by Deanna Chase
He chose the left hallway, but before he took more than two steps the hand in his tugged hard and halted any further forward momentum. “Maybe we should go back. Nana sounded more upset than usual.”
“She’s stressed over my birthday celebration. Like thirteen is a big deal.” Seth looked over his shoulder at his companion. Kira’s green eyes were clouded with indecision and her teeth worried her bottom lip. The sight of her mouth so plump and shiny sent uncomfortable tremors through Seth’s stomach, a sensation that was becoming common around her these last few months. Maybe thirteen was a big deal. “If–” His voice broke, and embarrassment and heat flooded through him when Kira’s rosy lips turned up in a smile. He cleared his throat and threw his chest out. “If we go back, it’s six hours of the Railen Convention. The first thirty pages talk about the dimensions of the negotiating table and the specifications it was built to. Is that how you really want to spend your day?”
Before Kira could answer, the pounding of footsteps got louder, now from the opposite corridor. “Run,” cried Seth, and he shot down the corridor with Kira behind him, her hand still in his.
The loud clatter of footsteps behind him had Seth making turns without thought. Before long, he was in an unfamiliar part of the castle.
Kira squeezed his hand, her palm damp in his. “We’re not allowed to be here.”
“I won’t let them find us,” he said, with perhaps more bravado than truth. His father had been very firm that he was not allowed in this wing of the castle. If they were caught, the consequences would be more severe than what was usually reserved for a childish prank. “We just need to not panic and let them pass us.”
Speaking of, the steps were getting closer again, the shouts more urgent. They too were worried about the king’s reaction if the prince was found here, and their raised tones and quicker pace reflected that fear.
A huge, heavy door lay at the end of the hall. Seth pointed to it. “We’ll hide in there.”
Tension shot through Kira’s frame as she eyed the door warily. “I don’t like it.”
Neither did he, but with ever-growing voices at their back, what choice did they have? “What is going to happen to us in my father’s closest ally’s castle?”
“You have obviously forgotten several stories Nana has told us-”
“I doubt we’re going to find a minotaur or anything like that there. Now, we enter, or we admit to my father where we are. Which do you choose?”
Her eyes narrowed, and he could almost see the words that passed through her mind You’re the one who led us here, not me. But the damage was done, and his father would not accept that excuse. She would be in the same amount of trouble as he was. So with a huff, Kira nodded. “Let’s go.”
The door was heavy and hard to open, and it took both of them pushing to open it, but there was no squeak of hinges to give their position away.
They entered several feet into the pitch-black room, far enough to ascertain that there were no windows lighting the cavernous space. Kira let go of his hand and turned toward the door, saying, “I’m going to grab a torch,” when the door slammed behind them.
Not a speck of light shone in the room. “Kira,” Seth called, swinging his arms in wide circles to find her.
“Seth, I’m over here.”
Her voice was farther away than it had even a moment before. He walked toward her. “Keep talking.”
“Seth, where are you? You sound like you’re all over the place.”
So did she. Seth beat down the panic racing across his skin. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we are fine. Just stay where you are until I can find you.”
“I am staying still, but your voice is getting distant.”
Seth stumbled, but instead of hitting the floor he kept falling – wind not stone at his back.
He flailed, grabbing onto nothing. “Kira!” he yelled, but no voice answered, and he landed, not on hard floor but a feather bed.
He opened his eyes to illumination. Still no windows, but this room had rows and rows of candles. It was a large bedroom and sitting room, all pink and frills and books in every available open space.
‘Hello.”
The voice was soft, hesitant. Seth brought his attention to the corner closest to him.
Sitting there was a girl a little younger than he. She was so tiny his first thought was she had to be five or six, but something in the way she watched him, the way she reacted, made him rethink that. Probably closer to Kira’s age, with big blue-gray eyes and blond hair and such pale, pale skin that there was no way she had ever gone outside. “Hi,” Seth answered back, unsure what else to do.
“How did you get here?”
Should she be this accepting of a boy falling into her room from wherever? He looked again, but there were no holes in the ceiling or doors in this room. “I was running from my tutors and I got lost in this huge, dark room, and I just fell here. How do people usually get in and out of here?”
She shook her head, but otherwise the placidness of her features remained unchanged. “I don’t know. Only my father comes, and I’ve never asked him.” Her mouth twisted for a moment. “Well, sometimes he brings his advisor. I heard James once say they needed to find another stone, but I never asked what that meant.”
Shock held Seth immobile for several moments. Yes, she was the right age. He only knew one person here who had an advisor named James. “Your father is the king? Are you Princess Rosamund?”
Now her placid mask was gone, replaced by dread. She brought her hands up to cover the sides of her face. “I’m not allowed to tell anyone. He told me no one could ever know.”
Instinct had Seth holding out his hands the same way he would to a trapped and growling animal. “It’s okay. You mean your father? I won’t ever tell him. Besides, it’s okay if I know. I’m Prince Seth. You’re my fiancée.”
