The Cursed Prince - Fire and Ice (Book One)

Fruits and Curses

Jezreel raised his head at the sound of the doors opening. The banquet hall was empty, apart from him, his guards, and his breakfast. Though the table could seat over two hundred, only he was seated.

Terra entered and dropped a low curtsy. "Your Highness."

"Hungry?" he asked, gesturing to the mountain of food spread before him.

"Thank you." Terra seated herself. Breakfast consisted of honeyed dates, porridge or gruel, cakes baked with oil, mountains of fruits and nuts, and plates of warm flatbread. In the center was a bowl of salt.

She poured herself a bowl of porridge before drizzling over honey. Jezreel scooped out the seeds of a pomegranate while a guard topped his goblet with wine. He spread the seeds over a cake smeared with fruit paste and topped it with a spoonful of honey.

"Have you announced the bans?" Terra asked. Her wedding. Marrying to the man who would be her mate and King. A monster, or a man?

"My chamberlain will announce them at the sacrifices." He pushed the bowl forward. "Will you have any salt?"

"What of Lýes?" she asked, eye raised.

"She is safe. I have proclaimed she is innocent and Adam is still healing from his wounds."

"And Rune?"

"Rune?" His eyes flickered up to meet hers.

"The courtier your father imprisoned."

Jezreel dropped his food.

Terra arose, without eating a scrap. "You know of the custom that eating salt makes eternal friends?"

She rose from the table. "We are not friends. Not even close. To make me your wife in flesh and blood I must show you this." And what tells the future of your life. Mine as well as the kingdoms.

Jezreel rose and his guards gathered to his side.

"Without them."

Jezreel dismissed the men and followed Terra out of the banquet hall. Opening the doors to her chambers, she stepped aside to give him a full view of the Tressden. The Tressden sat silently by the window, singing in a soft voice of a foreign tongue. The curtains were shredded to pieces. Vases and jars of flowers lay smashed on the stone floor with the water and wilted flowers pooling everywhere. Lea was risking her own fingers at being bitten off by trying to bandage the Tressden's wounded hands which were caked with dried blood from biting attacks. It was fortunate that the Tressden's eyes were fixed on the dawning pale pink light. Her bloodied lips moved in a lilting song like ocean waves and her eyes stared into an endless nothing.

"By the heavens," he whispered in awe. "The stories are true."

Terra crossed her arms over her breast. "I founded her hidden in my curtains. And from that day she has been a terror. She has chomped off my hand, torn my chamber to pieces: Shredded my bedsheets and curtains. Smashed anything of glass or pottery and clawed the walls raging like a wild animal. We had to gag and bind her hand and foot." She stopped for a breath with a mirthless thought, that, what a help the shredded curtains had been to tie down and silence the squirming Tressden. "Though, when she gnawed through the curtains and managed to squirm to the windows and prop herself on the ledge, Lea and I thought it may be better to let her fall to her death, was when she stopped everything. She was silent at last. And fixed on the changing of the moon and the sun. Only then did he release her, and she has remained there till now."

Slowly, Jezreel knelt down beside the Tressden. Although adorned in Eden skirts, her beauty was nothing compared to an Eden female. Her skin was delicately fair, the colour of the whitest snow, hair of gold, and eyes of ocean blue. Her fingers were wrapped around a necklace at her neck. A necklace of silver.