He left the room.
He charged out into the icy corridor, taking long, striding steps, his breath hurting his throat. He skated to a Jetta, charged inside and ordered it upward, taking hold of a railing and bowing his head, clenching his jaw as the lift ascended…
He slipped through the doors before they had the chance to fully open, and hurried out into the dim hallways of Radiance Towers. The blue torchlight sputtered as he passed. Moonlight flashed through the clear panes overhead. He pressed his speed.
He rounded a corner, charging toward that singular door, that one door he had passed through and entered an ethereal garden, a garden that couldn’t and shouldn’t exist…
The door hung open. The key stuck out of the keyhole.
Nikolas stopped.
The room beyond stood in darkness, save for the moonbeams filtering in through the withered leaves that clung to the ceiling. The fireplace stood lifeless, the room empty of furnishings except for a bed.
The hundreds of roses colorless and wilted, the vines coated in hoarfrost. The grass brown and lifeless.
“Gah,” Nikolas gasped, as if a knife blade had been shoved between his ribs. He leaned a hand against the doorframe as he stared, disbelieving, at the hollow space in front of him.
Unable to stop himself, he weakly stepped inside, wildly searching for a bloom—any bloom—that could have survived the cold…
He reached toward one that shone a faint yellow, and touched it…
The petals spilled across his fingers, and tumbled to the dried grass.
He let out another tearing gasp, turned and swept out of the room, charging blindly down another corridor toward Ember Keep. His blood pulsed fast and painful, thundering in his throat, hurting his chest. He skidded round a corner, passed Captain Elfrid without looking at him, flung open the door to his chambers and went inside.
The room flickered to life upon his entrance—but weakly. The fire in the hearth gave a listless crackle, the shadows hung low, and the chandelier guttered.
Nikolas jerked to a stop.
The feasting stone lay upon the rug before the fire. And upon it, a serving for one lay spread: Cornish hens, applesauce, potatoes, wine, and raspberry tarts.
Nikolas shoved the back of a chair. It collapsed forward with a noisy crash. He pushed through the room, refusing to look at any of it, and charged up his spiral staircase to his tower.
Moonlight cascaded into the room, gleaming against his telescope, and the instruments on his desk. A perfectly clear night, with a nearly-full moon, and a thousand stars set against a pitch-black heaven, cut by the jagged line of mountains, interlaced by the darkness of the woods.
His breath left him in a gust, and clouded around his head. His eyes stung, everything inside him ached. He pressed a hand to his chest and turned away from the window, his brow twisting…
His attention landed upon the vase on his desk. And the rose it held.
The rose had bent its head, its stem forming a sorrowful arc, half its petals spilt upon the star chart.
Dead.
Nikolas whirled. His stricken gaze swept across the horizon—he stepped closer and shoved the telescope out of the way, grabbed the icy window frame and, gasping, searched the edge of the woods before his castle to find the entrance to the main road…
There.
Movement, at the very gate of the estate of Glas. A person, mounted upon a great black horse.
Riding away from the palace. Toward the border of Spegel.
Nikolas strained against the railing, leaning on it, clawing for a handhold as he ground his teeth, fighting to keep that small figure within his sight…
And then, the rider vanished within the dark woods near the gate.
Nikolas scrabbled against the ice-coated bricks, then grabbed the railing in both hands and rocked forward, throwing down his head.
“No, no—nooooo!” he howled, his bones shaking. “ROSE!”
His voice rang through the winter air, resounding through the tower, clouding around his face.
He brought his head up, his whole body wracked with incomprehensible, bewildering pain. He fleetingly searched the horizon, but nothing stirred, nothing moved.
She was gone.
“Rose,” he choked. He clawed again at the frosty bricks, chips of ice coming off in his hands. Cold air tore through his lungs.
“Rose…” he whispered.
Heat flooded his eyes. He swallowed jaggedly—and squeezed his eyes shut hard, before opening them to stare into the moon.
Hot, heavy tears spilled down his cheeks. Marking their tracks across his skin. The tear from his right eye tumbled from his jaw and sparkled like a diamond as it fell. It struck the back of his hand, and turned to frost.
The tear from his left eye scalded his skin like molten metal. And when it dripped free, it was black as Sulphur. It struck the railing, impotently shattering, and melting into the glass itself.
And yet the prince still searched the edge of the woods. And free tears stained his face, all of them now spilling like diamonds onto the railing of his stargazing tower.
Rose urged Devon into a full-out gallop as they neared the border of Spegel. Her cape flew out behind her, the horse’s hooves thudded through the snow as the towering border trees and twin mountains loomed like a black wall before her. She leaned forward, grasping his mane as well as the reins, and shouted to him to go faster, faster, faster…
All at once, they burst through.
Devon flew out onto a country lane that cut through a wide, sweeping meadow. Warm, fresh night wind whispered playfully through the tall grasses, and the hedges that bordered the road.
