Page 27 of The Starlit Ring (The Chronicles of Liridin #1)

B y nightfall, things were winding down. The remaining guests had retreated to the great hall for cards and wine. The band played on; Avens continuously wiped his sweaty brow. I tried to make eye contact, but he was busy putting on a show and barely noticed me.

Fine. I wouldn’t let my neediness distract him.

The king and queen went to bed shortly before midnight, and Ria excused herself almost immediately after, claiming a headache.

I followed her up to her chambers, my feet aching.

I’d nearly forgotten about the meeting in the library and groaned aloud when I realized I still had that to look forward to.

I dragged myself to the library with the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the way to the gallows.

So late at night, I didn’t want to be alone in the palace.

Though laughter and chatter echoed from the great hall, the corridors were eerie and silent, and I hurried along, shoulders hunched against the chill.

The torches in their sconces gave off no warmth, and the shadows had depths I’d never noticed before. I pulled a pebble from my bodice and shook it until a soft glow enveloped me.

I was incandescent as a ghost for the rest of the journey.

“There you are,” said Prince Marius as I approached, weaving between shelves to his preferred seating area, a little nook that overlooked the rest of the library.

Two overstuffed armchairs rested on either side of a tiny, scuffed table, already stacked high with books from the alchemy section.

As always, he wore his midnight blue cloak.

Underneath, tonight’s finery still clung to his slim form.

Silver fastenings and lace adorned a maroon jacket and matching pants.

His shoes were so polished as to be nearly blinding.

I noted with muted satisfaction that blades of wet grass clung to his heels.

“Here I am,” I huffed, rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “And thank you for your patience tonight. It was not my intent for you to bear witness to our disagreement.”

That foul bastard. I gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

His answering grimace was tight, strained. For the first time, I realized he looked as tired as I felt. Beneath his eyes were the beginnings of bruises. “I suppose not.” He sighed. “I apologize. That was not one of my finest moments.

“Do you react this way every time someone fails to praise you?”

“No,” he said, settling into a chair. “I don’t. But I’ve grown weary of endless insults and rude comebacks. I understand that it’s all my fault, but I—I let myself grow frustrated, and I shouldn’t have.”

“You won’t get anywhere with her if you aren’t polite,” I warned. “Let her walk all over you for a while. She’ll warm up eventually.”

“People have certain expectations of me as a prince, you know,” he said glumly. “I can’t exactly let her walk all over me, even if I wanted to. At a certain point, I have to defend my honor. ”

“Do you want a happy marriage or a good reputation?” I crossed my arms. “I’d do whatever I could to keep both, personally.”

“Words of wisdom,” he chuckled. “If only it were so simple.” He leaned forward, his icy gaze catching mine. “And I mean no offense. I really have no idea how to achieve both.”

I probably could’ve given him some advice, but that wasn’t why we were here. “What did you want to show me?” I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and fought the urge to rub my eyes.

He rubbed a hand over his forehead, smoothing the lines there. “You must first swear you’ll keep it a secret. On pain of, erm, exile,” he said finally.

I tried to keep the shock and fear from my face. Death . He was going to say death . Fuck .

I schooled my features and smiled solemnly. “I promise, Your Highness.”

After a moment of scrutiny, he said, “Good enough,” and reached into a satchel concealed beneath his cloak. From it, he produced a small black box, sleek and smooth. “Please don’t touch.”

“I might not be able to tell you very much if I can’t touch it.” I crossed my arms and examined the shelf beside me, scanning over the titles, looking for anything interesting. Trying to pretend I didn’t care about Marius’s mysteries.

“That’s fine. Do your best.” He placed the box carefully on the stack of books and opened it.

Inside was a band of stone, so pale that it resembled bone. The longer I looked, the more certain I became that it was, in fact, bone.

Its prongs were set to hold a substantial stone, which might have improved the appearance of the ring, except that the stone was missing. The empty prongs reminded me of the open claws of a great beast, ready to strike.

It didn’t appear expensive, just cursed . No longer did I worry about observing the ring from a distance. Prince Marius couldn’t pay me to go any nearer. Just looking at it made the space between my eyes pulse painfully.

“What is it?” I asked, massaging my temples, trying to keep my gaze on the ring, and failing.

“It’s a family heirloom,” said the prince gravely. “One that I’m afraid I’ve been stuck with.”

“The stone is missing.”

“Yes,” Prince Marius said, his gaze glued to me. “It was removed some time ago and still needs to be replaced.”

“Lost or stolen?”

He hesitated. “I’m not certain.”

How unhelpful. “What kind of stone did it hold?”

The question caught him off guard. He frowned as he considered. “A ruby,” he said at last, but I didn’t believe him.

I bent closer to the ring, careful not to touch. A horrible buzzing filled my ears. A drone so loud that I felt like I’d been trapped inside a wasps’ nest. I recoiled as if I’d been slapped.

Prince Marius gave a sympathetic wince. “Sorry,” he said.

“Is it supposed to hurt?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve been told that it doesn’t do this when it’s in use.”

“So why aren’t you wearing it?”

“The stone is missing ,” he said slowly, as if I might be daft. “What else can you tell me?”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Sometimes, without even looking, I could sense an enchanted object’s purpose.

By feel, I knew which pebbles were for conjuring light, loud noise, or tracking Prince Marius.

When I had enchanted blades in my possession, I knew without touching which ones struck true, which inflicted an instantly fatal wound, which were meant to cause incredible pain but not death.

The vibrations were slightly different, the energy sinister or gentle.

Some were cool and cleansing, others ranged from warm to uncomfortably hot .

