Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Each day, the journey grew more miserable.
The roads grew poorer and the traveling companions more tedious.
The accommodations were smaller, dirtier, and more spare; the food blander.
Henry grew tired of his own company, while Stefano wasn’t much company at all.
He’d stopped speaking in his frog form—Henry was unsure whether this was because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t—and when released from his cage at night, he huddled silently in his damp silk.
Although they dreamed together each night, it took longer and longer for Stefano to emerge from the pond and turn into his true self—and even then, he retained increasingly more frog qualities.
On their last night before crossing the border, dream-Stefano crawled reluctantly out of a pond that was now more like a sea. He sat there on the bank for a long time, unblinking. Twice he shot out his tongue to capture and eat a fly.
“You won’t change?” Henry would have been devastated if it weren’t for the iron bands. Even with them, his throat felt tight and his eyes burned.
After a long pause, Stefano shimmered, expanded, and skewed, until he was again a two-legged man.
His skin was green, however, his head bald, and he had long webbed fingers and toes.
His lipless mouth was far too wide, his eyes too big and bulging.
It was unnerving to look at this monster who was also the man Henry loved.
“Are you all right?” Henry asked, then winced at the stupidity of his question. “I mean, are you in pain? Is there anything you need?”
Stefano opened and closed his mouth. “Losing… myself….” His words were hoarse and hard to understand.
Henry did the only thing he could and folded him into an embrace, as if his arms alone could keep Stefano safe. “I love you, Stef. Remember that. Let my love anchor you.”
Then Henry woke up and it was morning. Gray light crawled in through the single curtainless window, and because the opening was unglazed, it let in the reek of cow shit and onions.
Stefano had perched on the windowsill, facing out, the only source of bright color in the room.
Henry froze, positive that Stefano was about to leap off the ledge.
“Stef,” he whispered. “Stefano, please don’t go.”
Stefano shifted around and stared solemnly at him. He gave a single croak that sounded almost like a human child’s cry. Then he jumped toward the bed, landing on Henry’s chest. He weighed almost nothing.
“We’ll be there soon,” Henry assured him. “We’ll get everything straightened out.” He wasn’t at all sure that he was being honest, but sometimes a lie is required.
Few people traveled this route, so the coach line ended here.
Henry didn’t know how to ride a horse, and if there were any farmers or merchants with carts heading in the same direction, Henry hadn’t been able to find them in the little village.
So he did what he had to: he purchased and packed up some food and then attached Stefano’s cage to the top of his bag.
After slinging the bag onto his back, he ventured along a dusty roadway into the woods.
A couple of miles outside the village, he encountered a small building next to the road.
It was empty of everything except a few pieces of broken furniture.
This must have been the border with Innisbar, before Cyrus had annexed the region.
A few bored royal guards must have been posted here prior to the annexation, monitoring everyone entering Thanytsia—and, no doubt, soliciting bribes before letting travelers in.
Walking deeper into the forest, Henry wondered where those guards had been reassigned, and whether they were grateful for it.
Maybe they’d preferred the peace and quiet here.
It was pretty too, with a dense tree canopy overhead and some colorful flowers near the ground.
Birds and insects flew about like court acrobats, and the air smelled fresh and a bit fragrant.
Maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad. If Henry could summon the slightest idea of how to support them. If Stefano could remain fully human. If the king never bothered to scour the countryside in search of his youngest son. If Henry didn’t have those damned bands around his heart.
Over the next few hours, he passed a few tiny villages, each hardly more than a scattering of houses with lush vegetable gardens in front and chickens pecking everywhere.
The residents stared at him silently, not exactly hostile but certainly not welcoming.
Most likely they recognized him as Thanytsian and were less than pleased to have quite suddenly been made Thanytsian as well.
Maybe they suspected that their new king intended to destroy their homeland.
In any case, Henry was glad he’d stocked up on provisions before crossing the former border. But night approached quickly in the forest, and there was no inn to be found.
