Kiss of the Royal

by Lindsey Duga

  “If I wasn’t perfect at everything, she’d tell me I brought her shame. That I’d never be strong enough to save people, to destroy the Forces. But I was just a child—I wasn’t perfect. I was clumsy sometimes and got hurt, so I cried, and she was never around to give me even one healing Kiss.”

  My eyes burned. My throat itched.

  “She shut you out often?”

  “An understatement. Anyway, she’s obsessed with finding the Wicked Queen. It’s a vendetta. If it wasn’t for the Queen there’d be no Forces. No wraiths to take away the man she’d tried to run away with. No need for Royals to continue breeding like rabbits. No reason for my mother to give up her freedom.” I tugged at my braid. “It could be that she just hates me. Not even that she hates what I represent. Just…me—” My voice caught. I’d never said these words aloud before.

  Wringing the thin dress in my hands, I remembered what Brom had said back in Myria. What he’d said after I told him he knew why I had to fight.

  You won’t get her approval. Even if you win.

  Deep down, I knew Brom was right. There was too much bad blood between the two of us for my mother to ever truly be proud of me. But maybe if I killed this dragon. Killed the Evil Queen and ended the war, she’d stop being obsessed with perfection, with being Myriana’s pure descendant. Maybe she’d just see…me. Not as a Royal. Not as a weapon against the Forces. But just as me. As her daughter. It was exactly as Zach had said back in the well. I wanted her to want me for just being me.

  Zach’s fingers brushed his mark on my hand, and I let go of the fabric, leaving it wrinkled. His fingers entwined in mine and squeezed.

  I swallowed and said softly, “But your mother… I’m so sorry…”

  “It’s in the past.”

  “You were running,” I whispered, remembering the sweat on the boy’s skin and his labored breathing. Perhaps my cruel words about him running from a fight had been all too true.

  Zach ran a hand through his hair. “I was always scared as a kid. A coward, really. But I was also the only half Royal in our Romantica village, so whenever there was a dark monster near, I could feel it.”

  I bit my lip. “The Sense.”

  Zach nodded. “I was the only one with the Sense, and whenever it settled over my chest, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was terrified. When the griffin came—I’d never felt anything like that. So I just…I ran. I ran out of the house without thinking. Mom chased after me, and because I’d run, she was attacked…”

  “You were barely six years old. You can’t possibly blame yourself.”

  “I used to. And it was why I vowed to get stronger. I joined a rebel group of Romantica and trained. It was they who taught me there might be more to the Royals’ magic. That it…”

  He trailed off, shooting me a wary glance, as if he wanted to take back the words.

  My head throbbed, as if warning me that I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “Tell me everything, Zach.”

  His eyes flickered to the sunset outside the window. The magical rain had stopped, but the sunset illuminated our room in a golden light. It reminded me of the forest that morning, when he had nearly kissed me.

  Zach faced me and placed his hands on the pillows and sheets on either side of me. “Lie back, princess.” He leaned in, trapping me.

  He was so close—and getting closer—my elbows slipped back onto the pillows. He came down with me, his lips pressed into the bare skin of my shoulder.

  “I promise to tell you everything. After you sleep.” The feel of his lips brushing against my shoulder was so overwhelming that I let myself fall into the pillows as his broad chest hovered just a breath away from mine.

  Before I could wrap my arm around him, he shifted to prop himself up on his elbow, then looked down at me. “You really saved me back there, Ivy.”

  I willed my pounding heart to slow. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

  He lowered his face into the pillow, right above my shoulder. “You held me in that water”—his voice was muffled—“and I knew everything was okay somehow.”

  My hands moved up into his hair. Feeling the wet strands between my fingers, I longed to bring his lips to mine.

  Lust.

  Zach lifted himself off and lay on his side. I rolled over to face him, our knees touching. He inched closer, wrapping our hands together, our foreheads meeting. “Go to sleep, princess.”

  I moved closer until my face was between his neck and the pillows. “Will I be awoken by a kiss?”

  Zach chuckled, and I felt the vibrations in his throat and chest. “We’ll see.”

  I let myself relax in his arms. I’d been only half teasing.

  …

  Much to my disappointment, I did not receive a kiss. Zach was sleeping, his arms still around me, when I woke in the wee hours of the morning.

  Briefly, I considered kissing him awake like I’d wanted, but then thought better of it.

  It was finally something I didn’t want to force.

  My head whirled from the realization.

  Whether it was a kiss of Lust or a Royal’s Kiss, it should be something he chose. I wanted him to trust me enough as a partner to believe that our power could save people.

  If it were a kiss of Lust, I shouldn’t have to second-guess his attraction to me any longer. Whether it was through flirting while riding, a dance by a bonfire, or an almost-kiss in the forest, I needed to know once and for all if he wanted what I wanted.

  But how could I ever swallow my pride and just ask him?

