Chapter 8
Niamh
The door shut in my face as I processed Nevan’s words.
Another bride. He’d definitely said another bride.
Which meant I wasn’t the first one. And then I started wondering how many brides the prince had found, and what had happened to them.
Sweat gathered on my palms, and I rubbed them against my dress.
Here I was, thinking I’d found a safe haven. A utopia. How foolish.
I groaned, knowing I’d have to tell Morton about this. He’d get himself worked up in a frenzy, and then he’d say “I told you so.”
Wolfe strode toward the stairwell and away from me. “Hey! Wait just a minute.” I lifted my skirt and ran down the spiral stairs after him.
“I’m busy,” he said.
Oh no. He was not about to ignore me after that little revelation. I shoved past him, which wasn’t easy with his big frame taking up the tiny space.
“What are you—” he started.
I managed to get in front of him, stopping the big brute in his tracks. “What did that mean?” I asked. “Why has this high prince of yours had multiple brides?” I stopped, my mind immediately going to the worst-case scenario. “Does he kill them?” I put a hand to my head. “Am I a sacrificial bride?”
Oh, this was so bad. So, so bad. Morton was right. I should’ve asked more questions, should’ve been more cautious, but I was so excited to know that I wasn’t going to be on my own that I’d jumped at this opportunity.
“I don’t have time for this ridiculousness,” Wolfe growled, attempting to get past me. But I refused to budge, planting my hands on either wall and forming a blockade.
I raised my chin, heart hammering. “Well, make time.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You will have to get those answers from the prince. I am just the guard.”
I let out a strangled sound, so fed up with him. “You’re insufferable, you know that?” I narrowed my gaze, a plan forming. “I won’t leave you alone. I will follow you all day, and I’ll talk. I’ll talk a lot. You’d be surprised how good I am at talking.”
“No, I don’t think I would be,” he muttered.
“I won’t leave you be until you take me to the prince and get me the answers I seek.”
His jaw locked, and I thought he was about to ignore me and tell me to fuck off, but he surprised me when he said, “You want to find the prince? Come with me.”
I trailed after Wolfe down the stairs of the tower, not sure what I’d just gotten myself into.
Yes, I wanted answers, but part of me also didn’t.
I twisted my hands together, thinking through all the possibilities of why Cillian had multiple brides, and more importantly, what had happened to those brides.
Would it be better to know if I was going to die or just keep living in blissful ignorance until one day, boom, the castle killed me?
Or Cillian killed me. Or Wolfe did. Either way, it definitely seemed like this all might be leading to my death.
My lungs constricted and my stomach tightened into knots.
Just breathe, I reminded myself, massaging my chest. We emerged into a hallway, walls painted a mossy green and the ceiling painted with tree branches, leaves, and sunshine, making me feel like I was walking through a forest. I did a double take, realizing the tree branches swayed, and the sound of a breeze rustled through the air.
I stopped in front of a statue of the Fairwitch, leader of the godwitches and said to be the most powerful.
Fairwitch stared at me with a smirk on their face, hair spiked.
From photos I’d seen, I knew their hair was dark brown, their skin like ebony, and it was said their eyes were the bluest of blue.
“Do you think it’s the Fairwitch’s magic that powers this castle?” I asked Wolfe, needing the distraction from my darker thoughts. Wolfe clearly wouldn’t be giving me any answers, so I’d have to wait for Cillian to find out if my theory was right.
He stopped, turning and looking at the statue and sighing heavily, like I was dragging the answer out of him. “Or the hearth godwitch.”
I thought about my tower, about the hearth godwitch’s statue in it, the texts that made it clear the hearth godwitch’s magic was responsible for the tower.
“I don’t think so. This castle is more powerful than even my little tower.
It feels like every part of it is alive somehow.
” I glanced up at the swaying branches and rustling leaves painted on the ceiling, breathing in the scent of fresh wood and pine floating through the air. “Like it has a mind of its own.”
“In any case, it doesn’t matter. We have a prince to find, remember?” He spun on his heel, and now it was my turn to sigh.
