Linden said, “Briar Wyngrave.” A hush fell over the crowd. “You have fulfilled my life in ways I can never hope to articulate. These past months with you have been a dream, and I ask you now to ensure I never wake from it. Would you do me the honor of marrying me and being my husband?”
In the long hours of the night in which Briar had not slept, he had wrestled with two truths.
The first was that he could not fight Linden on his own. He knew what would become of him if he confronted Linden at the manor. He would disappear; nothing but a sad casualty of his curse. Linden would post mournful stories to Alakagram, beautifully shot photographs of funeral lilies. No one would know what had really become of Briar, and no one—save for a lonely, love-struck Coill Darraghn—would care.
The second truth was that he didn’t have to do it all alone. Any of it. His job, his success, some things were more powerful when shared.
If he wanted to fight Linden, he had to do it with millions of eyes watching.
The gasps and clapping subsided the longer Briar stood unresponsive. Murmurs began to spread.
Briar looked down at Linden and the ring. He didn’t melt into his arms or hold his hands to his face in blissful surprise. He waited until the crowd’s enthusiasm for a live proposal went out like the tide before a big wave. Until it was quiet enough they could clearly hear him say,
“No.”
Linden’s blinding smile hardly changed. It froze there. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t marry you.”
“Briar, this is hardly the time for jokes.”
“I’m not joking.” Briar took a step back as Linden reached for his hand. “I cannot marry a man like you.”
Linden’s beatific features locked in a rigor of shock and, briefly, anger, but he smoothed this, turning to the audience, to the cameras. “I’m so sorry. He’s confused. He’s been ill.”
“Yes. I’ve been ill with a curse. A curse you might as well have cast on me.”
Linden said quickly, “That is preposterous. Briar, really. We both know the source of the curse is an accident of unpredictable, wild magic. I’m wounded that you could say such a thing.”
Linden was turned toward the audience, speaking as much to them as to him. Briar did not waver from staring directly into Linden’s face as he began to explain, as much for Linden’s benefit as the people watching, just how well he understood.
“Ten years ago, an invasion of witches came to Coill Darragh to pilfer its woods of the powerful magic and rare tithes found there.”
“Oh, you can’t be serious.”
“The forest retaliated. To survive, it took energy from the townsfolk. The alderman at the time sacrificed his life to build wards that would keep the invaders out. It killed the invaders. Most of them.”
“You’re sick, Briar. Delusional. We should get you to a hospital immediately.”
Briar clenched his hands into fists and willed himself to go on. The audience of high society watched, riveted but skeptical.
“You escaped,” Briar said. “You left the witches to die by the wards. Those witches were your own family. You claimed they died of a mysterious plague. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. The Fairchilds didn’t die of an ailment, they were killed paying for your avarice. Avarice you paraded around proudly! You never had a talent for healing. You used the powerful siphons collected from Coill Darragh to go on a miracle tour, curing people of their sickness and earning yourself a tidy fame and fortune, while the siphons caused curses to strike anyone unlucky enough to witness your so-called miracles. Mymotherincluded.”
Linden’s face paled, but he maintained a smile. An ugly, bared-teeth smile that failed to convey any of his usual charms. “How could you say this of me? I cured the sick and the dying. I’ve been trying to do the same for you.”
Briar said, “No, you’ve used me as a token example of your charity. A poor, dying nobody you lifted up. You want to marry me so that taking what’s left of Coill Darragh will be no challenge to you, so you can cover up your misdeeds, so you can claim to cure the very people you cursed. You’ve been studying the forest, trying to harvest its power without incurring its wrath. You even hired a helper, a man called Kenneth, to carry out your research. I wonder what you promised him, but I know what he got.He became a convenient scapegoat for all the terrible things that arose as a result of your research. All so you can harness more power and bury your past. And if your actions pass on more curses, what’s that to you? On and on, in an endless cycle. And for what? Your reputation?”
Linden stood. He’d been kneeling the whole time, as if expecting Briar to name this all a joke. The expression of heartbroken misery he wore chilled Briar. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would believe me capable of all that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Where’s the proof? When this took place, I would have been—what? Fifteen?”
This rippled through the audience in whispers of disbelief and dissent. Fifteen was young to tithe half a forest, to kill most of your family, to use dangerous magic in pursuit of fame. Who was Briar to level these accusations? He had no reputation or accolades to lend his word credit.
“I do have proof,” Briar said.
He opened his vest and showed Linden the journal. Old, creased, and dappled with blood.
