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Thorne

“ Y ou had no right to tell her,” Galen barked at me.

My mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”

He stalked toward me, his forlorn expression from earlier with Clarissa now shifting to indignation. “It is my curse to bear, and my call to make. We’ve spoken about this, and you knew I wasn’t ready. You went behind my back and?—”

“That’s the problem, Galen,” I interrupted, trying to keep my voice even.

“ You should have told her already. All of this could have been avoided if you’d been honest with her.

It took her stumbling upon a cursed piece of the hedge maze tonight for her to finally snap and break through the lies.

I don’t know if it’s because of your pride or your fear, but either way, it might have cost you greatly. ”

His chest swelled with anger. “How dare you speak to me that way? I am your king, Thorne. You forget your place.”

“You mean, your place as a royal advisor? Or as a friend? Why didn’t you tell me about the Fates and their deal?

” All of my irritation with him burst to the surface, like fire racing through my veins.

With it came a sting of betrayal. After all we’d been through, after the way I’d stood by him, he’d still kept such an enormous part of the curse from me.

This changed everything .

Mother thought Galen’s removal would break the curse.

She thought putting someone else in his place was the best hope for a better future.

But now? Now that I knew this marriage to Clarissa would take away the curse?

It was the cause of so much pain, so much death, so many fears.

It made sense why Galen was insistent on bringing Clarissa over. She was his hope. She was his answer.

But he isn’t our answer, a voice that sounded like my mother’s whispered in the back of my mind. He can’t rule our people.

Perhaps he wasn’t what was best for Mysthelm, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him hurt.

That didn’t mean I wanted him to endure this curse until it got too late.

After seeing with my own eyes how widespread his powers were reaching, I was beginning to fear my mother’s theory wouldn’t work. That nothing could stop it.

Nothing except…Clarissa.

What if she left, Galen stepped down, and the curse persisted? Still continued to kill our land? Our people ? What if she was our only chance?

Doubts crept in my mind. In the span of mere minutes, I’d learned the empress might be our greatest hope for survival, then watched her walk straight out the doors. It sent a wave of helplessness skittering across my skin.

He needed her. We needed her. Even if it went against my mother’s plan.

“I’m going to go find her,” I said, spinning on my heel and ignoring Galen’s flared nostrils and the bulging vein in his neck. “Imprison me for disobedience if you want, Galen, but someone has to fix this.”

If he responded, I didn’t hear it. I was already out of the room and striding down the hall. If I had to guess, I didn’t think Clarissa would go to bed. I imagined she’d be…

Her blonde waves were the first thing I saw when I opened the doors leading to the grounds at the back of the manor.

She was pacing furiously back and forth in front of the entrance to the hedge maze.

A gentle breeze lifted the bottom of her short-sleeved green jumpsuit, and I absentmindedly wondered if she might be cold.

From the door, I could vaguely see her expression in the moonlight and a couple of swinging lanterns staked into the ground. Her pinched brow, the pink blush of vexation on her cheeks, the way her lips fluttered silently as if having a conversation with herself.

This empress became more and more intriguing every time I was with her.

Back in Galen’s chambers, I had seen her change.

It was a visible transformation, the way she went from intoxicating rage to calm and collected in mere seconds.

I could tell she felt her emotions so deeply.

From her annoyance the day I met her at the ship, to how poised she was when meeting Galen and the Silenus regent family, to anger and betrayal when we were in the hedge maze.

But she was able to turn it off like flicking out a candle.

At the drop of a hat, she could stand regal. Strong.

As I stared at the ends of her hair swirling in the breeze, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, her jaw shifting and eyes burning…I realized I wanted to know this empress. The true Clarissa Aris. The way she was when she thought nobody was around.

Unfiltered. Raw. Honest.

I wanted to see her undone.

That fleeting thought scared me more than any curse or crown.

I stepped out of the shadows and onto the path leading to where she paced. As I approached, a twig snapped loudly under my foot, alerting her of my presence.

Her entire body reacted to the noise. Her shoulders sank, and her neck twisted to find the source as she staggered backward. A hand flew to her heart, and her chest rose and fell with deep, ragged breaths.

My brow furrowed. Was she that surprised by me?

She drew in another gasping breath and kept stumbling, her hand reaching to find purchase on something solid.

“Clarissa, what’s wrong?” I asked quickly once I got to her side. I grabbed her outstretched hand to steady her, but she yanked it back with a half-sob. Fear gripped me until I saw her eyes darting around, wide and scared, with the pupils blown out.

She was having some sort of panic attack.

“Breathe, Empress,” I said. “Here—come sit down.” She let me put a hand on her shoulder and guide her to a nearby bench, her body trembling the whole way. When she sat, I knelt at her feet. “Can you hear me?”

After a moment, she nodded. Her breaths were still uneven and shaky.

“Good. You’re safe, Clarissa. Nothing is going to hurt you.” I swallowed. “Can I touch you?”

For the first time, her eyes locked onto mine. They still looked distant, as if she was somewhere else and not truly focused on me, but again, she nodded. I leaned forward to put my hands on either side of her neck. Her pulse raced, erratic and strong.

“Just breathe. Listen to the sound of my voice. Do you feel the ground at your feet?” I waited, and she let out a breath before nodding.

“Focus on that. It’s tethering you here, to me.

Not wherever your mind took you. Are you in pain?

” She closed her eyes and flinched, and I instinctively rubbed my thumb along the pulse point at her neck.

Her warm skin was soft and smooth where the rough pad of my thumb grazed.

“Do you feel my fingers, Clarissa?” A nod. “Does it hurt?”

With another inhale, her pulse began to slowly even out, and her breaths along with it. She swallowed, her neck contracting beneath my touch, then she quietly replied, “No. That doesn’t hurt.”

