Lilac barely managed to mumble one-word answers as the silver-haired maids awkwardly inquired about her wellbeing. The only thing she cared to speak up about was her dagger, insisting that they wrap it carefully in its original leather shawl and place back in her bedside drawer. They then coaxed her into the tub and washed her hair, scrubbing vigorously at her fingernails and tear- and grime-streaked cheeks.
Once upon a time, the warm water and lavender suds would have soothed all off her woes. But her mind was back in Garin’s cell, banging against the bars of regret as he lay motionless beside her. In her mangled desperation to convince Sinclair to believe the lies she’d fed him, she’d consumed her only bottle of Adelaide’s draught without a second thought or moment to prepare. Had it even worked? She couldn’t force her brain to form any words in the Darkling Tongue on demand, but instead of taking that as confirmation the potion had done its job, she realized dispassionately that she no longer cared.
All she could focus on was Garin.
As time passed, Lilac’s stomach knotted further. How much longer until daybreak? What were her options? Were there even any options left? Could the witch help him—would she? Oddly, her disdain toward Adelaide slowly disintegrated, as she hoped with all her heart the witch would find it in hers to help the creature she so despised.
After squeezing Lilac into a laced bodice, the maids helped her into a sweeping white and gold gown, complete with diamonds around her neck and topaz on her ears. It seemed an eerie ode to the canary yellow dress she’d worn on her birthday so long ago. One maid held out a dainty white pillow with her tiara, gold with emerald and pearl trimmings, resting on top. With a prolonged sigh, she picked up the symbol of all she was about to surrender—and all she would obtain.
No.
Suddenly, she pulled away from the bewildered maid, who was in the middle of braiding her hair, and strode out onto her balcony with the train of her dress sweeping out behind her.
“Your Highness!” the maids squeaked in unison. The plumper one rushed out after her, peeking anxiously at the ground below as she clutched her bonnet, hooked nose wrinkling with concern. “Be careful, please. Your guests are filling in across the bridge. No one should see you before the ceremony.”
Lilac ignored this, her eyes glued to the horizon. The tip of the sun was visible, but not quite over the trees yet. I
t wouldn’t be long now. It would rise enough to char him, inch by excruciating inch.
No, she thought again firmly, this time using the rising hysteria to her advantage. Of course, there was something she could do. Even if it was something as miniscule as providing a distraction for the guards, just long enough for her to make a last dash for Garin and Ophelia. She’d find the extra ring of cell keys buried somewhere in the dungeon, or she’d coax them off a guard.
She bit her lip.
“Ladies,” she called out, letting the tightness in her throat cinch her voice. “I’m feeling rather ill.”
“Your Highness,” one trilled from behind her, while the other nearly tripped over her own curtsey. “Would you fancy a cup of tea?
“Or something to eat? You must be famish—”
“No,” Lilac snapped poshly. “I’d like the both of you to leave me be until after the ceremony; your overbearing urge to please me only nauseates me further. And don’t,” she added, feeling more horrible with every poisonous word, “do not wait on me from outside my door. It’s stifling in here. I need some room to breathe.”
Following an impressive double curtsey, Lilac waited until the door shut behind them before rushing over to her knapsack. She made a note to apologize to them later, but only after everything was said and done.
When she’d found what she needed and stowed it away in her bosom, she hiked up the ends of her gilded dress and bolted out of her room, down the stairs as fast as her bare feet would carry her.
She peeked around the corner; as she’d expected, the grand entrance was now clear and the first floor of the castle mostly empty, except for the guards who usually covered the inner dungeon door. Everyone had joined the crowd out front, waiting for her ceremony to begin. She held her breath and listened intently; by the distant voices floating into the kitchen, she could tell the guards were still at post—and, as usual, not paying attention to a damn thing.
Lilac found it without trouble; the kitchen firewood was stacked in the corner between the pantry and the wall, as it had been for as long as she could remember. Even better, it had recently been replenished—the pile was almost as tall as she.
Now was her chance, the one and only she’d get to save Garin. Heart thundering in her chest, she reached down the front of her dress and pulled out the tiny matchbox.
She glanced left and right, her fingers trembling so terribly that she’d come close to dropping the box while trying to ignite the sticks. The first one she drew broke in half; the second fell out of her hand and was lost in the soot and sawdust at her feet.
She took a long, deep swallow of air to calm her quaking joints. As she slowly expelled the air in a conkorriganed breath, she struck the third match—the tiny flame igniting as fast as it died. Cursing under her breath, Lilac tossed it into the wood stack.
Before she could reach into the box for another, a burly hand landed on her shoulder. “Princess?”
Her heart nearly stopped—then sank.
She hastily stuffed the matchbox back into her bosom and spun slowly.
The blurry lone guard behind her blinked concernedly. “Your Royal Highness?” he said timidly, his cherub face reddening when she spun on him. He hastily removed his arm from her shoulder. He was younger, probably younger than her. And new. “Are you well?”
Lilac sniffed, the tears coming hot now. She eyed the guard, even considering knocking the wind out of him for a fraction of a moment. He was barely taller than her, she could take him. The only thing stopping her was knowing an act of violence—one more disparaging scandal—would surely remove her from the royal picture for good. Then, her journey through the woods, and Garin’s death, would surely have been for naught.
