Anna slipped away after the ceremony, leaving me with no other allies besides Conrad and the few diplomats that I met over the past few months at dinners.
“We knew it would only be a matter of time before you got engaged,” one such diplomat gushed. “You two are always so cute together at dinner.”
I strained a smile as my stomach rumbled. The overly dressed diplomats went on. “Just think, this will be the rest of your lives, here together. You’ll be king and queen, oh, and babies! There will be little princes and princesses running around before too long! I hope you have plenty of little ones!”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, then quickly tried to recover. “I’m famished, I’m going to try some of the roast, if you’ll excuse me?”
Conrad kissed my hand gently. “Of course, I’ll join you in a moment.” An apology hid in his expression for Lady Bringham’s brashness, but I wasn’t in a forgiving mood, I was in an escaping mood.
I piled my plate high, so if I couldn’t escape then I could hide myself behind it for a good hour. I found the furthest table and plopped myself down, audibly sighing as my feet throbbed with relief. It wouldn’t be long before my table was flocked with well-wishers.
Music played from a band in the corner. A few couples danced, but most people were merged into groups, speaking amongst themselves. I recognized only half of the room. Nobility from neighboring countries had been invited to the ceremony, and they filled the other half of the room with thick accents and foreign perfumes. Most sounded like they were from Vernes or other countries not involved in the war, but I recognized a few pins from Osmelee as well. I hadn’t seen anyone from Tames.
Conrad joined me before I finished my roast. He lowered himself into the seat next to me with a plate of his own, generously loaded with meat. “I’m sorry for the spectacle. Even I couldn’t have predicted how big of an event this would turn out to be.”
It was easier to hear him in this far corner of the room than it had been a few minutes before. The diplomats had to practically shout at us to be heard.
I tried to remember that this wasn’t his doing, but the King’s. “It will make it harder to break the engagement, after so many came to celebrate us.”
“Let’s not break it then! Let’s get married and have all those babies,” Conrad said. I would have been upset with him for pushing the matter, but one look at his face showed me he was joking. While I didn’t find his sense of humor particularly funny in this matter, I was glad that he wasn’t serious. He seemed to finally accept that I wasn’t going to marry him.
“Any further word on the coup?” I asked as I stacked vegetables on my fork.
Conrad grunted and finished his bite before answering. “I wish. Still a little pushback from Silas and Nathaniel, but the whole group feels that it will be easier to move forward now that I am engaged and they will be getting both a king and a queen out of the deal.”
I stuck up my nose. “Perfect. More people to let down.”
Conrad shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. When I’m king, we can drag this engagement out as long as we need until the kingdom is secure in my rule. No one can force the king to marry. We will come up with a good reason to end the engagement, so it doesn’t cause a scandal.”
The way he said it made it sound so easy, but the thought of dragging the engagement out made my stomach queasy.
Eventually, I would need to tell Conrad that I couldn’t spin gold.
I wondered if now was a good time. We were in public, so he couldn’t make a scene about it. He seemed happy, sipping his wine and conversing with nobles. Perhaps he would go easy on me.
Perhaps. But perhaps not. I wasn’t ready to risk his reaction yet.
The sharp sound of a chair sliding across the floor interrupted my thoughts, and when Conrad and I both looked up to see who was joining us, my jaw fell open.
Rumpel. He was dressed in a blue suit with a green and white pin stuck to his chest, and his golden curls were pulled back in a knot, making him look more formal than I was used to. His collar pointed up, and a clock chain hung around his waist. His appearance made him fit in among the other diplomats, and Conrad didn’t bat an eye. I blinked twice.
“Sir, join us.” Conrad hopped up quickly to pull out his chair. Rumpel thanked him in a thick accent that I didn’t recognize.
“It’z an honor to bez here to witniz the ceremony.” Rumpel’s voice slurred with the accent. He shot a wink as Conrad sat back in his chair. My eyes were wide.
“The honor is ours. Where are you joining us from?” Conrad squinted at his pin.
“Ah. I am Duke Bjorn of Guava. I waz visiting friendz in Osmelee when your invitation reached them. I thought I would come by to see the fabled beauty of Lady Cosette.”
Conrad smiled at me and took my hand. “We are grateful that you came.”
My back was stiff and eyes fixed on Rumpel, who looked more comfortable than a sleeping cat. He leaned forward as he chatted eagerly with Conrad, asking him all sorts of questions about our relationship. I shook my head at him, but he ignored me. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed Rumpel, but no one was looking our way.
The King caught my attention, coughing into a napkin. That wasn’t the first time he coughed today. I’d take extra caution to stay away from him and protect myself from any sickness he might have, so my last days with Rumpel weren’t spent wheezing.
“Cosette?” Conrad drew my focus back to him.
“This is a favorite jingle of mine, would you carez to dance?” Rumpel stuck out his hand toward me as amusement danced in his eyes. “If it’z okay with your prince, of courz.”
Before I could raise my eyebrow, Conrad waved his hand. “Of course, see if you can teach her more rhythm than I can.”
