“It’s not my fault you keep asking the wrong questions,” I answered nonchalantly, “or no questions at all.”
Sofie’s face reddened so much, I thought to ask whether she was choking. Much to my relief, she spat, “It’s not as though I volunteered to join you in this curse. I’m doing the best I can.”
“What standards your Dewspell Academy has!”
At this rate, she was going to turn purple. As she formulated her reply, she slowly set down her silverware, one at a time, then took her napkin and dabbed at her lips, every movement intensely controlled.
It was a little bit terrifying to watch.
And sort of attractive. Sort of. I’d never had a prim and proper princess of a wife. I had to admit, there was something appealing about trying to unravel all that tight control and sweep her off her feet.
Not that I was looking for her to be a wife in earnest. This marriage only needed to last as long as it took to break the curse. Romantic nonsense had no place in this arrangement. Besides, I’d already had a wife who’d won my heart.
I doubted there would ever be another.
“I suppose it’s easy to sit there and make jokes at my expense when the curse protects you,” Sofie finally ground out. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m less jovial, now that I’ve learned the Bride will personally be coming after me.” She fixed me with a glare. “Care to explain?”
“What’s to explain? I already told you the curse led to the deaths of the other wives.”
“You didn’t tell me the ghost of the Bride herself would be after me! Something which must only be possible because her death magic wasthatpowerful.“ She shook her head. “If she was adraugr, maybe, or had some other kind of physical presence in this realm, it’d be more likely. But a ghost?”
“Back up a moment. Awhat?”
”Adraugr.“ Sofie wrinkled her nose at me. “The walking dead.”
“What a charming place Aegle must’ve been to grow up in.”
“To be fair, I only lived there until I was”—she hissed out a breath, catching herself. “Could we please stick to the subject of the murderous ghost?”
I waved my fork in the air. “This curse is aimed at preventing me from securing the treasure. If it were so easy for a wife to obtain it for me, I would’ve had one wife to last a lifetime, not nine short-lived arrangements.”
“You’ve hadninewives?”
I frowned at her. “How many did you think I had?”
She mirrored my expression. “Four or five?”
“I’ve been cursed for seven years. That’s a wife for each year of the curse, plus two who thought they knew better. One thought she could take the treasure for herself and her actual lover. The other was driven mad by nightmares of the Bride and decidedIwas the problem. The Lady de Gorm dispatched her after she attempted to stab me in my sleep.“ My mood was souring as Irecounted those two cases, both women who’d signed on eagerly and changed their minds quickly.
In the case of the former, I sometimes regretted giving Aoki a second chance. He was the one who’d alerted me to Nadia’s scheme, waking me from the deep sleep spell she’d put me and the rest of the crew under. She was our only other magic-wielding bride —though she was a novice compared to Sofie—and he claimed himself bewitched by her.
I never believed him. He was hardly the first man to turn into a fool over a pretty woman. The irony of it all was that I would’ve given them my blessing,ifshe’d secured the treasure for me. With her magical skills, she’d survived the Bride’s attempts to drain her life. I thought she’d be the one who could reach the Queen of the Sea.
I planned to steal it back from her when she returned. Instead, when she didn’t reappear, the crew and I searched the Hidden Isle.
I found her dead just inside the Bride’s cave.
Aoki was with me. I thought that punishment enough for conspiring with her, finding her lifeless, broken body like that. It brought dark memories of my own to mind.
So I gave him one final chance, and pitied his state. His grief had him convinced he’d seen the Bride in the cavern when no one was there. He swore it to this day. But if he betrayed me again…let’s just say I’d forget my forgiving nature.
“I need details,” Sofie said, clearly irked by my sudden lapse into memory. “How does the Bride attack? Is she visible, or is it all done through the magic of the curse? Can you feel when she’s close?”
“I never feel a thing,” I said. “And neither do they, from what I can tell. Some of the Brides simply…don’t wake up.”
“The Bride attacks while they’re sleeping?”
“She’s brave like that.”
