Chapter 34
Caeo
Owena has forbidden me from leaving her room.
It makes sense—I’m a wreck. There’s no doubt my mother would take one look at me and realize what happened. That I remember. That I’ll never do anything she wants, ever again.
Except she can just willbend me. Or curse me again, if that’s too much effort.
So I’m lying on Owena’s bed, trying to ignore her as she sits next to me, giggling to herself. Odd behavior, but I just close my eyes and bury my face under the blankets.
Now, she’s tugging them off and straddling my hips.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Shush, this will only take a moment.”
She bounces up and down while moaning loudly.
“What the fuck?” I grab her hips to pull her off me, but she leans against my chest, bringing her mouth to my ear.
“If your land-sense worked, you’d understand—I can’t simply make noises. So either stay quiet or contribute.” She straightens back up and cries out as if I’ve done something to her I most definitely have not.
Yeah… I can’t. So I just lie there, staring at the ceiling until she lets out a final yell and climbs off, lying down beside me. I have a vague idea of what’s going on in her head, but some clarification would be nice.
“What was that about?”
“Keep your voice down unless I tell you otherwise,” she hisses. “I’m getting you the time you need to pull yourself together.” She purses her lips, then sits up. “I need your shirt.”
“What? Why?”
“Just give it to me.”
Whatever. I do, then pull myself back under the covers.
Sometime later, there’s a knock at the door. Owena, wearing only my shirt, pokes her head into the hallway while exchanging words with a servant. Soon, someone knocks again, and Owena brings over a tray of food.
She sits on the bed, placing it between us. “You should eat.”
My shirt hangs loose around her, and her normally perfect curls cascade in messy, tousled clumps. If I’d seen her like this yesterday, I’d have probably gone hard in seconds. Instead, I’m sick to my stomach.
“I’m not hungry.”
Owena narrows her eyes. “Would Ellie want you to give up? Or would she want you to find a way back and break her curse?”
I push myself up on my elbows. “How would I do that?”
She shrugs. “There’s likely no one who could unravel it other than myself or my father. Killing your mother would also work. Beyond that, all curses have a loophole, if you can find it.”
“How?” Hope ignites in my chest.
“It would be something unlikely to happen but feels like fate if it does—the more fateful, the more powerful the curse. From what you’ve said, yours was likely tied to you remembering one another when together, but I don’t know how.”
“That’s not helpful.” I fall back onto the pillow. “So I either kill someone who can make me do whatever they want or escape from them and drag you across the border to where everyone wants us dead.”
“Both are difficult, yes, but not impossible. They will be impossible if you can’t behave as if everything is normal. So get it together and eat.”
I do, though begrudgingly. My wedding’s in… what? Four days? If I can come up with a worthwhile escape plan, maybe that’ll be enough time to convince Owena to come with me. Break Ellie’s curse, and then… who the fuck knows? I can figure that out later.
But I can’t bring myself to imitate sex noises the next two times Owena has at it. By the time she finishes, it’s probably close to midnight. She crawls into bed next to me and falls asleep.
She wakes me sometime after the sun rises and demands I spit in her hand.
“What?”
“Just do it already. I need to smell like you.”
“Wearing my clothes and sleeping next to me wasn’t enough?”
“No, and since I doubt you want to spill your seed on me, your spit is the next best thing.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Fae have an excellent sense of smell.”
When I make no move to spit on her, she spits on her own hand and rubs it all over my neck.
“Stop it! That’s disgusting!” I push her off me, but it’s too late. My skin crawls at the sticky layer of moisture coating it.
“Your turn.”
I hock the biggest pile of spit possible into my hand and slather it on the bare skin of her neck and the shoulder that my too-big-for-her shirt doesn’t cover. She gags, her face blanching.
A twinge of guilt creeps through me. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I know you’re trying to help.”
She meets my gaze, then nods. There’s something… wistful… in her dark eyes, but she blinks it away.
“Now turn around so I can get dressed.”
* * *
In a move so bold I’m questioning her sanity, Owena accompanies me to breakfast with my mother.
“You need to pretend we’ve just had the best night of your life and you’re excited to marry me in three days,” she whispers as I escort her through the empty halls to the dining room.
Guess it’s safe to talk now—clearly, full-blooded fae have better hearing than I do.
Or it’s that land-sense she mentioned. Either way, I hate having to rely on Owena to know all this.
“The best of my life? Really?”
She elbows me in my side.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself before we enter, and pretend Owena is Ellie.
My heart fractures with every smile I give her, with every affectionate touch I sneak into what etiquette demands. But catching my mother’s growing annoyance out of the corner of my eye welds the cracks together with the fire of my resolve.
I will find a way out of this and back to Ellie.
“It would seem you’ve decided your wedding is too far away,” Mother says, her face barely moving with her words.
“Is there any point in waiting?” Owena asks from where she sits at the table next to me. “As long as it happens then, there’s no harm in it also happening now.”
“I’d rather not discuss what I do in bed with you, Mother,” I add.
