Chapter 105

MILA

My dreams were getting worse.

Every night, I was haunted by a series of images. I saw Felix exploding with light on the battlefield, only this time, it was him who was flung backwards in a broken heap and not his brother. I saw Felix’s body being overtaken by the curse, bit by bit, until he could only move his eyes. Worst of all, I kept seeing that vision of Felix in medieval clothing, his eyes dancing with an unfamiliar light.

Two days after our coronation, the royal family was in lockdown. Felix’s condition was worsening, and we had all come to the conclusion that we needed to limit the spread of information about his “mysterious illness.” It was bad enough that there were rumors swirling in the south about dragons being the cause of Barlow’s destruction. We needed to control who knew what about the Dragon Knights, fast.

I awoke that night in a cold sweat. Felix was next to me, sleeping peacefully, his left arm laying limply on the sheets. He refused to tell me whether he was in pain, but I could tell from his quiet grimaces and heavy sighs that he was clearly suffering.

It broke my heart to see my husband in such a state. I had even been afraid to make love with him the last few nights, terrified that the physical activity would somehow damage him further. I could not bear to have a future without him, let alone run a country all by myself.

I tossed and turned, not really wanting to fall back asleep for fear that I would once again be confronted with visions of Felix’s slow demise. Sleep was of no comfort to me anymore. It was, in fact, a torture of its own.

I finally pushed myself out of bed and quietly slipped on a pair of moccasins and a dressing gown. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well be productive in other ways.

I tiptoed my way down to the kitchens, trying desperately not to make too much noise as I went. I didn’t want to disturb anyone, but thankfully, most of the castle was still.

It was pointless to try to go to my restaurant in the middle of the night, but right now, any old kitchen would do. And the royal kitchens were far from any old kitchen–they were just as grand as I remembered them, with state-of-the-art appliances and pristine marble surfaces.

Surely no one would mind if the newly-minted queen did a little cooking in the middle of the night.

My favorite thing about food was the emotion it could evoke. My hope was to create myself a little midnight snack to soothe my fraying nerves. In the vast expanses of the royal kitchen, there had to be lavender and chamomile somewhere…

I made myself a large mug of chamomile tea with honey and milk and got to work on making some lavender sugar cookies. Baking helped take my mind off my troubles, and it felt good to reconnect with my favorite activity. Maybe once we figured out Felix’s curse, we could somehow incorporate food and cooking into my queenly duties.

I was so engrossed with making a glaze for the cookies that I didn’t notice Esmeralda appear in the kitchen behind me.

“Can’t sleep?” she said. I startled, nearly dropping a bowl of powdered sugar on the floor.

“Sorry to frighten you,” the old witch continued. She leaned against a counter, studying me. “How is our invalid?’

I sighed and glanced down at my dough. “Felix is alright, I suppose. It’s hard to assess how he’s actually doing when he never accurately tells me his pain levels.”

Esmeralda nodded thoughtfully. “He has always been a private man.”

I shrugged. “Sure, but I’m his wife. He should at least be able to open up to me.”

Esmeralda looked at me thoughtfully. “He does not want you to know he is suffering. He is trying to protect you, Mila. Everything he does now is to protect you.”

“But I don’t need his protection,” I argued back, stirring the glaze forcefully. “I just want to help my husband.”

Esmeralda extended a gentle hand to me, and I reluctantly handed over the now slightly abused glaze.

“Felix loves you very much,” she said. “He also just watched his parents suffer through a needless war where they lost one of their beloved sons. You almost lost your life. He feels a great deal of personal responsibility, and cannot bear to allow another tragedy to befall his family.”

I lowered my head in shame. Esmeralda was right, naturally, but my pride was still wounded by Felix’s lack of communication.

“You must find a cure, Esmeralda,” I whispered. “We’re running out of time.”

Esmeralda sighed wearily. “I know, sweet Mila. Believe me, I know. I have been searching high and low. Charles told Felix of a library in the Dragon’s Teeth mountains that held centuries of information on magic. I am flying there tomorrow to see what I can learn for myself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Esmeralda frowned slightly. “Felix asked me not to tell anyone, so as not to get their hopes up. But I believe that it is a promising lead. There are secrets of magic lost to the centuries, but secrets have a way of revealing themselves in time.”

I smiled crookedly. “Then I wish you godspeed on your journey.”

Esmeralda gestured to my cookies. “What are you making? May I have a bite?”

I handed her a cookie. She took a bite and grinned, a moment of joy lighting her face.

“I knew someone once who had the gift of cooking, just like you,” she said, munching on the rest of the cookie. “She was very kind and generous with her talents. She died much too young, though. It was… a sad day for Fresonia.”

I stared at her for a moment. Truth be told, I had no idea how old the witch was. Her face was both ancient and youthful. Timeless. She could be eighty or forty. Or two hundred, for that matter.

As if sensing my thoughts, Esmeralda said, “I have been working with the royal family since I was a young girl. Since long before Felix or Ivan were even babes in the womb.”

I tilted my head. “So you knew Felix’s great-grandfather? He speaks of him fondly.”

A tiny smile formed on Esmeralda’s lips. “I have known every King since the dawn of Fresonia.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” She would have to be centuries old, at least.

Esmeralda merely shrugged. “Yes.”

I looked at her. “Were your parents witches as well?”

Esmeralda smirked. “I couldn’t say. It has been so long, I can barely remember their faces.”

I turned back to my cookies, trying to process the information I had just learned about the witch. Her voice, gentler now, interrupted my thoughts.

“And what do you know of your parentage, Mila?”

I wrinkled my nose and turned back to her. “You keep asking me that, but the answer is that I have no idea who my birth parents are. I know nothing at all about where I come from.”

Esmeralda held her hands up in surrender. “I just ask because I can sense something in your blood. Something out of the ordinary. I cannot quite place it, but it baffles me, indeed.”

My blood ran cold. “What can you sense, Esmeralda?”

The witch placed a hand on the side of my face. “I don’t know. And I know you don’t have the answers, either. But there is something within you that is the key to all of this. Somehow I still believe that you, Mila, are the cure.”