The last memory unravels yet another layer, and I recall a bargain I made with Mr. Blackwood, then a game I played with Monty Phillips. Both feel more like a dream than a clear memory, as does me rejecting my fiancé and quitting the game. I can’t help feeling like I’m missing something amongst these hazy recollections.
Pain strikes my temples as I try to gain more clarity than that.
My mother rushes to her feet, stealing my attention back to her. “Where is he?” she asks, eyes wild. “Where is Vintarys?”
“He’s not here. It’s been…” I close my eyes, sifting through my murky understanding of the passage of time. Finally, I sort out enough to finish what I started to say. “It’s been over a week since you fell under the sleeping spell.”
“A week?” she echoes. “We…we’ve been asleep?”
“Then how are we awake?” My father’s deep voice has me whirling toward him. He pushes off from his cot, his beady eyes sweeping over the room. “How did this happen?”
My heart slams in my chest as I realize I don’t have an answer for him. Not a clear one, at least. I remember making a deal with Mr. Blackwood, that he would help me marry Mr. Phillips and break the curse. I remember rejecting Monty in favor of my own wants.
But what were those wants?
Did I truly reject him for the sake of freedom alone?
And if so, how did we break the curse?
Something bright and warm pulses inside me, but it feels muffled. Muted. I envision the warmth growing claws, slashing out at whatever binds it…
“Answer me, Daughter.” Father’s stern tone has my spine going rigid. He rises from his cot and hauls me to stand with him. His grip isn’t rough, but it isn’t gentle either. From the corner of my eye, I find several of my other family members waking, standing, turning their attention to me and Father. “Tell me what happened.”
“I broke the curse,” I say.
“How?”
“I…I don’t remember.” I filter through my memories once more, trying to glean exactly what I was doing before my family awoke, but all I can remember are the tears that streamed down my cheeks, the sob that broke from my chest when I first found myself standing here.
Then another flash of memory emerges. A wall of brambles around the palace, a ring of fighters, and a dragon soaring in the sky overhead—
“Father, you have to stop the fighting. I tried to keep the sleeping spell a secret while I worked to break the curse, but someone found out.”
No, not justsomeone. A dragon named Trentas.
The fae who raised Mr. Blackwood when he was a child.
A child whose secret name was Vintarys.
A child who listened to his mother’s and sisters’ screams as they suffered from an iron grenade.
A child whose eyes melted from his sockets because of a trick played by one of my family members.
Rage funnels through me, a protective fire that confuses me more than anything else. Why do I feel so angry on Mr. Blackwood’s behalf?
I shake the question from my mind and return to the topic at hand. “There are factions outside who are preparing to take the throne in your absence. They need to see you’re alive.”
The doors to the dining room swing open, and a pair of guards rush in. They must have finally heard the commotion. “Majesty,” they say in unison, bowing at the waist as soon as they catch sight of my father.
He clears his throat. “Does my daughter speak the truth? Are there challengers to the throne at the palace?”
How could he ask if I’m telling the truth? He knows I can’t lie.
“Yes,” one of the guards says. “They will be forced to disband if they know you’re awake and still in possession of the throne.”
Father nods. “Then I must go at once. Divina.” He turns to my mother. I expect him to say something else, but he only gives her a pointed nod. She gives one back, her eyes flicking briefly to me.
I frown, unsure what to make of that exchange.
