Gathering Frost (Once Upon A Curse Book 1) (22 page)

I hardly recognize myself as I look in the mirror.

The queen has pinned my hair elegantly away from my face, folding and sculpting it into a waterfall cascading down my back. The makeup I have ignored for the better part of a week glistens in the candlelight. Black liquid lines my eyes, gold highlights glitter my lids, soft rouge sparkles along my cheekbones, and ruby red paints my lips. A maid has helped button the pearls stretching down my spine, cinching the red folds of my dress tightly around my waist.

I look like a princess.

I look like her.

There is one difference though. I smirk as my hand travels to my thigh, lightly patting the gun I've strapped across my muscle. The ceremony is tonight. Queen Deirdre still has not told me what it entails, what I must do. All I know is that I am to meet her in the west tower at sunset.

The servant has been gone for an hour, giving me time to steel my nerves, to contemplate every terrible thing the queen has done, to ready myself to take her life and then my own. My heart flutters painfully, fighting against my mind, telling me there might be another way. Hopeful.

I turn from the mirror, squashing that desire, ignoring it. Pink streaks have just appeared outside my window, stretching lightly across the sky, shadowing the blue, turning it darker. Under any other circumstances, the scene would be beautiful, a real life painting I might admire. But tonight, it is the last pieces of sand dropping through the hourglass, telling me that time has run out. 

Just as the thought enters my mind, a knock sounds lightly on my door. With one deep breath, I expel my tension, bringing a warm excited smile to my lips.

"Good evening, my lady," the servant says, bowing deeply as I open the door.

"Good evening," I reply, voice light.

Without another word exchanged, he begins to walk down the halls and I follow. After a few nights in the castle, I am used to the routine. We do not speak—we're not supposed to. I tried at first, but quickly realized how uncomfortable the man became, face red, hands squirming, lips drawn thin.

Tonight, I enjoy the silence, letting my thoughts wander to Asher, to my mother, to the rebels. Everyone I will help with my sacrifice. The images form a warm bubble in my chest, fighting the fear knotting my stomach, helping control it.

The bubble bursts as shouts flicker down the staircase looming overhead. I begin to climb, step after step, circling up the steep tower. My feet wish to run, but I must stay calm, I must keep pace with the servant. The higher we climb, the clearer the voice becomes.

I close my eyes tight, biting my inner cheeks to keep from whimpering.

Asher.

"Mother!" His voice echoes in the space around me, bouncing off old stone. "Mother, what are you doing? Don't do this!"

I try to tune him out, to pretend that I don't care, to keep up my front. But with each new outburst, my hands tremble. For some reason, I didn't think he'd be here. I hoped we could do the spell without him. I thought maybe he wouldn't need to see me as a monster, as a killer.

I blink rapidly, clearing my eyes as we reach the landing and step into the small room. The walls are lined with books, the only ones I've seen in the castle. Curtains are draped all around, blocking out the walls, removing any windows except for the singular skylight overhead. Through the break in the stone, I see a deep purple sky and the barest outline of a luminescent moon. Full, completely round.

In the center of the room, Asher wrestles with the commander as he is strapped into a chair, chained there. He meets my stare. I try to look away, to remain unaffected by his presence, but I don't miss the hint of failure in his eyes. He really thought he could break free, that he might stop me from completing my plan.

I tear my eyes away.

"Jade, listen to me," Asher shouts, "there's another way. I found another way."

Pain pricks my heart but I refuse to give in, to listen. Asher would say anything to stop me, anything, but his protests will only make all of this harder. I tune him out as my gaze finds the woman standing a few feet behind him, dressed almost the same as me except for the metal crown resting on her head.

"Gag him," she orders and Asher's shouts muffle, drowning in his throat because they cannot penetrate the cloth shoved into his mouth. The queen pays no attention, walking gracefully around him, skirt sashaying toward me as she takes my hand.

"Jade," she says, voice warm, affectionate.

"Mother." I squeeze her fingers, relieved when my voice comes out completely smooth, almost natural. Asher's eyes go wide with shock. I fight not to meet his questioning glance. "I've been eagerly waiting for this day to come."

"And it's finally here, after what feels like a lifetime."

You have no idea, I want to say, to sneer. But my lips remain in a tight smile. I nod my head in Asher's direction, nose upturned. "Does he have to be here?"

The queen pats my hands, as though I am her pet. "I'm afraid yes, for the ceremony. But afterward I will be done with my son, and you may do with him what you may."

"Good," I say, infusing as much disdain as I can into my voice. But in reality, my chest feels light, and I breathe easily for the first time in hours. The ceremony will not kill him and that is all I needed to hear to carry on. 

"Just sit down." The queen leads me to the empty chair resting opposite Asher. I carefully spread my dress, hoping to give an air of actually caring that it does not wrinkle as I ease down. Forced to look at him, I do not miss the pleading waves Asher sends my way. He is shaking his head, no longer at his mother, but at me. The tendons in his neck pull taught against his restraints, bulging as he tries to find the air to speak, to fill his voice. The words come out dull, muted, unclear.

For once, I'm glad he has been quieted.

I look over his shoulder at the commander as he tightens Asher's binds and steps away, back to his queen. We have not spoken since I left his house, and I doubt he will say anything now. What will he do when I kill the queen? When I become the one with the power? Will he be the one who kills me, or will the transfer be so quick that I will gain his instant loyalty?

