Princess of Death

by Cortney Pearson

  Cali wriggled and fidgeted, working harder than she had at any staff meeting or counsel with her father and his advisors to keep collected and not cause the woman any worry.

  Darren seemed to sense something, though. He knew her too well not to. After ensuring Vera was situated, he returned to where Cali stood.

  “I suggest you leave, Princess. This might not be something you want to watch.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Cali said.

  Vera had another contraction that ripped a soft wail from her. Darren grew more agitated. He dithered between helping her and talking to Cali.

  “What are you up to?” he asked urgently.

  Her own personal boundary erected between them. For the first time in their long friendship, things were different. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Her experiences in Lunae Lumen, her knowledge of the boundary, her role as princess, her newfound feelings for Bae, were all inseparable.

  The saddest part was nothing about him had changed. He was as he always had been. Kind, handsome, thoughtful. Loyal. But something had happened to her in Lunae Lumen. When all a person saw was darkness, they could never forget their first glimpse of the sunlight. The birds, the fruits, the color of the sea, had all embedded themselves into her little by little.

  The recognition was as heartbreaking as it was real. She wished she could change things. She wished she could put them back to the way they were.

  But there was no going back.

  “I’m staying in here, Darren. So you might as well help the poor woman and stop worrying about me. Who knows, I might even be able to help.”

  He didn’t have the power to remove her from the room. She was sure if she told him the real reason she was here, he wouldn’t hesitate to try it anyway.

  He straightened. “You—want to help?”

  “What can I do?”

  He relaxed as though her presence and offer of help was a comfort. Cali wondered where Dr. Bauer had disappeared to, but with so many others needing the remedy, he’d probably taken what Lyric had brought and was distributing it as they spoke.

  “Wash your hands. And I’ll need plenty of clean cloths. They’re in that cabinet.”

  Cali didn’t mind following orders. “Where is her family?” she asked under her breath.

  “Dead.” Darren’s word was chilling.

  “Just how high is the death toll?”

  “Too high for us to know at this point.”

  And it would only get higher. She had to stop Captain Kelsey. Lyric had said magic from the heart was the strongest. Cali had no magic, but surely Undine would make an appearance and read what was in her heart.

  Vera screamed, angling upward. Darren shouted, “Hurry, Cali! Bring those towels!” and situated himself at the end of the bed.

  Cali’s heart pumped as Darren spoke soothing words, helping Vera push and breathe, push and breathe, through sweat and clenched teeth, until a small boy covered in white paste and blood was placed on his mother’s chest. Darren clamped a clothespin against the umbilical cord, severing the boy’s lifeline to his mother.

  Vera sank against the bed, breathing hard and clutching her brand-new son, who mewled like a drowned rat.

  The room spun. Cali’s ears pounded.

  New life. This was it.

  “Now,” Cali muttered to the air, shouting over the boy’s cries. “Undine!”

  Vera’s eyes shot open. She clutched her baby boy. “What are you doing?”

  “Cali,” Darren chastised, shirking at the look she gave him.

  “Undine Daray,” Cali called again.

  “Stop it,” Vera shouted, the euphoria of birth making her bolder. She clutched the tiny boy tighter, attempting to rise from the bed.

  “Don’t move,” Darren ordered, urging the woman to lay down before glaring at Cali. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Cali said. “But it’s necessary. I’ll make it up to her if anything goes wrong.” Though what a stupid promise to make. How could Cali make anything Undine could do up to this woman?

  Darren wiped his hands on one of the clean towels before gripping her by the arm. “Are you mad? I hate to say this, but get out of here.”

  “You have no grounds to give me orders.”

  “This woman just gave birth, gave life! You’re frightening her to death!”

  Vera was in tears, hugging her screaming child, rocking him back and forth on the bed.

  Cali hoped to appease the woman, to comfort her, but if their roles were reversed, she would be just as afraid if she hadn’t heard there was a completely different side of the sea witch. And though the witch had cursed Bae, it was only because he’d tried to enter her home without permission. Soraya insisted she was all goodness.

