The Bone Bride by Merrie Destefano

Author:Merrie Destefano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ruby Slippers Press

7

The Prince

“Come with me,” Prince Blackroot said to his bride, his arms wrapped gently around her slender waist. “I promise I will never hurt you, but we must leave before the sun rises—”

“But may I see my parents one last time?” she pleaded, casting a glance over her shoulder, back toward the tower, at the heavy wooden door that led to the spiral staircase. Her father would never descend. He was trapped in the tower, too fat to squeeze through any of the doorways and too broad to fit through the narrow stairway.

The only way he would ever leave was after he died. He would have to be cut into pieces and either carried down by the servants or lowered down in baskets.

But her mother would be here in an instant, Rowan was certain of it. Her hearing was much sharper in death than in life and she could already hear the swift patter of slippered feet running down, down, down the marble steps.

She had always loved her mother.

“I hear her,” Rowan said, tears sliding down her cheeks, her lips quivering. “She’ll be here in a moment, my mama. Please.”

“One moment, Princess. For you.”

She blinked and looked up at him. “P-Princess?”

He nodded. “Whether you marry me or not, you are royalty now. But we must leave before the sun crests the distant mountains.” He pointed toward the horizon, thankfully still dark. “If we do not leave before sunrise, your spirit will be stuck in this place forever.”

She could be stuck here, on this cliff, for all of eternity?

Why hadn’t the saints or the priests warned her that such a thing could happen?

This was much worse than being married to an ogre of a boy, who wasn’t as ugly as she had imagined. In fact, if she looked at him with her eyes half-closed, he was actually a bit handsome. Too many Goblin features, of course, the grey-green skin, the over-abundance of muscles, the long teeth that could break bones with a single bite—

Then the tower door swung open. One foot appeared in the doorway, but she couldn’t tell who it was yet.

“You may come back to visit her later,” Prince Blackroot said. “But if you stay, her tears might enchant you to stay longer than you should. A mother’s tears are stronger than any Goblin or Nightwitch magic. They are almost as powerful as the great Raven King himself.”

Then Prince Blackroot didn’t speak again, as if he had already said too much.

“Take me away!” Rowan said, her voice insistent. “Please, hurry!”

Already a woman was walking out of the doorway, head down, shoulders forward, if that person lifted her face and gazed up her, if it was her mother and if there were tears in her eyes, surely there would be tears…

But a whirlwind formed around the two of them, beautiful bride and gruesome groom, so strong it carried dirt and twigs and stones, until neither one of them could see anything in the world of the living.

And no one in the world of the living could see them.

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