Chapter 38
Castor
For years, Durian made me believe I was plagued to be unlovable.
That I was a revolting, cursed thing. So I became what I believed I was.
What Durian convinced me I was. After I was adopted, I believed the people who loved me were doomed to die, so I kept everyone at arm’s length.
Embraced the darkness Durian brought out in me.
Because he hated that Cyperus chose me over him.
So he found the best way to punish a lonely, adopted boy. Keep him lonely forever.
I suppose, in a way, I was cursed, having him as my brother.
Looking down at his body now, I keep expecting him to pop back up. To remind me that he always wins the game. But he doesn’t. He just keeps lying there like a shiny new toy no one ever got to play with.
Labyrinthine emotions thrash in my core, twining together until I can’t identify any single one of them.
Relief takes hold of Happiness, which latches onto Pain, who grabs hold of Regret, which turns into Anger, which settles into Numbness.
Then I remember what Maddox said, I love you still, and the emotion that comes next is unnamable.
Perhaps it is all of them woven together.
Without thought, I reach for her, an invitation.
Maddox looks up at me with eyes that can’t seem to decide if they should be guilty or proud. They skip over both of those and settle on fury. She takes a step back.
“You think I’ve forgotten about the pact you conveniently neglected to mention during our night of secrets and sex?”
“Maddox—”
My hand grips air, falling to my side.
“The coffee. The kindness. The conversations. Was that all just a lie? Just you trying to get me to fall in love with you?”
“At first, yes, it was a lie.” My chest aches at my honesty, at the betrayal in her eyes, as if she hoped she’d been wrong. “At first. And then…it wasn’t anymore.”
“When wasn’t it?”
When indeed.
I hated her, then I wanted her, then I needed her, and then I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. The timeline is liquid. It’s smoke. It’s poison mixed with blood.
“I don’t know. Maybe when we had wine for breakfast. Maybe when I first saw you in one of your Magesté outfits, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
Maybe when I found out you were actually funny and clever and not just mean, so I had to mentally practice my jokes on the samara ride there to keep up with you.
All I know with certainty is it was definitely not a lie when I kissed you on that piano top or when it crumbled to the ground, and you wrapped your legs so tightly around me I thought I might come right there in front of all those guards. ”
Maddox’s face flushes. From embarrassment or lust or anger, I’ll never know which, because I simply continue.
“But then you held your own against a blood nymph and walked my drunken soul home when I nearly rotted Magesté. Told me I was too lovable and looked at me like you meant it. Then you came to my branch in tears, worried for me, kissed me like it was all you’d ever wanted.
All of my reactions to that, the feelings that you can read all over my face like no one else, those were all real.
And after our night together, I knew. I knew I would rather spend a year in this godsforsaken tree than let you die for me. ”
She looks at me for a long time and then shakes her head. “Well. That was quite the gamble you made if you were being genuine all that time, knowing I could die any second.”
Shame turns to bitterness in my chest. “I wasn’t the only one with invisible blood on their hands, was I? You came here to kill the Redwood King. And for quite a while, that’s who you thought I was.”
Her eyes fall to my brother’s body, mouth tightening. She doesn’t deny it.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you come here to kill the king? Were you just bored with your mortal life and decided it would be fun to murder a dryad? Like your father did?”
Maddox flinches, eyes squeezing shut a moment. “No. I…” She stops, guilty eyes casting down. “I made a pact too.”
“With?” The question is foolish as there are only two dryads with whom she could have made a heartwood pact, and one of them is dead. “Ah. Why did you make a pact with the Myrtle Queen?”
“I’ll explain after I’ve retrieved Durian’s horns.”
“His horns?”
Maddox drops to her knees, inspecting the sandalwood horns I once envied so. “Yes. Do you have a knife or something so I can cut them off?”
I look from her to my brother’s corpse, his perfect cheekbones still slightly pink.
The man who never truly loved me. The man who made me feel lonelier when I was standing beside him than when I was all alone.
Never outright dismissive, especially in front of others, but always sure to offer comfort in the form of dark, painful reminders.
There were glimpses of a brother there, though.
