Astrid

“Bayorn?”

My calls echo up the spiral staircase of one of the East Towers. “Bayorn!”

No answer. My feet are already starting to feel weary; searching for someone in this castle is no trivial task. Still, I have nothing to do, so I travel down the staircase and exit the tower to look elsewhere.

I search high and low, opening every door to peek into the empty halls and rooms. Some doors are locked, so I knock and call out until I can be certain that Bayorn is not inside.

One of the pairs of looming doors give way before my knuckles can rap against them.

Before me is a familiar setting: white marble tiles, tall glass windows nearly stretching up to the sky itself, a black-tiled walkway to four thrones standing grandly on a raised platform and rows of gigantic statues of ancient warriors posed on either side of the room. All the settled dust and signs of age have disappeared; now, everything looks brand new.

There are people here.

The first person I see wears a deep blue jacket with golden thread embroidered into the seams, similar to that of Bayorn’s. He stands facing the thrones.

“Oh, Bayorn,” I huff in exhaustion. “There you are. Imogen wants to know if you would…”

“Your Highness, the prisoner has...vanished.”

“What do you mean, vanished?” a male voice booms from further in front. I peek around Bayorn and see three people seated upon the thrones. “I ordered her execution this morning!”

“We did, sire,” Bayorn’s voice is too nasally. He drops to one knee and lowers his head. “She was sent to the pyre as instructed. I lit the torch myself and watched the flames consume her. And then...and then her remains were nowhere to be found.”

The woman who sits on the man’s right glances at him. “Is that possible?” she asks, the brass melody in her voice tainted with worry.

They all wear crowns upon their heads, but the two oldest ones – the ones in the middle – have the grandest stones embedded into them. Though none of this makes sense, my thoughts are able to piece the obvious puzzle together: the King, the Queen and the Princess.

Exactly as they look in their portraits.

“She...she is a witch, Sire. It is possible that she could have escaped.”

Behind me, the doors swing open again.

The royal family’s attention is momentarily stolen. They look to the approaching person behind me. Just before I can pivot, the guard in front of me rises to his feet and turns to bow low.

That is not Bayorn.

There are suddenly so many guards standing in attention around me. I do not know where they have come from.

“Mother?” the familiar voice of the man who has just stumbled into the throne room trembles heavily. The neckline of his loose white shirt is pulled to one side, so that more of his chest is exposed.

His bewildered eyes, the exact match of his father’s, are unmistakable.

“S-something is wrong. I don’t feel very well.”

The King averts his gaze and exhales deeply. “What is it now, boy?”

Kieran staggers right past me, as if he has not seen me. He barely makes it to the steps before his knees buckle under his weight.

The Queen stands. “Wren?”

“What’s the matter with him?” his sister’s voice is as light as air.

“Nothing,” the King shakes his head, clearly embarrassed. “He is drunk, is all. Someone take him up to his chambers.”

Before the guards can move, Kieran lifts his head and crawls towards his mother’s feet. She grasps him by the shoulders and helps him to stand.

“Mother, I do not feel so good.” His face is blanched.

His mother presses the back of her hand against his forehead. Even from this distance I can hear his laboured breaths. He rests his head against her shoulder, and her delicate features crumple together in concern.

“Somebody fetch the physician.”

Her voice only has to take on a conversational pitch before the guards are launched into action. Someone runs past me and out of the hall.

“Roses…so many roses...p-pricked my finger…”

His back starts to arch. He turns his head to the side and gags.

“Kieran!” the Princess springs to her feet, her nose wrinkled in disgust. I follow her glare to the string of blood stretching from his lips to the floor.

The Queen looks to her husband, who takes the cue to take their son’s hands off her shoulders. He tries to steady the boy, but Kieran’s shoulders start to heave.

A guttural, inhuman growl bounces off the throne room's walls.

He collapses to the floor. I gape in horror as the joints in his arms and legs start to bend in unnatural angles. The scream that rips out of his lungs pierces my ears, turning my blood into ice.

“Mama!”

