Chapter 27
Month Five
N ews about the king spreads fast.
I am painting in my art room, lost in the process of replicating the vase of flowers sitting in front of me. Flowers the prince has sent for me, vibrant and beautiful, grown in his garden. Tubes of paint are scattered on the ground and the table as I dip my brush in a particularly striking shade of dandelion yellow and swipe it across the canvas. I am feverous, fixated on my task as the rest of the world around me ceases to exist. I do not hear Inez until she is right next to me.
“Miss Shivani!” She waves a hand in front of my face, startling me out of my bubble.
“Oh.” I blink. “Inez. Good afternoon.”
“It is evening now, miss,” she corrects me.
“Is it?” I turn my head to look out of the glass wall. The sun sinks below the horizon, and the first of the navy blue night sky slowly crawls in. “Oh dear, I seem to have lost track of time again. Apologies, did I miss you for dinner?”
“Never mind that, miss.” She shakes her head before pausing. “Although, yes, I should fetch you dinner if you have not eaten yet. But that is not what I came here for.”
She bends over to grab my hands. Her skin is warm against mine, but her brows are furrowed.
“What is it, Inez?” I ask, turning away from my painting, concern rising.
“News of the king has arrived,” she says, and my stomach drops.
“Is he returning to the castle?” I ask. “I thought we had longer.”
“A rider from Swordstead met him halfway. He…I am sorry, miss, but he is bringing home a bride for the prince.”
Nausea bubbles in my stomach. A deep ache forms in my chest, like a storm cloud, dark and troubling. I try to say something but there is a ringing in my ears blocking out all my other thoughts.
“Miss Shivani?” Inez grasps my hands tighter.
“I am alright,” I manage to say, my voice quiet. “When does he return?”
“A month,” she replies. “I am so sorry, miss.”
“In time for my six-month sentence to end,” I say bitterly. In time for him to remove my head.
I stay still for several moments, my brain churning. Inez watches me, a ball of nervous energy.
“Will you take a note to the prince for me, please?” I say eventually. “We…I need to talk with him. Urgently.”
“Of course, miss,” she replies, standing. “I will find him immediately.”
After I hastily scribble a note and send Inez away, I stand alone in the middle of the room. I clench my fists hard enough for my nails to dig into my palm and fight back tears. My ophid is tense, and I wish, now more than ever, I could reach my au’mana.
“I will figure this out,” I say out loud to myself. “I will.”
I take a deep breath and unfurl my fingers. Once my breathing has calmed, I hurriedly make my way to my chambers. I will need to speak to Theo first, but if that fails—for reasons I do not allow myself to think about—I will escape. I know the castle layout better, I know the staff, I can think of a better plan than last time. I have the secret tunnel. My skin itches at the thought of leaving everyone behind and I clutch at my neck, agitated. I only hope my note reaches the prince soon.
But when I open the door to my chambers, Theo is already there .
“Shivani,” he says and his voice is laden with relief and sadness. He crosses the room immediately and scoops me into his arms, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
“You received my note already?” I ask, wrapping my arms around his back.
“Note? I have been here for hours, waiting for you,” he replies, drawing back. His eyes are wet with tears, his cheeks blotchy.
“Theo…” I reach up to push his tousled hair back before cupping his face.
“You have heard then? I always knew news spread fast amongst the staff, but I did not realise how fast.” He gives an attempt at a smile, but it crumbles immediately, and he begins sobbing. I pull him back into an embrace, making soothing noises and stroking the back of his head. I am a fool for ever thinking he would turn his back on me for another.
“The king will not return for a month,” I tell him. “We have time to think, to plan.”
“You have a plan?” he mumbles into my neck, voice thick with tears.
“Well, of sorts,” I say before pulling away. “We will think of something together, yes? However long it takes, there will be a solution.”
He nods, wiping his tears away with the back of his arm. His lashes are stuck together, and his eyes are puffy. My heart goes out to his sensitive soul.
“You are much more pragmatic than I,” he says, blinking his eyes dry. “I would have wallowed here forever if you had not come back.”
I laugh before bringing his face to mine. I press my lips against his as his arms wrap around me.
“And I would not have lasted as long here without your kind heart,” I tell him as he presses his forehead against mine. “Let us stay here tonight and not think any more of it. Tomorrow, we will wake with fresh minds and clear eyes.”
He exhales and nods before I lead him to my bed. Even with the threat of the king’s return, once I am slotted in his arms, sleep comes easily.
“You and I,” he whispers before I slip into darkness.
???
As soon as I awaken, my mind is made up. I lay buried in the crook of Theo’s arm, eyes wide, listening to the sound of his steady heartbeat. When he does not awake after a few minutes, I carefully extract myself and sit up in bed. Theo stirs with a grumble.
