A Curse So Dark and Lonely

by Brigid Kemmerer

  “No. She returned home when the season reset. If not wine, do you prefer mead, or possibly—”

  “I don’t care what we have to drink!” I stop in front of him. My pulse is a roar in my ears and I’m sure my expression is fierce. “How can you talk about lunch when you’ve got a room full of blood upstairs?” I slap my hand against the stone wall. “Stop evading my questions.”

  He gives me a level look. Light from the oil lamps flickers across his eyes. “I have answered quite directly. If you feel otherwise, you are asking the wrong questions. What is it you want to know?”

  “Whose blood is that?”

  The first hint of anger slides into his voice—but it’s backed by resignation. “The blood you saw was mine.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RHEN

  I’m rethinking my decision to allow her freedom. If she found my former suites terrifying, it does not bode well for what’s to come. In truth, I should probably be on my knees, grateful that she hasn’t bolted from the castle again, and has instead willingly followed me into the warm depths of the palace kitchens.

  I have fond memories of this part of the castle. I used to come down here often as a child, and the pastry girls would reward me with twists of dough and cups of sweet cream. My nurse was friends with the cook, and they would gossip and laugh while I traced pictures in the flour that seemed to coat everything.

  My visits to the kitchen stopped—and my nurse disappeared—when I asked my father what it meant that no girl could hold his eye longer than a fortnight, or why that would make my mother a pitiable thing.

  But the memories remain intact. After Lilith cursed me, after the echoing emptiness of the castle began to haunt me, I would seek refuge down here. The warmth and the heavy smell of sugar and yeast remind me of childhood.

  When I was harmless.

  Without a staff, the kitchen seems huge. Food sits everywhere, almost spilling out of the shadows. Loaves of bread by the dozen wait on shelves by the hearth, where a massive fire roars. Soup bubbles in a huge cauldron, a roasted corn chowder the cook would have served with the evening meal. Six pheasants roast on a slowly turning spit above a fire on the other side of the room. Vegetables have been sliced and roasted to line serving platters. Cheese. Nuts. Pastries. Everywhere.

  The only available work space is a large table in the center of the room, dusted with sugar and cinnamon and lined with piles of dough.

  Harper stops in the doorway and looks around. “Holy … wow.”

  I move to the table and shove the strips of dough to the side, then pull a stool over. “Sit, my lady. Wine?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m going to need some.”

  I fetch a bottle from the storeroom at the back of the kitchen, then pour. Harper watches.

  The weight of her eyes makes me uneasy. I lost the ability to feel self-conscious long ago—or at least I thought I did. I’m used to the weight of prying eyes and critical glances.

  Harper’s judgment is different. She is my final chance. The stakes feel immeasurably high.

  Once the glasses are full, I hand one to Harper, then down mine in one swallow. I pour more.

  She takes a small sip, watching me. “So you are upset.”

  That makes me pause. “What makes you think so?”

  “In my experience, men drink like that when they’re upset.”

  I don’t like that she seems to see right through me. “Indeed? And what is your experience?”

  She flinches almost imperceptibly. She swirls the wine in her glass and keeps her voice light. “I don’t want to talk about me.”

  I take a slower sip from my glass. “Do you wish to talk about me?”

  As with any other time I challenge her, it sparks a light in her eyes. “Yes, I do. What really happened in that room?”

  “I made a mistake.” I take a longer sip of wine. I’m already feeling the effects of the first glass. “One of many, in fact.”

  She leans against the table and studies me. “What kind of mistake?”

  I hesitate. Weigh my words. Take another, longer drink. “I enjoyed the company of the wrong woman.”

  “And what? She tore you apart?”

  “Yes.”

  Her question was flippant and she clearly did not expect that answer. Her voice quiets. “Then how are you standing here? Where are your scars?”

  “Not all scars can be seen, my lady.” I drain the glass again. “I somehow think you have already learned that lesson yourself.”

  She goes still. I’ve shocked her. Or offended her. Or something else entirely.

  “What made her the wrong woman?” she finally asks.

  “To understand that, you must understand our history.” I pause. “During my grandfather’s rule, a small colony of magesmiths from the western colony of Verin took refuge in Emberfall, near our northern border. From what I remember of my lessons, they were the last remaining magesmiths, and the King of Verin had sought to destroy them all, so they fled east. They swore allegiance to my grandfather and caused few problems. They would sell their spells to the people, and my grandfather saw it as an indulgence to allow it. Their magic was small, harmless. He would tax them heavily for the privilege. There were surely tensions there, but he ignored it—or he did not care. When my father reached marrying age, a young woman visited the castle, presenting herself as a candidate for marriage. But she was a magesmith in disguise, and once she was here, she bewitched my father. She tried to trick him into marriage.

  “She was not very powerful,” I say. “The guards were able to imprison her and execute her once she confessed. But my grandfather took out his wrath on the magesmiths who remained. He sent an army, because it was said that as each one of the magesmiths was killed, the magic would be passed on to the others, making the magesmiths who remained increasingly powerful. To avoid that, they had to be slaughtered all at once—and so they were.” I shudder, then continue, “The stories of their deaths would put that room to shame.”

