chapter ten
PHILLIP
Ember hissed and arched her back, the fur on it standing up straight. She leapt off the desk in Luna’s room and made her way to the front door, where she squalled and clawed at the wood. A pile of wood slivers was forming beneath her, and though I’d promised not to leave, I didn’t promise to keep the door locked.
Easing it open, Ember jumped onto the porch and nearly took the meddlesome dove down before she landed on all fours on the porch planks, her claws embedding into the wood illuminated by the midday sun. There was a ribbon, the color of a clear blue sky, laying just in front of me. I grabbed the silken fabric and glanced at Ember. She seemed as worried as I was.
What did this mean? Why would Pieces, or Aura, deliver a ribbon?
I went back inside the house and placed the ribbon on the table, and then set about making something to eat. There always seemed to be bread and fresh fruit in a bowl on the counter and stew in the cauldron, yet Luna never prepared it and there were no fruit trees in her yard.
I ate and then settled into the chair near the hearth and nodded off for a few moments, having forgotten how tired I was.
But that rest was fleeting, because the dove kept bringing various gifts to Luna’s doorstep. Ember fought her off every time she came, coming close but never close enough to catch the querulous bird who taunted her.
The ribbon was the least disgusting present. They got worse each time Peace returned. Gift after macabre gift arrived, until the sun finally set and the bird returned no more. When Luna awakened and stepped out of her bedroom, I could see her strength had returned, although the dark stain on her lips and cheek were still present. I stood and opened my mouth to tell her what happened, but she sniffed the air, her smile falling away. Ember meowed at her master.
“What happened last night? I heard the owls when I returned.”
“Something showed up wearing your skin, but Ember knew it wasn’t you.”
“Did it shed my skin in front of you?”
I cringed. “In a matter of speaking. It shook you off and then turned into what looked like a walking corpse.”
“You saw Ankou?” she asked calmly. But I didn’t miss the straightening of her back.
“I guess.”
“He’s a soul-collector. He knows better than to come near my cottage, but if he caught your scent and realized mine was missing, it would explain his boldness. I’ll make sure he pays for it. Don’t worry.”
But I was worried, and not because of this thing called Ankou. She’d made sure he couldn’t get inside.
“We had another visitor today while you slept,” I said quietly.
Her lips parted.
“The dove delivered several things for you,” I said carefully. “The first is on the table,” I motioned to the blue ribbon, “and the others are on the porch.” I hated to admit that I couldn’t bring myself to touch the others, let alone bring them inside.
When tears filled Luna’s eyes and her lips began to quiver as she reached for the tattered blue silk, I knew she was breaking. As if she wasn’t already broken enough, living isolated in a cottage in the forest, too afraid to leave her home without spelling it with protection.
At first I thought she was insane to be afraid of a simple dove. That was before the fowl dropped a bloody, torn ear on the porch. Then a finger. Then a toe. Then a bloodied patch of scalp, which it had carried by the still-attached stands of hair.
Clutching the silk ribbon, Luna walked to the porch, dropped to her knees, and let loose an awful cry that scared the birds from the trees. They rose into the sky, flapping and afraid. She wept, her tears splashing onto her skirts and the wooden planks beneath her knees. She held the scrap of fabric over her heart and cried until the sadness leaked out of her, replaced by a rage I’d never seen before; a rage she couldn’t contain.
Her sobs turned to heaving breaths, and then a growl tore from her chest.
As one, the pieces and parts on her porch ignited around her.
“Luna!”
She stood, laughing hysterically. “She killed so many people today, even locked in her castle. I should have known she would lash out. And now, Prince, do you see the true nature of my sister?”
The flames grew taller around her.
“What happened to you last night? This isn’t you!” I yelled.
She threw the ribbon into the fire, and as it bubbled and burned, turning brown, curling and crisping in her flames, she laughed. “This is exactly who I am. If you thought I was the good twin, you were wrong. And no matter what happens, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to rid the world of my sister.”
Her anger was palpable and thick, like a coiling serpent as it wound round my throat.
“Why are your lips like that? Did she poison you last night? Is that why you fell from your broom?”
She laughed, wiping at her lips, the stain refusing to leave her plump flesh. “This wasn’t my sister’s doing; it was mine and Malex’s. He marked me.”
“How did he do that, exactly?” I asked, becoming irritated.
She sauntered toward me with a sway in her hips, and I straightened my spine to stand tall in front of her. She was hysterical, but I wasn’t going to let her intimidate me. She wouldn’t drive me away.
When she stood on the tips of her toes, her breath mingling with mine, she whispered, “He put his lips upon my cheek and upon my lips, and kissed me so that I would remember him.”
She was off making love with some faery last night? No, not love. There was no love shining in her eyes when she mentioned him.
Nothing but coldness.
Piercing anger suddenly coursed through my veins. No, not anger. Rage. My fingers curled and I wanted to pound my fist into the door casing.
