A Curse So Dark and Lonely: Chapter 22

No woman has ever dared slap me across the face. My jaw stings like a burn that needs a salve.

I want to break down this door and challenge her, but I keep seeing her tear-streaked cheeks, the ragged emotion in her eyes.

Even now, if I listen closely, I can hear her crying on the other side of the door.

Her mother is dying. Her brother is in trouble.

I feel like such a fool.

The innkeeper appears at the base of the staircase. “Your Highness?” he says hesitantly. “Is all well?”

“Yes,” I say, my words clipped. “Leave us.” I do not look away from the door. They will gossip about whatever they heard, but I will not feed that mill with a reddened cheek.

The man offers a bow and moves away.

To my right, Grey stands motionless. I cannot look at him either.

I have never felt so powerless.

I reach out and try the door handle, but she has locked it.

She must hear me try, because she shouts, “Go away!”

I have no idea how to solve this.

Grey unbuckles a pouch on his belt and withdraws his deck of cards. Without a word, he holds them out.

His intention is clear. “I’m more likely to get this door to play with me, Grey.”

“You could ask.”

I sigh, then reach out and take the deck. “Go.” I nod toward the staircase. “Join them for dinner. See if you can learn anything new about Karis Luran.”

He obeys, leaving me with the pressing quiet of the hallway.

Silence will solve nothing. I raise a hand and knock softly.

She does not respond.

I flatten my hand against the wood and move closer. Grey’s presence downstairs will prevent eavesdroppers, but I keep my voice low anyway. “My lady.”

Nothing.

“There is no trellis outside your window,” I say. “Please tell me you are not climbing the chimney.”

“Go away, Rhen.”

She speaks from right on the other side of the door. My heart kicks to find her so close.

“I wish to speak with you,” I say.

“You don’t get something just because you want it. Most people learn that by the time they’re six.”

“Not most princes, clearly.” I keep my voice light, hoping she will open the door.

She does not.

I sigh. Turn the cards over in my fingers. “I don’t suppose you would like to play a game of King’s Ransom?”

She’s quiet for quite some time. When she finally speaks, her voice is low and sorrowful against the door. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” She sniffs, which makes me think she is crying again. “To my family?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t.”

Silence again, but this has a weighted quality.

“My mother has cancer,” she finally says. “She’s dying. The doctors gave her six months to live, nine months ago. Her lungs are full of tumors. She says every day is a gift—but really, every day is torture. She can barely breathe. My brother and I are the only ones to take care of her.”

Harper feels this torture. I can hear it in every syllable.

She sniffs again. “When we were younger, we did all right, but then she got sick, and we ran out of money. My dad got involved with some bad people who loaned him money, and I don’t know how he ever thought we’d pay it back, but then he ran off, and my brother is—he’s doing terrible things to try to repay—” Her voice breaks. “If I were there, I could help them. I could be with my mother. I could be with my brother. They need me. Can you understand that? That they need me? Can you?”

I press my forehead against the door. Her pain reaches me through the wood, tightening my own chest and dredging memories of my family. “Yes. I can.”

“No!” Her voice is fierce, her rage pure. “You can’t!”

“I can,” I say softly.

“How?”

“Because I need you.”

Silence again. It seems to stretch on forever. Until I think she has given up on me and moved away from the door.

I speak anyway. “When the curse began,” I say, “I thought undoing it would be simple.” I hesitate. A familiar shame has curled around my throat and gripped tight. “But then … the creature destroyed my family.” I swallow. It’s so much easier to think of my monster as something separate. Something I have a chance at stopping. “I’d been so cavalier—and it ripped them apart without thought. I had no chance—I can’t—I can’t bring them back. I can’t undo any of it.”

My breathing has gone shallow. I have no memory of their deaths—only the memory of their bodies, dismembered and scattered about the Great Hall. The way I found them when I returned to myself, an hour before the season reset. The way I found myself, covered in their blood.

And then the season began again, and it was gone. All of it. The castle returns to that first day, but aside from me and Grey, the dead stay dead.

I have long since locked away any emotion over my own destruction, but warmth collects in my throat, thickening my words. “By the end of the second season, the creature turned on my people. By the third … My lady, please—please know I meant you no harm. I meant your family no harm. I have tried everything I can think of to break this curse. I have tried to destroy myself. I would undo it if I could. I promise you.”

Silence. Again.

I have nothing left to offer her. Nothing more than this truth.

The lock turns. The door swings open. We’re face-to-face. Her cheeks are reddened and her eyes damp.

My own tears don’t feel far off.

She studies me. “I never know when to trust you. Everything always sounds so calculated.”

I jerk back, stung.

“Until you said all that.”

And then, because fate seems content to surprise me this season, she steps forward, presses her face against my chest, and wraps her arms around my waist.

I’m so startled that I can’t move. She could draw my weapons and stab me and I would be less shocked.

“I’m so sorry about your family,” she says.

“I am sorry about yours, my lady.” My voice sounds hollow, even to me. I stand frozen, unsure what to do with my arms.

She looks up at me. I’m not sure what she finds in my face, but she takes a step back.

Her expression is some mixture of amused and perplexed. “What’s wrong with you? Hasn’t anyone ever given you a hug?”

I feel so off balance. “Not—not in recent memory.”

“I believe that, too.” She glances down at my hand. “You really do have cards.”

“I do.”

She pushes loose hair behind her ear. “We can play. Come on.”

We take seats by the fire. The cards flip between my fingers as I shuffle. I am glad for a task to occupy my hands. I have no idea how to move forward.

