Page 3 of Deceiving the Cursed Beast
The magic pulled me deeper into the castle. Two doors stood open across from me, leading to a large, mostly empty room. I crossed into what had to be the great hall. No candles came to life here. The only light came from the large brazier in the center of the space. Slightly longer than it was wide, the room lacked any other ornamentation. Nothing but that marble pillar topped with a copper bowl of fire.
The flames licked back and forth, reflecting off the marble floor but not illuminating the entire room. Shadows danced along the perimeter in time with the flickers from the brazier. The phantom movements left me uneasy. The tug of power around my torso had stopped once I reached the node, but I didn’t know what I was doing here. Nor could I shake the feeling that someone hid in the shadows, darting from corner to corner.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Raw magic flowed toward the brazier from every direction. Rivers of power all pooling inside the flames that seemed too small to contain the torrent. Despite the emptiness of the room, I felt crowded by the power pulsing around me.
The energy emanating from the node sounded like nothing I had ever experienced. My magic manifested as sounds, bells I heard in my mind when people spoke. Raw magic hummed at a pitch just at the edge of my magical range. The vibration of the power from the node, on the other hand, resonated in my bones, the hum growing louder the longer I listened. It sounded like shaped power, brimming with the potential to do any truth-magic imagined.
“Miss Sofia Cardh.”
My eyes snapped open, and I spun toward the source of the deep voice. I saw nothing in the flickering light. My response came by rote, a sing-songy refrain I had uttered countless times over the years. “Wrong twin. Try again.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not Sofia.” I squinted into the shadows, wondering if the empty room played tricks with acoustics, making it seem like the voice came out of the floor itself. I still saw nothing. “You have the wrong twin.”
“Impossible. The contract your father signed clearly stated he would send me his younger daughter, Sofia.”
“Well, there’s your problem. Sofia beat me into the world by a good five minutes.”
“But she’s . . . you’re not . . .”
“I’m not . . .?” I had heard it all before. I never came out ahead when compared to my sister—except in stubbornness. Sofia was so sweet and kind that I didn’t even resent my twin after spending years listening to recitations of my own shortcomings.
The owner of the bass voice—who must be Duke Felix, though I wasn’t willing to rule out this castle having enchanted, talking floors—didn’t name any of my flaws, though. He settled on a heartfelt curse. “I had to be clever and say ‘younger daughter.’ I couldn’t just name Sofia, because there are ways of changing names. Idiot.”
I had to bite my tongue, but I managed not to voice my own opinion on his intelligence.
“Well,” he continued, “at least you are a mage with a truth-magic, too. It’s not a complete loss.”
“In fact, I am the more powerful mage.” Modesty came near the top of the list of traits Sofia possessed in greater abundance than I. Right under agreeableness and discretion. Not calling the duke an idiot had stretched the limits of my tact for the next month, at least.
“But you, Miss Isabel Cardh, are a truth-reader. I wanted a truth-teller.”
“As if you need either power here.”
“Normally, no,” the duke drawled. “However, things are a bit strange at the moment.”
“Really? The empty castle and disembodied voice didn’t clue me into that at all. Not to mention your disregard for legalities in order to kidnap me.”
“My voice isn’t disembodied. It is more . . . mis-embodied. And I assure you the contract only worked because it technically adheres to legalities. Besides, I see it as more of a recruitment than a kidnapping.”
“Recruitment implies choice. This was a conscription at best.” I wanted to expound on my chastisements, but I had to ask, “What do you mean by mis-embodied?”
“Well.” He cleared his throat, then fell silent.
“Well?”
“You know there is a non-disclosure clause in the contract your father signed?”
“I do now.” Father hadn’t told me any more than the fact that he had signed a contract that had allowed him to go free in return for me traveling to Rose Castle. The power enforcing that contract hadn’t given me the time to question him more fully. It hadn’t given me time to do anything but throw a change of clothes into a bag and go.
“You can’t tell anybody.”
I rolled my eyes. “I understand what non-disclosure means. Get on with it.”
“I’ve been cursed into another form.” Each word came faster than the last.
I repeated the sentence in my head, making sure I hadn’t mixed anything up. It still made no sense. “What do you mean, another form? And cursed? Curses don’t exist.”