This ring absolutely pulsed with a putrid, burning energy. It writhed between my eyes, slithered beneath my skin, groped for my bones.

The sensation was familiar, drawing me back to the time when Cranz produced a sword from the locked shed.

The blade was cursed to incapacitate its victims, making it so that even the tiniest cut would render them lame for the rest of their lives.

The wound would deepen and spread until it was a foul, gaping thing that no healer could close.

I dared not pull it from its sheath, too overwhelmed by the rippling hatred and agony to do anything other than step away, as though its energy could infiltrate me without the faintest physical touch.

Now, with Prince Marius at my side instead of Cranz, I stared down at the ring. Focus , I told myself. Do not flee. Focus.

But my feet were too light, ready to carry me right out of the library and all the way down to the servants’ quarters, where I could lie in my cot and pretend none of this happened. I inhaled deeply, forcing myself to stay calm.

When I concentrated on the ring, all I sensed was chaos and destruction, an urge to wriggle into tiny cracks and expand until everything around it exploded. With this came a distinct sensation of lack . Poverty? Famine? Something else?

“Chaos,” I mumbled at last. “And breaking things. And… poverty?”

The prince gave terse nod. “Any idea how to neutralize it?”

I shook my head. “I’m not a sorceress.”

“Yes, I know,” he grumbled bitterly. “They are too busy to waste time on cursed rings. Even for a high price.”

I frowned down at the ring. Where was the energy coming from? There was no stone, no adornment. Just a simple band. “Whose bone is this?”

Prince Marius let out a long-suffering sigh. “No one knows. ”

“That might help,” I said, though of course I had no real idea if it would or not.

“I’ve scoured books and death records,” he snapped. “I’ve examined graves. I’m uncertain whose bone this is. Or if it’s even human.”

“It’s definitely human,” I murmured, thinking back to all the books Cranz forced me to read before he let me attempt a single spell. “Animal bones won’t hold contempt like this.”

“Interesting,” murmured Prince Marius, his gaze suddenly far away. “Anything else?”

I shook my head.

The box snapped shut, and my headache dulled to a throb.

“Thank you,” said Prince Marius. “That’s all I needed. Are you alright?”

“I think so,” I said. I felt like someone had taken a hammer to my temples, and cracked my skull in two, but I didn’t want to show weakness in front of him. “It’s… difficult to get too close to. I doubt I could’ve touched it if I’d wanted to.”

“That’s probably for the best,” said Prince Marius, placing the box back inside his satchel. “If—for any reason—you happen upon it, do not touch it. Do not even lift the box. Call for me, and I will retrieve it.”

“Why would it be?—”

“It’s got a mind of its own. And thieves have targeted it more than once. Most aren’t capable of taking it very far, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying.”

“Oh,” I said, unable to imagine anyone going to the trouble of stealing a ring made of bone. It was objectively ugly, cheap, and fragile. What was the point of crafting something like it, if not for sinister reasons? “If people are willing to steal it?—”

“Then they know more than I do,” said Prince Marius gravely. He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning into the distance. “Not a single thief has given me a satisfactory answer. Despite our efforts to… motivate them. ”

“Not one?” I echoed in disbelief. King Amonrew claimed that torture was ineffective, but his advisors said otherwise, urging him to send captured spies into the chambers constructed by my great-grandfather. I suspected Tocchia enforced similar methods of interrogation.

Regardless of what my father said, I couldn’t imagine keeping secrets after being placed upon the rack.

Prince Marius shook his head. His hair bounced with the motion. “One is still in the dungeon and has yet to tell me anything more than his name and origin. The rest, as you may have guessed, are dead or exiled.”

“How do you decide their punishments?” I asked, choking on my own voice. I’d just interacted with something that people were willing to risk everything to acquire. Was this information I should even have?

“It depends on my mood,” said the prince flippantly. His laugh echoed through the library, reverberating between shelves.

I tried not to flinch, but a muscle must’ve twinged in my face, because he rushed to correct himself.

“That isn’t true,” he said quickly, angling his body toward me.

“We have protocol for this sort of thing. Our laws dictate punishments. Someone whose only crime is sneaking inside the palace will be exiled. Someone who kills multiple guards and servants to do so will likely be hanged. And someone who steals… Well, the punishment depends on the value of the object, and whether or not the theft was successful.” He watched me carefully as he spoke, eager to quell my fear, or perhaps temper my opinion of him.

I knew, logically, that I was in danger. That no matter what I did, I was still working for people who were powerful and vengeful. That I’d hidden my identity in a way that could probably get me killed or at least imprisoned.

“I see,” I said, afraid to appear too sympathetic to the thieves.

In many ways, I’d grown up outside of the typical royal experience.

So many people despised my very existence.

When I was young, I spent a lot of time looking out my window, at the cities in the distance, wondering what my life might be if I were born outside the castle walls.

For a time, I was obsessed with the lives of peasants.

Father declared they were terrible in all ways—filled with filth, starvation, and rot—I glamorized them into something else: people with freedom and choice.

As the years passed, my tutors began to indulge me, sharing their perspectives; a glance into the mind of someone who had seen the rest of the world.

Thanks to them, I had a basic understanding of the ways the world worked.

The poor weren’t lazy or incompetent. They were poor because wealth seemed to accumulate in cities and castles, piled at the feet of kings.

I knew better than fall into the trap of believing that only the wealthy deserved to keep their money.

But it was impossible to convince a king—even my doting father—the error of his ways. I had no doubt that Prince Marius was equally set in tradition.

His gaze burned into mine, molten like steel, and then he bid me goodnight, dissolving into the darkness like he, too, was made of shadow.