Chapter 32
What one pours into a heart, poison or honey, always blooms in the end. A heart obeys only the strongest emotion. And sometimes, a single drop of love is enough to flood an entire sea of suffering.
ARAWN
Perched atop a mountain drowned in clouds, Zelda’s castle floated as arrogant as a forgotten god, too enamored with itself to die. The turrets clawed at the sky, their sharp spires poised to gut the stars.
“Stay close,” I breathed to Lempicka as our turret began its descent.
I extended my arm, and she slipped hers into it. We drifted above hedges trimmed to the line and midnight-blue roses suspended from trellises of crystal. Everything glittered, save for the coils of ash, that grayish veil in the air that betrayed Zelda’s trail.
The turret touched the ground, and the great doors of the castle swung on their hinges. A gust of coal and chimney soot. As if the place already meant to spit us out before it even swallowed us.
A Cursed, in the form of a lizard-guard, awaited us in the hall.
It had been an eternity since I last set foot here. Lempicka clutched tighter at my arm, flakes of sugar spilling from her. She would never master the art of hiding her emotions—and that was precisely what I cherished in her.
We followed the guard in silence beneath arches of gold, brushing past crystal chandeliers carved like blades. And those damned portraits of Zelda. Always herself. Frozen century after century in her own illusion of eternity. Everything was exactly as I remembered. Hollow.
Other lizard-guards passed, carrying the same boxes as in the sorcerers’ market. Their bloodshot eyes lingered on me, as though waiting for me to finally put an end to all this. Even here, the whispers had reached. Arawn, Zelda’s cold blade, her heartless executioner, had returned.
“What are they carrying?” murmured Lempicka.
“New Cursed. There’s a dungeon. That’s where Zelda injects them with sucremort until nothing of them remains.”
“Can’t we help them?”
I felt the eyes of the lizard guard escorting us shift toward us. I tried to map each pipe and each chamber. I listened. I searched for a single heartbeat. A single call. But I heard several. Thousands. Beating in unison. None of them mine. Yet… I was close. I felt the burning point in my chest.
My heart was not far.
“Yes. By ending Zelda.”
The guard stopped before a staircase and, without a word, gestured upward.
Above, the clinking of flutes, muffled laughter.
Stained glass of orchards cast golden shards across the frozen marble.
The towering windows overlooking the suspended terraces remained stubbornly shut, smothered by heavy velvet drapes.
“The Mist Sorcerer, and his confectioner, Mademoiselle Lempicka,” another guard announced from the balcony.
Lempicka inclined gracefully, brushing the shimmering fabric of her gown with her fingertips before descending the steps, back straight, chin lifted. All eyes fixed upon her, drawn like moths to a flame, incapable of turning away from the singular glow emanating from her.
“I feel like an animal in a cage,” she whispered, her smile trembling only slightly. “So this is what Aignan felt all those years.”
I caught her hand, my lips grazing her skin in a kiss as light as it was calculated before bowing toward her. I did not greet the crowd. Never. I would not bow to them. But for her, yes.
“They’re only envious,” I cut in, my gaze sweeping the nobles frozen like statues. “None of them could ever hope to bear a curse that reflects their inner beauty.”
No sooner had our feet touched the grand hall than a voice slipped through the air, like poisoned honey. “My dear Arawn.”
Zelda. Draped in burgundy and emeralds, as if jewels and enchanted velvet could compensate for what magic no longer concealed. For the first time, she wore gloves. And beneath layers of powder too thick, the rot she fought to hide.
She had aged.
I tilted my head slightly, a smirk flickering at my lips. Too greedy. Too ravenous. She devoured her confectioners at a pace none could sustain, and now no one of talent remained to stave off the inevitable.
“What happened to you, Zelda?” I murmured.
“I never excelled at curses as much as contracts,” she admitted with a silken tone. “But I must confess…” Her gaze slid to Lempicka, assessing her with the coldness of a collector weighing a piece before reducing it to dust. “Breaking your heart was worth the price of a hand.”
Lempicka tensed. I bent toward her, a hand behind her lower back. “Magic always has a price. It demands back what it once so generously gave.”
Her eyes widened. Zelda had violated her own rules. By cursing Lempicka, by breaking her contract with Nyla, she had paid the price. A hand. Dead. Frozen.
Zelda’s gaze drifted to the glass jar Lempicka clutched, and her nostrils flared, her long nose sniffing at the confection like a pig smelling its next meal. “And you bring me a gift? How charming!”
