Chapter 10
Castor
Retreating a step back from the red-haired viper locked in Tamarind’s hold, I slide the length of her blade through my fingers, avoiding the razor edge.
Looks like my instincts were right after all. For a moment there, I wasn’t so sure.
The mortal girl is all wildfire and bloodlust. Only seconds ago, her low, melodic voice lulled me into a false sense of security.
But she hid behind that golden mask, like the one she’d so carefully removed from my face.
Now her gilded shield is gone, and she stands before me barefaced and vulnerable. Except she’s the opposite of fragility.
Face the shape of a venom-filled heart. Hair the color of a flame in the middle of dry wood. Spots dotting her face like dried blood after a massacre. Silver eyes glinting at me, a pair of daggers sharper than the one she meant to drive through my heart.
And every last inch of her is dripping with gold.
“So. You thought you’d crash the Crown Masquerade and murder the Redwood King? Do you know the punishment for such a crime?”
Tamarind’s brows meet, and I shoot him the briefest of warning glances. If this mortal is going to fall in love with me, believing I’m the king rather than the cursed prince will make that task far easier. But first I’ll need to be sure she doesn’t gut me in my sleep.
The almost-murderess regards me with utter disdain, as she did before by the piles of confections. Though her mask is on the ground, it seems she’s managed to craft one all on her own. Invisible, yet just as effective. I sort of hate her for it. How easy she makes it look to appear indifferent.
“I can guess,” she says. “Luckily, I’ve committed no such crime.”
“Your intent was the same. The punishment is no less for those who don’t succeed.”
She lifts her chin in defiance. “Killing you was not my intent. I was just taking precautions. I’ve heard how you…how you are with mortals.”
“From whom have you heard this?”
She goes still, showing no visible clue to the direction of her thoughts. “People talk rather loudly at parties.”
“Ah. So it was just happenstance that you ran into me while carrying a dagger, and that you overheard someone at this party say that I mistreat mortals. Is that right?”
“This is not my first dryad party, Your Majesty. Rumors spread like weeds through the two kingdoms, you know.”
The two kingdoms. If she is used to Myrtlewood dryads, then I can’t blame her too much for carrying a dagger. But I keep up the indignant king act. “Yes, well. You should not believe everything you hear.”
“I see that now.”
Sylveris forests are filled with the most eccentric of beings.
Creatures who can morph into different animals, fae who sleep within flowers and ride on bumblebees, dryads that can camouflage themselves perfectly among the trees to hide from a passing enemy.
But an entirely lucid mortal who willingly attends a treetop masquerade as if it is commonplace? Now that is an oddity.
“Who did you come here with?”
She doesn’t move an inch. Though I imagine Tamarind’s scythe kissing her carotid has something to do with that. “I came alone.”
“And yet you can see us?”
“I’ve always been able to see dryads.” The almost resentful way in which she speaks makes me feel as though this is the only true statement she has uttered tonight.
A mortal with the Sight who fancies herself a connoisseur of dryad parties and plotted to dance on the lap of the king. My grip on her blade tightens. How very presumptuous of her.
“Did you know the last king was murdered by a mortal?” I take slow steps forward until I am standing inches from her.
At last she betrays a hint of panic: Her breathing stutters, eyes flare just millimeters, shoulders stiffen. Tamarind watches me from over the mortal’s shoulder. I know, with one order, he would cut her throat with his scythe. He’d do anything I asked him to.
“He cut down the king’s heartwood in the dead of night and left like a soul escaping a corpse,” I continue. “There were no guards stationed along the candelabra branch then. Not like there are now, unfortunately for you.”
The girl’s invisible mask has returned. “I didn’t come here to kill you,” she says carefully. “I told you. I was merely protecting myself.”
What a beautiful liar. No change in tone. No shifting or avoiding eye contact. Almost as if she believes it. I might believe her, too, if I couldn’t see the fire deep within her gaze, a smoldering funeral pyre built for me.
I offer her a smile sparkling with condescension, tilting my head as if she’s a sapling who’s done something particularly ridiculous but adorable all the same.
I toss her golden dagger in the air and catch it by the hilt for a second time.
Then I place the tip beneath her jaw, lifting it as I whisper, “Are you saying you are afraid of me?”
Her red lips part, but no words come. She breathes in, then lets the air slowly out before her teeth capture her full bottom lip. “No.”
“Is that so.”
After several beats, she finally speaks, calm and careful. “I understand if you don’t trust me. You have no reason to. But I am telling the truth.”
I step away from her. Strolling around the chaise longue, I lean my forearms atop the high back, spinning the golden dagger like a maple seed. “Why should I trust you?”
“If you let me live, I can show you. I’ll…I can work for you. Clean or cook. Whatever you desire.” Her words are slow, careful.
“Brave of you to offer so much to a king you felt the need to protect yourself from. Or perhaps foolish.”
“Something tells me you aren’t as cruel as the rumors claim. That mask you always wear is just armor to protect you from things you don’t want to feel.”
Every muscle in my face responds to her words. My brows lift at the innermost corners, mouth flattens, cheeks sink. Fire brighter than her hair sizzles in my veins. Damn her. Damn her words. Damn the truth in them.
If any mortal deserves to be chosen as my lover, it is this one.
“Perhaps,” I admit, “some of what you say is true.”
Silence settles over the three of us as I pretend to consider her offer, pushing away from the chaise longue and pacing slowly across the floor behind it.
If she’s to fall in love with me, she must stay in the Redwood Court, but Durian will be a minor issue.
Seeing as how she believes I am the king.
Oh, the fun my brother would have if he found that out.
“All right, mortal,” I drawl. “You may—”
“Maddox,” she interrupts. “My name is Maddox.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s all that matters.”
