After the other guests had gone home, Queen Catia dropped to her knees in front of the fairy delegation. “Please, you have magic. There must be something you can do.” Suddenly the young girl, who’d grown up with her heart full of distrust for creatures such as fairies, was asking for favors.
The fairy queen placed her hands on the sides of the queen’s face and looked directly into her eyes. “Today marked the first day in centuries that a monarch of Sanguinia used the Stone of Supremacy outside their own kingdom. The stone has very powerful magic, and a curse offered under its domain cannot easily be lifted.”
Catia looked up. “Please! I’ll give my own life. Transfer the curse to me. Anything!”
“Give me a moment with my circle.” The fairies circled around their queen and shimmering light flooded the floor beneath them.
“Darling.” Stefan put his hand on Catia’s shoulder where she knelt, and she pressed her forehead against his thigh. “I’m sure they can do something,” he said. “If not, we’ll keep her safe. We’ll make sure her finger is never pricked.”
Still on her knees, Catia lifted her face toward him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But how? How can our daughter go through life never pricking her finger?”
He took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “I will protect her. I will protect you both.”
Given the day’s events, Catia did not find her husband’s assurances convincing. “I told you vampires were evil,” she spat.
“Catia.” Stefan shook his head. “You know that’s not true. Vampire bites are extremely rare. Sanguinia and Xandra are at peace.” But Stefan frowned. In the two weeks since King Vladimir’s death, seven vampire attacks had been reported.
Catia thumped her hand against Stefan’s chest. “How could you have let this happen?”
He took her wrist. “Me?” His face reddened. “Me? I trusted you with the guest list. When I questioned the daylight timing of the ceremony, you expressly lied. You told me she’d declined our invitation and no one from Sanguinia would attend. How could you possibly blame this on me?”
He dropped her hands, and Catia backed away from her husband, afraid, for it was the first time she’d seen him angry. She stepped toward him, softening her expression, hoping to regain his favor, yearning to see the love and admiration ever present in his eyes when he looked into hers. His eyes were blank.
The fairy circle broke and their queen floated back toward the royal couple. The king took his queen’s hand, but a sense of coldness filled the space between them.
“Can you lift the curse?” he asked the fairy queen.
“No, but we can lessen its impact,” she replied. “First, we can protect the princess while she’s a child. The curse will not fall until after the princess turns sixteen.”
Catia felt some relief, which soon dissipated and her body tensed again. “But when Natasha finds out you’ve changed her curse, she’ll kill us all.”
The fairy queen paled, then shook her head. “We will cast a barrier spell. If the vampire queen crosses the border into Xandra before the curse lifts, all the magic in the Stone of Supremacy will vanish. She’ll still be a vampire, but with no special powers.”
Catia’s relief was once again short-lived as she considered the curse. “But after my daughter turns sixteen, she’ll spend the rest of her days alone in the darkness?” The fairies’ protection would do nothing to keep away other vampires.
“We can bestow one final gift upon your daughter,” the fairy queen said. “Once the princess proves she has found true love, the curse will be lifted.”
Catia dropped to her knees. This past year, she’d thought her dreams had come true—becoming queen and having a beautiful princess daughter—then within a moment, her dreams had turned into a nightmare. “How will my daughter find true love if the young men only wake while she is asleep?”