The Princess Curse (17 page)

Long before we reached the other shore, I could make out the silhouette of Lord Dragos.

“Two nights in a row he’s been waiting,” Lacrimora murmured.

“You’ve been late both nights,” Iosif said.

I expected Lord Dragos to speak, to make some sardonic comment as he had the night before about the iron shoes, to pluck one of the princesses from her boat and carry her. But he just waited while the princesses disembarked, then offered his arm to Nadia on the march to the pavilion.

Tonight, there was an empty chair pulled up to the heaping table of food, and instead of sitting down at the head of the table, Lord Dragos went to stand behind the chair. The princesses wore puzzled expressions as they watched him pile a golden plate high with grapes and cakes and place it before the empty seat. The grapes on the plate glowed red like blisters filled with blood.

The princesses sat. Mihas was there, attending Princess Viorica. Everyone watched Dragos; no one paid any attention to the banquet.

“Before we begin our evening . . .” Dragos said, and his long, flexible fingers groped the air over the empty chair for a long moment, then made a plucking motion. Pa appeared, gagged and tied to the chair. In Lord Dragos’s fist was my first fern cap, which he flung disdainfully onto the table.

I cried out then, but so did half the princesses, and the sound of my voice was masked. The liveried men appeared unmoved, except for Mihas, whose jaw dropped open—predictably.

“That’s Konstantin, the gardener!” Princess Stefania said.

“Little Reveka’s father!” Rada added.

Lord Dragos scrutinized the princesses. “And the lover of one of you, I surmise,” he said.

“Hardly,” Tereza sniffed. “He’s the gardener. Oh, I’ll grant you, he’s quite swift at digging a ditch, but that sort of thing doesn’t really catch my eye.”

“He’s quite well-looking, I thought,” Lord Dragos said. “You could do worse.” He gestured at himself.

“I claim him,” Lacrimora croaked into the silence that followed.

“I didn’t ask if you claimed him,” Lord Dragos said. “Those rules don’t apply to him. This gardener entered my dominion by some back way. He has a cap of invisibility. He swam my lake, and I found him inside my pavilion. He did not come following you, so your protection cannot apply.

“Further, he has intruded on this land once before. Last night, he watched you all dance. You, sir,” he said to Pa, “are a trespasser.”

I almost cried out that this was untrue! I was the one who had visited the night before! The only thing that stopped me was the memory of Prince Frumos at the well, saying that he had tracked a visitor from his lands to Castle Sylvian last night. My mouth froze in an O of horror.

The pieces clicked into place: the clasp, the names, the strange comments. Prince Frumos, the fabled champion of young maidens, the storied enemy of the
zmeu
, actually a
zmeu
himself? It was a horrible joke.

Just the sort of joke that a demon might enjoy,
I thought.

“Kill him if you want,” Tereza said. “You’re right—none of us has anything to do with his being here. Only wait until we’ve returned to the surface for the night. I’m afraid you won’t get very good dancing from the weaker-stomached girls if you drink his blood in front of us.”

“He’s worthy of your service!” Lacrimora interrupted. She sat limply in her chair, the color drained from her face. She shook her head slightly, over and over. I don’t know that she was even aware of the motion.

I glanced at Pa, who stared at Lacrimora. Also shaking his head. Equally despairing.

It hit me like a thunderbolt. A very, very, very big, awful, stupid thunderbolt, the kind that makes a person extremely angry.

When had my father fallen in love with Lacrimora?

And she with him?

Lord Dragos had been watching the princesses, absorbing all their reactions. Now he extended one extremely long, sharp claw, as strong and sturdy as a dagger, and slowly moved it toward Pa’s throat. I was about to cry out—

“I remind you of Tereza’s warning, my lord,” Lacrimora croaked. “We won’t be much for dancing if he dies in front of us.”

Lord Dragos checked his motion. I wished—oh, how I wished—that I could read the
zmeu
’s expression. I tried to impose my memory of Prince Frumos’s lean face over the dragon’s toothy jaws, but it was impossible. Not even the eyes were alike. Surely if Prince Frumos and Lord Dragos were one, their eyes would be the same?

“There is one way you could forestall his death,” Lord Dragos pointed out.

Lacrimora bit her lip. “Would you—would you let him go if I married you?”

