Chapter 4
Chapter
She smiled at them.
She smiles at everyone.
I know this.
Yet I remain offended.
Xander’s smile is even better than I had hoped, stretching from one ear to the other as I all but skip to where he waits in the moonlit hall.
“You look beautiful.”
I take his offered hand and let him twirl me around.
“I like the…” He pauses, pinching the thin fabric of my sleeves. “Puffy arm pieces?”
Men. “They’re not puffy. They’re bell-shaped,” I correct but, truthfully? He could call them potato sacks for all I care.
It’s just nice to laugh with someone again.
I needed this. I think he did too.
Of course, the reprieve doesn’t last long. Too soon, we’re joined by the echo of boots stomping down the hall.
I squeeze Xander’s hand, squinting down the long winding corridor past the fractured silver sconces with cobwebs clinging to them. For so long I’ve begged their flames to light this hall, to reveal the way to the onyx tower where they kept me, secluded, alone.
Now? I don’t think I shall ever get the chance.
The thought catches in my throat. I said I didn’t want to know how I’m to meet my fate, but I can’t help wondering…
Will it be the same knife they’ve used before, my blood still staining its blade? Will it be quick? Or must my suffering be drawn out yet another night?
Bile burns hot behind my nose as the heavy slap of leather hitting stone inches closer still.
Everything feels different this time. Father’s confidence. Peony’s goodbye. I wonder if Father really has done it. Has he found a way to deliver my heart to the hands of a son who no longer resides in the realm of the living?
My stomach flips at the very real possibility that tonight could be my last. I have to swallow down the remnants of yesterday’s supper.
What if the curse requires my heart to remain beating as it leaves my chest? Oh God, I don’t want to die like that. Please don’t let me die like that.
I tear my gaze from what’s coming and catch Xander’s tortured expression before he can wipe it from his face.
He still believes this is his fault. That my unfortunate fate falls on him, merely because he was born a boy instead of a girl.
The thought tickles the back of my throat and I want so badly to laugh at its absurdity. If only he knew.
“I would endure it all over again,” I say.
“The sacrifices. The ritualistic torture. A life locked away in this tower. And I’d do it with a smile, if it meant getting to have you as a brother, Xander.
What they have and have yet to take pales in comparison to what you’ve given me.
” I hold his tightened fist between my hands, forcing his steeled gaze to soften. “A heart that endures.”
He says nothing, but his eyes swell with all the words we’ve left unsaid. And now I know for certain. Love did exist here.
“I’m going to make everything right. You’ll see. It’ll be okay.” I whisper the words I don’t yet feel, emboldened by how easily they slip from my tongue. “I’ll be okay,” I promise.
Then I turn and walk away. No drawn out goodbyes. No time to stop me. There is no need for both of us to die tonight. And if he were to interfere with Father’s plans in any way, that is exactly what would happen.
The last ceremony was messy enough. I don’t need more innocent blood on my hands.
No, this is one chapter Xander can’t be there to see.
And honestly? The thought of him screaming from the sidelines, his tears blending with the blood coating the cracked checkered floors cuts deeper than any blade could.
“Your highness?” Rhidland calls out, jogging the rest of the way to me. I quickly pat away my tears, for the second time today, only this time I am careful not to smudge Peony’s work. “Why are you unaccompanied?” he asks.
I open my mouth to reply when I see he’s not alone. Two men I don’t recognize appear from around the corner, falling into step behind him.
I take in their dark gray armor and the twin swords etched into silver cape brooches. They’re knights from what remains of Father’s small collective. But not just any knights. Bachelors.
I stop cold in my tracks. Why would the king call on a pair of Bachelors to escort me through the castle?
Sensing my hesitation, the men remove the silver helmets hiding most of their features and drop into a curt bow.
I lean with them, straining to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Two men with the same face. Same pale blue eyes.
The only notable difference is where one has his copper hair neatly combed to the side, while the other wears it free to bounce just above his brow.
They’re near mirror images of one another.
“How?” is all I’m able to get out. I am a believer of many things, but doppelg?ngers was not something I had ever thought to add to that list.
Unless this is a latent effect of the curse. I suppose I always knew it would eventually be the death of me, but I had hoped to keep my sanity intact until those final moments. Hallucinations, as handsomely captivating as they are, are never a good sign.
“Princess?”
I mumble a response, barely registering my guard’s concern, or the worry that’s etched its way between his furrowed brows. With the ever-looming descent into madness, I’m not sure I’m the right person to be offering him assurances at this moment.
