Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Prince Jordon Poroma of the Mirrored Deserts. The name of the man she would soon marry. Helaina Poroma. It sounded terrible, like an ugly plant used to make bitter medicines in the south wing.
“Prince Jordon is an exceptional man, I hear.” Fessyk clearly wanted to feign some semblance of family between them.
“Then you marry him,” Helaina whispered under her breath.
He either didn’t hear or chose to ignore her as he continued his ramblings. “Did you know his armies are made up of women? The land there can be so harsh. Their smaller frames need less water and food to survive the long treks in the scorching days.”
Helaina rolled her eyes. She already knew about the deserts, the terrain. Oakmire’s library had filled in her understanding of faraway kingdoms long ago. What she wanted to know, she couldn’t find in a book. What sort of man was Prince Jordon? Why had he agreed to marry her without ever meeting?
“They say he still possesses magic. That he controls sand snakes and has called upon them to poison his enemies.”
Helaina had heard the stories about the desert people and their sustained magic.
She couldn’t believe they were anything more than spun rumors.
Only the fae held on to that kind of power now, and even theirs was nothing like what the gods had gifted in the beginning.
Helaina’s magic wasn’t a gift at all, it was something else, something dark.
“I’m sure if he doesn’t find me satisfactory, he will simply sneak a viper into my bed, and that will be that,” she mused. She didn’t give Fessyk a chance to reply. She turned her back to him and walked off to her room.
When she entered her chamber, Laurelai was organizing Helaina’s shoes, her treasured books, and the absurd amount of jewels she owned.
Helaina sprawled her body over the lounge chair, refusing to take part in the preparations for the journey. None of these things even mattered, it was all junk. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore any of those jewels.
There was only one piece she kept with her, which she never took off.
She carefully thumbed the stones around her wrist, letting the sunlight flicker and dance on their edges.
The shimmering blue beads were her only means of protection.
Her people called them tempest tears. The legend read that the first clusters of the astonishing gems were found right after the gods left Lynor to return to their own realms. Leaving their creations caused such devastating sadness in the gods, their extreme emotion forged a storm the likes of which no one had ever seen.
Kydon’s Sea rose up, drowning the earth in waves.
When that storm’s lightning struck the earth, patches of rock melted deep underground, forming beads that looked strangely like icy tears.
Her lips turned downward as she recalled that fable, her fingers tracking the smooth dewdrop shape of each individual piece.
She watched her handmaiden continue to pack away parts of her life.
Laurelai turned her attention to folding her dresses and riding tunics into the many velvet-lined trunks.
Helaina rarely wore dresses anymore, what would be the occasion?
Other than funerals, there was simply no need for formal attire.
She frowned as she appraised her loose-fitting clothing, a simple pastel-green tunic that almost stretched to her knees.
She always wore things a bit large on her frame, she liked it that way.
But this—this was months of wasting away.
Now, everything she owned draped over her like a dining cloth.
Not that it had ever mattered what she wore. No one from neighboring lands had even seen her, aside from the fae. King Oren was never one for extravagant birth announcements, parading his newborns for all the townspeople to gawk at like other royals.
It made it all the more bizarre that someone had made an offer for her hand in the first place. Prince Jordon had agreed on marriage without ever seeing her face. It didn’t instill confidence that such a distant man was so desperate.
Laurelai looked up from her sorting. “I hear the desert lands have an unnatural beauty to them.”
Poor Laurelai. She was being dragged into this misfortune as well, getting uprooted from her home to a strange new place.
It was easy to ignore Fessyk’s ramblings, she couldn’t stand the man.
But Laurelai was kindhearted and had been by Helaina’s side since adolescence.
Still, even idle conversations with people she cared about seemed too hard right now. She preferred quiet.
“I heard plants actually grow there,” Laurelai continued. “Tall vine-like trees with flowers, and instead of petals, they bear bright-colored thorns.” Laurelai eyed the princess while folding sets of undergarments.
