6. Briar
Gradually, then in a rush of consciousness, I become aware of warm skin on mine and jerk away from the contact. Or try to. My muscles feel strangely weak. When I push up to sitting, the air expanding my lungs causes them to ache as if it’s the first time I’ve inhaled properly in years.
I gape at my surroundings in confusion.
“Who are you?”
Why are they staring at me without saying anything?
One looks familiar. A relative of the prince I nearly married, perhaps. The other…
He is like no one I have ever seen.
“Where am I?”
The second man stands back from the dais my…coffin or bed, I’m not sure which word best describes it, sits upon. His broad shoulders are framed in dark armor crafted of dark scales that shimmer in the low light. His hair is constrained in a loose knot tied at the back of his head, but pieces of it have escaped to frame his sharp jaw. He would be arresting even without blood smeared on his high cheekbone.
He takes two steps, a rolling, hypnotic gait that I can’t tear my gaze away from. Electric awareness sings over my skin. I can’t decide whether it’s fear or something altogether different.
Him. He’s the one.
Not the handsome man with dark blond hair that glints like the gold braid on his blue jacket, though he is the one who takes my hands reverently.
“Rose, darling.”
Abruptly, the light beneath my coffin-bed winks out.
There’s a tense moment of silence. Pulse galloping, in the absence of anything familiar, I clutch his velvet-clad arms with all my strength.
“There, there, darling. I’ve got you.” I feel him move, and his next words are directed at his companion. “Kill. Find a light.”
Kill. That cannot be the blood-and-armored man’s real name.
Sparks sear the darkness. In short order, the one called Kill has lit a candle. He continues prying them out of a chandelier that’s fallen to the floor, lighting them, melting the bases, and sticking them to surfaces until the alcove glows with flickering light.
I heave a sigh of relief. My ribs ache with the movement.
I hate the dark. Monsters thrive in darkness. When I was a child, I would lay frozen in terror of invisible creatures beneath my bed. I never completely outgrew my fear.
“We stay here until morning.” His rough, low voice scrapes pleasantly along my neck. “Sleep in shifts. It’s our best chance of escaping alive.”
“Escape? From what?”
“From monsters like that one.” He points. A squeak of alarm rushes past my lips as I follow the trail of blood up the stairway and spy the unmoving basilisk.
“Dead?” The word comes out in a choked whisper.
“We dispatched it. Don’t fret,” says the prince in the blue jacket who won’t stop touching me.
A quiet scoff reaches the edge of my hearing. I have the distinct sense that the man smeared with blood is the hero who slayed the monster. Not the overly handsome one in the bright blue jacket. I may have been raised a sheltered farmer’s daughter, but I’m not stupid.
I fix the handsy one with a glare.
“Who are you?”
At least give me your name before you start trying to sneak a feel of my breast.
I keep moving away or brushing his hands off, but he’s an octopus. I’ve seen that concupiscent expression on other men’s faces.
Not on the one called Kill’s arresting face, though. He looks at me like he wants to feed me to the next monster that comes along.
“I am Alistair, the crown prince of Belterre and heir to the royal throne.”
Out of habit, I bob a curtsey. The last thing I remember is drinking too much wine at a ball to celebrate my unwanted betrothal to a different prince, and then collapsing on the ballroom floor. Very embarrassing, though it was one way out of the situation I’d found myself in.
The last prince was relentless and handsy, too. I dreaded my wedding.
Everyone assured me that once I was married, he would leave me alone to pursue mistresses.
Ironic, that the best way to get rid of a man was to wed him.
But I didn’t want a royal life. I missed the farm and the eternal rhythm of the seasons. Sunlight on my face and sinking my toes into the earth.
I knew the chalice was poisoned.
I drank from it anyway.
“What happened to my fiancé?”
“He is...” This new prince—if he is telling the truth about his status—captures my hands again. “I am rarely at a loss for words, Rose. It’s complicated. There is no need for concern, however, for I shall marry you as soon as we get you down this wretched mountain.”
Why can’t he give me a straight answer?
