by S. K. Sayari
Ragged breath stilling in his chest, Derrick realized the creature resembled the corpses he’d seen in the cottage—the same twisted flesh, the same scraggly substance that might have once been hair. The only difference was the chest, still intact.
An image of the seventh bed flashed in his mind. Had this creature been responsible for those deaths? Or had they all been demoni? Maybe they—
“Derrick?”
He spun around, yanking his sword back up before Evangelline’s voice registered in his mind. She approached on Rivi, a black horse carrying a white rider, and he threw up a hand to stop her.
“Don’t—you don’t want to see.”
Her dark eyes peered curiously around him as if she did want to see, but she obediently pulled Rivi to a stop, her perfectly smooth forehead creasing into a furrow of worry. “You are well?”
Derrick looked down at clothes that sported multiple tears, his bright-red blood mingling with the demoni’s black. His shoulder burned, the two-inch claw marks causing a hissing pain that shot all the way down to his fingers, but he barely felt it as realization dawned.
Holy crimson moon, he’d just ended the curse. The monster at the heart of the forest was dead.
A shaky laugh echoed through the wintry forest. “It’s over,” he whispered, almost collapsing to his knees in relief.
Instead, he pushed his feet forward, his sword cutting a line in the muddy snow as he dragged it behind him, exhaustion pulling at his bones. As he reached Rivi, Derrick sheathed the weapon and looked up at Evangelline. The light had all but disappeared at this point, but her smile radiated with a glow of its own.
“You saved me,” she crooned. One pale finger reached out to drag a soft, chilling line down his cheek. “My prince.”
Derrick suppressed a shiver and gently pulled her hand away from his face, cupping it in his palms to warm it. Something tugged at him—a nudge in the back of his mind, a reminder of danger. But the monster was dead and he could not seem to pull himself away from the perfect symmetry of Evangelline’s face. The petite nose that tilted up slightly, the way her ears came to a gentle point, the shadows swirling in her eyes.
How he loved those eyes. How he loved her.
“Marry me,” he breathed, the words out before his brain even registered what he’d said. Yet when it did, he couldn’t bear to call them back. Not when this gorgeous creature stared at him with such open adoration, her laugh cracking like ice crystals in the trees.
“Of course,” she said. As if there were no other man in the world, no one else she would rather be with.
The thought sent a heady warmth through Derrick, his chest swelling with elation as he pulled himself up into the saddle behind her, wincing at the fire that erupted along his collarbone and down his arm.
Evangelline turned to smile at him, a brilliant flash of teeth even whiter than her skin, and Derrick forgot the pain. He waited, breathless, to see if she would kiss him. A strange feeling gripped his stomach, as if simultaneously elated and terrified, but she only blinked those liquid eyes and leaned back against his chest, lacing her ice-cold fingers in her lap.
Derrick circled his arms around her to take the reins, clicking his tongue at Rivi. The horse needed no encouragement, jumping immediately into a canter that would take them home.
“You are happy?” Evangelline asked, lightly tracing the veins on one of his hands. “This is what you came for, to slay the monster?”
A smile tugged at Derrick’s lips. “Yes. To break the curse.”
“Curse?”
“In Groschier—my kingdom. All the queens die.” He blinked against a fresh wave of pain. “The monster kills them.”
“Why?”
He shook his head, then stopped at the surge of dizziness. “No one knows. They say it feeds on their beauty.”
“Perhaps your kings should choose uglier brides.”
Derrick blinked against the bluntness of her words, but he couldn’t deny the ring of truth. Would that have made a difference? He thought of the portraits lining the wall in the great hall, a somber reminder of the generations before his mother. Eight queens, all impossibly beautiful, all found with their hearts ripped out.
“And you came alone?” Evangelline’s voice nudged him out of his thoughts. “A single prince to slay something so powerful?”
