Casters and Crowns

Chapter 51

W idow Morton had stormed off into the manor after her heated argument with Sarah. Baron took heart that the remaining Casters seemed more nervous than hostile, and they were quick to respond to Sarah’s instructions. Because Corvin was not fit to travel, Sarah ordered one of the Casters to ride for the small town where the nearest surgeon resided. Richard Langley personally bandaged Weston, who would also need to be seen by the surgeon.

“You have to go,” Corvin whispered to Baron. “You have to help Aria escape.”

Baron knew Aria well enough to know escape would not be her intention. In fact, odds were high she’d already snuck her way back into the mansion. He glanced at the doorway, but it held a congregation of Casters, and he was hesitant to leave Corvin.

“I’ll do it,” Leon grumbled. “Nose around and see what I can find.”

Barely a moment later, a white puffball slunk off into the manor. If Sarah noticed the large cat brush against her leg, she said nothing.

“Are you mad we came?” Corvin asked.

Baron said, “Right now, I’m focused on relief. We can discuss ‘mad’ later.”

“You should have seen Leon try to fly. He hit a tree.”

Despite himself, Baron snorted.

Corvin grinned. Then his eyes drifted to his mother at the door. “Do you think ... I should talk to her?”

“If you want to.”

“You wouldn’t be mad?”

“Corvin, you worry far too much what I think. Whether you’re breaking heirloom vases or ballroom windows, you’re my brother, and I love you. Anything else is secondary. So what matters regarding Sarah is what you think.”

“I think ... maybe I break too many things.”

They shared a smile. When Sarah returned, Baron waited for a nod from Corvin, then stepped away to give them a private moment.

Leon returned at last, padding softly into the ballroom. Judging by the layers of dust darkening his thick fur, he’d snuck through all kinds of uncharted manor areas. Though he shook himself, most of the grime stuck.

Baron crouched in front of him.

“Found her.” Leon’s whiskers twitched. He sneezed. “Good and bad news.”

“How bad?”

“Let me tell my thing, Baron. Good news, looks like she melted the winter witch’s heart. Bad news, Widow Curseface is the worst Caster alive and can’t fix her own curse. Good news, you can, since you fixed birdbrain.”

“Bad news?”

“Can you not see my fur?” Leon licked one paw, then gagged. He shook his head. “They’re heading back here, along with some girl. Charlie’s sister, I guess.”

Baron glanced at Corvin. Sarah had helped him stand, all his weight carefully leaning on his uninjured leg. For the moment, Baron needed to tend to his family.

As he approached, Sarah glanced at him, then down at the floor, streaked with thick blood. “I wanted to get him cleaned up and settled before the surgeon arrives. There’s a guest room just down the hall.”

Corvin cocked his head rebelliously. “I told Mom I can walk, but—”

Baron picked the boy up. Sarah shot him a grateful smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted . . . I’d hoped . . .”

She trailed off, and Baron didn’t have the words to continue that conversation.

“Which room?” he asked.

By the time Corvin was settled in bed and Baron had cleaned himself up as much as possible—washing his hands, discarding what remained of his vest—Widow Morton found him. When she nodded toward the hall, he followed, and they stood beneath a glowing sconce.

“I heard you can’t stop the curse,” he said, speaking first.

She’d changed into a new dress and refastened her hair but hadn’t replaced her veil. Her face bore a deep gash that would likely scar.

“I made a mistake with the Artifact,” she said.

“Sarah brought me the bloodied towel, but I can’t sense—”

“That’s because I lied to Sarah.” Widow Morton kept her gaze on the wall, arms folded, shoulders sagging. “I thought myself terribly clever. A common Artifact could be discovered, captured, tampered with, so I anchored to something no one would suspect. I anchored to the person I cursed.”

Baron’s eyes widened. “ Aria is the Artifact?”

“I kept a decoy Artifact and told no one the truth. Mere weeks in, I realized my mistake. The curse was meant to deteriorate, but as it eroded its subject, it also eroded the Artifact, creating the very danger I’d meant to defend against.”

“That’s why it rebounded on you.”

“Among other things. It gave Her Highness increased resistance—aided, I suspect, by your own efforts—and delayed spreading. When I felt it tonight ...” She sighed. “I thought I’d employed a monster on a leash, but I have tried to leash lightning.”

Baron studied his hands, tracing his thumb along the lines of his palm. Though he’d scrubbed off every drop of Corvin’s blood, his ears still rang with the faint echo of a red song, calling like a far-off trumpet on the wind. It was not haunting; rather, it was invigorating. He felt the way he did after mastering a sword form. He felt the drive to repeat the success, the confidence that he could .

“I will break it,” he said.

Widow Morton met his eyes at last. “Your success with your brother is impressive, I’ll admit. A wound of that severity would have been beyond my abilities.”

Baron heard a note of hope in her voice.

Then she said, “But the curse has almost run its course. Its hold on the princess is deep, and I fear in anchoring it as I did, I have blurred the lines irreparably. I could not feel the separation between the girl and the magic.”

“Luckily,” Baron said, “I know the girl far better than you do.”

“It may overtake you. At the very least, even if you succeed, I fear there will be effects on you both.”

“Then I will suffer the effects,” said Baron. “But I will not surrender without trying.”

He found Aria alone in a sitting room, her journal on her lap, a quill on the small table beside her. She brushed one finger absently down its frills while her eyes scanned the page, brow furrowed in thought.

Baron smiled. Then he sat beside her, drawing her attention.