I'm not sure I like either option, so I look away, at the floor in front of my toes, gold slippers barely visible under my skirt. Asher's eyes are like lasers on my skin, burning so that it almost feels as though he sees past the clothes to my skin below. I wonder if he thinks I look beautiful, or if I look like a clone of the woman he has hated and loved for his entire life.

"I have not told you very much about the ceremony," the queen says, walking to the shelves on the wall and pulling a small pouch free. "But I will explain a little bit now. Under the light of the full moon, I will mix your blood with my son's and through that bond, the magic will transfer, sinking under your skin until it bleeds free of his. There is nothing you need to do except sit and remain calm while I work."

My stomach flips, rocketing into my throat before tumbling back down. I nod, unable to find words.

Her cold fingers find my skin, brushing over my forehead, then my bare shoulder, trying to soothe. "It will all be over soon," she whispers.

Yes.

It will.

Resting the pouch on a small table, the queen removes a sharp needle and a vial of silvery powder. I swallow.

"Your hand," she asks, and I offer it willingly. I do not flinch as the metal pierces my skin, bringing a line of ruby red blood to the surface. As it continues to run, the queen sprinkles a small dusting of the powder overtop and the blood on my hand thickens, turning to a paste, no longer about to drip off of my palm.

"Asher," she says, looking at him as though he were vermin. But Asher shakes his head, mumbling through the gag, muscles clenching to disobey. The commander steps forward, grasping his forearm and flipping it over. With his biceps bound to the back of the chair, Asher has no chance to stop him, so he watches, protests growing louder as the needle punctures his skin and the powder solidifies his blood.

Knowing what I must do without being told, I instinctually reach forward, resting my palm over his, connecting the wounds. Our blood bonds so our fingers are glued together, stuck. There is no turning back now. I don't think there ever was.

Asher squeezes my hand tight, trying to get me to look at him, to listen, to stop. But my head is clear. I welcome the ending to my story. I'm ready.

The commander steps back and the queen circles us, dropping the powder in a ring around our chairs as she goes. In the moonlight, it glows, a faint luminescence that rises from the floor, sparkling.

The queen begins to murmur words I can't quite hear, too soft to understand, but the radiance around us grows, rising higher, pulsing brighter. The light blinds my eyes, encasing Asher and me, surrounding us and blocking out the room, the castle, the village below, as though the moon has fallen free of the sky and swallowed us inside of it.

I see nothing except him, eyes just like the sky we left behind. The corners are crinkled, furious and sad at the same time.

Asher.

The word haunts my lips, but I do not speak it just in case the queen can still hear. Just in case our solitude is an illusion, another magic spell meant to trick us. My thumb traces the curve of his palm, gently brushing his skin, doing what my lips cannot. His gaze softens.

The bond between our palms tightens, pulled by an invisible force that stretches up my arm, straining underneath my muscles, spreading ever further. The power tugs on my heart, yanking, using the beat to pulse through the rest of my body. Down to the tops of my toes, the magnet stretches, suctioning until my whole body is alert, on edge, taut. The veins in my limbs go empty as my blood is sucked away and I begin to grow cold.

I go blind.

My heart stops beating.

My fingers turn numb.

My breath dissolves in my lungs.

I can no longer feel Asher's warmth, his touch. I am floating in the emptiness.

Then all at once my eyes go wide, and I am thrown back against my chair as heat fills my skin, runs up my arm and into my heart, pumping, spreading, filling my empty corpse and bringing life back to my body. Blood surges up my arm, foreign and familiar, laced with a fire I have never felt before. I gulp in a breath, reborn.

The force of the transfer presses against my body, tugging Asher and me apart. The chair beneath me moves, an inch, and then two, then three. I am bent in half, hand still connected to Asher, but my waist is flying in the opposite direction so that I might split down the middle at any second.

I scream as pain rips my shoulder. My eyes go white. I'm worried my arm is gone, lost, but as I blink clear, I realize I am still intact. Barely. The tendons in my bicep start to tear. The nerves blaze. Tears spring to my eyes.

And then we snap.

My back slams into a bookcase as I am hurled across the room and then drop to the floor. Eyes snapping up, I find Asher. His chair is broken in bits around him, and the chains binding him have loosened. But he does not move, does not fight to free his limbs.

Asher is still.

Immobile.

Eyes closed. I am not even sure if he is breathing.

I yearn to slink across the room, to run to him, but a second awareness pulls at my mind, distracting me, blossoming and pushing all other thoughts aside. A tether springs to life in my chest, a little string growing stronger by the second. I follow the invisible line. My eyes do not need to see the connection to know where it leads. I sense it, hovering before me, stretching across the small room, ending not with Asher, but with the queen.

An aura surrounds her body, bright, like the glow that surrounded Asher and me.

The magic.

I can see it. Swirls of sparkles pulsing around her body, waves stretching from her skin and crashing against me, connecting us.

The ceremony worked.

I'm the heir.

I know it as well as I know my own name.

Jade.

Heir.

Two become one as the magic crawls inside of me, grounding itself, finally home. The cut on my hand has healed, sealed shut in the shape of a circle, a wheel spinning beneath my skin. Even that redness begins to fade as the magic swells, leaving no sign that nature has been altered.