3. Killian
Alistair’s startled cry pierces the silence.
“Keep it together, Highness.” I poke the metal-encased corpse with the head of my axe blade. “What’s dead can’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that.”
Liar.
“Look.” He points to the path ahead, where there are white rocks placed in the shape of an arrow. “Something’s following us, Killian, and that something left a message directing us to go that way.” I despise this place, long since abandoned to the beasts of legend and lore. Festering with foul magic. I loathe magic. Humans aren’t meant to mess with it. Curse the fae gods for not stripping it out of every corner of the realm when they departed for the sky.
Curse them for abandoning their beasts.
I unfasten the unfortunate corpse’s armor and discover a dagger strapped to his chest. Still sharp. His gleaming mail was mostly protected from the elements, too. I toss it to Alistair and tell him to put it on. The prat takes off his abused velvet jacket and rolls it carefully before placing it into the pack. Then he shrugs into the protective garment with an oddly merry jingle.
I hold out the dagger.
“Don’t lose it. Might come in handy.”
“We’re not following that arrow.” He pokes the scabbard into his belt. “That is a trap.”
“Yeah, Highness. We are. Unless you want to be torn apart by giant hawks. Or go home.”
Reluctantly, he follows me deeper into the underbrush.
Not ten minutes of slashing later, we arrive at an archway carved into the stone wall. Inside, the lowest step nearly obscured by a pile of dead, dry leaves, a stairway winds upward into the darkness.
“I don’t like this.” Alistair’s mouth is set in a flat line.
“Got any better ideas?”
Hefting the pack, I hold out the torch. “How badly do you want to awaken the Sleeping Beauty, Alistair?”
He hesitates before answering, “I’m starting to think that no maiden is worth this.”
“I told you that at the bottom of the mountain.”
Inside the passageway, we soon need the torch. It burns with a pungent, acrid tang that smothers my ability to smell anything else, including my own soiled clothing, and the smoke makes my eyes water. Impossible to stay downwind of it in this cramped space. We shuffle upward, blind and vulnerable.
Like the exterior, the staircase is a series of steep switchbacks. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve doubled back, inching upward.
The dimness lightens gradually until the passageway spits us out onto a ledge big enough for the two of us to stand up comfortably. Time has worn away what must have once been a stone railing.
I go to the edge and stare out at the vista below, a luxury I didn’t allow myself previously.
“Look how far we’ve come.” Alistair sounds more cheerful than I’ve heard him in hours. “All we have to do is get through that door, and we’ll find my queen. I’m sure of it.”
Unmoved by the sunset sky painted in ribbons of vivid color above velvety forests, the prince tries the handle.
“Locked. Why would someone tell us to come all the way up here, only to confront us with a locked door?”
“Either they didn’t know it was locked, or this is a trap.” Kneeling, I begin taking out the supplies we’ll need to survive the night. “Care to bet which?”
For once, Alistair has no smart response. It seems to be belatedly sinking in that this quest isn’t designed to test his mettle before allowing him to claim the maiden. It’s designed to kill him.
To kill us both.
Why did Alistair’s great-great-grandfather place his cursed bride in an impenetrable magic castle?
Why fill the castle grounds with fae beasts?
Why make the door so thick? To keep monsters out, or to keep something worse in?
I haven’t heard that odd scuffling sound since we entered the passageway.
“What’s the plan, Kill?”
My shoulders ache as I flex to raise the dulled axe, eyeing the thick wood panel. Alistair plucks the smooth wood handle from my hands like it’s a toothpick and hefts it high. The blade winks in the fading light.
“Allow me. You’ve been swinging that thing all day.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. He can be gallant, when he wants to be. Alistair’s a prince with all the flaws and arrogance of a man warped by wealth and power, but he is the one person in the world I’m willing to die for.
A creak of hinges and the thick slab of iron-bound wood edges back an inch. Alistair nearly drops the axe on my head. The gap inches wider, its whine of unoiled metal scraping along my spine.
One eye peers at us, just above the handle. Alistair shrinks back. “What the?—”
“At last, you come. One survived!”
The creature’s voice sounds ancient. Her rheumy eye squints at me, then widens.
“Two! Ah! That is why you made it farther than all the others. Teamwork makes the dream work.”
Alistair and I exchange a look.
“Come, come. There is no time to waste. We must get you to the sleeping maiden so you can awaken her with a kiss.”
I snort.
“You do not believe that a kiss can break the curse?”
“Don’t take it personally. I don’t believe in much.”
“I do not care how you awaken the girl, only that you do it, and quickly. Quickly!”
She shuffles along, pulling herself up the railing with gnarled hands. She’s dressed in rags and walks with a decided limp, leading us along a passageway lit by candles fastened to the stone with iron hooks.
“Who are you?” Alistair asks, “Where are you taking us?”
“To the maiden, so you can wake her up and free me from this burden!” the crone fists her rags, shaking them.
“I suppose you’ll transform into a beautiful woman once she wakes up?” He nudges me. “One for me, one for you.”
“No, young man. I will finally be able to die.”
Alistair and I exchange wary glances, then reluctantly, we climb after her.
“Why do you desire death?” Alistair’s being awfully chatty with our new companion.
“Look at this decrepit shell.” She shakes her ragged dress. “I have tried to escape the prison of my decaying body to no avail. As punishment for my crime, I am cursed to live until Sleeping Beauty awakens. Watch your step.”
She points, too late. Alistair’s heavy boot lands on a trigger. I yank him backward in the nick of time to avoid a razor-sharp blade that swings from the wall—and decapitates the crone.
Blood spurts across the wall. Her head rolls down a few steps, its trajectory stopped by my boot.
“I hate it when that happens,” the severed head says.
Alistair blanches, his paleness tinged with a sickly green undertone visible even in the gloom. Bravely, he picks up the crone’s head by her greasy gray hair and asks it, “How are you still alive?”
“I explained. I’m cursed,” she responds with a note of petulance. Blood drips from her severed neck, spattering his boot. A few feet away, her body blindly searches for its missing part. Hands tap the stone, leaving red palm prints.
“Give me my head back.”
Alistair taps the body on the shoulder and places her head in her hands. She puts it on, adjusts the placement, and the wound seals, leaving a raw, raised scar.
She’s covered in them.
Bite marks, cuts, the unmistakable gashes of compound fractures that burst through the skin. I wince. That’s one hell of a curse.
“Who are you?” I repeat Alistair’s question, then clarify, “Your name.”
“Queen Isadora,” she says, shoving the rags down her ravaged arms. “Many years ago, I prevented my son from marrying that trollop.”
“By poisoning his bride at her own betrothal ball.”
Her gaze cuts to mine, suddenly as sharp as a thorn.
“I did what I had to do, young man.”
“Wait.” Alistair shakes his head. “If I understand correctly, you are my great-great-great-grandmother.”
“I thought you had a familiar look about you!”
The crone seizes his chin and turns his face this way and that, examining his features. She can only reach him because she is standing above us on the stairs.
“You have the look of him. My son.” She gives a nod of satisfaction. “My efforts have been worth the sacrifice, then. Come. Night has fallen. The sooner you awaken the Sleeping Beauty, the sooner I can die.”
She crooks one gnarled finger and says, “Follow me.”