  Harper’s expression has lost any suspicion or disbelief. “So what happened?”

  “One escaped,” I say. “Or one was hidden.” I pause. “And she appeared on the night of my eighteenth birthday. Dressed as a courtier, ready to seduce a prince.”

  “And she had the strongest magic—because she had absorbed all the magic of the rest, who were dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she curse you, if it was your grandfather who killed them all off?”

  I look down into my glass. “She was not solely seeking revenge. She truly did want to align herself with the royal family. She is quite powerful—but her magic only extends so far. To me, to Grey, to the territory of Ironrose. She cannot cast her web over my entire kingdom. She seeks true power. For that she needed me.”

  “And you turned her away.”

  “I did.”

  I say nothing more, and after a moment, Harper’s eyes light with understanding. “You turned her away after spending the night with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably after promising her the world on a string.”

  “I promised nothing.” I hesitate. “Though I allowed her to believe our night meant more than it did.”

  “Charming.”

  I pour another glass of wine and meet her gaze. “I have learned my lesson, my lady. I assure you of that.”

  She twists her glass in her hands and studies me. I wish I could read the emotion in her eyes. After countless seasons of hiding the truth behind pretty lies and extravagant stories, I have laid the truth at her feet, and I am no more sure that she will accept it.

  Guilt pricks at me. I am lying to myself now. I have not laid the entire truth at her feet. Not about what I will become.

  “I can offer you no proof,” I say to her, “if that is what you are after.”

  “So she cursed you to perform a task.” Her tone is musing. “Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

  “I have found that revealing the nature of th
e task is the quickest way to assure failure.”

  “Why? What am I supposed to do?” she says, her expression piercing. “Fall in love with you?”

  I almost drop the glass.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she says. “I’ve been trying to think of what would require you to kidnap someone each season, and that’s all that makes sense. Now I understand what Grey meant when he said it’s not something I can consciously do.”

  I sigh.

  She continues to watch me, and her eyes narrow. “Now I understand why you’re shirtless.”

  “You screamed,” I say. “Many times, and quite loudly. Would you rather I had waited to dress fully? It is lucky I did not find you facedown in a pile of entrails.”

  She makes a face. “Can we not use a word like entrails?”

  “Does seeing me in a state of undress sway you so easily?”

  That pink on her cheeks darkens and she looks away to pick at a twist of dough from the side of the table. “Grey said you’ve tried to break this curse with hundreds of women.”

  “I have.”

  “He also says it doesn’t feel like you’re aging. That it’s more like a dream than a memory.”

  “He is not wrong.” I refill her glass. “Five years have passed in Emberfall. I’m surprised it’s not longer, but I have no way to keep track. And many seasons do not reach their close.”

  She studies me, her expression inscrutable. “Why would the season restart earlier?”

  “The season begins again if I die.”

  She nearly chokes on a piece of dough. “If you die?”

  “Yes.”

  “But … how?”

  “At this point, I’ve tried everything. A fall from a great height. Impalement by whatever you can imagine. Drowning. I ordered Grey to behead me once, because I was curious, but he refused—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” She looks a bit queasy again. “So you just … come back to life?”

  “Every season begins in the room where you first appeared, regardless of how the previous season ended.”

  “What happens to the girl when you kill yourself?”

  “She is returned home. As far as I know.”

  Harper goes still with her hand on a new twist of dough. “So I could kill you and get to go home?”

  “I have no way of knowing for sure. The seasons begin again. The girls are gone.”

  She’s studying me. Imagining my death. Plotting it, probably. Wondering if it’s worth the risk.

  I shrug and take a sip of wine. “Any other season and I would hand you a weapon and invite you to try.”

  “What’s different this time?”

  “This is my final season,” I say quietly. “My final chance. If you were to kill me, I would truly die.” I lift my eyes to find hers. “I have no idea what would happen to you.”

  She goes very quiet at that. We both eat twists of dough.

  When she eventually speaks, it’s not a question I’m expecting. “Did you get naked with these hundreds of women, too?”

  She’s so direct that she’d be intimidating under other circumstances. “Such questions you ask.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Well, that’s sure not a no.”

  “It is, in fact.” I wonder how honest to be. “I lured them all into my life. I abhor the idea of luring them into my bed—and I certainly would not force them. In truth, there is no greater crime in Emberfall.”

  “Murder?”

  “In death, the crime ends.”

  She evaluates me for a long moment. “I believe you.”

  “I have no reason to lie.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” she says. “I thought you couldn’t.”

  “Why would you think such a thing?” I lean across the table and swipe another scrap of dough. Cinnamon and sugar melt on my tongue. The perfect foods from the Great Hall and my personal rooms have grown interminably boring, but eating bits of dough in the kitchen reminds me too much of childhood to hold much rancor.

  As I lift the piece to my mouth, Harper’s eyes drift down across my chest, following the motion of my arm.

  Interesting. Especially after her censorious glare when she thought I was bedding every young woman Grey drags back to the castle.

