all magic arises, and the laws of that magic are absolute. Niklaas’s curse can not be lifted unless his will is his own.”
“That’s not true.” Aurora shakes her head. “It can’t be.”
“It is true,” Gettel says. “No one knows what it will take to banish a curse better than the one who placed it.”
She lifts her arm, touching two fingers to my forehead, throwing open a door in my memory. Images from the night I met the witch in the shrine flood my mind. In each one of them it is Gettel’s face that looks up at me, Gettel’s voice that assures me there is a way to change my fate.
“It’s you,” I say. “The witch, the one who took my armor.” I know I should be furious for the trick she played on me, outraged by the lies she’s told, but any emotion not tied to Aurora’s happiness is impossible to muster.
“What?” Aurora’s eyes widen as glances between us. “What do you mean? Why didn’t he know that before?”
“I banished the memory of my face so that Niklaas would trust me when we met again.” Gettel turns to me. “And I took your armor to keep you from being spotted by your father’s guards on your way here. My magic told me you would come to me in Frysk, bringing a girl who would break your curse with you. I wanted that for you. That’s why I went to Kanvasola. To help you.”
“Help him?” Aurora shouts. “You cursed him!”
“If I hadn’t cursed him, his father would have found someone else to do it. At least I was merciful. Or tried to be.” Gettel rubs her forehead with a shaking hand. “But now, it’s too late. Niklaas will be transformed, like his brothers.”
“No.” Aurora shakes her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“As I said, it doesn’t matter what you believe; it’s the truth.” Gettel’s shoulders slump and suddenly she looks every one of her sixty-two years. “In eight days’ time, Niklaas will become a swan. There is nothing anyone can do to save him now.”
“But there must be.” Aurora begins to cry again, filling me with despair. I can’t help but feel what she feels. It’s as if I have no heart of my own, only an echo of her heart, reverberating in the cavernous space within my chest. “I can’t have ruined him for nothing. I can’t!”
“If only you’d spoken to me, I could have warned you.” Gettel pulls her shawl tighter. “He loved you. He would have realized the truth before it was too late. You only had to have faith.”
“I wasn’t raised to have faith in love,” Aurora says, fingertips digging into her temples. “I was raised to have faith in the blood that blessed me and the power in my own two hands.”
“Your mother died for love of you, and your Fey mother lived for it,” Gettel says, a chill in her words. “I’ve felt how old her magic is. She shouldn’t be walking the ground, but she is, and you are the reason. Her love for you. Her need to protect you.”
“But I—”
“My own niece risked her life for yours. I haven’t had word from Crimsin since you arrived. She could be dead, her life forfeited to protect her princess and the country she loves,” Gettel says, fresh tears rising in her eyes. “And this boy overcame extraordinary odds to protect you, when no one would have known if he had left you in the Feeding Hills to die. If all that hasn’t given you faith in love, then you will never have faith in anything, and when you face the ogre queen, you will fail us all.”
Aurora sucks in a breath. I can feel how much Gettel has hurt her, but Aurora told me not to interfere, so I stay where I am.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I just meant that … love didn’t save my mother. Love isn’t going to keep my brother alive. I thought I had to act, I didn’t—”
“Gram! Are you coming?” Kat shouts from the grass near the stage. “It’s almost time for my song!”
Gettel holds up a finger. “One second, sugar,” she calls over her shoulder before turning back to Aurora. “You may still save your brother, but it will be harder without the true Niklaas by your side. You were stronger together than either of you are apart.” She casts a sad glance my way before taking Aurora’s hand and pressing it between both of hers. “Go back to the house, take anything you need for the journey. Take my horse, and an extra saddle. You’ll travel faster if you each have your own mount.”
“We’ll leave tonight,” Aurora says, staring at the ground.
“I think that’s best. There will moonlight enough to find your way. Take the southern road. About three hours out, you’ll see my daughter’s tower. There is a cabin two fields to the west, where I stay when I visit her. You can sleep there and get a fresh start in the morning.” Gettel releases Aurora’s hand. “The cabin is warded, but once you leave it, Ekeeta’s spies will be able to see you. Whatever your plan, you’d best have it in place by then. She’ll be watching.”
“Thank you,” Aurora says, then adds in a miserable whisper, “I truly am sorry. More than you can imagine.”
“I know.” Kindness mixes with the sadness in Gettel’s eyes as she kisses Aurora’s cheek. “But sorry doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all our Niklaas.” She tucks a flower back into Aurora’s hair and squeezes her shoulder, softening the words. “Trust in your fairy gifts. Trust in them and they will protect you. Rage against them, and you will be your own undoing.”
Gettel walks away, crossing to the stage where the children are lining up to sing songs in honor of the dead who passed before they came of age. Usually the Children’s Requiem makes me sad, but tonight I don’t feel anything, can’t seem to focus on anything except Aurora and how best to please her.
“I’m still sorry,” Aurora says. For a moment I think she’s talking to Gettel, but when I look down she’s staring up at me. “Whether it does any good or not.”
“This means we aren’t getting married?” I ask, squeezing her hand.