“Theo.”
“Mhmm?” He does not open his eyes but turns towards me, wrapping an arm around my hips with his face half-buried in his pillow. I swallow past the dry lump in my throat.
“Theo,” I repeat. “There is a secret tunnel in the castle. ”
“There are many secret tunnels in the castle,” he mumbles into the pillow.
“No, listen.” I lick my lips. “There is one that leads outside .”
Theo does not move for a moment, but his eyes shoot open. They swivel in my direction.
“Show me.”
The guards eye us unhappily as I lead Theo to the bedchamber I found, but they say nothing. They often keep quiet when the king is away. When I open the door, the room is the same as I remember. I pray no one has been in since.
Theo steps in and looks around, eyebrows furrowed.
“Curious,” he says. “The tunnel is in here?”
By way of an answer, I cross the room to the bookcase and pull the handle, disguised as a book. With a loud clunk, the bookcase splits, revealing the tunnel. Theo’s jaw drops.
“Saints,” he whispers. “And you are quite certain it leads outside?”
I nod my head vigorously.
“I walked the entire length of it.”
“But the castle…I was told it stands on stilts above the swamp?”
“It does.” I rub my temples, a headache forming, but I catch Theo wrinkling his nose. “Wait. What do you smell?”
“Salt,” he says, narrowing his eyes at the tunnel. “Another enchantment?”
I whirl to stare at the bookcase. There is no glow…or perhaps there is, but we cannot see it from inside.
“The tunnel must be invisible to those outside the castle.” I chew on my thumbnail. A witch lived in this castle, of that I have no doubt. So much of it has been enchanted in ways no unknowing person would be able to tell. I think of Inez’s mother, Ruya, and wonder what part she had to play in this.
“This is incredible,” Theo says, breaking me from my thoughts. “You can leave, Shivani.”
“Leave?” I turn back to stare at him. “I cannot leave.”
He looks at me as though I have grown an extra head.
“But you must. My father is…is going to kill you.” Tears spring to his eyes. “Do you not understand?”
“Of course I understand. It is my head that will roll,” I say, and it comes out harsher than I intended. I inhale deeply. “I will not leave you to suffer under him any longer. I will not leave any of you.”
“But—”
“Theo!”
His mouth clamps shut and his hands ball into fists.
“I do not want you to kill yourself for me,” he says, his voice strained and his nostrils flaring.
“Theo,” I say slowly. “You do not decide how far I will go for you. That is my choice and mine alone.”
Tears spill down his cheeks.
“But you will die,” he chokes out. “If you leave now, you can live . You can find somewhere safe, be free of this place. Find…find someone to love and marry and be happy.”
I sigh and step towards him, taking his hands in mine. He is right—I can flee and survive, as the snow hare does.
But I am no snow hare.
“You need to understand this. I stay, not because of what I feel for you, but because it is the right thing to do. True, I can leave, and maybe I will find a new home. But I would be tormented for the rest of my life knowing I turned my back on people I could help. Because I can help. This curse…the answer is close. I know it is.”
Theo squeezes his eyes shut, trying to blink away tears. He grasps my hands tightly and takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“What…what must we do?”
I slip one of my hands away from his to close the tunnel door. The bookcase slides back together, the wood slotting into each other perfectly.
“We need more information.”
???
The first stop is the library .
“So, how does this apply to our current predicament?” Theo asks as we scour the shelves. I pull out various books that look like they have potential and stack them in Theo’s arms.
“Woefully little is known about your curse,” I reply, cocking my head to read the title of a thick, green book. “But what we do know is the king uses it to control you. You have never left the castle, never talked to anyone else in the kingdom besides the staff here, and it gives him an excuse to lock you up in that awful dungeon.”
“The dungeon is to protect people from me,” he retorts before pausing. “But I concede to your point.”
I smile sideways at him. “Curses are rare indeed, but they can always be broken. We need to figure out how to break it.”
“What about true love’s kiss?” Theo grins at me. “Perhaps we should try that.”
“We have kissed plenty of times, and none of them have broken your curse.” I shake my head playfully.
“Ah,” he says and I hear the smile in his voice even without looking. “So, you do love me.”
I freeze, my hand halfway to a book. My heart is suddenly thunderous. The dust from the bookshelves lodges itself in my throat and I choke on it.
“I…I…” I splutter.
Theo laughs and leans forward to kiss my temple .
“I jest,” he says before nodding to the bookshelf. “You believe one of these will give us the answer?”
I cough awkwardly and take the opportunity he gives me to change the conversation.
“Y-Yes,” I stammer. “I believe so. If we can break the curse—”
“We can leave,” Theo finishes for me. “Together.”
