Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
THE REUNION
The soft embrace of blankets greeted Sylvi upon waking.
In the quiet dark surrounding her, body aching at a level she had never known to exist, Sylvi could not bear to open her eyes.
Instead, she cataloged every strand of fur pressed against the exposed skin of her neck and legs, every fiber grazing her broken arm and cut feet.
If she didn’t acknowledge the world around her beyond this, she could ignore the problems that undoubtedly awaited her beyond the warmth.
She could enjoy these moments of comfort and security—her own world separate from the one that had fallen apart in a moment of fear so consuming she could think of little else.
The sudden recollection of Arve’s head hitting overgrown cobblestone, however, created a swell of warmth beneath her breastbone, and she opened her eyes.
Given her last memory, Sylvi was somewhat surprised to wake up in a familiar chamber in her tattered dress.
She sat up, awe-struck, and allowed the blankets to fall around her waist. Broken arm cradled close and smothered beneath thick furs, she stared, mouth agape, at the space before her, hypnotized by the memories invading her mind.
The room hadn’t changed much in the years since she’d last seen it.
A painting of snow-covered trees still hung above the bed, curiously free of the cobwebs draped in the rafters and along the tops of the armoires.
A shelf packed with books and trinkets originally from her mountain home loomed along the right wall, across from stained-glass windows and thick curtains.
A vanity with a hairbrush and a circlet still sat in the corner, freshly cleaned and free of dust, as if she hadn’t left them in the dark of the night to escape the castle with her father all those years ago.
Sylvi pressed a hand to her lips, closed her eyes, and inhaled, thankful for the grounding scent of the fire crackling in the hearth.
Regardless of her feelings in the past, of how she had fled the future she mourned, she had reached Castle Mourem.
And, if the shadowed form at the cursed gates meant anything, she had also seen Elias.
He wasn’t dead.
Overwhelmed and hands trembling, she considered her new circumstances.
Viggo’s demand that she travel from her mountain home to his clan stronghold had been a surprise, and the lack of time to prepare left her at a strange sort of mercy.
Her father, her only surviving family, had died only days prior, and the period of mourning had not passed.
It wasn’t proper to ask a woman to travel so soon.
Not that Viggo was a man bound by any code or morals beyond his own.
Perhaps the demand shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering her father had been the only obstacle between her and Viggo.
The patriarch of the Barem clan had been inquiring after her hand for years, desperate to bring her magic under the control of his family.
After the royal family was thought to be completely massacred, and her betrothal to Prince Elias consequently nullified, Viggo would ride to their mountain hold several times a year, bearing all sorts of gifts and gold.
Sylvi had made a consistent habit of sending him away, but it didn’t matter.
Her father’s refusal to give her to Viggo, especially since he had intended to give her to an alleged demon initially, was the only sign she needed to know he was a bad man.
Sylvi lowered her aching body back onto the bed, lip tucked between her teeth.
Viggo was a bad man…and now he was a bad man with a slain brother.
He would never allow the person who killed Arve to survive.
Or her, for that matter. He would come to the castle.
Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but eventually he would come.
His desperation for her magic and revenge for Arve’s death would call the warlord to Castle Mourem like a siren’s song.
The beat of her heart within her injured arm increased, and she swallowed down the nausea overwhelming her stomach.
She was physically in shambles, starved from days on the run in the elements, and nursing a broken arm in a castle with a being that might be more demon than man.
But if she left, she would be at the mercy of a vile cretin bent on revenge for Arve’s death.
Neither place seemed safe, but what else was she to do?
Perhaps her effort to get to the castle was more foolish than she initially believed. Even though she now knew he was alive, Elias might be too far gone.
Shame swelled within her at the thought. Elias had been good to her as a child. Given her current accommodations, he was likely still the same boy. Older and probably less human than he had been as a child, but still the same boy yearning for a world much kinder than the cage he lived in.
But what had she done to that boy, if not led a true monster—Viggo—to his doorstep?
“We will be all right,” she whispered. Tears welled along her lashes and her lip quivered. “Everything will be all right.”
Filled with remorse, pain, and regret, Sylvi wept. The night, her quiet companion, welcomed it.
The fire had long since died when Sylvi awoke again. Pain and cold had settled deep in her bones, compelling her to stay burrowed in the blankets. But the rays from the sun streaming through the stained-glass windows called to her and provoked her into moving.
Lying in bed would not solve any of her many problems.
Her arm, lightly bandaged and splinted while she slept, throbbed in a deep, desperate pain, and she held it close.
If she could find some life—a tree or some grass—she could borrow some life from them to begin to heal.
It would be a slow process, but it would be better that allowing her bones to knit on their own.
Her future was uncertain and she couldn’t allow herself to be hindered by a broken arm.
The thick, wooden door leading to the outside corridor loomed ahead, and her pulse quickened.
Someone, presumably Elias, had brought her to her old room.
A part of him did not want her dead. She hoped that part of him continued fighting the monster within that compelled him to kill his family that fateful night.
Her thoughts strayed to the potential for finding signs of life as she padded across the room on bare, aching feet.
The trees around Castle Mourem had long ago fallen to the strange curse plaguing Espa Brus and the blades of grass had gone with them.
The ground had taken upon the evil of the demon, if the rumors were to be believed, and anything growing from it had died the moment the royal family perished.
If healing was not possible, if there wasn’t a single sign of life in the gardens or halls, then she would simply have to hope Elias’s demon was feeling generous enough to let her stay until her arm was whole again, or until she could find another way to escape Viggo’s reach.