Fiancée. He knew the word – he’d grown up with his father’s voice in his ear, talking to him about duty and a far-off future bride whom he would not meet for years, but until this moment the word had never crossed his lips. He didn’t want to think about how a stranger would become the most important person in his world. How with her arrival, he would be forced to leave Kira.
Rosamund studied him long moments before she lowered her hands, moving closer to him and sitting at a desk that was only a few feet away from the bed. “You’re Seth?”
“I promise you, I am.”
She relaxed further at those words, this lost and cursed princess who was his intended. “I wasn’t sure if you were real,” she said, her voice halting on the words. “I sometimes thought Father made you up, to keep me occupied.”
Occupied. If it was him, he didn’t know if he could ever be occupied with anything but thoughts of the curse. He smiled in what he hoped was a teasing way. “Afraid I’m the real thing. I can understand if I don’t quite live up to what you might have hoped for.”
“I didn’t mean it like that!” In her embarrassment her voice had a little more life to it, her face a little more color. “You seem very nice. I am very happy I can finally meet you.”
“Me too.” And he was. He probably didn’t think about her as much as she thought about him, but he was still curious about her.
The situation was weird. He was engaged to the daughter of his father’s friend and closest ally, but when people talked about the engagement, it was more akin to how people spoke about funerals than weddings. It was a situation to be mourned, not celebrated. It was spoken of with pats of understanding on his back and shakes of their heads when they thought he wasn’t looking.
She looked nothing like he imagined. Her family lineage didn’t have a single blonde that he was aware of, though every other shade was represented. She was also tiny and delicate where all the other members of the royal clan were robust. But she’d been given several magical gifts before the curse had been placed on her. Where magic was concerned, nothing was ever as one thought it would be.
That w
as why a princess who should have had everything was alone and awaiting the moment her life would end in endless dreams.
“You didn’t mean to meet me though. This was an accident?”
“Yeah, but it was a good accident. Me and Kira were running away…” He stopped. Kira. Was she all right? He gave a quick turn around the room but she was nowhere to be seen. Was there another room she could have fallen into?
“Kira?” echoed Rosamund. “Who is that?”
He ran damp palms against the leg of his trousers, willing the panic down enough that his voice didn’t shake. “My friend. She’s the daughter of the captain of the guard. She didn’t fall with me, so do you know what else might have happened to her?”
Rosamund shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know much. I do think she’s fine, though. My father would never keep anything bad in the castle. He has enough to worry about just with me.”
Shame had Seth lowering his head, breaking away from her too-direct gaze on him. Kira knew how to take care of herself. Taren, Kira’s father, had taught her so well she could probably beat most of the royal guard. Seth shouldn’t be worrying about someone else in front of this girl who had more problems than all of his friends put together. “So,” he said, determined to steer the conversation someplace nicer. “What do you do here?”
“Read,” she said, gesturing at the room around them, the rows upon rows of books. “And paint. I finished a painting only a few days ago.”
She rose to open a large armoire and pulled out a small canvas, the size of his hands when placed side by side. It was a scenic view of a tree by a lake, and he could almost imagine the warm sun on his face and the springy grass underneath his hands. “This is really good.”
“You think so?” For the first time she smiled, and he saw what she would look like when she was an adult. She was going to be a lovely woman, all delicate beauty and gentle actions. It wasn’t fair that an evil fairy took that away. “I’ve never seen a tree before, so I’m painting from a drawing in my book. I wasn’t sure if it could be any good because of that.”
“It’s really great.” She’d never seen a tree. The thought punched a hole in his lungs – then, the magnitude of everything she had lost hit him. She’d never seen a tree. He and Kira practically lived in the woods. They’d built their tree house when he was eight. Kira had broken her arm when a spoiled royal jerk visiting his father’s palace had pushed her out of the tree two years ago, and war had almost been declared between their kingdoms after Seth had finished beating the hell out of the little bastard.
“The lake too? I like paintings when they have the sunlight reflecting off the water. Is it that beautiful? It must be.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it is. When we’re married, I’ll take you on a picnic. We’ll go on a perfect spring day. And you’ll feel the sun when it’s the perfect warmth without being too hot, and there’ll be a breeze, and you’ll smell flowers and a hint of water.”
Her eyes alit, her fingers clenched and unclenched in unconscious desire. “Do you think there could be a bunny? The books say how soft they are, and I always wanted to feel one.”
“I’ll get you a hundred bunnies,” Seth said, and he blinked hard, because a man did not tear up. “I don’t get the appeal, but I know they’re something girls like, so if you want them, they’re yours.”
Rosamund stared at him with an intensity flaying skin from bone and burrowing straight to his soul. As he sat before her, exposed and raw, she fell back, boneless as a rag doll, to land on the floor beside the bed. “Except that’s all just a pretty dream, isn’t it?” Her voice turned a dark, ruined thing, an emptiness to it he’d only known old men to possess until now. “If the curse gets me, the only thing that can break it is true love’s kiss. And I sit here alone, and even my father fears loving me. I’m going to be alive forever in death’s embrace. There will be something always just out of my reach, and I’ll never touch, or hold, or feel. Always this half-lived, never-lived non-life.”
