“Well, well, look at the little princess,” Plinius said, following me back to my room. “I always wondered why that guard was following you the night before your wedding. Now I see that you are quite close after all.”

  “You didn’t see anything!” I told him, walking briskly.

  “I didn’t see everything, but I saw something. How would you like me to tell my brother about what I saw tonight?”

  “You can, I was just telling him about the new guard schedule.”

  “You go personally to talk to the guards about scheduling? Late at night?” He asked mockingly.

  It was a stupid lie. I decided from then on to stay sober until the rest of the ordeal was over. My drinking that night had caused me more trouble than I could have predicted.

  I walked on, ignoring Plinius. Luckily Sir Sigisbert was waiting outside my room that night so Plinius didn’t try to assault me again. I was also happy that I had insisted on my own guards because they were much harder to bribe.

  As I walked into my room he called after me:

  “I’ll keep an eye on you!”

  Then he kissed the air in my direction. I shuddered.

  Sir Sigisbert gave me a quizzical look as I walked into the room. I hoped he wouldn't think too much about it.

  ***

  I spent the day with my dies-in-waiting. I thought that even if the magic was not traceable it would still be good to have an alibi for the day. Somewhere out there Adora had already started the curse. We spent the day on needlework and poetry, but I couldn’t really focus on it. I wondered when, if ever the curse would begin to work.

  Lady Agatha was not there that day, she was doing something with Prince Virtus they told me. I asked them what but they said they didn’t know.

  There was a knock on the door where I sat with the dies. Lady Gwendolyn went to open the door. It was Virtus and Lady Agatha.

  “Good day, dies,” his soft deep voice pulled at my heart.

  They all stood up to bow to him, but I sat still looking at my needlework. Lady Agatha went to her usual pce and picked up her part of the work.

  “Can I stay with you a little while?” he asked.

  I just nodded.

  “What are you working on?”

  The rge cloth was spread over all of our ps as we sat in our chairs, each of us having an embroidery hoop over the area assigned to us.

  “It’s a scene from the wedding of the Fathers and Mothers,” Lady Ketilug expined.

  The rge and vish embroidery depicted the famous scene of the wedding of the Five Fathers and the Five Mothers. The story goes that in the beginning the Mothers and Fathers ran around freely, each doing as they chose, and that humanity followed their example and did the same. One day the Mother of Matter and the Father of Fact met to speak with each other, deciding that the world would be better if there was more order and discipline. They then decided to marry, and that each of the other Mothers and Fathers must pair up as well, to support each other but also to keep each other in check. That day humanity had risen from it’s primitive cradle and started to build the first civilizations, and taken on the custom of marriage as well.

  We had brought the embroidery with us all the way from Havermark. It had originally been intended to be part of the dowry when we had started on it five years earlier, but the task had gotten away from us, and now it was our collective masterpiece that we would finish one day. I had decided to make an intricate pattern for the cloak for the Father of Finding, and had been stuck on it for weeks.

  “It’s very impressive,” he said walking across the room, looking at the things everyone else was doing. “That pattern on the cloak looks wonderful, Talia.”

  “Thank you, Prince Virtus,” in spite of everything, I smiled.

  “You have such an eye for detail,” Lady Adelheid opined. “Most men don’t even notice such things.”

  The prince chuckled.

  “When I was a little boy I used to sit with my mother while she embroidered.”

  I thought about little Virtus, sitting at his mother's side. Her stroking his soft bck curls between the stitches. He sat down to talk with us. I had forgotten how witty he could be in the right company. He blended effortlessly in with the group of dies, making us ugh with his interesting stories and charming remarks.

  Then it was time for me to go to my room to get dressed for dinner, and he said his goodbyes. I went with the dies to my room to get my hair and dress ready. I wondered what the king would look like at dinner. If he would be sick already. Lady Agatha came to help me, and when I asked her what she had been doing with Virtus all she said was:

  “He really cares for you, that one.”

  I noted in my mind not to trust her fully.

  I walked down to the great hall. The princes already sat at the table on the dais at the head of the hall. The king was not there yet. Perhaps he was already sick.

  I went to my seat next to Virtus, careful to not look too hard at the king’s empty seat. Virtus gave me a warm smile as I sat next to him.

  Plinius leaned over to talk to me.

  “Well hello sister.”

  “Hi Plinius,” I said with as neutral a tone I could muster.

  Virtus put his hand on my arm and started chatting with Plinius as we waited for the king. They just chatted, but Plinius kept shooting me knowing gnces. But he hadn’t seen anything really! Only that I went and spoke to Alvar, and that was not forbidden.

  The chatter in the great hall faded. The king was entering. I tried to not seem to obvious as I stared at him walking in. He looked normal to me. Maybe the magic wasn’t working yet. Maybe the magic wasn’t real.

  He started coughing. First it was just a few little coughs. He took a few steps forwards. Then it was a nasty coughing fit. He keeled over, hacking. My eyes widened. He stumbled a few extra steps, then he fell over.

  The people in the hall rushed to him, his sons as well. I sat still on my chair, petrified. It was working. The magic was working.

  ***

  I sat in the window of my room. The view was not as good as Virtus’s, but I could see a little of the courtyard and a couple of streets. I saw a few people moving around from the light of the flickering nterns.

  They had needed to carry the king out of the great hall on their arms. I had only followed from a distance. Virtus had told me to order dinner to my room, and I did.

  So I had eaten dinner by myself. Old Sir Thanmar waited outside my door. I felt so nervous, I couldn’t rex for a single moment. Every second of the evening my heart was pounding. I wondered if the nerves would make me sick as well.

  There was a knock on the door. I opened it. It was Virtus.

  He looked terrible. He had been looking very rough ever since we came back to Medolina, but now he was looking positively grey. Could he have caught whatever it was the king had? I really had to ask Adora more about the magic and how it worked.

  “Virtus, are you all right?”

  “Yes, well no, my father is very sick.”

  “Oh,” I had to py innocent, but if I seemed too sympathetic to the king then that would also give me away. “But physically? Do you think you may have caught what he had?”

  “No, if I had I wouldn’t have come to you.”

  He walked into my room and sat down on the bed.

  “Talia, I’m so tired. During our honeymoon everything was so perfect, how could everything go wrong so quickly?”

  I looked down at him, his big brown eyes were filled with tears, his skin, which was usually a honey brown colour had turned almost grey. I went over to him, and held him. I held his beautiful curled head against my chest, and he wrapped his arms around my waist.

  We undressed and slept in my bed together. We didn’t do anything, we didn’t even kiss. We just held each other.

  ***

  The sun shone in my window. Virtus’s beautiful bck curly head was lying on my chest. For a few precious seconds I didn’t remember anything. I felt like we were still on our honeymoon. I ran my hand through his hair.

  He woke up and looked up at me. His red puffy eyes reminded me of the harsh reality. The queen was dead and I was killing the king.

  “My darling,” he whispered.

  I said nothing, only ran my hands through his hair. I was still so angry at him for how he had handled everything around Queen Reena’s murder, but he just seemed so sad.

  We got up and got dressed.

  “I have to meet with my father’s advisors all day today,” Virtus told me. “We have to go over the possible pns in case my father’s illness continues. What do you pn to do today, my love?”

  “I guess I will go see my dressmaker.”