Risa glared at the prince. “I’m standing right here.”
The prince cocked his head. “No terribly crocheted shrugs in sight. Which reminds me.”
He revealed a sad beige mess of yarn and held it out to Brunhilda, who took it with a genuine smile that morphed her wrinkled face into something terrifying.
She layered her new shrug over her shoulders, where her other shawls and mantles sat looking more like bark and moss and various forest-adjacent things than clothing. The gift, made of shimmery gray fabric, appeared at home around the witch’s neck, blending in with her collection of rags as if it had always been there.
The witch flicked at an imaginary bit of dirt as she spoke to noone in particular. “I helped her mother give birth to her and can assure you:Nothingbad happens to her.”
Risa supposed the witch was right. Nothing bad happenedtoher. She merely made bad things happen all around her. To her home. To her town. To the people she loved. It was why she never spent too long in one place while she trailed through Barrow like a ghost; why she hadn’t hugged her mother since her twelfth birthday; why she had stopped waltzing into her father’s office to pester him about her studies the way she used to as a child. If disinterest might convince her bad luck to ignore everything she cared for, then she would have it. But the bad luck still struck sometimes, and always unexpectedly.
It was sure to happen with the prince, no matter how much she already disliked him. Her detestation didn’t seem to sway her luck either way.
“Well then, I’m satisfied,” Prince Javi said confidently.
Risa scoffed, incredulous, a thousand retorts ready upon her tongue. “That’s it? You’re not going to question this old bat any further?”
A smile curled around the prince’s perfect bowed lips. “I trust Brunie. She’s a witch, after all.”
“Famous last words,” Risa grumbled.
CHAPTER FOURIn Which the Girl Encounters Small Talk (and Hates It)
The Bosque was abuzz with sound. Leaves rustled, insects hummed, twigs cracked under the weight of stomping boots. The world around her was painted in gold streaks across a canvas of green so dark it was nearly black. Animals scurried underfoot, the faint babbling of a brook was distant but ever present, and the air smelled damp and full of life. Occasionally, a sliver of bright blue sky with nary a cloud in sight revealed itself through the leaves.
No chance of rain.
Whatever curse the woods contained seemed to enjoy naps during the day. The prince and his entourage trampled through with little care; the guards’ uneasiness had dispelled once the witch had turned around and disappeared. Risa followed the group, suspicious of every sound and flutter of a breeze.
If she hadn’t been so concerned that Brunhilda’s lie could bediscovered, she might have spared a moment to consider that in a twisted way,thiswas what she’d wanted all her life. A sense of freedom. To be anonymous and insignificant, a speck in the grand tapestry of the universe. Not a Bad Thing, not a Good Thing, merely a girl escaping a life better left behind.
As it was, she was very aware of her impossible task of babysitting el principito and ensuring he say “I do” to some poor, unsuspecting girl who probably deserved better.
Besides the prince, only the general and his right-hand man with long golden hair were granted a horse to ride, leaving the remaining soldiers to tramp through overgrown thickets like peasants. As the day wore on, the encompassing woods turned darker, the thickets denser, and the guards louder. They shared stories with booming voices and laughed with abandon, the noises carrying through the woods. When they bumped into a tree or one another with their heavy packs, the rattle of their chain mail, pots, and weapons made them laugh harder, as if the good humor were infectious.
Suddenly, the hair on Risa’s arms stood on end. Goose bumps rose along her skin. She didn’t know much about magic, but she felt somethingbadwas going to happen.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, kicking at a moss-covered rock. She was being ridiculous, thinking she could sense when something bad was on the horizon.
“Did you say something, witch?” Prince Javi’s voice floated down from his perch on his white stallion. From his vantage point, he must have been better equipped to read the sign that was surely posted above her head:BEWARE OF BAD LUCK.
Perhaps he could not read, because when she was forced to look up at him, she found he was smiling expectantly and none the wiser.
“No,principito,” she said, before picking up her pace.
Risa knew that at some point, she might actually need to have a conversation with the prince. They were nearly the same age, and his guard was ignoring her. But she didn’t want to start now, mostly because she didn’t know how to have a conversation with anyone.
If there was a way to postpone the inevitable, well, she would try her best.
She had thought that was the end of their interaction, but then she heard his horse snort right beside her ear. When she glanced up at the prince, he was watching her with something akin to amusement.
“My apologies, were you expecting a bow?” She paused and folded over, neck straining as she kept her eyes pinned to his.
His smile lifted a fraction higher, making the corners of his eyes crinkle.
“You should really practice. Your form needs work. It will reflect badly when you meet my future wife.”
Her mouth flattened. There was clearly no need to worry. He was so self-absorbed that he probably wouldn’t even be able to pick her out of a crowd, let alone discern she was lying. Still, she couldn’t betoohorrible outright; he had enough guards to render her superfluous to the operation, and he might be the closest she could get to finding someone who might lift her curse.