  Soraya had been mistaken about many things, but Cali had to believe she wasn’t about this.

  “I don’t believe Undine is as evil as everyone says,” Cali argued.

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  The voice was fallen leaves, ocean waves, and metallic melody. It carried across the room to Cali on a surge of chills and ice.

  Cali’s eyes widened. She turned, markedly slow. Instead of seeing a hunched-over woman as the Lunae Lumenian text she’d read displayed, this woman was youthful and delicate, her face pointed like a fox’s and just as sly. Flecks of bluish green shimmered in the skin near her eyes. Her hair was lifeless, dull, and gray, the same shade it would have been if she’d actually looked her age.

  Soraya’s book had mentioned her hair was the only part of her that changed. Soon, it would turn white. Maybe it might even fall out, but no matter what the hair on her body looked like, her face was as youthful as Cali’s at her eighteen years.

  “We would have had a problem if you’d summoned me thinking I was evil,” Undine said, examining her fingernails.

  A cold rush swept through the room, followed by Vera’s shrill scream.

  Chapter 25

  “You came,” Cali said anxiously. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “This is why you were down here?” Darren demanded. His eyes were wide with disbelief and disappointment that fisted Cali’s stomach.

  Cali ignored him, and so did the sea witch. Undine brushed her hair away from her face, but she didn’t approach Vera and the small boy now swathed in blankets.

  “When someone calls me as ardently as you did, I tend to succumb,” Undine said with a shrug. The room’s meager light played off the sparkling flecks of blue near her eyes, as though shaded by magic. They glimmered like fish scales in the woman’s skin. “Out of nothing more than curiosity, sometimes. Yet, if I’m not mistaken, your need is rather unique.”

  Cali wondered if Undine’s broken heart really had caused the boundary’s existence, but she wasn’t sure it was quite appropriate to ask something so personal on a first acquaintance. She also wondered how closely the sea witch watched them, and why, if she was so good as Soraya claimed, she hadn’t stepped in to help when the people had been so sick.

  Then again, Cali’s father had attacked the boundary, causing the disease in the first place.

  “An enemy is approaching the boundary with the intent to destroy it,” Cali said.

  Undine cocked her head to the side. “Whose enemy? Yours or mine?”

  The question threw Cali off. “Then you can’t see all things?”

  “I’m not omniscient, if that’s what you’re asking. Though I am aware of who is approaching my home.”

  Cali was tempted to ask about Bae, about the pirate’s curse, but she refrained. “Then you know of its leaking power?”

  “Having lost quite a bit of it myself, yes, I’m aware of that as well.”

  Cali couldn’t stop to wonder what that meant either.

  “If Captain Kelsey succeeds in destroying the boundary, your home will be gone. The magic contained there will spread, and it will kill everyone! Please, can you help me stop him, stop my cousin Soraya?”

  Undine inspected her with the shrewdness of a
hawk, but she didn’t immediately decline, which gave Cali hope. “How do you propose we do that?”

  Cali pushed back her shoulders. “I need you to get me across it again.”

  Undine frowned. Darren opened his mouth to protest and stepped forward, but Undine gestured for him to keep his distance.

  “Your arrival on the Lady’s Bane will not have much influence over him. That’s not a helpful solution.”

  Cali offered her hands in desperation. “It’s the best I have. Once I’m there, I can stop Soraya. She’s doing it because he threatened me! I can transport her here, or, if you’ll help me, I can use attempt to stop the pirates altogether.”

  Cali wished she could ask for more. She wished she could ask for Soraya’s kingdom to be saved, for Undine to prevent Captain Kelsey’s interference from here on out, or for Bae to be rid of his father’s expectations. But she would only get one request today.

  “If you cross the boundary again, there will be no return.” Undine spoke with such finality that Darren inhaled. “You will lose your kingdom.”

