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“Tried to kill my bride. The woman I thought was my bride. Who knows what Eki thought. Goddess, what a mess.”
I also grieved for our son, but not like that. Revenge was one thing, hurting anyone in your way another.
Mariska avoided my eyes, same as she had when I asked about Vanya.
I paused, remembering Eki saying she had something she needed to tell me and Mariska knowing what it was. “What’s Ekatarina hiding?”
“She made me swear. She’ll tell you. I’ll talk to her. You should go to her.”
My cousin rambling when put on the spot used to be cute. When excited, Alexei would tease her until she could not find the words. I found it, like so much else, had lost itsattraction. In her red healer’s coat and hair pinned into a bun, she no longer seemed the cheerful girl I had left behind.
Talking to Eki was the last thing I wanted. I should have had her arrested or committed, but with Vanya replaced by Helia, I did not dare bring attention to what had happened. Not that I would humor Ekatarina’s delusions again. We were done.
“It has nothing to do with this.” Mariska stepped closer and stared up with eyes shaped just like mine. “I like Vanya and I think you do too. You deserve happiness. Don’t marry Helia if it means giving it up.”
“You talk as if I have a choice?” I looked at the white door. Behind it, the woman who consumed my thoughts rested. “There is only one way this ends.”
Mariska scoffed. “Then keep her out of your machinations until you’re sure what you want, until whatever you plan is over. I don’t know her, not really, but I think she’s seen enough suffering. She’s still learning her magic. If she overuses it again, no one can predict the consequences. And what happened last night… I think it’s the curse the water seer felt. Whatever you were doing triggered it.”
The terror threatened to rise again. “Any idea how to break it?”
“I’m a healer, no seer. The only sure way to break curses isn’t one we prescribe.”
Death.
I shuddered, thinking where she had collapsed. Despite sigils blocking the Spirits from the City Archive, death had surrounded us. Her last words meant she realized something important.
I needed to find the food and not only because my father ordered me to. Each day I spent searching, I saw the gaunt faces of street children, the abandoned toys, and burned skulls on the farmstead.Each day, my scouts found more deserted ones. The Day of the Dead was coming. The citizens of Tal expected a royal banquet open to all. Expected the fall markets to fill their bellies until spring. I needed to solve it, or complaints would transform into bloodshed.
Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. Urgently, I lowered my voice and focused on my cousin.
“When I can, I’ll protect her. When I can keep her away from danger, I will.”
Mariska’s serious face, so at odds with the charming child we had used as a decoy during pranks, lent weight to the words. Like sigils they wrote themselves on my insides. Like wedding vows, exchanged between the couple and no one else—private and sacred.
The door opened, Tempest with wild hair and sleepy eyes but otherwise as magnificent and enticing as I had come to expect her, looked from my cousin to me, her expression fierce enough that I thought she might have overheard.
“I’m done resting. I’m fine.” She said it as if expecting a challenge.
I looked to Mariska for assurances. “Is she—”
“I promised to stay for three bells. You can’t keep me.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “How can you be here? Surely someone at the palace is missing the crown prince by now?”
“You thought I was leaving before I knew you were well? After you choked on air? Does that happen often?”
“I’ve answered all Riska’s questions. She’s the healer.”
I swallowed the fear before she could see it in my eyes. From the first moment I spun her around in the palace forest, I had been unable to keep my composure, the blank court mask slipping until I could no longer find it.
Pulling my fingers through my free-for-once hair—a benefit of the disguise—I turned back to my cousin.
“Well?”
Mariska smiled from ear to ear. “You’re so cute together. All fire and—” She laughed at my no doubt frustrated expression. “As I told you, she’s healthy. I treat illnesses, and this is something else. She knows what to do.” Mariska turned her perceptive eyes on Vanya. “And whatnotto do.”
“I’ll be more careful,” Tempest said to the woman who had become her friend despite lies and pretense.
Neither had a reason to pretend to like each other anymore. If their relationship had been genuine, perhaps some of the feelings my princess expressed toward me had as well. And so had the lingering looks and too brief touches at the Drunken Dead.
