Page 19 of Cursed

Chapter Seven

“You have got to be kidding me! Boris?”

Edeena nearly doubled over in laughter, her sides hurting so much that she thought she might have burst something. Surrounding them were nearly twenty short stacks of files detailing the marital prospects of every quasi-noble family within the borders of Garronia.

And all too soon, she’d be declared open season for all of them.

The shock of her father’s initial letter had taken two stiff mojitos to work through, but as the sweet, yet potent, drink seared through Edeena’s system, the hilarity of her situation had quickly come to the fore.

No longer did she have to worry about catching the eye of a prince, as Prudence had suggested. She merely needed to catch one who “comported himself in a princely manner, or was known to be princely.” This—this!—was what the letter from her father’s lawyer had pointed out, recalling the same ancient language from the Saleri illuminated bible that Prudence had shared with her. Apparently, with Edeena’s birthday nearing, everyone was hitting the good book.

“Boris goes into the pile of last resort,” Edeena said now, wiping her hand against both cheeks. “I can’t possibly be expected to entertain marrying him with a straight face.”

At that moment, they heard the sound of resolutely-striding feet, and both of them turned on the ornately embroidered couches to see Vince stalk into the room. His face was set in a rictus of pain, and he looked like he hadn’t breathed in three days.

Prudence rose quickly from her seat. “Prince, what is it?” she asked, clearly forgetting herself enough to use his nickname. “Is it your mother—”

“What? No!” Vince jerked to a halt, scowling first at her, then Edeena. “Who was crying?” he growled.

“I’m sorry. That was me,” Edeena said hastily. She wiped her eyes again, more fervently this time. “I wasn’t crying so much as . . . well, I probably sounded hysterical no matter what.”

“Sit, dear, sit,” Prudence said, pushing Vince into a wing-backed chair. “Maybe you could help us puzzle through this.”

“Why are you hysterical?” He eyed the stacks of folders with a frown. “What’s happened?”

Before Edeena could speak, however, Prudence gathered herself up. “To understand that, you must first understand the history of Edeena’s country, or at least a small portion of it.”

Edeena instantly turned to her. “Prudence, truly. He doesn’t.”

“He does,” her cousin said dourly. “The way your father has interpreted the curse may not be what its originators intended, but it is viable nonetheless.” Prudence eyed Edeena repressively. “Even Boris is viable.”

Edeena pursed her lips. Boris was so not viable.

Prudence turned her gaze on Vince. “What do you know of the history of Garronia?” she demanded.

“I, uh, don’t,” he said, and Edeena noted the flare of a blush that edged over his crew-neck technical tee. He was dressed casually, in his tee shirt and khakis, no doubt expecting her to be sitting in her house as she always was, waiting for life to catch up with her . . . so she could watch it pass her by.

Suddenly, Edeena didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“Then consider this your introduction,” Prudence said. “The country of Garronia was created in the tenth century by Otto the Great, then Holy Roman Emperor, in exchange for services rendered by the warriors of the region. There were many, many small families who produced those warriors, and they existed in harmony, content to manage their own small fiefdoms without much need for centralized government. Times changed, however, and with it the needs of the people.”

Edeena wanted to groan. Vince didn’t need to be bored with all of this. “Prudence . . .”

“No, it’s fine,” Vince said, leaning forward “I want to know.”

Edeena sighed, picked up another file folder. “Then cut to the chase, if you would.”

Prudence merely nodded. “Eventually the age of familial wars resulted in the rise of the Andris family, Garronia’s current ruling family. Second in strength was the Saleri family, but they’d been playing poor younger sibling for some time even before the declaration of Otto. There has been an ancient and well-sown line of jealousy in the Saleri family, and a constant push to ensure the family is put in its rightful place at long last. But that push has not always served the family well. There has been great estrangement among the more distant branches of the Saleri family—an estrangement that is, essentially, the family’s curse. Along with the curse, come several ways to beat it.”

“Several ways?” Vince’s eyes widened. “There’s more than one?”

“Of course. Whichever one is most expedient for the generation is the one proffered as the proper method to break the curse, usually conjured up by the oldest member of the previous generation. In this case, it would have been Silas’s mother, a battle axe of a woman. As the story goes, Edeena’s grandmother waited until her mother could or would no longer bear children, then consulted the good book to determine the fate of Edeena and her sisters, which she announced at Marguerite’s christening. If the old harridan was a little bitter, she could be excused. Her fate had similarly been decided when she was born the oldest of two sisters, with no boys. Once again, a ‘special generation.’ She also had been challenged to secure a royal paramour in order to bring the family back together again, and failed.”

“But the line didn’t die out, even though she didn’t marry her prince,” Edeena protested, drawn into the story despite herself. “I mean, sure, there wasn’t a reconciliation, but neither was there was plague, sickness, financial loss . . .”

“Oh, there were all of those things, if you looked deeply enough.” Prudence waved her hand. “The Saleri family has many branches linking it to your main line. And they all hold the primary family bitterly accountable for the failure to bring those far-flung branches back together again. Which is why you don’t know or speak to any of your extended cousins.”

Edeena fought the urge to put her head in her hands. She knew she had cousins, great armfuls of them, according to her mother, yet Prudence was right. She’d never met any of them. She stared in horror at the file folders stacked around her. Surely her father knew who their extended relations were . . . right? He wouldn’t make her marry some actual first cousin to break the curse. Surely not.

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