Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Elara
Stay.
The word hangs in the dusty air, heavier than the stone blocks of the tower. It hooks into my ribs, a command wrapped in a plea, or perhaps a plea disguised as a command. I stare at our joined hands—his large one swallowing mine.
He wants me to…stay? Why? For what purpose?
My first instinct is to wrench away. Away from this sense of emptiness at my core, the awkwardness of this moment. I finally got this part over with, so what’s left here for me?
Nothing.
I pull my hand from beneath his and sit up. “I should go. If your brother finds me here—”
“Nobody comes here,” he mumbles. “It’s storage for useless things nobody ever needs.”
Again, useless hurt at how he’s been reduced to a mere ghost, but it doesn’t replace the restlessness that’s seeping into my core. “My family will arrive in a few hours. I want to be there when they do.”
“Not before afternoon.” Fabric flaps behind me.
Then, his warm arm comes slinging around me to the sensation of his lips pressing a kiss to my spine.
“Last night’s rain turned the roads into pig shit.
A carriage won’t make it up the incline until the sun dries the mud.
” His fingers curl into my belly, and the slightest pressure urges me back. “Stay. Just a while.”
Reluctantly, I surrender.
I sink back onto the mattress, what for, I have no idea. Certainly not for how he shifts, pulling me into him until my back presses against his chest, curving me against the shape of his body. He drapes a heavy arm over my waist, locking me in place, and buries his face in the crook of my neck.
Then, he begins to stroke my hair.
It is a rhythmic, hypnotic motion. His fingers catch in the tangles, smoothing them out with ardent patience.
It’s…strange, this closeness between us.
Even stranger is how it makes me meld into him, my muscles easing one by one, each caress filling that hollow, howling emptiness at my core with a languid warmth I have no name for.
My eyes drift through the room, to the stacks of books leaning against the empty walls. “Am I going to find your mother’s missing annals over there?”
He chuckles into my hair. “Is this the moment you start prying into my sad childhood? Where I weep into your hair about my family tragedies, and you pretend to care until the sun dries the roads?”
“I do care.”
I mean it. But god, I don’t want to hear about curses, or blood, or crowns, or any of the grim realities of this place. Here, tangled in his heat, the world has stopped…and I’m not ready to start it up again.
“You seemed to know what you were doing just now,” I say, mostly to the ceiling.
“Did I.” It isn't a question, and the flatness of it makes me turn my head just enough to look at him. “A praise to my meticulous observation.”
“What does that mean?”
A long exhale moves through his chest and into mine. “Nothing.”
I frown at him, but only for a second. “Do you actually know the story of how the king fooled Death? The one you mentioned at the grave?”
Another tingling caress along strands, but this one extends down my arm. “Every prince knows. It’s a story handed down in the royal bloodline ever since it began.”
“Will you tell me?”
Vale says nothing for a moment, his hand slowing in my hair until his voice rumbles against my shoulder blade.
“The legend goes that, centuries ago, Death met a ferryman. An old man named Eamon, with a bad back and a boat, who asked Death for help to retrieve an oar from the river. In return, he said, he would share a story.”
I shift slightly, trying to imagine the looming figure from the fountain entertaining a simple ferryman. “And did he share a story?”
“Daily. For two years.” Vale’s hand picks up its gentle strokes again.
“Through the ferryman, Death learned things he had never understood about mortals. Why mothers keep baby teeth in a box. Why widows smell their dead husband’s coat for months.
” He pauses, his voice dropping to a hush.
“Eamon became his friend—the only one he ever had. The one mortal who treated him like a man with a heart, with flaws, with dreams, with fears.”
“He sounds kind,” I whisper.
A beat of silence. “One day, Eamon brought a board to the riverbank, saying that he would teach Death a game. Chess.”
I can’t help but chuckle at that. “Did the ferryman fool Death into losing and gained the crown?”
“Not at all,” he says. “As the story goes, Eamon told him that the queen was the fiercest piece on the board, but ultimately, she was expendable. That she existed to be sacrificed if it ensured the king’s survival.”
“Oh…” My stomach squeezes. “Is that what gave Death the idea of demanding a queen’s blood? Because he thought them expendable?”
“On the contrary, it was the one lesson Death could never grasp.” Vale shakes his head against the pillow. “Death didn’t understand it. Why would you sacrifice your companion? How could the victory be worth the loneliness that followed?”
