Chapter Two #5
“What do you want from me?” I forced through gritted teeth. “Why are you telling stories and speaking in riddles? Tell me why I’m here.”
She laughed. “That’s what I was endeavoring to do before you ran off, but if you desire I should speak plainly, then I will grant your request. You are here because I am not marrying King Alisdair. You are.”
A roaring sounded in my ears, muffling the strange nonsense that dropped from the princess’s lips. I would’ve run again but Kaelan did not release the magic he used on my legs.
“Excuse me? I must’ve misheard you, Princess.”
“You misheard nothing,” she said smoothly.
She sat me up and propped me on my knees.
The softness her laugh granted her, washed away under returning disdain.
“I will not marry that monster. I will not endure his bed until he rips me apart or impregnates me with his beastly seed. I will not be ripped from my home and forced to live in the filthy den of feces and unwashed animals that he calls his kingdom. I shall do none of those things. They are to be your fate.”
I stared at her with no trace of reverence or respect in my raised brows or scowl. “Your Majesty, I cannot marry the king,” I said slowly. “You do know this, don’t you?”
She nodded at Kaelan—a signal that sent him to her nightstand. “You will permit me one more story,” she said to me. “One that we all know.
“Five hundred years ago, the kingdom of Lyrica was a matriarchy. Four hundred and ninety-nine years ago, it was decided the matriarchy would be no more. A lone spellcaster created the spell to bind magic, and it was devastating for us.
“Men do not possess magic within them. They must draw it out of the elements, creatures, nature, and beings around them using runes, spells, and incantations.
Then, they must store it in coudarian crystals so they can use it at will.
The opposite of women who carry magic in their souls, and draw upon that magic to fight and defend.
“It started small at first,” she said, fingers closing over the tome Kaelan handed her.
“Whispers of a whisper about a new dangerous spell. By the time Queen Kasra knew it was a serious threat, dozens of women had their magic stolen from them—permanently. She banned the spell of course, but it was too late. Knowledge of it had spread. The incantation itself wasn’t hard to perform. Any middle-powered faeman could do it.
“I don’t know what makes it worse. How easy it was, or that so many were willing to turn on their mothers, sisters, aunts, friends, and lovers. Just like that, they ripped away everything that made them who they were, and no law or punishment was stopping them.”
Laying down the book, she flipped through the thick pages, sadness making her lids heavy.
“Faewomen went into hiding or fled the city.
They were the lucky ones. The ones who stayed had their last hope taken away from them when Queen Kasra was betrayed by her brother.
He bound her magic, then stole her throne.
“During that time of upheaval, he passed the law that said all women must have their magic bound by ten years of age. It was done to prevent her daughters reclaiming the throne when they were old enough. No one knew then that law would condemn us all to death.”
“The wasting sickness,” I rasped.
She nodded. “The wasting sickness. Our magic is within us. It sustains us like the breath of life. It didn’t happen all at once.
Some women lived to fifty. Some eighty. Others one hundred.
But eventually one by one, losing their connection to magic made them slowly waste away—vomiting, insomnia, fevers, dementia.
Illness after illness struck them down until they all died before their time.
“It didn’t take long for physicians to realize these deaths were all connected to their bound magic, but was the law repealed? Did they lift our death sentences?”
“No,” we said at the same time.
Princess Emiana didn’t need to tell me this story. I knew it well.
“Five hundred years,” she whispered. “Half a millennium of dying, having our rights stripped away, and being reduced to nothing but breeding mares. In half a millennium, a nation that boasted righteous queens and powerful female warriors of legend, has become a place where a princess and a whore peasant sit as equals.”
“The term is war wife, not whore,” I sliced in, “and I’m neither.”
She went on like I hadn’t spoken. “Here it is.” Turning the book around, she tapped the page. “The binding spell. It’s right there written down in the book of forbidden arts. No one ever bothered to remove it. I— Oh, I didn’t ask. Can you read?”
“Yes, I can read. What I’m not capable of doing is understanding why you’re showing me this.”
“I thought it was obvious. I want you to understand the ever-present and casual contempt they have for us all. They boldly and proudly commit forbidden magic against us, knowing there’s nothing we can do about it.
