The Princess Curse (20 page)

“Let her dress you,” Dragos said. “It is time for dinner, and you are still covered in blood.” That rather put my dignified nod in perspective. I blushed a little.

With a simple gesture, Dragos caught everyone’s attention, and the men departed the room as quickly as they had come, leaving me alone with Thela.

I tried to give my new handmaiden a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t interested in reassurance—she just wanted to get my bloody chemise off me. Since we did not share a common language, I started holding up objects and making inquisitive noises, then repeating whatever word she said. We got through
water
,
toweling
,
dress
,
fire
,
wood
, and
candles
before she grew impatient, took the brush I’d been showing her, and dragged it through my hair.

It was going to be a long time before we held a good conversation, I decided.

My stomach growled while Thela helped me into stockings, underrobe, and outer gown, and cinched it all with a stiff belt just below my bosom. The cloth felt very fine against my skin, and I liked it. Until I tried to walk across the room and nearly tripped.

I glanced back at Thela. She shrugged and mimed picking up her skirts. I grimaced.

I paused at the bedroom door. “Um, farewell,” I said. But she was muttering to my bloody chemise in her ancient tongue and didn’t seem to notice I’d spoken. I closed the door and went to face down dinner.

Chapter 26

I
sat across from Dragos and nearly moaned as the scent of food filled my nose. My stomach rumbled to life. I dug my fingers into my thigh and kept my eyes off the food.

Mihas came in and spilled my soup across the table. Per our agreement, I shouldn’t eat anything, then. I hadn’t thought there’d be food for me yet, but I sighed anyway. I looked over at the bank of dark windows behind Dragos.

“Why are there so many windows, when it is always pitch-dark night outside?” I asked.

Dragos said, “Eventually, you will understand the answer to that question. But not until you eat.”

I pointed at the soup spilled across the table. “How can I eat that?”

“This charade is unnecessary, Reveka. Not until you choose to eat the food of this realm will you truly be the Queen of Thonos.”

“I thought I would be queen when we married.”

“We could journey to the surface world and have a priest marry us tonight, but we would not be married in the eyes of the Underworld.”

I was silent for a moment. “I see.”

“When you choose to eat, Reveka, all my lands will bow to you.”

I shivered at those words. They struck a memory in me, though of what I couldn’t say for sure. I decided to change the topic from eating. “What is the extent of your land? Where are the borders?”

“If you come to a river in any direction, do not cross it, for you will no longer be in Thonos, and that would be dangerous for you. I have good relations with Rhadamanthus and Minos in the south, but elsewhere, there are Underworld lords who would do harm to you—or kidnap you.”

“Harm me or
kidnap
me?”

“Brides are hard to come by in the Underworld,” Dragos said. “Now, you would have to travel on foot many days to reach the borders of my realm—and of course it is impossible to map the World Above to the Underworld precisely, but roughly, I rule to the edges of the influence of the Turks, of Kiev, of Hungary, and to the seas. I am the ruler of the Underworld for what remains of the old Roman people who lived in these lands once.”

So all the land beneath Sylvania, of course, but also from Bulgaria to Bessarabia—and more besides. I was astonished. I would be queen of all that, too, when I married him?

If I married him?

I stared down at a cluster of grapes on the table, thinking of how simple it would be to just pop a handful of them into my mouth. I could end this agony and be the queen of extensive lands, no matter how dark and damp.

It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? To live up to the promise I’d made when I stepped forward in the pavilion. But I
couldn’t
eat the grapes—I couldn’t make the irrevocable gesture that would bind me to this world, not when there was a World Above where Didina lived again, and I could have the dowry for breaking the curse, and—

Dragos was speaking. “We are bounded by Lethe on the south and west, and by Alethe on the north and east. As for upward, you can claim the protection of Thonos anywhere that you can travel without being seen by the yellow sun.”

“But I met you in daylight!” I said. “More than once.”

“Always in shadow.”

I frowned. “So if you go to the surface at night, does that mean your realm extends throughout the surface world?”

“Not my realm, but my power, yes. Why do you think people fear the night so?” He smiled a toothy
zmeu
smile.

