I settle against the wall, clutching the rough blanket like a shield. The surly knight sits on the steps near the iron barrier.
A few minutes later, he lays back, his head cradled in his hands. I don’t believe he’s asleep, though I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest from the corner of my eye.
Time passes. At some point, despite my promise not to, I drift off—until a scuttling sound jerks me wide awake.
7
Killian
Asmall, warm hand on my arm shakes me instantly awake.
“Killian, I need you to wake up. Something’s out there.”
Briar.
Rolling up, I grasp my sword and freeze, listening. Familiar shuffling sounds.
“It’s all right, Princess. Go back to sleep.”
She stiffens. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
I don’t make a habit of arguing with women. Or with anyone. I either settle disagreements with violence or I walk away.
I hate the way this woman turns me inside out simply by existing.
I hate what she’s doing to my friendship with Alistair.
But I don’t hate her. I’m being deliberately rude to get under Briar’s skin just because I want her and will take any attention I can get from her, even if it’s negative. Like a fucking child. I know I’m behaving like an arse and yet I can’t seem to stop.
She’s rightly afraid of monsters, and Alistair’s forefather locked her away in a castle full of them. What a bastard.
The shuffling noise creeps nearer.
“Show yourself, Queen Isadora.”
“Is it true?” the old woman’s tremulous voice wavers out of the darkness. Briar Rose shrinks back, clutching that rough wool blanket around her shoulders like it can shield her from harm.
I’m her shield. I protect her, now. Whether she believes it or not. For as long as she is bound to my liege lord, I am bound to her by an oath of honor.
Until death do us part.
“Itistrue!” The crone cackles. Her bent form’s shadow grows to towering heights in the candlelight. Behind me, the lady gasps and edges closer to my back.
Queen Isadora is having none of her reticence.
“Come here child.” She lurches up the steps into the nave and seizes the hem of Briar Rose’s blue dress. “As fresh and lovely as the day I poisoned you. Truly, your beauty remains undiminished after all this time.”
“I—but you—” Briar swallows hard. I hear the muscles in her throat work and her pulse pick up, pushing blood forcefully through her veins. Outside, birds chirp, signaling that dawn isn’t far off. “How are you still alive?”
“Cursed!” the queen rages. “That backstabbing wizard could not bring himself to destroy such a beauty, and so he softened the poison in the chalice to send you into an eternal slumber, only to be broken when you were awakened by true love.”
She drops Briar’s hem and shuffles away.
“Where are you going?” I demand.
“At last, my time has come to die,” the queen calls over her shoulder. I barely can make out her shadow in the gloom. There’s a scrape and a muffled curse, then a crack of wan gray light seeps into the castle sanctum.
Windows.
