There was a figure at the foot of his bed.
Rumbold could not make out the features of the humansized shape, nor did he want to. He piled more kindling on top of the logs, urging the hungry flames higher and brighter, as if by sheer force of will they could become the sun and sweep the room clear of shadows. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his head in his hands, unwilling to look upon his unholy visitor.
The prince rocked back and forth, the heat of the fire harsh at his side and on his back. He imagined the light of the flames surrounding him, protecting him. If desire was enough to make something true, he would be fine.
***
Rumbold awoke on frozen stone to the hollow chirping of a bird with no tongue and to the vague memory of a hero’s sickbed long ago.
Breathe.
He took a slow, deep, more-aching-than-painful breath and attempted to harvest his memories one at a time. The desperate cold beneath him was from the unforgiving flagstones of the hearth; the chirping resolved itself into the stirring of a silver spoon in a porcelain bowl. There was the subtle wheeze of a dying fire and the courteous shuffle of Rollins’s shoes against the hard floor. The rest of the world was stone, soot, and blessed silence. There were no whispers in the daylight.
He dared not ask Rollins about the whispers in the darkness. There were surely enough questions as to the fragility of his mental state. He needed to appear sane, hale, and whole again.
He braved one open eyelid.
There was definitely some work to be done on behalf of his image of perfect health.
Much to Rollins’s credit, upon discovering his charge sprawled uncomfortably before the fire, lamentably missing one sock, his skin and bedclothes streaked with ash, the manservant had greeted him with a simple “Good morning, sire” and continued bustling about the steaming breakfast tray. When Rumbold finally worked himself into a sitting position, Rollins extended a hand. He helped the prince off the floor and into a chair at the small table. The velvet cushion felt like a cloud beneath stiff muscles and aching bones.
“The fetes have been announced, as you requested, sire, and the local moneylenders are being informed of your wishes even now.”
Reluctant to speak, Rumbold nodded his thanks. Before him were a large pitcher of water, a bowl of brown broth that smelled like fresh stew, and a small glass of goat’s milk. Postenchantment day one: no solid foods. Cook had remembered. The sight made him starving and sick at the same time.
There was a slight pressure on his shoulder. “Take your time, sire,” said Rollins. “I will prepare a bath.”
Rumbold covered Rollins’s hand with his own. “Meh...” Damnable words. “Ma faaathr.”
He felt the muscles in Rollins’s hand tense. “Your father bids you welcome on your most fortunate return. He will make time to receive you in his chambers tomorrow evening.” It was an emotionless recitation, meaning the declaration had been emotionless as well.
And there it was. Enchanted into some vile beast, missing for months, unexpectedly reappearing long before his anticipated return, and Rumbold was still not worthy enough for an unscheduled audience with his esteemed father. It was almost reassuring that so little had changed.
Rumbold waited until Rollins had slipped into the other room before lifting the heavy spoon with clumsy fingers. Sunlight winked at him from a jewel in the spoon’s gilt handle, and the prince wondered at the uselessness of decorating a utensil. His focus shifted to the room, its walls draped in sumptuous linens and spotted with solemn-faced portraits in thick frames. Somehow, he had to find a way to reembrace this fanciful life of waste and excess. He must remember that he was a prince. A prince covered in cinders. A prince her family would have nothing to do with.
Love and rage burned inside his chest, crawled under his skin. They begged for his voice, his tears, his fury. He quickly gulped down the contents of the spoon. The liquid scalded the back of his raw throat. His stomach rebelled. Spices filled his nostrils and made his eyes water, but he refused to choke.
Boiled in oil and tossed on ice.
Swallow.
Breathe.
Open mouth. Air in. Air out.
Everything else doesn’t matter.
... and she loved him with all her heart.
He would not cry. Strong men did not cry. He would exact what meager power he had and force his body to obey him. He would rule himself if nothing else. He remembered Jack: stalwart, brave, stubborn. Rumbold could do this. When the pain dissipated, he swallowed one more excruciating mouthful of soup.
Coming back was part of the price.
