I learned what it takes to curse someone, and I knowexactlywhat it would take to curse an entire continent of high fae in such a way. Whatever other evil Kharl has wrought, none of it can compare to the blood sacrifice and power exchange of the curse. How many Mothers and Maidens chose to follow him? How many did he abduct when their covens refused his call? Generations of power and bloodlines, all of them bled out and murdered to fuel this curse.
I understand the source of the loathing in this female’s eyes as she stares down at me, clutching her belly desperately, knowing that the child within will never take a breath due to my kind. I look upon her with far more kindness than she looks upon me.
The moment she notices that softening in my gaze, her face twists into a snarl. “Your pity is despicable. I will carve those eyes right out of your head for daring to look upon me. Your kind murdered my son and would take another from me. I’ll see to it that Soren fulfills his fate and then tortures you endlessly, exactly as you deserve, because you're nothing but a filthy, warmongering, lower-fae cretin.”
She turns on her heel and walks away with that unsteady gait that reveals she’s not far from giving birth. The clock hanging over her head and the life of her unborn babe are ticking away, slowly counting down until their time together will end. The sorrow inside me only grows for that fierce mother. To know that the curse is clawing at her womb and to still long for a baby so desperately that she would try anyway…I don’t blame her for her rage, her tiny frame shaking with it. She's right. I do pity her.
I pity them all.
* * *
As far as torture goes, a few days into my confinement, I decide that the Savage Prince needs to work on his methods because, after centuries of my sleep being interrupted by Ureen attacks and the demands of being a healer, I finally feel well-rested once more. My skin, though filthy with the dust and grime of the cell, glows with health, and even my cheeks have plumped out from the magic exchange, the skin no longer taut across my bones. I suspect that if I were to return to the Seelie Court right now, I would be unrecognizable to my friends.
Even after my wounds from the Ureen finally healed—a long and arduous process that drained much of my own power and that of the witches who worked tirelessly to save me—I remained in this numb state of being. At first, I thought my continued detachment indicated a wound of the mind, a trauma inside me that needed time to heal, but as time passed, the ice around my heart only grew thicker, and my mental health never truly recovered.
I longed for the forest.
I continued to live within my family's traditions, even in a land that was not my own. I performed the rituals of the solstices and equinoxes, took part in the sacrifices and the ways of the local witches, conformed to every last one of the ways in which the Fates required me to nurture the land, but the Northern Lands did not welcome me the way the land here does.
This land needs me.
I was born of the Unseelie lands, and my power and blood sustain them. No matter how far I traveled or the traditions I honored in distant courts,thisis where I belong. I feel it in the way the earth devours my magic, as though it would take everything from me if only I would let it. It would consume me whole and still search for more, having centuries-worth of damage to heal. Here I’m a natural conduit. If I gave myself over to the exchange, I could live forever in this suspended state.
But it’s not my fate to do so, no matter how much the land calls for me.
The longer I stay locked in this cell, the more I notice the patterns of the passing days.
Every morning a new bucket of water and a tray of slops appear through the hatch. The guards murmur as they confirm that nothing has changed within the cell, and then silence takes over the cavernous void once more. I have no doubt the guards are reporting that I do nothing all day, and the high faes’ suspicions of my intentions are growing more obvious.
I make no effort to speak to any of them or to move, aside from drinking the water and eating a few scraps, but the guards’ eyes are sharp on my body, watching it flourish.
None of it matters to me. I don’t need their trust or their approval to complete my fate.
Instead, I continue in my meditative state.
I forget about everything happening around me and focus on the earth, letting magic take me over completely. This is the healthiest I've been since I left the forest; I’m in tune with nature, as I’m supposed to be as a witch. The Ravenswyrd witches were made from this earth, and I should never have forgotten that. And yet…I did.
It doesn't matter how I feel about my fate. I’ll marry the Savage Prince just as soon as he gets past his futile rage at the Fates and gets on with it. He can take his throne and save his kingdom; I won’t kick up a fuss, no matter how much the arrogant male deserves it. I’ll do my own saving of the land from here without his meddling.
Of course, the problem of the curse begins to eat away at the back of my mind.
My fate says that I'm here to save the kingdom from the war and that my marriage to the Savage Prince will set off a chain of events to end the bloodshed, but I know far more about the Fates than I did when I fled the Southern Lands. I understand that it's not as simple as merely waiting for the Fates to use me like a puppet. No matter how much I want to sit back in this cell and retreat from the evils of this world, I must participate.
When I made the decision to come back here, I thought my tasks would be to find the Savage Prince and submit to the marriage, to be an opinionless figurehead and satisfy the laws of the Unseelie Court until it came time to face Kharl.
Now that I've seen the dire state of the kingdom, I know I have much harder work to do than only that.
I slip back into my meditation and, instead of emptying my mind, this time I look for the curse. There will be ways to weaken its magic, but I have a better chance of finding a way to unravel it if I understand the makings of the curse. The witches with that knowledge would be Kharl or one of his most loyal followers, but consulting them is clearly not an option for me.
I’d kill the male on sight, curse be damned, for what he did to my family.
It doesn't take me long to find the tendrils of the magic, which rests over the high fae like an oppressive blanket. It’s invisible and undetectable to any of those who don’t feel a strong pull to the power within them, but to me it’s perfectly clear.
The strong and old magic is a form of contraceptive that’s been twisted and pushed to an extreme, devastating for any high fae who comes across it. Dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of babies have been taken from the loving arms of their mothers, strengthening the power of the curse with their sacrificed lives and building its evil and potency.
The longer I examine it, the more I learn. It might be an old and powerful form of magic but it’s also a weary curse, long overdue for a sacrifice to be poured back into it after so many long years without any high fae even attempting to fall pregnant. I might not be able to loosen its ties over the kingdom, but if I can manipulate it close enough to where it lingers over the princess before it takes the baby as a sacrifice, I might be able to break it.
I don’t stand a chance of the high-fae princes letting me use magic around the pregnant female. In their ignorance and fear of my power, they’d kill me.
