Legacy of the Curse

by Deborah Grace White

  He let go of her hand, and she could imagine him gesturing toward the outside of the cave. “And with good reason, since the daughter of that house is roaming the countryside with the first dragon anyone’s seen in two decades! Trust me when I say no kingdom in its right mind would mess with Kyona. Why do you think Valoria is seeking a marriage alliance?”

  Jocelyn had been deep in contemplation of Kincaid’s words, but his last question startled a sharp gasp out of her.

  “What?” asked Kincaid, uneasily. “Should…should I not have said that?”

  “No, I…I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t. It’s just…” Jocelyn swallowed. “Does everyone in the kingdom know why I was invited to visit Bryford?”

  “Of course not,” said Kincaid, his tone unconvincing. “I’m sure not everyone knows.”

  Jocelyn groaned and put her head in her hands. So either she fulfilled everyone’s expectations and married the Valorian prince, or she suffered the humiliation of two kingdoms knowing she had been found wanting. She wasn’t sure what would be worse.

  “What’s the story, anyway?” asked Kincaid. He was clearly attempting to speak delicately, but Jocelyn didn’t need sight to detect his curiosity. “Are you—are you truly promised to Crown Prince Ormond?”

  “Of course not,” she said quickly. “I’m not promised to anyone. I was just invited to come and meet the prince, and the king and queen, of course. There was no formal offer, and no obligation. At least,” she added grimly, “my mother assured me that there was no obligation. But for reasons already discussed, she might not be the most accurate judge of the subtleties of these things.” She sighed. “I should have listened to my father. He wasn’t at all convinced about this trip. But then again,” her tone brightened, “perhaps they’ll think I’m so odd after my disappearance that they’ll rescind the invitation.”

  “Don’t you want to marry Prince Ormond?” asked Kincaid, his tone a little too nonchalant.

  She shrugged, again forgetting he couldn’t see. “I don’t know. I’ve never met the man.” She tilted her head. “What’s he like?”

  “I don’t know,” Kincaid echoed her, sounding uncomfortable. “I’ve never heard anything bad of him.”

  “Have you seen him? What does he look like?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him,” said Kincaid, not very enthusiastically. “He’s…tall. And has pale hair. Closely cropped.”

  “The haircut of princes,” said Jocelyn, amused.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it just sounded like you were describing my brother.” She wrinkled her nose at the idea of marrying someone who looked like her twin. The thought was not appealing.

  “Oh.” Kincaid apparently had nothing more to say about Crown Prince Ormond.

  “Is it true he’s twenty-five?” Jocelyn pressed curiously, impatient of Kincaid’s reticence.

  Kincaid thought for a moment. “Twenty-six, I think,” he answered. Jocelyn was silent. “Too old?” Kincaid suggested. Was it Jocelyn’s imagination that he sounded faintly hopeful?

  She sighed. “Not really, I suppose. I mean, I’m almost eighteen.” She laughed self-consciously, the sound feeling unnatural as it came out. “It sounds a little old to me, but of course it could be worse. I’ve heard of much more uneven marriage alliances.”

  There was a long pause, and when Kincaid spoke, Jocelyn thought his voice sounded harder than usual. “That’s why Darius told that story your first night in Montego, isn’t it? The one about the Kyonan princess who traveled to Valoria to marry the crown prince, all those generations ago? He was drawing a parallel with your situation.”

  “I think so,” said Jocelyn with a shrug.

  “Hm.”

  “Hm?” Jocelyn prodded.

  “I was just wondering if that’s why you seem to feel such a connection to this Princess Sarai.” Jocelyn didn’t answer, and after a moment Kincaid let out a breath. “Well, you said you were tired, and here I am keeping you awake talking.” His tone was light, but it rang a little false to Jocelyn. “I’ve laid out my traveling cloak for you, but even so, like I said, I’m afraid it won’t be very comfortable.”

