Page 37 of Blackwarden

Keres

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Why was she so different? Rosalin had vague pieces of memory. It had never happened before with any of the other maidens, but I could feel the waves of confusion. She’d asked multiple times if she’d known me or been somewhere in the few stolen moments we’d had together.

“There has to be something I’ve missed,” I said to the Gatehouse, though it wasn’t much help.

I sat on the floor of Rosalin’s suite with her portrait propped beside me and a pile of books in front of me.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t steal glances of her face every few moments.

Bevgyah had needed one of her dignitaries brought through the portal, which gave me twenty-four hours in the Gatehouse to myself while my shadow magic recovered.

And I planned on using every second to find something that could help me get Rosalin out of the Unseelie Court.

After sending the male on his way I went room by room, leaving her suite for last. I wasn’t able to enter when there was a maiden staying with me.

The Gatehouse was very particular about this.

They had to have a place where they could feel safe.

But once I had my home to myself again it didn’t matter .

I glanced up at the black metal statue of a horse in the corner, a strange looking apple tree sculpture beside it.

“Seems she tested you,” I said with a smirk. One of the braziers flared a little brighter. “She definitely tested me.” A flash of heat plummeted into my core with the memory of her lips on my neck, her hair whispering over my bare chest, her skin beneath my fingertips.

What was it about her that turned my blood to liquid fire?

I shook my head before my smile fell. Her fear had never been like the other girls.

It had always been layered with anger and curiosity, and it wasn’t until she’d told me of her deceased husband that I’d understood why.

That couldn't be what made her different though, could it? That she’d loved and lost?

“What else is different?”

Maybe it had to do with her being older and more mature, or because she’d chosen to come in her sister’s place. That was a level of self-sacrifice that none of the others had demonstrated.

I didn’t put much faith in fate, but perhaps it had been preordained for her sister’s name to be drawn after Rosalin had lost her husband.

A sinister thought struck me. Who was the Dark Fae who’d killed her husband?

I shook my head, something like that couldn’t have been arranged.

Not easily. Too many things would have had to fall into place for her sister’s name to have been drawn, for her to have been present for the choosing and willing to go in her sister’s place.

These things couldn’t be planned, could they?

I pushed the thoughts away, trying to accept that—for whatever reason—Rosalin had been brought to me. And when she looked at me, she’d seen past her fear and anger, straight to the person buried beneath this face.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the fact that she wasn’t protected by my shadows actually helped her recover some of her memories in the Unseelie Court.

What if those memories had something to do with breaking the curse?

I shook my head. I hoped that wasn’t the case, because if it was, I’d been making it harder to break the curse for five hundred years in my attempts to protect the maidens the only way I could.

I already felt like a total idiot. I didn’t want to add another reason.

But the more I thought about it, the more I focused on Bevgyah’s attention to the memories.

They were important enough for her to strip away.

She insisted on precautions to ensure the magic had time to solidify and the maidens’ memories were truly gone forever.

I shivered. Even if it was the memories, there had to be more. A catalyst so to speak.

I laughed loudly, the sound echoing through the halls of my empty home.

Emotions.

Bevgyah expected me to be able to feel their emotions, and proximity made them stronger. I wasn’t allowed to touch them because touch was even more intense. I was the last connection they had to their world thus my appearance was changed, my given name never uttered.

Perhaps it was my stolen moments with Rosalin that had sparked fragments of memories.

If that was true, I needed to ignite them.

I needed to find something she’d remember that wasn’t tied to me.

Something she could hold in her hand and keep with her.

But other than her old brown dress she hadn’t brought anything with her.

It was one of the stipulations of the choosing. They could only bring what they wore.

I rummaged through the books in the room.

Maybe I could find something she’d spent more time with.

Perhaps one of the etiquette books, or a piece of jewelry I hadn’t noticed her wearing .

I pulled another stack of books from her side table, desperate to find something I’d seen her reading.

Instead, I found a book I’d never seen before.

A book of fairy tales—a children’s story book.

I flipped it over, admiring the swirls of gilding that wrapped around the cover.

A lovely depiction of a wood sprite graced the front.

I knew it hadn’t been in my library. I would have remembered it .

“Did she ask you for this?” I was desperate for the Gatehouse to actually answer me. Why hadn’t it been given a voice? I glared at the rafters high above before looking back down at the book.