Seth scrambled down to the ground in front of her. “Don’t talk like that,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He ran his hands down her baby-fine hair, the way he saw his friends do when their sisters were hurt or scared. “I’m your fiancée. I’m here with you, and it’s my job to care for and protect you. I won’t let that happen to you. I promise right now I will always honor my engagement. I won’t fall in love with anyone else. We’re going to get married, just like our fathers agreed. I swear to you, you’ll live a long, full, wonderful life, and I will not let that curse take you.”
She didn’t answer, but her arms wrapped around him tight and choked sobs escaped from her throat. He rocked her, continuing to stroke her hair.
Time lost meaning. They were wrapped around each other, and then she fell asleep, and he placed her on the bed.
“You’re an awesome kid. Anyone ever tell you that?”
Seth whirled to see a woman standing in front of him. She was very pretty with long dark brown hair and dark eyes. There was pride in her smile, and she looked at him the way he had seen parents look when their kid won first place in a race. “How did you get here?”
“Magic,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He supposed it was. “I’m Reina, and I’m a fairy godmother.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted another one around. Fairies wielding magic had done enough to them, as far as he was concerned. Still, it paid to be polite. “What can I do for you?”
“More like what I can do for you. That was impressive enough to get my attention. We usually only grant wishes to people who are much older and have a long record of good deeds, but that was… wow.”
He took a tentative step closer to her. She was too pretty to be evil, though he was sure Kira would hit him upside the head if he said that out loud. Plus, if she was evil, she could have just smited him or something without faking him out. “Then you can take her curse away?”
The speed with which her face went from admiring to glum answered that question before she opened her mouth. “I’m so sorry. There are rules to magic, and the being who cast that curse is very powerful. Only our leader could overturn the curse, and he has never intervened.”
Seth pointed at Rosamund, curled in a ball on top of pink covers. “He’d instead let a little girl live day in and day out with that fear and pain? He’s a piss-poor excuse for a leader.”
He’d been prepared for indignation or anger, so the smile that came over her face worried Seth more than any outburst could have. “And you will be a fantastic one when you grow up. Your people are blessed to have you.”
Reina moved toward him and Seth took a step backwards, but she went past him to stand at Rosamund’s bedside. Reina brushed blond curls from Rosamund’s ear and leaned down to whisper to the sleeping princess, so quiet that Seth didn’t hear a word the fairy godmother said.
Reina straightened and looked back at him. “You have a very big wish due you, Prince Seth. You are a wise and good young man, so I’m going to do something I’ve never done. I’m going to let you delay making your wish. Think on it. You only have one, so make it count – don’t waste it on trivial matters. When you’ve decided, call out to me. I’ll be right at your side.”
“Seth!” Kira’s voice boomed like a thunderclap and startled Seth enough that he tripped over his feet in his haste to turn towards that voice.
When he was back on his feet, he was no longer in Rosamund’s bedroom but in a castle corridor, sunlight streaming through windows and the branches of a tree visible through the opening. This area was familiar.
Kira ran up to him. “Seth,” she cried again, enveloping him in a hug. “What happened? How did you get out here?”
For just a moment, Seth hugged her close and let the wonderful scent of grass and woodsmoke that always clung to Kira sooth the battered parts of his heart and mind. With one final breath he put her away from him with exaggerated nonchalance. “You’re fine?”
“Yes, perfectly. I kept c
alling, but you didn’t answer. I found my way out finally”
He never held back from telling her anything. Her thoughts were vital to his decisions and he always wanted to hear what her mind came up with. But somehow this meeting, with Rosamund and the fairy godmother, somehow this was for him alone. He didn’t think there was a part of him that Kira didn’t inhabit, but there it was, and it was telling him that right now he needed to keep this meeting secret, that Kira just wouldn’t understand. “I fell and I think I blacked out for a moment. I’m not quite sure what happened.”
Once he finished speaking, Seth didn’t look at her face. Seeing the disbelief he knew was there would have him telling her the whole truth in moments. Instead, he began to retrace the path they’d taken to arrive here.
As he drew abreast of Kira, Seth began to reach for her hand as he always did, but Rosamund’s face appeared in his mind’s eye as she was those last moments before she fell asleep, her eyes deadened and her voice defeated, and his vow blazed through his heart. His hand faltered and then withdrew from Kira’s, even as his fingers curled in protest over the loss.
Chapter Two
Seth ducked lower, scrunching his body behind the tree as the chattering of the women grew louder on the other side of the trunk.
“I thought I saw him in this area,” said the first. He recognized the voice, Lady Isa – no, Ire – well, it began with an “I”. Nice enough, but her family was so desperate for a match that they pushed her to act beyond the bounds of propriety.
“He has to be around here somewhere,” said the second. Now her, he didn’t like. Lady Deva treated servants like dirt underneath her shoes. Father said he had to be nice to her since she came from a very important merchant family, so he gritted his teeth and smiled at her at formal functions. That didn’t mean he had to put up with her at any other time.