I couldn’t believe Wolfe was actually taking me to the prince. I’d been angry when I demanded it, but he was stubborn, and I hadn’t actually expected him to listen.
I wondered where Cillian was. I hadn’t seen him since yesterday, when he’d deposited me in my room and then left in a hurry.
I missed his comforting, cheery tone. I’d been holed up in my room since I got here, visited by a lady’s maid with new clothes, and Chef Elowyn and Chef Liam, who had wowed me with their turnip, onion, and braised lamb stew and cheddar biscuits.
I’d been too afraid to actually leave my tower, worried I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.
But the lady’s maid had visited this morning and convinced me to take a stroll and get to know the castle on my own.
Morton had found some books to eat under the bed, so I was on my own and attempted to find my way to the kitchen to nab more of Elowyn’s cheddar biscuits but had somehow ended up in the healer’s quarters instead.
Wolfe was getting farther away, and I had to lift my skirts and run to keep up with him. “Will you slow down?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes like I was the biggest inconvenience he’d ever met but slowed his pace as the hallway opened into a landing, the wooden banister being shined by a servant.
I ran my finger across the gleaming cherry wood. “Can’t the castle just do that itself?”
Wolfe stopped and looked down at me, his thick eyebrows furrowing. “What?”
I pointed to the woman cleaning the banister. “Well, it’s a magical castle. Can’t it just clean itself with the supplies here?”
“Then she wouldn’t have a job,” Wolfe said. “We use magic to enhance our lives, not replace them.”
That reminded me of Princess Ashami. It was something she would’ve said.
Something she actually did say when I’d been worried about being replaced by magic.
She’d told me I was invaluable, that she’d never survive without me.
It was funny because I’d felt the same about her, about my parents, about all of Bergenay.
If anyone had told me my home would be attacked and I’d be one of few survivors, I’d have laughed in their face and told them they were mistaken.
That I was the weakest of those in my kingdom, the least likely to survive.
Yet here I was. By complete accident.
I glanced at the servant as we passed her. Wolfe’s admission made me like this place even more. It seemed like Cillian didn’t want to take advantage of the magic here, which he could very well do. Surely someone with that kind of moral compass wouldn’t just go and collect brides to sacrifice them.
At least I hoped not.
“What happened to your hand?” I gestured to Wolfe’s bandage as we descended the stairs.
Just like the outside of the castle, the inside was colorful, with garlands of flowers hanging down the rails and sun shining in from the glass-vaulted ceiling high above.
“Apparently I broke it fighting your tower.” Wolfe frowned at it. “Not my hand. My wrist.”
I gaped at him. “You broke your wrist five days ago? But you were just walking around like nothing happened.”
He shrugged and looked away. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course it is. You should’ve been seen right away.”
“I did get seen.”
“Five days after it happened,” I pointed out, not sure what to make of this man.
“I’ve been busy,” he said in return. “In case you haven’t noticed. What was I supposed to do during our journey? Wander the hills calling for a healer in hopes they heard me? That would’ve distracted us from the goal of getting back here, getting to safety.”
It was just a crack, the smallest break in his armor, but I realized Wolfe had been as desperate to get to safety, hidden behind this magical barrier, as I was.
Only, I wanted the safety for myself, but I suspected Wolfe couldn’t care less about himself.
It was Cillian he’d been trying to protect.
The sharp edges of my dislike for the guard softened.
“Okay, but we arrived yesterday. You could’ve visited the healer immediately.
Too busy to fix a broken bone?” I clucked my tongue.
“My mother would’ve given you an earful for that.
” My heart felt raw talking about her. Morton and I had reminisced about everyone we’d lost countless times, but it was different telling someone about her who’d never met her.
Who never would. It also felt cathartic in a way, like I was keeping her memory alive.
I sniffled and cleared my throat. “She was our castle healer, and she was very stern about injuries. If someone so much as got a paper cut, they’d see her right away, not because they were worried about the cut, but because they were worried if they waited and it got worse, Healer Sorscha would set her wrath upon them. ”
He snorted. “Your mother is a healer?”