He writhes on the ground. Something snaps, again and again. I throw my hands over my ears and shut my eyes tightly.

“Mama, help me!”

“Wren? Wren!” She is weeping. Around me, the shouts of orders by the guards increase in volume but do not drown out the unnerving howls of the Prince.

My eyes fly open. The King barks orders to the guards, who seize the women by their arms before tearing them away from their positions. The Queen screams for her son.

“Somebody help him!”

The Princess’ features are crumpled in confusion. Tears streak down her face, but she is unable to resist the guard’s force. She is dragged by the heel towards the doors.

I watch the young girl, barely above the age of fourteen, kick and scream. “Let me go! Wren, make it stop! Stop it, please. Wren!”

And just as quickly as it had started, the commotion dies down.

Pin-drop silence.

Then, breathing. Hard, heavy panting. Gasps and strangled moans of distress.

I do not want to look. I already know what will happen.

But my feet disobey me and turn on their heels.

My heart nearly gives way. My legs do; they fold in on themselves and every muscle in my calves constrict. I hit the ground with a hard thud against my knees. I blink and I blink and I blink, but the scene before me does not change.

Rising slowly out of the crowd of grown men, a singular creature, bent over and grunting, curls its talons. Its hideous face is sculpted into an eternal grimace. A sharp pattern of jagged spines – bones – splits down the middle of its back. A full set of fangs keep its cavernous mouth ajar.

When it roars, the sound of it burns like metal scraping against metal.

The scream does not quite rip out of my lungs – it just comes out in a startled, choked exhale.

It moves with a speed fueled with such robust strength for its size as it tears through the guards first. I only see blood: pools and pools of it. The sound of bone detaching from flesh and skin ripping and the metallic smell of blood shroud my senses.

Within mere seconds, the guards are no longer.

The King draws his sword. He plunges it into the monster, but this only infuriates it. I hear one more angered shriek before the King’s body is on the ground as the beast tears into his gut.

The Queen is smart enough to run. She sprints towards me, so I stagger to my feet. I reach my hand out for hers.

But she is not fast enough.

She suddenly halts mid-step. Her breath hitches in her throat, her eyes going wide and bugging out. Scarlet moisture dribbles out of the corner of her lips.

A talon sticks out from where her stomach should be. Her feet are lifted off the ground before she is tossed to the side like a ragdoll. Her form goes limp.

The beast rises to its full height. It stares dead ahead, its thirst for blood focusing on the next target.

“Wren. Wren, listen to me,” the Princess’ voice behind me is steady. I cannot move to twist my body, to tell her to run. To tell her that reasoning is of no use. “It is I, Rheanna. Anna, remember? Your little sister.”

It drops onto all fours. Trepidation paralyzes my every bone.

“Anna, Anna, it’s Anna!” she shrieks in a panic. “Wren, listen to me -”

The beast lunges directly at me.

Someone’s scream sends a million shivers down every fiber in my body. I shield my face with my arms, waiting for the impact. For the pain.

“Astrid. Astrid!”

Someone is grabbing at me, pulling my dead weight along. Have I fainted? The scream still goes on and on.

“Astrid, look at me.” A pair of hands find the sides of my head. I kick and scratch and shove the weight pressing upon my torso, but my captor persists.

“It was only a vision. Open your eyes. Look at me.” Warm thumbs brush across my cheeks. “Look at me. This isn’t real.”

Light breaks into my vision. Kieran’s face has returned. Where is the beast?

My screams become coherent.

“Take me out of here!” I kick and shove. He catches my wrists firmly and renders my efforts useless.

“Get me out! Get me out, please, please.”

My throat feels raw. The ugly, horrible sobs that escape my racked chest fill the air and replace the screams. My arms fall limp.

Every knot that has kept my sanity together is finally unravelling at the seams.

“I’m sorry,” Kieran whispers so softly, it is almost inaudible. “I am so sorry.”

His arms loop under my knees and back. My crumpled, curled form is lifted off the ground, and the nightmare finally gives way to pure dreamlessness.

