by Lucy Tempest
But what I’d been through there, along with seeing my brother whole and happy, not to mention my fast-approaching demise, had changed things for me. Not my feelings towards fairies, but it had certainly tempered my reactions.
“And how do you know things happened the way you think they did?” our mother hissed, setting her teacup on its saucer with a menacing clink. “You expect me to believe this half-breed came to you by sheer coincidence? This might have been that wretched fairy queen’s plan all along, to manipulate you into marrying one of her kind. That’s what she said she wanted the day she cursed you and your sister!”
I didn’t need to waste any more of my dwindling time listening to this circular argument.
But the moment I decided to retreat, she caught sight of me.
“Fairuza, come here,” she boomed, pointing imperiously to the armchair beside her. “Tell your brother how you really feel about this!”
Leander snapped his head around, swishing his ponytail over his shoulder, his eyes clouding with the sad look reserved just for me.
It was still strange to see him fully human again. I was used to him being smaller, clean-shaven, with ear-length hair, and the beginnings of his curse warping his features. But that was almost four years ago, before his state had devolved, and he’d been boarded up in that castle in Rosemead.
Now he stood taller than our father, with a dark, trim beard and thick brows that made his profile reminiscent of our uncle Darius. The one thing he had retained from his time as the fabled Beast of Rosemead was his thick mane of long hair. Ultimately, in appearance, he had become a stranger to me.
The only things recognizable about him were the features we shared, our pale-gold skin and turquoise eyes. Those were the result of our parents’ cross-cultural marriage, the political match made to unite the westernmost and easternmost kingdoms of the Folkshore.
I flopped down on the gilded chair adjacent to Mother’s claw-foot couch, dreading being forced to voice any opinion of Bonnibel. From our limited conversations, I found her nice enough, and I was endlessly grateful for her saving my brother. But I still couldn’t overlook what she was, the daughter of a human peasant and a minor fairy princess. Not to mention that she’d turned out to be the best friend of Ada Al-Berlanti, the girl who’d soon wed Cyaxares, and become the Queen of Cahraman, instead of me.
In short, I was quite conflicted about her.
But my opinion didn’t matter, just as it never did about anything, all my life. Only Leander’s mattered here, anyway.
“Maman, must we rehash this?” I said tersely. “You’re not changing his mind about marrying her.”
“I’m not talking about her,” she said “her” the way one would reference a broken sewer pipe. “I’m talking about your brother’s plans for you!”
I blinked at her. “Plans? What plans?”
Mother’s artfully drawn brows shot up as she snapped her enraged gaze to Leander. “You didn’t tell her?”
My heart roused from the sluggish rhythm of despondency into a gallop of alarm. “Tell me what?”
Leander glared down at Mother. “I was about to, in private, in a way that wouldn’t scare her, like you’re so intent on doing.”
“Go ahead!” she sneered, her dark, glossy hair threatening to unfurl from its updo as she aggressively wagged a finger between us. “Tell her how you want to throw her to the wolves, in a way that won’t scare her!”
“I actually said werewolves,” Leander said in heavy sarcasm. “You must understand I feel a certain kinship with them, considering until recently, I basically was one.”
I let out a tremulous exhalation. “Can you two just tell me what you’re talking about, so I can get on with my day? I have very few of those left.”
Leander grimaced as if I’d punched him.
Avoiding his pained gaze, I poured myself a cup of tea in lieu of the one I’d sacrificed to rid myself of that awful prince.
After an awkward sip, I raised my eyes again, trying not to sound sorry for myself, and failing miserably. “According to our list, I still have to meet with Prince Jean-Jaques’s half-brothers, my last candidates. Not that I should bother. With all being widowers, some more than once, if I somehow settled on one of them, I would be sealing my fate, rather than preventing it.”