***
Rumbold realized, as he lingered in the tepid bathwater, that many of his memories were missing. He could remember how to walk and talk, but he could not remember what he had done with the days of his Life Before. He could see himself as a child but not a man. The year immediately before his transformation was an empty page to him. The more he sought the memories, the more quickly they slipped away. He did not chase them. He trusted that in time, they would all come back to him. He hated time.
Odd flashes hinted at a wealth of idle lassitude but nothing more, nothing that explained the monster rumbling within him. He should have been resting his weary body, taking this time to refresh and renew before he presented himself to the world, and to Sunday. But the crazed energy inside him would not accept that. It needed action. Now.
Since he could not remember his own life, Rumbold remembered Jack’s instead. Young, healthy, and fit, even Jack had taken more than a few days to recover. Yes, Jack had endured his enchantment for much longer, but he had also been magicked into an animal of sound and speed and stamina. For a year he had been lead dog in the Royal Hunt; no fox had remained hidden long during Jack’s reign of the pack.
Alternatively, for nine months Rumbold had lived the docile, minimalist life of a frog, never venturing beyond the small clearing surrounding the well. Now that he could walk (barely) and jump (possibly) and run (hardly) and talk (mostly) and sing (not that he had much before), he wanted to do all those things, at once, this instant, vigor be damned. He had the rest of his life to live, and he had no intention of wasting one precious moment.
That determination carried him all the way to the Royal Guards’ training ground, Jack’s home away from home. If Rumbold had no footsteps of his own to follow, he would tread in those he knew.
Rumbold found that he had an easier time walking if he did not concentrate on it. When he tried to bring to mind the mechanics of the action, he faltered. So he left the task to his subconscious, trusting his body not to pitch him headlong to the ground.
And such ground he covered, so quickly on his long human legs with their impossibly large bones. He passed stones that the week before would have seemed boulders and patches of violets whose petals he might have worn for a hat. He pondered the existence of these trifles, wondering how long it might be before they fell beneath his notice once again. If ever.
He stumbled, and forced himself to stop thinking about his footsteps again.
Rollins had suggested he ride, but Rumbold knew from walking through town the night before that horses did not yet trust him. Horses could smell enchantments. Nor did he trust himself to remember how to ride, for all that he had grown up in a saddle. Basic walking was hard enough. He stumbled again.
A slight breeze ruffled the prince’s newly shorn hair. After his bath, he had asked Rollins to hack off the ridiculous length. The result was anything but refined. Even wet it simply refused to yield to the royal comb and be properly tamed. Rumbold decided this adamant wildness was a leftover side effect of his enchantment. He was surprised to find it one he rather welcomed.
The trees lining his path were at the same time both massive and inadequate—they all towered above him but held none of the dignified majesty of the ancient sentinels of the Wood. All of the foliage here lacked personality and soul. The sky was overbright and bare of clouds, unframed by fat spring leaves. But the blue reminded
him of Sunday’s eyes, the sun of her smile shining warmly down upon him. He hoped beyond hope that when she finally met him as a man she did not find him as pitiful as he felt. As much as he craved memories, he did not think he could want anything more than he wanted to see his Sunday again.
The training ground was almost a mile behind the castle, on a hill that overlooked the forest. It doubled as an outpost. On a day like this he could see the river, a thin green line in the distance, and the silver-capped mountains beyond it to the north.
Jack had walked this path every day, but Rumbold had trained with the Royal Guard only in the summers as a boy. The prince could not remember the last time he had practiced with the guard before other amusements had drawn his attention elsewhere. But this was the first place to which Jack had returned after his recovery; it made sense that Rumbold should follow. Perhaps the blazing ball in the pit of his stomach would find solace here. Perhaps his strength would return. If he could not remember the man he was then, he could take pride in the man he was now.
Before him stood the small cottage that housed weapons and first-aid supplies. Off to the right, boys with long practice swords carried out synchronized formation drills. Behind them, a group of young men jogged the well-worn track around the field. To the left, a pair of men in their prime faced off with wooden staffs. One of the men was Erik.
