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The paintings melted, creating macabre portraits—stretched out eyes and screaming mouths—before the flames swallowed them whole. The arched stained-glass windows began to liquify, caving in on themselves. The colored liquid dribbled down the walls, pooling on the stone floor.
Suddenly, the flames wicked out, leaving the hallway bare-boned and dusted with soot.
Wide eyed, I looked at Aurelius, feeling every bit of his immense magic filling the air, the vibrant taste of it on my tongue.
Aurelius reached for me, his voice soft as he said, “Aurelia, I—”
“No,” I said, slapping his hand away. I gestured to the rest of the hallway. “You did this. And you are damned lucky no one got hurt because of it.”
“I lost my temper,” he said, his expression somber.
“That is no excuse,” I growled, shaking my head. Done with this conversation, I started down the hallway, my thunderous steps fed by my anger.
Sage
My mind was stuck—stuck on my fight with Aurelius, stuck on what had happened in the hallway, and stuck on the quiet walk back to my chambers, where I stayed for the rest of the day. Now, nighttime had fallen, sweeping its black paint across the canvas of the sky.
Naevia’s face glowed as orangey-red as the fire she knelt in front of. Using an iron shovel, she fished out chunks of coals to put in the bed warmer pan. Brunhilde stood over top of her, telling her which ones to select as if she were a jeweler selecting precious diamonds.
Meanwhile, Cataline unlaced me from that wicked contraption known as a corset. When it was off, I took a deep breath, reveling in the ability to breathe again. My fingers slidover my ribs, slipping into the red angry divots stamped into my flesh, the skin stinging.
“I’ll come early tomorrow morning and get you dressed before Brunhilde comes,” Cataline whispered behind me, low enough that Brunhilde, the expert organ squeezer, wouldn’t hear. Truly, they should have given Brunhilde a job as a torturer rather than a housemaid.
“Thank you,” I whispered back, her offer warming my heart. With each passing day, conversations with Cataline were becoming easier, but while Cataline warmed to me, Naevia had grown colder. Earlier tonight, when she arrived with Brunhilde and Cataline, her eyes went straight to my neck, noting what was no longer there. Her usual blank expression turned soggy with disgust. When she noticed that I had seen the face she made, she turned her head quickly to the side and hurried off to start her nightly tasks.
I knew the prejudice against the Cursed was bad, but growing up in the woods had kept me a bit sheltered from the extent of it. I realized that sounded a bit naive, considering I watched countless people be tortured and then burnt at the pyre all in the name of the king. But this . . . it was different. It wasn’t as cut and dry as the Cleansings. For the most part, the crowd that gathered around during the Cleansings took no joy in seeing their fellow villagers burn. Although no one dared say it out loud, there was a sense of sorrow among the small community. But here, in the castle, it wasn’t just the king and his guards that despised the Cursed, it was also most of the people who lived here—Naevia being one of them.
And sure, it felt a little unjust for her to judge me considering she knew next to nothing about my character, but in truth I felt sorry for her.
She hadn’t grown up in the woods like me. She’d grown up here, in this stifling environment full of rigid customs, fakery,and lies. Yes, the castle was massive in size, but the box the crown kept people in—that was tiny. The false information they sowed into their minds was even smaller.
For years now, the monarchy had told its citizens that the Cursed were unclean, a danger to society, and any voices who said otherwise were silenced. So naturally, if one message was repeated, like an unruly weed left unplucked, it would eventually take over.
I couldn’t blame Naevia for acting the way she did—she was a product of this place.
Yet, somehow, someway, Cataline pushed past those boundaries. And that gave me hope.
“Well, I think that’ll be all for tonight, my lady. There’s a teapot sitting on the table, hot water only, as you requested. There’s a tin full of chamomile and lavender beside it, should you decide it needs a bit of flavor,” Brunhilde said, her hands falling into the crook of her voluminous hips. She wore a satisfied expression, a telltale sign that she was pleased with herself and her nightly duties. I didn’t think anyone took their job as seriously as Brunhilde—not even the king.
“Thank you,” I said to her. To all of them. I glanced at the teapot, steam drifting from its spout. Four matching cups sat beside it, along with a wooden spoon and the tin she spoke of.
Cataline touched my arm as she passed by. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“Good night,” I said to her.
“Good night, my lady,” Naevia said, her expression as lifeless as her tone. She didn’t make eye contact, but she dipped her head and then quickened towards the door. Brunhilde and Cataline followed her out.
After they were gone, I sat cross-legged on the floor with the map of the castle spread out before me and the cup of steeped herbs—the herbs the healer had given me—in my hands. Itswarmth seeped through the cup and into my fingers. Over the past few days, winter had finally staked her claim, plummeting the temperature into a vicious, vicious cold—the kind that stung your face within just a few seconds of being exposed to it. Even the fireplace in my room was having a hard time fighting winter’s chokehold.
Something my heart could attest to . . .
Aurelius and I had not spoken since this morning.
In the wake of our fight, I had had time to revisit our disagreement, to play it over again and again in my mind. It wasn’t my best moment, but hey, it wasn’t exactly his either—he had torched anentirehallway.
From what I remembered of him in the past, Aurelius had been kind to me—tenderhearted. But when I met him the first night, when he’d sunk his teeth into my neck—that had been an entirely different version of him. He had wanted to hurt me then. And then what happened today? Not only did he think he had a right to say what I did with my body, but when he found out Von was alive, that calm demeanor had been reduced to ash, quite literally.
Which begged the question—who was therealAurelius?
