Chapter 11
Lisette
Arush of recollection collided in my mind like the discolored threads of a tapestry. The distorted fragments created not reminiscences of my relationship with my fiancé that I’d been struggling to make sense of ever since the curse had consumed most of my memories, but painful recollections of my life in Thorndale that the more I remembered, the more I realized they were ones I wanted nothing more than to forget.
Each harsh word General Radolf spoke formed outlines of what had initially been a blurry, indiscernible picture; shades of meaning gradually filled in the lingering gaps—a life lacking meaning beyond my role as Father’s political pawn, years of constant indifference and neglect, a painful barrier of shyness created to protect the fragile emotions of my heart that I worked tirelessly to keep hidden.
I flinched at the memory of Father’s angry voice when I’d ventured to ask him the reasoning behind a trade agreement. Even worse was the recollection of his cold triumph when he told me that, without my consent or even knowledge, he’d made a marriage arrangement between me and a man I’d never met, an alliance that would put me on the throne of another kingdom and increase his influence in international affairs.
With each remembrance I felt myself drifting farther from the meeting room filled with its horrible pronouncements and punishing memories into the nothingness that I’d been fighting to resist, leaving me without any strength remaining for the exhausting fight. Lucien cast me several worried glances throughout the meeting, the sole connection that kept me from finding myself at the curse’s mercy as its tight tendrils coiled around my awareness, coaxing me to stop struggling.
His image gradually grew fainter and the voices muffled, as if the real world was drifting farther away…replaced with sounds from the other world I thought I’d sensed during the night—voices of beings I couldn’t see, beckoning me like a siren to a place where I wouldn’t be forced to relive the memories from my time at the Thorndale court if I vanished.
Moments before my weak hold faltered, a familiar voice rescued me. “Princess Lisette is not yet fully vanished.”
My fading surroundings suddenly shifted back into focus. I hastily blinked to find everyone in the meeting room staring at Lucien—standing feet braced and back tight with tension, but head held high. I stared in amazement as he stood up to the men I’d lived in fear of my entire life, boldly declaring my existence until his brother hustled him from the room.
I followed him in a daze as he and Ryland walked to his father’s study to meet with the king. Never had anyone risked humiliation and censure for my sake. Along with the warmth that came from being valued, I felt a rising hope. Could we truly show that I was still connected to this world, and perhaps with so many working to free me from the curse, finally discover a cure?
Lost in these thoughts, I sat through the endless meetings that followed. But as they dragged on my initial hope began to fade as reality set in—even if there was a possibility of my safe return, Thorndale would never give up their chance to gain a crippling hold on Brimoire. Dimly I wondered if this had been the plan from the beginning—to willingly place me in harm’s way, not just to ensure the dowry but to give Father a reason to invade.
At the thought a long-buried memory rose darkly to the surface. After spending my early childhood with my birth mother—a woman whose name I could no longer remember but who’d had the misfortune to catch my father’s eye and become pregnant with his child—I’d been taken from her to live at the palace.
I was still growing accustomed to living in grandeur and occasionally being displayed as the princess at court functions, while thankfully left to my own devices the rest of the time. One evening I wandered the richly adorned hallways, peering into rooms and imagining that my true mother waited for me in one of them; my little fingers curled around my necklace as I wished as hard as my young heart could that she would come back for me.
Voices drifted from a partially ajar door. I cautiously peeked inside to find the queen adjusting the king’s cravat as they prepared to go to the dining hall. She smoothed the gilt lace into place. “What will you do if they refuse?”
Father frowned and I shrank back even though his ire was not directed at me…at least this time. “I will not allow them to refuse,” he said. “I will find their weakness and exploit it. This might be the perfect opportunity for Lisette to finally prove useful to me.”
A dark shadow crossed the queen’s face. “Don’t mention her name. I can’t bear the sight or the thought of her. She’s nothing but a horrible reminder of—”
“You’ll have to get used to it,” Father snapped. “To everyone outside our inner circle she is our child. You need to do a better job of behaving like her mother.”
The queen’s shoulders drooped. “I know,” she murmured. “But it’s so hard.”