He was finished with his meal and I hadn’t even made a pretense of eating mine. I rose and made some fumbling excuse, and he let me retire to my room, where I heated water from Alethe and made a thin soup of lovage from my herb pouch, with purslane for thickening, and a tisane of rose hips to drink. It was the most unconvincing meal on earth—or under it. I was reduced to eating the rest of the bread in my herb pouch to quiet my anxious stomach, which didn’t stay quiet for long.

I hoped Pa would come tonight, but I wondered: What is “tonight” in a place where time flows differently than in the World Above? How would he and Mihas manage to meet?

I slept, but not well.

When I woke, I lay in bed thinking about the Darkness that had oppressed me the day before. I had something to be thankful for, and that was the fact that I hadn’t awakened paralyzed and unable to breathe, right?

But when I thought about the Darkness, I realized I could still feel it there at the edges of the room. It kept its distance, but it was present.

I got up and rearranged my paper and writing supplies on the desk, until I grew restless. Was it even day or night right now? I couldn’t tell. I guessed, by the fact that Thela remained absent, that it was night.

I sorted through my fine clothing, but since I couldn’t figure out how to get into a bodice on my own, I simply put on a new chemise, with my old apron and skirt over it. I also forwent the appalling princess shoes and donned my practical stockings, shoes, and leg wrappings. I gave my hair a good brushing, covered it with my old cowl, and opened my door.

Zuste, the footman, slumbered in the hall outside, slumped against the wall. I chose not to disturb him. Candle in hand, I set forth to investigate my new home.

Castle Thonos was filled with hundreds of unoccupied rooms, most indistinguishable from one another. I noted the location of an indoor privy with smooth wooden seats not far from my quarters, but most of the rooms were uninteresting, being devoid of much furniture or decoration. That which was small or useful, I collected to carry back to my room.

I took note of several things I liked that were too heavy for me to carry on my own: a stone bowl here, a nice long table there. It was only when I found a mortar and pestle high on a dusty shelf, and gleefully brought them back to my desk, that I realized that I was assembling an herbary.

Once I understood my purpose, I settled down with my scads of clean paper and wrote a list of the things I would need. I already had paper and pens, a mortar and pestle. I would need flasks, bowls, pots, drying racks, dirt, an amphora or two, wine, vinegar, water, sweet oil, a handful of good knives, a funnel, string, wax, extra candles, perhaps some lard. . . . I would need a collecting basket, and I would need to make some collection trips.

I couldn’t bring myself to eat the food of Thonos and commit to being its queen. But I would have an herbary for as long as I remained in the Underworld.

Chapter 27

W
hen Mihas next knocked to ask if I needed anything, I was prepared. I’d found a basket and I was ready to go.

“Go where?” he asked.

“On a collecting expedition. My herbary is completely bare.”

He lowered his voice and ducked his head. “You’re not going to try to escape, are you?
He
can find you wherever you go. It’s unwise to run.”

I found it interesting that Mihas thought I might be considering such an action, so I played along. “But he can’t go anywhere that sunlight touches—”

“The sun
sets
,” Mihas said bluntly.

Excellent point. “I have no intention of trying to escape. I simply want to look for plants.”

“Did you ask the King?”

“Do you think I need to ask the King?” My voice was rather unpleasant—not because I was mad at Mihas; rather, because I was scared that maybe I should have asked Dragos. But then I straightened my shoulders. If I was going to be Queen, I had to carry on with my own occupations.

“Don’t make him angry,” Mihas cautioned. “It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous how? What’s Dragos going to do to me?”

“I don’t care what he does to you,” Mihas said. “I care what he does to me.”

I raised my eyebrows, amused by this display of temper.

“Fine,” he said in answer to my wordless reaction. “But
I’m
going with you.”

I raised my chin. “That was my plan all along.
You
are going to row the boat.”

In the forest of the four seasons, I lifted my eyes gratefully to the dark spring sun. It was not true sunlight, and no one could ever mistake it for such, but it was better than the dim candles of the castle—better even than the pavilion lights.

