by C. L. Wilson
He turned to glare at her, a flaming torch in each hand. “What is the curse, exactly? Tell it to me word for word.”
“Weel . . .” Her gaze slid from his.
His mouth fell open. “You don’t know?”
“I was sotted!” she protested. “Christmas Eve marks the anniversary of my birth, and the wine flowed freely. Throughout the Yuletide, ’tis traditional to drink wassail and dance until—”
“You were partying?” He gaped at her in disbelief. “You can’t remember the curse that trapped you inside a castle for hundreds of years, because you were too drunk to pay attention. That’s great. Very helpful. Way to black out during the most important moment of your life.”
She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. There were no recriminations he could inflict upon her that she hadn’t already suffered. And say what he would, her mead consumption was the least of her troubles. “I would nay have heard the words, were I dry as timber. The curse was spoken outside the castle walls.”
“Ah.” He nodded slowly, as if to himself. “Makes sense. I’d stay out of the line of fire, too, if I had those skills. But what about everyone else? I can’t believe no one thought to jot anything down.”
Her smile was as brittle as her heart. “When I awoke the next morn, there wasn’t anyone else.”
“They left?” His expression transformed from outrage to delight. “But that’s awesome! We just need to figure out how they did it, and then do the same thing. Any ideas? I mean, did you see anyone leave?”
She’d seen everything. Been spared nothing. A shudder snaked down her spine. She swallowed hard. “No one ‘left.’ They were just . . . gone.”
He shook his head as if her words held no meaning. Mayhap they didn’t. ’Twas for the better. She had no wish to explain. His forehead wrinkled as though a thousand more questions flooded his mind. Something in the bleakness of her expression must have convinced him the answers would only darken his mood, for at last he simply nodded. “Okay. I get that breaking out of here can’t be easy, or you’d’ve already done it. But there’s got to be a way.”
She made no reply. She would have broken free by now, if freedom were there to find. She’d taken both ax and flame to every inch of the castle grounds, and had gained nothing but disappointment after disappointment. She no longer went through the motions. There was no point. She still dreamed of finding a way out, but she no longer believed in the possibility. Not for her, and definitely not for him.
Lance rubbed at his temples. “I must be missing something. I haven’t slept since the night before last and I’m not thinking at a hundred percent. The castle will still be here tomorrow, right? That’s the curse. Twenty-four hours is nothing. What I need is a good night’s sleep. Maybe I’ll wake up with the answer.”
That happy moment, Marigold reflected dismally, would categorically not happen. He would not sleep through the night. Nor would he ever wake up. Come morning, he would simply be . . .
Gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
After having raced after him through the castle while wearing a week’s worth of tunics, Marigold began to wilt. The ice amplified the exterior heat a thousandfold. No quarter was given. Lance’s presence only made things worse. She shielded her eyes and turned away from her dauntless visitor. She could face his optimism no longer. Would that he stood a chance! But midnight drew ever nearer, and by the time the sand inside the glass had run its course, so would he. The hour already grew late. The height of the soaring sun bespoke noontime. Which meant a mere twelve hours remained before he vanished like all the others.
Twelve awful, excruciating hours in which she must keep her heart as hard as stone, for she could not afford to let herself like him. Not even a little. Liking someone was too close to caring, and caring caused far too much pain. Lance was a stranger, and he must needs remain one. She ignored the twisting in her stomach and took a slow, measured breath. Strength. She would be stalwart. Unwavering. A fortress as indomitable and merciless as the castle itself.
It was the only way to survive.
“Well, princess . . .” Lance speared her with a dazzling grin. “I don’t know about you, but battling ancient curses gives me a wicked appetite. What do you say to going halfsies on that giant kettle of soup?”
She choked on something dangerously close to laughter. Imprisoned until death, and his most pressing concern was his stomach? He was such . . . such a man. Her lips curved despite her best efforts. Prioritizing food above all else was something her male cousins would have done. Vicious on the battlefield, yet harmless as puppies when there were fresh pies in the oven. She shook her head. She’d forgotten how simple life could be for a warrior. How simple life had been for her.
Until the curse had stripped her of everything.
Nay. Not everything. She was still Princess Marigold of Castle Cavanaugh. She hadn’t surrendered her honor or her pride, and she was certainly still in possession of proper social graces.
She inclined her head. “Come. If you be hungry, we must break bread at once.”
He immediately proffered his uninjured arm.
She did not take it. He already pleased her far more than she was fain to admit. They were both better off avoiding physical interaction. Yet her fingers itched to settle in the crook of his arm. How would the strange material of his tunic feel beneath her fingers? Would the muscle beneath the cloth prove as firm and strong as she imagined? She shivered despite her many layers of clothing.
Stalwart, she chastised herself sternly. No amount of brawn or swagger is worth the pain of loss. Strangers ye be, and strangers ye must remain.
When at last they reached the kitchen, she motioned him onto a wooden stool near the sideboard. There were no peasants to serve them, and Marigold had long since lost her insistence upon lavish dining environs at the sumptuous table she’d once shared with her family. How it would have amused her friends to see the princess who refused to sup from anything but the finest silver bend her royal head over a simple trencher like the commonest serf!