“We can’t let things fall apart now,” the king warned, his tone unfeeling. “I’ve spent years planning how to obtain more than just the pittance we’re receiving now; once everything is in place, we’ll finally have unlimited access to the—”
He cut off abruptly, his gaze darting towards the slightly open door. I escaped on hurried tiptoe down the hall, vanishing into the shadows before he could reach the doorway.
As I mulled over the recollection now, something nagged at me. Though my father and his wife never let me forget the shame of my illegitimate birth, I had always been introduced as the princess of Thorndale. But as I remembered my father’s words, I had a sudden, sickening thought: what if Lucien had no idea what my background was? Had my true identity been concealed from Brimoire in order to arrange our alliance? Worst of all, would Lucien reject me when he discovered the truth?
The more I considered it, the more likely it seemed. Surely the kingdom of Brimoire would not have made a marriage alliance for their crown prince with me had they known. An illegitimate daughter who did not even know her birth mother’s name would never be accepted as a future queen. Despair coiled around my heart. Even if Lucien found a way to free me from the curse, I wasn’t sure we could truly be together.
I felt a familiar tightening sensation in my chest, accompanied by the feeling of struggling for air. I took a deep, gasping breath but my dizziness only increased. I sank to the floor, curling into a ball as my lips turned numb and I tried to focus on slow, even breaths. Anxiety had riddled my life, though I hadn’t had an episode like this since becoming invisible.
As my panic swelled, the curse rose along with it, seducing me with the reminder that this misery could end if I succumbed. I gave a muffled cry, wondering if there was any reason to keep fighting when it was likely my engagement would be broken whether or not I escaped my invisibility. I could hear nothing but the curse’s menacing whispers, urging me to give up the horror of my current existence.
Shakily I tried to reach out with my senses, remembering how I’d thought I detected Aira’s presence before. She had always helped me in the past when anxiety overwhelmed me. There was no response to my desperate plea and I felt myself slipping, losing my tenuous hold on the world…until a hand suddenly brushed mine.
I opened my eyes to see Lucien kneeling beside me, eyes wide with dismay. “What’s wrong, Lisette?” He grasped uselessly at my hand, leaving behind not the lack of feeling or faint tingling we’d previously experienced, but a coldness as if I’d been dipped in ice. Though I was still caught in anxiety’s grip, the harsh sensation was enough to fully return me to the present.
I managed a gasping breath. “I sometimes get these…episodes,” I stammered. “My handmaiden usually helps me through them.”
“Let me help you instead.” His tone was achingly gentle, encouraging me to rely on him
“What about the meeting?” I weakly raised my head to discover that the room was empty and long shadows spread across the floor.
“It’s over. What do you need me to do?” Lucien bent closer.
“Aira asked—” I paused as another tremor shuddered through my body. “Name five things. Favorites.” It was hard to force words past my cold lips.
Lucien blinked as he attempted to process my request. Settling himself on the floor beside me, he drew my hand into his lap, gently stroking it.
“I’ll start. I like waking early enough to accomplish as much as I can before the sun rises, visiting the garden my mother planted, fresh scones with strawberry jam, and…history.” There was a hint of hesitation in the last word, as though he were confessing more than it seemed.
I held up five fingers.
“Right. The fifth one is getting to know you better. What are your five favorites?”
The mention of his mother’s garden reminded me that we had both lost our mothers, though for all I knew mine was still alive. I put a hand to my heart where my pendant still hung.
“My mother’s necklace,” I whispered, getting the words out with an effort. “Daffodils. The swing in the palace garden. Reading a book in a tucked-away corner of my library. And getting letters from you.”
Lucien started in surprise at my last item. “But my letters were…” He paused. “I’m not a very good writer.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really remember their contents, but I have a vague memory of looking forward to them.” My words began to flow more easily.
Lucien smiled. “You sound better.”
I trembled as I sat up. “I think I’m alright now. Thank you for helping me.” I gave my head a rigid shake in an effort to dispel the lingering tendrils of temptation to succumb to the curse and allow it to erase my pain…and me along with it. Noticing a frown on Lucien’s face, I tilted my head. “What is it?”