  She pulls a piece of dough for herself. Her eyes shy away from mine now. “Because Grey couldn’t.”

  “He is ordered to keep his silence.” Though now I’m curious how much he said.

  “And you are not.”

  “I am the crown prince.” I pull a larger scrap of dough from the pile and twist it in half, extending a piece to her. “I am ordered nothing.”

  “Do you always pull women from DC?”

  “Not at first. But now, yes.”

  “Why?”

  I reach for another piece of dough. “At first, I sought courtiers from among the noble women of Emberfall. I thought such a curse could be easily undone. Who does not love a prince?” My chest tightens as I remember. “As it turns out, many women do not.”

  “So you eventually ran out of noblewomen …”

  “I sought a woman from the village,” I say. I drain my glass again, and will likely need another. “Her name was Corra. A very kind, simple girl. I rode into town with much fanfare. Her mother wept when I announced my intention to marry her daughter. The entire village filled a trunk with offerings, providing a dowry. As if I needed their riches.”

  I hesitate.

  “What happened to Corra?” Harper says quietly.

  “The monster tore her limb from limb. Her mother sobbed on my steps and demanded to know why the king had not been able to offer her daughter protection.”

  Harper stops chewing. “And the king was dead.”

  “Yes. The king was dead. I turned her mother away.”

  “So then what?”

  “I declared that I would no longer risk my own people. By that point I had lost so many. I refused to sacrifice any more.”

  “Oh, but people from my home were fair game?”

  I slap my hand against the table. “You must know that my intent with each woman was to break the curse. Not to prolong it.”

  She glares at me. I glare at her. We fall into silence.

  The fire crackles in the hearth, and the soup threatens to bubble over. It won’t, I know. An invisible chef will stir it and lower the heat before it has a chance. The scent of cooked poultry is beginning to fill the room.

  Then Harper looks up and meets my eyes. “Declared to who?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You said you declared you would no longer risk your own people. Who did you declare this to?”

  I’m frozen in place.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Who’s the enchantress?”

  I drain my glass. “Her name is Lilith.”

  “So she can send me home.”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Maybe I should ask her. How do I find her?”

  My eyes flick at the corners, as if this conversation could summon the enchantress. “You do not want to find her.”

  “But—”

  “Do you not understand that she was the cause of the damage you found on the third floor?” My voice is low and vicious and full of remembered pain.

  Harper goes pale.

  I take a breath. My head is so tangled up with memories of death and suffering. The hundreds of girls swirl through my mind, each one a reminder of how I failed them and failed my people.

  Grey was wrong. The failed seasons are not like dreams. They’re like nightmares.

  I shift off the stool to stand. “Forgive me, my lady. I am keeping you from your rest. Shall I escort you back to your room?”

  “Are there any other surprises in the castle?”

  “Not today.”

  “Then I want to stay here.” She grips the edge of the table as if worried I’m going to physically drag her out of the kitchen.

  I give her a nod and turn for the door.

  “Rhen,�
�� she calls after me.

  I pause in the doorway and face her.

  “I’m not going to fall in love with you,” she says.

  Her words are not a surprise. I sigh. “You won’t be the first.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HARPER

  I poke around the kitchen until I find a bowl and a spoon, then move to the cauldron hanging over the fire. A large ladle hangs from a hook set into the masonry. I scoop out a large serving, then pull a hunk of bread from the end of a loaf on the counter.

  Images from the blood-soaked room threaten to replay in my mind, and I shove them away.

  Instead, my brain is content to fix on what he said about asking Grey to behead him. How he was curious.

  Yesterday, he talked about throwing musical instruments into the fire. This morning he mentioned impalement and drowning. And hundreds of women, all of whom failed to fall in love with him.

  If he just had to find a woman to lust after him, he probably would have been free of this curse in a day. I can’t deny that he’s easy on the eyes. The high cheekbones, the dark blond hair that turns gold in the firelight, the brown eyes that reveal nothing. Muscle cords his arms from shoulder to wrist, and he carries himself with purpose. People are quick to kneel before him—but he’s also quick to expect it.

  When he opens his mouth, though, he’s arrogant and calculated. There’s no shred of vulnerability or weakness. In fact, if there’s any weakness, it’s the obvious frustration that he can’t just wave a hand and order a woman to love him.

  Something about it all makes me immeasurably sad. I’ve been trapped here, separated from my family, for two days. He and Grey have been trapped here for what must feel like forever. They’re seeming less harmful, and more desperate.

  That’s almost worse.

  But love. I’ve never fallen in love with anyone, much less someone who snatched me right off the street. Mom always says she’s still in love with Dad, despite his mistakes, despite the fact that he left, and that makes me and Jake crazy. Their relationship sure isn’t a standard of true love. I know about Stockholm Syndrome. Even if something like that kicks in—if this line of thinking isn’t proof already—would that be real love? Anything else clearly isn’t enough to break this curse. He didn’t kidnap Corra, the poor girl from the village, but she couldn’t have loved him, or the curse would have broken. Maybe she loved the idea of being a princess.