Chapter 2
Castor
It has been said that only fools make pacts with dryad royals.
It has also been said that I am the most foolish of fools. But what else is to be expected of a desperate dryad prince whose blood curse kills any soul who feels an ounce of love for him?
“I didn’t mean it!” a rather unlucky dryad who dared cross me calls out. “I’m sorry, Your Highness!”
Seems the dryad who hurled a glob of spit in my direction is now reconsidering his life choices.
Among birds’ nests and hanging moss, the Redwood Court resides in the treetops hundreds of feet above the forest floor. We typically avoid leaving the safety of the wooden paths strung between tree trunks. But sometimes I’m forced to remind my “subjects” how to show their prince the proper respect.
It’s either that or sob into my morning wine like the pathetic monster I am. And we simply can’t have that.
So now the expectorating dryad has found himself squatting on the end of a branch that juts out like a mortal pirate’s plank over hundreds of feet of nothing but air. I watch him from the safety of the path, drumming my fingers on the railing.
Looking obliquely over at my guard, I say, “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”
A muscle jumps in Tamarind’s jaw as his copper eyes narrow. He’s not enjoying this. “I believe he is being truthful now, Your Highness.”
The dryad lets out a desperate yelp as his right foot slips a few inches. “Yes, he’s right. Thank you, thank you, sir.”
“I don’t.” I press my hand against the wood of the railing, darkness and rot spreading slowly from the tips of my fingers, traveling down the wood and over the edge of the path toward the branch on which the dryad stands. “Do you know what sorts of powers I possess, my salivating friend?”
“Please don’t, Your Highness. Please—”
“Do you?” I repeat.
The railing begins to crumble as the rot inches into the branch. “Yes! Yes, I do. I’m sorry. I swear. I will never do it again. I swear.”
I lift my hand before the rot makes it halfway through the branch.
There is now a foot of space in the railing where the wood has disintegrated.
“Good.” The dryad flattens, white-knuckled hands gripping a knob.
“See to it that, next time our paths cross, you keep your curses and saliva inside your mouth. Can you do that?”
The dryad begins to crawl along the branch back toward the safety of the walkway where Tamarind and I stand. “Yes, Your Highness. I’m sorry. I’m so—”
“No, you’re not,” I counter. “You aren’t sorry for what you did. You’re sorry I did something about it. You saw the cursed prince and thought that, just because I spend my nights venturing into the Nightshade District, I am nothing like my golden brother.”
“No—that’s not—”
He makes it to the pathway, and I reach through the space left in the destroyed railing, grasping his shirtfront and pulling him up. “It’s true,” I growl. “I am nothing like my brother.” My voice lowers to nearly a whisper. “I am much, much worse.”
Then I let him go, watching as he scurries up the pathway like a petrified rodent.
I shove my hands in my pockets to hide their shaking.
My heart thrums with anxiety, and a lump has taken residence in my throat.
When I was younger, I couldn’t control the tears that came with people’s cruel words.
But crying only made things worse. So I learned how to swallow them.
Wine and tears: a balanced royal breakfast.
“You are late for Court, Your Highness,” Tamarind murmurs.
I let out an un-princely snort. “Yes, what will King Durian do without me by his side?”
We make our way toward the citadel, a fortress built inside a ring of the grandest redwoods in our kingdom.
In the center stands the Sovereign Tree, the most ancient in all the Sylveris woodlands.
Legend says the prodigious first dryad to grow from this land sacrificed his physical body so his tree would live eternally, drawing on his magic, producing Sovereign heirs.
The size of a dozen redwoods in circumference, the tree dominates the kingdom with its bloodred bark and candelabra branches housing the heartwood trees of all previous Sovereign dryads who came before my brother, King Durian Sempervirens.
And then there is my heartwood. Gnarled, black, and craning over the Crown District like a vulture waiting for an injured animal to finally die. It’s definitely the ugliest thing about me.
“Any luck in Arborfell today?” Tamarind asks in a monotone.
I can’t tell if there is judgment there or not.
Once upon a time, Tam and I were close friends.
When I was tired of being a prince, I would sneak over to the Nightshade District—back to my roots.
I felt more comfortable there in the squalor and depravity than behind the pristine walls of the palace.