“That’s exactly why I proposed the plan Mother is taking such an exception to.” Leander dragged a chair, sat down, and leaned close, his whole body tense. “I proposed a way to find new candidates for our cause. I even corresponded with some, and a handful are willing to visit. Though I haven’t expressed the concept of courting you yet.”
Hope I’d thought extinguished soared, only for confusion to swoop down on it like a vulture. “You mean there are more royal heirs? Why didn’t you say so before?”
Mother cut Leander’s attempted answer off with her shrillest screech yet, “Because they’re not human!”
I blinked between them, stunned.
Leander gritted his teeth. “What I was about to say is that I didn’t suggest these men to start with, because I believed you wouldn’t consider them viable prospects. I decided to leave them as a last recourse, if we exhausted all other options. Now, we have.” His eyes sought out mine, intense and earnest. “We must seek out nobles from other races, be it shapeshifters, sorcerers, or even fairies.”
That statement made me almost swallow my tongue.
The Leander I knew was not the joking type. But we’d spent years apart, changing drastically in that time, so I had to entertain the possibility that he now was.
But as he stared at me expectantly, with nothing but the sound of my escalating breaths and my cup rattling on its saucer filling the silence, I became certain. He would never joke about something like this.
Setting down the cup before I spilled the tea over myself this time, I stammered, “Leo, you can’t be serious. The curse said I can only be saved by the noblest of men.”
“We have to be flexible with our definition of men, just like we’ve already been with that of noblest.”
I almost jumped at Father’s ragged voice as he appeared beside Leander’s chair. I vaguely noticed his semi-formal attire—a sky-blue vest the same color of his eyes, a white shirt, and deep-blue trousers. His greying pale-blond hair looked messy, like he had been running his hand through it.
Escaping his weary gaze, my eyes dropped to his hand and the papers he was gripping. They bore Leander’s handwriting, made familiar through our correspondence during the early days of his imprisonment in Rosemead.
That had stopped when his transformation had rendered him unable to write. His last letter had been dictated to his friend Lord Clancy Gestum, the Duke of Briarfell, wishing me luck in my voyage to Cahraman.
The trip I’d been confident would end with my curse broken.
I’d had no reason to think otherwise, when I’d prepared all my life to become Cyaxares’s perfect bride. I’d thought that, and our arranged betrothal, would suffice for him to declare his love and commit to take me as his bride.
Instead, Ada had come out of nowhere, and beaten me in the competition for his heart and hand.
I’d thought it was over for me, that I would never find a replacement in time. And this was why Leander, along with Lord Gestum, had drawn up the plan they’d called “speed-courting.”
It had been essentially holding my own version of Cyaxares’s Bride Search. But unlike Cyaxares—or Cyrus as he preferred to be called—who’d invited fifty girls from all levels in the hierarchy, I’d had a limited pool of options. What the curse described as the “noblest of men.”
Noblest, by definition, meant a king or at least an heir to a throne. But I’d wasted my first seventeen years banking on my betrothal to Cyrus. By the time he’d rejected me, there was a severe shortage of bachelors in that echelon of nobility. What remained were either too young to understand what courting even was, or were, like Prince Jean-Jacques and his brothers, old enough to be my father, and barely noble.
Leander had included such men in our list of suitors as an act of pure desperation.
I’d come to this chamber knowing I was already out of options and didn’t have much time left. Three weeks to be exact.
But other races? Could I wed someone inhuman, even to save my life?
As if hearing my thoughts, Father touched my shoulder soothingly. “Fairuza, darling, your brother and I would do anything to save you. I understand your aversion, but we have no choice anymore.” My mother began to protest, but Father cut her off harshly, his eyes mirroring Leander’s agitation. “We will consider Leander’s new candidates.”
Carefully, as if trying not to spook me, Father handed me the papers.
Almost in a trance, I took them, my vision blurring over Leander’s handwriting.
“One of these might be the one for you, like Bonnibel was the one for Leander,” Father said. “I pray one is.”