Rosalin’s name was scrawled on the inside in a child’s handwriting.

I flipped through, admiring the illustrations.

They were beautifully detailed if a bit naive—depictions of Fair Folk with various skin tones and elegant willowy statures.

I lost myself in the descriptions of magic and mischief, smiling at the pictures of sprites and dwarves and elves.

It was when I turned to the section on Dark Fae that I paused.

They were ugly and foreboding—the details skewed in a way that made each illustration seem evil.

Descriptions of curses and wicked magic that could destroy a human or lead them astray.

I flipped through the pages trying to ignore the grotesque faces of the creatures that looked more like monsters and demons than people.

Pages of warped darkness that would give any human child who didn’t know any better nightmares of the worst kind.

I stopped cold.

It was me. Not me exactly, but a black fleshed, winged male with horns, and dark shadows that billowed around his feet. A note had been written in the margin beside the description of what this book simply called a Shadow Guardian.

“An apple is just an apple, whether green or midnight.”

I traced my fingers over her handwriting.

It was different from the childish writing of her name.

This writing was new. It wasn’t an answer, but it was something.

A way of seeing things, of seeing people as people, whether human or Fae even though she’d come here with a very unfavorable opinion of me and my kind.

I stood and tucked the book under my arm, glancing around the room one more time for anything I might have missed before I left. I had one more place to visit.

I’d been painting the mural long before I’d been trapped as Bevgyah’s consort.

I never knew when the Gatehouse would clear it away in the middle of the night, and I would need to start anew.

It seemed to know when things changed enough that it needed to be refreshed.

This was the reason I’d forbidden the maidens to wander at midnight.

I didn’t need their curiosity. Rosalin had been the only maiden to even notice it.

Over the years I’d perfected the dragons and serpents and dark creatures that honestly looked a fair amount like the illustrations in Rosalin’s book.

It was after I’d painted her the first time that I’d truly been curious where the images came to me from, because I’d painted her long before she came to the Gatehouse.

I hadn’t thought anything of it. A brown-haired girl in a brown dress was nothing unusual.

Thinking back now, it had been months before she’d come.

I stared at my last rendering of Rosalin and myself, my mouth going dry.

I held her protectively, wrapping her in my arms and wings.

I knew what my subconscious was telling me.

I needed to protect her, but I didn’t think I could truly keep her safe, not until I’d found a way to bring her back through the portal.

And if the key to breaking the curse was memories, it was possible I’d already run out of time.

I was left with my pathetic plan of being put to death now that I’d fulfilled five hundred years of my original punishment.

Rosalin would eventually grow accustomed to the harem like all the other maidens.

Perhaps it was better that way.

I shook my head, feeling like a dreadful idiot.

Because that’s what I was. Curses always had something that broke them.

As ironclad as mine seemed, there had to be something that broke it.

Except, I had run out of time to find it.

Combined with my punishment for treason, this was my existence.

Death was the only way out. I touched Rosalin’s face on the mural before it faded away like a dream.

A flash of panic gripped my chest. The wall was blank as if Rosalin had never been.

I blinked a few times. It wasn’t midnight, yet the Gatehouse had cleared it.

“Really?” I asked with weariness clinging to my voice. “Now? ”

I was reluctant at first, but after staring at the empty wall for several minutes I trudged to my suite, grabbed a paintbrush, and squeezed a few colors out onto my palette.

I stepped into the hall, my eyes snagging on the brazier outside my suite.

The flames shifted in slow motion—haunting as it danced to silent music.

“I have nothing to paint.” I shook my head. “I have no hope left.”

The brazier flared brighter before dimming again. I looked over at the children’s book I’d left lying on the floor in front of the door to the portal.

An apple is just an apple, whether green or midnight.

I took a deep breath and began.

It didn’t take me long. I only had a small place to paint.

I left the rest of the wall completely empty, dropping the paintbrush and palette to the floor before I stood straight and stared at my work.

It was rough, not much more than silhouettes.

That’s all it needed to be. There would be no imbuing, no magic, no hope.

It would just be a reminder of what had been and what would never be again.

I glanced up at the brazier and swallowed my sorrow.

“Thank you, old friend. It’s been a pleasure.”

I retrieved the book and turned to the portal. The last thing I wanted to do was make Bevgyah wait.