Page 66 of Façade

He offered a grim nod. “All too often, and it’s only growing more frequent. The only way to stop it…”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish for me to understand: only magic could heal such a devastating curse and the kingdom afflicted by it.

Healing…the strange sensation tickled my palms again, though not as strong as before, as if my fleeting power was already withdrawing, exhausted.

Ryland lifted his devastated, almost lifeless gaze to mine. “I know I’m a cad for wanting to marry the Estorian princess for her powers, especially when it risks your own kingdom…but I’m becoming desperate. I’ll pay whatever price the princess requires of me, anything to heal my kingdom and save my people.”

Emotion prickled my heart—empathy mingled with something that felt strangely akin to jealousy at the thought of him marrying the princess. My previous wish that whatever phenomenon had just occurred had been magic only deepened, anything to not only keep him with me, but to be able to give him what he desperately needed.

I gave my head a rigid shake to dispel the foolish notion. My headache was muddling my sense. Even if I had access to Estoria’s magic, surely my kingdom didn’t possess nearly enough for such a curse as this; it’d drain our entire land. Yet guilt that I couldn’t help him lingered; our unplanned diversion had proven an effective persuasion for his cause.

“Evie?”

Ryland’s voice sounded far away, different than when he usually pulled me from my wandering thoughts. I tried to focus on him, but my vision blurred, leaving him as nothing more than a swirl of color. When it slowly cleared, Ryland had bridged the distance separating us, worry furrowing his brow as he took in my expression.

“You don’t look well. Are you alright?”

Exhaustion suddenly weighed my body down. “I need to sit down a moment.”

He immediately looped his arm through mine to steady me and rested the back of his hand on my forehead. His worry deepened. “You have a fever.”

A fever? How strange…and rather sudden. I hadn’t had a fever since…I scrunched my aching brow, struggling to sort through my memories. Since…my pulse quickened as I remembered: since the last time I’d experienced a strange burst of what seemed like magic.

Previously I’d been able to dismiss my symptoms as coincidence or even a rather detailed product of my imagination, but the evidence of the strange burst that had melted away some of the curse’s devastation only confirmed that what was occurring…was likely magic.

Magic…

I had little time to wonder at this surprising turn of events when Ryland’s startled gasp interrupted my musings. My attention snapped to him, and what I saw robbed me of breath: his hand had gone transparent.

Time seemed to move in slow motion—for a moment, he could only stare in blank disbelief as he lifted his hand eye level, the next he shoved me away from him with so much force I tripped and tumbled backwards. He hastened back several steps to increase our distance, the fear in his eyes confirming the reality I didn’t want to believe even as it forced itself past the rampant panic whirling through my mind.

Ryland had caught the disappearing curse.

CHAPTER21

Time slowed. I’d barely registered the transparency of Ryland’s hand or the fear filling his grey eyes when he collapsed, as if the disappearing curse had suddenly robbed him of strength. Though he’d created distance in an effort to protect me, my worry propelled me to hastily bridge the distance separating us to kneel at his side.

“Ryland?”

He didn’t answer. I rested my hand on his cheek, cold and clammy to the touch, and tilted his head towards me. He was deathly pale; only his shallow breaths assured me he was still alive. Did the curse kill its victims, or did they simply vanish?

Regardless it worked quickly, spreading from his hand to slowly inch its way up his body, claiming him piece by piece and leaving nothing behind.

Panic swelled, cinching my chest. I grazed the area where his arm had once been. Though it’d disappeared, it still felt solid, an assurance the curse hadn’t completed its work. There was still time, but how much?

Chaos whirled around me as the guards frantically tried to find a way to help their prince. One attempted to wrench me away from him, but I remained riveted to Ryland’s side, filled with an urgency such as I’d never before experienced, not only to remain with him but doanythingto help him.

My suppressed sob escaped. “Ryland.” I gently shook him in a vain attempt to revive him, but he remained entirely still. If I didn’t act soon, he’d be stolen from me.

Horror seeped over me at the thought…along with an icy sensation that robbed me of any feeling in my left hand. With a gasp I yanked it away from its place on Ryland’s transparent arm. The airy sensation inched its way over me, leaving behind a sense of emptiness everywhere it touched before my hand gradually began to fade, leaving nothing but a shadow of where it’d once been.

I’d also caught the disappearing curse.

Fear eclipsed my previous panic, the only emotion I could feel midst thenothingnessthat expanded from where I’d first made contact with the curse. But even this wasn’t enough to pull me from Ryland; I didn’t fully understand this desperate need, only that it kept me beside him, where I was determined to remain no matter the danger.

Even midst my escalating anxiety, I managed to retain a semblance of sense, drawing my memory back to the drop of magic that had healed a small portion of the vanished village. I blindly searched within myself for this power. At first it felt out of reach, as if just beyond the glass of a foggy windowpane, within sight even if I couldn’t touch it.

My desperation acted as a key to the magic that until this moment I’d only been able to access in seemingly random moments, allowing me to finally seize hold to cling to it like a life preserver in a tumultuous ocean. I faintly recognized this power, the seed I’d spent my entire life as a princess searching for, always in vain…until now.

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