With a snap, she closed her journal, sitting up too rigidly, a posture born of nervous tension. “I was just revising notes for tomorrow. I’ve summoned the Upper Court, and I have only one chance to ... Well, anyway. Corvin’s all right? Leon still seemed shaken when I spoke to him, but he said there’s a surgeon on the way, said you have things in hand, and ... uh ...”

He was staring, he realized. Not intensely, but focused. Just soaking in the image of her and what he loved so much about her. Though she was obviously frightened, she was still trying so hard to be brave, still caring for others.

Baron folded one leg onto the couch, his knee pressed against her hip, his body angled to face her. He rested his elbow on the back of the couch, his arm curling loosely behind her, fingertips brushing her far shoulder just to be certain she was solid. That she hadn’t been lost.

Aria shifted closer to him, resting her head against his arm.

“I spoke to Widow Morton,” he said softly.

“Right, so she told you ...” Her fingers tightened around her journal, creaking the leather. “That’s why I have to figure this out. I may have a way to deal with my father, but I have to figure out how to make peace last if I’m ... I’m ...”

“I saw you fall.” The words scraped his throat even now, remembering the moment his heart had stopped.

Aria winced, as if remembering along with him.

“I thought I’d lost you forever.”

She kept her eyes on her journal and spoke with forced cheer. “Thankfully, Corvin bought me a few more days. I’ll have to make the most of them.”

A few more days. As if that could ever be good enough.

Baron would not be satisfied without an entire lifetime of Aria.

“Aria.” His voice had gone hoarse, and he felt her shiver. “The curse can’t take you. I won’t let it.”

She looked up at him, her hair catching a glow from the lamp behind her, peeking like a ray of hope.

Baron slipped the journal from her hands, dropping it to the floor. He intertwined his fingers with hers, leaning in until their faces nearly touched.

“Do you trust me?”

To his surprise, she gave a thin, heartbreaking laugh. “All these years, I knew I had to accomplish everything myself. I had to be capable of it all. Now I realize how wrong I was—I can’t do it all. But I can choose who I trust to help.” Holding his gaze, she nodded, and her voice grew tender. “Yes, Baron, I trust you. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

He felt the weight of that trust settle into every bone, a sacred burden he would never betray. With reverence, he said, “I’m about to kiss you like your life depends on it.”

He heard her breath catch, and then she tilted her head to meet his lips. He curled his fingers around her shoulder, drawing her to him, and in return, she released his other hand to fist both of hers in his shirt, clinging like he was the anchor to life itself. He gently stroked his fingertips down her arm, tracing a line from her elbow up to her wrist and back down. As she trembled in his arms, he wondered if she felt the same fear of loss he did, the same desperation to make a brighter future they could share together.

Aria reached up, tangling one hand in his hair, her lips moving against his with more force. Baron held steady for her, letting her take whatever strength she needed, until her trembling eased, until he felt her soften.

When he reached for her hair, his fingers hit the feathered comb, and he tugged it free. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders—and his arm—with a wave of lilac scent, tightening Baron’s chest with a surge of longing. He shifted, catching her waist and pulling her into his lap, feeling the warmth of her all along his chest. They fit together like lemon and leaf, like sword and sheath, like two halves always meant to be whole.

And with that sense of wholeness suffusing him in every bone, he opened his mind to magic.

At once, his world fell into night. A storm raged in the darkness, and he could not make out shapes in the pitch. When he strained for light, the darkness swallowed it, a flash of jagged blue lightning vanishing into black. The song of Aria’s blood was thunder in his ears. Though his head began to pound, he forced more flashes of light. Each one highlighted a silhouette, blurred at the edges, two things masquerading as one. The curse lurked as a shadow behind Aria, revealed only in light, copying the contours of her edges perfectly. It had become her, and in all the duels Baron had ever fought, he’d never been so outclassed by an opponent.

His breathing grew ragged, but he did not surrender. He held Aria more tightly, shifting them both on the couch, his palms steady against her back as he struggled to save her from the storm.

Aria’s lips slid to his jaw, then to the side of his throat, trailing kisses down his witch’s mark and rendering him quite unable to breathe. For a moment, Baron lost his hold on magic.

Then he grinned. From the moment they’d first met, she’d been catching him off guard, reorienting his world to face an entirely new sun, the light of it brighter than he’d ever imagined.

He seized that light, and he turned it on her curse.

“Baron—” she whispered.

“Concentrating,” he murmured back, smiling as he recaptured her lips.

She relaxed into him, resting her hands against his chest.

He allowed himself to exist fully in the moment, in the feeling of her weight against him, of her skin on his. Instinct, not thought.

The curse had made itself Aria’s image, but Baron knew the difference. He knew her details —had felt her kindness, her embarrassment, her fear, her joy. He’d inspired her laughter and wiped her tears. Every moment they’d shared, every touch, every word in every letter, filled his awareness of Aria with color and betrayed the shadow’s hollow dark. With magic, he focused every memory into light until it was no longer brief flashes but a blazing sun, until it cut the storm and began stretching the shadow, driving it back.

Finally, only a pinprick of contact remained, a thin slip of darkness clinging to Aria’s heels.

In the kiss, Baron playfully nipped her lip.

In his mind, he cut the tether.

With a gasp, Aria drew back, holding Baron’s gaze with wide brown eyes.

He tucked her hair behind her ear, winding his fingers in the silk of it. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Just a tingle,” she whispered. “Is it really ... ?”

With a smile, he kissed her again.