“Well…” Derrick stopped. He didn’t want to tell her that he hadn’t come alone. That every time he set out, a contingent of soldiers accompanied him. And every time he neared the heart of the forest, they turned back in fear, unwilling to press further, even for their queen. In the beginning Derrick had tried forcing them, ordering them, shaming them. He’d watched in bewilderment as each one—brave men, trusted soldiers—wilted into trembling fools, overcome with inexplicable fear. More than one had passed out from the sheer terror of something they could not see.
“She’s my mother,” he finished simply.
They plodded in silence for several minutes. Derrick shivered in the frigid air without his cloak. His adrenaline and exultation faded, replaced with fatigue and an aching cold. His shoulder throbbed, and he forced himself to keep talking in an effort to stay alert.
“Where did you say you were from?”
“Veranmoor,” she replied.
That word again, a niggle in the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite place. A haze clouded his mind, making it difficult to concentrate.
“How did you come to be in the woods?”
She sighed, her breath a tiny cloud in the air. “I was…left there. For the monster.”
Derrick blanched. His hands squeezed the reins, as if wringing the neck of whoever had done this unspeakable thing. “Why?”
He felt her shrug against his chest. “Perhaps your people were right. That the monster is attracted by beauty. My people thought so as well. Thought they could get something in return.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know. I woke up to you.”
Derrick’s mind reeled, and not just from the pain that had now spread to his chest. The idea that someone could be so callous, so cruel, turned his stomach. He would make it home, tend to his injuries, see to his mother…then he would track down those people and avenge Evangelline.
He just needed to remember where Veranmoor was.
He leaned forward, a sudden thought occurring. “How did you…” He closed his eyes against a wave of nausea. “How did you know I was a prince?”
Evangelline laughed, a tinkling sound hovering in the dark, pattering down his spine like spider legs. “They all are.”
“They?” Derrick tried to ask, but his vision swam and his body slipped sideways, a darkness deeper than the forest surrounding him on all sides. The fall seemed to last an eternity, wrapped up in a single second. The next thing he knew, he tasted dirt, and Evangelline hovered over him, concern wrinkling her pretty forehead.
“You are hurt,” she accused, red lips pushed out in a pout, darkness hissing around her eyes.
“It’s fine,” he wheezed, but he could barely breathe against the burning in his shoulder now, his skin beaded with sweat even as he shivered from the cold.
“Let me look.”
Hard fingers prodded at him, forcing him to sit up, and he was surprised to see a fire blazing a few yards away. How long had he been unconscious?
With surprising strength for such a small creature, Evangelline helped him stand, moving him in front of the orange flames. Derrick tried to protest as she inspected his arm, wanting to shield her innocent eyes from the foul consequence of his battle with the demoni. But she was already tugging at his cloak, peeling away his vest and shirt next, her fingers like pinpricks of ice that raised goosebumps on the exposed flesh of his arms and torso.
“It’s bad,” she said simply, and Derrick bit his tongue to keep from telling her she could work on her bedside manner.
“Just a scratch,” he bit out through clenched teeth, but a headache pounded at the base of his skull, blu
rring the edges of his vision, and everywhere the demoni’s claws had cut him burned with a heat he’d never felt before.
“It will get infected,” Evangelline lectured.
Derrick wanted to smile at such an angelic face trying to appear admonishing, but her next words stopped him cold.
“I’ve never met anyone who survived a demoni attack.”
He tried to think back to all the rumors and legends he’d heard growing up. Few had seen the demoni up close, and even fewer bodies had been recovered. Those who survived an attack had only lived long enough to breathe whispers of black skin and pointed teeth before they went mad, running from the castle to disappear back into the forest, never to be seen again.
“Well, how many have you seen?” Derrick asked, more to distract himself than anything. He couldn’t picture her as more than eighteen, no matter how many years she had slept in the forest.
“Enough.” Her dark eyes flicked up to his, the admonishment clear this time. “Usually the monster just rips them apart, but a demoni’s claws also contain venom. You’ll be dead in a week if not treated.”
His mind whirled, her words—spoken in that deceptively sweet voice—like a slap to the face. A week. They were still days away from his castle.