“No.” Aurora presses her lips together. “You don’t want to marry me,” she says, and suddenly it’s true. I don’t want to marry her. I don’t want anything that she doesn’t want.
“But I can’t leave you,” I say, an emotion of my own rising inside of me for the first time since our kiss ended. The thought of being without her is crippling. “I don’t know who I am without you.”
“This is even worse.” She pulls her fingers from mine and covers her mouth with both hands, pulling in a deep breath. “It’s even worse than with Thyne.”
“What’s worse?”
She swallows and shakes her head, sending fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“But I can stay with you?” I ask, needing reassurance to quiet the panic inside.
“Yes,” she says, sniffing as she reclaims my hand. “Of course. I can’t do this without you. I need you to help me save Jor.”
I smile, feeling as if the sun has come out from behind the clouds. To be needed, to be led, to please my love—it is all I want. No curse can frighten me with her by my side. “Anything you need,” I say. “Anything at all.”
But for some reason, my words make Aurora sad again. When she turns to lead me back to the village, her shoulders shake and the sound of her sobs carries to my ears on the wind. I move closer, tucking her under my arm as we walk, promising I will devote myself to her happiness, but she only cries harder. She cries and cries, until it feels as if her misery will drown us both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AURORA
Once, when I was a little girl and still new to the island, I wanted nothing m
ore than to learn to ride the waves the way the fairies did. I would watch them bobbing in the ocean beyond the reef on their sandalwood boards, waiting for a swell, and ache to be beside them, ready to hop to my feet when the perfect wave came and ride it like a bird riding the wind. I could imagine the taste of that kind of freedom, the giddy thrill of harnessing the power of the sea and dancing atop it.
But Janin said I was too little and not a strong enough swimmer. She said I must wait until I was twelve, and no amount of swimming practice in the quiet cove where the babies learned to paddle and float could change her mind.
So one morning, on a cool, rainy day, when not a single fairy was out drifting on the gray sea, I stole the smallest board I could find from the shelter and ran with it into the ocean. I made it out to where the waves were cresting and, after more tumbles than I’d imagined possible, finally caught a wave and rode it … all the way into the barrier reef.
I knocked my head hard enough to leave a goose egg, slashed open both knees, and limped to shore with an abundance of bruises and scrapes, feeling terribly sorry for myself and angry at Janin for being right.
“You have to be more careful, Aurora. You won’t always get a second chance,” Janin said to me later as she cleaned and dressed the wounds on my knees. “Some mistakes are for forever.”
“You mean I could have died,” I said, wanting to show her that I was brave, that I wasn’t too little to handle scary words.
“Yes. You could have died. Or worse.” She brushed my sandy, salt-matted hair from my face, her expression so disappointed and fearful that I finally began to feel something other than sorry for myself. “Do you understand, Aurora?”
“Yes, Janin, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, tucking my chin to my chest. “I understand.”
But I didn’t understand. Not then, and not years from that day. Even when I was the mercenaries’ captive and feared I had failed my brother and my kingdom, there was still hope of redemption, still a second chance waiting around the corner.
It is only now—with the shell of the boy who used to be Niklaas riding beside me and not a shred of hope of changing him back or saving him from his curse—that I truly understand. I understand and I ache like a rotting tooth that will never be pulled. There is no chance of relief. I have made a forever mistake, and now I will learn what it feels like to pay a price more terrible than death.
“There’s the tower.” Niklaas points to the thin structure spiraling out of the mist that has settled in this part of the valley.
I glance at it but quickly look away, not wanting to think about the girl held captive there, the girl I was so quick to judge and find lacking, when I am the last person who should ever turn up her nose at another’s failings. I am the lowest of the low, and I don’t even have Elsbeth’s Rose to blame for it. I have no one to blame but myself.
“Aurora? Did you hear me? I said the tower is—”
“Yes, I see it. We should reach the cabin soon,” I say, though I feel like I’m talking to myself. A part of me insists there’s no point in responding to this not-Niklaas, but to order him to be quiet would be like kicking a dog in the stomach for daring to wag his tail. Niklaas is not who he was, but he doesn’t deserve to suffer.
“Good. I’m tired.” The real Niklaas would never admit to being tired. The real Niklaas was as defiant of bodily weakness as he was of me.
By the stars, I miss him so much. This is so much worse than I imagined it would be. I would rather see him dead. Worse, I know the true Niklaas would rather be dead.
I clench my jaw and grit my teeth, refusing to cry again. I vowed to be done with crying when we left Gettel’s cottage. Tears only upset Niklaas, and I don’t deserve to cry, not when all of this could have been avoided if I’d only asked for someone else’s advice. Janin was right. Niklaas was right. My pride and my stubbornness are a danger to everyone, poisoning everything I touch.
“Are you tired? Can I do anything to help you?” Niklaas asks.
I suppress the urge to sigh. “No, but thank you for asking. That was kind.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, pleasure at even that small praise obvious in his voice. “Anything for you.”