“This stew is perfect,” Lance said, somewhere between his second and third rations. “Such a wide array of spices. What all do you put in it?”
She stared back at him in silence. No one had asked her that before, largely because a princess would never have the remotest idea how scullions and sauciers performed their tasks. Marigold was no exception.
“Cumin, I think,” he decided on his own. “And maybe cardamom. Good stuff.”
“You . . . cook?” she asked in surprise.
He glanced at her askance. “Why wouldn’t I? I wasn’t always a soldier of fortune, and I’ve always had to eat. I bussed tables in high school and landed a food critic gig for the school paper during my university years. It’s amazing what you can learn about food preparation from being in the trenches, but being paid to eat was a dream come true. I bet I had memorized every menu in a three-hundred-mile radius.”
“You were . . . paid?” she echoed, appalled. “To eat?”
“Hedonistic perfection,” he agreed in happy remembrance. “Being a mercenary is much more lucrative, of course. And much more exciting than exploring local restaurants. I never had to kill anyone at Taco Town.”
Although Marigold could not conceive what sort of lord would pay his vassals to consume their meals, she had a healthy respect for warriors. Strength of body and character were qualities she greatly admired. Soldiers were strong of limb and loyal of heart. For her, that above all else was what determined whether a man could be found attractive.
Not that she should be finding this one attractive.
And fascinating.
To keep from mortifying herself with continued staring, she rose from the sideboard and busied herself washing her goblet and spoon. ’Twas the first dish she had washed in her entire life, which only proved how dire her straits were becoming. He would cease to exist when the bells tolled midnight, she reminded herself. The last thing she needed was to miss him. She
had a plethora of things—and people—to pine for already. She would shatter if she added another to the list.
When her heart was properly hardened, she turned away from the wash bucket and faced the sideboard.
Lance poked at another of his strange devices. This one, a palm-sized black rectangle with a smooth reflective surface awash with shapes and colors, did not seem to be of the explosive variety. Verily, she could discern no purpose to the gadget whatsoever, save for increasing the frown lines on his forehead.
As if sensing her gaze upon him, Lance dropped the rectangle upon the sideboard and pushed to his feet. He was wrist-deep in the wash bucket by the time she realized he actually meant to clean his own utensils. Her mouth fell open. If a princess playing at scullion boggled the mind, seeing a man—a warrior—
Her gaze locked on the strange necklet about his throat. A length of twine threaded what appeared to be bits of animal bone. Its ivory facets provided the sole respite from unremitting black upon his person. To be so different, the charms must have deep importance. And as much as she knew that personal questions would only lead her further down the dark path to emotional connection, she was struck with the fancy that, of everything in his arsenal, this item would most fully reveal him to her.
“Your necklet,” she said softly, resisting the urge to run her fingertips against it. “Were the bones taken as tokens of your kills?”
“You think it’s real bone?” He slid a finger beneath the studded twine and shrugged. “Maybe. It’s still bunk, though. Supposed to bind me to the thing I value most.” The light dulled from his eyes.
She gazed up at him in surprise. “And that is a bad thing?”
“It would’ve been a great thing if what I valued most was my pirate ship. But I’m beginning to suspect I ended up binding myself to my smartphone.” He stepped around her to retrieve the now-blank rectangle from the sideboard. He glowered at it. “Not the smartphone itself. What’s on it. I tried to fight it, but . . .” He heaved a great sigh, as if about to impart a shocking confession. “Here’s the thing. I’m addicted to Candy Crush: Warlock Edition.” He pressed a button and the smooth panel lit back up. “I’ve got battery left, but no wifi. How’s a guy supposed to brag about what level he’s on without wifi?”
She stared at him, mystified. She couldn’t fathom what any part of his explanation meant, but she had to start somewhere. She settled on asking, “What’s wifi?”
“The devil,” he said with feeling. “The Internet is a plague. Rampant wifi access has infected every square foot of developed land across the globe and transformed all remaining humans into zombies. The only place to escape its omnipotent rays is out on the open sea.” The fierceness evaporated from his face and he lifted his uninjured shoulder in a careless shrug. “But since my boat’s on layaway, I play Candy Crush. Wanna try?”
She did not reach for the device. Living through the Black Death had been more than enough plague exposure for a lifetime. She tried to recall what else he’d said. “It’s the . . . thing you value most?”
“Nah. I hate this game.” He shoved the device out of sight in one of his many hidden pouches. “It’s more a compulsion than actual fun. But Sancho’s on level seventy, and—” He broke off with a growl and lifted both hands to his neck as if intending to rip the bone necklet right from his throat. In the end, he lowered his hands back to his sides and looked at her bleakly. “I really thought this necklace would bind me to freedom. He said it would work. I believed him. But that door . . . I’m pretty sure I fractured my collarbone trying to bust my way out. And yet here we are.” He flashed an overlarge smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Guess it’s a slumber party.”
She stepped toward him for a closer look at the necklet. “’Tis a talisman?”