  Carefully, I leaned over him to find a bowl of cold stew on the floor. Bromley must’ve come to drop it off. I groaned, knowing he would’ve found Zach and me sleeping practically on top of each other. I could almost picture Brom’s smug face, as if to say, told you so. As I moved back, Zach stirred and flinched, sitting up, causing me to lose my balance and fall over his knees.

  “What the—” Zach smoothed back his unruly hair when he saw the early morning darkness outside. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “Well, you did… We both did.” I picked myself up. With a clear head I realized how foggy my mind had been last night and just how much the proximity of his body caused me to feel dizzy with desire. “We should get moving.”

  Zach wiped at the freckles on my cheek. “Easy there, Your Highness. I promised you I’d talk. Don’t you want to know?”

  I wanted to know everything, but Zach was so close to me I couldn’t think straight. I needed a clear mind when he told me about the golden magic.

  His eyes were locked on mine. His fingertips brushed my jaw, and heat rose in my neck.

  I moved away from him, off the bed, before I could change my mind—no matter how much I wanted that heat, now was not the time. Maybe it would never be.

  At that thought, my gut twisted.

  “Please don’t.” I backed away from the bed. “What you did in the forest—what you’re doing now, and—and last night…I don’t know what—” I tucked hair behind my ears.

  What had I been thinking last night? Even this morning, in his arms, surrounded by his warmth and scent, I’d been delusional. We couldn’t afford to be distracted by Lust. We had an egg to find and a dragon to slay.

  If anything were to happen between us, it would have to wait.

  At his look of confusion, I said, “Never mind. There are more important things. Tell me about the Golden Effect and the Romantica’s theory.”

  “Ivy—” Pain flitted across his face, then it was gone just as fast. His jaw tightened. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “The Golden Effect, as you call it, happens when a power defeats the Forces, whether it’s a monster or a curse like the one we broke yesterday.”

  “What power?”

  Zach ignored my interruption. “The Romantica began to develop this theory about seventy-five years ago, when they started finding…patterns. They noticed that whenever a curse was lifted by th
e Royal’s Kiss, three more curses in other villages would pop up within the span of a moon’s cycle.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “And if the villages were right next to each other? Ivy, try to hear me. This Golden Effect…its magic is ten times more powerful than any Kiss. If we hadn’t broken the amulet, then these villagers would never have properly healed. They may have even died from another curse that would have taken its place.”

  It took me a moment to understand what he was saying, and once I did, I felt sick.

  On one hand, I could not dispute the facts I had seen with my own eyes. On the other, I refused to admit that the Royal’s Kiss was truly pointless—because…because that would mean all this time—all these years…

  Zach was suggesting the Kiss caused more curses and monsters to pop up. That it was actually evil.

  There was no way. No.

  “There were more instances as well,” Zach continued. “Trolls’ caves that the Royals took down with their magic turned into a breeding nest for dark serpents. From the dead earth where dwarves were slaughtered a wraith emerged… There are hundreds of examples.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  Zach gritted his teeth. “That I could show you right now? Of course not. I’m only telling you how our theory started. Believe what you want, as you always have. All we know is that when we began fighting monsters without Royals, we were able to clear areas that stayed clear.”

  My stomach rolled. I grabbed the edge of the dresser to keep myself from swaying. I didn’t believe him. There was no way I could. “You told me the gold happens because of a power. What is it?”

  Zach took a deep breath, looked me in the eye, and said, “Love.”

  I pounded my fist against the dresser. “That’s not funny.”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “You’re saying we broke the curse on the amulet through Love? Zach, that’s—”

  He stood and seized my arms. “Down in those waters, when your mother almost shut the door on you, and I held your hand, what did you feel?”

  I stared up at him, speechless.

  “I’ll tell you what I felt when you promised you’d be with me. I was happy. I wasn’t so lonely that I felt like I could’ve just disappeared. I felt lov—”

  I tried to escape his iron grip. “We got through the enchantments. That’s why the jewel broke!”

  “How did we break through the enchantments?”

  “S-strength,” I stammered.

  “If that’s what you want to call it—fine. Then what about the griffin?”

  “What about the griffin?”

  “What power defeated it? Caused it to disintegrate into gold dust?”

  “I don’t know!” Anxiety crawled up my throat, choking me—it was like I was back in that cursed well water again. “It had to be magic.”

  “Magic from who? There was no one else in that forest.”

  “You don’t know that. It was all such a blur—you jumped in front of me and saved me, and that’s when it burst into gold.”

  Zach stared two burning holes into me, willing me to understand. Waiting for me to put the pieces together.

  When the griffin’s talons buried themselves in his chest, saving me but sacrificing him, what power had been released then? What triggered the golden magic? Was it Zach himself? Maybe the question was why he had leaped in front of the griffin’s talons when it was sure to kill him.

  Because he…

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  Denial

  “You don’t love me,” I whispered.

  Zach backed up and sank onto the bed. He rested his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

  We were silent a long time.

  I licked my lips, pushed back the curls that had escaped from my braid. Breathe, Ivy. “Zach, you don’t love me.”