“I’ll need to suck out the venom.”
“I don’t think that actually wor—”
But her mouth already latched onto his skin like a leech, lips pressed flush against the worst of the wound. His stomach rolled to think of her perfect face anywhere near a demoni’s venom, but her fingernails pressed painfully into the soft underside of his arm as she squeezed his bicep in an ice-cold grip.
Wrong. This is wrong.…
The burning in his wound intensified, sharp fingers of pain reaching, spreading across his arm and torso. He screamed, overcome with the sudden urge to shove her away—or cut off the arm altogether.
Sleep, a voice whispered. The same voice that had urged him to kiss Evangelline in the coffin. A voice that was nowhere and everywhere at once. A voice that demanded to be obeyed.
The pain faded, retracting to a dull ache, and a sleepy kind of calm washed over him. Derrick fought against the darkness, struggling to remain conscious. Something bad was happening—had already happened—and he didn’t want to leave Evangelline alone. A numbness both welcome and terrifying had replaced the ache in his shoulder, and he strained to move his fingers.
Sleep.
Evangelline raised her head and smiled, blood smeared across her swollen lips. The fire cast strange shadows over her eyes and teeth, making her look almost inhuman.
“Feel better, my love?” She looked up at him sweetly, her eyes two pools of obsidian. Darkness leaked from them, curling around her temples in tiny swirls of black, but when Derrick blinked, the image was gone.
He nodded, too tired to reply, and let the movement carry him all the way to the ground.
He slept.
Relief filled Derrick at the first glimpse of the castle turrets through the trees, pushing back some of the pain that had beat at the base of his skull every day for the last week. At least he no longer wanted to cut his arm off, though it did throb with unnecessary pain. He’d been in too much of a hurry to let Evangelline tend to his wound today, and a painful burning sensation replaced the numbness that had made the last week bearable.
King Vlad met them almost as soon as they stepped inside the castle walls. He looked older than Derrick remembered, as if he too had aged along with the queen. Deep lines creased his face, and his beard was almost entirely grey.
“Derrick, where have you been? Don’t you realize how long—are you injured?” The king interrupted himself as he noticed the makeshift sling around Derrick’s arm.
Gripping his elbow with one hand to still the pain in his shoulder, Derrick looked proudly into his father’s eyes. “I killed it.”
The king’s eyes widened, blue like Derrick’s, and tinged with hope. “The…you…?”
“I killed it,” Derrick repeated with pride and a weariness that could sink ships. “The demoni is dead.”
King Vlad’s face broke into a smile, and though it could not ease the wrinkles and sleep deprivation that sullied his skin, the king’s face practically glowed. “My boy…” He clapped Derrick on the back, then turned to a servant nearby. “Disband the army! My son has defeated the monster!”
“Father, there’s something else.” Derrick’s eyes sparkled with delight, pain temporarily forgotten as he took Evangelline’s tiny hand in his, holding it out to the king. “This is Evangelline. She is to be my wife.”
Surprise flashed through King Vlad’s eyes, his brow furrowed, as if he were trying to work something out.
When he didn’t immediately reach out, Evangelline took the king’s hand in her own and smiled. “A pleasure to meet you, dear king,” she said in that alluring voice Derrick found irresistible.
King Vlad’s face instantly relaxed, frown replaced by a dazed sort of grin. “Fair maiden,” he murmured, bowing to place a whiskery kiss against her snow-white hand. “Welcome to my kingdom. I will have a room set up for you at once.”
“Where is Mother?” Even knowing she was safe now, Derrick’s throat still felt too tight.
“Who?” King Vlad’s eyes, still hazy, flicked back to Derrick, then he blinked and straightened abruptly. “Your mother is resting.”
“I must see her, tell her the news. Evangelline, you—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said softly, running a hand down Derrick’s arm. “I’ll see you shortly.”
