A jolt made me roll off the seat of the carriage and crash to the floor. We had started moving. I groaned and pushed myself to my feet, rubbing my hip bone. The wheels hit a bump, and I staggered before hurriedly sitting down. Rubbing my eyes and yawning, I grumbled to myself at the rude awakening.

After checking that Chestnut trotted behind us, I munched on a cold and unappetizing breakfast. I wondered how long before Lily woke up…then if I could possibly fall back asleep while the carriage was moving…and then I surveyed the chaos again and sighed. I supposed I had better tidy up. The Palinaran royal family had several castles and palaces, and I wasn’t completely sure where I was going. Which meant we could arrive at any time.

I tidied all of my belongings neatly back into the saddlebags and used a small mirror to tidy up my hair and dress. When I felt as satisfied with my appearance as was possible in the circumstances, I settled back to watch out the window and await developments.

* * *

When the light began to fade, I gloomily surveyed the chaos of my belongings that had once again spread throughout the carriage. The hope with which I had packed them in the morning now seemed foolish and naive.

I sighed. Lily had done her best to keep me entertained, but there was only so much she could do from afar. She had even read me one of my favorite fairy tales for a couple of hours, but then she had been called away by other duties. She was betrothed to Marin’s crown prince, after all, and Marin was currently full of foreign delegations. Treaty negotiations were still underway between our own kingdom, far away in the Four Kingdoms, and all of these lands except Palinar. She could hardly come up with an excuse for spending the whole day locked in the library reading.

I had thoroughly examined the inside of the carriage by this point, of course, and had been unimpressed to find my betrothed had failed to include any supplies. Thank goodness I had packed myself a generous supply of food and water before fleeing Marin.

As I munched on another cold meal—each one was becoming more unappetizing than the last—my thoughts dwelt on my betrothed. The Beast. Just the thought of him made me shudder—with revulsion or fear, I wasn’t entirely sure.

I shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of provisions. Why would a cold-hearted monster consider my comfort at all? Millie, Jon’s cousin and a new friend, had told us all about how each Princess Tourney was shaped by the ruler or heir who called it. It made sense since its purpose was to find his perfect match and true love. And our Tourney had been frightening and dangerous—a terrifying glimpse into the dark nature of the crown prince of Palinar. So powerful was his curse, that it had reached out through him to corrupt the Tourney itself. What awful acts had he committed to bring such a curse upon himself?

I knew I couldn’t possibly be the true love for such a man—if man he still was. The truth was not that the Tourney had chosen me, but that I had cheated, using the secret connection between Lily and me to circumvent the rules and gain an advantage. She had planned to sacrifice herself to save me, but it was a sacrifice I wasn’t willing to let her make. I had never tried to work against her before, and my victory had been hard won. A hollow victory if not for the look on Lily’s and Jon’s faces at our joint betrothal ceremony. I would sacrifice myself again for my twin’s happiness.

Except I was determined to make it a short-term sacrifice. As I had knelt beside the Beast’s proxy at our Betrothal Ceremony, I had promised myself that I would travel to Palinar and find a way to break our betrothal. A way that didn’t violate the ancient laws. Then I would find out what the Beast had done to curse his people, I would defeat him, and I would free them. I would make sure that he could never hurt me again. And then I would return to Marin.

It was an excellent plan, except that I had no idea whatsoever how to do it, and two full days of travel hadn’t brought any enlightenment. When I fell asleep for the second night, I didn’t let my mind listen for any voices—I didn’t want to know what my subconscious thought.

* * *

Sophie. Lily’s grim-sounding projection woke me even before the carriage began to move the next morning.

What is it? I came awake quickly having only been half-dozing.

We’ve just received word from Marin’s prison. Cole has disappeared.

What!? I gasped. What about Sir Oswald and Corinna? I asked, referring to Cole’s father and sister.