When he and Stefano were boys, they used to occasionally camp out in the garden.
They would build a makeshift shelter out of sheets and then spread blankets and cushions on the ground.
They rarely got much sleep as they lay next to each other, listening to the night sounds and talking endlessly about whatever flitted through their heads.
It was during those evenings that Henry first started to fall in love with Stefano—when Henry sensed the light in the prince’s soul, and when he realized that despite their vastly different statuses, Stefano considered him an equal.
But now they were no longer children, and the Innisbar forest was not a palace garden.
Furthermore, Stefano lacked sheets, blankets, or pillows.
He found a little stream near the road, however, and cleared away larger branches and stones from a small spot along its bank.
In the day’s last light, he sat down, unpacked Stefano’s cage, and opened it up.
Stefano didn’t hesitate to hop out. He landed on the ground and looked around.
“At least you’ll be comfortable tonight,” Henry said.
Instead of replying, Stefano hopped into the stream and disappeared from sight.
Henry had walked all day and was exhausted.
He barely had the energy to drink a few mouthfuls of water and eat an apple and a small sausage.
He certainly wasn’t capable of tracking down a frog in the dark.
He lay down on the bumpy ground with his bag as a pillow, and he listened to his own heartbeat.
It sounded different than it used to, the beats weaker and slightly out of rhythm, and he didn’t know whether to blame the curse or losing Stefano.
He felt very sorry for himself, which did nobody any good.
It was too bad the bands didn’t stop self-pity.
If he dreamed of anything that night, it didn’t stick. But when he woke up to pale morning sun, his body aching, Stefano was perched on a nearby stone, looking as if he’d been guarding Henry as he slept.
“Thank you for returning,” Henry said quietly. He got slowly to his feet and stretched out a few of the kinks. “Did you eat?”
Stefano tilted his head slightly before sticking out his tongue and using it to lick his lips, which Henry decided meant that Stefano had had his fill of insects and other tiny creatures.
“All right. Do you know how long before we reach the princess?” The question assumed that she was at her palace, that Stefano knew where the palace was, and that Stefano also knew the distance and could calculate Henry’s pace.
After a long pause—Stefano never had been good with numbers—he croaked four times.
“Four days?”
This time, Stefano nodded.
Henry suppressed a sigh. “You’ll need to direct me. Do you want to travel outside the cage, now that there’s nobody to see?”
Another nod.
After a quick meal and rudimentary washup, Henry tied his bag to his back. Stefano clambered up as if Henry were a tree, then settled on one shoulder. Although his weight was barely noticeable, Henry was very aware of his presence, which was both reassuring and disheartening.
As Henry walked, the road grew narrower and more uneven, with bits of fallen tree branches often in the way.
A coach couldn’t have passed here. In fact, as Henry trudged endlessly uphill, he saw only two other people: an older man and woman astride a single sturdy horse.
They were heading in the opposite direction and didn’t say anything as they passed.
If they noticed the frog on Henry’s shoulder, they didn’t react.
There were no villages here, no farms. Just…
nature. A lot of nature, including twittering birds, buzzing insects, and a dizzying array of plants in every possible shade of green.
Stefano would have been delighted; perhaps he still was.
Henry wouldn’t have minded making this journey with human-Stefano at his side, thrilled with every new discovery, explaining what they were seeing. But frog-Stefano was silent.
Shortly before nightfall, they reached a high ridge with sweeping views of the forest below.
A small waterfall cascaded from an even higher point, and Henry made camp near its base.
He sat on the ground and removed his boots.
Although they were well-made, his feet were not accustomed to so much walking.
He ate a little and, while Stefano splashed in the water, he lay back and gazed up at the stars.
The night sky reminded him of one of King Cyrus’s capes, a great length of black velvet embroidered with gold thread, studded with jewels, and edged with fine fur.
He slept soundly despite his hard bed.
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