Alistair eyes me sharply. “You don’t have the luxury of saying no, Kill.”
“I won’t stand by and watch you force Briar into a marriage she doesn’t want, and destroy your country in the process.”
“I can control them through her.” He clasps his hands at the small of his back. “Rose and her monsters are the key to convincing my father to abdicate. He is ill. He won’t want to go to war with the Isanthians, which is what they deserve after the way they treated my queen.”
“Alistair. Her own family abandoned her because they feared her curse. What makes you so certain you can break it?”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to break it. Besides, I didn’t bring you here to ask probing questions, Kill. Your assignment was to watch her until I put that ring on her finger. As of now, you have approximately fourteen hours of duty owed to me. Eight of those hours, you’ll both be asleep.”
I scrub my face and heave a sigh of frustration.
“You want that castle, don’t you?” he says.
Not as much as I want the woman. But I can’t say that. Words are tripwires, and I’m constantly stumbling into traps when I try to argue.
“Yeah, I want the castle.” It’s the only possible safe place for Briar. For us. Instinctively, I touch my scarred arm. Alistair observes this silently. Self-consciously, I drop it to my side.
“Sensible,” Alistair says. “You’d have a difficult time continuing as a knight with that maimed arm of yours. I heard reports from your time in the training ring today. You’re still trouncing the knights, but how long will that last once they stop going easy on you?”
Doubt slinks in and curls around my psyche, constricting my ambitions like a snake coiled around its prey. Briar’s not going to elope with a damaged knight. Not when she could have a prince. Even if she were reckless enough to contemplate it, a life with me isn’t for the faint of heart.
She might think she loves me, but she was a virgin. She probably needed to tell herself that to justify fucking me.
If I can’t protect her, Alistair will drag her back here and make her life a living hell, especially if he thinks that by controlling her, he can control dragons.
My plan to steal away with her tonight unravels under Alistair’s scrutiny. He’s a bastard, but he’s cunning and determined to make this wedding happen, no matter what it costs him or anyone else.
Maybe Queen Isadora can help me find a solution. I order hot water from the kitchens and go to the knight’s quarters to take my own cold shower while they’re heating it.
I shuck my trousers and leave my belongings in a heap beside the bench and cracked mirror. I strip my shirt over my head, arms crossed to tug the hem up my abdomen, and freeze at the sight of my puckered scar. Instead of healing pink, the wound has turned deep black, as though a thick vine grows beneath my skin.
“What is this?”
I thrust my arm at Isadora. She drags my forearm between the bars with surprising strength.
“What does itmean?”
“I don’t know. Why would you expect me to know? This is old fae magic. Our kind aren’t meant to wield it.” She shakes her head and adds, “They knew our greed would tempt us to try to use magic and booby-trapped it.”
I’m inclined to agree. Didn’t decrease the appeal. Who wouldn’t want to be more beautiful? Stronger? Faster? Smarter? More intelligent?
More powerful. We’d already out-bred the fae and hunted them to the ends of the continent. All their magic and fantastical beasts couldn’t save them from us, and so the gods abandoned us.
Belterre is a beautiful but fallen realm. Gods only know what goes on in Isanthia.
“How do I break Briar’s curse?”
“I told you; I don’t know!”
I point wordlessly to the copper tub.
“Do you want me to lie? I’ll make up a pretty untruth if it gets me into that bath while it’s still hot.”
“No, I want to take Briar and leave Belterre Castle tonight. But I cannot do that if I’m going to die.”
“I don’t know what it means, lad. We know that the prince is incapable of breaking the curse I had cast upon her all those years ago. Which means you’re the only one who can.”
I rake my fingers through my hair, fisting damp sections and tugging at the roots. “How?”
