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“It doesn’t, huh? But then, did you know I have two younger sisters?”
I did get a bit of satisfaction when Ayla blinked at me. “...two?”
“Yup, two. At least at my last count.”
“I guess I didn’t.”
“Most Camdarians don’t. Only my sister Amelia was really allowed to be out and about in the public eye from time to time. Father planned to marry her off for a political alliance with a kingdom to our west, and she wouldn’t be much of a boon if she wasn’t well-known.”
“That’s upsetting.” It was, but it was also the reality of my early life. I recognized I was saying this all a bit too casually, but this was how I’d learned to deal with it.
“Anyway, it wasn’t like I never left home. I’ve always conducted small, diplomatic missions to the more obscure places in our kingdom: villages or territories that needed face time with our family and were so little known it was unlikely assassins could find us there. So, for my first two years, Oren and I managed to orchestrate it so I’d go home every leave and pretend everything was normal.”
“Then after the first two years?”
“I told them I was planning a mission for the good of the kingdom and would bring a new level of respect for the crown.” I closed my eyes, remembering my mother’s worried expression, and my father’s stony face. I was sure I’d have spotted some relief in his eyes but, no, nothing. Just the same impassable visage that’d always been there.
“I said they might not be able to contact me for a while.”
“They just let you go?”
“No, my father forbade it unless I sent a full proposal to him. Naturally, I didn’t want to do that. Hard to forge a fake identity if your father knows every part of it. Instead, I just left.”
Ayla shook her head, and I couldn’t blame her for being surprised. “Hold on, our crown prince, the heir to the throne, has been missing for three years, and your father kept it a complete secret?”
“From the public eye, yes. I’m sure he’s made up all sorts of stories to tell his court.”
“That’s a lot to digest,” Ayla murmured.
“Now you understand why running away and living a rural life is far more ideal.”
“I do get it, yeah, but even if you were being serious and we were crazy enough to try it, my curse wouldn’t make it possible. I can’t be certain, but to me, its effects seem diluted when I’m among multiple people, like it has more targets to dispel the black magic on. If we were to live one on one…”
That logic did check out. Whoever cursed her was an evil, unforgivable prick. Once I found them, I was going to make sure karma paid them back thrice over.
Ayla let out a sigh and rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m gonna miss you; I really am. But it’ll be good for you to get away from the effects of the curse for a while. Sort of reset.”
I blinked at her, not sure what she was saying. “Huh? What about resetting?”
“If you’re off in the capital. I trust you’ll find a way back here eventually, but it’ll probably be a while. I don’t exactly know the range of my curse, but I think it’s affected by location, otherwise giving me to the witches in the first place never would’ve solved anything.”
Did…
Did Ayla think I wasleaving her behind?
Clearly, I’d failed to set expectations for things, because that wasn’t happening as long as there was blood pumping through my body.
“Hey, in the effort to communicate clearly, I just want to emphasize in no way are we going to be parted right now.”
Shock instantly washed over her, so, yeah, she’d thought we would be splitting up… at least physically.
“Kai, if you’re going to the capital, I can’t bring my curse there! Who knows what havoc it would wreak on the entire court!”
“I understand, but first, I thought the curse could only affect those you care about, and trust me, you’ll quickly find you won’t care for a vast majority of the court.
“Second, we still have no idea where the Shrouded Shriek went since he escaped the battle, and he could target you directly again. It’s pretty clear he’s got a hard-on for you after the woods incident.”
“Is his ego really so fragile that insulting his name made me a special target?”