Rumpel laughed with Conrad as if they were close friends, an odd sight to see. I got up slowly and joined hands with Rumpel in an act so strange and so familiar all at the same time.
“What are you doing?” I whispered as soon as we took a few steps away.
“You looked like you needed a friendly face,” Rumpel said, squeezing my hand.
“What if you get caught?”
“No one else knows me.”
We reached the dance floor and he turned me around to face him, drawing his other hand around my back. Still stiff, I let him lead me through the basic moves. A few people watched us, and I squirmed under their gaze.
“Relax, Cosette, you look like you hate this,” Rumpel said.
“I’m just nervous. Today has been a lot.” I tried to relax in Rumpel’s arms, but I couldn’t get too cozy there. I just got engaged to Conrad, and I had to maintain that image. Still at the table, Conrad spoke with another diplomat who’d taken my seat. At least he didn’t watch us.
Sunlight streamed in from windows, and we danced in and out of its rays. I’d be trapped in this room until the sun went down, several hours away still. And today wouldn’t be the end of it. Tomorrow the guests would still be here, along with the intimate questions, and the giddy, watchful eyes while I’d be expected to fawn over Conrad each night.
“You know,” he spoke. “You can, if you want. You can marry Conrad. After I’m gone, I don’t want you to be alone.”
The very idea seemed ludicrous, and I pulled my head back to see if he was serious. “I have no interest in Conrad. Not now, and not ever.”
“Think you’ll go back to Aiden, then?”
Was this the sort of thing that went on in his mind? Who I would love after him? “I haven’t thought about it,” I said, and then, because that sounded too close to a yes, I added, “but no, I won’t. Of course I won’t.” I moved myself closer to him as we danced. “I know this isn’t forever, but I am all in, and I’d like to pretend that this is going to last, until the day that you leave.”
Those were the kind of words that we used when we talked about him dying. We said leaving, or when he was gone, because both of those phrases sounded better on the tongue then death.
Rumpel pulled his head back and looked me over. “Would you marry me, if I stayed?”
I almost tripped. Truthfully, I’d imagined him asking me that many times. In my dreams, we would have just broken his curse, and he would be so happy that he would pick me up and spin me around the room. Then, he would set me down and lower himself to the floor, asking me to be his bride. I would say yes, and we would laugh and cry together, overcome with joy and the possibilities of a future.
That was the image that I often played in my head before bed. Sometimes we were in the castle, other times we were in a field. Sometimes Rumpel would give a monologue about love, other times he would jump right into the question. There was one thing that didn’t change, though. Every single time I said yes. In my head, it was a romantic moment that we would cherish forever, knowing that we had forever.
It wasn’t real, and it couldn’t be real. In a few months, I would lose Rumpel, and it was becoming painfully clear to me that I couldn’t stop that from happening. There was one thing still in my control, however, and I couldn’t let him go without him knowing how much he meant to me. He was my whole world.
“Yes, Rumpel. I would marry you in a heartbeat.”
He had an intense glint in his eye, and I almost looked away at the tenderness of it. But instead I stayed in his gaze, feeling my heart swell in my chest. I wanted to pull him close, but I kept him at an appropriate distance. I would hold him close later.
Rumpel’s voice cracked as he spoke. “I know it’s selfish, because I’ve gotten my share of life. I’ve lived, I’ve loved, and I’ve existed longer than a normal man should. I’ve had my chance. But I’d give anything to have a life with you. I’d give up everything to be able to give you the rest of my life.”
Now it was my turn to cry. I blinked away tears, knowing I couldn’t adequately explain them to Conrad. So instead of tears, I let the sadness out in a long sigh. My mouth almost formed the words, I love you, but I stopped myself. I hadn’t said that yet to Rumpel, and I didn’t want the first time to be in a room full of people. I wanted to be able to kiss him as I said it.
So instead I stared at him as we danced, and we didn’t say any more.
Too soon the music stopped, and duty pulled me away from Rumpel and back to Conrad. My feet moved, but I left my heart behind with Rumpel. I loved him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Frog foot fixes everything, apparently,” I said. Rumpel and I giggled as we flipped through the book. Finished spindles of gold lay besides us while we passed the time looking through the book that Old Mr. Walters had given me about breaking curses. I thought of Old Mr. Walters often, mostly wondering what became of that note I wrote for him to give the sorceress. Foolish of me to believe he knew her, but every once in a while I let myself imagine that he did and could contact her. Dangerously, I let myself hope.
“This remedy requires dragon breath. How do you even get that?” Rumpel wondered, holding his finger over the page.
I squinted. “Are dragons real?”
“Shortly after I became cursed, a baby dragon terrorized the Northern Mountains. They don’t breed naturally but can be conjured up by magic. They are surprisingly timid, though, so not worth the hassle.”
“Can you make one?” Almost every day I discovered a new ability Rumpel could do and had become fascinated by it.
He smirked at my enthusiasm. “I could, but it would take me a day to accomplish. Would you like that? I could make a dragon for you, to protect you while I’m gone.”
I pretended to think about it. Then I shook my head. “No, you don’t know this but I’m surprisingly bad at keeping things alive. I had mice once, but they died at the paws of a cat. So I adopted the cat, and she died too. No idea why, one morning she just didn’t wake up.”