  “What?” protested Jocelyn, startled by the change in direction. “I’m not taking your traveling cloak.”

  “Of course you are,” said Kincaid firmly. “What kind of a host would I be if I let a visiting princess sleep on the hard stone?”

  “I thought we established that you’re not the host of this cave,” Jocelyn shot back. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Kincaid dismissively. “Don’t be stubborn.”

  “I’ll be as stubborn as I like,” said Jocelyn. “I insist that you take it.”

  “Well I insist that you do.”

  “Kincaid,” said Jocelyn, unimpressed. “Don’t make me use my dragon magic to convince you.”

  Kincaid laughed at that, the tone instantly lightening. For some reason it seemed like far too long since he had laughed. His chuckle died away, and there was a moment of silence. Then he spoke, and the mood suddenly leaped right back up to tense again.

  “We could share it. It’s large.”

  Jocelyn swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Every rule of etiquette she had ever been taught was screaming in her head, but she felt herself teetering. Then she thought of the snake, and she knew the battle was lost.

  “Yes, all right.”

  She felt her way over to where Kincaid had laid the cloak. It was thicker than she expected, delightfully soft under her fingers compared with the hard cold stone. She settled herself as close to the edge as possible. She could tell Kincaid was doing the same on the other edge of it, and after a moment they were both still. He was right, it was large—no part of them was touching.

  “I know it’s not exactly…standard behavior, but I don’t have any, you know, dishonorable intentions.” Kincaid’s voice emerged unexpectedly from the darkness.

  “I know.”

  There was a moment’s awkward silence, then Jocelyn sighed. “We’re stuck in a pitch black cave, Kincaid, we may as well make the best of it.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what I figured.”

  “I wonder what Elddreki will make of our absence.”

  “Not much, I’m guessing,” said Kincaid dryly. His tone turned cheerful. “At least that’s one benefit of traveling with a dragon—you know he won’t be worried about you if you get delayed.”

  “Is that a benefit, though?” Jocelyn asked humorously. “I mean, if it was just the two of us traveling together, and one of us disappeared for hours longer than expected, the other one would know to come looking for them, to make sure they weren’t in trouble. But I suspect we’d have to be missing for a year before Elddreki would think to start searching.”

  “If it was just the two of us traveling together,” returned Kincaid, “I expect I would have a very uncomfortable conversation with your royal father in my future, with a lot of explaining to do.”

  Jocelyn was unable to think of a reply to this very accurate observation, and there was a long moment of silence.

  “I’m teasing you,” Kincaid said eventually.

  Another moment of silence.

  “I know.”

  The silence stretched out long enough for Kincaid’s breathing to start to slow. But as tired as she was, Jocelyn had never felt further from sleep.

  “Kincaid?”

  “Yes?” Kincaid’s voice came out of the darkness, reassuringly close.

  “Do you really think we’ll be able to find the opening once the sun comes up?”

  “Yes, I really do.” His voice was confident, and Jocelyn felt heartened.

  The cave went quiet again, the only sound an occasional drip of water in the distance. It might have been her imagination, but Jocelyn thought she heard a faint rustling away somewhere to her right. She didn’t even realize she was wriggling closer to Kincaid until her arm made contact with his.

  “Jocelyn?” He sounded startled. “Are you
all right?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “Sorry.” She hesitated for a moment, then confessed sheepishly, “I was thinking of the snake.”

  “Oh.”

  Kincaid paused, then Jocelyn felt his arm move next to hers, and the next thing she knew, he had extended it fully to the side, in a silent invitation for her to shuffle closer. She did so, feeling a strange and heady emotion that was equal parts exhilaration and nervousness. Her sight was as blank as ever, but in her mind’s eye she could see the disapproving glare of every tutor and chaperone and lady’s maid she had ever had. A part of her mind tried to tell her that she would have to look Kincaid in the face again in the morning, but she ignored it.

  “Nothing will harm you while you’re in here, Jocelyn. I swear it.”

