It won’t, he thought. I’ll make sure of that.
He knew it wasn’t fair, to punish other people for something his brother had done to him, but even if Kilian wanted to he wouldn’t have been able to stop the freezing blizzard. He was too unstable; too furious; too lost.
When a tentative knock on the door drew Kilian’s attention away from the window, he pulled his old, ragged overcoat a little closer against his chest and called the person in. He couldn’t bear to look at the one Elina made him after how he’d treated her, much less wear it.
Marielle took a few steps into Kilian’s chambers. “Your Royal Highness, please pardon the intrusion.”
“That depends on what the intrusion is for,” he replied, rubbing his temple to try and force a nagging headache away. Kilian didn’t want to have to deal with people right now if he could at all avoid it.
“Miss Brodeur was attempting to enter the castle through the servant’s door. We didn’t let her in.”
“Good.”
Marielle glanced at Kilian uncertainly before casting her gaze to the floor. “She moved to the main entrance. I don’t think she’s left yet.”
That gave Kilian pause. What’s she thinking, travelling to the castle when the weather is so bad? She’s a fool.
“She’ll get the message and return home soon enough,” he said, hoping it to be true. “She’s not stupid.”
“It doesn’t seem like she –”
“Thank you for letting me know, Marielle. You may go.”
Kilian rushed back over to his window but, as before, he could see nothing but darkness and snow. Straining against the roar of the wind he tried to hear Elina shouting, but of course he couldn’t. With any luck she’d already given up and gone home.
I can’t see her, he thought. I just can’t. Not after what I said. And if I am to be trapped here forever then I don’t want her feeling obligated to stay in Alder for my sake. She should just leave and forget about me.
Such a thought hurt Kilian, ripping at his heart more than the cold ever could; he didn’t want Elina to forget about him. But the chances of him being able to break his curse were so low. It wasn’t something Elina should have to bear.
“Go home, Elina,” he muttered into the darkness, before retreating to his bed and collapsing on top of it.
Kilian lay there for a while, staring up at his ceiling with sightless eyes in the hopes that eventually he would fall asleep.
He didn’t.
After an hour or two he swung back up to his feet with the intention of wandering down to the kitchen to grab some food, though he wasn’t hungry. But he had nothing else to do, and nothing new to think about.
Loneliness felt so much worse after knowing what it felt like to not be lonely.
A nagging impulse pushed Kilian to stop by the front doors first. They were heavy, and there was nobody around to help him open them, so he was reluctant to even try. But even so…with a whistle of breath through his teeth Kilian struggled to open one of the doors just wide enough for him to peer outside. At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. No people. No shouting.
Kilian felt a wave of relief wash over him, though it was mixed with a keening sense of regret that he hadn’t simply let Elina into the castle in the first place. And then –
A snow-covered figure fell through the gap in the door, a glimpse of blue material and dark hair only just visible beneath the ice that was dislodged when the person hit the floor with a thud.
“No,” Kilian mouthed, horrified beyond words. With shaking hands he dragged Elina inside and slammed the door behind them, holding her close to his chest as he stood and ran for help.
“Marielle!” he screamed. “Somebody! Anybody! Help me!”
Kilian could hardly bear to look at Elina’s face as he ran for his room. She was unconscious; he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. And she was pale, a word Kilian would never have used to describe Elina’s complexion before. She was colder than any living thing had a right to be.
When he reached his bed he gently placed Elina down upon it and removed her stiff, frozen cape and placed his head to her chest, checking for a heartbeat. It was just barely there.
“Run a bath!” he ordered a shocked Marielle when she appeared at the door. “Not too hot,” he added on, remembering what his mother used to tell him about people who had been out in the cold for too long.
Kilian unlaced Elina’s dress, silently apologising for doing something so shameful when she wasn’t conscious. But he had to; he had to remove every last piece of snow-covered, sodden clothing that she had on. When she was naked Kilian held her in his arms and lay beneath the covers, smoothing snow out of her hair as he anxiously watched her blue lips, wishing they’d hurry up and return to their usual, irresistible colour.
“You idiot,” he muttered through chattering teeth, “you obstinate idiot.” Elina was so cold she almost burned his skin. Belatedly he wondered if this was what she’d felt like when Kilian had asked her to keep him warm in bed two weeks ago.
No, this must be worse. I don’t see how I was ever this cold.
“S-sire, the bath is ready.”
“Tend to the fire,” he ordered, “then head to the kitchens and have some food prepared. Soup. Tea. Anything easy on the stomach.” A few minutes later Marielle vacated his room, then Kilian lifted Elina out of bed and gingerly placed her in the bath. Marielle had done her job properly; the bath was a gentle temperature. The now roaring fire seemed to be competing with the wind outside in an effort to make as much noise as possible.
Kilian desperately wanted the fire to win.
Finding a cloth, he soaked the material and gently scrubbed Elina’s face and washed her hair. “Come on, idiot,” he begged her unconscious face, watching as her cheeks slowly began to regain some colour. “Wake up. You have to wake up.”
