Chapter Two. In Which a Girl Walks Through the （Cursed） Woods #2
“And I don’t need a roommate—my last one had a hoarding problem.” Brunhilda did not pause as she tapped her knobby chin, then stroked a particularly long, wiry hair that grew from her jaw. “I’ve decided you’re going to a wedding.”
“I beg your pardon?” Risa could hear her heart pounding in her ears.
Though she had no idea what being in an ocean felt like, she knew there was a wave threatening to drown her right there in the Bosque.
She’d been joking about being a bride—she was too young!
She hadn’t had her first kiss. She wasn’t sure she would even enjoy kissing.
“This is my last project for the king, and then I’m retiring,” the witch said, as if that answered everything.
“But I’m bad luck,” Risa whispered, unable to stop the words from rushing out. She had no desire to be the one to blame when an untimely earthquake interrupted the wedding.
“You can’t see beyond your own nose.” There was a hint of sadness in the witch’s words. “Bad luck isn’t even real.”
“Oh, I can assure you it’s real.” Risa pointed at herself, then at the witch. “But if you help break my curse—”
“What curse?” the witch asked, with a curl to her thin lips.
“The one that got me stuck here with you,” Risa mumbled to herself, because it was clear that Brunhilda was going to be impossible.
Brunhilda dismissed her words with a wave. “You will accompany Prince Javier of Kheadon to his arranged marriage. Once he arrives in one piece and marries his betrothed, I will consider your parents’ agreement settled.”
Risa stopped short and released a loud guffaw of disbelief.
Prince Javi was getting married?
The seventh and youngest son of the Kheadish king—el principito, as he was affectionately called—whose philandering ways were fodder for the rumor mill.
After Risa, he was the town’s second-favorite person to gossip about.
When he wasn’t darting between theaters and pubs and the houses of the noblesse to do his flirting, he was avoiding royal responsibility by escaping to his summer home in the green meadows outside the capital, or by heading to a nearby spring for weeks of debauchery.
Occasionally, he’d stumble into some far-reaching village and choose one lucky commoner to chase, until they inevitably fell for his charm and he grew bored and left.
Given his reputation, this wedding was difficult to believe. Prince Javi settling down was a dream that those between the ages of nine and sixty could only hope to be a part of.
Risa was not one of those people. She didn’t hate Prince Javi, but she certainly couldn’t tamp down the flare of jealousy she felt at his sheer good fortune.
The prince could do as he wished, responsible for nothing except his own entertainment, adored despite his many flaws.
No cloud of bad luck hanging over his head and darkening every doorstep he stood before.
To be loved by all. To go where he pleased. To be free.
“What on earth am I supposed to do?” Risa asked, arms crossed as she went back to stomping through the Bosque.
Brunhilda’s wiry brows drew together in consideration before she offered a shrug. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“But why?” Risa moaned. “He must have a personal guard who can better protect him than a newly turned seventeen-year-old girl.”
“You’re definitely right about that,” Brunhilda observed, though her tone carried something strange in it.
The back of Risa’s neck tingled as she tried to place it, but the witch moved on before she could.
“I’m just too old and tired to gallivant across the kingdom. I should have retired years ago.”
“Centuries,” Risa agreed.
“Careful,” Brunhilda warned, mouth tight.
“Can’t you turn him into a dragon for the duration of his journey and make him fly there? That must be safer than gallivanting across the kingdom.”
Brunhilda paused, thoughtful. “A dragon isn’t a terrible idea…” She shook her head and waved away Risa’s suggestion with a pockmarked hand. “But then he might remain a dragon forever—or the magic would unravel halfway through his flight—and I’d never hear the end of it from the king.”
Risa narrowed her eyes at that. The implication that magic was impermanent was something she’d never imagined possible.
“Then what do you suppose I’ll do?”
The witch shrugged again. “I haven’t a clue. Provide some sense of safety. Be a friend. What do teenage humans like to do?”
Risa wanted to scream. It wasn’t like she knew. She’d spent her friend-making years avoiding pelted rocks. But she swallowed the screech in her throat and used her words. “You must have a better idea than that. With my luck, I’m sure to get him killed.”
“It’s against witch rules for me to interfere with human affairs too frequently; you provide an easy loophole,” Brunhilda said with a dismissive air to her gravelly voice. “Just ensure the prince says ‘I do’ when he arrives in Madros for his wedding to the general’s daughter.”
Risa stilled at the words. It was as though a heavy stone had landed in the pit of her stomach. Half thoughts of Madros swirled like a fog through her mind, dissipating into darkness the harder she tried to grip them.
Little was known about the kingdom. Its newest leader was admired, having brought the sickly nation back from the brink of devastation.
Emigration had halted years ago, and the borders had been closed.
She did remember its affinity for science and its aversion to magic, and she frowned at the thought of the Kheadish king wanting to ally himself with a nation that greatly disapproved of magic, when his own kingdom seemed to run amok with it.
Like the very witch leading her toward certain death.
“I don’t understand,” Risa said, the fog in her mind thickening as she tried to conjure more thoughts of Madros.
Brunhilda released a long-suffering sigh. “I tire of talking. Now, shut up.”
Risa did as she was ordered, not because she wanted to—and she did not—but because she had somehow lost the ability to speak altogether. A flash of heat raced across her skin. Words clogged her throat as she opened and closed her mouth.
“Much better.” Brunhilda cackled like the witch she was as they traveled deeper into the woods.