Sometimes he would tell me about his day, about the things he saw when he visited the Iron King, about the ridiculous things other leaders would say in Council meetings.
He would even invite me to join him in a game of chess every now and then. But, of course, he always had to win.
Despite all of that, my throat feels thick with grief.
But I’m not about to cry. Not after Maddox called me a giant teardrop.
For once I’m the winner of this game. And somehow, I don’t feel any sense of victory.
Only the same bone-deep numbness. Without speaking, I kneel beside Maddox, pressing my fingers to the base of each of Durian’s horns.
My power surges, warming my hands as a line of concentrated decay sears through the wood until the horns clatter to the floor.
Maddox picks them up, the size of eggplants in her hands.
She stuffs them into the oversized pockets of her cloak as if they are nothing more sacred than a crumpled-up piece of paper.
“The Myrtle Queen told me if I killed the Redwood King, she would rid me of my mortal disease.”
“Disease?” Despite her clear distaste for my nearness, I step closer, my hand lifting to her forehead.
“I’m not sick.” She steps out of my reach again. “It’s more complicated than all that. It’s an autoimmune disease called diabetes. Depending on a mortal’s circumstances, it can be deadly, and my circumstances were pretty un-fucking-ideal. So.”
Like a twig snapping beneath a heavy footstep, disjointed memories click together in my mind.
The trembling of her hands. The occasional glaze in her eyes.
Sneaking away to the bathroom before she eats anything.
The juice and sugar crystals. Nearly passing out on the couch that morning. The needle on the floor.
“So you…made a pact with the Myrtle Queen to cure you?”
“Such a quick mind you have.”
A sickening sensation trickles down my nerves like acid rainwater sliding over a leaf.
“You should not have done that.”
“Well, I had no other choice.”
“None you knew of,” I say softly. “If you had come here, come to me, I could have—”
“Stop.” Her ever-steady voice quakes. “What’s done is done. Neither of us can change the past. Just get me out of here.”
Agony settles in my chest. For a moment, I see it reflected in her eyes. Then it’s gone.
For a handful of torturous minutes, when she admitted what she’d done, I’d tried to dredge up my buried hate for her.
For lying to me, for not telling me what her father did, or about her true intentions in this kingdom.
But then I looked at our mutual sins scattered before us.
Both selfish and ugly, and yet…I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. I still can’t.
I lead Maddox down the stairs of the Bloodwood Tree. We pass by a cell, and I do a double take. Tamarind is pressed against the wall, wearing a haunted expression. The tree must have a deep hold.
“Tam.” I press my hand to the bars, and they immediately open for me. My brow furrows. “How—?”
“Durian’s dead,” Maddox says impatiently. “Technically, that would make you the only Sovereign brother left.”
“I can’t…be king.” I press a hand to my forehead, to the minuscule crown I wear, a fraction of the golden monstrosity Durian donned every day.
How can I go from the cursed prince to the Redwood King?
I’ll say two words and the entire kingdom will flinch away from me.
I’ll be speaking to an empty throne room.
A weak voice breaks through my panic. “Cas?”
Tam blinks up at me, expression disoriented and confused. I reach for his hand, pulling him to standing. “Gods, you look like death. Good people aren’t meant for this place.”
“I’m fine.” He looks past me to Maddox. “Did you…?”
“Eventually,” she grumbles and then nods once. “He’s dead.”
“Yes, about that.” I turn to Maddox. “His heartwood will already be dying. If anyone has noticed, which I’m sure they have, they’ll be panicking, looking for his body—and the last they saw, you were climbing up the throne room with tree poison. So…you’ll want to keep your hood up.”
Maddox lifts the dark material, hiding her red hair.
A group of golden guards waits at the base of the staircase, seemingly surprised to see the three of us rather than their king. I’m guessing they haven’t been outside to see that their boss is…no longer their boss.
“He’s with a prisoner,” I tell them with as much authority as I possess. “He asked not to be disturbed and for all of you to wait here for him. Don’t let anyone up there.”
The guards exchange wary looks, unused to being ordered around by the cursed prince but outranked all the same. Maddox keeps her head ducked as I guide her out by the arm. Tam follows, avoiding eye contact with the guards.
