Page 41 of The Masked Princess

Brunen stamped her feet and nipped Helene on the arm, although Annalise doubted it did any real damage through her furs and thick woolen dress. “I take it that Brunen didn’t like that very much?” she asked.

“No, the overgrown pony told me to watch my mouth and not imply that she’s a slow broodmare who can barely fly.” Helene slung her arm around her rhys’s neck. “She knows I’d never say that, but you know mares—just like any woman, they tend toward bossiness, and that goes doubly for lead mares.”

“If the Goddess blessed you with a baby, I’m sure Elsabeth would be first in line to care for it. She was just telling me the other day how much she prefers little girls over little boys—something about less mess and girls being less likely to unwittingly kill themselves,” Annalise said.

Helene chuckled and shook her head as she worked her fingers into Brunen’s wind-knotted mane. “Elsabeth is a good nanny, but she’s already accounted for—I’m sending her with you to Rhinnea.”

Annalise took a step back at the news, her questions about Muranan succession forgotten. “You’re what? You can’t. I… I already have a lady’s maid.”

“I know; the fact that you only have one maid, and a young one at that, is shameful. It wouldn’t be amiss for a princess of your standing to have a gaggle of servants at your beck and call, especially for the airs your father likes to give himself.”

“Elsabeth’s family and her entire life are here. I’m not comfortable pulling her away from home.”

“Annalise, you’re not forcing her to go anywhere. If it helps, Elsabeth came to me weeks ago and asked that I release her from my service so that she can serve you.”

“She did? Why would she do that?” Annalise asked, her head reeling at the news. In the time she’d spent in Orighet, Elsabeth had performed her duties as a maidservant with remarkable spirit and competency. She’d anticipated Annalise’s needs well before Annalise was even aware she needed something, but Annalise had always assumed that the older woman’s cheerful demeanor was more of a professional courtesy than because she actually cared.

“Did she tell you about your mother?”

“Yes, she did.” Annalise nodded as she thought back to the first day when Elsabeth revealed that she’d been Elvira’s lady’s maid, and that King Everet had forced her out of Dovea after the queen’s death. “She didn’t go into much detail, or, I guess I should say that for Elsabeth, she didn’t go into detail. You know how she is.”

“That I do. I’m sure that half the castle will think it very empty without her larger-than-life personality, and the other half will be grateful for a break from the chatter.” Helene withdrew a dagger from her boot to slice through a difficult knot in Brunen’s mane. “I know we’ve talked off and on about my sister since you came to us, and I wish we had more time, but perhaps even a lifetime wouldn’t be enough to work through the sorrow in my heart. I always thought that if I ever got the chance to meet my grown niece, I’d tell her everything… but now that I look at you, at the beautiful woman you’ve become, when I see your face, I see Elvira smiling back at me.” Helene wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Forgive me, but I loved your mother dearly, and I know she loved you.”

The air was bone-chilling cold, but the furs and wool kept Annalise warm even as a stiff wind from the overlook blew around them. “Then why did she curse me? If she loved me so much, why am I like this now?” Try as she might, Annalise couldn’t stop her voice from cracking as sorrow welled up in her chest.

“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like she wasn’t trying to curse you—she was trying to curse your father, and that in his cowardice he pulled you into the crossfire. This was what I’ve tried to find the courage to tell you, dear girl. Our people can use magic, but only under extreme duress or in the most emotional of circumstances.

“Most go their entire life without ever unlocking that part of themselves, and many wish they never had to. I believe that the night of your little brother’s birth—Goddess bless him—when Everet killed your mother’s physician, the unnecessary and unexpected bloodshed combined with his abuse, her illness, and the heartbreak at losing another child, might have created such a moment.

“The words she said, words of power in the Old Tongue spoken in righteous anger, were meant to curse him. How could she have known that he’d risk your life, the life of his only child and heir? No mother would expect her husband to do such an evil thing. You mentioned once was that after you felt the curse take effect, she spent the rest of the night singing to you, is that correct?”

Annalise nodded. As Helene had talked, she’d joined her aunt unknotting Brunen’s windswept mane. It was a simple task and gave her something to do when she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I can’t be sure, and it may have simply been a mother’s love and aversion to watching her child in pain… but I think that her singing was an attempt to weave a blessing into her words—a way to change the curse, or to lessen it, before it could settle fully on you.”

“What do you mean ‘settle’?”

“I’m no mage or master scholar, but there is the occasional tale of a curse that doesn’t meet its intended target. Usually they’re meant as bedtime stories, as tales to keep unruly children in line, but what are such things if not events whose facts have been obscured by the passage of time?

“Your father certainly seemed to think something of it—by locking you in the room with your mother, he attempted to ensure that the curse stuck to you instead of him. Elvira no doubt knew what he was attempting, and her only other option was to mitigate the effects as best she could. Who knows? Perhaps her mother’s love wove a blessing strong enough to prevent a worse curse from befalling you.

“Elvira was a good woman with a normally docile temperament, but we used to joke that when she got angry, the mountains themselves couldn’t contain her rage. I’m sure whatever she wished against your father was something truly terrible born out of years of abuse and fear for how he would treat you if something should happen to her.”

“Do you really think it was all a mistake?” Annalise whispered.

“The curse, yes. The blessing, no. I am positive she knew what she was doing with that.”

Annalise stared at Helene, waiting for her aunt to continue.

After a long pause and several shaky breaths, Helene looked up at the sky and blinked rapidly, although one tear escaped and traced an icy pathway down her cheek before she could wipe it away. “The Old Tongue requires power to work, usually in the form of life force. When used, the words can put one in a state where magic is easier to sense. Elvira would have felt the energy for the blessing leave her body just as she felt the energy for the curse leave. Use of magic becomes easier with proximity, so for her to hold you close and soothe you until you fell asleep…”

Annalise wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her cloak. Her hands in Brunen’s hair felt like the only thing keeping her tethered. She feared that if she removed them, her grief would sweep her away like an avalanche. “But she’d just been through a terrible ordeal with her stillbirth. She was greatly weakened. There was so much blood.”

“She may have known that she didn’t have long… or she may have seen that fate put your life on the scale opposite hers, and made her choice.” Helene’s hands paused in working Brunen’s mane, and she sighed. It was a slow, heavy sound, as though her very heart was being rent in two.

Suddenly overcome with emotion, Annalise hugged her aunt, buried her face in her fur cloak, and sobbed. Helene returned the hug, and Annalise heard her sniffle. The flurries of snow around them grew thicker until suddenly there was nothing. Annalise glanced up to see Brunen’s wing covering both her and Helene, and Brunen wrapped her head around them and huffed, as if to join in their grief.

They rode back to the castle in silence on the shaggy Muranan horses, both Annalise and Helene caught up in their own private thoughts.