The Cursed Kingdom

TEN

~ THE HEALER ~

"My Queen."

Those two seemingly simple words rung in my head repeatedly over and over again like a never ending echo, haunting my thoughts whether I was awake or asleep, never letting me forget the mind-numbing horror and realization that had filled me when I'd first heard them.

That one statement explained everything—the gifts, why the servants called me "Madam" and bowed in my presence, and all the little things Jerium would say that used to confuse me, but not anymore. It all made sense. All of it. They all had known of Henrik's intentions and what my mark symbolized, my fate carved in stone like the punctures in my neck.

Everyone had known but me.

"My Queen."

I groaned in frustration, rubbing my face violently like it would somehow scrape away the heavy feeling in my stomach. My emotions were a nasty concoction of negativity, feasting on and fighting with each other, that made my thoughts run to dark corners I didn't want to see, the places where my demons resided and happily watched me squirm so they could fill my head with so much blackness that it felt like I would eventually drown in it.

I paced my room, the closest area to a sanctuary I had in the palace and where I'd been childishly hiding from the weight of Henrik's statement for the past three days.

Just thinking about those words again, I could feel my heavy heart pounding in my chest like a clock counting down to something treacherous. Imagining that I could be bound to a mass killer, a Lycan, the Cursed King forever made me physically ill and my body racked with shivers and sweat.

I understood perfectly well that being his queen wouldn't involve just strutting around in a crown and looking nice in whatever dresses were chosen for me. No. It meant giving him heirs. It meant giving up my virtue. It meant giving up every part of myself to him.

It meant eternal imprisonment of my body and soul.

My breaths turned ragged and short, causing my head to feel light and my body weak. I stopped and stared at myself in the floor length mirror next to the bathroom door, realization dawning upon me as I stared at my frail form, my arms so thin that I doubted they could lift more than a couple dozen pounds.

I had no doubt Henrik had enough magic in his blood to keep him alive forever if conditions allowed it. However, a human such as myself, who possessed only enough magic—which is just a pure form of energy—to stay alive for a few decades, did not; I would grow old in front of his eyes and eventually would be unable to provide him the satisfaction any male craved in a spouse.

And when Henrik grew tired of me, which I knew would be inevitable, he could snap my neck like a twig and move onto the next unfortunate damsel in distress he caught floundering in the woods. The image of my mangled, aged body rotting amongst the trees and the skeletons of my friends caused a shiver to go down my spine and my eyes to sting, believing with every fiber that created my being that it would be my future if I didn't escape Henrik's clutches.

I looked towards the bay window and shuddered as I made my slow approach towards it, my clutched hands shaking uncontrollably like leaves in a storm. My veins turning cold, I stepped up onto the window seat and peaked down at the snowy ground about a kilometer below, a fatal drop for anyone with the frozen soil. Even an immortal.

My eyes burned with unshed tears, trying to avert my gaze to the trees beyond instead of what laid below. I gulped and marveled at the beauty of the sun beginning to peak over the mountains, how its warmth and light embraced me like my loving husband through the glass. The husband I'd never have. The life I'd never have. The love I'd never have.