  Jocelyn wasn’t at all sure how Kincaid could swear any such thing, but she felt comforted all the same.

  They both fell silent, and remained that way so long that even Jocelyn’s mind began to feel fuzzy with sleep. The darkness was as impenetrable as ever, and she felt a curious sensation of security, in spite of everything. She wondered if Kincaid had fallen asleep. She hesitated for a moment, but her fogginess combined with the concealing dark to make her bold.

  “Kincaid?”

  “Yes, I’m here.” His voice was soft, but alert.

  “I know that when you insisted on coming into the cave, I acted like I didn’t need your help. But I’m glad you’re here.”

  Kincaid didn’t respond, and the drawn-out silence made Jocelyn feel less fuzzy and more self-conscious.

  “Even if you’re right that my father would probably have you hanged if he ever found out about this,” she added, trying to lighten the mood.

  Kincaid gave a weak chuckle, followed by another long silence.

  “You are joking, right?”

  She smiled under cover of the darkness. “Of course I am.”

  Well, she was mostly joking. Kyona’s king wasn’t exactly quick to execute people, but she suspected her father would have some kind of heart failure if he could see her current situation. And the dark and sinister cave in which she was potentially trapped would barely factor when compared with the attractive young man lying beside her in the darkness.

  And he wouldn’t be wrong that Kincaid was a threat, although not in the way an overprotective father might fear. Jocelyn was confident she had spoken the truth when she said Kincaid’s every move radiated honor. But the more time they spent together, the more emotions the Valorian seemed to stir up inside the normally reserved princess. Emotions she was afraid to examine too closely.

  Jocelyn shook her musings off. In the morning she would remember that she was supposed to be a closely guarded, well brought up princess, who was half promised in marriage to a foreign prince, and in any event not free to form an attachment with a free-spirited wanderer, however handsome and engaging he might be.

  But tonight…tonight, she would forget about all of it. She felt sleep tugging at her at last. Tonight, she would just be Jocelyn.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sarai looked up into her father’s face, noting with pride how regal and commanding he looked in his ceremonial garb. She hoped all the Valorian guests were impressed. She hoped Crown Prince Germain would feel glad to be making a marriage alliance with such a strong and noble kingdom.

  Her heart raced nervously at the thought of the man who, within minutes, would be her husband. What was he like? She cast her mind back over the several polite conversations they had shared during the state visit preceding this wedding. None of them had revealed much about him as a person.

  “You are beautiful, Sarai,” her father said softly, such love shining in his eyes that Sarai’s heart felt ready to burst with mingled joy and sadness. She couldn’t imagine she would find any love with the serious, respectful Prince Germain or his family that could rival the love of her own family.

  “I wish your mother could be here.”

  “Oh, Father,” said Sarai. “I wish that, too. It doesn’t feel right without her.”

  King Cael smiled sadly, looking suddenly older. “She would have been very proud of you.” He squeezed her arm. “I am proud of you as well. We will miss you terribly.”

  She gave him an impulsive embrace, after looking around quickly to make sure no one would see the unladylike display of emotion. “I will miss you all as well, Father. More than I can tell.”

  Sarai tried to hold herself tall during the ceremonial approach to the throne, hoping none of the keen eyes trained on her could see how tightly she was clinging to her father’s arm.

  She knew Prince Germain was standing just in front of the throne, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes as she walked the length of the long hall. It was lined with suits of armor instead of the vibrant tapestries in her father’s throne room. It seemed cold and serious to Sarai.

  When her father passed her hand to the Valorian prince in a symbolic gesture, she had to force herself not to follow him with her eyes as he walked to his seat. Instead, she took a deep breath and met her betrothed’s gaze at last. He gave her a small smile, his expression kind but still somehow serious. She returned the smile tightly, trying not to focus on the unfamiliar feel of his hand in hers. It was warmer than her father’s hand had been, and although Prince Germain clasped her firmly, she felt adrift, alone, without anchor.