He shivered and brushed a kiss against her cheek before hurrying to his mother’s room. Guards lined the hallway, posted at every stairwell, every doorway, dutifully guarding every possible entrance. Each clapped a hand over their heart in obeisance as Derrick passed, and he nodded back, not bothering to tell them their service was no longer needed. Urgency propelled him to the queen’s bedchamber, where ten guards formed a barrier outside the door. Derrick dismissed all but two, hoping for a little more privacy. After all, no monster would be stalking the halls tonight.
Derrick knocked softly on the queen’s door. When no one answered, one of the guards opened it with an apologetic grimace.
“She doesn’t get up much these days, Your Highness.”
Chest tightening, Derrick stepped inside and had to wait a few moments to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. “Mother?”
The lump on the bed stirred but did not speak—barely even a lump, at that. Derrick felt his throat constrict at how thin she had grown. How long had it been—a month? Two? He had stayed out longer than usual, but he couldn’t have been gone more than a few weeks. How had she faded this much already, a mere shadow of the radiant queen she had once been?
Crossing to the window, he pulled back the drapes to let in the late afternoon sun. Orange rays spilled across the room, and Derrick winced. His head throbbed so fiercely now that even the soft light felt like an axe being driven through his skull. His stomach rolled—from hunger or pain, he did not know—but he ignored it as he idly watched the swirls of dust that flickered and twirled in the amber light.
“Derrick?” His mother’s voice, once lilting and beautiful, now sounded frail and weak.
Derrick rushed to her side and slipped one hand under her own. “Mother. I didn’t know you were awake.”
The gaunt face that stared at him could barely be recognized as his mother, her green eyes faded, cheeks hollow. Once considered the most beautiful woman in the land, Queen Lilith resembled a half-starved corpse left to rot in an opulent bedroom.
The mummified remains from the cottage flashed through his mind, but he pushed them away. No. Not his mother. She was safe now.
“My son.”
Tears blurred Derrick’s eyes and he squeezed her hand, careful not to bruise the paper-thin skin.
She reached up to brush matted strands of brown hair off his sweat-damp forehead. “Your hair got long,” she murmured, stroking his cheek before letting h
er arm fall heavily back to the bed.
“Mother, I killed it.” He leaned forward, so she’d be sure to hear him. “I killed the monster.”
Queen Lilith’s face contorted—not in relief but in agitation. “I’ve been trying…” Her voice trailed off as she struggled to move beneath the covers. “Trying to give it back.”
Her head lurched to the left, movements jerky, eyes rolling. She must have deteriorated more than Derrick had thought, but it was okay now. She would get better. The curse was broken. They could all live happily ever after.
“Mother, it’s okay.” He put a comforting hand on her arm, urging her to be still. “Did you hear me? The demoni is dead, Mother. You’re safe. And I found someone—the most beautiful girl in the whole world. You must meet—”
The queen moaned, head twitching back and forth. Her arm strained against Derrick’s grip, and he realized she was trying to point to something. He followed her gaze to the bedside table, his face darkening as he spotted the crimson-stained box, now so dark it looked black.
“Why do you still have that?” he snapped, the headache flaring behind his eyes as he picked it up.
“I…I tried to get rid of it,” she moaned. “It always comes back.”
Derrick frowned at the dark wood, the elegant swirls decorating the side. An otherwise pretty relic, if not for the wickedness of its presence. “What do you mean it always comes back?”
Queen Lilith thrashed again, distraught. “I tried…I wanted to give it back. You have to believe me!” Her voice rose into a shriek, as if pleading with someone far away.
“Tried to give what back?” Derrick asked, a horrible sense of foreboding curtailing his hope. “The box?”
“No… The mirror…”
“Mother, there’s no mirror here.”
Derrick shook his head in frustration and guilt. She had gone mad, wasted away from months of worry, years of living in terror. And all because of that blasted curse. All because of this stupid box. He hurled it across the room, watching in satisfaction as it shattered against the plaster, falling to the floor in a shower of splinters. He stared at it for several seconds, his headache flaring with renewed vigor. When he heard a sharp knocking sound, it took several seconds to realize it came from the door and not his head.