“Mountain?” I echo. “Marry?” I can’t marry this man. I’m already betrothed, not that I wanted to be. I’m not marrying a complete stranger, even if he is almost as pretty as I am. “My sincere apologies that you went to all the trouble you and your companion have apparently gone to, but I’ll be fine once I’m reunited with my prince.”
My prince. A lie, but one that will buy me time to figure out what is going on.
“Uh, about that…”
“Your beloved is long dead, Princess,” the surly one growls without so much as glancing at me. “You’ve been asleep for more than a century. This one—” he stabs a finger in the direction of Prince Alistair “—is his great-grandson.”
Whirling to the prince, I gasp. “It can’t be true.”
“I’m afraid it is, darling.”
I grit my teeth at the unwanted endearment. “What about my family? My parents? My brother?”
“Long dead,” the one called Kill—I’ve changed my mind; his ridiculous nickname is totally appropriate—drawls. Bored. He has the gall to be bored by my predicament. Unfeeling brute. The flutter of interest I felt for him at first sight withers on the vine.
Metal scrapes. He grunts as he pushes the huge iron ring of the chandelier onto its side and rolls it until it’s between two marble columns at the base of the nave, candle spikes facing outward. He’s clearly very strong to be able to move it. I am unimpressed. Mostly. Or so I tell myself.
“Give me a hand with this, Highness.”
There’s a tinge of disrespect in the way Kill says highness. It sets my teeth on edge even more than Prince Alistair’s cloying use of darling as an endearment. It’s the same way he called me princess, which I suppose I am, technically. But I wasn’t raised as royalty. Milking cows and tilling fields was my lot and I was content with it until the last prince upended my life. The crown prince desired my hand.
If Alistair is his great-grandson, then my original beau must have married another woman. Had children with her while I was locked in this strange castle in an enchanted sleep.
Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I’m glad I didn’t have to go through with the wedding. On the other, I’ve awoken in a time where I have no family left to protect me, and another prince has apparently set his sights upon me.
Same nightmare. Different century.
I mull all of this while the men rope the iron chandelier ring to the columns. It’s not much of a barrier, but I suppose it’s something to hold a larger monster at bay. A shiver works its way down my spine. Prince Alistair drapes a rough wool blanket around my shoulders, mistaking my fear for a chill.
“I’ll take first watch.” Mr. Blood-and-Armor drops onto the floor and swipes a stray strand of hair out of his eyes. Violet smudges darken the hollows beneath his gray eyes. Despite my dislike for him, I feel a twinge of sympathy. He’s exhausted. There’s a deep red slash across his cheekbone that only adds to his feral beauty. It looks painful.
“Sleep. Both of you. I’ll keep watch.” I shiver and rub my arms. “One of you should take the coffin-bed.” A wry smile ghosts over my lips. “It’s quite comfortable.”
“Are you sure, my darling?”
I nod. He kisses my lips, which feels like far too intimate a gesture from a man I just met. I don’t protest.
I know what’s expected of me. I don’t want it any more now than I did back then. Not that I have the slightest idea how to escape, this time.
He climbs into the bed without consulting his friend. Ordinary entitled prince nonsense that he doesn’t so much as ask whether his companion wants a turn. Within seconds, Prince Alistair’s eyes close. I didn’t even note what color they are. I don’t much care.
I edge my way around the nave, examining the frescoes on the wall. “You should get some rest. Aren’t you tired?”
A grunt is Blood-and-Armor’s only response.
“Your name isn’t really Kill, is it?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Briar.”
I smile at his use of my true name. The prince called me Rose, but I prefer Briar. I like that he used it, even if I don’t like anything else about him right now.
“I’m trying to piece together what happened to me.”
I remember drinking from the chalice like throwing myself off a cliff and trusting I’d sprout wings, but why? What was I hoping for?
He begins unbuckling straps. I watch from the periphery of my vision as he divests himself of his armor. Beneath, he wears a plain black shirt that’s visibly filthy despite the color and low lighting. A faint smirk plays at the corners of his mouth as he takes that off, too.