  “You don’t think I’ve tried to deny it?” He jumped to his feet, the muscles in his neck and arms tight, strained. “To tell myself it’s just Lust? For all the girls for me to fall in love with… It had to be the one who completely denies Love’s entire existence. The most Royal of them all.”

  He crossed to the window, lifted one arm and rested it and his forehead against the glass. He laughed bitterly. “Isn’t the irony hilarious? The girl I love begging me to kiss her every day, and I have to refuse. And I have to. Not just for my own beliefs and this golden theory, but for my own sanity. Because a kiss would mean nothing to you, while it meant everything to me.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.

  I didn’t believe in Love, but Zach did, and he believed he had fallen in…

  At last, I managed to rasp, “But…but you barely knew me.”

  He shook his head, his hair brushing against the glass. “I knew you enough. I met you, and you were beautiful with your freckles and talk about strawberries. Then you were demanding that we should be partners and, even when I told you no, you showed up on the battlefield. You were fierce and strong and brave, and I admired you.” He turned away from the window, walked back to the bed and sat down. “Then after your mother slapped you, and I walked you back to your room… I don’t know. Maybe it was then.”

  “Why then?”

  “I heard you crying,” he said softly, eyes focused on the floor. “You cried like your heart was being ripped in two. Every Royal I’d met always cut off all emotion, but you let yourself feel something. And then you showed up at the Council meeting, eyes a little red, like nothing happened. But something had happened, and I worried about you. I haven’t stopped since.”

  His words had me trembling. Sacred Sisters, what is this prince doing to me? I believe every foolish word.

  He held out his hand and slowly rotated it, studying the Mark of Myriana. “You asked me why I didn’t just go search for the dragon myself with my Sense. The answer is…I couldn’t let you go alone. Or with anyone else. You wouldn’t be safe with someone like Amias. Someone who wanted you only as a weapon. To make themselves stronger by using you.” He looked up, then repeated the same words from the enchantment. “They wouldn’t make you feel wanted for just being you.”

  Oh, don’t say that.

  With his marked hand, he took mine and pulled me closer, to where I stood between his legs. Zach was tall enough to only have to tilt his face upward to be inches from my own. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you would’ve been better off with a different partner.”

  I couldn’t. His hands moved into my hair as our breathing synchronized.

  A knock on the door sprang us apart. I swiveled around, and with hands still trembling, rushed to the door. Millennia stood in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs, and Bromley was behind her with a basket of food.

  Millennia cast a look from Zach to myself, then strode in, handing me a mug. I accepted it, trying not to spill any tea.

  Bromley smiled at me, but it quickly faded when he noticed my hands shaking the mug. He glanced at Zach, and I subtly shook my head.

  Millennia took a long sip from her tea then squinted at me over the rim. “So, princess, what’s in those mountains?”

  “Um—what?” My mind was still too full of Zach’s confession to comprehend what she was asking.

  “Don’t think that I didn’t notice what you said yesterday—that the fate of the kingdoms rested on you two.” Millennia flicked her wrist at both of us. “You’re after whatever is brewing in the Wu-Hyll Mountains, aren’t you?”

  Zach still sat on the bed, staring at the floor. I remained silent, my brain moving at a snail’s pace.

  Irritated, she snapped her fingers. “Hello?”

  I set the mug of tea on the dresser, rubbed my forehead, and sighed, trying to refocus on our mission. What Millennia had said last night had a ring of truth to it. If she had a Master Mage who recognized the dark signs like the magical thunderstorms and the sparrow harpies, it wouldn’t be hard to decipher that something was growing in the Wu-Hyll Mountains. But given the Romantica mages’
lack of access to our archives, it made sense why they didn’t know what was forming. The question was, did I trust her enough to tell her? She had saved our lives with the serpents and helped us find the amulet—she may be a Romantica, but like Zach, she wasn’t evil. And if she truly wanted us dead there would’ve been plenty of opportunities. So I told her.

  “Great wisps on the Seas of Glyll,” she said, “a Sable Dragon. I’d expected something terrible, but not…” She took a steeling breath. “This is it then. She really means to raze the world with this dragon, doesn’t she?”

  Her words struck a chord inside me, and for a moment, I couldn’t respond. This whole time I’d known that the Sable Dragon would destroy the Legion if let loose, but without the Legion, the rest of the world would surely follow. All she would have to do is stand back and let her dragon wreak havoc, and with no more humans in the way, her monsters—her children—would inherit the earth.

  Millennia turned toward the door. “Well, we better get moving.”

  “What?” Brom, Zach, and I said in unison.

  She blinked. “I’m coming with you.”

  I gaped at her. “After what I just told you…you want to join us?”

  “Absolutely. You need my help. Especially since the Royal’s Kiss is no use to either of you.”

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. Maybe I believed Zach thought he loved me, and maybe I couldn’t deny that something was different about the Golden Effect and the Royal’s magic, but to completely throw out the one power we had to defeat the dragon—no, that was too dangerous. Despite the Romantica’s theory, we were still going to use a Kiss. It was the only way to kill it for certain.