Chapter Twenty-Six. In Which the Prince Reveals a Secret #2
Without meaning to, Risa closed her eyes and searched for the thread of magic entangled around the old woman. When she brushed up against it, she found no knots, no thorns, no strangling roots. What she did find was a pit of mire that lapped at her ankles and tried to pull her in.
She gasped, eyes snapping open, and let the curse fall away from her fingertips.
There was no way she could break this curse. It was too powerful.
Javi was at her elbow, a hand firmly planted on her arm. “You look terrible,” he said, concern pulling his lips into a frown. “Is it the curse?”
“If that’s your attempt at flirting…” she joked, her pulse a flutter at the base of her throat. If she didn’t say something to distract herself, she might actually start crying.
He did not indulge her attempt at deflection. “We can stop.”
He was giving her an out. Telling her, without even saying the words, that he wouldn’t judge her if she didn’t go through with this.
But she knew they could not turn back. Amina needed their help.
The princess was trapped somewhere, if she hadn’t already been gutted and strung up as a warning to the mindless people shuffling through the city.
Risa checked the brooch again. The needle had shifted slightly. Up another hill, where the castle and its white spires were visible above vibrant green treetops.
The closer they came to the menacing castle at the heart of the city, the more the curse bore down on Risa.
Each step became more difficult, the city threatening to suck her in like quicksand.
Magic clung to her heels, seeped into her boots, trailed over her legs.
A steady fog began to form in her mind, turning her thoughts into sludge as she tried to remember why she was there.
She had to save Amina. She had to save her friend.
That thought alone lessened the tightness in her chest, made the oncoming steps less heavy. She thought of Amina glaring at her before they got onto the airship. Amina, who wanted to be her friend. Amina, who had given herself up to save Risa.
Eventually, the steep climb gave way to enormous trees that lined another white wall, much less massive than the one surrounding the city. She glanced down at the compass and found it pointed straight ahead at the castle behind it.
The two walked its perimeter, attempting to find the entrance or some fissure in the wall that they could tear down or squirm through. The bells continued to toll joyfully when they came upon an entrance shaded by bowed trees.
A guard stood there. He fared a bit better than the townspeople, though not by much.
His skin was the color of the golden sands, and he was gaunt, weighed down by both job and rusted armor too large for his body.
The only part of him that seemed alive was his roving eyes, shifting anxiously across the cityscape until he spotted them.
He straightened and leveled a spear at their faces. Up close, his gaze was a similar slate gray to Amina’s, apparently common among the Madrosian people. It was a thing Risa never knew, might have never noticed if she hadn’t spent so long trying to look through Amina’s curse to see the real her.
“Halt, or face death!”
“I’m the prince,” Javi declared, chest puffing out in a familiar display of arrogance Risa hadn’t witnessed in a few days. “And I think there’s a wedding at which I’m supposed to be the groom.”
The guard faltered at the words. Confusion flitted across his features, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and caused his sparse brows to furrow. Then, as if by magic—and perhaps it was—his face slackened and the confusion drained away.
“The prince is dead.”
And then he lunged.
His movements were sluggish, but after the airship crash and the walk through the desert and dusty capital, neither Risa nor Javi was in any shape to fight.
The guard’s spear tipped out of his hands, as if too heavy to hold. But it was still a spear, and the pair was still made of flesh and blood. Risa stepped in front of the prince, closed her eyes, and dived into the curse headfirst.
It was nothing like she had experienced before.
This magic felt like a wool blanket made of thorns, so potent, so strong, it blurred her vision and slowed her mind.
The feeling groped at her, forced itself into the cracks of her being, wriggling through and reminding her of something she often tried to push away.
Guilt. Clawing its way inside her, its ever-reaching tendrils attempting to pry her open like a clam.
An incomprehensible heaviness fell over her.
Pressed down on her chest. She couldn’t discern where the curse might begin or end, could not make head or tail of it.
She tried to blink, but her body was no longer her own.
She didn’t remember having one. There was a faint reminder of where her limbs might be, of her beating heart, but then it was gone, receding to the back of her mind like distant memories.
Each second trickling past and ensnaring her further until she felt sure there was no escape from the darkness.
Until she remembered the feeling of Javi’s stare.
Amina braiding her hair with gentle hands.
Brunie climbing into her lap and snoring.
Linda’s tisana warming her from the inside.
Brunhilda’s gravelly laugh. Javi’s mischievous smile.
Amina rolling her eyes. Javi pressing his lips against hers.
The guilt receded, just enough to free her.
Risa jerked back into herself and opened her eyes.
The world slowed around her. The guard leveled his spear at them again, but it shook beneath the weight of itself and the curse. Javi had his hands around her arms, ready to shove her aside toward safety.
She might not be able to break the curse, but she could try to free the guard from its hold before he tried to kill them in earnest.
Again, she shut her eyes. Searched for the curse with tentative curiosity but maintained her distance, toeing the line of its shore to avoid the towering wave crashing toward her.
This time, she was able to sense that the guard was stuck knee-deep in the mire of the curse, unable to escape while still maintaining some semblance of autonomy enough to protect the castle as duty dictated.
She waded into the muck after him, steeling herself against the magic as it tried once more to suck her in.
Tugging, pulling, scrabbling for purchase around her ankles, her calves, her knees.
Bringing with it memories of all the times she felt guilty, all the times she pushed her parents away and rebuffed their attempts to love her.
The memories threatened to drown her once again, but she recalled the warmth of Javi’s presence and stood her ground against them.
Another thought occurred to her.
She could do the same thing back.
The idea wasn’t quite sound, but it was all she could think of in the face of the powerful curse. She mentally yanked at it, grasping the knots that surrounded the guard. She yanked harder and spoke aloud, feeding it the truth.
“This is the prince. What you were told is a lie. This is all a lie, and you no longer believe it.”
The effect was not immediate, unlike the time in Cairn or with Amina.
But she repeated the words again and again until eventually the spear fell, sending dust into the air.
The guard teetered on unsteady legs, blinking up at the unforgiving sky, so bright it was almost white, as if seeing clearly for the first time.
Risa slumped to the ground, absolutely spent from the effort. Her breath rattled in her chest, ragged. Javi hovered over her, clearly concerned but unsure if he was wanted.