“I’m just nervous, is all.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Though no one would ever know it, every last drop of her tears was for the vampire in the cell.
“My apologies, Your Highness,” the guard said, shifting awkwardly. “They’ve sent for you, and I didn’t find you upstairs in your room. But if you’d like, I can tell them—”
Lilac shook her head to stop him. “I’m ready.”
Silently, she took his arm.
She was ready. To take her position, to rid the Le Tallecs of the power they’d abused time and time again. This time, they’d be held accountable for a wrongful Darkling death. They’d pay.
As they climbed the east tower stairs, up toward the keep, the pair froze. A loud rumble was heard from down below.
“Fire!”
Fire.
The word, bellowed by multiple guards all at once, rang from the dungeon door, across the grand hall, through the kitchen and up the stairs. Choking back a sob, Lilac covered her ears with her palms and bolted ahead of the bewildered young guard.
Garin was gone.
28
Adelaide
Adelaide sat under the window, ankles tucked beneath her. Squinting hard, she ran her hands along the floor in search of another minuscule rock or piece of dried mud to flick at Garin’s head. When he hadn’t moved in the minutes after the arrows were removed, she’d started to worry. Then, the vampire began to snore audibly—something she didn’t miss in the slightest. She then whispered a pretend incantation in gibberish, watching the guards outside her cell shift uncomfortably until they finally decided to take post outside of the dungeon doors.
For some “fresh air.”
The next pebble hit the vampire square in the forehead, and with a loud snort he jerked awake. Sitting up, his expression changed from one of confusion to apt fury when he noticed the bars. Then, his gaze fell upon Adelai
de. In a blink he was at his cell door, hands braced against the rusting constraints. They wouldn’t budge.
“What have you done? Why am I in here? And where’s the princess?”
She might as well let him burn. “Nice to see you, too. I’m trapped too, genius. They jailed us, then the Le Tallec runt took her into the castle. The ceremony should begin soon. Within the hour, I’d say.”
Garin groaned and cradled his head in his hands.
She crossed her arms, leering at him. “That’s all I get, then? After all these years, no ‘hey, you look great’?”
“I was hoping to skip the dungeon small talk, but yes, you do, Adelaide. You look rather lovely for your age, in fact.”
Adelaide bristled at the compliment. “And, aren’t you going to ask me how?”
Garin sighed. “I’d love to know your skincare routine. It’s obviously the most pressing matter at hand.” With a grunt of frustration, he slammed his head against the bars with force that would have instantly crushed any human skull.
“I did the Faerie king a favor,” she answered, ignoring his sarcasm and posing deftly with her chin in her palm. “In exchange, he gave me a magical fruit, and with it I wished for every decade in my aging process to match one year’s time. Of course, basic skincare counts. Milk and honey baths, calendula serum, sticking to my marsh and keeping out of the sun…”
“That last one is my secret as well. Works wonders.”
“Does it now?” Adelaide said, twisting her torso to glance back at the brightening window behind her.
Garin’s jaw fell slack, and all traces of mirth instantly vanished.
Serves him right, Adelaide thought grimly. He had absolutely no right to pester her with his senile sarcasm.
He examined the window and then turned to examine his cell. Upon finding no shelter, he whirled back to Adelaide. “Bugger me.”
As if on cue, the first thin beams of sunlight slipped through the narrow window. The line of light illuminated floating dander at the front of Garin’s cell. Adelaide watched with indifference as Garin failed to step back in time.
A spiral of smoke drifted from his exposed knuckles. Releasing a guttural roar, he clutched his hand to his chest and scooted to the back of the cell.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, sucking on a knuckle as if it would heal him faster.
Adelaide suppressed a grin.
“They can’t do this,” he bellowed at the slowly encroaching strip of sunlight. “This is inhumane!”
“Oh? And the things you’ve done to others weren’t?”
“This isn’t the time,” he said, pacing like a caged animal. “Can’t you use your shawl? Cover the window up?”
“This,” she said, holding her arm out, “is silk from an Orb Weaver, dyed with squid ink.”
“What happened to your fox fur?”
Adelaide raised a black brow. “You always loved that piece on me. And off me,” she added sweetly, ignoring his scowl.
“Adelaide,” he snarled.
“Alas, the sun would burn right through this one, I’m afraid. It is much too thin.”
He glared, his lips curled away from his teeth as if he were about to say something cutting. But then, the vampire slumped to the floor against the far wall in defeat. “I’m sorry.”
“What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
She looked up, finally. “Save it, Trevelyan.”
“For everything,” he continued quietly. “For hurting you—”
Her perpetual scowl suddenly did a poor job at concealing her emotion.
“Hurting me? You killed my parents. My sister—” Her voice broke. She stood abruptly, angrily blinking through the beginnings tears that wouldn’t flow and no longer caring about the state of her appearance, nor the shawl hanging half off her shoulders in disarray.
She yearned for this day. Watching the sunlight burn right through him would be a treat.