He shrugged. As before, only with his good shoulder. “I thought so. Sancho still thinks so. He’d never lie to me. He’s my best friend. But he also believes everything he sees on TV. Especially if the spokesperson’s an ex-football star. Sancho wouldn’t be underwater on his mortgage if he laid off the infomercials. This thing’s probably as magical as his microfiber blanket is dragon-proof.”
A laugh startled from Marigold’s throat. “There’s no such thing as dragons.”
Lance’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? You’re trapped in an enchanted castle and you’re going to quibble about dragons?”
Forced to concede the point, she grinned up at him despite herself. “If it be worthless, why do you not remove the necklet?”
“My best friend gave it to me,” he said simply, his eyes sad but firm. “Just because it’s not magical, doesn’t mean it’s worthless.”
His simple words pierced her with the force of a thousand blades.
She deeply understood the need to cling to any reminder of who she’d been and what she’d lost. In sooth, she and loss were intimate companions. No matter how small or mundane, every reminder of her former life was dear to her heart. A precious link to what she loved most and could never again have. For that alone, she would never part with the figurines in the solar. They were all she had left of her family. They were all she had left that mattered.
His aquamarine eyes sharpened as if they could peer right into her soul. “Enough about me. Tell me about Princess Marigold. How are you? Who are you? Have you ever been on a pirate ship?”
“Nay, though ’twas my lifelong dream to someday see the ocean.” The dreaminess vanished from her voice as the memories flooded back. She’d had so many dreams.
Her father had put paid to all of them. Out of fear of losing his beloved daughter, he’d intended to betroth her to a neighboring prince of an equally landlocked kingdom on the morning after her birthday. Curse or not, she’d been doomed to spend the rest of her days shuttered within a castle. Mayhap there was no escaping Fate.
“I was very privileged,” she said at last, once renewed grief and frustration had lessened enough to let her speak. “I was not only a princess, but an only child, born to an older king and queen who had despaired of begetting heirs at all. They cherished me more than life itself. I was as coddled and spoiled as you could surmise. Likely more so. As a child, I had maids and tutors and dolls and pets. Cake with every meal, were it what I pleased. Once I was grown, I had gowns and dances and handmaidens and suitors and the most ostentatious library in all the kingdom. Every knight jousted for my ribbon. Every peasant girl dreamed of being the beloved Princess Marigold. Then one day, I awoke to an empty castle and couldn’t get out.” She smiled, but like him, she knew her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “And now here we are.”
To her surprise, he appeared neither curious nor sympathetic. Instead, his eyes held hers with intense concentration, as if weighing each of her words for merit and truth. In the end, he shook his head. “No.”
She blinked. “No?”
He shook his head more firmly. “Nope. Definitely not Princess Marigold. You’re talking about yourself as if you were dead. Past tense. Over. But however long that part of your life lasted, it’s a tiny fraction of your past. A blink. I can’t meet that Marigold. I don’t even want to. I’m meeting you. Who are you now? Today? You’re not a girl who teases knights with hair ribbons. You’re a woman who has survived centuries trapped in an enchanted castle and managed to remain sane and intelligent and witty. That’s the only Marigold I’m interested in. The real you.”
It was long seconds before her jaw worked again, and even still, no words came to mind in answer. It was as if he’d taken a battering ram to the walls supporting her world, and broken straight through in a single drive.
He was right. He was actually right, and she still couldn’t fully grasp it. That girl she’d been—for nineteen short years—had nothing on the centuries she now counted to her name. She’d learned more about herself in the first few days of the curse than she had in the two decades leading up to it. She’d learned more about life, about what she could do, what she was made of, than she’d ever dreamed possible. And in all that
time, the possibility that she was in any way better off, somehow a better person, had never once entered her mind.
“I’m stronger,” she said slowly, warming to the idea. “Stronger than I ever was. Not in body, but in every way that matters. I’m smarter. The library I’d once had for show is now my favorite chamber in the keep. I can quote from most anything. And . . . I can shoot a grape at a hundred paces.” Her voice grew bolder as the words tumbled free. “A few knights left their quivers of arrows, and I practice every day. I also dabble in art. It doesn’t come naturally. I had to teach myself to understand color, force myself to practice until the image on the canvas was as clear as the one in my mind. And should I be presented with dice or playing cards, I will annihilate any knave in the game of his choosing.” Her lips curved. This time, her smile shone true.
Lance grinned back at her. “See? That’s a much better bio. You should write that one down.”
She nudged him. “Are you done eating, wastrel? I cannot withstand much more of the cauldron’s heat.”
“That’s because you’re bundled up like an Eskimo. I’m guessing spaghetti straps haven’t become a ‘thing’ yet in this neck of the woods?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She had no idea what Eskimos or spaghetti straps were, and she was beginning to suspect these lapses in communication weren’t as innocent as she’d thought. By the wicked gleam in his eye, the scoundrel had been peppering his speech with such nonsense just to vex her.
“I shall return forthwith.” She turned and strode toward the kitchen door. “I wish to remove some of these tunics.”
He was right on her heels, his eyes alight with roguery. “Oh, I’ll happily come along for that.”