Uproar followed this. Pa yelled angry, misshapen words against his gag, and Otilia leaped from her chair and clapped a hand over Lacrimora’s mouth. The rest of the princesses all spoke at once. Even the footmen looked surprised. I used the uproar as cover to sneak over to Pa, pulling my herb knife as I went, intending to cut his bonds and give him a fighting chance against the
zmeu
.

“She don’t mean it, Lord Dragos,” Princess Rada hollered, her tavern wench’s screech cutting across the commotion.

“Absolutely, she means it!” Princess Maricara shouted back.

“You would say that, you highborn snot! You’ve been trying to make us pay for your foolishness for six years!”

It was as if they knew I needed the distraction. I would have thought it was all on purpose, except that Otilia’s struggles with Lacrimora looked very real. Then Rada leaned over and punched Maricara in the nose. As blood poured across Prince Vasile’s eldest daughter’s lips, I spoke softly into my father’s ear—“It’s me, Pa”—and sliced through the bonds at his wrists.

“No, Reveka!” Pa’s voice was low and urgent, pitched well under the noise of the commotion around us. Only, it came out “Doh, Bubefa!” through his gag. I thought about swatting his head for saying my name—but I had already made the fatal error. Pa’s bonds fell to the floor. And there was no hiding that.

“Interesting,” Lord Dragos said, and stared right at me. “It appears that I have a second visitor.” And he reached over and plucked the invisibility cap off my head.

The fighting and arguing stopped as soon as I appeared.

It must have been an interesting tableau, me poised over my father with a knife, Lord Dragos holding a cap above my head.

I curtsied to the
zmeu
, suddenly sure of myself, suddenly certain of what I had to do then, to save us all.

“Lord Dragos,” I said. “You may let everyone else go free. I will marry you.”

Chapter 22

“I
accept your proposal,” Lord Dragos said, and the finality of his words was like a thunderclap.

The strangest details revealed themselves to me in that moment, as if the time between heartbeats had grown to encompass days of wakefulness. I’d not untied Pa’s feet, which was probably the only thing that kept him from imprudently launching himself at the
zmeu
, though he struggled to move. Lacrimora finally broke free from Otilia and climbed to her feet. Princess Maricara held her streaming nose, while Tereza and Viorica kept Princess Rada from inflicting further damage. Mihas’s expression veered between anguish and puzzlement.

Lord Dragos put an oddly gentle hand on Pa’s chest to keep him from trying to untie the rest of his bonds. I looked down to see the first invisibility cap lying on the table.

I scooped the cap into my herb pouch, knowing that no one saw me do it.

Then my pulse sped up and time resumed its normal pace, and all was chaos and confusion again.

“You are released from your oaths,” Dragos said to the princesses. “You’re free. Go. Now!”

“The—the men—” Princess Otilia said.

“Take them,” Dragos said. “Take all of them. You’ll have to waken them. They’re dull as ditchwater right now.” He looked at me. “Come to me, Reveka.”

A sudden sob of fright welled up within me, but I choked it back. I would not go to this new life weeping. Nor would I let Pa’s last memory of me be of a terrified, crying girl. I lifted my chin with bravery I did not feel, blinked through the tears, and smiled at Pa as I took a step toward the
zmeu
.

Lord Dragos held out a long-fingered hand, and somehow, I forced myself to grasp it. He pulled me into an embrace so warm that I felt as if the fires of a glassblower’s furnace had engulfed me. I heard the snap of his wings catching the air, and with his arms tight around me, he lifted me upward and away. We swooped from the pavilion and into the darkness, leaving behind the cries of the princesses and my father.

My stomach plummeted and rose, then completely flipped, and I almost lost its contents all over the
zmeu
’s chest.
Don’t,
I ordered myself.
Just don’t feel this, and you’ll be fine.
This tactic worked well enough to keep my innards in.

Lord Dragos’s breath blew heavily in my ear, and his arms were too tight around me. His wings stroked steadily, and I couldn’t decide if I wished I could see or if I was glad for the darkness. But wait—I
could
see. The glow of the pavilion had fallen behind us, but I could distinguish over the
zmeu
’s shoulder, between his wings, the dazzling lights on the water. Twelve shadows marred the perfection of the pavilion’s reflection: the boats were crossing the lake.