They’re still there and claim to know nothing about his escape. Lily sounded tired. The sky had barely begun to lighten—how early had she been awoken with the news? The duke has turned out all the guard, and they’re searching the city. He seems confident we’ll find him.

Lily didn’t sound like she shared her future father-in-law’s optimism, and I understood her concern. The duchy of Marin was a city-state—by far the largest city either of us had ever seen. It must have a great many hiding places. And that was assuming he hadn’t made it across the border into southern Talinos, or across the straits to one of the other kingdoms.

I groaned. The duke was never going to find him. And who knew what danger Cole would stir up? Every indication suggested he had been deep in his father’s plot to steal Jon’s father’s throne—a plot we had only just managed to foil. And his treachery against the duke was actually the smaller concern.

The darkness we had defeated in Marin, had started in Palinar. The locals assured us that a curse so large and so devastating could only be the result of a kingdom turning their backs on the godmothers and breaching the ancient laws.

Except no one knew what laws had been violated. Or even the exact nature of the curse. They had simply noticed one day that no one had been seen leaving Palinar in weeks. Weeks that became months. Travelers and merchants who attempted to enter turned back with tales of desolate wastelands roamed by wild animals. A new feature in the once prosperous kingdom.

The last group had turned back after rescuing a man who had been mauled by a bear. I had sought out the man after winning the Tourney, but the rumors had been true. While his physical injuries had been healed, his confusion of the mind remained. He raved about a curse and a beastly prince, but his words made little sense. Of the other royals, Prince Dominic’s parents and younger sister, he would say only that they were gone.

Palinar was cursed along with my betrothed. Emptied of people and full of wild beasts. Shrouded with darkness which had begun to infect the other kingdoms. Its power had even reached out through Prince Dominic and twisted the Tourney he had called, nearly destroying Marin.

And Cole and his family had originally come from Palinar, moving to Marin long before the curse had cut Palinar off from the other kingdoms. But Jon, Lily, and I believed they had not escaped the reaches of the curse. The pride and greed in their hearts had provided fertile ground for the darkness that had already spread so far out of Palinar.

So, if Cole had escaped, that meant the curse had another agent roaming free, spreading the seeds of destruction further afield.

Let me know how the search goes, I projected, desperately wishing I could be there with Lily and Jon instead of riding alone in a strange and magical carriage toward a strange and terrifying fate.

She agreed, but she sounded distracted, and I knew I wouldn’t be hearing any more of the story today. I wished I had been able to pack one or two books, but my saddlebags had been full to overflowing with basic necessities. There had been no room for such luxuries, and I hadn’t expected to have the opportunity to read. I didn’t know if a book would be enough to distract me right now, with yet another worry chasing around in my mind, but even the feel of one in my hand would have been comforting, like a little taste of home.

My sister-in-law, Alyssa, had been largely responsible for the education of Lily and me, and she had a never-ending love of books. Lily had never stopped grumbling about it—although I noted she spent a lot of time in the library studying between Tourney events—but I had come to share Alyssa’s love. Or at least her love of fairy tales. Stories were exciting, since you never knew what you might find, what answers they might hold. But, at the same time, books were also solid and dependable; once you found a favorite, it never changed.

Would my new home have books? It was hard to imagine the infamous Beast sitting down to an afternoon read. I just hoped whichever castle he had chosen for his lair had a garden. If I couldn’t have fairy tales, I hoped I could have roses. Since summer had only just started, the ones in Marin had still been in bloom, and I had been sorry to leave them. Books reminded me of the comfort of home, but roses filled me with an alluring sense of hope. For surely any wonder was possible in a world that could produce such beauty?

Which made it just as hard to picture the Beast surrounded by roses as books. Nothing but disappointment could be gained by hoping for the familiar comforts of home in the trial ahead of me. Better, by far, to prepare myself for the worst—almost a certainty given the situation. Especially since I had now spent two full days traveling through Palinar, and I couldn’t remember having seen a single flower.