Kieran

I can still hear her scream her mind into near lunacy long after Imogen has taken her to her chambers.

Such are the after-effects of the enchantment that befell the castle that day: the true curse is that we are never allowed to forget that we are trapped in this eternity.

Imogen has seen a woman going up in flames on a pyre outside the castle grounds. That is why I planted the garden, but it still does not fully abate the memory. Bayorn sometimes catches glimpses of roses when he helps me to my room every morning. Occasionally, I hear the little boy’s frightened cries for his mother when he strays too far into the castle.

I know what Astrid has seen in the throne room. She has seen the murder of my family, of all the men who pledged their lives to protect the spoilt, oblivious Prince.

She has seen the day I died.

Lady Selaena appears in the mirror, across which I sit cross-legged. She looks surprised to see me.

“It is almost midnight, love. What are you doing here, staring off into space?”

My mouth is numb. It takes me a few heartbeats to gather my own mind.

“Don’t call me that. ‘Love’,” I say, my own voice sounding like it belongs to somebody else.

She cracks a smile. “Is that not what you once were to me? Or did you never love me at all?”

I did, I want to say. But not in the way you wanted me to love you. But we both know even that is not true.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been capable of love.”

“That is a dangerous thing to say. After all, your whole quest relies upon your ability to give and receive it.”

Get me out of here, she had said. She didn’t just mean the throne room; she means this castle. Here. This wretched place.

They all suffer. Even an innocent little child suffers. And they all suffer because I did more than fail to love Lady Selaena. I betrayed her. When my gaze flickers up, I see it: the crease between her eyebrows. The brief disquiet in her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Selaena sighs. When she speaks again, her tone is detached. “Nice tactic, but you’ve already tried this, remember? I have already received your apology and a thousand pleas for mercy afterwards. When are you going to understand that the enchantment cannot simply be revoked?”

“I know.” My chest grows heavier with each syllable as it rises and falls.

“The curse will never be broken. I know. I’m just...sorry. You sacrificed your whole future for me, and I chucked your undeserved loyalty away. I was more than an arrogant fool. I was wicked. I’m sorry that Imogen has to care for the spoilt boy who grew up to murder the father of her child. That Bayorn endures sleepless nights guarding the rest of the world from me. That a child has not been allowed to grow up in over a century. That an innocent girl will never be able to marry the man she wants, or give her father peace before she dies.

“I’m just...I’m so sorry.”

My voice breaks at the final apology. Each sob that ensues is a lonely gasp I can barely control – a measure of grief for each life I have taken. My hand shields my eyes from catching a glimpse of my crumpling face in the mirror.

I used to cherish that face above all things. Now I loathe it more than anything else.

Selaena watches me struggle to rein in my emotions for a long time. When my ears are finally relieved of my choked sobs, she sighs deeply.

“What would you give me for the freedom of your friends?”

I lower my hand.

“Everything. I… I will pledge any devotion left in my soul to you. Follow you to the ends of the earth.”

She scoffs. “I do not want you to be mine any more, Kieran. I am no longer the same unforgiving, vengeful girl I was all those years ago. And, it should seem, neither are you.”

There is a stretch of deliberation on her part. When she speaks again, she does so almost regretfully.

“So I shall grant you a mercy. When winter gives way to the first week of spring’s bloom, all those collaterally bound by the curse you bear shall be freed. But the price to vary a curse is high: immortality for immortality.”

Am I hearing this wrongly? Is this another cruel joke?

“Your life, Kieran. Your mortality shall be returned to you and the life you once cherished above all things will come to an end – and most painfully so.”

I crawl forward on my hands and knees. The fire is starting to set in my joints; my raw skin is starting to prick under the cold draft from the open balcony.

Midnight is nigh.

“Thank you.” The tears return. My arms tremble under the weight of my upper torso. I lower my head in desperate gratitude. “Thank you, my lady. Thank you.”

She says nothing. When I raise my head again, only my reflection stares back at me in the mirror.