I jerk my gaze back to the frescoes, heart thudding.
Water splashes. He’s cleaning up. I keep my eyes on the story of my life painted on the walls. Neither man answered my question about what this place is. A church? A castle? An absurdly grand mausoleum?
“I meant it when I said I’d keep watch while you rest,” I say over my shoulder.
“No.”
“Why not? If it’s true that I’ve slept for a hundred years, then I won’t be needing rest anytime soon. I don’t fancy trying to fight our way past a creature like that basilisk with only a few candles to light our way. I’ll stay alert.”
“Don’t trust a woman to recognize a threat in time.” He jerks his head. “Go on. Crawl in with your one true love.”
Between us, Alistair snores in his bier.
I’m stung by both insults, but I’m accustomed to picking my battles. “He isn’t my love.”
Kill snorts. “If he weren’t, you wouldn’t be awake.”
I have no argument for that. The story is carved into the wall above our heads. All but the final blank panel. Does that mean my future is unwritten, or that I’m not yet “awakened,” whatever that implies?
“Well, I’m not tired. Sleep or don’t sleep, Kill. I won’t be nodding off either way.”
I glimpse his profile, sharp and angular, from the periphery of my vision. He’s listening. To me, for threats, or both, I don’t know. But the man sees more than he lets on, and he hears everything.
“I hate monsters,” I supply when he doesn’t respond.
“Even more reason for me to keep watch. Protect you,” he says gruffly.
“Protect the prince, you mean.”
“I said exactly what I meant, Princess. I always do.” He shrugs into a fresh shirt, black like the other one, but clean. Against my better judgment I sneak a glance. Candlelight flickers over his muscular back. “If you’re expecting flowery praise, look elsewhere.”
I ease the wool blanket off my shoulders, suddenly too warm to need it.
“I’m not really a princess.”
He huffs.
“I mean, I was born one. But the Isanthians sent a rider to drop me on a farmer’s doorstep in an enemy country when I was still an infant.”
Now that he’s not blood-streaked and armored, the prince’s rough companion has an arresting masculine beauty. This man’s features are as hard as granite.
He halts next to me. Transfixed, I can only peer up at him and blink. Disgust flashes over his expression. I’m suddenly mortified.
“Are you certain that story isn’t one more lie?” He flicks a lock of my long hair dismissively. “Who’s so afraid of a pretty girl that they send their own child away?”
I recoil. No one has ever spoken to me that way.
“Are you so belligerently overconfident that you think my curse is nothing?”
He blinks once in surprise. The smallest of reactions. His tight control makes me strangely angry. I want to snap it over my knee like a twig.
“Didn’t he tell you? Your friend. The prince.” I jerk my head at the man asleep in my coffin-bed. “My parents were terrified I would destroy the kingdom. You should have left me alone.”
If my sad history moves him in any way, he doesn’t show it. I’m suddenly ashamed of telling him about my curse. The Isanthians forbade me to ever return to my birth country, on pain of death. All I really know about my curse is that it was bad enough to cost me my family. Twice.
My foster parents kept me in the dark for as long as they could. They raised me with the earthy pragmatism of a commoner. But there came a day when I grew too old to be fooled by well-intended half-truths and my ignorance brought blight upon the land of Belterre, for all things warped and wicked were drawn to me.
The knight saunters away, staring out into the darkness. Hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Does he sense something that I can’t?
“It’s Killian.”
His words are so soft that I can scarcely make them out.
“My name is Killian,” he repeats when I don’t respond.
The tight squeeze around my ribs eases. I don’t know what prompted this overture of peace, but I’m grateful for it. Of the two men who were here when I awoke, I’ll throw in my lot with the one who can protect me. I can’t afford for him to despise me.
“Get some rest, Killian.”
I settle against the wall, clutching the rough blanket like a shield. The surly knight sits on the steps near the iron barrier.
A few minutes later, he lays back, his head cradled in his hands. I don’t believe he’s asleep, though I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest from the corner of my eye.
Time passes. At some point, despite my promise not to, I drift off—until a scuttling sound jerks me wide awake.