Page 24 of Of Curses and Beauty

The walls closed in and the air became thin as the crushing weight of guilt slammed down on Alaine. It had been so easy to forget that life went on outside these walls, that back in her village her parents were scrambling to meet a deadline that was fast approaching without the assurance of marrying her off to Baxter. She hadn’t even considered how they must feel about the disappearance of their only child. Her father would be beside himself.

“So, what will it be, Alaine?” Her name sounded foul on the witch’s tongue. “Shall I leave you to your beauty or take it away?”

Alaine was torn. She had no use for her beauty—certainly no fondness for it—but it remained a part of who she was and she didn’t like the idea of having to transform her body to live the life she wanted. If ever she found herself freed from this, it would be a burden, but one she would only have to bear until it fades, as beauty always does.

She needed to be freed. She needed to save her family, and if that meant marrying Henrik Baxter, then she would need her pretty face too.

She took a steadying breath, squared her shoulders, and gave the witch her answer.

Chapter 21

Daric

Itwasnearlymiddayand Alaine had not left her room. Daric understood that the events of the night had been traumatic, he’d barely slept himself, but he was beginning to worry that something was truly wrong.

He convinced his feet to make the journey to her door and was working up the courage to knock when it swung open untouched. Alaine jumped back, startled to see him on the other side of her door. Her beauty took his breath away, as it had the night before, and he silently berated himself for letting it affect him so. She was still the same person he’d come to admire and he vowed to treat her no differently for her lovely face.

“I was just coming to check on you,” he said, his voice rough.

She nodded, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. His first instinct was to reach for her, but her hunched shoulders and crossed arms discouraged his touch. He stepped away, giving her space to enter the living quarters. She shuffled past him a shell of the woman she’d been just hours before. He thought they’d had a moment last night before she’d retired. He was sure they had both felt the fire building between them, but this morning he felt only chills. He didn’t know what had changed.

She sat at the table and he hesitated before taking his usual seat across from her. In the clear morning light, he saw a rift opening between them. Whatever they’d shared during the evening hours by the fire, it had slipped through his fingers as night turned to day.

The table between them may as well have been a wall. He didn’t know how to bridge the distance that seemed determined to separate them. His hand itched to reach out, craving a physical connection as the silence stretched on. He hadn’t had the stomach to eat when he’d first awoken and now, looking at Alaine, he wondered if she would also have no appetite.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re a prince?” Her voice was sharp and cutting, nothing like the Alaine he’d come to know.

“I—what? I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” A half lie. He couldn’t have told her thanks to the curse, but he liked her not knowing. It was a part of himself he had no control over. It was a birthright, a curse in and of itself, with its own set of responsibilities and prejudices. He liked that she could know him without the crown looming over his head. In that way, he supposed it was much like her beauty. “I guess we’re even now.”

“Are you keeping score?”

Her voice cut at him, reminding him of the cruel court ladies. “No, I just meant that you can see all of me as I see you.”

Her expression softened at that and she turned contemplative.

“Would you have told me, even if you had been allowed?”

Shame colored his cheeks, but he didn’t want to lie. “Not right away.”

She nodded, but her face held no judgment.

“What I am is not the same as who I am, but once people learn that I am royalty, it colors their opinion of me from that point forward. I wouldn’t have kept it from you if you’d asked, but neither would I have told you unprompted. It was a new experience for me and I didn’t want to tint the lens through which you viewed me.”

A rueful smile twisted her lips. “Will you tell me about it now?”

“I can try.” He poked around for the magical gag that usually coalesced when he tried to speak about his past. Nothing. His breath escaped in a long exhale as he pushed down his trepidation. He opened his mouth expecting to choke on his words but found that they flowed as though he had never been cursed. “Iwasa prince. I suppose I still am, though I no longer have a kingdom to speak of. I was the heir apparent. From the time I could walk, I’d been groomed to take the throne. Told how to stand, what to say, when to eat. There was nothing that was my own. The courtiers demanded I marry, as though sharing my bed with a woman would make me a better king.”

He caught a hint of rose tingeing Alaine’s cheeks before she turned her face away and he hurried on to save her embarrassment. “The court ladies…they were not what I wished for in a bride. Don’t get me wrong, they had their assets, but they only ever sought my crown. They cared not for the man beneath it.”

Alaine remained silent but her eyes warmed, revealing some of the kindness he’d come to expect from her.

“The witch came to me as the red-haired maiden, just as you’d first met her. I had no idea she was an enchantress. She posed as a woman of the court, traveling from distant lands to visit family. I thought she sought to win my heart, speaking of true love and fairytales, and maybe she did. I never knew her true intention for visiting. I sent her away like the rest of the court girls, not knowing at the time that she possessed such magic. Three days later she returned, but she was different.”

“Different how?”

Even the memory of her appearance had his heart rate increasing. Her crazed visage haunted his nightmares to this day. “She looked like she hadn’t slept in all the days she’d been gone. Her hair was a knotted mess. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. Even her cheeks had hollowed like she hadn’t bothered to eat. But the muttering. Constant, incoherent ramblings. She’d become something out of a nightmare. In my hubris, I thought she’d gone mad from my rejection.” He shook his head ruefully, his embarrassment coming back to him in full force. “I was so mulish then. I didn’t take her seriously.”

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