At What Cost

Elisabeth’s skirts fanned around her in a bright halo of white against the rough flagstones of the castle floor as she knelt in front of the throne. Her back was straight, hands held up delicately in entreaty, face twisted into the throws of agonized pleading: the very picture of a diffident suppliant. 

No one would be able to tell that rage burned in her chest. 

King Emlyn sat in front of Elisabeth on his throne of intricately carved wood. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth as he fought to maintain the mein of a somber conciliator. 

The book sat on his lap. The gilt on its spine had been worn away by so many years of mistreatment, and the roughly cut parchment had been shoddily stitched into place so that it threatened to tumble from between the covers every time the king shifted its weight. 

Strange, to think that the fate of Elisabeth’s entire family line was contained in two strips of embossed leather. 

“I only ask that you return what is already ours, my king,” she said, carefully threading a note of desperation into her voice. 

“Ah, but no member of your family has touched these pages in many generations!” 

King Emlyn lifted the book carelessly in one hand as he spoke. The loose pages slipped another inch out of place between its covers, and Elisabeth flinched forward instinctively to catch them should they fall. 

Emlyn’s sharp eyes danced in amusement. His little daughter, standing next to him with a doll clutched in one hand, giggled musically. 

It took every ounce of Elisabeth’s self-control to unspool her tense muscles and relax back onto her knees. 

Her little brother, Hadian, had been around that age when the curse took him. For three days, his body had carved a trail of destruction through their town while his mind was forced to endure horrors beyond imagining. He had fought, physically and mentally, against the driving force of the magic until the moment of his death. 

His screams of terror echoed through Elsabeth’s memories in counter-melody to the little girl’s laughter.

With great difficulty, Elisabeth bottled the pain in her own chest tightly enough that her voice held only gentle appeal when she spoke. “Our families were friends, once,” she reminded him. “For the sake of your grandfather’s love for mine, will you not return what was stolen from us?” 

A cold, flat expression crossed the king’s face. Elisabeth winced. Referencing their families’ shared history had been a risky ploy, given how that friendship had ended, but she had little else to bargain with. Gold, alliance, and even marriage had all already been refused. 

“As I recall, your grandfather killed mine over this book,” Emlyn replied. He held it pinched by one corner between his thumb and forefinger, shaking it like she rattled a bell to call her cat’s attention. His nails pressed indents into the leather. 

“He did not know!” she cried. “My grandfather loved yours like a brother, but the curse—!”

“The curse, the curse!” he snapped, waving his free hand dismissively. “So much I have heard about this terrible spell, but no magic could force someone to kill their loved ones.”

Elisabeth had thought that once too, before the enchantment snared her brother. In the throes of his confusion, he’d attacked anyone who strayed across his path. Even her. His empty eyes had not recognized her in those last few moments when the delusion released him just before he died. 

Some of that horror and frustration leaked into her tone as she cried, “If he had given up the book, both of them might live still!”

“And yet his blood stained the very stones upon which you now kneel,” Emlyn thundered. “Sooner would I dye the floor a second time to claim recompense than return to you the instrument of your family’s destruction. Get thee gone from this place.” 

For a few moments, Elisabeth sat frozen as her mind whirled. There must be something she could say to convince him, some price she could pay, some entreaty she had not yet tried. 

King Emlyn stood from the throne, thrusting the book into his little daughter’s arms so that he could place his newly freed hand on his sword hilt. His shadow stretched long in the torchlight to eclipse Elisabeth’s kneeling form. In that shade, Elisabeth saw the truth. 

Emlyn would not give up the book. Even knowing that her family was cursed to rove the earth seeking it until the madness took them or the tome at last came back into their possession, Emlyn would not yield. 

His family’s blood had already been spilled once over those pages, yet he would risk it happening again when her family inevitably returned to take it by force. They knew, now, where it was. Elisabeth’s family would be forced to seek it, willingly to forestall the curse or under compulsion once it took hold. 

The little girl had dropped her doll to grasp the book in both hands against her chest. Her arms trembled under its weight, and her dark, curious eyes flicked back and forth between her father and Elisabeth. 

Perhaps it would be she who offered the book back. In another generation, time may heal enough wounds that her mercy would outweigh her pride. 

Or perhaps she would hoard it as jealously as her father, pouring over its secrets in the dead of night with the full knowledge that her enlightenment was bought at the price of lives. 

“So be it.”

Whether she was responding to King Emlyn’s commands or her own musings, Elisabeth could not say. She soothed her skirts down with shaking hands but stood on sure feet. 

“May we meet again under better stars,” she said, dipping a shallow curtsey. When she looked back up, she met the little girl’s eyes instead of the king’s. 

The child gasped, small fingers clenching around the book that she was not even old enough to read. One day, she would have the chance to learn. A chance that Hadrian had never been given. 

Her father’s hand fell protective and possessive on her shoulder even as he took another threatening step away from the throne. Elisabeth turned away. 

The long train of her white dress swept behind her as she glided out of the room. She held her chin high and hid her clenched fists in the folds of her pleated skirt. 

Someday, the book would come again into her family’s possession. That day was already numbered as Emlyn’s last.