Page 104 of These Vile Hearts

382.

Cool, that’s…great.

Pulling out my vial of long-acting insulin and a syringe, I suck up the last of it. Just enough to battle my body’s own production of glucose for the day…and not much longer. I take out my short-acting insulin—less than half of a bottle left now—and deliver a correction dose that is not enough to bring it down by much.

I’m nearly out of the drug I need to live. My heart starts to race, moving between relief that I don’t have to kill Castor and the ugly realization that Idohave to kill Durian if I want to complete this pact. If I want to live. It’s too late to find another way out. Too late for me to climb down from these trees and find a hospital or pharmacy to beg for mercy. I’ve made my fucking bed.

As I’m tying my pants closed, a crash sounds from downstairs. Followed by another. Then grunts of pain and loud scuffling.

Diving for my weapons belt, I grip the hilt of my golden dagger and pull it free. Descending the stairs two at a time, I take in the bizarre scene in the open kitchen and entryway: Tamarind with his scythe in hand, fighting off two woodlings with jagged blades in their grips. He’s bleeding profusely from his neck and there’s another dead woodling on the floor of the kitchen, black blood leaking across the ground like an oil spill.

Leaping forward, I drive the golden dagger into the back of thewoodling who is readying a blow to Tam’s ribs. The creature lets out a yelp and turns on me, sinking his blade into the side of my thigh. Okay, I was going to let this little asshole live, but—

Wrenching his blade out with a pained cry, I plunge it into his thick, squat neck. The light leaves his red eyes, and he collapses just as Tamarind takes the head off the third woodling with one arc of his scythe.

The head rolls across the floor, landing with a dull thump against the wall, sightless eyes staring.

Tam and I look at each other, chests heaving.

“I was just resting my head on my arms at the kitchen island, and they snuck up on me,” Tamarind says, looking at the woodlings with a dumbstruck expression. “I don’t know why they just—”

“Because Castor is the cursed prince,” I say through a gasping breath.

He freezes. “He told you?”

“Yes.”

“What else did he—?” He sways on his feet and holds up a blood-covered hand. “Alternatively. Let me get us fixed up before we broach this.”

He takes care of the wound in his neck first—luckily, it doesn’t seem deep enough for internal damage—and we both take a disgusting, bitter tincture that helps with blood loss. Then he pulls up a chair at the kitchen island and begins to tend to the gash on my thigh. “Where’s Castor?” I ask him.

“The courtyard. He and Durian are welcoming leaders arriving to the kingdom for the Sylveris Solstice tomorrow.” His voice sounds hollow, like a log that’s been eaten away by rot.

“And you didn’t go with him?”

“He asked me to stay here with you. But I think that’s also because he’s trying to keep me safe for as long as he can.” Tam glances down at the dead woodlings. “That did not quite work out, I fear.”

“I’m guessing he knows that you said you loved him, then?”

He nods slowly. “I figured he should know, since I’d already said it to you. It’s not like I can die twice.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh my God, Tam. You aren’t going to die. Not from his curse, anyway.”

He finishes up with my leg and the two of us lean against the cool marble of the kitchen island, ignoring the three woodling bodies still seeping black blood everywhere. “You clearly don’t understand how his curse works.”

“Castortoldme how it works.”

“What did he tell you?”

I fill a glass with water from the tap, taking four gulps to satisfy my intense, high-blood-sugar thirst. “He said it’s unpredictable and erratic. He told me about all the people who died after he was adopted, about Cyperus, Laurel, and Jace. All the servants and friends when he was younger.”

“I see.”

“Unpredictable and erratic.” I laugh humorlessly. “Sounds more likeconvenientto me.”

Tamarind’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“People who get close to Castor justhappento die? They just happen to hang themselves in trees or get killed by mortal men? Or executed by the king? Or randomly attacked by three woodlings? This curse is made up of nothing but rumors and hearsay and dead bodies. Noactualproof it even exists.”