The question hangs in the dusty air, striking a chord deep within me. A soft, aching pressure blooms behind my ribs.
“How the first king found out about all this, nobody knows for certain,” Vale continues.
“But one evening, Death arrived at the river, only to find a soldier’s blade set at the ferryman’s throat.
The king present demanded a game of chess.
If Death won, Eamon would remain unharmed.
If he lost…Death would grant the king a wish. ”
I shiver, the cold of the story seeping into the warm bed. “Why didn’t Death just kill them?”
Vale shakes his head, the tip of his nose nuzzling my nape. “Death can’t just take a life before its time. His interference with the mortal world is…limited.”
“Death lost.”
“It is what happens when you don’t play with your head, but your heart,” he whispers. “The king baited him into a position where sacrificing his queen was the only move to win. Death couldn’t do it. So, the king sacrificed his queen without a moment’s hesitation and checked the board.”
Something shifts at my core. Unfeeling, Kael had called Death, but being unable to fathom bartering your companion for victory doesn’t fit the shape of that word. But maybe that was before he tore at his heart?
“Death fashioned the crown currently sitting on Kael’s head, with powers as demanded,” Vale goes on, “but warned that he would weave a curse into the gold for the trickery. The king was furious; called Death a cheat. And in his fury”—his fingers in my hair slow, almost stiffen—“the king drew his sword and beheaded Eamon. Clean off.”
“He lost a dear friend,” I whisper, my throat tight.
“I would like to think that…” Vale hesitates for a moment. “I think Death might’ve lost something like a father.”
My breath hitches. A father. That’s an ache I recognize. That is a hole in the world that cannot be filled, no matter how much soil you shovel into it.
“The grief tore through him,” Vale says, his voice devoid of all emotion, terrifyingly flat.
“He had never felt such pain. In his agony, the legend says he reached into his own chest…” Behind me, Vale mimes the motion over his sternum—a clawed hand digging into ribs.
“He slashed at his heartstrings to make it stop hurting. With the one he tore out completely, he wove the curse into the crown.”
He falls silent, leaving us suspended in the tragedy.
“Maybe I should have asked for your sad childhood story after all.” I turn and gently cover his hand with mine, pressing it flat against his beating heart. “The king was a fool, thinking he could kill a father and not face the wrath of the son.”
Vale doesn’t answer. Slowly, he pulls his hand from beneath mine and reaches up, his palm cupping my cheek.
His eyes find mine, like moss saturated from rain. They’re damp, glistening with unnamed sorrow as his thumb traces the line of my jaw, then softly drags over my bottom lip. It isn’t the hungry touch from before; it is reverent, apologetic.
“It’s a story, a lesson, passed down to every prince.” His thumb stills on my mouth. “Whatever we love…we eventually have to lose.”
Seeing him like this, with his usual nonchalance not just slipped but shattered, hits me with the force of a physical blow.
It hurts.
And in that pain, a dangerous seed is planted. It burrows into my core, a dozen questions spreading through me like vines. What if the sadness in his gaze isn’t just manipulation? What if his words were true? What if he truly is growing love for me?
My breath hitches.
What if I could love him back?
I reach up, my fingers trembling as I brush the dampness from the corner of one eye. He leans into it, closing his eyes, and a single tear escapes, tracking hot and silent down his cheek to wet my thumb. Then he kisses the heel of my palm with an ardency fit for a fairytale.
But the reality is far grimmer, isn’t it?
Even if he kills his brother, even if he takes over the crown and curse, it needs feeding. He would still have to drag me to the altar. Would still have to drag a knife across my throat. The ending would be the same, and it might come too late for Daron.
And for what? Love that won’t survive? No, it’s a luxury for the living.
I’m already half dead.
And yet, as his mouth continues up along my arm, his lips leaving a trail toward mine, I cannot bring myself to pull away. Not yet. I want to stay in this delusion for just a moment longer—where he kisses me, where he pulls me tighter against him, letting the warmth of our bodies meld into one.
When our mouths part, I force a smile onto my lips and lightness into my tone. “Well, guess it’s a good thing you’re not king then.”
