Chapter 33
Some hearts are made of sugar and spice. Others are forged in blood and ashes.
LEMPICKA
Snow was falling on the witch’s castle.
No. Not snow. Sugar.
It drifted in the air, crystalline, glittering, dissolving on my skin like spun glass.
A sweet taste lingered on my lips. Warmth pulsed in my chest, spreading through me like sunlight melting ice.
A breath strangled in my throat. Colors burst behind my eyelids, too vivid, too intense, as if I had just woken from darkness.
I wanted to cry. To laugh. To scream. To eat.
By the golden apple tree, I was starving.
For food. For life. I pinched my arm, half expecting my fingers to sink into caramelized sugar.
But under my nails, I found only flesh. Solid.
Real. A laugh escaped me. I spun in place, ready to throw myself into Arawn’s arms, to bury my face against his chest, to touch him without poison seeping under my skin—
But Arawn had already disappeared.
That was the plan. I was the distraction, while he slipped away to accomplish the reason we had come: to reclaim what had been stolen from us.
Our heart.
Had he succeeded? Would the ground crack beneath us, unleashing some monstrous stag dragon in a clash of wings and shadow? Arawn had conjured me a magnificent dress tonight. It would be a shame to ruin it.
“You are a most singular confectioner.”
The voice yanked me back to the present. I blinked. I had forgotten the white-haired prince standing before me. He had recently compared me to his late pink turtle, and I had taken it as a compliment. It meant he loved the Cursed too.
He was pleasant to look at, with harmonious, angelic features and green eyes shining with a softness almost too perfect. Too smooth. Nothing like Arawn, who was all angles and shadows, sharp lines, a face carved mercilessly by suffering and will.
“Mademoiselle?” he prompted.
“Yes?”
I forced a smile, but my gaze strayed to Zelda on the other side of the terrace.
Rigid, imperious, the witch scanned the crowd, barking orders with a flick of her hand.
Beside her, massive reptilian Cursed of no clear breed slithered among the guests, towering heads unnoticed. They were hunting someone.
Arawn.
“I would like to persuade you to work for my kingdom,” said the prince, bowing slightly.
A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. Murmurs slithered through the air like silk threads, eyes sliding toward us. Of course. A woman of sugar turned flesh again. A miracle. An aberration. The windows sealed. The velvet curtains drawn. Cursed guards everywhere. No exit.
“Too late,” I whispered, my throat tightening.
The prince frowned. “Too late? But I haven’t even begun to list the benefits—”
I seized his hand and pulled him into a dance. Around us, the guests closed in, a circle of bodies. No one spoke. Not a breath disturbed the air. They were waiting. Puppets on invisible strings, suspended beneath Zelda’s piercing gaze.
The witch lounged on her throne. Her smile stretched, venomous, as docile suitors crawled at her feet, bending until their backs bowed under her weight, transformed into nothing more than human footstools.
The prince placed a hand on my waist. I set mine on his shoulder. But this dance was no courtesy. He led, I followed. The violins screeched, falsely melodic, stretching their notes until they rang hollow.
Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. But it was too late to step back.
“Do not worry,” the prince murmured, pulling me closer.
Against me, I felt the cold metal of the sword strapped to his costume.
“The witch invited me under the pretense of forging a financial alliance with my kingdom. My father had accepted. I declined. Since then, attacks by the Cursed have only worsened. And when I learned that her right hand, that infamous sorcerer, had returned to her side, I knew I had to stop him.” He paused, searching my eyes.
“Tell me the truth. Is he holding you hostage?”
I stiffened, my fingers tightening instinctively on his shoulder. “Arawn is not a monster,” I defended fiercely as he spun me. “You should not judge what you do not understand. That is unworthy of a sovereign. He has no alliance with Zelda anymore.”
The prince’s lips pressed thin. “There are capture warrants for him in my kingdom. A villain of the worst kind.”
“That’s true,” I admitted with a faint smile. “Yet tonight, I am not afraid. If there is one person capable of protecting us, it is him.”
The prince exhaled, glancing at the guests swaying on their feet, mouths ajar, eyes glazed.
“For your sake, I hope your faith is not misplaced. I would avoid a war between kingdoms, but negotiations have failed. I know no one at this ball. I walked into a trap of my own will… and I fear it is worse than I imagined.” He pulled me closer.
“Mademoiselle, you must flee. My guards await my signal. I can buy you time—”
A hand landed on the prince’s shoulder. “Your Highness.”
The prince paled, as if a blade pressed against his throat. That blade was Arawn. My Arawn. Straight. Unflinching. Mist curled around him, tendrils of black ink spilling from his hair. His horns had grown, sharpened like daggers, and thorns pierced through his fine suit.
My heart jumped. The guards who had blocked the terrace entrance moments before now lay limp, their limbs protruding from the heavy curtain, hastily shoved aside. Arawn hadn’t even bothered to hide his work.
He took a single step. Just one. Enough to make the prince taut as a bowstring.
“I advise you to leave,” Arawn commanded, his velvet voice steeped in steel. “Your loss will be heavy. Your army will fall. I have cleared the way for you.”
The prince’s throat tightened. His fingers twitched, ready to draw his blade. “Don’t be absurd,” he snapped. “You cannot face this alone.”
Arawn didn’t flinch. He tilted his head slightly.
“Do you not see that I am occupied?” Slow words. Measured. Suffocating. “A prince—or shall I say, a new king—dead is of no use. Leave. Unless you intend to kill me.”
