Through a Tangled Wood

  * * *

  Someone stronger would have fought. Someone braver—or, Lucia told herself in consolation, someone whose bravery ran to foolishness—would have screamed defiance all the way to the palace. Someone with the training she craved, who had at least gotten the chance to study more than a single elementary book of spells, would have escaped the second they stepped out the door. But Lucia was weak and afraid and untrained, so she followed numbly, unresisting as a doll, as the soldiers escorted her through the palace gates. As a fluttering woman draped her in a gown with too many frills and caked her face with too much paint. As a silent servant led her into the throne room.

  The servant motioned her to her knees as she approached the gold-lined throne, where the king sat in a robe more elaborate than the ridiculous gown the woman had stuffed her into. She knelt and fixed her eyes on the carpet. It should have been Marisela kneeling here. How many times, as they kneaded dough side by side, had Marisela dreamed aloud about the day she would meet the king and the handsome Prince Rikkan? Marisela would have fainted in sheer delight before she had taken two steps into the palace. But all Lucia could feel was numbness giving way to twinned rage and fear. How long had it taken her parents to make their choice—to offer their difficult daughter, their prickly solitary single-minded daughter, in place of the pliable flirt with the harmless dreams every girl in the village shared?

  The king’s jovial voice boomed up from his belly. “Don’t be shy. Look at me. Show me your beautiful face.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, she looked up, tilting her painted face toward his beady eyes.

  “I sent my soldiers for the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, and clearly they have found her.” His fat cheeks swelled as he smiled too broadly. “Your beauty is, without a doubt, the jewel of the kingdom.”

  She tried to return his smile. She bit her lip to keep from answering—to keep from saying, You obviously haven’t met my sister Marisela, or asking, But what am I doing here?

  The king’s voice lowered the tiniest bit, a soft boom replacing a large one. “What I’m about to tell you is something only my closest advisers and most trusted soldiers know. I have sentenced men to punishments unsuitable for a lady like you to hear of for daring to breathe a word of it outside the palace.” His smile faded as sadness creased his face. “You may have heard that Prince Rikkan is unwell, that for the past year he has been confined to his bed. In fact, an enemy of the crown has laid a horrible curse on my son, twisting him—body and mind—into a monstrous creature, vicious and inhuman.”

  A gasp escaped Lucia despite herself. Like everyone else in the kingdom, she had heard of the prince’s illness. Marisela had cried for days when the news had reached their village, while others had worried over the implications of potentially losing the heir to the throne. No one had suspected the story was merely a cover for something much worse.

  Sympathy pushed aside her resentment. Surely even the betrayal she had faced couldn’t compare to the fate the prince had met. But it still didn’t answer her question—why had the king brought her here? He couldn’t have sent his soldiers out to abduct the most beautiful girl in the kingdom simply so he could confide his grief to her.

  “I have spoken with the Elders of Qurilan Mari,” the king continued. “They could do nothing for him, even after I made clear to them the consequences of failure. The curse, they said, was cast by a mage of immense power, one whose abilities eclipsed even their own. But they were able to give me one small bit of hope.” He leaned in closer, but didn’t lower his voice. “They were able to determine that the prince’s affliction follows the pattern of the terrible curses from long ago, the spells that have not been seen since before the first Elders stamped out such magic from the land. And just as in the ancient stories, the curse has one weakness—it can be broken by a kiss from one who stirs the prince’s heart.”

  He paused and eyed Lucia expectantly, as if expecting her to clasp her hands and swoon.

  A burst of hysterical laughter nearly escaped Lucia’s lips. He had brought her here for this? To stir the prince’s heart? When the village boys passed her by unseeing on their way to trail after Marisela like a litter of lost puppies? When she sent away, without exception, those few whose eyes did rest on her, because they had the wits of the same? He might as well have brought her here to rule the kingdom—she would have as much success with one as with the other.

  While she tried to work out how to say all this in words that wouldn’t offend a king, he continued. “I only have to look at you to see that you will be the one to win my son’s heart. You will free him from this curse, and in return, you will become his future queen.” He leaned in even closer, balancing precariously on the edge of his throne—watching, perhaps, for the swooning. “You will live your life in luxury, with servants to attend your every need and all the fine gowns your heart could desire. You will be the envy of every girl in the kingdom!”

  The envy of her sister, for certain. She bit back another mad bark of laughter. Marisela would no longer be so smug once she learned what being the favored daughter had cost her.

  “I am grateful for this opportunity,” Lucia said carefully. “But it would be better for both of us, I think, if you were to give this task to someone more suited for it. Someone whose skills run to seduction and whose tastes run to fine gowns.”

  The king waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I understand your fear. The thought of facing the mindless creature the prince has become, armed with nothing more than your beauty and the power of your love, must be almost more than your gentle heart can take. But surely a girl as lovely as yourself must have learned that your feminine charms are the most powerful weapon of all.”

  Marisela would have understood his words, and rushed to do his bidding. Marisela knew how to use beauty as a weapon. Lucia… Lucia could make the air stir on a still day, or light a candle without flame. What use those skills would be in winning someone’s heart, she couldn’t hope to guess. Certainly none of the village boys had found her odd interests appealing.

  “But if your nerve fails, you need only remember this: You were not the first to be brought here… although you are certainly the loveliest.” He cast his jolly smile on her again, this time with too many teeth. “The others could tell you, were they… available to do so, that the price of failure is such that any rejection or injury you may face at the hands of the prince would be preferable.”

  A chill spread through Lucia’s body.

  The king’s smile grew still broader. Something hard glinted in his crinkled eyes. “You understand, yes?”

  But I can’t do what you’re asking, she wanted to protest. I don’t know how.

  The king kept smiling.

  Lucia bobbed her head. “I understand.”

  “Wonderful.” The king clapped his hands. “In that case, I see no reason to delay.” He motioned to the servant who had brought Lucia here. “Take her to the prince’s chambers.”