The Cursed Prince - Fire and Ice (Book One)

Daughters and Animals

My lord!"

Adam's ears pricked up.

A white horse clattered over the courtyard.

"Lýes?"

He knew the young servant of Elaena, a fair-haired maiden who had given her heart of stone for a true heart for her lady. She had been adorned in silks of cornflower blue and sky blue with a circlet of silver upon her head. Now a mud-splattered, wind-whipped maiden of unfathomable beauty rode up to him. Without a circlet of her rank, and fingers stained with blood.

The girl threw herself from the saddle. "My lord. I bring news—" she panted. "I bring a message—"

"Elaena?" 

"Dead." The voice spoke in a weak whisper. "He is dead. He is—" Before she could reach him, a guard cracked his spearhead over her head. Her body simply fell through the air and crunched into the earth.

Adam's knees buckled. What of my love? What will be her fate in Elaena's hands?

Before his jaw slammed onto the stones, his eyes met another man's. Pale gray. Hair lined with silver. The Duke of Zorb? Why is he with Lýes?

His fingers slackened on her shoulders and the flat of swords slapped against his skin—a final sting of the despair of Eden.

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"Whose blood is on her hands?"

Adam rubbed his jaw where he had chomped down on his tongue when collapsing with Lýes in the courtyard. The blood still stained his lips. His father stood next to the bed, silver-shod brows furrowed. His eyes gazed over the purple bruises spotting over the maiden's neck. Some marks were so deep blood leaked. Blood on her neck. Blood on her hands where the head healer scraped around Lýes' fingers, which were thickly encrusted.

Adam nursed his mouth. His father's eyes flickered from the maiden's bruises to his son. "What of her?"

"She is Elaena's maid. A Stone-hearted one."

"Stone-hearted to the core?"

"No. She was rid of her stone heart before Elaena." His voice faltered at the sound of her name.

"And yet, I suspect a motive. Did you find anything on the body?"

The healer collected her towels and basins. "She is exhausted, my lord. And no, not a scrap of steel or paper on her."

"My lord." A voice beckoned. "We found these in her person." A guard decked in the colours of black and gold stepped out from the door.

"Swords?" The duke held the scabbards of the eleven swords in his hands.

Lýes' eyes snapped open. Her hands lunged for Toviel, a roar in her throat as man and maiden crashed to the floor. Swords and steel echoed in the stone chamber. "RETURN WHAT IS MINE!" Lýes' voice screamed in his ears.

Adam threw himself at her. Her eyes lifted, as he flung her back onto the bed, and his hand pressed across her mouth, holding her down. "You will not harm him. And he will not harm you."

Lýes writhed under his weight, screaming at him from under his hand. "BE QUIET, LÝES!" She responded to the threat by clamping her teeth into his hand. Adam hissed, but his hand remained over her mouth. "QUIET! DAMN YOU!"

Lýes continued squirming under his arm.

"If you do not, you will find your body dragged back to the King."

Her body stilled.

"Now, when I take off my hand, you will not scream?" 

 A slight nod of her head.