Maia felt the pain of the moment keenly and knew she needed to end their conversation at once. “But my heart is not free,” she answered and started to rise.
“No, no, no!” he implored, seizing her hands and pulling her down again. “Ach, dizeng!” he muttered under his breath. “More thing! More thing.” He begged her with his eyes to stay. “I study tomes. Tomes . . . yah?”
Maia looked at him in confusion. “The maston tomes?”
“Yah!” he said, bobbing his head. He moved closer to her. “Zurit. Ach, no . . . pardon. Kiss. Maston tome say kiss of hetaera . . . umm . . . poison. Yah?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding in agreement. “What do you mean? You have a tome that speaks of it?”
Prince Oderick nodded vigorously. “Yah! Tome says there is cure.”
Maia stared at him in disbelief. “No, there is no cure,” she said, shaking her head.
“No, no! Tome says cure! Hetaera forsakes kystrel. Cure. You give up kystrel. Cure.”
A wrenching feeling twisted Maia’s heart within her chest. “No,” she said, shaking her head. How could she explain to him that she had spoken to Lia Demont herself, the woman who had put the curse on the hetaera’s Leering . . . and bound it by irrevocare sigil. The curse would last forever. “The tome is wrong,” Maia said, shaking her head. She looked over at Richard and gave him a miserable look, silently begging him to rescue her. He nodded and started to walk over to them.
“Not wrong!” Prince Oderick said vehemently. “Show you.”
Maia turned to look at him when his face suddenly collided with hers. He had released her hands, and he seized her neck as he pressed his lips to hers. She recoiled with utter horror and tried to shove him away, but his grip was strong.
She did not return the kiss.
It did not matter. The brand on her shoulder began to burn with fire, and she felt a tingling feeling pass from her lips into him as a Leering far distant was invoked.
Maia finally wrenched away from him and shoved him hard with her hands. “No!” she shouted, wiping his spittle from her mouth. He stared at her in confusion, a look of growing dread haunting his eyes as he touched his lips.
It was as if the kiss had burned him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Captured
Maia stood from the bench, her eyes wild with accusation and horror. She wiped her mouth repeatedly, trying to understand what madness had driven him to kiss her. Richard Syon rushed to her side.
“He kissed me,” Maia said shakily as she took a step back, watching the bewilderment in Prince Oderick’s face. He seemed to be realizing that what he had done would have terrible consequences.
“I saw it,” Richard said. He stared down the younger man. “Prince Oderick, what possessed you to take such a liberty with any woman, let alone the Queen of Comoros?”
Prince Oderick’s face was flushed, his eyes worried. He gestured for the Hautland chancellor to join him. “I vas told . . . by Aldermaston Breinholt . . . I saw his tome!” He gave Richard a look of desperation. “He vould lie to me? Sprechen gaffin!” When Chancellor Vorstad arrived, the prince spluttered a series of coarse words at the older man and jabbed his finger at Maia.
Maia’s stomach shriveled into a prune. She felt sick at heart. Both her grandmother and Lia had warned her never to kiss anyone. Oderick had completely startled her with his action. She had not expected it, and while there had been nothing she could do to stop him, she regretted it immensely.
The Hautland chancellor gave the prince a worried look and then turned to face Richard. “I myself spoke with the Aldermaston of Viegg Abbey not four days ago,” he said. “He showed us the tome that said the hetaera’s curse would lift if the kystrel was forsaken. The High Seer herself assured me that the queen had forsaken it!”
Maia stared hard at the man. “The High Seer is my grandmother,” she said, her voice trembling. “She would never have said it was safe for him to kiss me, Chancellor. Watch your words with care, sir. What precisely did the High Seer say?”
The man looked truly concerned and baffled. “I saw her in person, my lady. She came to Hautland to open the Apse Veil and arrived in Viegg . . . the oldest abbey in the realm. I counseled with her regarding your status, because the prince believed you were a hetaera and wanted to rescue you. The High Seer told me you had been deceived by the Victus, that you did not choose to bear the brand on your shoulder. Is this not true?”