The castle hadn’t changed since the night she left.
The same tapestries hung on the walls, and moth-eaten rugs lingered along the floor.
Sylvi noticed sconces outside the castle’s many doorways, but no torches occupied them.
It was as if Elias had lived in darkness since his family passed. Maybe he had.
The iron door leading to the dungeons beckoned her forward. Unlike the rest of the corridor, the doorway was free of cobwebs and the door hung slightly open. Cold swiped at her skin as she pulled it wide and her breath passed through the air in a cloud.
Elias had always lived in the dungeons before.
Even though his father was dead, she somehow doubted he’d take the king’s former chambers.
She’d never known Elias to have a shred of respect for his father or the mantle he held.
While he was technically the king of Espa Brus now, she realized with a start, the throne was never anything the boy in the cage ever wanted.
Grief tugged at her heart.
All Elias had wanted was love.
She stepped down into the curling stairs.
The cool draft and smell of damp stone brought back flashes of childhood experiences of visiting Elias when he was locked away.
King Iverr had always shut him inside his dungeon chamber for days when his curse visually progressed.
Each time a finger shifted from man to monster, Elias would be sequestered for weeks.
When the scales reached the underside of his jaw, weeks more.
As she reached the dungeon corridor, it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps she had it all wrong.
Maybe Elias had wanted to kill his family and the demon simply didn’t stop him.
Unsure how she felt about that realization, Sylvi pressed on. Answers wouldn’t suddenly present themselves. If she wanted to understand what happened that night, she’d have to ask Elias.
If her father had prepared her for nothing else, he had prepared her for this moment, at least.
Elias’s cell was at the end of the corridor.
The door, the only one made of solid iron, hung open in invitation.
Arm still cradled against her abdomen, Sylvi approached, bare feet silent against the stone.
Beyond a steady drip drip of water echoing along the damp stone, no sounds reached her ears.
Elias had always been able to move like an assassin in the dark, however. The lack of noise meant nothing.
She held her breath and stepped into the doorway of his former cell.
In her youth, she had never seen inside. Her mind had conjured images, of course, in the hours she spent outside it, talking to him and pushing drawings beneath the door. She had hoped during those conversations that the interior was more livable than his usual cage.
The reality was worse than she’d imagined.
The cell was cramped and chilled…and exceedingly empty. Blankets were piled in the corner, and a small table with an oil lamp sat against the left wall. An open wooden chest took up another corner of the room.
She edged forward to the center of the space. Had he always lived like this? Alone in an empty cell?
The soft sound of footsteps in the corridor sent her heart flying into her throat. Despite her fear, she inhaled deep and steeled her nerves. If Elias wanted her dead, he could’ve left her outside the gate or taken her head along with Arve’s.
She would have to trust that their childhood relationship, however one-sided it oftentimes felt, would keep her alive.
While the shadow along the ground at the gate had hinted at his size, Sylvi wasn’t prepared for the large, looming form Elias occupied now. Towering just inside the doorway, his head well above its frame, he watched her with uncertainty in his eyes.
The curse had taken over the left side of his body, covering his arm and spreading through the open front of his black tunic to the front of his throat.
Scales crept past his jaw, edging close to his left eye, and his ear no longer bore round edges, but instead came to a point.
Horns, once small enough to hide if one tried, now curled along his scalp, a frame against his blood-red hair.
And between his hands, nestled inside a large, bronze pot, was something she never expected.
All moisture vacated her mouth at the small pear tree.
“How?” Sylvi had planned on saying something much more profound the first time she saw Elias again, but all she could see was the one plant in the kingdom that hadn’t died being held by the monster who allegedly killed them all. “I thought…”
Hesitant, she stepped closer, but Elias didn’t move.
He watched her, his unnerving stare unchanged despite the years since she’d last seen it.
Elias knew much of her relationship with plants, more than anyone else since her mother passed.
The significance of this gesture, of his willingness to bring her the one thing that could truly help, was not lost on her.
The leaves were soft and full of life. Clusters of pears hung from hearty branches, and they called to her. She felt the throbbing in her broken arm even in her teeth, but now that she had means by which to heal, all her pain and sense of helplessness could stop.
She allowed her magic to seep into the leaves. The plant gave to her almost the moment she asked it permission, sending heat into her skin.
All too soon, she had to withdraw her hand. Her arm, while less painful, was far from healed. However, the plant was the last in Espa Brus. Killing it for her own gain, no matter her injuries, would not do.
“Thank you,” she whispered, both to the tree and the man who held it.
Unable to distract herself with healing any longer, Sylvi forced her gaze to meet Elias’s own. He watched her, expressionless, before setting the brass pot on the floor.
Before she could ask any of her many questions—How are you alive?
What happened that night? Why did you kill your father?
—Elias pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek, and the warmth settled her somewhat erratic heartbeat.
This was Elias. He had never harmed her before.
He’d never even tried. She believed, perhaps foolishly, that fondness hadn’t left him, no matter his curse.
It is yours.
A soft gasp brushed her lips at the sound of his voice filling her mind. In their time together before, Elias had never communicated beyond taps and nods. How…?
She searched his throat for the scar that once lingered there, only to find it had been covered entirely with the same scaled flesh that now engulfed his left arm.
Confused, but hopeful, she licked her chapped lips. “What is mine?”
The plant. He glanced at the pear tree. You grew it from seed in your hand.
Her memory traveled back to the small bag of beans and seeds she once carried on her belt. “You took care of it?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. He tapped her forehead twice—Yes—before allowing his fingertip to rest against her skin.
Come with me.