by C. L. Wilson
She frowned. “And then what?”
“And then you tell him that you’re standing outside of Castle Cavanaugh and he needs to come get you.” He pushed the phone into her hands. They trembled.
“Why would he heed the bidding of a total stranger?” Her eyes held the tiniest glint of hope.
“Because he’s a big old softie.” Lance’s gut twisted at the thought of never seeing Sancho again. “Tell him you’re my girlfriend. The curiosity alone will get him up the cliffs. Oh, and explain which one we’re on. He knows Castle Cavanaugh is somewhere on this mountain range, but he’s crap without a GPS and I don’t want him getting lost and freezing to death before he rescues you. When I first caught sight of the battlements, I actually meant to call him right then and explain the lay of the land, but this far away from the city, there’s no hope of—”
He broke off. A crushing sense of defeat settled over him.
Marigold touched his shoulder. “This far away, there’s no hope of what?”
“Cell service. There’s no hope of getting a signal.” He dropped his head into his hands and breathed deeply. After a moment, he jerked his gaze back up to hers. “Have you ever used a grappling hook? Or kernmantle rope?”
She shook her head.
Desperation set in. He had to save her. “Have you ever climbed . . . well, anything?”
“No.” Her eyes dulled with understanding. “You’re saying I wouldn’t be able to call Sancho.”
He swallowed. “Not until you’d reached the bottom of the cliffs. And then there’s some rapids, and a couple caves with jumping pit vipers and the like, but as soon as you can see skyscrapers, cell service should come back in.”
They stared at each other in silence, neither of them willing to speak the obvious truth:
Even if Marigold escaped, there was no way in hell she’d make it back to civilization alive.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The silence lasted until well past dinner. Neither of them had wanted to let the other out of their sight, but nor had either of them been pricked with a need for conversation. Marigold was so frustrated, so torn, so furious . . . This curse had crushed her hopes for six hundred long years. She was weary of the agony. And she could not stand to subject Lance to an eternity of the same.
An hour ago, he’d asked her if she’d like to join him for stargazing. They’d dragged up the cushions from the sitting-room dais to lie hand in hand beneath the stars. Just when she thought he might have drifted to sleep, he spoke.
“Have you ever been tempted to end it?” His voice was quiet, but his words pierced like arrows.
She jerked up onto her elbow and stared at him in surprise. “Never. Are you—”
“No, but it’s just day three. Check back with me around year three hundred.”
His tone indicated he was jesting, but her heart would not be still. It raced faster than it ever had before. She had never wished for him to give up his life, figuratively or literally. In sooth, she ought to be spending every breath convincing him to go. But she already knew he would not willingly abandon her. And a tiny part of her was very, very glad to have him stay.
Not a tiny part, she chastised herself as she stared up at the night sky. A huge part. He made her heart expand wider than the heavens. Eternity might just be bearable with him at her side.
He shot upright, startling her. “I have an idea.”
“You do?” She struggled upright. “To set us both free?”
“No. It can’t be done.” He rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. “But we can do the next best thing.”
“Swiving?” she asked hopefully.
“What does—” He blinked, then burst into laughter at her illustrative hand gestures. “Turns out, I love swiving. You talked me into it. But before we get naked, let’s pay one last midnight visit to the solar.”
Mystified, she followed him down two flights of stairs and across the keep. The solar was quiet and uninviting. The tree was where it always was, the ornaments maddeningly rearranged.
In the minutes it took her to greet all her lost sheep, Lance was busily upending his quiver onto the stone floor. Arrows, various pouches, strange netted circles, a candy bar . . . She snatched up the chocolate. Less than an hour until midnight. ’Twould be a crime not to consume it before it reset.
As she savored the sweet confection, he turned an empty quiver around and donned it backward, wearing the narrow sleeve in the front rather than upon his back. From the floor, he picked up a smaller pouch that had fallen out along with the arrows and other items. He shook a blanket made of strange material from the pouch and arranged it over his hands as if he didn’t have a perfectly serviceable pair of leather gauntlets, pre-shaped for his fingers.
He looked absolutely daft, but he’d promised her swiving, so she was determined to play along.
She finished the chocolate. “What mischief are you about now?”
“Let my people go!” he boomed dramatically, then swooped down to snatch the blanket back up when it slid off his hands. “Your people, actually. Not mine.”
“My people?”
His eyes grew serious. “We only have one more shot at this, right? There’s not enough time for both of us to get through the hole before it closes, and there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you behind. But the constant knowing that one last lightsaber exists would eat away at both of us until we went ax crazy on each other. The only resolution is to use it up. Then there’ll be no more wondering, and we can move on. By which I mean swiving.” He wriggled his eyebrows.
She frowned. “You’re going to waste the last flame sword on purpose?”
“Not waste it. I got to thinking. That hole is just big enough—and open for just long enough—for one thing to get through. Like my quiver of arrows.”
“You wish to set your arrows free?”