On my first journeys through the forest, I’d barely noticed the tarnish and patina on the trees, and I had certainly not seen them as signs of illness in the plants. But the farther I strayed from the princesses’ well-worn path—as Mihas diligently marked our way back with bits of ribbon I’d given him—the more I noted signs of sickness in the forest. Where trees had fallen, no seedlings took their place. Flowers withered on the stalk, fruits rotted on the vine.

I carried a large basket with me and collected everything of interest, samples from every plant I saw: shriveling tree buds and broken twigs; drying grass stems; even whole wilting flowers by the root. In the spring forest, I gathered crocus, narcissus, and hyacinth. In the summer forest, I found roses and irises. In the autumn forest, I collected the colored leaves of the trees, small white berries from a sort of wintergreen-looking plant, and even a few jeweled apples. And from the winter trees, I gathered silver twigs, mistletoe, holly berries, and snow-chilled wild grapes that shone like beads of glass.

Everything was a wonder, and every new discovery caused me delight that I couldn’t always contain. But every single item I found was imperfect, touched by either blight or age, and I didn’t understand
why
.

When we came out the other side of the forest, I felt puzzled—confused. Why was everything here dying? Why was nothing springing to new, vigorous life? You couldn’t have a forest without constant renewal—unless it was truly a forest of ungrowing things, as the place had first appeared to me. But these things grew, I could see that, and they decayed—I could see that, too. It was not an unchanging place, not a tomb, as I would have expected of a forest in the Underworld.

We wandered around the perimeter of the winter forest while I looked for the princesses’ recently abandoned path. I found it—and also found the staircase that led to their tower.

Completely destroyed.

Mihas and I stood side by side, staring. “What happened?” I asked.

“The earth shook, the first night you stayed here,” Mihas said.

“I dreamed that it did,” I whispered.

“It wasn’t a dream.”

Our mood had been far from chipper when we started out, but now we were distinctly depressed. I plunged deeper into the forest, looking for something, though I didn’t know what. A sign of hope, a sign of rebirth—something. Anything.

I didn’t find anything hopeful, but I did insist we circle back into the spring woods. Along the riverbank I discovered a patch of plants that I hadn’t seen before—some sort of reed.

Mihas evidently found plant collecting wearying beyond reason, for he settled down against a tree and commenced snoring. I shrugged and started packing asphodel lilies into my basket, alongside willow branches and violets. I was kneeling to inspect a patch of narcissus for cankers when I felt the sensation of someone’s regard on my back.

I expected to find Mihas staring at me while filling the air with fake snores, perhaps to lighten the mood. But Mihas still slept. Instead, a woman watched me from the shadows. She wore white robes in elegant draperies, and her hair in elaborate curls—but her feet were bare.

I scrambled to my feet as she stepped into the beams of the dark sun, which seemed to shine right through her. She cast no shadow. I shivered a little. Was she a dead soul? If so, she was far less substantial than Zuste and Thela.

She bent to touch a narcissus plant, and the drooping flower pulled itself upright. The slightly withered petals became smooth and vital once more, but the woman seemed, if anything,
more
transparent. “You’re the new bride,” she said, straightening to gaze at me with dark-eyed interest.

I stared at her. “I’m Reveka,” I said.

She glanced around, from the forest floor to the treetops. “You have much to do to renew Thonos, you and the new King.”

“
New
King? Hasn’t Dragos been ruling here for, well, at least six years?”

She looked upward, as though calculating. “It’s been fourteen summers, in fact, since he struck the bargain and came to the dark-walled world.”

“Fourteen?”
At my cry, Mihas jerked awake and stumbled upright. The woman waved her hand and he slumped down, banging his head on the tree trunk, and fell asleep once more. Or he was knocked unconscious. I couldn’t say which.

I took a step backward, suddenly afraid. But the woman smiled.

“There is no reason to fear me, not you, nor anyone. Some, fearing death, once called me Dread, but I no more command death than any mortal does anymore.” She bent to touch another narcissus. “Now, life, of course . . .” The brown petals of the flower turned white and glistened pale silver in the light. Again, she was a shade sheerer than before.