Rumpel laughed. “A dragon is different than a cat, who probably died of old age, by the way.”
“It’s more than the cat and mice! Any living thing I’ve ever owned, from pet to plant, has died. I’m not good at keeping things alive, myself included.”
“Alright. No dragons then.”
“No dragons.”
We continued flipping through the pages, and his hand found mine. It was the most he had touched me since we danced at my engagement party, to protect us both from the growing feelings. Time was going by too quickly. If Rumpel’s calculations were correct, he only had a month left before the curse was finalized. One month before he was gone.
“Remember when you tried this one?” Rumpel pointed to the page. I groaned and buried my head into his shoulder. His shoulder shook with his laugh. “True love’s kiss. I’m not sure what surprised me more, the fact that you kissed me, or that you thought you were my true love. At least you turned out to be right about one thing.”
It took me a second to realize what he’d said, that I was his true love, but when I did, my heart stung with emotions. Our eyes met while I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that he loved me. Rumpel loved me, the poor village girl with no Gift. I didn’t deserve him.
“Promise me that when I’m gone you’ll forget about me.”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
“Promise you’ll try?”
I understood the sentiment behind it, but I wished he’d stop asking me to protect my heart. He’d be gone soon, and there was nothing I could do about it, I knew this. We could never get married or have a life together. These things were my first thoughts every morning. There was no future here, but for the time we had, I wanted to live with my heart open and feel everything, the joy and the love, while I had the chance. And when he died? I wanted to feel that too. I wanted to feel the sorrow of a lost love, not the sorrow of never telling him that I loved him.
I should say it. I should say it now.
After almost telling him at the engagement party, Rumpel had reminded us that we needed to guard our hearts, so I’d kept the sentiment to myself, unsure if I’d ever tell him. If he died before I told him I loved him, I would regret it, and that realization alone was enough to convince me to tell him then. After a slow swallow, I opened my mouth, ready to share my heart, but his eyes darted from me toward the door. Mine followed.
Before another moment passed, Rumpel vanished, leaving the book to fall on the empty floor next to me as the handle of the door turned and it creaked open. Conrad stood in the doorway, peering into the dimly lit room.
“Cosette? I’m sorry to bother you. Oh, you’re finished already! What are you still doing in here?”
I brushed off my surprise at seeing him and held up the book. “Reading. I don’t like to wake Anna, since she goes to bed early. I was just going to go.” I stood up, bringing my book with me. Conrad crossed the distance between us.
“Can you come with me? It’s my father.”
The thought of the King made me squirm, and my mind instantly started going through everything I had done to upset the King. As far as I knew I hadn’t done anything lately, but the King was unpredictable.
The distain was obvious in my voice. “What does he want?”
“He’s dying.”
“What?” Coldness washed over me, and guilt at my thoughts of dislike. Only then did I notice the slump in Conrad’s shoulders, the darkness in his voice, and the redness in his eyes. He took a shaky breath as he stepped back toward me.
“Have you noticed him coughing?”
I nodded. Everyone had noticed. It started around the time of our engagement party and persisted through the month.
“Well, we’ve had several doctors come, and they agree that he’s getting worse. He’s coughing up blood. We don’t know how much longer he has.”
Every bad thought I’d ever directed toward the King suddenly felt selfish. I took Conrad’s hand and went with him toward his father’s room. Conrad led me up a set of stairs that I had never been on, and down a new hallway. He tapped on the door before easing it open.
The King’s room was ginormous. There was a bed bigger than any I had e
ver seen sitting in the middle of the room. Not along the wall, but right in the middle of the room so you could walk all around it. A long table was pushed against one wall, set up as an endless desk. Behind the bed there looked to be a siting area, though off to the side was an entrance to another room that could have also been a sitting area. A large piano was to the right, and I wondered if the late queen had played. I couldn’t picture the King bent over the keys, making music.
A doctor stood near the desk with his open bag next to him. A worried expression stained his face.
“How long have you known?” I asked Conrad. He gulped.
“I just found out the extent of it a few days ago.”
“A few days! Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at me with sad eyes. “I know that this thing between us isn’t real. I didn’t want to burden you with my troubles.”
My heart ached at the sight of his pain. “I would have been there for you as your friend. Why tell me now?”
“My father beckoned us to come to him together.”
My heart stopped for a moment, fearing this would be one of those moments where the father said that he didn’t want to die before seeing his son wed, and we would be married at his bedside. I scanned the room for a priest, and while there was none, my worries didn’t settle. I timidly approached the bedside with Conrad.
The King looked small in the large bed. The room was dark, with only candles lit in a few places and the pale light from the moon coming in. Shadows hid the details of his face, but his breaths came out raspy and a shaky hand wiped sweat from his brow. Seeing him like this, it was hard to believe that I was once so terrified of him.
He slowly extended his hand to Conrad, who took it with both his own. A tear slid down Conrad’s cheek, and turned my gaze away from it.
“My son,” the King’s voice was soft. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, Father.”
The Storyteller’s Daughter Page 21