  “No, Cali,” Darren said, fear in his voice.

  Cali met his pleading glance, his handsome face, a face she’d known and loved almost her whole life. She examined the possibilities as much as she could within a minute’s time. Stay in Zara, with Darren. Become crowned princess and watch others die when their cure ran out, helpless to do anything more to help them and rule in a pool of worries and sorrow, wondering about Soraya, knowing all she’d lost.

  Or she could return into the whirlwind of danger, where a thousand pitfalls awaited her, where Bae’s taunting gaze captured her in a single glance, where pirates kissed like devils or killed without a second thought, where princesses wielded more power than she could comprehend, and fruits tasted like the sun.

  Lyric had warned her of this. She’d warned Cali wouldn’t want to return to Zara.

  Cali would always want Zara. She would hold it in her heart like a glass filled with confetti and water, where she could turn it and watch the tendrils of sparkle and paper flutter around. She would always love Darren in that way a person held a special memory in her heart. But she knew she couldn’t stay. Not if it meant more death.

  Her mother had been dying. Her staff. Her best friend. Herself. If she didn’t close the rift, who would be next when the cure ran out?

  “So be it,” Cali said. “If that’s what it takes to keep the disease contained, then that’s what I have to do.”

  “Very well.” Undine didn’t seem either pleased or upset. Just accepting. “I must warn you, I don’t do anything for free. Nothing in life comes without a cost. Not even life, as you yourself witnessed.” She gestured to Vera, who was still watching the exchange with drained wariness.

  “Cali!” Darren ground out her name as if through pain. “Don’t do this.”

  She knew how this must seem to him. There wasn’t time, but she wanted to explain. He deserved that much, at least.

  “Can you give me just one minute?” Cali asked.

  Undine inclined her head, stepping aside.

  Cali went to him, smiling through her tears, and pulled him into a hug. “I left. I went to Lunae Lumen for you,” she said.

  He embraced her tightly, his heart rapping against hers. “You didn’t have to.”

  She pulled away, wiping a tear from his eye as well. “Yes, I did, because while I went there to save you, it wasn’t just for you. I found family there, a girl my age. Her name is Soraya, and she’s my cousin, Darren. I didn’t even know she existed until I went there. And she needs my help, too.”

  His mouth worked against all the words she could see he wanted to say. “Will I see you again?”

  Her throat closed. Somehow, this was just as painful as leaving Bae behind had been. It was different, in the way people were different. No two eyes were the same, no two faces, not even hers and Soraya’s. And more importantly, no two hearts were the same. She loved Darren’s heart for who he was, the boy who’d stayed at her request instead of leaving the palace to find himself. The boy who dedicated his life to saving the lives of others and who’d nearly died because of it.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’ll always be thinking of you.”

  He rested his forehead against hers, sliding his hands down her arms to link his fingers through hers. “Please,” he whispered. “I just got you back.”

  The words sent another tear from the corner of her eye, punctured another section of her chest. Truthfully, he never had her in the first place. Her crown and everything she was had made sure of that. But she didn’t have the heart to say it. “I have to go.”

  And she tore herself away from him, wiping her eyes and facing Undine again. “What do you wish of me?”

  Undine’s arms were folded. She may not have been omniscient, but only a fool would have missed what had just passed between Cali and Darren. Still, she said nothing about it.

  “Your kingdom will have a vacancy,” the sea witch said.

  Cali’s thoughts instantly reverted to her parents. “Surely you won’t deny the king and queen their rightful places when I leave.”

  “Of course not. Nonetheless, your kingdom will have a vacancy. There will be no heiress.”

  “I’m sure—”

  “I will be the one who selects the next heir to the Zaran throne,” Undine said in a matter-of-fact tone, cutting her off. “I will be given the right to train this person in the way a kingdom is ruled, a way I see fit. This person will be just and fair.”