“In the same way my father’s pet told me I was to be traded to a cruel and violent brute to spare the lives of a few peasant faemen on the battlefield.
He believed there was nothing I could do about it.
That would have been true,” she said, tapping the book.
“If the means to defy him weren’t held in the same tome that mocks us. ”
The soft whisper of pages filled the room, as loud as my echoing confusion. What was this play-acting? She speaks impossible nonsense about me marrying King Alisdair, then goes on about a book that will defy the king of Lyrica. If she had that, why was I here?
“There are spells in here the likes of you could never comprehend. Spells to force someone to fall in love with you. Spells that set fire to cities, cause plagues, set unstoppable fires, and allows you to trade bodies.”
The final word pierced my mind. “No!”
“I will become you and you will become me.”
“No,” I roared, wrenching my body to the side. My legs did not come with me.
“The book doesn’t say how to perform the incantation naturally.
” I was a fly in her presence. My buzzing did not stir her.
“Since the day I was told, Kaelan and I have been working to recreate the spell. An entire year, with countless failures in our path. The first several servants died outright,” Emiana dropped, devoid of compassion.
“I will not do this.”
“The others lived long enough to show us our mistakes. The person I trade with must be as close to my body type as possible, or the agony of my bones breaking to reach or shrink to a new height would stop my heart.”
“Are you listening to me? I will not do this!”
“We waited a long time for you. It truly is Meya’s will that my life be spared, but what we do is not without consequence—”
I smacked the book and sent it skidding away. “I’m not doing anything. How dare you talk about the right to live and be free while speaking of all the lives you’ve taken without a thought.”
She gazed at me flatly. “Those lives were a necessary sacrifice. I took no pleasure in it.”
“I’m sure that’s what your father said when he bartered you like land and cattle. A necessary sacrifice.”
Eyes flashing, Emiana smacked me soundly across the face.
“The difference is,” she said over my ringing ears, “that I am your true heir and sovereign. It is your duty and privilege to lay down your lives for me.”
I clutched my cheek, grimacing. “I reject the duty and deny the privilege. I have a family depending on me. My mother is being taken by the sickness. My faywens don’t know from one day to the next if they will have food in their bellies.”
“A bunch of poor, wailing brats forever clinging to your skirts? How tiresome. I’m doing you a favor.” She snapped her fingers at Kaelan. “I’m freeing you of their burden.”
I rocked back, her words a worse blow than her hand could ever deal me. “How could you say something so horrible? They aren’t a burden. They’re my family! The last thing I want is to be free of them.”
She looked me in the eyes. “Then I won’t be doing you a favor by putting them to death if you don’t cease your squawking? Good. It wouldn’t be an effective threat otherwise.”
Lips trembling, I quieted—sinking back on my heels.
“As I was saying.” Kaelan handed her the book.
“There are unavoidable consequences to this curse. Try as we did, altering the spell only made those consequences worse. Nature requires balance,” she said, smoothing out the pages.
“For great reward, there must be great repercussions. This is true in all things.”
I barely heard her, my mind spinning. A body-switching spell?
Sacrificing myself to spare my sovereign?
It was all crazed nonsense. Of course the tiny, run-down school I went to in Gutter Galley didn’t have ancient forbidden texts.
Women were only taught reading, writing, math, and basic subjects, but still, I could not believe magic such as this existed.
She was going to kill us both by messing around with curses she couldn’t hope to understand, and then what would happen to my family?
They’ll be trapped under the grip of Kirwan.
My nails dug half-moons into my palm. I would not let that happen.
I looked around while she nattered on. The princess wasn’t the problem.
She had no more magic than I, and without it, she was a soft and pampered royal who didn’t spend her forming years scrapping and fighting anyone who insulted her mother, or messed with her siblings.
I could easily get away from her if not for Kaelan.
I need to find a way to take him out. Maybe if I provoked him into coming closer, I could snatch the book and—
“—once we change, you will not be able to speak things I do not know.”
My ears caught alight. “Excuse me?”
“It’s here.” Emiana pointed to a line halfway down the page. “You will have their body, their knowledge, and their soul. It was only by observing our single successful pair that we discovered what this meant.