He evenly met my gaze. “I need to speak with you. Are you alright to talk now, or should we wait until you can recover a little more?”
The hesitation present in our previous interactions was entirely absent, replaced with a forwardness that made it impossible to deny his wishes; after his bringing me safely back to shore from the tumultuous waves of nothingness I no longer desired to resist. My careful shield had faltered, allowing the fear I’d struggled to suppress to overcome me, leaving me breathless. I wrapped my arms around myself in a feeble attempt to still the tremors I imagined would be overcoming me if my body were tangible.
His eyes widened. “Are you alright? We can wait until later; I just don’t want to lose the opportunity to speak to you.”
I wanted to tell him how close I’d been to losing myself but words were impossible to form—for once not because my previous reservations about confiding in him were holding me bound, but because speaking them out loud would make what had nearly transpired all the more real.
“What did you wish to discuss?”
He was silent a moment, as if debating whether he should press my obvious evasion of his inquiry. He seemed to accurately surmise that attempting to unlock my unspoken words too soon would only cause them to withdraw further in their protective stronghold, for he eventually sighed.
“I wish to speak to you about a topic I’ve delayed for far too long.”
Dread replaced my previous apprehension. “I don’t wish to speak of the meeting, nor the visiting dignitaries.”
He seemed unsurprised I’d accurately guessed his intentions. “I know, but it was during the meeting that I realized—” His previous hesitation returned and he lowered his gaze. “Even though we’ve been engaged for several years, until listening to how the general from Thorndale spoke of you, I never understood the details regarding your home life.”
My recently returned memories assaulted me in a rush of hurt, only partially staved by his presence beside me. “I never confided in you before?”
I wondered how this could be the first time we’d spoken about such matters if we were truly in love. At first glance this fact seemed to cast doubt on his insistences that we’d successfully built a relationship before it had been lost to the curse, even as I didn’t need my full memories to remember how closely I’d guarded this particular secret. My earlier brush of recollection was enough to remind me how deeply I’d tried to suppress them; confiding in him would have only brought them to the surface, leaving me vulnerable.
What if he thinks I’m too broken and cancels our engagement? Isn’t it better to be in a loveless marriage than remain in my father’s control?I wasn’t yet ready to uncover the darkness of my past so instead switched to a different question that had been troubling me.
“Did our relationship actually begin with romance?”
He winced, as if I’d struck him. “This isn’t the place for such a conversation. Let’s go somewhere more private.” Since he couldn’t take my hand, he beckoned me to accompany him.
I numbly followed as Lucien led me purposefully through the corridors to his intended destination. I studied his profile as I floated alongside him—the hardened countenance he’d maintained throughout the meeting had faltered, replaced with a fierce determination and purpose that indicated I wouldn’t be able to escape whatever conversation he was determined to finally have.
His destination turned out to be the turret where he’d found me several days before, a place separate from the world below that already felt like ours. We looked down upon the vast kingdom with its scattered cursed patches faintly illuminated by the sun that hung in the sky, grey as an approaching storm yet absent of any clouds, as if the curse fed on them too.
Though any words I’d spoken en route would have gone unheard by anyone that passed except for him, it was only in this refuge that I found the bravery to repeat the question I’d held back during our journey. “Our relationship didn’t actually begin with romance, did it?”
I expected him to deny it, but he merely leaned against the railing with a weary sigh. “Does any union initially possess love when it begins as a political arrangement between strangers?”
I considered. “Perhaps not…though I would imagine that it would at least possess the hope of love.”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “A lovely sentiment, yet one that is entirely elusive according to the dictates brought by my role.”
I was certain I’d experienced the same frustration due to the constraints of my own royal title, an emotion that undoubtedly created another obstacle preventing me from accessing the memories from our courtship that continuously felt out of reach.
“Perhaps I needed to love you because the emotion was absent from my life.” The confession escaped of its own accord, as if my heart had made a decision to open itself up to him before sense could persuade it.
His expression became grave as he angled his body towards mine. “Because of the king of Thorndale? Do you remember?”
