No one stopped them as they passed through the gate. On the other side, Risa was hit by an equally dizzying feeling, though it was not caused by the careful artistry of eras past. This time, it was the familiar prickle of magic that morphed into a wave and crashed over her. She stumbled, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat.
Javi steadied her, concern flashing in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Magic clung to the uneven cobblestones beneath their feet, tothe carts clattering down the road, to the dirty glass windowpanes of white stone houses covered in a thick film of grime.
She couldn’t speak without feeling like she might be ill.
The town greeting them was a dusty, hollowed husk that hinted at a time of greatness past, where it might have stood as a testament of strength, vitality, and ingenuity. Domed roofs jutted into the sky; intricate, swirling geometric patterns were etched into arched doors and window frames. Once upon a time, the place would have been beautiful, with its whitewashed walls and facades and equally white stone streets. But now there were cracks in the plaster, chips in the roofs, and half-missing stone reliefs. All around, tired people dragged their heavy feet up and down steep streets and alleys.
“Something isn’t right,” Javi whispered.
Risa knew what was wrong. This was a cursed kingdom. Something sticky and viscous slithered beneath her feet and pressed insistently against her mind. As if it were trying to find a crack to seep into and smother her thoughts. It thrummed and pulsed like a living, breathing thing, tendrils reaching, probing with a mind of its own.
No wonder Kheadon couldn’t escape the glutinous grasp of Madros’s curse. Why the people and towns on the other side of the Bosque had been overcome. The power of the curse made her feel as if she were wading through a sea made of tar that wanted to pull her in and drown her.
Javi appeared not to fare any better. Despite the compass leading them toward Amina—at least, Risa hoped Linda’s useless gift wasn’t so useless—it was hard to remember the plan when their thoughts kept slipping out of their heads like grains of sand between their fingers.
Remnants of old Madros still littered the streets. A rusted track where a trolley once operated had been left nailed to the road, metal rails catching the light. On the steep hill farthest from the looming castle were the ruins of an observatory. Bells tolled in the distance. They rang in a cheerful tone that suggested a celebration was at hand.
The townspeople did not lift their weary heads or startle at the sound reverberating through the air. Their faces remained vacant, unseeing eyes staring off into nothing.
Risa marched on, determined. Ahead, an older woman was coming down the same hill she and Javi were struggling to climb, hunched over with an eerily silent baby strapped to her back. She had a faded, tattered handkerchief tied around her head, the fabric so worn it was nearly translucent. She didn’t seem to notice them as she took mindless steps forward, ankles wobbling under her weight.
Without meaning to, Risa closed her eyes and searched for the thread of magic entangled around the old woman. When she brushed up against it, she found no knots, no thorns, no strangling roots. What she did find was a pit of mire that lapped at her ankles and tried to pull her in.
She gasped, eyes snapping open, and let the curse fall away from her fingertips.
There was no way she could break this curse. It was too powerful.
Javi was at her elbow, a hand firmly planted on her arm. “You look terrible,” he said, concern pulling his lips into a frown. “Is it the curse?”
“If that’s your attempt at flirting…” she joked, her pulse a flutter at the base of her throat. If she didn’t say something to distract herself, she might actually start crying.
He did not indulge her attempt at deflection. “We can stop.”
He was giving her an out. Telling her, without even saying the words, that he wouldn’t judge her if she didn’t go through with this. But she knew they could not turn back. Amina needed their help. The princess was trapped somewhere, if she hadn’t already been gutted and strung up as a warning to the mindless people shuffling through the city.
Risa checked the brooch again. The needle had shifted slightly. Up another hill, where the castle and its white spires were visible above vibrant green treetops.
The closer they came to the menacing castle at the heart of the city, the more the curse bore down on Risa. Each step became more difficult, the city threatening to suck her in like quicksand. Magic clung to her heels, seeped into her boots, trailed over her legs. A steady fog began to form in her mind, turning her thoughts into sludge as she tried to remember why she was there.
She had to save Amina. She had to save herfriend.
That thought alone lessened the tightness in her chest, made the oncoming steps less heavy. She thought of Amina glaring at her before they got onto the airship. Amina, who wanted to be her friend. Amina, who had given herself up to save Risa.
Eventually, the steep climb gave way to enormous trees that lined another white wall, much less massive than the one surrounding the city. She glanced down at the compass and found it pointed straight ahead at the castle behind it.
The two walked its perimeter, attempting to find the entrance or some fissure in the wall that they could tear down or squirm through. The bells continued to toll joyfully when they came upon an entrance shaded by bowed trees.
A guard stood there. He fared a bit better than the townspeople,though not by much. His skin was the color of the golden sands, and he was gaunt, weighed down by both job and rusted armor too large for his body. The only part of him that seemed alive was his roving eyes, shifting anxiously across the cityscape until he spotted them.
He straightened and leveled a spear at their faces. Up close, his gaze was a similar slate gray to Amina’s, apparently common among the Madrosian people. It was a thing Risa never knew, might have never noticed if she hadn’t spent so long trying to look through Amina’s curse to see the real her.
“Halt, or face death!”
“I’m the prince,” Javi declared, chest puffing out in a familiar display of arrogance Risa hadn’t witnessed in a few days. “And I think there’s a wedding at which I’m supposed to be the groom.”
The guard faltered at the words. Confusion flitted across his features, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and caused his sparse brows to furrow. Then, as if by magic—and perhaps it was—his face slackened and the confusion drained away.