* * *

Lily kept me updated but, unfortunately, she had no real news. The search continued, but they had found no sign of Cole. The hours dragged on, and I ate the last of my food for a midday meal. My water was running low, too, since I hadn’t dared to fill it at any of the streams we had encountered during our rest breaks. Chestnut apparently had no qualms slaking her thirst at the waterways, but I didn’t trust anything in this cursed place. I could only hope we arrived at our destination—wherever that was—soon.

The carriage jolted and bumped, as the wheels hit a new surface. Peering out the window, I could see nothing but the endless plain, so I climbed onto the other seat to look out the front window. The road stretched ahead of us, its surface rougher than the smooth path through the flat wastelands.

We seemed to be slowly climbing uphill and, in the distance, I could see a line of trees. They disappeared into darkness, so I could only assume it was the start of a forest. I sighed. On the one hand, a change of scenery would be nice, providing a sense of progress that had eluded me in the constant plains. But on the other hand…I didn’t like the idea of trees pressing in close to the side of the road. I would have no line of sight, and the memory of the wolves still lingered in my mind.

Given how far away the trees looked, we seemed to approach them impossibly fast. Soon the path was indeed cutting its way through a forest, thick and dark. To make it worse, the temperature had started to drop, despite the season, and I heard the distant howl of wolves.

The carriage raced through the trees, and I shivered as the air continued to grow colder. Rummaging through my bags, I put on a cloak. I had no sooner fastened the garment, than I saw a snowflake drift past the window. Soon it was joined by another, and then another, and then a larger flurry.

Within minutes it was snowing constantly, patches of white building between the trees. Yet another sign of the disease infecting this kingdom. Marin had been bright and sunny and full of flowers when I left, as summer should be. But apparently in this forest it was perpetually winter. My last hope of any flowers dissipated.

Before long I started to worry that the carriage would become bogged in the snow. And the howls of the wolves sounded closer, unless that was just my anxiety fooling my mind. Our pace slowed, although the snowfall did not, and I peered out the back at Chestnut. She looked uneasy for the first time since I had tied her to the vehicle. Was it the wolves or the increasing snow? Possibly both.

I reached out to Lily, wanting to update her on my situation but also looking for comfort. She was asleep, however. Napping, presumably, after her disrupted night. I didn’t try again, not wanting to disturb her rest.

The snow built up on the road until I felt sure we would be forced to stop. But just before the drifts became too deep for passage, the carriage swerved. I nearly lost my balance, sliding across the seat, and had to scramble back into position. I wanted to see our new path.

I hadn’t noticed a branch in the road, but then I had been considerably distracted. The new path appeared better tended than the main one, and the snow seemed to be lightening. Mounds of white heaped beside the path, but none had settled on the road itself, yet another marvel in this unpleasant place.

It occurred to me that I might be finally nearing my destination. In a flurry of movement, I collected all my escaped belongings and squeezed them into the saddlebags, not worrying about what I was crushing in the process. For a moment, I considered trying to change into a fresh dress, but I quickly abandoned the idea. The rattling carriage would make a poor dressing room, and I didn’t like the idea of being caught half way through the process. I regretted the lost opportunity, though. I would have liked to impress my new fiancé and demonstrate that a princess of Arcadia was a person of significance.

I was coming alone into his home, but I didn’t want him to think me weak and defenseless. I hoped his letters—calling the Tourney and then summoning me to him—were proof that whatever beast-like qualities he possessed, he retained his mental faculties. Surely, he wouldn’t risk bringing further harm to himself by violating the covenant of the Princess Tourney, not to mention antagonizing a new kingdom of whose strength he knew nothing?

The carriage turned again, and I gasped. The rest of the forest dropped away as we rolled through an aisle of orange trees. Despite the snow heaped on the ground, the branches of the trees bore both fruit and blossoms—an even more impossible feat than snow in summer.

A shiver ran through me at the beautiful and chilling sight. Welcome to my new home.