The entrance to the Bloodwood Tree lets out in sight of the candelabra branch.
Durian’s heartwood has lost all vibrancy.
The green leaves gone, the once-red bark now a dull rust color.
Panic has broken out among the citadel guards and servants.
Shouts can be heard in the distance. Quick feet and lamentations.
“Tam, stay here and make sure no guards go in or come out—for as long as possible.”
He nods curtly, the shadows under his eyes deep and dark from a night spent in the Bloodwood Tree. I press a hand to his shoulder, and he covers it with his own. Maddox tracks the gesture, and the hint of a smile lifts her lips, but it’s gone just as quickly.
“I overheard Evodia say the Myrtle Queen is staying at Magesté,” she tells me.
“I can walk with you.”
She doesn’t agree to this, but she doesn’t tell me not to either.
We descend a winding staircase to the bottommost path, where few dryads travel.
Maddox walks quickly, arms crossed. “Well, congratulations,” she says in a falsely bright tone.
“Your pact is complete. Your revolting brother is dead, so you don’t have to worry about people dying if they get close to you. You got everything you wanted.”
“Not everything,” I admit quietly.
“What did you not get? A fancy crown made of gold and rubies? An outfit woven from moonlight and stars?”
“I don’t care about any of that.”
“What do you care about? Anything other than wine, nepenthe, and sex?”
Her assumption stings. “Right now, there are few things I care about. The foremost of which is walking beside me.”
She whirls around. “It’s too late for all of that, Castor.
Whether your curse was real or not, you believed it was.
You went into that pact believing I would die in the end.
And when we were both lying naked in your bed and you were spilling out your soul, you could have told me then, but you didn’t.
So I’m sorry, but you don’t get to say that you take it all back.
Because that doesn’t change what you did. ”
Her cheeks are flushed, eyes wild and on fire, hands shaking. Mine are shaking too.
“And what of your pact?” I say, agony morphing to anger.
“Let us not dance over the fact that you believed I was the Redwood King. Do you take me for a complete fool, Maddox? Do you think I don’t realize that the only reason you spent all that time with me was because you were trying to find a way for me to trust you? To get me alone?”
“I got you alone and still I spared your life,” she snarls.
“Before or after you thought you’d poisoned me with oleander wine? I’m guessing that wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“I—”
“And yet you feel validated in painting me to be the one with blood-coated hands when you showed up in this kingdom with a golden dagger. A dagger you wasted no time in hiding behind your back as you kissed me at the top of the throne room.”
“Okay, but—”
“A dagger you had every intention of plunging deep into my heart if Tamarind hadn’t caught you. Am I wrong?”
“Castor—”
“Am. I. Wrong?”
I know the answer before she says it.
A muscle twitches in her jaw as she lifts her chin. “No. You aren’t.”
“Then which of us is the kettle and which is the pot?”
“Neither. I am the dagger, and you are the disease,” Maddox says hotly. “I am the axe, and you are the poison. We were a doomed combination from the start.”
“Why, then, do I feel this way?” I ask, aware that offering up any vulnerability to her is dangerous now. It always has been. “Like I’ve just lost a vital organ and am meant to continue on without it.”
“Because we dance with darkness, you and I,” she murmurs. “I told you I was drawn to broken things. Evidently, we both are.”
We dance with darkness.
I’ve always been rather fond of darkness. The moon and stars are brightest in the deepest hours of night.
“You know what the worst part of it is?” There’s a catch in her voice.
“The worst part is that this was the first place that truly felt like home. But it was all an illusion. It always is for me. Every time I think I’ve found something safe, something real, it’s ripped away and exposed for the lie it was. ”
Heat burns in my eyes, sears my throat. “Maddox—” I reach for her, but she pushes my hand away.
“Don’t touch me. I know the way to Magesté. You can return to your tree castle in the sky. Better get ready for the Sylveris Solstice; you represent the Redwood Kingdom now, after all. Enjoy your new throne, Your Majesty. And don’t forget that I’m the one who put you up there.”
Her words slash, sharper than her dagger. Cutting and digging and tearing through my flesh, leaving me bleeding on the dark path as I watch her walk away. A slowly dying flame.