Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 63709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“A curse? What sort of curse?”
“It starts with a rash. The skin turns a deep crimson. Then a wheezing cough. A fever. Then…” She bites her lip. “It gets worse. The whole body gradually hardens—like it’s turning to stone.”
Oh fuck, this is not good at all. As much as I want to run away, I need to hear all of this. I have to be able to help Ma if this is what she has.
“Victims of it feel like they’re burning, like they can’t breathe, and sleep is impossible due to the pain. Death is slow… but inevitable.”
“How slow?” I croak. I feel dizzy.
She shrugs. “Depends on how healthy the person was to start with. Days… weeks… when it last swept the kingdom, sometimes people were able to hang on for a month or more. But not many.”
“Did anyone survive?”
“Not until they found the cure.”
A surge of hope bubbles in my chest. Leelah should totally have led with this tidbit. “What is the cure?”
“I don’t know. The king discovered it, before he vanished. The curse vanished with him.”
“Vanished? But I thought… Everyone’s been complaining about the tithe. If there’s no king, whom do they pay it to?”
“The soldiers collect the tithe and send it to the capital—Medea City—where the king’s advisors rule in his stead. No one has seen the king since his parents died. Rumor has it he lives…” She turns and angles her face to the high cliff towering over the village. A broken wall of gray-green stone lines the rocky crag, surrounding a ruined turret. Once, I was tempted to hike the hill, but every path I found leading up to the top was blocked by a thicket of thorny vines.
“Up there? But those are ruins.” I peer up at it, blocking the suns with my hand so I can see better.
“Are they?” She raises an eyebrow. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Rumor has it the king is there, lying in stasis, protected by his magic.”
“Magic?” I can’t disguise my incredulity. Granted, there are some pretty weird things around here, but… magic? Seriously?
Leelah’s looking at me like I’m nuts for sounding skeptical. “Yes, magic.”
“I tried to hike up there once,” I offer. I wanted to get a glimpse of the sea on the far side of the castle. “There are a lot of brambles with wicked thorns.” But no magic, because magic doesn’t exist.
Leelah frowns like she heard my unspoken doubt. “They say when the king and queen died, the prince came into great power. But he was so saddened by their deaths, he wept for a year. And everywhere his tears fell, the thorny vines grew.”
“Wow,” I say. “Props to him for getting in touch with his feelings like that. And the thing with his tears creating thorny vines sounds epic. When I cry, I just get a stuffy nose.” I’m being snarktastic, but Leelah doesn’t seem to notice. “So… if the king is there but asleep,” I emphasize the word, “who’s ruling Medela?”
“The tithe is collected and goes into the king's coffers for his advisors to distribute. He keeps the peace and the sanctity of our borders with his magic, and his soldiers.”
“Ah yes, the Alpha guards. My favorite.”
Leelah is still staring off at the distant tower. “Once a year, at tithe time, the moonflowers bloom on the vines, and when they do, they guide the way to the king’s castle. There is a legend that one day, a beautiful Omega will fight her way up to the palace where he sleeps, and wake him.”
“An Omega? But I thought Omegas were incredibly rare.”
“Yes,” Leelah murmurs. “There may not be any left in the entire kingdom.”
“Well, I guess it sucks to be the king, then. Otherwise, that legend sounds like a lovely reverse Sleeping Beauty type situation.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“It’s a shame—if this curse does turn out to be as bad as—or a return of—the Red Death, the king would probably have the power to save us.”
I bristle. “Then he should do something. It’s not right that he’s taking tithes and doing nothing to help his people. Someone should go hack down those thorns, and wake him up.”
“Yes,” Leelah intones. “Someone should.” Her eyes return to me, and narrow. “Where did you say you were from again?”
“Far, far away. You might say worlds away. There aren’t many kings left there.” I bite back my commentary on defunct monarchies. Leelah looks suspicious already, and now isn’t the time. “I need to get home to Matron.” I have to ask her if she knows anything about the curse and the cure. She is a healer, after all. “Will you be here tomorrow?”
Leelah looks around and I follow her gaze. People are packing up and leaving the market, their heads bowed and worry lines marring their faces. Across the way, soldiers loom, looking stern as they hurry people along. “I wouldn’t count on it,” she says. “I guess it depends how the curse progresses.”