“I—”
“And don’t you say you didn’t mean to,” she shot back, waves of long-suppressed anger surging in her heaving chest. “Nobody ever means to do anything that dreadful, do they? No one is that evil, and I refuse to believe any creature I once loved was. But it doesn’t erase the fact that it happened. I allowed you into my life at the denial of my parents—yet this happened to them, at your hands.”
Every bone, every aching joint in Adelaide’s body ached to destroy him as she strode toward the gate. She held his desperate gaze steadfast, gripping the bars with her slender fingers. “My family’s demise might have been my own doing, vampire, but it is you who deserves to burn.”
“Adelaide,” he said, shaking his head helplessly, “I have nothing to say to defend myself. That much I know. I made a horrible mistake. You told me to never follow you. I respected your wishes, only hoping we’d eventually cross paths. Now, I wish I’d been brave enough to seek you out. I had no idea you were only at the edge of the Paimpont.”
“Your lot doesn’t belong in that poor town,” she seethed. “Not after what you did to it. It wasn’t a mere vicissitude of nature, Garin. Your coven committed murder. Catastrophe.”
“I take full responsibility for all of it,” Garin said, his eyes shifting darkly in the remaining shadow. He spoke hurriedly. “I’m not asking you to save me. Just know, the day of the raid, I asked you to meet me at our grotto as soon as I learned of Laurent’s plans. It was so out of character for him, I was taken aback. I was a coward and didn’t know how to tell you the truth—all I knew was that you needed to be as far from the village and your farm as possible. Somewhere safe. When you were on your way to the meet me, I went to your parents’ house hoping to finally introduce myself and inform them, but your father instantly knew what I was. In trying to defend your sister and mother, he picked up a blade much too big for him, and he struggled with it. I tried to calm him and retrieve the weapon, but he fell back and slashed his hand on a hearthstone. Then we fought.”
Adelaide had her eyes shut. Whether she closed or opened them, all she could see was the bloody disarray before her. She was a terrified and furious young woman back in her mother’s kitchen once more. He’d lost control.
Garin shuddered. “I couldn’t help myself, Adelaide.” His eyes bore searchingly into hers. “I am well aware of the pain I’ve caused you. It doesn’t—shouldn’t mean anything to you. But I am sorry.”
By now, the sunlight was just moments from reaching his outstretched legs. She waited for him to yank them back, but instead, he seemed mesmerized by the light. “I can die peacefully now, though,” he murmured. He closed his eyes, his anguished features rearranging to something like peace.
Adelaide clenched her fists. No. He wasn’t getting off that easy.
“You fancy the princess,” she said, calm as her tensed throat would allow.
He frowned, jerked from his reverie. “That doesn’t—”
“Oh, I wasn’t asking. Simply stating fact.” Furiously sniffling the rest of her tears away, she coldly returned to the back of her cell. “You’ve been stuck between groveling for my forgiveness and chasing a moronic affection for the mortal monarch. Watching that struggle is far more entertaining than seeing you suffer for a mere five seconds in a ball of smoke and flame.”
At this, Garin peeked a single eye open. He folded his legs away from the sunlight, buying himself a few minutes more.
Suddenly, he glanced up. “Speaking of smoke… do you smell that?”
Adelaide took a deep breath. There was no time for his deluded ponderings. She’d make the right choice, or spend the remainder of her long life regretting the decision. Either way, now was the only time to act.
“Guards!” she suddenly shrieked, her soul-shattering shrill causing Garin and all the other drowsy inmates to startle. When there was no answer, she stuck a hand into the lace at her bosom and pulled out one last, tiny glass bottle, concealed where no man dared check.
Garin barely had time to turn his face an
d recoil toward the wall before she spit into the bottle and chucked it at Garin’s cell door. The deafening explosion rocked the entire dungeon, the familiar flash followed by brilliant violet smoke. A thick smattering of dust and rubble rained down from the ceilings, drawing an uproar from the prisoners. Finally, a loud shout and the clang of iron-wrought doors banging open sounded from the far end of the hallway.
“You’re mad!” Garin exclaimed through the clouds.
But as the stomping boots of castle guards mixed with their confused calls in the thick layers of smoke and upended dungeon dust, Adelaide shut her eyes tight and concentrated before uttering the words she never thought she’d hear herself say.
“I forgive you, Garin Austol Trevelyan.”
She didn’t need to see through the smoke to guess what would happen next.
Guttural screams echoed through the dungeon. Screams of a fire, and screams for their lives. Then, through the smoke, drops of liquid scarlet splattered across the toes of her black boots. Her wicked smile only grew wider.
His blood curse was one problem, but the sunlight was another. Cackling madly to herself, she pulled the ball of leaves from her pocket. Garin would owe her.
The vampire and the newly appointed queen would both owe her for as long as they lived.
“Long live Her Majesty,” she whispered, before allowing her eyelids to droop once more. Grinning madly, she sank her teeth into the glistening berry.
29
Throughout the first few minutes of introductions and formalities, Lilac stared ahead, fingers numb and insides empty. She didn’t even bother with the pretend smile she’d mastered in her years spent captive. The surge of crippling fear that had plagued her through Brocéliande was replaced with a searing, slow burning guilt.
Disenchanted Page 36