As Rumbold approached, the cheering, jeering assembly of men came to a halt. A score of heads with broken noses bowed, and pates were patted where there were no forelocks to be tugged. Their loose-fitting garb was dusty from the sparring ground.
The prince clasped arms with Erik, who was coated in a healthy sheen of sweat that dampened his shirt and darkened his russet hair. There was more strength in the guard’s arm than in Rumbold’s entire body, but the unquenchable fire inside the prince maintained its stubborn defiance.
“Good morning, Your Highness.” Erik did not seem surprised to see him. “You remember Cauchemar.”
The prince’s eyes met those of Erik’s opponent. He did remember: Velius Morana, his own royal cousin and Duke of Cauchemar—though duke in name only. Seduced by immortality, Velius’s ailing father still clung to life by desperate means in Faerie, at the queen’s side. Unwilling to fill his father’s shoes until they were legally his own, Velius had let his very capable mother run the estates while he trained with the Royal Guard. The arrangement suited them both, and had done for the past few decades. Like the view from the hilltop, Velius’s lithe figure, raven ponytail, and even temper had been fixtures of the training ground since before Rumbold had practiced as a boy. Like Rollins and Erik, Velius had been there when Jack and Rumbold were cursed.
In all the time Rumbold had known him, Velius hadn’t aged a day.
As he clasped wrists with his wry, dark cousin, Rumbold realized that Velius ... hummed. Not a sound but a feeling, and one Rumbold recognized. Reflected in those deep-set indigo eyes was the same fire currently banked in Rumbold’s midsection. It was a raw lightning, vibrating at a frequency only slightly variant to the prince’s own, as if in harmony.
Rumbold’s mind flashed back to cold ashen flagstones in the dark of the night. Kill me. Free me.
Velius searched Rumbold’s face. “He’d like to have a go,” the duke announced, in a voice so calm a stone could be dropped in it and never form a ripple. He released Rumbold’s hand in time for the prince to awkwardly catch the staff Erik tossed to him. He had not meant to spar today; he was still not sure why he’d showed up at all. But that burning inner beast possessed him, roaring with pleasure. He backed up a pace and nodded to Velius, suppressing a smile. He twirled the staff in his hand once, twice, testing its weight, balancing it, settling his grip.
What was he doing?
Don’t think.
He must not think, or he would never be able to do whatever he was about to do. If he didn’t think, then the demon inside him would take over. Maybe it would find some peace in the exercise and let him rest. He only hoped so. This was either very smart or very stupid.
Don’t think.
They circled each other, step for step. Rumbold focused on Velius’s eyes, their nightshade depths. They were the blue-black of a deep bruise, bright with life and vivid with—
Velius lunged forward, and Rumbold blocked his attack. Rumbold blocked again and then countered. Over and over their staffs met, faster and faster, the stained wood tapping out the staccato rhythm of an intricate dance. Sweat poured off the prince. His muscles screamed. The insubstantial beast raged on.
The prince’s eyes never left the duke’s. Velius’s every movement was revealed in the brilliant darkness of his eyes. Rumbold saw further, deep into Velius’s cold heart: unused, forgotten, forsaken, as clumsy with love as Rumbold’s body would be when this fleeting fire left him. He could taste Velius’s soul, the reluctant hopelessness bitter on his tongue. And there, there at the core of him was the flame, that burning, insatiable, unnameable need that mirrored his own.
One misstep let the duke rap his knuckles, another left Rumbold’s side open for a smack, but still they kept on. There was no time for pain. The staffs became a blur between them, coming together again and again in such succession that the noise almost became one unbroken sound, a sound that completed a harmony between them, a harmony that fell magnificently to pieces at one word.
“Prince,” whispered Velius.
And the spell was broken. The moment he remembered who and what he was, the magic left him. The demon fled, leaving Rumbold an unwieldy sack of bones to be swept off his feet. The prince landed hard in the dust, the duke’s staff planted rigidly on his breastbone, pinning him there like an insect under glass. Not that he could have risen otherwise; his breath, sweat, energy, sinew, even his very essence seemed to have seeped out through his skin and into the dirt. Rumbold felt the pain of his beating tenfold. The bruise on his ribs pressed into his lungs. The split skin on his knuckles was wet with blood. He felt the confused stares of the men surrounding them, unsure about congratulating the winner of this duel.
