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“But it is my magic that will be needed to free Rosamund. If you fail to kill the beast, I’ll still have to attempt to spell it.”
“What you do after my death or enchantment is your business, but at the moment I’m not prepared to let you risk yourself,” Aaron said, so concentrated on the knot he was making to bind the rope to the grapple that he was unprepared for her next question.
“Why?” she asked softly. “Why are you so reluctant to see me harmed?”
He lifted his head, catching her searching blue eyes, and for just a moment that feeling surged inside him, that feeling that he loved her and that the worst thing that could happen to him would be to see her hurt.
But that feeling wasn’t real, no matter how much he wanted it to be.
He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the rope. “Because you are my subject. A good king puts the welfare of his people before himself.”
“I am only one of your subjects,” she said. “If you truly put your people before yourself, then let me go first. If I’m killed, it’s no great loss to our country.”
He sighed. “Calliope, please—”
“In fact, if you mean what you say, you shouldn’t be here at all. You should go back to the castle and send someone else to free your brother. Who will rule Outer Kartolia if both you and Johann are lost to this wicked place?”
For the first time since meeting her, Aaron wasn’t pleased by Calliope’s quick wit. He had asked himself the same question a
hundred times, but he couldn’t trust anyone else to save his brother. Johann was the only family he had left, and whether it made him a good king or not, family would always come first.
But that didn’t explain why he was reluctant to let Calliope go. According to his own logic, risking her life was preferable to risking that of the king’s. After all, she wasn’t family.
Then why does she feel so dear to your heart?
He didn’t have time to answer the unspoken question before Calliope raised her hands and began to chant.
“Calliope, don’t you dare! I swear I—”
His throat locked as the rest of his muscles froze in place, trapping him on the edge of the wall. She left him his sight this time, however, so he was able to watch as she hurled the grapple into the tower window and grabbed the cloth from his hand.
She pressed one last, swift kiss to his lips before sliding out of sight into the darkness of the enchanted tower. And then she was gone, this woman who—now that it could be too late—he realized it would kill him to lose.
CHAPTER TEN
Calliope
Calliope landed safely inside the darkened tower, every muscle tensed and ready to spell the monster that guarded Rosamund. But there wasn’t a sound on the stairs.
It was as quiet and tomblike as the rest of the castle.
“Curious,” Calliope mumbled, her heart beating fast as she climbed toward the top of the tower, fearing the creature would launch itself out of the darkness at any moment, and rip out her throat before she could chant a word of her spell.
She assumed that’s why she reacted as she did to the sight around the next bend.
“Ahhh!” She screamed loud enough to wake the court from their enchanted sleep as she scrambled away from the decapitated body sprawled in her path.
It was the beast. Already dead, it’s blood thick and sludgy on the floor.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” she chanted, trembling as she picked her way around the monster. She’d never seen so much blood, or smelled anything like the stench that blossomed around the rotting corpse. “Keep walking, Calliope. Just keep walking.”
She repeated the mantra silently to herself as she continued to climb, wondering what she would find when she reached Rosamund’s chamber.
The beast who guarded her was dead. Surely that meant that Johann, or some other prince, had slain the thing. Logic would then assume that he had made his way to Rosamund’s room, delivered the kiss and the proposal, and that they would both be free to leave as the various other enchantments faded away.
But the lava and brambles didn’t seem a bit “faded” and the rest of Rosamund’s court was still asleep.
Something had gone wrong, but what?
