The Cursed Heir

Chapter Sixteen

It had been late at night when Cassie fell asleep, but she opened her eyes in the sunlight. She turned to thank Avery, who had carried her out to the courtyard, but when she turned, she felt a piercing pain in her chest. Looking down, she found a stab wound, the blood seeping onto her fine clothing. Father was going to be furious with her for destroying yet another dress.

A slip of laughter wove through the air like a line of music, catching her attention. She forgot about Avery—how rude he must have thought her!—and watched the giggles form themselves into poetry in the wind. Her sister was dancing through the trees at the far end, her face pure, joyful, and untainted by the blood of battle.

Cassie forgot about the wound and the blood and ran toward Elisabet. It was an old game of theirs, from childhood: Catch the Commoner. One would run and hide, and one would run and hunt. They had played it in their carefree days, long before Cassie knew to be jealous of her sister and what it was to be cursed.

Elisabet was slow today—she must have indulged in too many cakes at lunch. Cassie was going to catch her with ease.

After just a few more strides, she tagged her sister on the shoulder in triumph.

"I win!" she shouted. Her gleeful cry sounded too harsh for the bright day.

She was shocked when Elisabet, instead of turning round to heartily deny it and demand a rematch, tumbled backwards into her arms at the light touch. Cassie stared down in horror at her sister's body, growing cold and stiff.

Cassie cried out and dropped her. When she was shaking Elisabet's shoulders in a pointless effort to wake her, that's when the tears came. She was crying and sobbing and alone in the world and who did she have now, if not Elisabet, the better one, the perfect one? How could she have been left? If anyone deserved to die, wasn't it the cursed sister?

The tears pooled around her, soaking the ground, and even the trees ran with the water. The ground became a torrential river of sorrow, drowning Elisabet beneath the waves, and now Cassie had killed her twice over.

The world cried until there was nothing left, until all that remained of what was once Cassie was an empty shell, and then finally the tears stopped and the earth dried up and it was night—no, it was darker than night, because at night the moon came out, didn't it? She was in a cave—but then, caves have walls and a ceiling, and there was nothing around her, just accusing black blankness, stretching on around her for an eternity on all sides. She could not see a single feature of this land: no trees, not herself, and not even the ground below.

She crumpled up, wrapping herself into a tiny balled up piece of nothing. If she squeezed her eyes shut tight enough, she could pretend that nothing had ever happened, that Elisabet was still safe and happy, having an entire castle to herself, without her horrid humiliating younger sister creating daily problems for her. In fact, remember the time she had managed to knock down nearly every tapestry in the castle corridors looking for secret passages, and Elisabet had...it was no use. She couldn't blot it out. She wanted to be blown away by the wind and never think again. She wanted to keep her eyes closed forever.

Cassie opened her eyes in the sunlight. She turned to thank Avery, but never got that far. A slip of laughter weaved through the air like a line of music, catching her attention. She forgot about Avery and watched the giggles form themselves into poetry in the wind. Her sister danced through the trees at the far end...

A finger as rough and dry as an old leaf peeled Cassie's eyelid up, jolting her awake.

"Having a nice dream, were we?" a disgusting old crone said. She was leaning over Cassie, her face mere inches away.