Shaking my head, I forced my eyes to focus on the list of names, each with a title and specifications.
There was one of those aforementioned werewolves Leander had snarked about, dubbed the King in the Wild. Another candidate was an oligarch from a Campanian city-state, with a merchant prince for a father, and nymph princess for a mother. Reading further down the list, all candidates seemed to range from questionable to wildly unsuitable.
While this described Bonnie perfectly, my curse was different from Leander’s, which had only required any beautiful girl to love him despite his beastly form. I couldn’t afford questionable or unsuitable with my curse’s very specific requirement.
Then my eyes landed on a name from a kingdom in the far northeast of the Folkshore.
Though I’d only heard about Opona, a land of snow and sorcerers, in distrustful whispers, its representative was titled Grand Duke Nikolai, which sounded lofty. And his given age was just twenty-five.
Before I dared raise my hopes, I looked up at Father. “What is a grand duke?”
“It’s their version of a crown prince,” he said, the same hopeful glint in his eyes.
A young crown prince of a major kingdom was so far my best possibility since Cyrus!
As if sensing my thoughts, Leander stood up and bent to tap the papers. “So, what do you think?”
Mouth dryer than the sun-baked streets of Cahraman’s capital, Sunstone, I looked to Mother.
Thanks to my father’s unaccustomed harshness, she’d lapsed into unprecedented speechlessness. She must have realized this was happening no matter her feelings on the matter. But her fear and hatred of anyone inhuman ran too deep for her to support this endeavor, even if it meant saving me.
I moved on to Father, and my heart clenched at seeing how anxious and exhausted he looked. He’d survived the horrors of war, and had led his kingdom back to peace. He should have had some peace himself, not come home to a daughter whose days were numbered. I owed it to him as much as to myself to try anything at all to survive this curse.
Then I looked at the mastermind of this plan, who was putting all he had into the hope of recreating his salvation for me. Leander was the closest person to me in this world, and I owed it to him to honor his efforts, to do all I could so he wouldn’t live with the guilt of failing me.
Not quite hopeful, yet not entirely hopeless anymore, I asked, “How fast can they get here?”
“Within the week,” Leander said at once, giving me a forced, encouraging grin.
I had to wonder, if he looked this unnerving with normal, human teeth, how terrifying had he been with fangs?
But more importantly, how had Bonnie fallen in love with him when he’d looked like a beast? She couldn’t have known that a handsome prince lay beneath that scary exterior.
This led me to a similar observation about Cyrus, who’d masqueraded as a servant to spy on his prospective brides, deceiving us all about his identity. And neither had he known the truth about Ada.
A sudden burst of clarity almost knocked me over.
This was the one thing in common between my brother and my cousin finding their betrothed. They’d both removed their title from the equation, and all the assumptions, expectations, and falseness that came with it.
That had to be it.
Feeling my heart clattering with a hope I’d long forgotten, I hugged the list Leander had made. “I’ll do it. But under one condition.”
“Darling, it’s a little late for you to be picky—” Father was cut off by Leander’s elbow jamming into his side.
“Anything you want,” Leander promised hurriedly.
“I want none of my suitors to know why you invited them, nor would they see my face or know anything about me. Not until I have seen and gotten to know them as they really are.” I covered my face with my hands, leaving only my eyes visible. “To that end, we will hold a masked ball.”
Chapter Two
Exactly a week after I’d agreed to Leander’s new plan, the castle’s main ballroom was filled to the brim. With its gigantic size, that was quite a feat.
But hundreds of nobles from all over the Folkshore now mingled under the same roof for the first time in ages.
From my exploratory stroll among the crowds, I’d heard conversations that ranged from discussing post-war policies, to exploring business opportunities, to arranging marriages.
This, in fact, was the official reason for the ball, to celebrate a new era rife with possibilities, after the peaceful end to our five-year war with Avongart, and by extension, the rest of its allied Northland Kingdoms.