It took a while before Elina’s body finally seemed to return to an almost normal temperature, but she still didn’t rouse when Kilian took her out of the bath, dried her off and dressed her in the large, luxurious robe she’d worn before, after the two of them had drunkenly taken a bath together. Then he sat her against his chest in front of the fire, feeling her heartbeat gradually speed up against his hand.
Marielle had been and gone with the food Kilian had requested before Elina finally, tortuously, began to wake. Her dark lashes fluttered, and a low moan escaped her lips.
“Elina!” Kilian cried out, turning her around to face him. “What were you thinking?! Have you lost your senses completely? What’s wrong with you?”
“Kilian…?” Elina slurred, her brain struggling to work out where and when she was. But after a few blinks she finally seemed to properly wake up, and she tensed in Kilian’s arms. Her eyes went wide. “Kilian – your brother –”
“You think I care about my brother right now?!” He crushed her against his chest, burying his face into her damp hair as he willed himself not to cry. “You almost died and you want to talk about my brother?”
But Elina feebly pushed him away with what little strength she had. “Kilian, you have to listen to me, please! You really think I sat in that storm just to tell you off again?”
Kilian was pained. He didn’t want to talk about anything else that wasn’t to do with himself and Elina. The rest of the world could burn – or freeze – for all he cared. Just so long as Elina was okay. But if she had really, stupidly risked her life to talk to him about his brother…
“What about Gabriel?” he sighed, pulling over the bowl of soup Marielle had brought in and handing it to Elina. She drank straight from the bowl with a serene, grateful expression, before growing serious once more.
“He hasn’t gone missing. He ran off.”
“…what?”
“I heard in the tavern,” Elina continued. “The messenger who first came to tell you Gabriel was missing was talking to the town head. The war’s been over for weeks, but he was keeping you in the dark to use the fighting on the border as a
ruse to run off with a woman. Kilian, I’m so sorry – I should have believed you in the first place. He –”
“Gabriel really isn’t coming back?”
Somehow the news stunned him, even though it was what Kilian had been thinking for weeks anyway. But it was one thing to believe something without any evidence. It was another thing entirely to find out that, all along, he’d been right to doubt his brother.
Gabriel had abandoned him, and it stung like nothing else ever had.
Elina clutched his hand. “Kilian, I’m so –”
“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m the one who’s sorry for telling you to leave.”
She said nothing in response to Kilian’s apology, even though he never apologised to anyone. But she smiled, and that was all he had to see.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Guess I really am stuck here,” he said, trying to keep his voice as even and casual as possible. “Guess I’m going to have to make peace with that fact before I freeze everyone to death.”
Kilian wasn’t expecting Elina’s eyes to light up. She stared at him in earnest. “Kilian,” she began, “do you think you could remember exactly what your father said and how he said it when he placed the curse on you?”
He frowned. “Yes…why?”
“Because I might have a magician that can help.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elina
It was an odd feeling, sitting in the strategy room of the Hale castle with Kilian, Scarlett Duke and Adrian Wolfe. Kilian was holding Elina’s hand so tightly it almost hurt; he’d hardly let go of her since her brush with icy-cold death. It was reassuring, and gratifying, too, but it was also terrifying. It reminded Elina of just how close she’d stupidly come to killing herself…and what that would have meant. She’d have left her mother all alone. She’d have left Kilian alone, and he’d have never known what his brother had done.
Elina resolved to never act so rashly and stupidly ever again.
“So how did the two of you end up in such a miserable place like Alder in the middle of winter?” Kilian asked Scarlett and Adrian.
Scarlett smiled. “We’ve been travelling around for the past couple of years following rumours of magic. Most of the leads we followed turned out to be false. Imagine our surprise when we met Elina and realised we had finally come across true magic!”
Kilian raised an eyebrow. “True magic from Elina?” He looked at her suspiciously. “I thought you didn’t know any magic.”
“Oh, she definitely doesn’t,” Adrian said, “but this castle is crawling with it. Her working here brought her in contact with it, so when we met her I could sense it.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“And why is that?”
“I can’t feel magic in here and I’m the one who’s cursed.”
Adrian laughed, his amber eyes bright with amusement. “That’s because you don’t know what it feels like. In time you would.”
“I’ve been cursed for months, magician, is that not time enough?”
“Try years.”
Kilian’s eyes narrowed; even Elina looked at Adrian in surprise.
“You’ve been cursed for years?” she asked, curious.
“Yes,” Adrian replied smoothly, as if the issue of being cursed didn’t bother him whatsoever.
“What kind of –”
“A story for another time,” Scarlett interjected. “I feel like the subject of your own curse, Your Royal Highness –”
“Call me Kilian.”
“The subject of your own curse, Kilian, is far more pressing,” Scarlett finished. “Was your father definitely not touching anything when he cursed you?”
Kilian shook his head. “I wasn’t facing him, and I was blind drunk, so I don’t know. But I don’t think so. The words were identical to the ones Elina’s father spoke the first time, and he wasn’t holding anything.”
Adrian nodded. “Do you have anything of your father’s?”
“Like a ring or a jacket?”
