Page 76 of The Dark Prince
Aella stood stock-still, white as a ghost.
“What?” I shouted back. “It’s not pretty, is it? Is this what you were going to do to Tyr? Do you even know where to stab? Because Tyr taught me! He knew that one day—”
I broke off at the realization that Tyr had carried this burden with him most of his life, and it hadn’t even been his burden.
“I just … You just stab them and they bleed and die. How hard is it?” she sneered back, but with no venom.
Nausea welled in my stomach. Aella would have given him a slow, clumsy, and tortuous death. I opened my mouth to tell her just that, then closed it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that. The anguish in her face was already palpable.
I bent down near a fallen soldier who’d likely died early enough that it saved him from the change. “Here.” I picked up a dagger from his belt and slid it across the ground to her, “hold it like so, and aim for the spot just above the junction where the front left leg meets the body. That’s where the heart is.”
Aella stared at the dagger.
“So murdering the man you love is fine, but a feral beast isn’t?” I yelled, then stalked into the village without her.
The king was being shoved into the same inn I’d had soup in just days before. I sent up a silent prayer for Rolf and Rose, praying they were safe.
It was a delicate dance to step around the bodies and stick to the shadows. Most of the beasts had made off for the forest, but a few were so engrossed in eating their victims that they didn’t notice me. The king was gone.
It didn’t feel right leaving those dead men to such a fate, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I could fight off every single beast and live. And I needed to live because only I had to tell Tyr the truth. He had to know, and I wanted to be the one to tell him. Not Aella, and not his lousy king of a father.
I burst in through the inn door, only to have six swords pointed at my chest. Rolf lay unconscious, his figure propped up against his own bar. A wound on his forehead bled sluggishly. The king turned from his place at the bar, saluting me with a tankard of ale.
“Ah, there she is. The wife of the beast.” He snorted and took another long draught. “Maybe if we drag you through the forest, the king beast will show up. He ran away in fright when I confronted him.”
His men all took one step toward me.
I smirked, boldly sheathing my dagger back onto my thigh. “We both know that title is in error, your highness. The king of beasts himself sits before me.”
His ruddy face turned violent, his beady eyes narrowed in rage. “You dare—”
“You dare blame your bastard son for a curse laid on you by the wife you tossed aside,” I countered, my voice high and clear. I gazed at the guards left with a nonchalant air. “These must all be new men who haven’t served you long. Otherwise, they’d be shifting as well.”
I steered clear of Rolf and stepped behind the bar, taking another tankard and filling it up with ale. I leaned over the bar across from the king, downing the contents in one go. It burned going down my throat, but I relished the feeling. I slammed the tankard on the bar.
The king sneered at me. “A witch cast the curse. You dare blame the late queen—”
“When Tyr was born, the queen cursed you for your infidelity through that witch,” I cut him off. “But it doesn’t affect you; that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? It only affected everyone bound and loyal to you—those you loved.”
The tankard clattered from the king’s hands and clanked noisily to the ground. The guards stared at us, enraptured by my story.
“Preposterous,” he sniffed. “If my wife set any curse, it was because of her jealousy of the boy—she never could give me a son. Her own black magick rebounded on her and killed her, anyway. I tried to save her with baptism.”
He closed his eyes, for a moment repentant. When he opened them, there was only steel in his gaze.
I sneered at him. “The witch told me the curse only ended with the death of its subject, or everything around it.” I glared at the king. “Are you really that selfish? You will watch your entire kingdom burn around you until there’s nothing left but ashes? Have you no sense of duty?”
I thought of Tyr, who was so full of duty he routinely choked on it.
The king shook with rage. “Arrest her.”
Not a single guard moved.
I seized the moment. “That was the real shame of it all, wasn’t it?” I laughed humorlessly. The door to the pub opened and closed, but I didn’t pay it any mind.
“The queen tried to do everything you asked—even convert. But that’s what made the curse so tragic. You loved her, however twisted, so eventually it overtook her and she fell victim to it, just like everyone else. She knew it was coming and drank poison before she changed to spare you. Not that you deserve it, since you seem to have no hesitation to inflict yourself on everyone around you.”
I wasn’t entirely sure of that part, but it made perfect sense. If I knew I was about to turn into a beast and kill everyone I knew, I’d happily drink poison first.
