Page 5 of The Consort's Curse
The potential power of my magic made me a threat to a man like Duke Treviso, and my curse left me vulnerable to allkinds of uses, such as the one the Lord Chancellor had now seen fit to put me to. And so my mother had written to Abbot Junius and sent me away, far enough—she hoped—that the court and its predators would forget all about me.
Her hopes had certainly been dashed now.
I’d spent years chafing at the hideous prospect of an endless, monotonous life of plain, austere celibacy with no love and no magic and no excitement. I’d plotted an eventual departure from the island, no matter what my mother and the abbot would’ve preferred and no matter how much respect and gratitude I owed them for keeping me safe.
But this situation in which I found myself now…well, it certainly wasn’t safe. And so far it also hadn’t offered me much by way of love, magic, or the kind of excitement that didn’t make me want to throw up.
We reached a quieter, less decorative hallway, and Ser Prendian opened a door to reveal the “rooms” the Lord Chancellor had referred to: a dim, narrow chamber all paneled in knotted oak, and a small attached bath. By the standards of my abbey it represented great luxury, especially given the presence of a fireplace, but it was hardly the type of palace suite a noble young bridegroom might expect to occupy.
“Ser Prendian,” said a sour-faced fellow in the process of unpacking my trunk. He offered him a respectful nod. “My lord,” he said to me, with no nod at all.
He took out my spare cassock, stared at it for a moment in seeming disbelief, and set it aside.
And beneath it…I took a half step forward, biting back a gasp.
The servant lifted the flap of the leather satchel containing my potion bottles and notes on its effectiveness and dosage, nodded, closed it, and handed it to Ser Prendian withouta word. I barely arrested a grab in mid-air, pulling my hand back to clench it at my side.
Without taking it, I’d be dead—following a period of terrible, increasing agony—by tomorrow night.
Without it—or a man to takeme. And even though I had no choice but to do my best to seduce and please Lord Stefan, with my potions taken from me, I’d be left with no alternatives in the event that he wasn’t in the mood to be seduced. If he waited even a few hours to consummate the marriage, my wedding night would be spent feverish, twinging in every limb, blinded by a headache, and begging my lord husband to use me however he pleased if only he’d stop the pain.
If he resembled his ruthless father in any way, no doubt he’d enjoy manipulating and dominating before offering relief, and that relief would itself come in the form of being hurt, if some of my fellow dawn-mage novitiates’ stories of their experiences prior to entering the abbey were any guide.
“Good, and make sure there’s no more anywhere else in the trunk,” Ser Prendian said. Fuckingbastard. He turned to me, his hand already on the door. “Youwill remain in this room until sent for.”
The door shut behind him. The servant eyed me coldly, up and down.
“You will tell me if you need anything, my lord,” he said. “Otherwise, I will assemble your marriage garments and bring you something to eat.”
“I’ll be in the bath,” I said, and fled, shutting the narrow door behind me.
At least in here I could be alone long enough to gather my thoughts, and I wasn’t tall enough to be uncomfortable in the small, rust-stained porcelain tub.
And if the sound of the tub filling concealed my half-hitched sobs and the infuriated grinding of my teeth, so much the better.
I took another bath later that night, trying to savor the indulgence of as much hot water as I wanted, something that had been considered unnecessary at the abbey.
But the pleasure of that palled quickly enough, and I spent most of the night in a state of half-frantic, half-somnolent misery. Gods, what had Fina been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking at all, if I knew fifteen-year-olds. But how could she be so stupid? And what did the Lord Chancellor see in me that Ser Prendian hadn’t—and that I didn’t, for that matter? If my expendability and susceptibility to blackmail and threats were my greatest recommendations as a son-in-law, then I truly had no advantages in this situation at all. It would’ve been enough to drive me mad even without my sick anticipation of the following day.
I dozed for a few hours before dawn, but I’d spent years rising with the sun, and even exhausted, I couldn’t get any more rest. The same unpleasant manservant found me slumped in the chair by the fireplace just after eight in the morning, according to the chimes of the temple bells.
“The Lord Chancellor expects you in a quarter of an hour, so make haste,” he said, without any preamble, and began to lay out the suit of clothing he’d had hung over his arm.
It comprised a pair of gray broadcloth breeches, a homespun linen shirt, and a plain, drab-green jacket with wood buttons. I’d never seen anything so hideous, and it took me a moment to understand what had to be happening.
The wedding. Now.
Oh, gods.
That twinge in my belly had to be nerves, not the first sign of my curse, didn’t it? It had to be.
At the servant’s impatient gesture, I forced myself out of my chair and began to dress, as if I’d been transported into some nightmare where you couldn’t control your own slow, clumsy movements. Ennolu, these clothes…my cassock flattered me more. The jacket’s shoulders had been tailored for a broader man, and one with more muscle. As I slipped it on, I felt rather like an ill-shaped coat hanger.
A glance in the wardrobe’s mirror showed me that I looked like one, too, all narrow and pointy and awkward, with my red ringlets hanging limp and subdued and my freckles brought into prominent relief by the muddy green of the jacket. At least my stubble grew so sparsely and slowly that I didn’t need to shave—which gave me no way to stall.
I’d be married to Lord Stefan within the hour, I expected.
And within sixty-one minutes, I expected him to be very unhappy in his marriage…unless Lord Stefan took particular pleasure in controlling me through my cursed magic. I shuddered, chilled despite the warmth of the room.