“No. Hair or bone or skin. Something from him.”
Kilian thought carefully for a few moments, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling as he pondered the question. Then he nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
They waited for Kilian’s return, Elina feeling curiously impatient. She wanted badly to know about Adrian’s curse, and why he needed something of Kilian’s father, and what their next move was going to be, and –
Kilian returned holding a familiar silver locket. He was staring at it with an odd expression on his face. “This was my mother’s,” he said. “She kept a lock of my father’s hair in it. Stupidly sentimental. I suppose I’m glad of it now.”
Then it seemed like a switch flicked on. He looked at Elina, then back at the locket. “The buttons on the overcoat you made me – the pattern on them matches this.”
Elina’s face reddened. “I may have found it when I was sneaking about the castle,” she admitted sheepishly. “The pattern was so beautiful I couldn’t help but replicate it. And it’s not like I went rummaging through any drawers…it was just lying there on a table.”
“I was looking at it myself earlier that day,” Kilian mused, sitting down and handing the locket over to Adrian. “I don’t know why.”
“Maybe you’re not so bad at sensing magic as you think,” Adrian quipped, clicking open the locket and grasping the lock of hair between his fingers, a frown creasing his brow. It only deepened as time wore on.
“What is it?” Scarlett asked.
Adrian glanced at Kilian. “Give me some of your own hair.”
Somewhat dubious, Kilian brought out a pocket knife and cut off a small quantity of hair from the bottom of his braid and handed it over to the other man.
After a few long moments of silence Adrian sighed. “Your father didn’t curse you.”
“I – what?”
“There’s no magical link between the two of you. Your father had the spell cast on him, yes, but he isn’t the one who transferred it to you.”
“How do you know that?” Elina asked.
“It’s…complicated,” Adrian admitted. “It’s not easy to explain. But there’s a link missing. The identity of the curse placed on Kilian doesn’t match his father.” He stared at Kilian. “Did you ever talk to your father about the curse after it was put on you?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t speak to him at all. But that wasn’t anything new – I avoided being in the castle as much as possible. I only stayed after the curse was put on me because I knew my father was going to die soon, and if I was anywhere else in the world when that happened then the curse would kill me for leaving the castle.”
Nobody spoke for a while. Kilian, Scarlett and Elina all watched Adrian as he mulled over the unexpected problem at hand.
Eventually he asked, “Do you have anything of your brother’s?”
No one needed this explained to them; the insinuation was obvious. Wordlessly Kilian left the room and returned a few minutes later with a brush laden with pale blonde strands of hair, handing it over to Adrian before sitting down.
It didn’t take long before Adrian nodded. “It was Gabriel, no doubt about it.”
Kilian banged a fist upon the table. “I don’t understand! How did that happen – I thought that –”
“The only way to know what happened is to speak to your brother yourself.”
“But he’s run off!”
To everyone’s surprise, Adrian shook his head. “He’s about five miles away, and heading this way. Seems he hasn’t run off as far as you think.”
Kilian’s mouth was wide in disbelief. “How do you know that?”
He waved the hairbrush. “There are perks to being a magician.”
Elina squeezed Kilian’s hand. “I guess you’ll get your answers one way or another sooner rather than later.”
But Kilian’s face was blank; Elina couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all.
“What am I suppos
ed to do when he shows up, if he doesn’t tell me anything or simply leaves again?” he asked quietly. “If he has no intention of taking over then how can I force him to?”
Nobody answered.
Nobody knew.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kilian
“Are you sure you don’t want me here with you?”
“No; I need to talk with him by myself.”
Elina fussed with the buttons of Kilian’s overcoat before he sat down on the throne. He was wearing the splendidly embroidered one Elina had made him, having finally thrown his old one in the fire. Paired with dark trousers, supple, leather boots, a clean-shaven face and his hair elegantly tied back, Kilian for once looked every inch a king.
All for a meeting with his brother, in which he’d have to try his hardest to push said role onto him. Kilian had no idea what to do or say; the whole endeavour seemed impossible.
The weather had cleared up since Kilian had warmed Elina back to life. She’d spent every night in the castle since then with him, and most of the daytime, too. It kept him settled and in control, even though Kilian rather felt like he might explode at any given moment.
But he couldn’t have Elina with him when he spoke to his brother. It was something he had to do on his own if he wanted to settle things once and for all. That didn’t make it any easier to watch Elina squeeze his hand, smile reassuringly at him and turn to leave, though; Kilian grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him, landing a kiss upon her forehead without really thinking of what he was doing.
Elina glanced up at him through her eyelashes, the blush that spread across her cheeks unbearably pretty. “What was that for?” she asked softly.
“For nothing at all. For everything. Thank you, Elina.”
When she broke away from him she rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to keep thanking me for every little thing, Kilian. It’s not like I’m going to disappear if you act like your usual, ungrateful, cynical self.”
Kilian laughed into his hand before regaining his composure. “I suppose there’s no point in acting like someone else around you. I have to at least try and appear level-headed and diplomatic if I’m to talk to Gabriel properly, though.”
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