Kneeling next to him, I prayed I would find the right words to save him. At that moment, I wasn’t even thinking about the enchantment and how to break it. All I could think of was how to console a boy whose mother had just died before him.
“I know it hurts.” My voice was barely a whisper as my fingertips brushed the thin fabric of his tunic. It was worn, washed over and over again by the hands of someone who had loved him. “And it feels like there’s no one else in the world…”
I thought of all the times I had to be logical. To be strong. Did it ever help, or did it only bury the pain and let it fester?
“But you can’t give up.” My fingers curled into his shirt. “It’ll get better. Not tomorrow. But it will. I promise. Because I’ll be with you soon.”
At my last word, the world around me twisted, but not before I caught a glimpse of the boy’s surprised face as he looked over his shoulder and stared at me.
Now I was sitting at a large desk, in a chair that was much too big for me, with my feet dangling above the floor. Everything was much crisper than before, like a brand new oil painting. With a throb of sharp pain, recognizing the maps on the wall and the books on the shelves, I knew this must be my memory. This office was forever ingrained in my mind, as much as I wanted to forget it.
I lifted myself up to look at the papers on my mother’s desk. She was writing spell words, a practice I’d seen her do many times to help with memorization. They were all long and complicated, and I struggled to read them, to sound them out, hoping to feel the tingle of magic on my tongue.
Maybe if I memorized this spell I could surprise her. She’d be proud of me.
But I was too small, and I had to stand on the chair to see the top of the spell. As I tried to lean over farther, I accidentally knocked over a bottle of ink, and it spilled black across the table. I let out a squeal of fear and desperately tried to stop the ink from running down the wood and onto the plush cream carpet. Frantic and fumbling, I used my hands, but it only made it worse. I scrambled to open drawers—maybe there was a rag I could use.
But I froze as I caught sight of a beautiful white velvet box within the top drawer. It was so pretty, my little fingers couldn’t be stopped from picking it up and opening it, covering it in black stains that would never be removed.
I managed only a glimpse of a beautiful silver ring within the box before a shriek froze me in place.
My mother stood in the doorway, shaking with rage. She ran to me, snatched the box from my fingers, squeezed my cheeks together with one hand and hissed, “Foolish, useless, clumsy child. Get out.”
She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin, and dragged me to the door—I was so scared I was sobbing heavily already. “The only reason you are alive is because the Council promised me you’d be useful. You’ve yet to prove them right.” Then she almost threw me into the hallway. “Get out!”
I scrambled over the carpet to reach for the closing door, my mother’s furious face red with anger and her eyes…her eyes full of tears?
I tried to slide my hand in—to stop her from shutting me out. Shutting out another daughter she never wanted. Another daughter who had been born from an ordered conception.
Don’t close it. Don’t leave me alone.
Just before the door slammed, a large hand pulled mine out of the way. “Don’t let your fingers get caught.”
The words came as if from a great distance, across the Seas of Glyll, trying to reach me on my island of solitude.
My loneliness was a mother who saw her daughters as tools. Weapons.
I knew that, to her, the world of Royals was nothing but a plague of responsibilities and sacrifice. She fulfilled her duties, had gotten pregnant with each prince the council threw at her, and risked her life fighting the Forces as any queen should. But she hated the kingdom’s walls and her title that felt more like a collar. Even more so, she couldn’t stand to look at her daughters, the products of those nights she was forced to endure.
The only reason I was born was to be a soldier in the Legion’s army. In my mother’s army. If I failed at anything, I’d no longer be necessary. She never wanted me, and now she’d never need me.
Don’t try to feel anything, and you won’t get hurt. Don’t expect anything, and you won’t be disappointed.
“You’re wanted, Ivy.” A voice cut through my mantra. The mantra that had helped me survive years at the Legion. “For just being you.”
It was Zach’s voice.
The world around us shattered.
Like the emerald jewel at the center of the amulet.
…
A brilliant gold flash. Zach and I were under cold but now-clear water. The jewel was in fragments, each piece of emerald shining a brilliant golden light.
Zach tugged at my wrist and we kicked upward, our heads breaking the surface and our mouths sucking in the glorious air.
I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe what I saw. Showers of gold fell around us like it was raining liquid fragments of the sun. It fell into the well, creating ripples. The gold rain hit my cheeks and my hair. Dazed, I looked at Zach.
He was beaming at me, treading water, gold light illuminating his wet face.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
The Swordsman’s Theory
The entire village seemed to have gathered around the well as Zach and I were pulled from its icy waters. Millennia and Bromley were the first to grasp our wet hands and pull us over the wooden ledge. Bromley squeezed my hand so hard I thought my fingers would break off. Zach still had hold of my upper arm.
I was numb.
My mind barely registered the growing crowd of villagers as they emerged from their homes, some staggering as they adjusted to walking after days in bed. Rochet hugged me tightly, tears flowing down her cheeks. One old woman dropped to her knees and grabbed my other hand, kissing it.
But I was oblivious to everything except the gold rain that fell from the sky. The brightness reminded me of the miniature gold explosion that happened in the forest with the griffin. And like with Zach’s fatal wound suddenly healed, a miracle had happened here.
The curse was broken. The sick were cured.
In my life, I had seen eleven curses lifted from villages. In all those times, never before had I seen golden rain afterward. When a curse was broken by a Royal’s Kiss, the sickness just went away. Never anything elaborate. It just…stopped, leaving its patients disabled and disfigured, as Zach had said. It never healed, not like this.
Everything about this was different. The atmosphere was light, the air felt clean, and even the healthy looked healthier. Almost like the entire village had been reborn.
The difference was more than astounding…it was unbelievable.
As people pressed against us, I leaned in to Zach, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He pushed past them all, practically dragging me. Bromley and Millennia hurried after us while I stumbled along.
Zach was steady in his gait and clearly not as shaken as I was. In fact, it was almost as if…almost as if he’d known this would happen. Which was ridiculous—how could he? But if he had, it would explain why he’d been so desperate to go after the amulet once he knew of it, rather than Kiss me.
Zach shook off the parade of villagers and helped me upstairs to one of the rooms Rochet had prepared for us.
He lowered me onto the bed as Bromley rushed forward. “Milady, are you all right?” he asked, covering me with a blanket. But Millennia stopped him.
“The princess needs dry clothes or she’ll catch a cold. Get out, both of you.”
Neither Zach nor Brom protested. Zach swung his bag over his wet shoulder. With a glance back at me, he closed the door behind him and Brom.
Millennia knelt and opened my bag, shifting my clothes around, then shoved it away. She dug into a large cabinet and pulled out a cream dress with a faded pattern on it. It was loose and thin, but it was also dry and clean.
“What’s wrong with my c-clothes?”
“They smell of smoke.” Millennia helped me out of my clothes and into the dress. Then she sat and started braiding my hair without a word.
“I’m sorry,” she said while her fingers wove in and out of my wet locks.