“I wish to set them free.” He nodded his head toward the tree.
She broke out in a sweat. “You wish to toss my parents out in the cold?”
“They’re not your parents anymore,” he said quietly. “They’re ornaments.”
She pushed at him.”You don’t know that!”
“Neither do you. And if they still are your parents, do you really think they’re having a jolly Yuletide strung up on a tree?”
She glared at him. “I no longer wish to swive you.”
Surprise fluttered across his face. “You seriously wouldn’t want to put everyone outside of the curse’s boundary line, if it were in your power to do so?”
“Were they human, I would,” she retorted. “But they’re figurines, and they’re all I have left. Besides, you can’t touch them. You determined that much for yourself.”
He wiggled his fingers beneath the blanket. It promptly slipped off his hands. He snatched it back up before it hit the floor.
“Dragon-proof microfiber,” he said. “If it’s strong enough for a dragon, it might be strong enough for a Christmas tree.”
Her stomach dropped. He believed he could truly perform this horrible feat. And he meant to!
She dashed around him, blocking the tree with legs spread wide and arms held high, much the same way she’d blocked him from bludgeoning himself against the front door on the day they’d first met.
His face fell. “I thought it was a great plan. I thought you’d love the idea.”
“I abhor the idea.” Her entire body shook. “You cannot ask me to give up what’s left of my family. I have no other reminders. Nothing to call my own. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
His gaze turned calculating. “Would you say they’re the thing you love most in the whole world?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Without a doubt.”
“What about them?” He nodded toward the tree. “Would they say the same about you?”
Her voice hardened. “Papa broke the oath he made to sell this castle because he loved me so much. He’s a king. He breaks his word for no one. And Mama? Mama would die for me. She wouldn’t
put me out in the snow, even if I were no more than a painted figurine!”
He let the blanket fall and reached up to unfasten the necklet at his throat. “Remember this?”
She stared at the cord of strung bones. “You thought you knew what it bound you to, and you were wrong. I shan’t take any such risks with the people I love, even if they be nothing more than baubles. How do you think I should feel to espy them tumbled in the snow, their painted faces dripping away with the morning dew once the days grow warmer? Or when they are no longer there at all?”
“Horrible,” he admitted quietly. “But you would have set them free.”
“Mayhap I don’t wish them to be free,” she shouted, fully aware of how selfish that made her sound. Of how selfish she was. The possessiveness was wicked, but at least she spoke true. “They are everyone who has ever known me or loved me. Mayhap I wish to hold fast to their memory forever!”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized what he had been trying to tell her. What he had wanted her to discover on her own. Her fingers slowly unclenched.
“I can’t hold fast forever, can I?” She was certain she could hear her heart breaking. The figurines were all she had left of her former life. Stalwart, she reminded herself over the churning in her belly. A warrior must stay strong. She dipped her head in understanding. “Perchance ’tis time to let them go.”
His gaze was tender. “Only if you wish.”
“’Tis the last thing I wish.” But she knelt to retrieve the blanket.
If this event were to transpire, she must be the one to set them free.
She arranged the blanket over her hands and circled the tree until she found the most recent of the figurines. Tentatively, she reached out her hand. When her blanketed fingers touched the toes of the figurine, an acrid zzzt rent the air—but she suffered nary a spark. She closed her hand around the figurine and eased it from the bough.
“Chaz of New Brunswick,” she said around the lump in her throat. “You were the politest explorer I had the privilege to meet. ’Tis sorry I am to have kept you from your home.”
She carefully placed the figurine in the bottom of Lance’s quiver. Then she turned back to the tree.
“Jimmy the Kid of South Chicago. You danced a mean Charleston and you let me try your machine gun. ’Tis sorry I am that your flight from the Feds met with such disaster.”
She placed him as gently as she could alongside Chaz of New Brunswick in the bottom of the quiver, then crossed o’er to Baron Westinghouse of East Surrey.
By a quarter to midnight, all the figurines were packed away.
All but two.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered brokenly. “They’re my parents. They belong with me.”
Lance kept his silence.
“’Tis Yuletide,” she insisted, ignoring the unwarriorlike break in her voice. “You said yourself. Yuletide is to be spent with your loved ones.”
Still he said nothing.
“What if they break when they land on the other side? What if they’re all conscious, and they’re watching me throw them away as if they were worthless as garbage? What if I can’t tell them apart once the paint wears away?”
“What if they come back to life?” he asked softly.
Panic rattled through her. “What if they do and then can’t get back in? What if the true curse is watching them walk away, watching them grow old and die, and having to go on living without them?”
He reached for her. She jerked away from him.
“It’s a part of life, princess. Everyone loses someone they love. The only family member I have left is my grandmother, and she no longer recognizes my face.”
But he did still have her. Terror engulfed Marigold at the thought of relinquishing the last link to her family. “Are you saying this is easy?”
He shook his head. “I’m saying it’s the worst thing that could happen.”
Her throat convulsed. “Your parents . . . ?”
