Page 28 of Malice
“Unless I’m meeting a lover.”
My cheeks heat and I become fascinated with the nearest book, unsure why the idea of the princess trysting makes me so bashful. “That.”
“Well, as you can probably guess, it’snotthat.” She taps at the place where her curse mark rests under her sleeve. “My curse is quite intact, as you must have noticed.”
“A lover wouldn’t have to be yourtruelove,” I say, surprising myself.
“You sly thing.” She shoves my shoulder gently. “Don’t you think I’ve endured enough kisses from strangers?”
“Of course you have,” I say quickly. “Forgive me, Your Highness.”
She bats the air. “Enough of that. I’m Aurora to you.”
“Aurora.” The syllables are full and bright on my tongue, tasting of summer berries and fizzy wine. My heart stutters. “Have you found anything interesting, at least?”
“Oh, yes.” She flops onto a divan. Dust erupts from the faded blue silk and glitters in the shafts of moonlight. “All kinds of texts on the realm’s old history. I don’t know why the masters didn’t care more about this place. There should be a historian in here, keeping track of things.”
“Old history? Like Leythana?”
She sits up straight. “You’re interested in Leythana as well?”
“Who wouldn’t be? A queen who earned her crown by right, not just inheriting it like some lazy—” I realize my mistake too late and skid to a stop. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“No.” She rises and moves to a column, tracing tiny diamond-shaped patterns in the gritty surface with a fingertip. “I know exactly what you mean. And I agree.”
“You do?”
“In fact, that’s why I’m here. In a way. I want to be like Leythana. Not just an ornament, as my mother is. I want to be fierce and worthy.” She pauses, looking as though she’s debating whether to continue. And then the next words come out in a breathless whoosh. “And so I come here at night to try to find something to break the curse.”
I’m certain from the way she worries with the edge of her sleeve that this is the first time she’s spoken her dreams aloud to anyone.
“You want to break the curse,” I repeat slowly. “Without your true love?”
“Yes.” Those violet eyes shine. “I want to earn my crown myself. Not hand it over to the first man who kisses me correctly.” But then her shoulders hunch. “You must think me a fool.”
“Not at all. I admire you. You’re nothing like…” I grapple for the right words, but they swish through my mind, slippery as eels. “What I thought.”
Her smile rivals the starlight. “I take that as an extreme compliment.”
“It is.” An inexplicable shyness nips at me and I fumble for a distraction. “Have you made any progress?”
“Not much,” she admits. “I’ve been poking around in volumes about the War of the Fae. Especially those about Vila. If any creature knew how to break the curse, it was them.”
A chill rumbles through me. My ancestors. Aurora doesn’t notice my sudden interest in a cracked magnifying glass I find on a side table. She glides away into the shadows. The light from the candle bobs and I can hear her mumbling to herself as she hunts.
“What are you doing?”
Instead of answering me, she reemerges with a huge black book tucked under one arm. Streaks of dust and dirt darken the hem of her nightdress and there’s a smudge of something gray on her face. An insane part of me wants to wipe it away. “This one’s in passable condition.”
She nudges it into my arms and I smear away the caked dust on the cover with my cloak.Vila in the War of the Fae,it reads. A barbed lump forms in my throat.
“Are you sure you should be reading this?” I doubt the royal couple would be pleased to find their daughter dabbling in this corner of the realm’s history.
Aurora ignores the question. She tracks one hesitant fingertip down a line of green on the back of my hand. “Are you the last one, do you think?”
My skin ignites beneath her touch. I step away from it, unsure how to answer. It was a Vila who cursed the royal family. Robbed her of her sisters. I grip the book so hard it might cave into itself. “I have no idea.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “I don’t care that you’re Vila.”
