“Did you?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “I thought for my mother’s sake I should break the curse or die trying. Apparently, he had the same idea.” Her expression hardened. “He would’ve followed me, and he would have gotten himself killed. I needed to make him believe there was no hope for me.”
Thia’s lips parted, struck. She understood Dess’s hurt, the pain of feeling abandoned by the ones meant to love you best. Wasn’t that why she had been so angry with Melina? But she understood Oskaren, too, the impulse that had led her to lie for the sake of his safety, because that was what Grandma Winnie had done. And what Thia herself had done when she’d lied to keep Dess in the barn, and again when she’d avoided telling him her suspicions about Oskaren’s curse. They were all just trying to do right by one another, for better or worse, hindered by their own wounds in the caring.
Oskaren was waiting for a reply. Thia fingered the ends of her hair, wanting to say too much and not knowing where to begin. “But you did have hope,” she said at last. “He suggested you come here, and you did, alone. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Oskaren admitted. “I knew what they did to trespassers, so I camped by the falls for—I don’t know, a few months? Every day I told the trees of what had befallen me, hoping someone would hear. No one ever came. Then Asha attacked.” Thia’s breath hitched. “I fled across the bridge, preferring Losrohiri wrath to hers, but not before she gave me this.” Oskaren gestured to the scar across her face. “The trees swallowed me. I can’t quite describe it; they sprung up around me like the maws of a beast, forming a den so thick there was no way for the witch to get to me. I thought she would use fire, but I suppose even witches fear the Losrohir. She left.”
“Were you trapped?”
“For a while. Eventually a Losrohiri man came. He said the heart must be protected. I assume he was being ironic, since the trees would have told him of my curse.”
Thia’s eyes widened. “The Heart,” she echoed, turning it over.
Oskaren frowned. “What?”
“In the Losrohiri prophecy,” Thia said, more certain now. “Lord Sagan thought you might be the Heart.”
Oskaren’s laugh was bitter. “A pretty idea, but we both know I have none.”You do, Thia wanted to protest. But Oskaren was still speaking. “Whatever the reason, he told me of the Vale and guided me along it. I was never permitted here, nor to the City of Stars. When we came to a clearing deep within Losrohiria, an emissary of the Luminaë arrived. She told me that he had learned of my coming, but since the curse was not made by his people, they could not unmake it.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Anger consumed me. I couldn’t go home, couldn’t go on, couldn’t stay as I was. I became fixated on the only path left to me: vengeance. Starting with Asha.” Her fingers absent-mindedly brushed her scar. “Then the emissary said the last thing I expected.”
“Oh?”
“She told me the way to the lair. At first, I thought it was pity, one small way to help since they could do nothing else for me. But her next words tempered my rage somewhat: go now, and she foresaw only death for me. But if waited, my greatest want would be fulfilled.” She smiled sardonically. “So of course when you appeared, ready to seek the king, the meaning was obvious to me. Finally I’d have a chance at my ultimate vengeance. Asha was nothing in the face of that. And you’d already taken care of her anyway.”
Thia didn’t like the reminder of what she was to the girl, simply a ticket to royal access, even if her tone was light enough to suggest she no longer felt that way. She shifted on her rock. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Why does Dess think you went to the witches, if you never made it?”
“I couldn’t very well tell him I’d taken his advice,” she replied. “He would have known I hadn’t given up, and he would have done something even more reckless in the name of helping me.” Her rubbed her palms down her thighs. “He kept asking about my scar, why I’d bothered to come back when I’d been so intent on leaving. So I lied. Let him think I’d gone on some foolhardy witch-slaying adventure. Between the two of us, I was always the more levelheaded, so naturally he took it as a sign the sister he knew was gone.” Her mouth stretched bitterly. “And it wasn’t entirely unfounded. I had considered it, after all.” She leaned back, taking a large breath. Her eyes found Thia’s. “So now you know everything.”
Not everything. Not the most important thing. Oskaren seemed to be waiting for her to ask it, her expression braced, shoulders tensed. “Ren,” Thia started, waiting for her to protest.
But Oskaren only nodded. “Ask.”
So Thia took a shaking breath of her own and said, “Why were you cursed?”
For a long time, she thought Oskaren wouldn’t answer. Her eyes were closed against the memory, her long fingers clutched in her lap. Just when Thia was about to tell her to forget it, to spare herself, she spoke.
“It was the queen,” she whispered. “King Caradoc’s wife. Solanthe. About five years ago, there was a particularly harsh winter. I was in Black Forest at the time, Ma and I having fled there after my village was destroyed in the king’s northern quelling. Haven was starving, so I left to find work. With my skills, I was accepted as a page to the Kingsguard.”
They were knee to knee; Thia contemplated resting a hand there.
“I hated it, learning to defend the man who had destroyed my home. But it kept my family alive.”
At the twinge in her voice, Thia braved it. She reached out and lowered her palm to the girl’s leg. It was firm through the spider silk, but warm.
Oskaren continued. “Queen Solanthe took an interest in me. She saw that I liked to read and brought me books from the royal library. I was only fourteen, and no one of note. I suppose the attention pleased me.” A hint of that familiar cynicism crept into her voice. “Mother, mentor, monarch, friend. I was never quite sure what she wanted from me, who I was to her.” She scuffed the edge of her toe along Thia’s boulder. “Then she kissed me.”
Thia’s mouth parted. Anger ripped through her, and her hand tightened on Oskaren’s knee. But she forced herself to stay quiet, to let the girl continue for as long as she was willing.
“By then I was seventeen,” Oskaren said. “But she was old enough to be my mother. I pushed her off.” She sucked in a breath. “Next thing I knew, I was awakened in the middle of the night. Dragged before the king. Solanthe stood behind him. She was smiling at me, where he couldn’t see, so I didn’t think anything was wrong. Then he spoke. He accused me of pursuing her, and I realized the lies the queen had spun to get her revenge.”
Thia couldn’t breathe. Her heart broke for the other girl. She was full of rage, nearly shaking with it.
“I assume she picked the punishment as well,” Oskaren added. “The Mage King could have easily killed me and been done with it. But he allowed her to speak to me, just before the curse fell. Loudly, she told me she hated me. Then, as she was turning away, she whispered into my ear, ‘Now everyone will know just how heartless you truly are.’” Oskaren expelled a breath. “So you see. This”—she put a hand on her chest—“is my fault.”
Thia surprised herself with the strength of her reaction. She gripped Oskaren’s jaw and forced the girl to meet her gaze. “Absolutely not,” she said fiercely. “None of that was your fault. None of it.” Oskaren stared down at her as though she didn’t quite believe it. A tear slipped onto her cheek, and Thia wiped it with her thumb. “You were a child,” she said. “You didn’t ask her to kiss you. And even if you did, it was her job to know better. Ren, look at me,” she added, when the girl’s dark gaze flickered away. “You are blameless.”
Another tear followed the first. Then another. Then the girl’s shoulders heaved, and she was crying in earnest. Thia’s hands went around her shoulders to her back, guiding her forward so the girl’s forehead fell against her. She held her there, wondering if it was the first time she’d been able to cry in those two years, the first time she had been able to truly access the emotions that had surely been simmering under the surface, embittering everything she did.
