Chapter 14
Castor
Tamarind and I find the redheaded murderess standing on the viewing dock of the gallows tree. Not a surprise that someone of her ilk would end up here; I’m sure the stench of decaying dryads called to her like a siren’s song.
The flaming hair tied atop her head in an organized nest looks like the beginning of a forest fire in the middle of this dead-filled wood.
She grips the railing, gaping at the skeletons of the dryads who dared rebel against Redwood Law.
Like a spider’s prey, they’re spun in vines and silk, sucked dry by the tree until all that remains are their frames.
And there they stay, bones wrapped in pendulous coffins. A decorative warning.
With a sick twist.
“We call this the gallows tree,” I tell her. “But some refer to it as the hanging gardens.”
Maddox startles, and a thrill of dark satisfaction runs through me.
I don’t typically enjoy people being afraid of me—but her lack of emotion and fear in general is unnerving for someone who is ruled by emotions and afraid of most everything.
It is particularly unnerving to think she may have no heart at all.
It would certainly be my luck to pick the one human incapable of love to break this curse.
She fixes me with a shrewd glare before noting Tamarind standing at the ready behind me. Her wall of defense rises. “This is how you bury your dead?”
This is one of the ways Durian punishes those who openly defy him or Redwood Law. It’s a practice nearly as old as the Sovereign Tree, though King Cyperus let much more slide than Durian.
“And that’s why our brother found himself with a felled heartwood,” Durian once told me when I mentioned all the new skeletons in the gallows tree. “If you wish for a garden to thrive, you must first kill the weeds and pests that threaten it, mustn’t you?”
I see the logic, I guess. But I find it difficult to distinguish a weed from a poisonous plant.
But obviously I can’t say any of this to Maddox because I am the king, and I doubt that would convince her to fall in love with me.
I’m beginning to see some downsides to this impersonation.
“Not quite” is all I offer. Kings have no business telling mortals about their execution practices anyhow.
The mortal’s eyes narrow as she turns her focus back to the tree, eyes scanning each of the silk-wrapped bodies.
Then they freeze on the bones of a small dryad sapling, no older than ten.
I look, too, for a moment, until I can’t anymore.
That old familiar lump rises in my throat, tears threatening to make an appearance, but I swallow them down.
Now is not the time. Showing any form of weakness around this mortal has already proven to be a near-fatal mistake.
“Children?” The single word is soaked through with judgment.
Though I am just as disgusted as she is, I feel the bizarre need to defend myself—the fake king. “Dryad saplings aren’t shown mercy the way mortal children are.”
A muscle twitches along her jawline. “I wouldn’t say mortal children are shown mercy.”
Her eyes rake up and down my body, lingering on my horns. I made sure to dress in my most kingly of clothes—olive-green breeches, a midnight velvet doublet sewn through with strands of golden spider silk, and of course, my golden crown—a minuscule version of Durian’s, but a crown, nonetheless.
Maddox’s attention moves to the citadel. “Whose heartwood is that?”
I already know which tree she means, but I look anyway. A curving trunk like an elder’s back, dark twisted branches void of leaves, bark charred and wounded.
I force my words to come out impassive rather than ashamed. “Which?”
“The one that looks like it’s been struck by lightning. That’s the candelabra branch, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“So, that means it should belong to—”
“It belongs to my brother,” I interject.
Tamarind’s mouth unhinges, and I chance a quick shake of my head in his direction. He closes it, but his eyes remain panicked.
The mortal seems less surprised by this than I expected. Almost as if she already knew. “The cursed prince?”
Her words land like barbs shot from a porcupine plant. “So you’ve heard of him.” Of course she has.
“Why was he cursed?”
My teeth grit tightly together at the question. Why indeed. “His heartwood was never meant to be a part of the Sovereign Tree.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was adopted.” The word tastes like spoiled wine. “By my late brother, King Cyperus.”
Maddox’s gaze falls back to my heartwood. “How does that even work?” she asks. “A dryad adoption.”
“It’s a ceremony performed by the druids. They move the heartwood from one tree to another. I’m not entirely sure how it works,” I admit. “They’re the only ones who speak Sylvan.”
“Sylvan?”
“The language of the trees.”
“Ah,” she says as if she understands, though the way her lips twitch to the side makes it clear she has no inkling what I’m talking about. “But how did that curse him?”
The ever-hollow space in my chest deepens somehow, like a bottomless pit growing impossibly more infinite. “The Sovereign Tree itself cursed him…because he was never meant to belong to the royal family.”
She frowns more deeply now, still ogling the tree harboring my unsightly soul. My stomach squirms with unease, as if I can feel her staring at my very core. Surely mortals with Sight can’t see through dryads too. That would be rather gruesome. And in my case, highly mortifying.
“What a lonely existence the prince must lead. It’s not as if he can help being cursed.” Her voice turns icy. “It’s not like he wanted to be unwanted.”
Her words send a sharp pain lancing through me, spreading like veins of electricity along the cage of bones inside my chest. Because that’s one of the words I’ve pinned to myself beside my plethora of other descriptors. Cursed. Broken. Rejected. Monstrous. Unwanted.
But at least Handsome and Alluring are tacked onto those or I’d simply have nothing to offer.
A breeze travels through the gallows tree, the branches and vines letting out a symphony of eerie creaks. Shuddering, Maddox turns away, moving past me up the path. “I can’t be here.”
“You can’t be here as in here, or as in the kingdom?” I follow her, attempting to swallow my panic.
She shoots me a sidelong glance, eyes piercing me with their ferocity. I wonder if she ever lets down her guard or if she’s always steeled for a fight. “If I wanted to leave this kingdom, would you even let me?”
“Do you want to leave?”
“Would you let me if I did?”