The invitations had said the masks were vital to that endeavor, protecting against preconceptions getting in the way of creating new connections, or of having a good time.
Naturally, I’d had my suitors pointed out to me in advance.
I now stood by the main ballroom doors with my handmaidens, my right foot tapping a nervous rhythm with the jaunty music accompanying a female singer in a gilded half-mask. My heart was rattling in my chest as I surveyed the attendees, waiting for my first target to show himself.
Smoothing my sweaty hands down my dress, I was again relieved at the absence of a petticoat and hoop-skirt. I hadn’t been wearing those since my return from Cahraman. And when everyone had tried to convince me to make tonight an exception, I’d pointed out it would have been counterproductive. I didn’t want to look “my best.” I’d opted for a simple, sleeveless dress that would be easy to dance in.
Agnë and Meira had argued for an hour over what color I should wear, the former championing blue and the latter, pink. But just because I was breaking all other rules tonight anyway, I’d gone with fuchsia. A color I’d always liked, but hadn’t worn since the royal painter had told me it didn’t suit my complexion.
I’d also opted for a white-and-grey, horse-face mask, anatomically correct save for eye holes facing forward. Along with the unsuitable dress and unstyled hair, I was probably an eyesore. I would also throw all courtly courtesies to the wind.
But what had flattering gowns and hairstyles, and impeccable etiquette done for me so far? Whoever showed interest in me tonight, must be the one whose declaration of love could save me.
“There’s Lord Hippolytus,” Agnë whispered excitedly through her plain mask of oakwood, with horizontal slits for her mouth and eyes.
I looked where she was pointing. Hippolytus, the wealthy Campanian son of a nymph princess, was sauntering towards us in a polished bronze mask cast in a generic male face, with the eye holes baring bored eyes.
I pushed away from the wall, prayers of “Please, please, please be the one” churning in my head as I glided towards him.
Emboldened by my hidden identity, I caught his hand as he passed me, pulling him towards the dance floor filled with swaying pairs. “Dance with me!”
He stiffened, ripping his hand from mine. “I think not!”
I steeled myself against his petulant harshness, stood my ground. “Why not? Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
“I didn’t come to dance,” he bit off. “I came to se
e if anyone in this dreary kingdom is worth my time.”
Sweat sprouted under my hair and dress, but I blocked his way when he moved to push past me, and kept moving to the music, bound on embarrassing him into engaging me. According to the rules of masked balls, it was rude to refuse an offer from another attendee.
“That’s the purpose of dancing with people tonight, to get to know them, and see if you get along.” When he tried to circumvent me again, I stepped into his path, extending my hand. “Just for one song.”
I sensed his annoyance rising, but he finally gave a long-suffering sigh and accepted my hand. “Fine.”
Hippolytus was quite handsome, a classical sculpture come to life. When I’d seen him from afar earlier, he had the sharp profile, crown of dark curls, and slim, muscled form that Lower Campanians modeled their gods after. Even with his face covered now, he cut a truly striking figure.
But as the dance progressed, I discovered he had as much depth as a birdbath.
All he could talk about was his family’s properties, how expensive his horses were, the worth of the art he commissioned, and the general opulence of his lifestyle. And he fully expected me to swoon over every detail he bragged about.
It wasn’t long into the dance that I realized something else. From Hippolytus’s overt comments as he looked around, it became clear that he was looking for me.
Though Leander’s invitation to my candidates had said nothing about courting me, everyone knew the Princess of Arbore was of marriageable age, and that she hadn’t found a human husband yet. And Hippolytus was clearly here for me. Or rather, my dowry. Likely to spend it on gaudy real estate furnished with things such as solid gold bathtubs.
In short, I had no trouble judging this ethereal pretty-boy as a narcissistic, overgrown child who could never love anyone but himself. And that was saying something coming from me, the princess everyone in Cahraman had accused of being a vain, spoiled brat.