I bite the inside of my mouth, resisting the urge to curse my mother for this “blessing.” Mother was innocent; I knew I was walking a dangerous line when Niklaas drew me into his arms to dance. If only I had told him the truth about my gifts. If only I could go back in time and shove him to the ground before his lips met mine.
By the time we reach the cabin, I’ve replayed how I would save him a hundred times, each one more painful than the last.
“This looks nice,” Niklaas says.
He’s right. The cabin is a pretty little thing made of split oak logs, nestled at the edge of a moonlit glen. It even has its own miniature barn and a privy with a window in the roof to let in the moonlight. Once Niklaas and I have made use of the privy, we unsaddle the horses, pen them into the two-stall barn, and give them fresh hay.
“We’ll water them in the morning,” I say, lighting the oil lamp we found hanging from a hook on the cabin’s front stoop. “It sounds like there’s a stream nearby. We’ll be able to see it better in the daylight.”
Niklaas doesn’t say a word, but I know he agrees with my decision. He will always agree with my decisions, until the day he is transformed into a swan and the last of his humanity is stolen away.
Inside the cabin, the interior bears signs of Gettel: a mantel crowded with unusual odds and ends, a kitchen nook with pans hung above the cook table by long hooks, and rugs of all sizes, shapes, and colors warming the floor. The coziness of it makes me sadder. Even Gettel loathes me now. Gettel, who I believed incapable of hating a spider hiding in her sheets. But she couldn’t bear to look at me another moment and was willing to give away her favorite horse—a mare with a black satin coat so shiny it reflected the moonlight as we road—to get rid of me. She may be a witch and the one responsible for cursing Niklaas, but I’m the monster, and we both knew it.
“Are you hungry?” Niklaas pulls a bag of food from his pack. “I have biscuits and apples and—”
“No, let’s get some rest.” I set the lamp on the small eating table and tug off my boots. “We’ll have to pull a long day tomorrow and be ready to keep moving after only a few hours of sleep if we need to. We have to make sure you’re the one to deliver me to Ekeeta. If we’re overcome and brought in by her men, our chances of saving my brother will be even worse than they are already.”
“All right.” Niklaas drops the bag of food and steps out of his own boots.
Our chances couldn’t possibly be worse, the real Niklaas would have said. This is a suicide mission, and you’re a fool, and we aren’t leaving this cabin until you come to your senses.
I take comfort in imagining what the true Niklaas would say until I circle around the wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the cabin to find the small space dominated by a single large bed. It’s big enough for three of me and two of Niklaas. Even a day ago, I would have been secretly thrilled by the thought of spending the night with his warm back pressed to mine, but now …
“You take the bed.” I back into the corner while Niklaas perches on the edge of the bed. “I’ll look for extra blankets and sleep in the kitchen.”
“That won’t be very comfortable, will it?” he asks, but he doesn’t rise from the bed, apparently taking my order to “take the bed” seriously.
“I’ll be fine. It’s more important that you’re rested.” I open the trunk at the end of the bed, relieved to see several quilts and two knitted blankets inside. “I’m supposed to be your prisoner. It won’t matter if I look a little worse for the journey.”
“All right, but … will you be where I can see you?” he asks, an anxious note in his voice as I fill my arms with blankets and head toward the other side of the cabin.
“I’ll sleep by the wall, right here.” I point to a spot where I’ll be within sight, not surprised by his need
to have me where he can see me.
Thyne was the same way. He would beg to be allowed to sleep—just sleep—in the same room with me, saying it made him feel empty when I was out of his sight. Janin said she would allow it, but I refused him every night. I couldn’t stand to be alone in a room with him, and knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink with him watching, desperate for a chance to please me, even in my dreaming state.
“But I want you to get some rest,” I say firmly, feeling like I’m talking to one of the Fey babies back home, the ones I’d warn to stay out of the jungle when walking them back to the cots after a swim. “I’ll be unhappy if you don’t have a good long sleep.”
“I’ll go to sleep right now.” He peels off his shirt and stands to unbutton his pants.
I turn away, busying myself setting up my pallet and turning down the lamp as he steps out of his clothes and crawls under the covers. I don’t want to see him undressed. It would be too strange, to see the body I’ve lusted after and feel nothing.
Because I would feel nothing, the same way I felt nothing holding his hand or allowing him to hug me in an attempt to offer comfort when I was crying. The way I felt changed when he changed, making it clear it wasn’t Niklaas’s godlike outsides that made me want to be close to him. It was who he was. It was his mind and his heart and his wicked smiles and his maddening advice and the way he’d tease me from laughter into fury and back to laughter within the course of a conversation. It was just … Niklaas.
“Good night, Aurora,” Niklaas says, grinning at me from his place in the big bed.
“Good night.” I force a smile before lying down with my face to the wall and squeezing my eyes shut, praying for the strength to make it through the next few days, to hold together until I save Jor and redeem some small part of my soul.
But I am not strong and I am not sure I’m doing the right thing. I feel more lost than I ever have. I long for Janin. I long for my mother. But most of all I long for Niklaas, mourning him like one of the dead, though he lies right across the room. I can’t even bear to think about what it will be like to watch him transform in eight days.