“Is everything okay?”
“Sure. Running a kingdom never goes smoothly. Nothing to worry about. Shall we?” Knox gestured towards the main door, and two guards standing by them immediately hauled them open.
The last two months had shown her a very different side of the Prince. He was a kind soul who truly cared for the people he ruled over. As eager as she was to find her sister, she had become just as eager to help the Prince break his curse. She would miss their casual dinners together and their magical duels, especially the ones where she beat him. As if waking from a beautiful dream, she took a deep breath and walked out into the courtyard.
Outside at least one hundred soldiers waited, all of them standing at attention in front of a large black carriage accented in gold. Eastmund jogged ahead of them and opened the door with a bow for the Prince. Knox climbed inside before turning around to offer his gloved hand to Eris. She took it and stepped up into the carriage.
Where the outside had been ornate, the inside looked like it belonged to an entirely different person. Well-worn beige seats faced each other, while big windows lined the sides. Though every inch of the interior was tidy, nothing inside suggested the carriage belonged to the ruler of Erila. It looked as plain as something she would have ridden in in Uwen.
“This is my personal carriage, “ Knox said. “I hope you don’t mind, but it’s torture to ride in the fancier ones for any extended period of time. Even by carriage, it will take us a week to reach the base of the Vord Mountains, so I opted for comfort.”
Eris nodded. “I don’t mind.”
Eastmund closed the door and jogged around the front of the carriage. Eris sat down across from Knox, placing her pack in the seat beside her. She watched as servants loaded trunks on top of the carriage. When they had finished, Toran appeared again at the side of the carriage.
Knox opened the window. “Yes?”
“You have enough provisions for the journey, and a second regiment will join you at the city’s border, as they are currently performing a security check. I will take care of things here. Would you have me follow the typical protocol or should I opt for a more creative approach?”
“Investigate the matter as we discussed before. I will trust your judgement. I expect favorable results by the time we return, but I will leave the finer details to you.”
“Of course.” Toran bowed.
Knox knocked on the ceiling of the carriage, and it jerked forward.
Chapter 29
Knox
Knox looked out the window at the rolling landscape slowing inching by. He wondered why he never seemed to have a moment’s worth of peace. Toran had suggested Eris take a separate carriage, but Knox had refused. He wanted to ensure she would be as well guarded as he was on their journey. He had no idea what was waiting for them in the Vord Mountains, but he’d do his best to see to the safety of everyone who had come with him.
Moments before they’d left, Toran had informed him that more bandits had attacked the outskirts of Erila. The attacks were becoming more frequent and the scouts still hadn’t been able to trace it back to a single source, but everything pointed to someone who was well versed in the darker magical practices. Knox didn’t want to push all of his royal responsibilities onto Toran, but after two months of searching, he hadn’t been able to find another means of breaking the curse. He hoped if he talked to Zhalora in person, she would be able to tell him an option that didn’t require Eris’ life.
There was something Nolan wasn’t saying. Knox knew that as clearly as he knew the sky was blue. Nolan had given as much away when he’d cast that spell against him. There was something about Eris which made her special to Nolan, more so than even the amulet Knox was wearing. Otherwise Nolan wouldn’t have wasted the magic to spell him into silence.
“Were you able to find out anything about the sorceress?” Eris asked.
Knox had kept his promise to tell her the truth as often as he could, regardless of the question she asked. “I haven’t. None of our connections have ever heard of her. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s completely made up.”
Eris laughed. “Nolan doesn’t seem like the kind of man who tells the entire truth, but I don’t think he would send us after a ghost.”
“You never know with him. He comes and goes as he pleases.”
Over the last few weeks, Nolan had popped in and out a few times to check on Eris’ magical progress. The last time they had seen him, a couple weeks ago, he had been impressed with the strength of her attack spells but had plenty to say about her connection to the elements.
“If it takes several days to get to the Vord Mountains, will I see you change?” Eris’ tone turned serious.
Knox nodded. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll change back as soon as the sun sets. But if it’s too much, you can always ride in the medical carriage during the days.”
Eris chewed her lip for several moments. “What is it like being dead?”
As was the usual any time he talked to Eris, Knox had not expected that response. They hadn’t talked much about the mechanics of the curse, rather they had talked endlessly about how to break the curse.
“It hurts,” he said honestly.
“Have you always been cursed?”
Knox shrugged. “I can remember playing in the sun as a child, but I’m not sure they are real memories. I remember turning for the first time, but I don’t know if I was cursed before that. Sometimes curses take years to manifest, so we don’t know for sure when it began.”
“It must have been terrifying when you were a child.”
Knox looked at Eris. Her kind eyes were studying him again. He smiled at her.
“Is it still scary?”
When he was a child, he’d been afraid of the pain. He’d been afraid that it would keep returning, and when that turned out to be true, he’d been afraid he would be in pain forever. Now, the curse was frightening because he knew at some point it would end with him dying for good.
“Of course not. I have too much to do when I’m awake to be afraid of it.” At least for now, he didn’t want to pass that reality on to her, because it wasn’t her burden to bear.
“Where did the prophecy come from?”
“The person who prophesied your appearance has long since died. My parents found him on his deathbed, but he was able to tell them there was a way to break the curse before he died. They spent the rest of their lives looking for that cure.”
Though he had lost his parents several years earlier in an accident, it had never gotten easier to talk about them. They had given up so much for him. It drove him mad that Nolan had dared to say anything against them. They had been gentle souls, like Eris. He hoped the histories would remember him as fondly as they had his parents and grandparents. He had come from a long line of successful kings and queens. If he lived on, he would rule Erila as they had.
Knox glanced at Eris, but she had gone back to watching out the window. He wondered if she was out of questions, or if she were thinking about her sister again. So many times over the course of the last few weeks with her, he had wanted to tell her about Soraya. He had wanted to admit his wrongs and beg her to forgive him, but he couldn’t find a way around Nolan’s spell.