They were leaving. Just like they were supposed to.

“Go,” I breathed, a sort of prayer to Lacrimora. I imagined her entering the western tower and waking the sleepers, now that the curse was broken. Didina, awake! Her mother, saved! I thought of Mistress Adina’s face wreathed in joyous smile wrinkles, and I smiled just a little, too.

Then I wondered if Pa was in one of the boats or not.

My smile faded, and I found I was clenching my fists.
He’d better be.

We landed in darkness, in a place that smelled of minerals and water and clay. “We’re here,” Dragos said, releasing me but for a guiding hand on my shoulder as we moved forward. “I’m afraid that since I’ve just let all of my servants go, there is no one to light our way. But I have a knack for darkness.” He spoke wryly.

“Why did you tell me your name was Frumos?” I asked.

His step faltered and he sucked in a breath, but then he was pushing me forward again. “As you yourself pointed out, I never said it was my name,” he said, his voice grown considerably softer. “So. You knew when you agreed to marry me?”

“Not much before that, but yes.”

He was silent a long moment and then spoke harshly: “If you were hoping that the other is my true form and this one the facade, then you made a poor decision.”

I was glad that darkness hid my face. It wasn’t that I’d thought Frumos was the true form and Dragos the false one; but I’d hoped that there was enough truth in Frumos to make Dragos bearable.

I breathed deep and tried to summon bravery. “Where are we going?” I asked, instead of the fourteen thousand other questions that occurred to me.

“To find candles. This place is too dark for your eyes yet.” He guided me on, and I walked trustingly, not hesitating as my feet continued to pat along on flagstones. I supposed that if he really wanted to run me into an oubliette, he would, and it didn’t matter much if I toed my way into it or walked confidently over the edge.

“So you’re the . . .” I paused, uncertain of how to phrase my question. “What exactly have I betrothed myself to?”

“‘What?’” he asked flatly.

I made an impatient gesture, hoping he could see it. “You’re a lord. Of. A really dark realm.”

“It
is
the Underworld. Southeast of us is Elysium; southwest, Tartarus. This is Thonos, which is the name of the realm, the name of this mountain, and the name of my castle. And when you are its Queen, I will be your King.”

Not merely a lord, but a king? “If you had told the princesses that one of them could become a queen, Maricara would have married you on the first day you asked,” I said. “Even if this is Hell.” I shivered. “Is this Hell?”

“No, Hell is a lake of fire,” he said. “This is but a region of the Underworld, and a haven and a waypoint for souls that die. Some go to Hell from here. Some go to Heaven. And some stay. Ah! Here we are.”

He took his hand off my shoulder, and for one too-long moment, I was alone in darkness. Too alone. Where was up? Where was down? Back? Forth? The darkness seemed to press in on me, curling around my ribs, constricting my breath.

A hissing pop and a flare of light came from my left. I turned to watch a thin stream of fire leak from Dragos’s mouth and ignite a series of candles. The warm scent of melting beeswax filled the air.

He placed candles all around a wide stone hall, which was sparsely furnished with a long dining table to one side and a few armchairs arranged before an empty fireplace at the other end.

The light grew as Lord Dragos lit more candles. I stared at Lord Dragos’s hands, their thick black claws, his incarnadine skin. I shuddered and looked around for somewhere to hide. Under the table was bad. Under the table he could reach me easily.

But there wasn’t anywhere else to hide from him and his demon hands and face.

“That’s enough light,” I croaked.

He turned to me. I looked at him. A curl of smoke escaped one of his nostrils.

“Please?” I asked. “Please. I won’t ask again. Probably I won’t. No promises. A promise like that would be a lie. But could you be Frumos for a bit?”

I wished I could read his expression. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t have that sort of power over my form,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

I took a breath, involuntarily shuddering. “There are at least a dozen stories of maidens who married hidden monsters and never knew it. I envy them.”

“Would you rather live such a lie?”

I had to look away. “I’d rather the lie if we are to be married,” I said to the flagstones.

Silence. I dared not look at him until I heard him snort. “You’re a bit young for marriage, Reveka, aren’t you?”

I should have been relieved at this indication that I might not be marrying him immediately. Instead, I was instantly irate. “But girls my age marry all the time. Among the nobles, anyway. Peasants and guildsmen, sensibly, marry later.”