“Sounds lovely,” Helaina replied. It came out more clipped than she meant it to.
She stretched over the chaise with a deep sigh, fingers intertwined over the inward curve of her abdomen.
At the crinkling of paper, she looked up, catching sight of something in Laurelai’s hands.
The girl tossed the wrinkled parchment into the pile of items that were old or simply too large to pack in the trunks for the nine-day journey.
The pile would be torched when they left.
Yes, any remaining clue that she had lived here the past twenty-three years would be set ablaze the moment she was gone.
Helaina sat up. “That . . . I’m taking that with me.”
Laurelai’s eyebrow rose in question, but she picked the crumpled thing back up and placed it in Helaina’s waiting palm.
Adriel’s note. Though she had no intention of ever opening it, parting with it wasn’t an option either. It was a piece of him after all. An ugly one, but a piece nonetheless.
Helaina placed the stained, folded parchment between the brown leather covers of her favored mythology text.
As she did, a knock sounded at the door, followed by the creaking of hinges.
Teirn entered. He typically kept his beard a bit bristly, but today he was freshly shaved for the long road ahead. “The carriage is ready.”
Servants shuffled in to retrieve the overflowing trunks. At the same time a familiar gray robe shuffled in alongside them.
It was Madge, their senior healer.
“Were you going to come to say goodbye?” The wrinkles lining her brow looked so much more pronounced in her worried expression.
Helaina stared off to the side, rolling her lips to the inside of her mouth. She was told to never return here. She didn’t have it in her to seek out farewells. It made things so permanent, so final.
“I see.” Madge nodded to herself, the disappointment clear. “Continue your studies when you’re gone, won’t you? It would be a shame for someone of your intellect to go to waste. Make sure the deserts understand that.”
Madge was never the type to hover. She didn’t give Helaina a chance to form any type of acknowledgment before she turned and left.
It didn’t take long for the rest of the servants to follow the same path, leaving her room completely bare.
Over twenty years reduced to an empty space. Like she had never lived there to begin with.
When everyone had left the room, Teirn signaled for her to come along.
“Can I have one more minute?”
She could sense he felt unsure. “I’ll be around the corner,” he replied after a calculated pause.
Alone, she took one final look around. She realized Oakmire had never been a true home. It had been a prison. She had begged for so long for even the slightest reprieve, to see anywhere else, to be anywhere else.
She was getting her wish at last.
The idea of spending eternity behind castle walls didn’t seem so bleak now, when compared to the dangers waiting for her once she left the safety of Oakmire.
She never knew why King Matthias helped her so long ago, hiding her with his magic. She never got the opportunity to ask.
Now she wondered why her father had let him shield the castle. Unlike Madge, neither of her parents had even come to say goodbye. Why would they? They were grateful she was leaving.
She was glad they had not come to see her off. Let the guilt eat at them when it came. Surely it would come. Wouldn’t it?
I will find you again, Helaina Ironblood. That is a promise.
The memory of those words and the one who had spoken them made her skin prickle. She instinctively reached under the hem of her shirt. Above her breast, she thumbed the familiar patch of raised skin that had been permanently seared—a brand in the shape of a sphere encompassing a coiling serpent.
That ugliness on her body had remained a secret between her and the one that had given it to her.
“Your Highness, it’s time,” Teirn said tentatively from the doorway.
She barely heard him.
She bent down, pretending to fix the cuff of her boot, as she confirmed the smuggled kitchen knife still rested comfortably within the leather. There was no fear as she touched the blade, no pain—no feeling at all.
“I’m ready,” she said.
She would be no one’s tool. She would allow no one to choose her fate, not anymore. Helaina would see her brother and sister again. She would end this curse before it could be used to harm anyone else.
Teirn strode ahead as Helaina followed a good distance behind.
“I swear on Ures as my ancestor . . .” she whispered to herself, “I will not reach the deserts alive.”