Page 16

I did everything I could to avoid roaring as the fire in my blood ripped through my body, incinerating some bones while elongating others. The daily ritual of turning into a beast was just as painful as the first time it had ever happened, but—fortunately—only a few seconds long.

When it finished, I sprawled across my floor panting. For thirteen years the grueling experience had honed my hatred for the fae who had cursed me—for every fae that she represented—but today felt different. Today it felt like an insufficient penance.

Somewhere in the heart of last night, I’d discovered an intense remorse. The dozens of letters I’d drafted trying to explain myself to Callista or ask her to explain more to me were now ashes. I incinerated them all and dusted the remnants into a bin.

The words I’d finally settled on were the deepest feelings I had left. Deeper than my anger at being cursed. Deeper than my anger at whoever killed my own parents. Deeper than my desire to be a good king.

When I’d finally looked as deep as I could, I found a dissonance between who I claimed to be and who I was. And that dissonance had led to death, a curse, and more misery for my own people and for Callista than I could possibly catalog.

If only I could go back thirteen years and take Robin’s advice to speak to Radira instead of tricking her into surrendering the power I thought gave her a dangerous advantage over us!

But I could not go back. I could never fix this. I wanted to disappear, to melt into the ice and stone beneath my castle or—even better—to not have existed at all. I claimed to be a paragon of justice and safety, but I had brought more pain and unjustified suffering to the people around me than anyone I'd ever punished.

Callista had once argued that she should get to choose a punishment when she was the wronged party and, in the middle of the night, I’d latched onto that idea. If she could create justice in the world again, perhaps my mistakes could finally be rectified. Perhaps the curse would finally leave my people.

Callista—who had been wronged irreparably by my fears, who had offered herself in her brother’s place, who gave people second chances and stood up strong even when her heart trembled with fear, whose kindness and bravery were as attractive as her sweet smile, who deserved to be safe and happy—she was willing to consider bringing justice back into my life.

But the curse had interrupted. I rolled over and groaned. The curse had not even let me have a full conversation. I’d tried to delay it, tried with everything I possessed, but the transformation was not a change I had any control over .

Perhaps it was just as well. I should not make Callista responsible for my conscience.

Late in the afternoon, a piece of folded parchment slid under the door from Callista’s room. I dragged it closer to me with a claw. My hands and claws were far too big to maneuver the paper’s folds, but I managed to blow on it until it fluttered open in the air. I caught it and pressed it to the ground so I could read.

Dear Aedan,

Can I call you Aedan? Anything else feels too formal for the thoughts and feelings I have to express.

I think you have suffered consequences for your cruelty for thirteen years. There is no such thing as “escaping punishment” at this point. It is burned into your whole body.

There are many things I would like, but I do not want to demand them from you as payment for your mistakes. That would remove all meaning from them and make them feel like a cheap recompense.

I would humbly suggest you put your energy into becoming a better king, a kinder elf, and a more patient person. Perhaps even give others a little grace to make mistakes and grow too.

Truly,

Callista

I read it again, and again. And again, at least a dozen times, not because the tone did not fit her personality—as she’d said of my letter—but because the words cooled a painful fire in my heart that I had not recognized as separate from my normal magic.

She thought I had suffered already. And I had. Oh, Callista, if you only knew how the pain tore me apart last night when I discovered a hatred for myself. It had been worse than the wretched shift I went through every morning and evening.

But to have someone else validate it as possibly enough —a strange bead of moisture ran from the corner of my eye and along my scaled cheek until it dropped to the floor. My intense drekkan ears heard it hit the wood-covered ground and splatter into an undetectable bit of moisture.

I had not known I could cry as a drekkan.

But the mercy she offered me in a letter cut through a dam I’d built when my parents died. I had not shed a tear in fourteen years, not as an elf nor a drekkan, but the relief I felt at her words broke out of my body in enough tears that I pulled all the blankets off my bed and used them to catch the moisture.

I let myself weep. I did my best to keep it silent, but I cried fourteen years' worth of tears. I cried for my mistakes, for the pain I’d brought to others, and for the death I’d caused. I cried for my own parents’ deaths and for the hurt I still carried at not knowing the cause. I cried, in the privacy of my own silent quarters, until my tear wells were as dry as the scales on my back. And then I laid my head on those blankets, and fell asleep.

