If I couldn’t find another way to break the curse, then I was left with only two options. Marry Cole and break the curse, or leave an entire kingdom cut off from the rest of the lands. But if I broke the curse this way, what would happen to Dominic? If he missed his opportunity to be crowned, would he simply remain a silent beast forever? The possibility haunted me.
Dominic himself, however, continued to avoid me. Perhaps his absence should have made it easy to tell Cole I would agree to his plan but, somehow, whenever I tried to make myself return to his cell, my feet refused to carry me there. I could not bear to speak the words of agreement and turn my back on any hope of rescuing Dominic. Despite his current attitude toward me, I knew that he truly believed himself to be protecting me. Could I condemn him for that?
I missed our walks and our rides and our reading. I had only entered the library once since Cole’s arrival, and I hadn’t returned to the rose garden at all. I couldn’t bear to be reminded of all the happy hours Dominic and I had passed in those places. How could I build myself yet another life in the capital with Cole? If we did break the curse, how could we possibly rule a kingdom in which we knew almost no one? Did Cole still have some contacts in the capital from before his family had moved to Marin?
Or perhaps we could find Princess Adelaide. She might still be alive. And then we could abdicate in her favor. It was the best plan I had been able to come up with, despite relying on the shaky premise that we could actually locate the missing Adelaide.
When I awoke one morning, only four days from the coronation deadline, I told myself that as unpalatable as the prospect was, I needed to do the right thing by the greatest number of people. I needed to save Palinar.
As Lottie dressed me, the occasional tear slipped out, despite my best efforts. After several long minutes, she tentatively spoke. Do you…do you love this Cole, Princess Sophie?
I jerked and she lost hold of my laces. “Love him? Of course I do not!”
She hesitated. We have all been afraid that you might like him better than the prince, despite your betrothal. Some of the maids saw him when he was being taken to the dungeon, and they said he was very handsome. She paused again. We do not want to lose you.
My heart squeezed as their strange behavior began to make sense. “He is handsome enough, I suppose. But, in Marin, he and his father and sister plotted to kill the ducal family and to take over the duchy. His father even burned a rival’s warehouse, to advance his plan. A warehouse that held essential supplies for the people. Plus, the fire spread to some nearby homes and a baby nearly died.”
Lottie gasped.
“Cole was going to marry my friend Celine and become a prince of Lanover. They would have succeeded, too, if we hadn’t stumbled on a solution at the last possible moment. So, I guess all of that is to say that, no, I don’t like him at all.”
Oh. Lottie sounded relieved, and I felt guilty for reassuring her when her fears were actually legitimate. I was about to leave. Only I was doing it for her—her and the rest of her kingdom.
But as she laced up my dress, my mind wandered back over my words. There was something in the story I hadn’t considered, and my mind kept circling back to it now. Sir Oswald’s plan to overthrow Marin had involved Cole marrying Celine and becoming a prince. And now Cole’s new plan involved his marrying me and becoming a king.
Dominic had been so insistent that he saw something in Cole’s eyes. I had dismissed it as irrational fancy, but I suddenly remembered an old conversation Lily had once had with the young Princess Daisy. What was it Daisy had said? That Cole had a funny look when he watched Celine. Something like that.
If this plan succeeded, Cole would go from condemned prisoner to king. He had been willing to risk a lot to go from minor nobility to prince. How much would he be willing to risk for this?
I sank into the nearest chair, hardly noticing when Lottie announced she was leaving the room. Carefully I examined the evidence and considered my own true motivations.
He had given me a letter from Lily. But while the sentiments of the letter rang true, it didn’t actually endorse Cole’s plan. I had always found it strange that it didn’t mention him specifically. What if Cole had somehow stolen it from Lily? It seemed far-fetched, but hardly more so than his story.
He had given me the information on the Palinaran succession laws, facts I had confirmed in my single visit to the library but, surely, they were general knowledge within Palinar.
He had risked his life to come here, but then he had risked much in Marin, too. And with the snow melting and the flowers dying, something about the state of things in Palinar was changing. Perhaps the danger had lessened.
I turned my mind to my own motivations and was unhappy with what I found. I had been so busy telling myself I was making a sacrifice for others, when in reality I merely wanted to be free. I had been so grieved at the loss of my friendship with Dominic since Cole had arrived, and so afraid that I would never see Lily again, that I had convinced myself having her back would be enough.
And I had used the excuse that Lily wanted me to do it. But it wasn’t Lily who was here. She didn’t have the whole story, and she wasn’t the one making the decision. Whether Cole had lied or not, he was not the right king for Palinar.
I shook my head in disgust with my own self-delusion. Who knew what further cage I had nearly condemned myself to? Or what harm I might have brought to this kingdom. They had already suffered from one terrible monarch, I wouldn’t be responsible for saddling them with another.
I would see Dominic in the evening at my birthday ball. I would just make him tell me the truth about the curse, and then together we would come up with a plan to save Palinar. In the next three days. I groaned. But I also knew going with Cole could not be the right decision.
I sat at my small table and wrote a letter. The guards might be forbidden to let me in to see Cole, but I doubted they had received any orders about letters. I knew I had no real need to tell him of my decision, but I wanted to, if only to keep myself accountable. If I kept an escape plan in the back of my mind, it might prevent me from putting my full mind into finding a better solution.
Sure enough, when I delivered Cole’s letter, the guards hemmed and hawed, but eventually agreed to thrust it through the slot usually used for food delivery. I watched the floating letter disappear, and then left the dungeon with a lighter heart.
Chapter 24
I had expected to feel nothing but frustration for the ball, but a new sense of hope had entered my heart, and I couldn’t quite resist getting sucked into the excitement of the preparations. Tara and Lottie had recruited several more maids to assist them, and the atmosphere in my chamber was light and festive.