But then my curse reared its ugly head, and I quickly pushed everyone away. With Tam, it was more of a violent shove. Of course, as fate would have it, he would later wind up beholden to me as my guard.
“I tried to woo a barista girl I haven’t met before—”
“Well, that’s—”
“—but then I found out she has two little sisters she takes care of because her mother has cancer.”
Tamarind grimaces. “—Oh. Yeah, no, that one won’t work.”
“No. I may be a monster, but I’m not a demon.” I laugh, but it sounds closer to a sob. “There’s a rumor that Evodia hired a mortal wine pourer at Magesté, though. Could be promising.”
Tamarind and I discuss my foolish pact so frequently, it’s started to sound like we are merely conversing about another blood nymph sighting and not my hunt for a mortal victim to fall in love with me.
Nearly a year ago—after the gruesome death of yet another lover I accidentally let get too close—I dropped to my knees before my brother’s throne and tearfully begged him to make a heartwood pact with me so I could be rid of my curse.
At first, he pushed back. Denied my pleas.
A heartwood pact is not something to go into lightly.
All angles must be examined. All potential pitfalls must be analyzed.
Fae magic is never straightforward, after all.
He assessed me for a long moment, puzzling it over until his shoulders slumped and he conceded. “If that is what you wish, brother.”
The memory of Durian’s hands wrapping around mine is almost tangible now. My wrists tingle with the recollection.
“From the roots of my tree to the tops of my branches, this I swear to thee,” he’d chanted in a low voice.
“Make a mortal fall in love with you before the Sylveris Solstice—to speak the words and mean them—and you will be free of your curse. And should you fail, you will spend a year in the Bloodwood Tree. From my heartwood to my bark, ring by aged ring, this binding pact I make with thee.”
Heartwood pacts demand a balancing of the scales, a consequence for a failed pact that is the opposite of what the pact maker would get if they were to succeed.
For a prince who wishes to be uncursed so that he can safely have friendships and lovers and connection…
exile in the Bloodwood Tree is quite the counterweight.
My blackened heartwood tree looks like a delicate rose compared to the Bloodwood Tree, a sentient prison enchanted by druids during the first Sylveris War.
The execrable tower feeds off fear, and any unlucky soul who lands themselves inside its bones finds the edge of their sanity within days.
Back then, it was meant for prisoners and foes from other forests.
Now that there is a treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, it’s used for Redwood traitors and treasonous dryads.
A bit harsh of a punishment in my opinion, but my heartwood is tragically soft in areas such as this.
It’s why I would make a terrible king. Memories of my weeklong stay within its core haunt me like an angry specter. An icy chill skitters across my skin.
When I made that pact, a year seemed like plenty of time to get a mortal to fall in love with me.
But it seems I underestimated my own morality.
There were too many reasons not to sentence mortals to death by my curse.
Like them caring for younger siblings, or being exceptionally kind, or having a dog named Bingo.
A line of dryads and arborfae snakes along the interior of the citadel. They stand on bridges and pathways and spiral around the earthen platform grown on the tightly woven branches within the ring of trunks, waiting to have an audience with their beloved king.
I pass and they cringe away, as if being near me could infect them with my malevolent taint. Young Castor would burst into tears at their hatred. Now I throw my head back in a show of mad irreverence, cackling at their fear. I scare myself sometimes, but it’s better than being laughed at.
The inside of the throne room is nearly a hundred feet tall, with various chambers branching away from the center.
Alcoves, crisscrossing catwalks, and verandas offer countless places to disappear during an event.
I found each of them when I was a broken boy hiding from the crowds, and I later returned with lovers when I learned how to wear the mask of the cursed prince who tasted of danger and heartbreak.
Most fear me, but a fair few thrill seekers flock to me. After all, to love me is to court Death. Melodrama is another symptom of my curse, I’m afraid. Surely it’s not just how I am.
The Sovereign Tree infiltrates the throne room, asserting its dominance.
The throne is carved out of the tree itself.
And upon the throne sits my antithesis: King Durian Sempervirens.
Every bit the light to my darkness, with his perfect golden hair, fair skin, and elegant horns, smooth as sanded wood and wrapped in golden leaves.
“Castor,” he says as I take the stairs two at a time to sit in the second throne dwarfed by the majesty beside it. “Was the hawk slow in reaching you?”