Crushing pain ripped me out of my sleep as my body shifted back into an elf. I glanced at the window. Most of the sky had darkened, but a few pink rays still lingered over the mountain horizon.

A burst of laughter drew my attention to Callista’s door. The twins must be having dinner with her. As the laughter died down, Callista’s voice rose high enough that her words traveled clearly through the wall. “You need to bring her! Just warn me so I’m dressed properly.”

“We should ask the king about you leaving.” Koan’s jovial voice held both humor and his new-found maturity. “He said Mylo could escort you anywhere, and I don’t see any reason why he would change his mind on that.”

“Not anywhere,” Callista said. “I told you he said not to go downstairs, and I did. Honestly, I’m still a little surprised he didn’t just let the karkins have me.”

No, Callista. I told you that you would be safe. How can you still doubt that?

“Well,” Koan went on, “I still think it would be good for you to enjoy some dinners outside your room, and I’m happy to risk the king’s anger to ask him.”

“That’s because you get a weird thrill risking his anger,” Jolter interjected. “It’s like cliff-jumping. The risk of certain death makes it more fun for you.”

Koan laughed again. “We only have so many thrills these days.”

I could imagine Jolter rolling his eyes as he started talking again. “If we want a decent chance of him saying yes, Callista should ask.”

“That’s not fair,” Koan said. “She’s dealt with his anger more than the rest of us.”

Not true! I’d reined in my anger more for her than any other person in the castle. Probably anyone ever except for Robin, and he’d been gone since the curse.

“Maybe,” Jolter said. “But he’s still said yes to everything she’s asked. You don’t have nearly that kind of record.”

“Hmph.” They wouldn’t hear me, but I couldn’t help huffing. Jolter was right. But I wouldn’t make her ask for this.

Their conversation grew more muffled and then interspersed with chairs moving and feet shuffling.

I waited until her room was silent and knocked on the door.

She didn’t answer immediately. When a minute passed, I turned away and headed to my desk. Perhaps she did not want to talk to me tonight.

Two seconds after I sat down, the door opened. I jumped to my feet and strode to the doorframe between our rooms. Red puffed around her eyes, like she’d either cried or rubbed them. But she’d sounded so happy a few minutes earlier.

I bowed politely. At this point, I considered her more noble than any of the ladies in my court—her noble heart had given me permission to live. Assuming she would tell me if she wanted to talk about whatever had turned her eyes red, I jumped to my purpose. “I want to thank you for the letter you gave me.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgement.

“I…” I was not sure how to say the things in my heart. It was not accustomed to having a voice. But I could not expect her to read my mind. “I would like to give you… several things too. Not as a payment or recompense, but because I am grateful. I…”

Her head tipped at me like she did not understand what I was saying.

“It should not cheapen a kind gesture,” I stammered, “just because there is gratitude behind it. ”

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head the tiniest bit. “No, it should not.”

I blew out a breath of air. I had not ever considered myself unkind, but saying the generous words I wanted to felt foreign and unpracticed.

I swallowed and tried again. “I would like to give you access to the entire fortress. You have the freedom to come and go as you please. I’ll go and announce it in the dining hall forthwith so nobody should question you tomorrow.”

Her jaw fell just a little. I’d surprised her. Good. Perhaps I was already changing her expectations of me.

She cleared her throat. “What about the cave where the rose bush is?”

I met her eyes—her bright blue eyes. They held me captive, on top of a precipice. This was more than a simple question. She would release me when I answered, and then I would fall—down one slope or another. One side held certain doom and misery, but it was the easier side to tilt toward. The other side was shrouded, hidden in the uncertainty of her reaction, but it hinted at a happiness that had escaped me for years.

I reached for the doorframe. I knew very well that it would not keep me balanced on the fragile precipice on which I hovered, but it was the only stabilization I could touch.

I swallowed and leaped for uncertainty, hoping it was better than the misery I’d safely wrapped my life in. “I would like to trust you not to hurt the rose.”