I’m half tempted to ask him if he, too, is seeing double, when one of the knights steps forward, offering me a closed fist over his heart. A sign of respect, but also a clear indicator that they are indeed two separate people. Though the matching set of grins is hardly convincing.
“I’m Merrek. And that…” The knight closest to me gestures toward the other Bachelor, “is my less attractive twin, Myrrdin.”
“We’re identical, thistle wit.”
“Twins…” I sputter, my jaw hanging low.
I’ve only ever read about twins in old fables. Truthfully, I had begun to think that’s all they were. A work of fiction. One baby is hard enough to feed these days. To keep two alive? An impossible feat.
Yet here they are. Standing before me. And they don’t look starved at all.
Their corded muscles are taut beneath their armor and broad shoulders.
They are two of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen.
Not that I’ve had the opportunity to see very many.
Men that is. Father isn’t too keen on sharing with the world just how close they came to breaking the curse. Or rather, how close I came.
It’s a secret I couldn’t hide if I tried. And I have, for years. Wearing this crimson ribbon around my neck. Having Peony polish my eyes to distract from the silver that’s stolen my sight.
No. I am not a girl that boys wish to meet, and I’ve rarely had the privilege of doing so. Something that is becoming embarrassingly obvious.
Gah.
I snap my mouth shut and pray the makeup Peony painted on hides the pink in my cheeks just as well as it does the blue.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—I’m not normally this…” Awkward. I bite the inside of my cheek, searching and failing to find a better word. “It’s been a bit of an odd day for me.”
Merrek’s grin grows into something warm and disarming, mirroring the flare of curiosity lighting in his eyes.
Myrrdin’s gaze, however, narrows, focused, but no less welcoming as he offers me a polite smile.
“Apologies aren’t necessary, Princess. We are but swords at your service,” he says matter of factly. His tone makes it abundantly clear that his brother’s similarities don’t extend past the surface.
“We get it,” Merrek yawns, stretching his arms out before him as he leans his weight against the damp mortar wall. “It’s not every day you wake up engaged to someone like—ow!”
The loud clank of Rhidland’s fist making its way into the chain metal that hugs Merrek’s abnormally large arm rattles off the walls.
Yet pales in comparison to the thunderous roar of my heart.
Me? Engaged? As in…
“I’m to be married?”
Stale air catches in my throat, stealing the moisture from my tongue.
Surely I misheard him. There’s no way it’s possible.
I’ve spent the last several years begging Father to let me have a life outside these haunted walls.
For years, my every request was denied. “You are too valuable to lose. But not valuable enough for anyone to truly love,” he’d whisper into my ear as I cried in his arms.
Eventually, I stopped asking to leave, stopped looking for true love. But now—now am I to believe it’s found me?
I palm the damp wall to steady myself, ignoring the sharp pain shooting up my wrist as the blue thorns cracking the mortar find their way into my flesh. “Is it true?”
The men shift on their feet, refusing to meet my gaze. Deciding, no doubt, where my feelings fall on the long list of my father’s approved priorities.
To hell with that.
I push off the wall on unsteady feet, my head swimming with what may very well be something akin to hope. “Well? Is it?”
Merrek’s mouth opens, but a sharp look from his twin has it promptly snapping shut.
Myrrdin’s features, once cool and collected, have morphed into something far less forgiving.
If I had to guess, it’s taking every bit of his restraint not to drive the sword he’s throttling through the bruised arm his brother is now sheepishly rubbing.
But as curious as I am about his sudden shift in demeanor, that isn’t what has the timid hope curdling in the pit of my stomach.
It’s Rhidland. His eyes are closed, his hand, for once, not on the hilt of his blade. And his head—it’s hung low toward the floor. He looks utterly dejected.
I can’t fight the familiar prickle of unease that begins to creep back into my tightly wound stomach. Perhaps I’ve resurrected hope too soon.
“Rhidland?” I beg, forcing the old man’s eyes to meet mine. “At least explain to me how? How is a marriage to break the final act of the curse? And why all the secrecy and sorrowful faces around what should surely be a joyous occasion?”
“My lady…” The old guard’s eyes are pleading as he gestures for me to continue our way down the hall, begging for me to drop it. “Please.”
I turn to the twins, who have both replaced their helmets and whose backs now face me. There’s something they don’t want me to know. Something they must believe will keep me from following through with my duties. Or rather, someone.
A question forms at the base of my throat, acidic and bitter as I recall Galahand’s warning. “Which monster am I to marry?”