Something broke in the prince. His chest rose with short, ragged breaths. Then he spun, cape snapping, and strode away, dragging his pride in reluctant steps.
Arawn didn’t even grant him a glance. Instead, he extended his bare hand. A silent command. I didn’t hesitate. My fingers closed over his. A sudden pull, and I was swept against him, pressed to his chest, caught in his shadow.
“Arawn…”
“We’ve never danced.”
His arm locked around my waist, yanking me tight against him. No escape. No retreat.
He danced as he fought. Mastering every movement. Demanding every breath. That I be his, and his alone. He possessed me without a word, a blaze held beneath cold elegance.
And my world shrank to Arawn. I loved him like a blade between the ribs. Sharp and inevitable. I loved him like a star. Distant, burning, a light to guide me through the blackest night.
“My Sugarplum, you are exquisite.” His voice was low, almost breaking.
He spun me. The momentum stole my breath.
His grip tightened, his lips brushing my ear, a breath of fire against my skin. “Thank you for loving me.”
Words clogged in my throat. “You’re welcome.”
Arawn pulled me against him, erasing the last breath of air between our bodies.
His arm circled my waist, and with that same arm, he lifted me effortlessly until my feet left the ground.
His thumb brushed my chin, then slid upward, slowly, along the line of my jaw.
He tilted my head, forcing my gaze up to his.
Our lips were merely apart from each other.
“The first thing I noticed about you,” he confessed, “was your smile. You smiled even when your eyes were sad.”
Something was wrong. Arawn was not the kind to lose himself in confessions. He was talking too much. Words that sounded like an ending. I wanted to protest, but the movement behind him froze me.
The faces of the guests were falling apart in bloody slabs, a swarm of blackened veins, swollen like overripe fruit.
Multiple amber pupils rolled inside gaping sockets.
Their jaws unhinged in inhuman gurgles. Some collapsed, their legs snapping like dead wood, their bodies crawling toward us, twisted, boneless, driven by a hideous slowness.
Even the apples fell from the trees in putrid shards.
“Don’t look at them,” Arawn urged, his forehead brushing mine, his claws black with curse sliding across my cheek, holding me to him. “I’ll protect you, I swear.”
My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I nodded.
I didn’t want them to steal our moment. His antlers unfurled from his back, his coat spreading into wings, a shield of shadow.
I clung to him, crushing him so tightly, as if holding him could anchor him here.
With me. I buried my face against his chest, clutching him with the fervor of despair.
But him… he touched me as though I might break.
His lips, burning, pressed, skimmed my throat.
Too soft. Too slow. A grazing caress across my nape.
I tipped my head back, a shiver coursing my spine as he traced a line of kisses over my collarbone.
“You showed me it was never a question of magic. It was a question of the heart,” he murmured against my skin.
“Arawn… what are you doing?”
I choked, gripping him, refusing to let go—but already, something was changing. Tears slipped down. The Cursed advanced—arachnid, disjointed puppets—their limbs dragging in the clatter of broken bones.
Arawn held me tight, and with a sweep of wings made of mist, he blasted the Cursed away. A crash echoed, dull and brutal, followed by a shudder through the stone. Behind the veil of mist, something was collapsing.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile infinitely tender and painfully irrevocable. “Thank you for teaching me what it is to be human.”
Panic ripped through my throat. He was speaking like a man without a future. Like a man already dead.
“Thank you for giving me a reason to exist,” he continued. “To protect you. To give you the future you deserve.”
“No… stop,” I begged, my voice breaking. “I didn’t make the elixir. You can’t—”
“I trust you,” he said, his gaze unshaken. “My Sugarplum, you are the greatest confectioner I know.”
Arawn’s wings folded around me, a rampart of shadow and bone. All around, the Cursed clawed, pounded, hammered at that living prison, their twisted fingers sliding through the gaps. But he did not move. He took it all without flinching.
Something cold and heavy slid into my trembling hands.
His heart.
Blackened. Veined with violet. Its weak, dying beat pulsed faintly against my palm, like an ember fading.
A heart made of sucremort.
He had given it to me.
“No! You promised we would do this together. After.”
A broken sob escaped me. My vision blurred, the stench of blood and death burning my nose. Around us, the Cursed screamed. Unleashed.
His lips brushed my ear, his whisper a sugared poison. “I would want no one else to end my life. But the choice is yours.”
And then he kissed me.
A fevered kiss. Desperate. Like a last shared breath, or a falling star burning out in its final light.
I cried against his lips, and he drank my tears. He stole my grief, swallowed the pain, as though it were a wound he meant to keep forever.
No. No. No. Not now. Not like this.
“We need more time. We had nothing… nothing at all,” I sobbed.
I had glimpsed only a fragment of what we could have been, before it was gone.
He framed my face in his palms. “My Sugarplum.”
I looked up, breath shorn, clutching his heart to me as if that could stop my own from breaking.
“I fell in love with you twice.”
A shudder tore through me.
Two heartbeats resonated as one.
“My two hearts are yours. Forever.”
And then, the rending.
His wings spread in a violent snap, shoving me away. The wind ripped between us. The broom shot toward me like a gale, wrenching me from his arms, hurling me skyward.
“Arawn, no!” I screamed, throat raw, my hand reaching for him.
But it was too late.
The mist swallowed me, and a dragon of horns, thorns, and shadow tore through the fog.
“Bring me back!” I howled against the merciless surge of the broom as it dragged me out of the castle in a furious flight.
Behind me, a roar exploded, shaking the fortress to its bones.
Arawn’s heart had always beaten for me.
But tonight, it would stop for me too.