Page 54 of The Maleficent Faerie
“The following week, I appeared at your christening, uninvited, robed in black, wreathed in shadows, and filled with freshly-spun Void magic. The crowd shrank from me, leaving me a clear path to the dais where your father and mother sat enthroned, while the Three Faeries watched over your cradle.
“Perhaps I overdid the dramatics. I felt helpless to dispel their perception of me, and so I became the villain they wanted—green light, black shadows, a voice like doom. I demanded that your parents yield you to me. I promised them it would be temporary, that you would not be permanently harmed, and that I would prove my good intentions to all of them by stabilizing the Edge forever.
“I did not threaten. But perhaps my presence and my aspect were threat enough. Your father refused once again, vehemently, and your mother declared that my attendance without an invitation was an act of ‘warlike aggression.’
“You have to understand, little viper—I was worn out from the strain of pacifying these people, giving them my time, attention, and resources for years. I played the role of both fool and villain that day. I pinned the Three Faeries to the wall with shadows, threw the guards across the room, and bent over your cradle to curse a tiny golden-haired infant who stared up at me with innocent blue eyes. There were so many things I could have done differently—choices I could have made—but it is of no use to dwell on them. What I’ve done is irreversible.”
Malec falls silent, his story complete. He stares at the darkened landscape below us, while I gaze at his white profile and the four black horns twining up from his hair, their ridges gleaming in the starlight.
“And you still believe my blood is the key to this ritual?” I say quietly.
“More fervently than I believed it then. I’ve had more time for experimentation and learning, and I’m more certain than ever that you are the key. Any young Conduit’s blood would have worked for this, but we’re running out of time, so you are the last hope. By my estimation, the Void will enfold this realm completely within another few decades. It’s been all I can do to keep it clear of Ru Gallamet this long, and I can’t hold it back much longer. I cannot be absent from my home for more than a week or so, or my palace, my tower, and my Spindle will be lost to the Void.”
I draw in a deep breath of the bracing night air. Despite his terrifying prophecy for the fate of our realm, my anxiety has eased a bit. No one has ever taken the time to explain the origin of the curse clearly before—at least not without lurid language designed to provoke fear. Malec’s calm, matter-of-fact explanation may have been one-sided, but it felt honest. He did not shy away from condemning his own actions.
I don’t forgive him, but I believe he told me the truth. And I understand him better now.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make my fate any easier to bear.
“You would sacrifice me to the dark,” I murmur. “You’d pierce my finger, spill my blood, and send me into oblivion. You’d steal my remaining years, on the slim chance that your ritual might save everyone else. What if my blood doesn’t work?”
“Then I will try it again once your birthday passes.”
“You’d bind my sleeping corpse to the Spindle and shed my blood a second time?”
He makes a wry face. “I would try it, yes.”
I scoff, shaking my head and looking away from him.
“Perhaps one of your parents will take your place in the cursed sleep.”
He means to reassure me, but he only stirs up the sharp-nailed fear scrabbling over the sore flesh of my heart. “You heard the raven’s message. What if my parents don’t want to save me?”
“Then they’re fools. If one of your parents won’t save you by their free will, I’ll drag them into Daenalla and force their lips to meet yours.”
“But if they’re being forced, it won’t work. It has to be a sacrifice by the person who loves me best—you said so yourself. Maybe one of the Three Faeries would do it—Elsamel or Sayrin. Or Dawn.” I turn back to him, hope brightening my heart. “Dawn loves me, and I love her. We are sisters, she and I. Maybe she would—but no—goddess, what am I thinking? I can’t ask her to give up a hundred years.”
“Iwill ask her,” Malec says firmly. “Saving the realm requires sacrifice. If it works, she’ll wake up a century from now and live another century or two. It’s better than dying in a few decades when our world collapses on itself. Besides, a secondary curse, passed from one person to another, is usually easier to break. I have a few books about dispelling curses—perhaps I can find a way to shorten the sleep of anyone who might take your place.”
He doesn’t sound entirely sure of it, but he speaks intensely, with fierce determination in his voice and visage. He wants so badly to make it better, this thing he has done.
“If only you hadn’t cast the curse that day,” I say quietly. “If only you had waited, and then met with me when I was older, and explained everything—”
“You think you would have agreed to go with me?” He arches an eyebrow. “You, raised by the Royals, knowing your birthright, and poisoned against me from the start? Face it, Aura—the only reason you believe me now is because I revealed the lie you’ve been living. And because we’re—we’ve been thrown together like this, you and I—and I’m—there’s an attraction—” He clears his throat, pushes his long black hair behind one pointed ear.
“I’m not that shallow,” I say sharply. “I don’t believe you just because you’re pretty and you have a beautiful cock.”
Then I clap my hand over my mouth.
A slow smile widens on his face. His dark lashes droop over eyes that glitter with delighted wickedness. “You think I have a beautiful cock?”
“No,” I gasp, heat roaring into my face. “Cocks aren’t beautiful, they’re just—some of them are shaped better than others. Some are cleaner, less lumpy or smelly. Because, you know, some of them have too many veins like bulging snakes, or they’re strangely purple, and they—oh Void take me.” The last words are a humiliated wheeze.
He’s grinning openly now, and it makes him twice as gorgeous, godsdamn him.
“Stop,” I order. “Stop it, or I swear I’ll slap that grin off your fucking face.”
“I think we’ve established that you hurting me isn’t much of a threat. I rather enjoy it.” He bites his lip suggestively.