I smile.
“Together.”
When I decide we have enough books to start with, we make our way to one of the tables, and Theo drops them heavily. Many of the books are in the common tongue, but several are written in dragon text. The only exception is the purple book of au’mana.
“The answer is in here somewhere,” I mutter. “It must be.”
I briefly consider sending for Aunt Meena—if anyone knows anything about dragons, it will be her. But it would be too dangerous, both for her and for Theo and myself. If anyone discovered we were actually trying to break this curse, my head would be on a spike by the morning.
I leave Theo to trawl the other books while I wade through the dragon text. I am not as fluent as I used to be and some of the words I cannot understand, but I try to piece it together with context. I find a section detailing dragon curses, but none of the descriptions match what happens to Theo. And they all emphasise how rare they are, only being used once every thousand years by some anomaly of a dragon.
Frustrated, I slam the book shut and pull over another.
“Nothing, I assume?” Theo asks, licking his finger to turn a page. I am temporarily distracted by the sight of his tongue and have to internally scold myself—this is clearly not the time.
“Nothing,” I reply with a heavy sigh. “I do not understand. Dragon curses are rare because of the sheer intensity of emotion required to transfer their internal power to another. Dragons use meditation to draw on their faeth, which requires peace of mind rather than high emotions. It often takes decades to master. It just does not make sense how you were cursed.”
I put my head in my hands, elbows propped on the table.
“What about witch curses?” Theo asks, glancing at the purple book.
“Well, witch curses are slightly less rare because our au’mana is drawn from powerful emotions,” I say. Theo perks up, but I shake my head. “But they can only enchant or curse inanimate objects, not living things. Even plants are immune. Besides, we already know your mother was a dragon, not a witch.”
Theo slumps back .
“So, we have reached an impasse,” he says.
“No,” I reply firmly. “No. There is something that will help us. We…we just need to keep looking.”
Desperation slips into my voice—I notice it, and Theo looks at me, noticing it as well. He pauses before sitting forward again.
“Then we will keep looking,” he says and opens another book.
We read and find more books and read and find more books until the castle falls silent and the night sky takes over. The candles burn low, casting a dim glow, which makes it difficult to read.
“I think we will need to finish for the night,” I eventually say, breaking the silence. I raise my arms above me and stretch them, ridding myself of the ache in my joints from being sedentary for too long. My ophid protests—I have never gone this long without using it, and I know the strength in it is waning. Theo looks as tired as me, with dark circles under his eyes.
“We will try again tomorrow,” he says with an encouraging smile despite his fatigued features.
???
We stay in his chambers for the evening, as we have been doing each night since the baths. As he falls asleep, I lay with my head on his chest, unable to join him. There are so many thoughts in my head. My brain is a hive of bees, each of them a different thought buzzing around incessantly. I run my finger in circles on Theo’s chest, eyes wide in the dark, thinking.
What are the facts? I ask myself. Start there .
The facts are that Theo transforms into a beast, seemingly at random. It is a curse placed on him by his mother at birth, who was executed shortly after by the king once he had realised what she had done. This information niggles at me, but I cannot think why, so I file it to the side and move on.
The curse is dragon in origin, of that I am certain. The taste of faeth when Theo transforms and his mother’s altar confirms she was a dragon, so she could only have used dragon magic. But was it her who cursed him? Again, I am stuck on this piece of information. It could not have been anyone else unless someone snuck in while he was a baby…and if they did, why? Was it a grudge against the king or perhaps the queen?
I groan, my thoughts dragging me down a hole I am struggling to climb out of. There are too many unknowns, and I endeavour to find out more information of Theo’s birth tomorrow. I eventually fall into a fitful sleep.
When I awaken, it is late into the morning, and I feel as though I have not slept at all. The sun spills through the window, bathing us in a golden glow. Theo is still asleep, the covers pushed down to his hips. I sit up blearily.
“Theo?” I say, my voice still hoarse from sleep.
“Mmm,” he replies, unmoving. I take him in, the shape of his arms and the definition of his shoulders. I place a hand on his chest and find he is warm.
“Good morrow,” I say fondly before planting a soft kiss on his collarbone.
He doesn’t reply but wraps an arm around my waist, resting it there.
“You will need to visit the library alone today,” I tell him. “I have other investigations to do.”
“Hmm?” he says, a line appearing between his eyebrows but otherwise remaining still.
“I will see you later on this evening in your chambers.” I kiss his cheek before slipping out of his hold. I leave a note for him on the bedside, knowing he most likely did not register anything I told him, and make for the servants’ quarters. The thought of our mornings together being taken from us fills me with renewed vigour and determination courses through me. I will break the king’s grip on our lives if it is the last thing I do.