  What did this mean? Was this some form of revenge, to get back at Cali’s mother for refusing to hold a tournament marriage? The rumor was that Undine took satisfaction out of watching mortals fight for love—or for the semblance of it.

  “This person will not be denied magic as you have been,” Undine continued, confirming Cali’s suspicions. She should’ve thought this through more carefully before agreeing. She hadn’t considered the full ramifications of summoning someone like the sea witch. But it was too late to recoil now. The more Undine spoke, the more Cali felt the words stirring the air around her, staining every strand of oxygen with its own taint.

  “This person will use that power for the best interests of the kingdom of Zara. And when the time comes, this person will prove to be Zara’s greatest downfall.”

  The string of spelled words lined the room like a spider web, lacing itself across every surface, every wall, every beam and stone.

  “Will there be any way to prevent what you say?” Cali asked. She couldn’t hand over her kingdom to someone as unnerving as Undine was predicting. Not unless she knew hope was in sight. Undine had said this person would be just and fair.

  Did she mean they would try their best to rule and fail?

  Undine strutted just enough to whirl the fabric of her silver skirt behind her. “There will be a way to save Zara, but only by a servant of magic, by one who studies its uses and learns its full advantages. This servant of magic will confront all aspects of the power, and this person will only be victorious if he or she learns to control those aspects to their utmost.”

  Soraya.

  Cali couldn’t help feeling the confirmation. She’d seen her cousin’s power. Soraya would be Cali’s kingdom’s savior. She wasn’t sure how, but she just knew.

  It was the last confirmation, as sure as a wax seal stamped with her family’s crest in the center. Cali had to do this, to make sure Soraya lived. For the good of Zara. For all mankind.

  “Then I agree. If you transport me to Captain Kelsey’s ship and give me the means to stop Soraya from destroying your boundary, your home—as well as a way to close the rift my father created—I agree you may choose the person to rule in my place once my parents are gone. I agree to all of your terms.”

  Cali’s words spiraled across the room, stroking the hair on her arms and teasing them like the brush of a feather, adding to the spell, solidifying it. The flame in the room’s lantern flickered in response.

  A glee
ful light flickered in Undine’s violet eyes. “I will do more than transport you to his ship. I will give you one of your own.”

  She took something from within her pocket. It was a tiny pearl. “When the opportunity arrives, toss this as close to the boundary as you can. It will heal the rifts that have been created in it. It will seal the magic within once more.”

  Something so simple? “Why have me do this?” Cali asked. “Why couldn’t you have sealed the rift? It would have saved so many lives.”

  “All magic comes with a cost. A sacrifice. It would have been too easy for me, and the moon wouldn’t grant it. It must be done from someone other than myself or the magic will not respond.”

  Cali swallowed. The moon wouldn’t grant it? Had Undine already tried healing that rift on her own? It seemed, like Soraya’s power, even the sea witch’s magic had limitations.

  Undine removed a strand of hair from her head and took Cali’s wrist. Cali’s mouth dropped at the sea witch’s frigid touch, which was like being held by an ice sculpture. Slowly, Undine wove the hair around Cali’s wrist. Each time, it sank into her skin, disappearing. When the sea witch was finished, a marking remained tattooed in Cali’s skin from her wrist to her thumb. Two crescent moons overlapping opposite each other, dripping with lines and droplets and capped with an arrow pointing to her heart.

  “Now you.” Undine gestured.

  Swallowing, Cali plucked a raven-black strand from her own head. Led on by encouraging nods—and ignoring the warnings coming from Darren that she shouldn’t do this—Cali gingerly took the sea witch’s wrist and wove her hair around it as well. To her surprise, it did the same thing, sinking in and adding a mark on the witch’s arm. This one didn’t embed itself in place of the hair, however. There were already rows of designs, leftovers from previous bargains. Cali’s appeared on the witch’s bicep, near her bare shoulder. A single crescent moon.

  How many of these bargains had the sea witch made?

  How many had she kept?