“Was,” I clarified, and he stiffened.
“Right. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Pain pricked my heart. Loss. Like her life was somehow misplaced and I just needed to find it. My mother’s death wasn’t a loss. It was a theft. Someone had taken her from me. Taken everyone from me.
“She was a very good healer,” I said softly, “but she’d never have allowed you to walk around with a broken wrist.”
She wouldn’t even let me wander outside the castle grounds, so worried about me even when I had grown into an adult.
Of course, by then I could do whatever I wanted, but with my parents’ warnings about danger and death lurking around every corner, I rarely wanted to leave the castle, and I never needed to, not when I had everything I could want inside its walls.
We got to the bottom of the stairs and walked across the smooth wooden floors toward the big front doors of the castle.
“My mother is like that too,” he said, so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.
“You have a mother?” I blurted out, then realized how utterly stupid the question was.
“Well, I didn’t sprout from a seed, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. His voice as severe as ever, but underneath that full beard, his lips twitched just the slightest bit. “I also have three brothers.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “There are four of you?” I couldn’t imagine. “Your poor mother.” I realized too late I’d said that out loud, but Wolfe didn’t look even slightly offended.
“You’ve met two of them.”
My brows furrowed. I’d barely met anyone yet, so I wasn’t sure who he could possibly be talking about.
He gave me a look like I was a simpleton. “Cillian and Nevan?”
My mouth dropped open. “Cillian is your brother?” Nevan, I could see now that I thought about it.
They had the same dark brown hair, though Nevan’s was shorter and neater, the same pale skin and thick brows that arched over his deep-set eyes, the same full lips.
But Cillian’s features were more precise, more symmetrical, like he’d been carved from a statue.
“Half brother,” Wolfe clarified. “They’re all my half brothers.”
Well, that might explain why Wolfe was a giant compared to them. Cillian and Nevan were both tall, but Wolfe towered over everyone.
“Wait a minute.” Cillian had said his last name was Wolfgang. “So your name is Wolfe Wolfgang?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wolfe is a nickname that’s just stuck over the years. My first name is Rafe.”
I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he cut me off.
“And no, you’re not allowed to call me that.”
Rafe “Wolfe” Wolfgang.
I couldn’t believe I’d spent days traveling with Cillian and Wolfe and neither had mentioned they were brothers. My head was spinning with this information as the doors flung open, those stone gargoyles holding them, and I had to shield my eyes from the sun as I trailed after him.
“You’re holding the door too wide,” the gargoyle on the left barked.
“Maybe you’re holding the door wrong. Did you ever think I’m holding it correctly and you’re the screw-up?” the other gargoyle shouted.
“Oh please. I am definitely not the screw-up of the two of us.”
“Enough!” Wolfe shouted over his shoulder as the gargoyles closed the doors.
“What’s his problem?” one of them muttered from behind us.
“No clue. He’s such a grump.”
I hid my laughter behind my hand. “Do they always fight like that?”
“Yes,” Wolfe said. “Sometimes their fighting can be heard late into the night, keeping residents awake.”
We walked down the stairs and through the big iron gates into the town, silence settling over us as I pondered our conversation. “Wait a minute,” I said after a while. “You said three brothers, but you only mentioned Nevan and Cillian. What about the third brother?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder. “You promised you wouldn’t talk if I took you to the prince.”
I scoffed. Ass. “No, I said if you didn’t take me to him, I’d talk all day.”
He grunted in response.
I skipped ahead. “Is this your way of telling me you’re done conversing? Are you at your limit today, sunshine?”
He rolled his eyes, but there went those lips again, the slightest twitch to them. “Do you want to find the prince or not?”
“I do!” I said.
“Then I suggest you be quiet and let me do my job.”
“If you say so . . . sunshine.”
His jaw locked, filling me with way too much satisfaction. Maybe this walk to find the prince wouldn’t be so bad after all.