The horse immediately slowed to a walk, and whuffled, pricking his ears up. Grasshoppers and crickets sang amidst the waving grass; and a broad summertime sky, filled with misty stars and all soft around the edges, stretched endlessly overhead. Beyond the bowl of the green valley lay the smoky edges of the mountains, touched by the faintest hint of clouds. In the distance, Rose could make out the warm glow of a few lights in the windows of the cottages of a little village.
The summer wind swirled around her, warming her cold fingers and toes, urging her to take off her heavy coat and cape and gloves. Weakly, Rose tugged off her gloves and dropped them beside her horse, then managed to unhook her cape and let it slip into the grass before she fell forward and began sobbing into Devon’s mane.
Devon nickered quietly at her, and stood still. She twisted her fingers through his coarse hair, shaking with weeping, her tears running down across his neck.
She cried and cried, until her muscles ached with it, and the stabbing pain in her heart dulled to a weary hurt. At last, tears still streaming down her face, she made herself sit up.
“Come on, Devon,” she choked, gripping the reins in her shaking hands. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
An Ancient Magic Was Considered
One month later…
“Lavender’s blue, diddle-diddle, lavender’s green
When you are king, diddle-diddle, I shall be queen
Who told you so, diddle-diddle, who told you so?
Twas my own heart, diddle-diddle, that told me so.”
Rose sighed and sat back on her hands, pushing her straw hat off her head and letting the full sunlight pour onto her face. Daisy, across the carrot bed from her, absently kept singing as she pulled the orange roots up and tossed them into her basket.
“Lavender’s blue, diddle-diddle, lavender’s green
When you are king, diddle-diddle, I’ll be your queen
Lavender’s green, diddle-diddle, lavender’s blue
You must love me, diddle-diddle, for I love you.”
Daisy’s singing paused. Rose heard the sound of ripping earth, and then a clod landed on Rose’s apron.
“You’ll get brown as a nut,” Daisy warned. “You’ve already gotten more freckles than I have.”
“Good,” Rose answered, smiling softly. �
��I like freckles.”
“And I am sick of carrots,” Daisy declared. Rose opened one eye to see her friend stand up, groan as she stretched her back, and dust off her dirty hands. Daisy walked closer to her, then flopped down beside her, pushed her own hat off and lay back on the thick grass. Sighing, Rose did the same.
For a long while, they were silent, listening to the mountain lark twittering away in the nearby trees, and taking deep breaths of the late-summer roses.
“Have you heard any word from Glas?” Daisy asked softly.
Rose opened her eyes. Gazed up at a wisp of cloud that interrupted the otherwise flawlessly-blue sky.
“Why would I hear news from Glas, Daisy?” Rose said back. She heard Daisy shrug.
“Dunno. Just thought we might have heard about a wedding. If there was one.”
“There was one,” Rose answered flatly. “Which is why I had to leave. You know that.”
Daisy sighed, then turned on her side and propped her head on her hand.
“Rose, you mustn’t feel guilty,” she murmured. “You did your utmost, and more. None of us here could have done better. And I’d say several of us would have done a good sight worse.”
Rose didn’t say anything. Just watched the progress of that wisp of cloud.
“Do you think…” Daisy ventured carefully. “That you might have been able to do it if you had more time?”
Rose swallowed.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Perhaps that’s the worst part. That I shan’t ever know.”
Daisy fell silent. At last, she rolled onto her back again, and the two young women said no more until the evening light began to glow in the sky, and the bell rang, and they were summoned in to dinner.
Rose sat in her window seat in her room, listening to the nightingale twitter its lonely song out in the thicket of trees. The air had taken on an early-autumn chill, but she could still sit here with the window open in the evenings, knitting by lamplight, as the breeze jingled softly through the dragon-scale mobiles that hung over her head.
She had missed her earthy room, with its hanging bundles of lavender and sage, the funny faces carved into the wooden beams, the creak of the floors, the sounds of the other Curse-Breakers shuffling through the rest of the fortress, the stacks of old, friendly books…
Her fingers worked back and forth, up and down, expertly winding the fine blue yarn round the long knitting needles. The needles clicked rhythmically together, in time with the old song she hummed to herself—the song that had lingered in her mind ever since Daisy had sung it this afternoon.
Lavender’s blue, diddle-diddle, lavender’s green
When you are king, diddle-diddle, I’ll be your queen…
A knock came at the door.
She stopped her knitting, and her head came around.
“Come in,” she bid.
The door squeaked open quietly, and Reola’s tall winsome form, dressed in her customary long-sleeved, form-fitting spun dress—which contrasted so beautifully with her black skin—stepped soundlessly into the room. She carried two steaming clay mugs.
“Good evening, child,” Reola smiled at her.
“Hello,” Rose smiled back. “Did you need me for something?”
“No, not at all, not at all,” Reola shook her head. “I just came to bring you the first of Clanahan’s cider.”
“Oooh!” Rose exclaimed, setting aside her knitting, drawing her knees up closer and reaching out with both hands. Reola chuckled and handed her one of the mugs, then sat down on the window seat facing Rose.
“Mmmm, thank you,” Rose hummed, taking deep smells of the steamy drink. “Clanahan says he doesn’t use magic when he makes this, but I’d call him a liar.”
Reola laughed out loud.