In a blink, the rage shifted, and now I felt her fire as she burned me. I was writhing inside, begging her to stop, but suffocated by her smoke. I clawed at my neck. And the reddish haze fell over my vision again.
What’s happening to me?
The fire in me was hotter than the flames that were beginning to taper on the porch.
My rage crested, thinking of another man’s lips on hers. I didn’t want her to make such bargains. Didn’t want her to separate herself from her sister. Not for anything.
She tilted her head, watching me with narrowed eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
She saw too much and she gave too much of herself away to people who weren’t worthy of her. Grabbing her wrists, I bared my teeth at her. “You would trade your body to end your sister?”
She smiled. “It hasn’t come to that yet, but yes, I suppose I would.”
“Then you’re no better than she is,” I whispered. “What wouldn’t she give to ruin you? By doing this, aren’t you giving her exactly what she wants?”
Hurt flashed in her feline eyes, but it was what she needed to hear, even if she didn’t want to hear it.
I didn’t tell her about the final gift. A letter, addressed to me, sent from Aura. It lay in my pocket, folded and unread. But I could remedy that. As soon as I got a drink.
“I have an errand to run,” she finally said, taking a step backward.
“Errand? Do you mean meeting other men, or is it an appointment with the same one?” I shouted.
She gave a sinister smile. “Oh, tonight I’ll be meeting another. You may know him. Prince Terigon of Ringsted.”
I shook my head disgustedly.
When she pulled her hands out of my grasp, it was like I’d been doused with a bucket of cold water. “It isn’t what you think,” she added, her voice softer. “I plan to remove his tongue.”
“Were you doing that to me just now?”
“Doing what?”
“Burning me from the inside out,” I gritted.
She narrowed her eyes. “No, I was not.”
Another side effect of her spell, perhaps?
Calming my breaths and pounding heart, I asked, “Why on earth would you cut out his tongue?”
“Because he is a liar, and because Malex’s spell requires it. There are other ingredients I’ll have to find as well, should removing the tongue of a firstborn prince prove more difficult than I imagine. Just be lucky it isn’t your tongue he asked for,” she warned.
“You would do it, too. You’d remove my tongue – my head – if he asked. If it served your purpose.”
“One mute prince to save hundreds, maybe thousands? I could sleep peacefully knowing those figures.”
“Of course you could.”
She inhaled deeply and locked her eyes onto mine. “I can’t let her keep doing this. In the spring, we’ll be at the age of maturity, which is when her powers and mine will peak. She’ll be able to blast through the binding salts I’ve used to seal her in. She’ll be crowned, and no one will be able to stop her. Right now, I have a slight advantage with what little magic I do wield in addition to our powers over the elements. But that advantage will shrivel like a grape on the vine at our birthday, and then we will be equally matched in every way. Besides, Malex said that if I don’t sever our life forces now, I’ll never be able to. I will forever be leashed to someone I hate. I can’t live like that. Now, you can either understand that and help me, or you can leave. But know that if you choose the latter, you won’t make it very far. My sister will kill you, and she’ll enjoy every second of it.”
“I wouldn’t go near Virosa.”
“You would. She would slip into your mind and make you walk there, and you wouldn’t even realize it until she stood in front of you with a saccharine, poisonous smile.”
“Why do you care? Is it just because you loved my brother?”
“Isn’t it enough that I do care, Prince, without questioning the reasoning behind it?” With those words, she turned, strode across the room, grabbed her broom along the way, and left the cottage. “You could come with me,” she added from the porch where she stood waiting. Her eyes glowed back at me.
I blew out a breath, tension melting slightly from my muscles.
“I can keep you safe,” she added.
Blinking rapidly, I tried to understand the emotions, the fire that had just roiled through me. It was like when she used her magic, her flame lit me on fire. Not my body or clothes, but me. My emotions and thoughts became scrambled, angry, and incoherent. “I’m sorry for what just happened... I don’t know what came over me.” I tried to search myself for why I was so upset with her. She wasn’t mine. I didn’t have a claim on her.
“It’s fine. You’ve been through a lot, and now that my sister knows you’re here...” she trailed off, shaking her head. “Ember, find a wolf,” she ordered, and her familiar took off into the woods to hunt. How they would communicate once she found it—and somehow, I knew Ember would—was something I didn’t understand.
I blew out a breath, tension melting slightly from my muscles.
If Aura was mad, I didn’t want her to harm my family. I would go with Luna, but I wouldn’t help her carry out these dark tasks.
Luna let out a low chuckle, and my eyes snapped to her. “Why are you laughing?”
She stared at me for a long moment. “I didn’t laugh.”
The distance between us was naught but a few feet, but it seemed like miles in that moment. Was she toying with me?
“Are you feeling well, Prince?” she asked, concern wrinkling her brow.
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I was feeling things that didn’t exist and hearing things that weren’t there. If this was the result of her spell, she’d made a bad one.