Her eyes narrow in barely contained fury. “Then perhaps you should work on your discretion.”
“What’d you expect?” I reply. “That I wouldn’t bed the beautiful woman you forced upon me? Would you rather drag me unwillingly to our wedding?”
She blinks, and her face warms so fast it chills me. It’s like I’m seven years old again, and she just beat the shit out of me for breaking a bowl, only to hug me right after.
“Mothers worry about their sons. It can be upsetting to no longer be the only woman in your life.”
I force as natural a smile as I can to that creepy sentiment and turn back to Owena. She appears just as inclined as I am to eat quickly and get the fuck out of here.
* * *
“I’m supposed to be fit for my wedding gown this morning,” Owena says as we leave the dining room. “I expect you’ll have a fitting today as well. It’s likely I won’t see you until supper.”
I lower my face closer to hers. “There’s something I need to ask you about first.”
“Take the gardens then, to walk me to my room.”
I escort her back to where we first got to know each other, helping her sit on the soft grass. The scent of lavender fills the air, biting at my heart. I force an exhale, trying to stop the tears forming behind my eyes.
I join her, and she tucks herself against my side, taking my hands in hers. She brings her face inches from mine as she plays with my fingers. “What is it?”
My nerves tighten at her proximity. “This is still an act, right?” After the way she looked at me earlier, and during our dance last night… I can’t let her get the wrong idea.
“Of course it is. Was that your question?”
All business, then. “No.” I take a deep breath. “What happens if we don’t consummate our marriage?”
“It’s not something we can fake. It seals our bond. The Land Herself responds to it, typically with flowers blooming. Everyone will know if we don’t. It would be… very bad, for you and me.”
My heart sinks. “I can’t do it, Owena. I can’t actually sleep with you.”
“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to in order to survive. Your heart still belongs to her. It wouldn’t be a betrayal.”
I doubt Ellie would see it that way, and I don’t know how I’d ever be able to tell her. My chest aches just thinking about it. I have to find a way out before then.
Owena perks up and gently turns my face to hers. “Someone’s coming.”
I really need to figure out the range of fae senses—any escape attempt will probably fail otherwise.
But I’m not sure if asking Owena is smart.
She seems content to play the long-game, and I could lose her help entirely if she realizes I plan to be long gone before the wedding.
I’ll need to ease her into the idea carefully.
I offer my hand to help her up. She takes it, and by the time the servant rounds the tree, we’re holding hands while looking at some flowers.
It’s time for her fitting.
I make a show of kissing her cheek goodbye, then wander the gardens, trying to catch when the guards notice me.
All of them are already eyeing me the second I spot them.
* * *
I’ve never attended a wedding back home, and the only formal events I’ve ever gone to were the Equinox Balls, which are admittedly on the sluttier side of propriety. As such, I had no idea what to expect from fae wedding attire when I was summoned for my fitting.
Fur, apparently. Lots of fur. It would seem I’m getting married in a blizzard.
The base layer’s similar to what I’ve worn since arriving here—pants and a tunic—both excessively embroidered with white leafy patterns.
On top of that, I’m covered with a wool robe in dark blue, like what I’ve seen King Dryfid wear, but with more embroidery.
And despite being comfortably warm by that point, I get a coat of shimmering white fur as well.
Then there’s a stole, matching the blue robe to make up for the fact that you can no longer see it. I estimate the entire ensemble weighs a solid twenty pounds.
It’s been five minutes and I’m already sweating. “Do I really have to wear all this?”
“The coat is for your coronation,” Mother says. Of course she’s here, hovering beside me as I take in my reflection in the massive slab of polished obsidian in front of me. “You won’t have to wear it for the wedding.”
“Can’t we skip that? You’ve already been calling me Prince.”
“You’re a prince, but you are not yet the Crown Prince.”
While I want to get this over with so I can get back to planning an escape, I sense an opening. “Why not? What happens if you die before the coronation?”
She brushes a spot of lint from her sleeve. “The realm would not pass to you.”
“Who would it go to?”
“It wouldn’t go to anyone. Now, if we could stop discussing my future death, there is one more thing for you to try on.” She disappears behind me and returns with a glimmering golden crown.
While fancy, it’s significantly smaller than hers—more of a diadem, really—but made of the same gold antlers. She sets it on my head, its sharp tips digging into my scalp.
My stomach churns at my reflection. It isn’t who I am. I’ve grown accustomed to my fae look; the changes to my ears and eyes, the clothes I’ve been wearing. But this is too much.
I glimpse my mother’s eyes, glowing an eerie green in polished, dark stone.
She cared about my feelings once, didn’t she?
Back when she’d kiss my nose after bandaging a scraped knee, telling me I was better than the kids who bullied me for not having a father.
When she skipped meals for weeks so she could afford a new toy for my birthday.
So I try, turning to face her. The real her, not her reflection.
“I don’t want to be Crown Prince. I don’t want to be King someday.”
She rests her hand on my shoulder the way she always has when trying to comfort me.
“Don’t worry about it,” she whispers in my ear. “You won’t be.”