Being forced to say the words out loud served to make my own father’s indifference all the more real; the bravery I’d managed to summon had withdrawn, leaving me unable to form an answer. Silence crowded the space between us, but he didn’t pressure me to fill it even after it’d extended for several endless minutes while I wrestled between my conflicting desires to confide in him and my inborn wish to continue protecting my secrets. I hesitated to impart my raw pain to a man that for all the recollections of closeness he insisted existed between us I didn’t yet feel close enough to confide in him, even as the burden had grown too heavy to continue to bear alone.
I finally gave up the fight and tentatively nodded; the motion seemed to free my tongue enough to explain. “I’ve always been nothing more than a pawn.” I’d often wondered what my role would have been if I hadn’t been born in disgrace as the child of the king’s common mistress, before concluding that even if I wasn’t an illegitimate child, my passive nature would still cause me to be unwanted and powerless to Father’s dictates.
His expression twisted, not in the disgust my insecurities had always imagined should he learn of my weakness in being unable to make my own family care for me, but in anger—the negative reaction I’d always feared directed not at me but my father…and himself.
“I should have realized when the King of Thorndale remained insistent on sending you into this cursed land despite our repeated warnings concerning the danger, treating you as nothing more than a sacrifice on an altar for his ambitions.” His fists clenched. “I’m ashamed I failed to realize why you never spoke of your home life, nor recognized the walls you’d built for your protection. If I’d been less consumed with my own worries and more vigilant in getting to know you—”
I eyed his defensive stance in surprise, my heart swelling at his protectiveness. I’d expected my vulnerability would leave me exposed and my heart susceptible to further pain, but instead the burden I’d grown accustomed to felt lighter, even though nothing had changed.
Though he didn’t seem to harbor any blame towards me, he couldn’t mask the hurt I sensed was not only on my behalf but his own. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Emotion wrenched his voice, causing my heart to waver.
It wasn’t until this moment that I first considered that my carefully constructed walls could harm anyone other than myself. “Because I thought that if you knew, you would have less reason to care for me. If my own father doesn’t love me, then what reason would you—” I couldn’t finish.
His rested a hand over my formless one, a touch I longed to feel above all the others he’d tried to give me since our reunion. “I have infinite reasons to care for you, but they are meaningless if you don’t see them for yourself. I hope that by courting you again, we can not only recapture what we’ve lost, but create something new and beautiful for you to believe in.”
My heart pounded wildly. Even without the feel of his palm against my hand, his earnest gaze possessed a touch of its own, reaching out to caress the heart I often feared had become dormant after my family’s continual indifference had caused me to lock it away. I’d always dreamt of the day I could find someone to entrust with the key; perhaps its destined keeper had been him this entire time.
“It’s not too late?” Tears my bodiless form made impossible to shed clogged my weak voice.
He shook his head. “Though there is much about the vanishing curse I still don’t quite understand, one thing I’m certain of: no matter its power, love is a force it cannot permanently take away.” He reached out to run his fingers against my cheek, another sensation I couldn’t feel for myself but which seemed to further stir my heart. “Even if you don’t care for me in this moment, there is no other word to describe my feelings for you other than love.”
I found myself immersed in his deep grey gaze, filled with a tenderness that I’d never expected to be directed towards me, allowing me for at least this moment to experience this elusive yet beautiful emotion. “How could I have taken something so precious that you’d entrusted to me and lost it? Perhaps that’s why our courtship memories are hidden away—my inexperience in any form of love left me unable to properly safeguard it.”
“No matter how many times it seems lost or forgotten, love can always be rediscovered. Thus I will never cease in my efforts to court you.” A strange expression crossed his face—a tinge of regret and apprehension, as though he feared what might happen through his efforts—but it faded as he leaned closer to tenderly wrap his hands around my incorporeal ones.
I wanted to lose myself in the security brought by his enfolding words, but the memories struggling to emerge ravaged my mind with dark splotches that tainted the joy created by his presence that had cast away some of my hidden shadows. All my repeated, though weak, attempts to secure his heart had instead been met with an indifference—similar to Father’s hardened countenance—that seemed a permanent part of his features whenever circumstances forced him to interact with me.