I deal quickly, then lay the remaining cards on the table, turning one faceup. I have two princes, which means I can steal her kings, but I never waste them early. Normally, I would watch her movements, trying to determine what cards she holds, but my mind is trapped in the moment when her arms were wrapped around my waist.

Silently, she lays a card on the pile. Beside us, the fire snaps.

I play a five of stones.

She plays a five of swords.

We play in silence, drawing cards when necessary.

I fall into the rhythm of the game. Lilith made a comment about how this inn was lacking, but I like the intimacy of this room, the warmth of this fire. The familiarity of a game, the newness of my opponent. The castle was cold. Empty. This inn, this moment, is not.

Eventually, Harper draws and her eyebrows go up, just a little. She moves the card to the leftmost part of her hand and draws another, adding to the right side of her hand until she finds one to add to the pile.

I play a prince card.

Her eyes shoot to mine, but she pulls the leftmost card free and hands me her king of swords. “I literally just got that.”

“I know.”

She considers that, then lays down a ten of stones. Her tone is contemplative and quiet. “I don’t think I can keep hating you.”

“Such sweet words of affection, my lady.” I play a ten of hearts. “You honor me.”

Her expression turns ruefully amused—but she quickly sobers. “I kept thinking about all those women you kidnapped, how it made you seem like this arrogant, entitled jerk. I didn’t realize you were only doing what you had to do.”

I add a card to the pile. “My father once said we are all dealt a hand at birth. A good hand can ultimately lose—just as a poor hand can win—but we must all play the cards fate deals. The choices we face may not be the choices we want, but they are choices nonetheless.”

She says nothing, simply adding another card to the pile herself.

“Grey has grown skilled at finding girls who have no family, no one to miss them.” I pause and look at her. “Often there is no trickery to it—they come willingly, with little more than the promise of a safe place to sleep. You, I suspect, would not have been lured so easily.”

Her eyes are hard. “No.”

“Why did you attack him?”

“He had a girl. I thought he was some psycho murderer. I tried to stop him.”

Of course she did. “So your choice led you here.”

“Don’t try to pin this on me.”

“I am not. I am saying that no matter how much I try to plan a means to end this curse, fate keeps dealing new cards.”

Her expression goes still. Again, we play in silence for the longest time.

I watch her draw another king. She’s more savvy this time, but she’s slower to add it to her hand.

I play my other prince.

“Stop it,” she says.

I take the card she offers. “Stop being obvious.”

She draws until she has a card to play. “I have a question for you, about all those other girls. Did you ever come close?”

I sigh. “Sometimes victory seemed very close—other times, miles away.”

“May I make an observation?”

My hand goes still on my next card. “For certain.”

She looks across at me. “You just said ‘victory.’ You didn’t say ‘love.’ ”

I’m not sure I have a response to that. My initial reaction is to ask why that matters.

My second reaction is to wonder why I ever thought it wouldn’t.

Harper is not done. “Have you ever felt anything for any of these girls?”

I lay down a two of swords and try not to think about how badly I want to push the hair back from her face again. “I do not feel nothing.” I pause. “But failure seems such a certainty that I have learned to guard myself from disappointment.”

“Hmm.” She plays another card and lapses into silence again. From the kitchen below us, I hear ringing laughter from the innkeeper.

It makes me wistful. I cannot remember the last time I sat at a crowded table, sharing stories and laughter.

Then Harper says, “Do you really have no way to contact this enchantress who cursed you?”

“No.” I play a card. “And I would not even if I could.”

“Not even to help me get home?”

I go still. I look at Harper. She does not know what she asks. “The Lady Lilith does nothing without cost. I have nothing to offer. Do you?”

Her mouth opens, and I add, “You have seen my chambers on the third floor. Regardless of what you think of me, I would ask you to consider carefully what you’re asking.”

She pales a little, but her voice is strong. “I will do whatever it takes to get home. If I have to face some sorceress, I’ll do it.”

That makes me smile, but it’s grim. “Spoken like the Princess of Disi.”

She blushes and looks back at the cards in her hand. But then she looks up at me. “I’m not kidding, Rhen. Do you have any way to contact her?”

“No.” I pause, weighing how much to say. I imagine brazen Harper facing the capricious Lilith. Even if Lilith would return her to her home, any scenario I can fathom seems fraught with peril. “She shows herself from time to time, but her appearances are unpredictable.”

“Would you ask her?” When I say nothing, Harper adds, “Or would you keep me prisoner?”

My jaw is tight. “You do not know what you are asking. She is vicious. Cruel.”

“But she will show up.”

“She will.” I have no doubt.

“You could tell her I want to go home. You could tell her I want something from her.”

“She has sworn not to interfere with my attempts to break the curse. She may refuse.”

Harper swallows. “But … but those are your attempts.” When she speaks, her voice isn’t fully certain. “If you promise to get me a meeting with Lady Lilith, I can promise to try to break the curse for you.”

I sigh.

She bargains like she plays cards—her emotions are fully on display. “I do not hesitate because I desire something from you. I hesitate because I am loath to sacrifice another person to her power.”

“I have nothing to offer, either, Rhen. But that also means I have nothing to lose.”

“Nothing to lose? Your brother? Your mother?”

She looks away again. “There must be something you want.”

Yes.

There is much I want. But nothing so much that I would bargain for an audience with Lilith to get it. She is bad enough when she shows herself of her own accord.

I open my mouth to refuse but then I consider the Queen of Syhl Shallow. I consider my plan. I consider my conversation with Grey.

I look at Harper and play my next card. “As a matter of fact, there is.”