The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy 0.6)(7)

Except that everyone knew this rare affliction ran in the blood. Magic and our fey nature healed injuries swiftly, and even the wicked slice of iron only delayed the process. Pénélope healed worse than a human, blood refusing to clot, bones unable to knit. And if the injury was iron-inflicted, the black rot was instantaneous. While some with the illness lived to an old age, many bled to death from minor injuries, usually in childhood. While Ana?s herself did not suffer the symptoms, her children might. And in a city where power ruled, such weakness would never be tolerated. It would certainly never be courted.

“She would’ve been a good queen,” Pénélope said. “A great queen, and because of me, the chance has been stolen from her.” Her voice shook. “And perhaps I might’ve forgiven myself for this, but she loves him. And I had to watch her face as she was told that their marriage would never be. That it would be some other girl of the King’s choosing whom Tristan would bond. And that there was no power in this world or the next that would change that fact.”

“The King is cruel.” I hated him as much, if not more, than everyone else in the city, and knowing this only increased my distaste. “But this is his doing, not Tristan’s. Tristan adores Ana?s, and nothing would make him willingly cause her grief.”

“And yet he does!” Pénélope paced back and forth in front of me. “Knowing what he does, he acts as though nothing has changed. Still monopolizes her time and steals kisses from her when he thinks no one is looking. And in doing so makes it seem as though that was all she was ever good for. His entertainment.”

Her anger all of a sudden made a great deal of sense, but I knew that its motivations were misguided. “Pénélope, he doesn’t know about the contract.”

She stopped in her tracks. “You can’t honestly believe that’s true?”

“I’m certain,” I said. “He has his secrets, but this isn’t one of them.”

“I don’t believe that. He collects information like others collect artwork, and this concerns him intimately. How could he not know?”

I shrugged. “He’s fifteen. Marriage is not a matter of much concern to him.” The truth was, it was something he wished to avoid at all costs. In the one conversation I’d had with him about it, he’d said, “Marc, I’m trying to instigate a rebellion to overthrow my own father. I’m a traitor guilty of treason on many levels. How cruel would it be to bond some girl’s life to mine when there is every chance I’ll lose my head in the coming years and take her to the grave along with me.” He’d shaken his head. “I’ll not court the notion, and if he brings it up, I’ll fight it to the bitter end.”

But Pénélope knew nothing about our plans, and it needed to stay that way.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at her,” she snapped. “Seems as though he thinks about it a great deal.”

“That is another matter entirely,” I said, silently cursing Tristan for his rare lack of discretion. “He might behave differently if he knew.”

“I wish I could believe that,” she said. “But empathy is not his strong suit.”

If only she knew.

She sat down heavily next to me. “Now that you know, are you going to tell him?”

It was a piece of information Tristan would want to know: that his father was secretly negotiating his future union was no small thing. Loyalty demanded that I tell him, but… “Ana?s hasn’t told him for reasons that are her own,” I said. “It’s her secret to tell, not ours.”

Pénélope nodded, but was quiet for a long time, the only sound that of the stagnant fountain and the larger roar of the waterfall. “There are times I think that Ana?s is the center of my world. That everything I am and everything that I’ve done has been to ensure her success. That without her, my life barely exists.”

Well, I knew that feeling. Far too well. From childhood, my life had been dedicated to Tristan with little room for anything else. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way,” I said, wishing all the hopes in my heart would disappear, because I knew they would amount to nothing. “The worst has happened, and yet here you sit, alive and well. Maybe now you can live your own life the way you want without fear of discovery. Your affliction no longer owns you.”

“What you speak of sounds like a dream,” she said, and though my hood blocked my peripheral view of her face, I knew she was watching me. “Marc, why do you hate my painting?”

Sitting still in the face of that question was impossible, so I rose and walked over to a glass tree, brushing the dust off the branches. Not a day went by when I was not reminded of my own affliction, every looking glass and averted gaze reminding me of my disjointed and disfigured appearance. It made me think of what a hypocrite I was to tell her not to let her affliction own her when mine very much owned me.

“I know what I look like,” I said, forcing the words from my lips. “But sometimes I like to imagine that maybe it isn’t as bad as I think. That maybe my eyes are cruel and deceptive critics, and that maybe others see a different reality.” I bit the insides of my cheeks. “But what you painted was what my eyes have always shown me, and it reminded me that such dreams are for children and fools. What you painted was reality.”