The duke leaned over the prince with transcendental grace. Those violet eyes trapped Rumbold more readily than the staff upon his chest. “So, who is she?”
Shock. Surprise. Words sat ready to escape Rumbold’s lips in reply, but nothing came. The months of inanition had finally left him paralyzed.
“No, wait, let me guess.” Velius brushed a hank of black hair behind his ear. The duke was not perspiring at all, nor did he seem winded. “Skin of the finest porcelain. Hair of the softest silk. A voice like birdsong, a smile like sunshine, and a mouth ... that could sate your brightest and darkest wishes.”
Rumbold found his voice and troubled tongue. “You’ve ... m-met her?”
A few guards in the crowd chuckled. The dukes brow creased in feigned seriousness. “Oh yes, my friend. We all know her. We’ve all pursued her. Some of us have even been lucky enough to have her.” The duke raised his head to wink at the men, who jeered bawdily in affirmation.
“We’ve been drunk on her sin, become fools for her favor. She might have borne a different face each time, but her name was always the same.” He eased off the staff and leaned closer. “Trouble.”
Rumbold’s pride gave in at the ribbing, and he mirrored the duke’s wide grin. He overcame lethargy enough to raise his right arm to Velius in good faith, which the duke took and helped his cousin to stand. The guards let out their collectively held breath in congratulations and clapping. Erik moved behind the prince to dust off his back, planting a meaty hand firmly on one shoulder. Rumbold relaxed slightly. Between Velius’s grip and Erik’s, he would not disgrace himself by falling. He knew they knew it, too.
“Fetch a chair for His Highness,” Velius called out, and three fellows jumped to do his bidding. “There are four things that make a man fight as you just did,” the duke explained to Rumbold. “Love, despair, anger, or insanity.”
Erik counted them off on his fingers. “Everything to lose, nothing to lose, someon
e’s taken it, or you’ve lost it.”
Velius’s laugh echoed, deep and melodic, through the bones of Rumbold’s arm. “Indeed. The fact that you’re the crown prince rules out the middle two, and though you’re still fresh from enchantment, you look fairly sane to me”—he gave Rumbold a once-over—“albeit a little worse for the wear.”
Rumbold remembered the flame in the dukes eyes, the flame that still, deep down, had not been extinguished. Perhaps it had burned for so long now it never would be. “Aaa-and you?” the prince asked his cousin.
“I’m a little bit of each, Highness,” Velius answered. “The most dangerous combination of all.”
“Thank you,” Rumbold said neatly, though he wasn’t quite sure if he meant for the fight, for the jovial welcome, for the sound thrashing and the pride stomping, for the understanding, or for his just being honest. He left his cousin to decide which.
“Not yet,” said Velius. He held his free hand over the prince’s bloody knuckles and closed his eyes. A wave of warmth washed over Rumbold, like an opened oven or a spill of bathwater. When Velius removed his hand, the prince’s knuckles were covered in bright pink skin, unblemished by blood or bruises. “Can’t leave you damaged for your parties, now, can we?”
Rumbold was glad he had already expressed his appreciation, for no words came at this. Velius and Erik led him to the small bench the three guards had brought to the edge of the sparring circle.
“We would be honored if Your Highness stayed for a while to watch our country’s finest in action,” said Erik.
“Of c-course,” Rumbold replied. As if he could have walked three steps outside the training field without pitching face-first into the dirt. Velius remained at his side, a hand on his shoulder. The pressure was at the same time familiar and different. Rollins had placed his own hand there to reassure him. Erik had done so to give him strength. Even his wintry godmother had touched him there when she’d cast the spell that had started it all.
But Velius’s fingers were warm, the heat emanating from them so strong that Rumbold was thankful for the presence of his shirt on the skin between them. Perhaps he would find a brand there later, in the shape of a thumb, palm, and four lean fingers. It would be worth it. His spent body savored the warmth.