Lempicka offered the jar, her stare unyielding despite the faint tension in her fingers. “You believe you’ve seen the depths of my soul, but I’ve come to prove you wrong.”
Zelda opened the jar with the deliberate slowness of an executioner savoring the moment before the kill.
She unwrapped the pastry, examined it, then bit into it.
Her lashes fluttered once. Only once. Her pupils dilated, and an emotion crossed her face.
Regret? Shock? Hunger? Her breath caught, barely audible, at the back of her throat.
A flicker of truth surfaced in the clench of her jaw, in the way her tongue brushed her lip, as though she longed to hold on to the taste just a moment longer.
“An awakening heart can be painful, can’t it, Zelda?” I taunted.
The glass jar screeched between her fingers before she hurled it back at my confectioner, teeth bared. “It’s vile!”
The ambient murmur died. Conversations evaporated, laughter withered, and even the orchestra froze its final chord in a shiver of silence.
“It reflects the one who tastes it,” Lempicka retorted, arching a brow, before turning to me. “Do you want to try?”
I didn’t answer at once, but scanned each guest. They waited. Not out of respect, nor curiosity, but like puppets suspended, awaiting command. As if without Zelda, they had no part to play. No will of their own.
Zelda felt it too. Her expression hardened, her back stiffened.
“What are you all waiting for?” she hissed, shattering the moment as she swept across the ballroom with sharp steps. “The first harvest of winter is about to begin!”
In a breath, the charade resumed.
I would deal with it later. For now… I brought the pastry to my lips.
A fine, delicate shell gave way beneath my teeth with a crisp snap.
Then the mousse. Floral, heady, elusive.
And then, the heart. An unexpected warmth, an explosion of caramelized apples and spices, a comforting fire that clung and lingered.
It was her. Fierce yet tender. Bold and sincere. Magical. Exquisite.
“You are cruel, Sugarplum.”
Cruel, because I could have devoured her whole and the hunger would still persist. Cruel, because I would never have enough of her.
I was still savoring the echo of her taste when a nobleman stepped forward.
His proud bearing, his overly practiced confidence, his cerulean-blue suit—everything screamed of his rank.
But it was the silver sword at his side that betrayed his identity most. A prince.
A man of blades and rigid laws, believing a shard of metal could stand against magic.
“Mademoiselle, may I taste your creations?” he asked with a polite smile. “I am an admirer of confections, and the banquet does not tempt me much.”
Here was one not quite foolish enough to risk tasting the pastries of Zelda’s confectioners. They stood in line at the banquet like mechanical dolls, in their white coats and red ties, their skin as ashen as those corrupted by the sucremort.
I leaned toward my Sugarplum and brushed aside a stray lock of her hair, tucking it back behind her ear. My breath grazed her skin before my lips did, barely, just enough to make her tense, imperceptibly.
“I’ll leave you that one. Try not to make him fall in love with you.”
I didn’t withdraw immediately. I stayed just close enough to breathe her sweetness.
Just close enough that, if I wanted to, I could kiss her.
Just close enough to almost believe she was mine.
Lempicka’s cheeks flushed, and I slipped back into the shadows.
No wonder she had drawn the prince’s eye.
Unlike Zelda’s drained confectioners, she had something real to offer.
A sharp pang lacerated my chest.
I had to find it.
I turned toward the banquet, where Zelda clutched at the edge of the tablecloth as she shoved macaron after macaron past her red lips. The fabric of her dress strained, sweat pearled upon her powdered brow, and her eyes glistened like poisoned emeralds. Fear always tasted the same. Bitter.
“You think yourself worthy of happiness?” she muttered. “Do not forget, you made a promise.”
I leaned lazily against the table, a slow smile curving my lips. “To remain at your side for eternity. Yes, yes, I remember. A very dramatic moment for us both, wasn’t it?”
I plucked a macaron from the table, examined it for a moment… and then tossed it to the ground with indifference. I would taste no pastries but Lempicka’s.
“You taught me everything, Zelda. How to wield my magic, how to rule through terror and blood. Thanks to your teaching, I felt nothing. You nearly succeeded in your experiment. We share the same solitude, but I will never again be your puppet.”
“A pity,” she sneered. “You were like a son to me.”
I locked eyes with her. “You were never meant to be a mother.”
A twitch. Almost imperceptible. Her mouth twisted, searching for a retort she did not have, while I was already looking elsewhere.