Chapter 11
The barrier was breaking in great chunks, like someone had thrown a boulder through a giant window.
Everyone who’d come with us was running away from the castle and barriers, trying to reach a wider part of the wedge that we were in.
Incendis set me on my feet well away from everything crashing down and went back to scoop up two other people who were struggling to move fast enough.
Horses were freaking out and had to be calmed so they wouldn’t run off with the wagons and carriages or the people riding them.
There was so much chaos, I didn’t know what to focus on.
And then I realized that the castle was disappearing into the ground like the grass might actually be quicksand. “The castle!” I pointed when Incendis rejoined me. “It’s sinking!”
I grabbed his hand when it looked to me like he might rush back over there. He stood still beside me and watched his father’s entire castle be absorbed into the ground beneath it. The sadness on his face hurt my heart.
“Oh, gods,” he whispered. “He’s staying.”
The amber that encased his father remained while the rest of the castle disappeared.
It was a bit far off now, but it kind of looked like part of the floor underneath it had broken off in a rough circle to act as a plinth for the amber.
In minutes, that was all there was left of the castle, just a field of undisturbed grass with a monument in the middle.
Looking around at the fallen barrier to the left of us, I could see a brittle forest coming back to life as rain fell on the barren trees.
New leaves sprouted on every branch like a stop-motion video on fast-forward.
In mere seconds, that whole area looked like a spring-time forest instead of a Halloween nightmare.
“Are you doing that?” I asked Incendis.
He held my hand and shook his head. “Either it’s Solaris restoring his court, or just the fact that Spring can finally return to all of us.” He pointed to the right. “Look at Winter changing.”
Over there definitely looked like Spring had arrived to melt snow and push up new blades of grass and budding flowers. It seemed to be pushing from the amber outward, which must mean the Spring Court was across from us.
“We broke the curse,” I said with a relieved chuckle. “I’m not sure I believed we could.”
He pulled me into a hug. “I knew you could.”
“Not just me.”
“You were the catalyst.”
“But you did all the work.”
He pressed his cheek to mine, and I felt him smile. “All I did was fall in love.”
I gasped and pulled back to look up at him.
“It’s alright,” he said. “You don’t have to say it if you aren’t ready, but the fact that the curse is broken tells me you love me.”
He was right. Not that I wasn’t ready to say it out loud—though it did feel scary to do that—but that that was why I was here. I’d fought it, given into it, and nearly forgotten all about how I was supposed to love him. And without me even speaking the words, the curse—or the king?—knew that—
“I do love you,” I said out loud.
He kissed me soundly right as a gust of wind nearly knocked us over. We regained our footing, and I looked around, bracing myself for what the hell was happening now. Only…it was…
“Is that a unicorn?” I could hardly believe my eyes.
“It is. And my brother.”
“Your—” I’d been so focused on the horned horse I’d missed the two people riding on its back. And now that I was looking at them, one looked really familiar. “Bridge?”
Before he could do more than look over in surprise, a pale blue carriage with four white horses was suddenly between us. Someone opened the door and—
“Milo!” I hollered.
Then all of a sudden, someone grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. I had a second to see that it was Wally before he swooped me up into a bear hug and squished the breath right out of me.
They were all here! All of my friends! Milo and Bridge crashed into me and Wally, everyone talking about how and why as we hugged each other.
Bridge had tears on his cheeks, and I wiped them away.
Wally made fun of Milo’s codpiece because what the hell was that?
We were loud and happy and I could hardly believe that they were all just here.
It was when I turned to introduce Incendis to everyone that I remembered my friends hadn’t come here alone.
There was a spiky Winter Warlock dude, one with flowers all over his head, and a blue guy with antlers.
Each of them looked uncomfortable and like they didn’t know what to do with their hands, gazes flicking all around nervously.
They were the other princes. Had to be. These were Incendis’s brothers.
“Oh, my god,” I loudly bitched, “this is a celebration, and yet you’re all standing around like you don’t want to be here.”
Incendis didn’t do anything except blush, while the rest of them kept looking like they wanted to be anywhere else.
“Come on,” I groaned. “Be nice. Hug your brother. Don’t be an asshole.”
The snowflake one snorted a laugh.
“Hydris,” Bridge said, “tell them.”
The guy looking like a cute little hippy with flowers in his hair blushed scarlet, but he nodded and said, “I’d, um, like to apologize for all the wars.
I made Maddox to lead for me because I thought I was doing everything wrong, but that was a huge mistake because he was the one doing everything wrong. So I’m sorry.”
“And where is Maddox now?” the prince with antlers asked.
