Page 40 of Heir to a Curse

He nodded and held the tea up again. “Drink. You won’t remember any of this after some rest. You never do.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to forget. I mean it’s sad.” I took a long drag of the tea, and let him help me lie back down. He tugged the blanket up over me. In the dark of the room, with the all the curtains pulled, I could hardly see more than the white of his hair, and the delicate lines of his face. I reached up to touch his hair, letting the length run through my fingers. Soft as silk. “So beautiful,” I whispered.

He looked sad, dark lashes lowered again. “Rest.”

“I want to break your curse,” I told him. “Can you tell me how? I am a simple man. I work with my hands. I don’t know much about magic or curses. Can I help you?”

He seemed startled for a moment, as though I’d shocked him. Then he relaxed, his hands soothing the top of the blanket over me. “Rest.”

“Stay?” I asked him. It was an unreasonable request. He wasn’t real after all. Only a figment of my imagination.

“You’re always the one who leaves,” he said. “In time you will go.” He settled down beside me, lying on top of the blanket, but resting his head next to mine.

I let out a long sigh of relief. He was close. Safe. Those huge dark eyes sleepy, long lashes fighting to keep from resting on his beautiful cheeks. The pale light of the room gave me only outlines instead of detail, but I’d take whatever I could. I put an arm around him, surprised for a few moments by how solid he felt. This was an amazing dream. So real.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Sofia wanted this to be a home. Left it all to me, so it’s my job to make it a home. Even if that means just for me and a handful of the people she employed.”

He said nothing, but let me hold him. It was glorious. Peaceful in a thousand ways. Sleep began to tug me back, and the headache inched away.

“Sorry,” I told him, thinking back to the memory of the original dream and being the soldier. “I shouldn’t have left you. I abandoned my post. My job was to guard you.”

He stiffened again, made to pull away, but I tightened my arms around him. “Shouldn’t have left. That was stupid.” What had I thought in the dream? That it had been more important to die for a crown who’d never cared for me? To cast myself away from the one person I cared for because honor demanded it? Selfless or selfish? Both perhaps. “So stupid,” I said. “Never loved anyone more than you. I deserved to die there, slaughtered on the steps of your prison.”

He gasped, but didn’t pull away. “You shouldn’t remember those things.”

But it would be monstrous to forget again. Why should he be the only one stuck in a curse caused by someone’s stupid mistake. “They cursed you because you didn’t have the power to save them.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“But also cursed themselves since you’re a part of their family.”

“Rest,” he whispered again, fingers delicate on my forehead, massaging my brow.

“You’ll need to play for me again soon. But not a sad song. I want you to play beautiful, happy things. Not sad things.” I closed my eyes and sleep yanked me back into the darkness.