“Are dead. I was nine. I’m still not over it.”
She shoved at him. “Then how can you expect me to throw mine away?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Look at them. They’re ornaments on a tree. It’s too late, honey. You’ve already lost them.”
“I haven’t.” But his dagger had struck true. It was too late. She swallowed her pride and the last of her hope. Her parents were gone. She had lost them centuries before. It was time to finally let go.
She whirled away so he wouldn’t see the pain in her eyes. Her movements wooden, she forced herself to arrange the blanket over her hands. The time had come. As gently as possible, as lovingly as possible, she lifted the lifeless figurine of her mother from the evergreen boughs.
“Mama . . .” Her voice cracked. How did one say good-bye to one’s parents? Her hands shook. She wouldn’t be able to survive this. It was too much to ask of anyone.
She clasped the figurine to her chest and wished her mother could feel her embrace. The tiny figure in her hands was weightless and hollow, a mere mockery of her mother’s memory. And yet placing it atop all the others was like losing her all over again.
Marigold’s body trembled with the need to keep her mother right here, next to her heart. Not in the mass grave overflowing from the quiver. She shuddered. What if this were her last chance to address her mother? Her throat clogged. There was too much to say and she had none of the right words. It was too important a moment to ruin it with the wrong ones, to terrible a loss to contemplate.
She took a deep breath.
“You were a Queen to me even before I knew you were royalty. You praised me when I pleased you, and you loved me even when I didn’t deserve it. ’Tis been my dream since I was a child to grow into a woman half as strong and good as you. I’d hoped you’d not be taken from me until I were much, much older. ’Tis sorry I am to have brought this curse upon us. I hope in heaven, you can forgive me.”
Her voice broke. She placed her mother atop the pile with trembling fingers.
Then she turned to the final figurine. After a long moment, she found the strength to lift him from the bough and cradle the lifeless doll in the palms of her hands.
“Papa . . .” But there were no words to say. She had loved him unconditionally. Their love had been the downfall of them all. “’Tis sorry I am, Papa. Sorrier than you could ever know. Forgive me.”
She placed him atop the pile.
The clock struck midnight.
She twined the necklet around her parents’ necks. If being freed from the castle restored them to life, mayhap the necklet would help keep them safe.
The second bell rang.
Lance handed her the last of the cylinders.
The third bell rang.
She hesitated. This was the final reckoning. If she aimed away from the wall, the explosive could never be used again. She could keep her family.
The fourth bell rang.
He made no move to stop her, no move to force her. No move at all. The choice had to be hers. But it was too difficult a path to choose.
The fifth bell rang.
Courage. She aimed the cylinder at the outer wall. Yet she could not bring herself to press the trigger.
The sixth bell rang.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the quiver of empty bodies, to the tree towering over them, to the entire castle. “None of you deserved this.”
The seventh bell rang.
She widened her stance and steadied her aim. She prayed for a miracle.
The eighth bell rang.
She pressed the button. Cannon fire echoed through the chamber as lightning filled the sky.
The ninth bell rang.
A hole to the outer world had been blasted in the ice. Time was running out.
The tenth bell rang.
Lance handed her the quiver. Her heart twisted. The leather sleeve weighed far too little to contain the souls of everyone she had ever cared about.
The eleventh bell rang.
The twelfth bell rang.
The figurines were still there. Unmoving. Lifeless. No magic remained. She turned and threw herself into Lance’s arms.
Her parents were truly gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Take me away,” Marigold whispered into Lance’s chest, her eyes shut tight. “I cannot bear to see them jumbled upon the snow like a pile of worthless dolls.”
He scooped her into his arms and pressed his lips against her hair. He didn’t try to talk. He had lost his family, too. He knew there were no words to be said.
She held him tighter.
He did not carry her to her bedchamber, as she had expected, but rather back up to the observatory. She nodded at the rightness of his choice. It seemed fitting. They had begun the evening lying beneath the stars, and they would greet the morrow the same way.
The observatory was cold as ever, since it held no fireplace for light or heat, but the cushions were soft and she found warmth in Lance’s arms. He held her close, even though she was too numb to weep. Held her close, even when she finally did. She kept her face to his chest. Eventually she calmed, and the only sound was the strong, steady beating of his heart.
“It gets better?” she asked quietly.
He laid his cheek against the top of her head. “So I’m told.”
She nodded. She understood what hadn’t been said. Of course it didn’t get better. How could it? One simply continued living.
Snow began to fall, obscuring the view of the stars.
He brushed the tendrils of hair from her face. “If the snow keeps up, it’ll be pitch-black in no time. Should we go back down to the fire?”
“Nay.” Fire could not stave off the horrible emptiness at having lost her family. But mayhap love could. She wriggled upward until her face was aligned with his. “Let it snow.”
She could see little more than his eyes and profile in the waning moonlight, but her mouth found his on the first try. She kissed him hungrily, her mouth needy, her tongue demanding.