Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
THE BEFORE
The eldest prince of Espa Brus lived in a too-small cage the first time Sylvi met him.
He’d been naught but a boy, wearing nothing but a ripped tunic and trousers, and the blanket beneath his legs was so thin it should not be called a blanket at all.
He ignored her arrival entirely, too invested in the chicken leg someone must’ve dropped into his cage, and she wondered if his father, King Iverr, noticed his son sneering at him from between the iron bars.
“Welcome, Lord Sundem.” Iverr glanced at her from the head of the large table.
The gold thread of his red robes glinted in the light of the nearby fire.
He’d decided to call them into a council chamber to meet, and given the lingering goblets of wine scattered throughout, she suspected another meeting had just concluded.
“I trust the wait wasn’t too unbearable?
The council had many opinions about our recent accord with those Vithian dogs, and it took some time to address them all. ”
“No trouble at all, Your Majesty,” her father had said, as if he hadn’t been cursing King Iverr and all of House Mourem for their time spent standing in a cold reception room under the watchful eye of the castle steward.
“The honor you bestow upon my family is great, and I understand your council’s hesitance concerning our negotiations. ”
“Honor? Bah! A curse. Call it what it is, Peder.” Iverr curled his lip as he observed his caged offspring pick his teeth with a clean wishbone. “If you must suffer the blight of my house, I would prefer you do so without needless flattery. I owe you that much.”
“I will do as you command, my liege. Just as I did all those years ago in the war against those aforementioned Vithian dogs.” For the first time since they’d left home in a packed carriage with far too many dresses and hair ornaments, her father laughed.
He stroked his beard before dropping a hand on her shoulder. “This is Sylvi.”
She met the king’s stare with one of her own and subconsciously pulled her cloak close.
Many rumors about King Iverr had reached their hold in the mountains, and none of them had been flattering, at least to her.
According to her father, Iverr was a visionary with a spine of wrought iron, unbreakable in the thick of a fight.
According to the wives of visiting nobles, however, the king was nothing more than a philandering blowhard desperate for relevance and to save his small kingdom from complete annihilation.
Lips pursed in displeasure, she allowed herself a glance at the crown prince in the cage. Given what the man had done to his son, Sylvi was inclined to believe the stories. Who condemned their own child the way Iverr had condemned his?
“Hello, Sylvi.” Iverr studied her, and the weight of her father’s hand on her shoulder intensified. His fingers dug into the fur curtained around her neck, a quiet threat. She had one task and her father had no intention of seeing her fail. “Are you prepared to save a kingdom?”
Unsure what that meant, but equally certain she wasn’t meant to say so, Sylvi nodded.
“Good, good.” He motioned to the cage. “Go along. Meet your fate then.”
A firm push between her shoulder blades by her father sent Sylvi stumbling toward the caged prince on slipper-covered feet.
Fire crackled in the hearth, rivaling the racing beat of her heart in her ears as she neared.
While she had only seen nine winters in the mountains, she was smart enough to know the boy in the cage was not simply a boy.
The stories of his birth had traveled far, finding even her in the peaks despite the snow and icy roads.
The rumors of his early days had grown alongside her like a playmate—a horror story to frighten her and other children into compliance.
Sylvi saw the stories in him. Allegedly, if the rumors were to be believed, his mother died moments after his first shriek and his father stuffed a demon inside him shortly thereafter.
Demons were allegedly plentiful in the forests of Espa Brus, all believed to have wicked grins and horns.
As she crept close, malice shone in the boy’s eyes and in the way his lips parted to display pointed, glinting teeth.
Small horns poked through his deep red hair, and she found herself wondering what they would look like when he was a man.
It wasn’t until she crouched by his cage that he looked at her, with the remains of the chicken leg dangling from his fingers.
“Hello.” Her blood cooled when his red irises bore into her deep blue stare. “I’m Sylvi.”
The boy didn’t move, not even to breathe. Red lashes fanned against pale skin, and fire danced in the shine in his eyes.
Unsure how to respond to the unnerving way in which he stared, Sylvi glanced up to Iverr. “Your Majesty, what is his name?”
