“It’s got to be him,” she insisted. “They are engaged to be married.” Her eyes went dark and solid, impenetrable as iron keyholes in the dead of winter, and he knew there would be no persuading her otherwise.
Still he tried. “Who’s to say the prince is in love with a girl he has never laid eyes upon? Everyone knows their engagement is political and nothing else. Besides, it was his older brother who was supposed to marry her in the first place.”
Isbe’s jaw got as hard as her eyes then. “Oh, he may not love her yet, but he will. Gil, every single man who sees my sister loves her immediately. Most women too.”
“If that were true, then anyone at all might awaken her. But it isn’t. I never fell in love with Aurora.”
Isbe huffed, causing stray curls to lift away from her face. “Are you saying she isn’t beautiful and graceful, that she doesn’t smell of wild raspberries late on the vine, and that her hair isn’t the color of the sun first thing in the morning, or that the curves of her body aren’t soft and perfect as the hills and valleys of Deluce, or that kindness doesn’t radiate from her smile?” she demanded, reciting a list of qualities she had heard repeated countless times by others.
Gil half had the urge to laugh and half to pick up Isbe by the waist and toss her into the nearest stack of hay. She was so stubborn . . . and so oblivious to his true meaning. “Sure, I suppose Aurora’s all of those things,” he said with a sigh. “That wasn’t my point.”
Isbe folded her arms. “Well, in our case, it must be the prince who breaks the curse so that he can be credited with saving Deluce, further solidifying their union. It’s the only way we can show Malfleur that we are a stronghold against her magic. We’ll show the faeries their curse means nothing to us.”
He stared at her, studying the determination written on her face, which made it all the more stark and beautiful. Her lips were pursed, just slightly, and he had to fight away the images that arose in him. Images of touching those lips with his own. “You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” he said quietly. “But since when are you so eager to save us all from the evil of Malfleur? I thought this was about your sister’s health. And I didn’t think you put any stock in those rumors. . . .”
“Ever since the murder of the two elder princes, and now this mysterious faerie curse, I have thought of little else but the vulnerability of Deluce. This isn’t just about saving Aurora. This is about saving all of us. And let’s face it—no one else is going to do it.”
“You don’t know a single thing about Prince William,” Gil said, feeling the familiar twins of frustration and awe creep into his voice. In the easy way he knew he’d always win an arm wrestle with Isbe despite her wiry strength, he also knew he’d never win a single argument. Still, he made one last attempt. “And what about Aalis and Piers? And Roul?”
Isbe sighed, and he could swear he saw softness shift across her face like a drifting cloud. “Roul will find a new wife to help him with the children. He never lacked admirers when he was young. Neither of you did,” she added. It should have been a compliment, but it felt like a dig.
And he hated to admit why.
Because it meant Isbe saw him as more than a friend—she thought of him as a man, even a potential husband . . . for someone else. He wanted to tell her, to let loose all the jumbled desires racing like fine chargers inside his chest, pounding their hooves in his veins. Sometimes he feared by holding it all in he was creating some sort of inevitable stampede that would one day kill him.
And yet.
Even as a bastard, even as a runaway, she was still a royal. The daughter of a king. And he would never be more in her esteem than a beloved groom. A childhood companion.
“I don’t like the idea of you traveling so far, Isbe,” was all he finally admitted. “Especially not when times are so unpredictable. It’s always been my job to keep you safe. You would have been trampled by a wayward mare ’fore you could hardly walk if it wasn’t for me.”
Could she sense the purpose in his words? Isbe placed both her hands on his shoulders, then let them wander up to his face as she had so many times over the years, reading his expression—altering it subtly with her touch as she did, so that he was left with the unsettling suspicion that she understood not what he was truly feeling, only what she wanted him to feel.
“I am certain this is the best course, Gil,” she said at last. “There’s only one thing of which I’m not fully certain yet.” Already she’d begun to pack a small store of food and a change of clothes.
“And what’s that?” he asked.
She stopped what she was doing and stood to face him again, her eyes landing just at his chin. He sucked in a breath. How he wished so often he could grab her in his arms and make her really understand him. . . .
“Whether or not you’ll be joining me,” she said.
And so here they are, on the pier, about to board an oil vessel that will sail right through the strait, just under the noses of the sleeping castle village, and out across the North Sea . . . to Aubin. Even now, the sails slap one another in the crisp winter air, as though applauding Isbe’s recklessness.
Gil doesn’t need to have his luck with him to know this is a bad gamble.
But there is one thing of which he can be certain: he’ll always gamble on Isbe. He’ll do anything—barter any sense he owns—to be near her, to remain a part of her. Even though she may never know.
11
Aurora
Time may have stopped; seconds or centuries may have ticked by while she remained held within the wall, but finally Aurora parts the stone—parts from it—though the cold still clings to her like a shadow.
She begins to take in her surroundings . . . and an eerie sense of recognition floods her. But it must be a coincidence. It has to be. She’s still shaken from moving through the wall illusion—and from seeing all the soldiers deformed, crushed, morphed into stone.
Across a barren field, an old castle rises up from a tangle of dying vines and rotting tree trunks. Some sort of ivy, dotted with dried purple flowers, climbs from window to window, many of them boarded up. One entire tower has collapsed in on itself, and stone rubble litters the grounds. The day—if this even is the same day—has waned; purple-pink light veins the dried grass, almost obscuring the long, narrow road that snakes to the mouth of the gate. In the distance beyond the estate, she can see that the road leads to the low, lopsided peaks of huts and even a church—though it’s all blackened and in obvious disrepair, as if the whole village was razed by a bad fire.
“What is this place?” she whispers.