I do not push the issue. Mortals’ surnames are drenched in bloody history, dirty deeds, and money—or lack thereof.
Dryad surnames are connected to the tree on which their heartwood has grown.
Before I was adopted, I was Castor Azalea, the only sapling born from an abandoned tree on the outskirts of the Nightshade District.
Then Cyperus made me a Sempervirens…and the Sovereign Tree made me a cursed prince. Names mean nothing.
“And what should I call you?” she asks. “Your Highness? Your Majesty? Your Eminence?”
I stop pacing. “You don’t know my name?”
“I know you as the Redwood King.”
“My name is…” I begin to say Durian, but then I picture the girl before me whispering my brother’s name into my ear, and I nearly heave up the tarts I ate earlier. “Castor. My name is Castor.”
“King Castor,” she says.
Better than Cursed King, I’ll admit. But still enough to turn my stomach sour.
“All right, then, Maddox. I suppose I will allow you to prove your trustworthiness in lieu of execution.” I gesture toward Tamarind with the golden dagger. “Let her go, Tamarind.”
He lowers his obsidian scythe and relinquishes her arm, retreating a single pace away from her. Maddox takes three careful steps back, facing both of us as she cradles her right hand in her left.
“Your…Majesty?” Tamarind says awkwardly. “May I speak with you a moment?”
“Certainly.”
He steps cautiously away from Maddox, keeping his eyes trained on her. I follow him to the top of the stairs—her only exit unless she wishes to dive over the balcony to her death.
I cast vines of silence and turn my back to the mortal, knowing full well that Tamarind won’t look away from her.
“Not an inch of me trusts that girl,” he says in a quick whisper, though she couldn’t hear him if he were screaming.
“Quite wise of you, Tam. Neither do I.”
“If I hadn’t been watching in the shadows of the next mezzanine up, she’d have already buried that blade in you.”
“Likely.”
“Clearly, she came here with intentions to harm the king, if not kill him outright.”
“That is clear, yes.”
“And she believes you are the king.”
“Yes.” A wicked grin curls my lips. “It appears she does.”
“That means—”
“It means”—I glance over my shoulder at the girl scanning the room as if she is seeking a way to escape—“I’ve found the perfect candidate to fulfill my pact, don’t you think?”
A mortal with the Sight who sneaks into a dryad kingdom, caught with a golden dagger in hand as she tries to woo the man she believes is king, surely deserves the lethal fate of falling in love with the cursed prince. Far more than any other mortal who’s crossed my path.
“I suppose…But how are you going to keep up this charade? Durian will shatter that facade rather quickly, I imagine.”
“At first chance, yes, he will.”
Truthfully, I have not thought any of this through. A common occurrence as of late. I try not to think at all if I can help it.
“Perhaps you could send her to be locked up in another district?” Tamarind suggests. “And you could visit her at your leisure?”
“I can’t lock her up if she is meant to fall in love with me, can I?” The dimmest outline of a plan flares in my mind. “You’re right, though. She can’t stay here…but I think I know where I can send her.”
Tamarind pulls his focus off the mortal long enough to assess me. “Where?”
“The only place in this kingdom with an ounce of loyalty to me.”
Without further explanation, I dispel the vines of silence, facing the corrupt girl I must somehow trick into falling in love with me.
“Maddox, you can prove to me that you were, in fact, not here to take my life by staying in the Nightshade District and working for Evodia Debray at Magesté.” Tamarind’s eyes snap to mine.
I ignore him. “Her establishment is understaffed and in need of an extra pair of hands during the lead-up to the Sylveris Solstice. You can be of assistance to her for the next fortnight.”
Maddox notes the dagger still in my hands. “What is Magesté, exactly?”
“It’s an entertainment venue.” Of sorts.
For once, the mortal—Maddox—seems at a loss for words.
Even now her expression betrays nothing.
It is evident she’s pondering all of this.
Masticating and digesting it. But whether she is relieved, terrified, furious, or resentful, I know not.
How does she do that? Even now, I’m thankful for the actual mask I wear, though I fear half of my face is displaying every convoluted emotion waiting just below my skin. If only it were thicker.
“Perfect.” Something shifts in her eyes. “Do you visit this entertainment venue much? How will you ensure I’m proving my trustworthiness if I’m working in another district?”
“Let’s just say I am at Magesté more than I am here.”
Her brow lifts. “Must be very entertaining to earn the frequent presence of a king.”
There is a shadow of judgment in her tone. Lovely: Even this vile mortal doubts my leadership abilities. “Where else should a king learn about the desires of his people than at the place they go to enjoy themselves?”
The words leaving my mouth are complete and utter nonsense, but I pretend to believe it nonetheless. A skill I imagine most rulers have in spades.
“Of course…So, what now?” Maddox folds her hands before her. “Shall I hang out with your friendly guard awhile so you can enjoy the rest of your masquerade?”
Tamarind gives an imperceptible shake of the head.
“That won’t be necessary. I am bored of this party. I’ve gotten all I need out of it.” I hand over her dagger, presenting the hilt. My first card to play. For her to trust me, she has to believe that I trust her. “Take it. You’ll need to be able to protect yourself in the Nightshade District.”
Slowly, she reaches for the blade, as if she thinks I may change my mind and bury it in her sternum. Can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. But I need her. For a fortnight, at least.
She weighs the weapon in her hand a moment before sliding it into her pocket. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Please. Call me Castor.”
And, to set off the beginning of our imaginary love story, I offer the girl a reluctant smile, as if I want to trust her but am afraid to. As if I want to take off my mask for her again.
She returns it, the corners of her lips lifting slowly like they’re attached to marionette strings controlled by a puppet master. The silver of her eyes sparks. “Thank you, Castor.”
My name disintegrates like poison on her tongue.
I hope it tastes bitter.