“Depends.” Iverr shrugged, lip curled as he glanced down at his son. “Elias is the name of my son. The demon? Well, he’s never revealed it.”
Her brow bunched as she returned her attention to the caged boy, surprised to find he still stared at her. “The demon?”
“The demon is all that’s left, girl.” A pause. “Until you succeed in breaking Elias’s curse, of course.”
In a fleeting moment, the boy’s eyes infinitesimally widened, as if his father said something profound and altogether unexpected.
“But until the moment he is free…the boy is simply Demon.” Iverr scoffed and turned on a booted heel. “Peder, would you care for a drink? You’ve traveled quite far for little gain.”
“Serving you is gain enough, my king,” her father said, although he didn’t sound terribly convincing. “However, I would be quite grateful for a drink.”
“Of course.” Iverr motioned toward the hearth and a small table with a brass decanter sitting atop it. “That’s the least I can provide considering the circumstances.”
Alone with the prince and uncertain how to proceed, Sylvi decided to settle on the wood floor across from him, legs tucked beneath her.
The fur lining of her cloak brushed against her jaw as the boy continued to stare with nary a breath, and the warmth of the fire suddenly wasn’t enough beneath the weight of his intent gaze.
Since they’d somehow fallen into a silent game of watch and wait, she allowed herself to observe him further.
Most of him was human, from the look of things—at least, for now.
One of her aunts had passed along the rumor he wouldn’t look human forever if the curse remained.
Sylvi decided there were far too many rumors when it came to Prince Elias, and she was tired of trying to decide which ones were real.
A portion of his neck and one of his hands were quite obviously not human, which did lead some credence to her silly aunt’s gossip.
About half of his throat and almost the entirety of his left hand no longer possessed human flesh, but instead a deep burgundy, scaled skin, and two of his fingernails had turned slate gray and unnaturally sharp, like claws. Weapons, if he wanted them to be.
“Hello, Elias,” she whispered. “In case you didn’t hear me before, I’m Sylvi…Lady Sylvi Sundem.”
The boy stared, silent still. She knew she was supposed to be speaking with him, being friendly and all, but how could she when he wouldn’t speak in return?
“According to your father, I should not call you Elias, but I am unsure what else to call you.” Sylvi glanced to the older men by the fire not-so-subtly watching them from the corners of their sharp eyes. “I think your father is rather ridiculous. Demon? I shall not call you that. It’s heartless.”
When no response came, she watched the prince twist in his cage to watch the older men. It wasn’t until he craned his neck to better sneer at their fathers standing before the ablaze hearth, drinks in hand, that she noticed a thick, glistening scar carved across the width of his throat.
Could Elias speak, even if he wanted to?
“They aren’t over here, you know. You can ignore them.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “They’re probably talking about something boring anyway. My father is very boring. I imagine your father is boring too. No imagination, either of them.”
Elias glanced at her briefly but shortly returned his attention to the older men again. His upper lip peeled back, revealing sharp teeth, and he wrapped his hands around the iron bars, ire visibly mounting the longer he watched them.
“Elias?” Sylvi glanced between the fireplace and the caged prince, panic climbing in her throat. “Please ignore them. If you don’t at least pretend to like me, my father will be very angry.”
The boy’s grip on the bars faltered and his angry snarl slowly fell away. His glanced back at her, brow pinched.
“Thank you,” she said, deeply meaning it even though Elias hardly looked thrilled about the prospect of speaking with her.
Failing her father was rarely a painless experience.
“I saw your neck, you know. I suspect you can’t talk.
” She continued wringing her hands, unsure what to do with them.
“It’s all right, you know. If you can’t talk, that is.
My father says I talk far too much—he slapped me for it just this morning, in fact—so I imagine I can talk enough for the both of us. ”
Elias stared at her, red eyes unblinking, and hope began to fight for air within her.
“How about this?” She smoothed her hair, hands trembling with something between fear and hope.
Failure was not an option. “I’ll ask you questions.
Tap on the floor twice if your answer is yes.
Tap once for no. I think that would work.
It’s more intentional than a nod, especially when several things are happening in the room. What do you think?”