“Then focus on that. The bench, the ground, my hands. Nothing else is touching you. Nothing else can hurt you. This is what’s real—what’s right in front of you.”

Her eyes opened. Dark jewels shone back at me, wary and hesitant but clear.

“Are you alright?” I began to move my hands away. She quickly raised her arms and grasped my wrists, keeping them in place for a split second before lowering them and shifting farther onto the bench.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. I—I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“How—how did you know what to do?” she asked, her voice still quiet.

“My daughter suffers from panic attacks as well,” I explained.

They had started after her mother died four years ago, and it didn’t take long for me to see what she was going through.

It wasn’t until Marigold was old enough to put her feelings into words that I learned how to talk her down from these episodes.

I wasn’t sure Marigold even knew what triggered them.

She could barely remember Iris or how she died.

But she seemed to have a subconscious fear around any of those she loved getting hurt or being taken from her, and I often had to reassure her that I was safe.

It was another reason why I didn’t want to leave her to go on this tour.

I didn’t know how she would handle the separation, with nothing to calm her anxiety about my absence.

Clarissa blinked at me. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

A smile formed on my lips. “Marigold. She’s seven years old. She’s here with us, actually. On the tour.”

“Oh,” Clarissa said softly. “I must not have met her yet. Or her mother.”

My eyes fell to the ground as I stood and dusted off my knees. “Her mother is no longer with us.”

There was a small intake of breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It was a long time ago. But Marigold has similar episodes.” I gestured to Clarissa. “Did something happen to cause it? Was it everything with Galen?”

“No, no, it wasn’t that. I—” She cut herself off. It looked like she wanted to say more, but she simply shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you, Thorne,” she added, her lips curving slightly around my name. Perhaps the first time she’d said it without a scoff or sneer.

Two nights ago, I was plotting with my mother about how to get her to leave. Now, I found myself wondering how I could get that smile to stay.

She has to marry your best friend .

I blinked the thought away. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the curse before. It’s not that I thought you didn’t have the right to know. It’s just…it’s bigger than me. And apparently, bigger than Galen and the Grimaldis.”

“I take it you didn’t know about the marriage bit, either.”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “How are you doing with all of that?”

She resumed her pacing. “How do you think? I was tricked into coming here by a king who couldn’t be bothered to tell me the truth.

He just wants to use me to break this curse.

And the thing is, I get it. It’s bad. Especially after seeing what’s been happening in just this territory alone.

Nobody should be forced to suffer because of some power-hungry king who lived two hundred years ago.

” She paused, biting her bottom lip in thought.

“I would have said yes,” she said, quieter this time. “If he’d told me from the beginning, I would’ve said yes. How could I not, if saying no would mean letting this kingdom get destroyed?”

“That’s not your responsibility,” I countered.

She let out a humorless laugh. “What, don’t you want me to stay and marry him? Save Mysthelm and all of that?”

I swallowed, too many voices and opinions of others whispering in my ear.

“Of course I want to help my people. But it should be your choice. I may not know you very well, Empress, but you seem like the kind of person who would do anything if it meant helping others. Even if it wasn’t in your own best interests. ”

Her brow pinched. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“No,” I said, stepping closer to her. “As long as it’s what you want. You have your own life, your own empire, to consider. Don’t do this just for him or out of some sense of guilt.”

Clarissa searched my features for a moment, underscored by the buzzing insects and whistling of wind through the hedges. Then she sat back down and rolled her neck to gaze up at the stars. She was lost in thought, those dark eyes expressing so much in their silence.

She, like Galen, held the weight of her people on her shoulders. But unlike Galen, she bore hers with strength instead of letting it drown her.

“We would be lucky to have you as our queen, Clarissa,” I said softly, unsure what urged me to speak it, other than it was the truth. Even if I hadn’t uncovered the deepest secret of the curse tonight, I would’ve believed in those words.

She gave me another one of those tentative, wistful, crooked smiles. “You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t have to,” I said simply.

“This suits you, you know,” she said, tilting her head. “It’s genuine. Better than the cocky act.”

Something constricted in my chest. I so rarely let the mask fall, I hadn’t even realized she’d sent it crashing down. “Who said it was an act?”

She let out a small chuckle that turned into a sigh. Then she asked, “Is he worth it, Thorne? Will he do right by his people? If I do this, will he do right by me ?”

“Galen has a good heart,” I said, almost without thinking. They were words I’d thought to myself so many times over the last few months. “He’s just…lost. Misguided.”

“Why do you keep defending him? What has he done to earn such loyalty from you?”

An uncomfortable knot settled in my gut. “He’s my best friend. He’s been through some terrible times, but I…” I exhaled and closed my eyes, then dropped to the bench beside her. “You want genuine? The answer is I don’t know, Empress. But this kingdom is worth it.”

“I think so too.” Her words were quiet but not weak. She rested a hand on my shoulder as she stood. “Thanks for following me tonight,” she said. “I’ll see you around, Lord Reaux.”

Her smile, the first true, uninhibited one she’d given me, slammed through my chest. Her handprint was like a brand on my shoulder when she moved back toward the manor.

I knew at that moment that she was going to do it. She was going to be our queen, end this curse, and save our kingdom.

She was going to marry Galen.

That thought should have filled me with relief.

Many of our problems would soon be solved, and we’d no longer have to worry about the rotting or dying or what curse would be passed on for the next generation.

It may not be exactly how my mother wanted it to happen, but I realized now what mattered most was stopping this curse. This death.

And I was relieved. But that didn’t explain the heavy weight that sank in my stomach as I watched her walk away from me and toward her future with the king.