Vale rolls his eyes a little—a flicker of domesticity that feels dangerously intimate in this moment. Then he sighs. “The realm is dying, and I can’t figure out what feeds my brother’s deluded hope to break this curse. If he doesn’t feed the crown soon…”
I sense it in my calves first, that stiffness that comes as the messenger’s words echo in my mind. Heritage. Original translation. Curse.
My tongue presses against the roof of my mouth. I don’t think Kael is just hoping. I think he’s thinking, plotting, scheming.
Should I tell Vale?
I bite my lip. Knowledge is power, and I’m not sure if handing it to Vale is in my best interest. But then again, what if telling him will help us both figure out the answer? Isn’t swaying Kael away from breaking the curse in my best interest?
I hate giving him power, but ignorance kills.
“A messenger came to his door,” I say, sensing the way his chest goes still against mine. “The wood is thick, and the king kept his voice low, but…I heard some.”
Vale stills, then pushes his body up on one elbow. “What?”
“Something about a village. Heritage. Original translation. Curse—yes, the messenger definitely said curse.” I sit up slightly, clutching the sheet to my breasts against the sudden chill of the room. “He said he thinks they have her.”
“Her?” Vale frowns. “You?”
“I don’t know. No, not me—that doesn’t make any sense,” I say, shaking my head. “At first, I thought they were talking about my mother, but that wasn’t it, either. It can’t be.”
Vale stares at me, his mind clearly dissecting the information as the damp sparkle fades from his eyes, replaced by a predator’s focus. “Who is her?”
I just shrug. “That’s what I wondered, too.”
“Heritage.” Vale pushes off the bed, pacing the small room naked, oblivious to the cold. He grabs a book from a stack, flips it open, snaps it shut, and throws it down in frustration. Then he looks at me, eyes blazing. “Original translation? Are you sure that is what was said?”
Wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the chill, I nod. “I’m sure.”
Vale’s jaw tightens. He grabs my discarded shift from the ground, walks over to the bed, and hands it to me. “I don’t want you to get cold.”
“What does it mean?” I ask as I take the linen and slip it on. “About the translation.”
He runs a hand through his curls, muscles shifting in his abdomen. It’s a motion of concern—maybe even confusion—that’s so unlike him.
“I assume that’s for you to find out since he barely tolerates me as of late, and the curse recordings in the chapel are…inaccessible to me,” he eventually says as he kneels before me, takes my hands into his, and gazes up at me. “Can you find out?”
I look down at him. “I guess I can try.”
“Do more than try, Elara.” He presses a kiss to my knuckles. “Go. Before the household bustles.”
I pull away, dressing quickly, my mind a churning sea.
As I descend the spiraling stone steps, leaving the heavy air of the tower for the drafty corridors of the halls, the task he gave me feels heavy.
Is digging for more secrets truly worth my time?
Instead of focusing on my connection with Kael? Intimacy? On the—
“Miss Elara!”
I jolt back, breath catching. Miss Hampshire stands there, clutching a stack of fresh linen to her chest. Her pustuled face is flushed, her bonnet slightly askew.
“Miss Hampshire,” I breathe, trying to smooth my skirts. “I was just—”
“I have been looking for you,” she interrupts, her voice shrill. Her eyes narrow, scanning me, eyes traveling from my disheveled hair down to my wrinkled bodice.
Then, her gaze stops.
I follow her line of sight, and my heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs. There, on the darker fabric of my skirt, near the upper thigh, is a damp patch. It’s unmistakable.
Miss Hampshire’s lips thin into a razor line. She looks up at me.
“Rot or not, Miss Elara,” she hisses, her voice dropping to a scandalized whisper, “this is still a decent household. We do not prowl the palace looking like...that.”
I flinch. “There was a leak in the roof—”
“His Majesty sent me,” she cuts over me, unwilling to even hear the lie. She steps back, putting distance between us as if my impropriety is contagious. “He is waiting for you by the main gate. The carriage has been spotted on the rise.”
“My family?” The blood rushes from my face. “Now?”
“Yes. They made better time than expected.” Her eyes flick to the damp spot one last time, filled with judgment and a dangerous sort of calculation. “I suggest you run. Though I fear you may already be too late to make a good impression.”
I don’t wait for her to dismiss me; I nod, clutching my skirts, and hurry past her toward the daylight at the end of the hall. My shoes slap against the stone, fast and desperate.
I have to get to Daron. But most of all, I have to get to Kael faster than what Miss Hampshire can report.