I couldn’t reconcile Lucien’s previous seemingly unfeeling behavior with his current tender sentiments, even as I couldn’t deny his current sincerity—I had gone too long without it not to recognize this single shaft of light in my usual darkness.
“Even if I don’t remember what transpired between us before, I’m certain that the man standing before me now deserves more than a woman who doesn’t know what it means to love.” My capacity for affection had slowly withered after years of drought within Father’s court, leaving nothing but an empty well to draw from…a well I feared had permanently run dry.
Rather than waver in his desires, he closed the distance fear had caused me to create despite the wish of my heart longing to bridge the space between us until none remained. “Love is something meant to be discovered together. Isn’t that what a courtship is about?”
I shrugged. “I have no way of knowing, though I want to understand it more than anything else.”
Gentleness filled his smile. “Perhaps that’s what keeps you here…unless there’s something else?”
It was a question I’d continuously asked myself ever since emerging from the force threatening to erase me. Though purpose felt as elusive as my vanished body, I couldn’t imagine there was any other magic strong enough to keep me tethered here, even if I didn’t understand the unspoken wishes hiding within my heart.
I sighed. “Whatever my initial forgotten reason, it seems too late to try and find one when I’m constantly on the brink of disappearing.”
“So long as you haven’t completely vanished, it’s never too late to choose for yourself the life you want.”
His words strengthened the purpose tugging on my heart, a feeling that midst my foggy recollections I was certain was new and unfamiliar, even as it was one I yearned to become intimate with—not just for the sake of finding a reason not to vanish, but for my own fulfillment.
As we stood together atop the turret, one wish rose above the others beckoning me, growing stronger the longer I spent with him. “I want to create purpose with you—to not only remember our old relationship, but to forge a new one as well as a new life for myself after finally putting my old one behind me.” The task felt utterly daunting, but his support made the impossible seem within reach.
Though he smiled, it was wistful. “While my feelings for you are constant and I would love nothing more than to forge the path that will allow me to spend the rest of my life with you, you were originally coerced into our relationship by someone without your best interests in mind. I have done little since our arrangement to deserve your regard, let alone your heart. Are you certain this is what you truly want?”
His worries gave my intangible memories of a man who seemed more disinterested than passionately in love more form; they relentlessly attacked my resolve. One in particular rose in painful detail, wisps of recollection from one of the visits Father and I had made to Brimoire.
His Majesty had spent the entire carriage ride reminding me of his expectations and warning me of the dire consequences that would befall me should I make any mistakes, concluding his lecture with the firm admonition: “Ensure you prove to him that you’re worthy of being a queen…if you’re even capable of such a thing.”
I’d stepped out of the carriage blinking back tears, but when I reached the top of the palace steps where my fiancé courteously waited, an errant tear escaped, sliding down my cheek. Lucien’s eyes had widened, but though he clearly noted my distress his expression hastily returned to its typical polite, emotionless state without so much a word of concern. Instead he murmured a typical greeting and directed a maid to lead me to my room, where I carefully dabbed away any trace of tears. Neither of us mentioned the occasion again.
I had no answer for why the man who professed he loved me would ignore my misery, but for the time being I’d decided to trust Lucien. With considerable effort I managed to push my doubts away.
Whatever these recollections, they were part of a past that had brought me enough pain I’d seen no need to safeguard those memories from the curse’s erasing influence. But I was tired of being bound by the shackles of insecurity continuously holding me back; so long as I hadn’t ceased to exist, I wanted to finally move forward.
I flipped my hand over beneath his still draped over mine. Though my formless body still made true touch between us impossible, I could almost feel him as I curled my fingers around his. “My decision remains: I want to try our courtship again.”
Light shone in his eyes, a warm glow that enfolded my heart and created another thread that pulled me further from the vanishing curse’s reach.
Even with the beautiful possibilities created by this new promise, I briefly sensed a shadow curl its tendrils around the tender moment—an invisible but heated disapproval coming from somewhere nearby that made me fear I’d chosen the wrong course.