  Involuntarily, her eyes flicked to her father, and her brother standing next to him. They were both smiling at her, looking proud, and clearly satisfied with the alliance. She straightened her back and returned the pressure of Prince Germain’s hand as they turned to the master of ceremonies.

  She was a princess of Kyona. She would make her kingdom—and her family—proud.

  Sarai frowned as she leaned against the windowpane, disoriented by the rushing in her ears. She looked out at the prospect, admiring the royal garden in spite of herself. Bryford was a beautiful city, there was no denying it. The sound of happy laughter drifted in to her from a nearby courtyard, where women were gathered to chat as they washed clothes.

  Why had she come to this room again? She had been thinking about her wedding, but she couldn’t remember why. How many months had it been? Five? Six?

  “Sarai?”

  She turned at the sound of her husband’s voice, noting vaguely that he sounded different from usual—uncertain.

  “Sire.”

  “Please, Sarai.” He sounded pained. “Call me Germain.”

  “Of course,” she said stupidly. He had told her that before, many times. Why was it so hard to remember where she was?

  “Sarai, we have received some…news. From Kynton.”

  Kynton? She turned fully from the window, her interest captured. “From my family? Is Parmida going to accept our invitation to stay for the season?”

  “No, Sarai,” said Germain, and he looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself. He stepped forward and took her hands in his. She stared down at them, unnerved by the unusual display. Something was wrong. Why was it so hard to focus? The room was spinning strangely.

  “Sarai, it’s…it’s the very worst news. I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her heartbeat picking up. She forced an artificial laugh. “It can’t be the very worst news. Not unless you’re going to tell me that my whole family died in a terrible accident.”

  Germain bowed his head for a moment, and Sarai’s heart seemed to stop beating. Surely that wasn’t what he was saying. Her husband brought his eyes up resolutely to meet hers, and the expression she saw there filled her with terror like she had never known.

  “I wish there was a way, any way, to tell you gently,” he said, his voice soft but steady, “but I think the only way is to be direct. I don’t know if your whole family has died. But your father certainly has, and your sister Parmida. The others are…unaccounted for.”

  “I don’t…understand,” Sarai whispered, the rushing in her ears intensifying.

  “The details are
still unclear,” said Germain softly, and some detached part of her mind registered the anguish in his voice and the kindness in his eyes. But she was in no state to appreciate such things. “But it appears that your father was killed in a revolt, led by one of the nobles, who is now claiming the throne.”

  “One…one of the nobles is claiming the throne?” Sarai repeated, dumbfounded. It was some kind of terrible mistake, it had to be. “That’s impossible. Surely Jonathon—”

  “Jonathon is nowhere to be found,” interrupted Germain gently. “Whether he was also killed, or whether he has escaped, no one seems to know. Avalyn also has disappeared. But the noble is indeed sitting on the throne. Our spies confirm it.”

  “No,” Sarai whispered. “It—it can’t be true.”

  “It is true,” Germain said, his voice strong even as his eyes brimmed with compassion. “I’m sorry, Sarai. I’m so desperately sorry.”

  He opened his arms to her, as if expecting her to fall into them, but she stepped backward. “I must go to them. I must find Jonathon, and Avalyn. I must help them—”

  “No.” Germain’s voice was firm, and he gripped one of her shoulders. “You cannot go to Kyona, Sarai, it’s much too dangerous. Father has closed the border. No one is to come or go.”

  “You cannot cut me off from my home,” Sarai choked, aghast. “You cannot separate me from my family!”

  “Sarai.” Germain’s voice was again gentle. “Your family are not there for you to rejoin.”

  “But you said no one can come or go—surely if Avalyn, or Jonathon, come to me for sanctuary, surely you will not turn them away!”

  “Of course not!” said Germain quickly. “If we received a message from either of them, even the slightest hint that they were still—that they wished for refuge here, we would welcome them. But we have received no such communication.”