AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It will unearth, it will unearth.
“Shut up, shut up,shut up!” I shout all the way back to my bed. The voices only laugh.
Something rotten lies in your heart.
Something rotten lies.
The Fates don’t walk this earth—beasts and witches do. No matter how much the gods know, no matter what they threaten, they aren’there.It will take soldiers and strategy, but we can corral the beasts until they can be transformed. We can find the Witch of Nightmares and stop her.
I will survive destiny by my own means.
King Emilius is less startled by the discoveries behind the dark magic than the sight of me and Cyrus in his study speaking in civil tones.
“The Fairywood isn’t creating beasts,” I say, a little breathless after Cyrus and I careened in, pretending we had only just discovered this news. “A witch is behind it. I think she’s drawing upon the Fairywood for power and causing the rot, too.”
I can’t tell the king about Nadiya nor that the real Raya is dead, so I claim I saw the witch by reading Lady Raya’s and Cyrus’s futures. I warn of her unpredictable powers and of the awful scene that will unfold at Cyrus’s wedding. Cyrus, playing his part of smitten husband-to-be, insists onoverseeing the plans of attack personally for drawing the witch out.
“Look for a raven, if you can,” I say, remembering my glimpse of the witch’s transformation.
The rot on my tower spread overnight, and the entire base has to be roped off so the outer vines can be carved away. I blame it on the witch as well—a sign of her approach. No one knows any better to believe otherwise. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
On the upside, that means my tower is closed for readings, so no fussy patrons. I have time for clandestine strategy meetings in Nadiya’s quarters, which I don’t mind as much as I expected I would. I like pacing around the maps and letters that Dante brings, hearing about the movements that Balica has been making in dealing with the beasts themselves. Since they lack a strong military, they’ve focused on evacuating infested areas and moving refugees into better-protected cities. The patches of Fairywood spread throughout Balica seems to have slowed the beasts’ advance as well; they are rarely seen crossing them.
I maintain a wide distance from the prince in the room, which means I join Nadiya on the edge of her bed. Though naive, she isn’t insufferable, mostly because she doesn’t try to strike up conversation when things fall silent. I take the opportunity to search her future better, withdrawing only when the scenes of her wedding prove too much.
“Screaming and chaos. Brambles covering the ballroom,” I mutter, hiding a shiver. “Nothing illuminating, though.” I can’t help but feel something is missing from my Sight—as if threads are being pulled away from my grasp.
Nadiya has been opening up since she no longer has to pretend among us. “Could…we spring a trap on the witch?” she haltingly suggests, fingers twisting around her charm bracelet.
Sprawled on the chaise, Dante makes a middling grunt. “If we haven’t caught her by then, I don’t know if we can catch herthereeither, but that’s an idea.”
“And we’ll guard the wedding as best we can,” says Cyrus.
I don’t ask,What if it’s not enough?Or,What if it backfires?Because then I’d be admitting that no matter what I learn of the future, I won’t be able to stop it.
Dante informs us of further grim findings about Raya’s manor: For weeks, an enchantment had kept people away from investigating the manor. As soon as anyone touched the outer walls or gates, they would forget why they were there. The enchantment finally broke when the manor was set aflame. Afterward, locals found the burnt husk of the building littered with bodies of beasts.
“The other handmaidens ran off early, right as the witch attacked,” Nadiya recounts of her last day in Lunesse. “My friend Lili was guiding the household out through the back. I was the only one upstairs trying to get to our mistress. I thought I was keeping them safe by doing as the witch asked, but I realized too late that she could have killed everyone anyway, whether or not I followed her orders. Or worse, she turned them into beasts….”
“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known,” Cyrus assures, and I notice that he’s been holding her hand this entire time, caressing it with a thumb.
Nadiya doesn’t react to his touch—because it means nothing or because they’re used to it? “I just wish their families knew the truth of what happened to them.”
“Soon, I hope. After all this curse business is over,” says Dante.
Each day, though, it seems less likely Nadiya’s deception caneverend, but none of us speaks of that.
We move on to lighter topics, like outfits for the wedding and whether Camilla ought to be in charge of food for a party ever again, lest the palace have cake to spare for a year afterward.
Nadiya lets slip that she doesn’t know how to dance. “I think everyone was too bespelled at the masquerade to notice.”
“Fairies can conjure shoes so you don’t even have to learn,” I say proudly, as if it were an achievement on my part.
“But it’s good to learn.” Cyrus—ever graceful, ever gracious to all but me—pulls her to her feet. “It’s easy, too. I’ll show you.”
They go round and round the room, Nadiya tripping half the time, a pretty blush painting her cheeks. A prince and a peasant, like the tales, delighting in each other’s company. The sight should be a brightness in the gloom, not a bitter stew in my gut.
I lean toward Dante, ready to grumble about how Cyrus is never so gracious with me, how it’s tasteless to lead Nadiya on, but I wonder: maybe the change in Cyrus’s behavior has nothing to do with me. Maybe it has everything to do with her.
