Staggering to a stunned stop, I stared after them as they disappeared down spiraling stairs, leaving me behind with their echoes.
Was I still dreaming?
But this didn’t feel like that dream. This felt real. Even if I couldn’t touch Leander, he’d looked and sounded real…
A whimper from behind me made me spin around. There was something in this room with me. Someone.
Slowly, I retreated through the room, that numb weightlessness persisting, like I was wading through a pool of murky water. As I approached the shadowy end where a four-poster bed draped in a canopy came into view, thoughts moved at a snail’s pace, trying to piece together the shards of my most recent memories. I had no recollection of what happened between falling off Amabel, and waking here, unseen, and unheard.
But I somehow knew what was in the bed before I laid eyes on it.
My body.
Chapter Seven
How long I hovered by my own bedside, I couldn’t tell.
The sun rose and fell, again and again. Shadows shifted along the room, birds sang with the sunrise, and wolves howled in the night, and I hovered. Watching the Fairuza who lay on the bed, mirroring the emotions roiling through me, like she was caught in the clutches of unending nightmares.
But this wasn’t a dream. This was the fate that awaited me into eternity.
I’d always known there was a possibility the amendment one of my fairy godmothers had made to the curse might work. That instead of death, I would fall into an unnatural slumber. One that also could only end by the love of the noblest of men. She’d made it to keep the Underworld from claiming me when the curse expired, to give me more time to be saved.
But watching my own chest rise and fall and feeling its every move echo within my ethereal projection among that distressing numbness, I’d long admitted to myself the horrifying truth.
Only my body had succumbed to the curse’s amendment. My consciousness was wide awake and going madder with every waking minute.
I didn’t have the respite of sleep, or the mercy of company. Those who came to check on my sleeping body, remained unaware of my presence. And then even those had stopped coming.
So I hovered by my body in endless helplessness.
At one point, the sound of voices finally prompted me to move from my body’s side.
It wasn’t more of Clancy’s people. Those had always come right up, ironically talking in hushed whispers, as if afraid to wake me. The new voices remained outside, raised in argument.
I didn’t know how far I could leave my body, but I rushed to the window, hoping there might be someone among the newcomers who would see me.
It was early daytime and the faint pitter-patter of rain drummed on the windowpanes as I peered down the soaring tower of a castle.
The moment I saw the Oponan royal party, something akin to hope moved within my numb chest.
Without a second thought, I was running outside the room and down the spiral stairway.
It felt like it took too long before I was passing through the castle’s main door. For moments everything disappeared, then I was outside.
Still rattled, I approached the party, and saw a handsome man who must be the real Grand Duke of Opona.
Standing in drenched riding clothes, his short, golden hair plastered to his head, Nikolai was arguing with a darker, bearded man, who had a curved sword strapped to his side. Perhaps his personal guard or a knight?
“I don’t know why you’re still arguing, Ivan,” Prince Nikolai snapped.
“Because it’s not too late to change your mind, Your Highness!” Ivan retorted.
Prince Nikolai waved. “Her curse won’t transfer to any of us.”
“We really don’t know that. It might be why they have her hidden here, that they’re afraid it might.”
Prince Nikolai tutted. “Fairies are vicious tricksters, but this is just a petty curse to be broken with a kiss. Either Andrei or Igor will wake her.”
Looking back at their convoy, wondering if either of his younger brothers were here, I found a wagon hitched to his carriage, bearing a glass coffin.
Was that for me?
Nikolai pointed at it, affirming my suspicion. “We’ll just put her in there, and take her home with us. Then either of them will marry her, and we will finally have a connection to the West.”
Ivan wrung his hands at his prince. “It’s an admirable plan, Your Highness, but surely we can still find a better princess? This one is