“I might, too.”
Rose smiled at her again, then took a sip.
And suddenly, the taste of cinnamon stung her lips, filled her mouth, and went down her throat, filling her whole body with sudden stirring, potent warmth.
Rose swallowed hard, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
And then she became aware that Reola was watching her.
“What’s the matter, child?” Reola asked softly.
“Nothing!” Rose said quickly, trying to muster another bright look—but only partially succeeded. “It’s just…a little hot.”
Reola said nothing, but she raised her delicate eyebrows. She took a sip of her own cider, watching the tendrils of steam rise into the air. Rose didn’t take another drink, just cupped her hands around the mug and let it warm them.
“You know, you’ve never mentioned what happened between the time you received our order to come home, and your return journey,” Reola said, tilting her head. “What did Prince Nikolas say when you told him you were leaving?”
“He…” Rose said, trying to take a deep breath. “I think he was surprised. He had been planning on having me attend the wedding.”
“Mhm,” Reola mused. “And what did you tell him?”
“I…” Rose stopped, bit her lip…but Reola’s gaze held her. So she made herself go on. “I told him the truth about the curses. About the winter curse on the kingdom, and the one from the Bani Looking Glass. I told him…that Queen Iskyla had been behind both of them.”
“Mhm,” Reola said again. “How did he react?”
Rose pressed her hand to her eyes for a moment, before staring down into her cider.
“Like he’d never seen me before. Like I was some…some demon trying to…I don’t know, destroy everything he’d begun to hope for. Like I was the one telling him that he was ugly and worthless.” Rose shook her head. “He didn’t hear me at all.”
“That’s the way curses work, sometimes,” Reola said, lifting her shoulders. “The pain and travail and shame and heartache that the curse causes can be dredged up in an instant and twisted so that the cursed person believes it is being caused by the very one who is trying to relieve it. It’s the curse’s way of protecting itself.”
“Well, it worked,” Rose sighed, turning to gaze out her windows at the unveiling stars.
“Did it?” Reola asked pointedly. “You had no success at all?”
Rose’s head came around, and she couldn’t keep from frowning.
“Erm…Well, I…” she paused a moment, running her thumb across the lip of the cup. “We did manage to…fix the Great Mirror.”
“Did you?” Reola pressed. “How?”
“I thought perhaps that the magic of the realm could be channeled by Nikolas—I mean, the prince—to remind the room of its original purpose,” Rose said. “So we…danced together.”
“Indeed,” Reola said slowly, her keen gaze pinning Rose where she sat. “And it worked.”
“Yes,” Rose nodded. “The mirror floor is all one piece now.”
“And you were able to channel the prince’s magic?”
“If I did, I didn’t realize I was doing it,” Rose confessed. “It all seemed to happen on its own.”
“Mhm,” Reola said again, her voice deep and thoughtful. She took another slow sip of her cider—and Rose suddenly had the feeling of teetering on the edge of something deep and dangerous…
“And how did you leave him?” Reola asked. “What did you do when you parted?”
Rose tried to draw breath, but it shook. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Daisy. All this month, she had battled not to even think about it…
But she could not lie. Not to Reola.
“I kissed him,” she whispered. “And I told him I loved him.”
Reola’s black eyes flashed.
“You did,” she murmured intently.
Rose swallowed hard, nodded, and ducked her head.
“Hm,” Reola muttered. “Well. That’s an interesting thought.”
Rose’s head came up.
“What do you mean?”
Reola settled back against one of the beams, gently tapping her thumb on the handle of her mug.
“Effrain, Clan
ahan and I have discussed it, for academic purposes, and we decided that, had you been afforded more time, there could have been a cure for the prince,” Reola said. “If you could have convinced him that the piece in his eye was a wicked thing, you could have bathed his eye in pure Source water until the piece dislodged and came out—which it would be forced to do, no matter how deeply buried—but it would probably take several hours of constant work to do it. But a kiss…”
“You aren’t saying that…that the stories are true,” Rose stammered, her heartbeat picking up. “That kisses can wake the dead and…and bring people back if they’ve been turned to stone—”
“Not all kisses, no,” Reola shook her head. “But kisses from the mouth of one who drinks from the Source, given as a gift of selfless love…” Reola regarded her solemnly. “That is an old, wild and untested form of curse-breaking, so rare it’s passed into legend. Mostly because it requires such a perilous sacrifice and risk on the part of the Curse-Breaker. But…” she said slowly. “It is certainly not impossible.”
“So, I…” Rose started. “He might…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish. But Reola had already shrugged.
“I don’t know, child. None of us have heard anything from the kingdom of Spegel. But…” she rose to her feet, and rested her hand on Rose’s knee. “There isn’t necessarily cause to give up hope.”
Rose’s heart thudded against her breastbone. Reola winked at her.
“Goodnight, darling,” she said, and quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
And a Fateful Invitation Arrived
Two weeks later…
“Woah—do you hear that?” Daisy stood up from where she was pulling weeds, and faced the direction of the road.
“What?” Rose asked, standing up too and turning toward the hill. “What—that sound?”
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