Bridge’s chuckle sounded a touch evil. “He’s a puddle on the throne room floor, isn’t he, honey?”
Hydris giggled and, as he nodded, the big pink flower on his head bloomed.
Okay, so like a kitten, that prince had claws.
I realized Milo was having a silent conversation of wide eyes, cocked heads, and subtle hand gestures with the ice prince. Finally, Icy made a face like he was groaning before clearing his throat.
“I’d like to apologize as well,” the prince said. “If it’s possible for me to make amends to your people for the lives lost, I would like to do so.”
“All of us fought,” the antlered one said, “so maybe the thing to do as we recover from the curse is make a pact. We will never again use war to solve our differences.”
“Or because you’re bored,” Wally added with a very pointed frown.
“Or, uh, that.”
I looked to Incendis, eyebrows raised in question.
He very quickly said, “I agree to the pact. No more war.”
“No more war,” the other two echoed.
I said, “Now hug.”
The looks of horror on their faces…
“Oh, come on,” I groused, hands on hips. “You’re brothers, for fuck’s sake. You just learned lessons and fell in— Oh.” I looked to my friends. “Did we all fall in love with a prince?”
With grins on all their faces, they said they had as they went to stand with their prince. What strange couples we all were, but it seemed kind of fitting that each of them was with their specific prince.
I cocked my head at the Winter Prince and said to Milo, “Chilly?”
“Frigid,” he said with a big grin.
I laughed since he’d once told me he’d put his dildo in the freezer before he used it sometimes.
“I’m never going to be cold again.” I looked to Incendis. “Do the fire thing,” I whispered.
Immediately, he was ablaze in flames, but this time they were way more like real fire than the hazy version he’d produced before. I gasped, and the princes all backed off with words of warning.
“Watch out!”
“Careful!”
“I’ll put you out!” The snowflake threatened with an arm out. “I swear I will!”
“Hey, okay!” I hollered, stepping in front of Incendis. “He’s fine. Calm down.”
“I’ve been known to start a few fires,” Incendis said with clear regret. “But I can also control the flames.”
“So it is fine.” I reached for him, and he extinguished the flames to take my hand. “And you’re still nice and toasty, so I’m happy.”
I passed around some stink-eye, but none of them said anything else about it.
“How about some introductions,” Bridge suggested. “I’m Bridge Flint, and this is Prince Hydris of the Spring Court.”
“Are flowers your power?” I asked.
“Growing things is,” Hydris said.
Bridge was grinning as he said, “The flowers are a bonus.” He stuck his face into the big pink flower and came out with pollen on his nose. Hydris giggled and brushed it off before Bridge stole a kiss and made him laugh again.
“I also grow things,” the prince with antlers said. “I’m Solaris, the Summer Prince, and this is my Wallace Crowne.”
“My Wallace?” Wally whispered with a smirk.
Solaris whispered back, “Shut up.”
Wally grabbed him, and they tussled for a moment, before Solaris laughed and let himself be kissed.
“Milo Hawkins here, and Prince Flurry of—”
“Flurris.”
“—the Winter Court.”
“My name is Flurris.”
“Yes, dear.”
Before I could ask if Flurry—because I was totally going to call him that—had the power to control snow and ice, Milo gasped and pointed.
“Is that Lars?” he asked with clear alarm.
I could’ve explained who it actually was, but I couldn’t believe Milo knew him, too. “You know Lars?”
“He was the dungeon master.”
“The what?!”
“No,” Bridge said, “he’s a butler.”
Wally frowned hard. “He’s a pub owner.”
“Oh, my god,” I said, disbelieving all over again, “he visited all of us?”
Milo waved his hands. “Wait a minute! Is that actually the king? Trapped in amber? He really did cast the curse?”
“He did,” Incendis said. “I was there.”
Oh, no. The princes gasped or stared, clearly not having known that at all. “He regrets everything,” I started to say.
“But Lars,” Wally said, “or the king was helping me. I could’ve sworn he knew more than he was saying and some of what he did say was weirdly cryptic, but he absolutely helped me.”
“He owned the pub?” Solaris asked, frowning like something didn’t make sense.
“Yeah, he was behind the counter with me.”
Solaris shook his head. “That man looked nothing like my father.”
“I kind of have a theory,” I offered. “Maybe only those of us who were part of the curse, like a named part, could see the real him. Everyone else might’ve seen someone else or the real person he was pretending to be.”
Bridge looked alarmed. “Like he was possessing someone?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? I haven’t seen him for a few days now.”
“I’m right here.”
I gasped and turned to find Lars standing a few feet away, the body of the king still trapped in amber behind him.