I need her here to complete my pact, but forcing her to stay would render that impossible.
Who could fall in love with someone who kept them prisoner?
But something about the way she looked at me last night—like I had something of hers she wanted—tells me she wouldn’t leave, even if she had the choice.
“I won’t force you to prove your trustworthiness, if that is what you are asking. ”
“You owe me no favors. Why not force me to stay?”
“As I said last night after you attempted to assassinate me, I am not as cruel as people say.”
In my periphery, I can tell she is assessing me as we walk, Tamarind three paces behind us. I’m unsure whether I’ve passed her secret test or further convinced her of my worthlessness. Then she sighs. “I’m not going anywhere. I may be a lot of things, but I am also a woman of my word.”
Silence dances around us like the drunken dryads at last night’s masque.
But my thoughts are louder than Maddox’s feet finding every stray twig to snap.
Before I made this pact, romancing those who craved danger was almost effortless.
I’m the cursed prince. Dark, brooding, and menacing.
My labels pulled ephemeral lovers in with hardly any exertion on my part.
But this pact, laced with a netting of delicate lies, changed everything.
Every move is crucial. Every word is one I can’t take back. A rose or dagger thrown at her empty heart, and I won’t know which until I’ve said it. My mouth opens to speak, then closes, again and again. A sparrow choking on a seed.
“Did you sleep well last night?” I ask finally. I can practically hear Tamarind rolling his eyes behind me.
Maddox guffaws. “Did you know, on the night of the Crown Masquerade at least, that arborfae and dryads like to romp around naked and sing ballads on the Magesté stage after the show is over?”
I crack a grin. “Do they?”
“And did you know that my new room happens to be located directly beneath the stage?”
A laugh escapes my throat without my permission. “So you’re saying you slept wonderfully?”
“Best sleep of my life. What’s even better is that I haven’t had coffee in days. That really helps.”
What is it with mortals and their coffee? “Dryads don’t drink much of that, I’m afraid. Personally, I prefer wine in the mornings.”
At my mention of wine, her mouth tightens. “Mmm. Well, I’m going to have to figure something out. Uncaffeinated Maddox is not a pleasant thing to endure. I’ll likely scare away all the visitors tonight.”
I should probably ask her some questions like I care, I suppose.
“And how are you feeling about tonight? Anxious? Frightened?”
She snorts. “Your obsession with me becoming frightened is unnerving.”
“Your supposed lack of fear is unnerving.”
We reach the fork in the wooden road leading toward either the Nightshade District or the citadel.
“Shall I call for a samara?”
“No, I’ll walk.”
“Let me accompany you to Magesté, then.”
“Thanks, but I can make my own way back from here.”
“Don’t let the light of the morning deceive you,” I tell her. “The most dangerous creatures in this forest roam in the daylight, and few actually look like monsters.”
She stares pointedly at me, lifting the edge of her dress up her speckled thigh, revealing a dagger tied there with leather cord.
Unwelcome warmth spreads through me, sinking low in my belly at the sight, but I shrug it away.
This viper may have voluptuous thighs begging to be bitten, but it doesn’t make her any less of a monster.
Tamarind catches my face and hides an amused grin with a cough. He knows my type. Bastard.
She releases the skirt, and I track the material as it slides down her skin like clumsy hands. “I can handle myself.”
There are monstrous fae in these woods who would swallow her whole, blade and all. Though I imagine she would somehow find a way to cut herself free. “I have no doubt about that.” I offer her a shallow bow. “Until tonight, then, Oleander.”
“No need to check up on me. I’m not going to run away.”
“You’re forgetting that you’re a guest in my district.”
Gesturing toward the citadel, where the Sovereign Tree towers within, she says, “I thought this was your district.”
“I am the king. Every district is my district. But…living in a place doesn’t make it a home.”
At these words, something shifts in her expression, the faintest glint of some deeply rooted pain. A trick of the light, I’m sure. “Until tonight, then, Your Majesty.”
I watch her walk away, and Tamarind appears at my side. “You bowed to her.”
“What?” I feign disinterest, inwardly cursing myself. Years of bowing to my brothers has ingrained the gesture in me when presented with a person I simultaneously loathe and fear.
“You bowed to the girl just now,” he clarifies. “You’re meant to be the king. Shouldn’t she be bowing to you?”
Shooting him the most disgusted look I can manage, I wave him away.
“I offered her a gentlemanly gesture. Yes, I am meant to be king, but I also intend for her to fall in love with me. If I want your advice, I will ask for it, Tamarind. Otherwise, you may remain silent. Don’t forget that your fondness for talking out of turn is the reason you’re stuck with me. ”
All emotion drains from Tam’s face like blood from a slashed throat. He offers a brusque nod, backing a step away. I get the urge to apologize but fight it down. We aren’t friends anymore. We haven’t been friends for quite some time.
If I do manage to rid myself of this curse, what would a friendship with him even look like?
For just a moment, I let myself daydream about a future where I could actually have some semblance of a normal life.
A life where Tam and I sneak off into a nearby mortal town—or maybe venture a bit farther, into their larger cities—drinking and causing problems only the fae can cause.
Party with the carousing ironfae. Find a couple mortals to flirt with, to kiss under their too-bright city lights.
And then make our way back to the forest, arm in arm, laughing drunkenly about nothing.
The soft wind of beating wings rustles my hair, pulling me out of my reverie. A hawk lands on the railing along the path, its beak clenched around a golden scroll.
“What does my dear brother have to say to me this morning?” I mutter to the hawk. It tilts its head, stretching its neck further.
I unfurl the scroll as the bird flies away. In perfect black script are only four words sandwiching an ominous trio of dots.
Lovely choice…Your Majesty.