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 Copyright © 2019 Cortney Pearson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic,
mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the
author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, incidents,

or events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Copy Edited by Cynthia Shepp

Proofread by Cynthia Shepp
Cover Design by Rebecca Frank Art
Map Drawn by Chad Hurd
Author Photo by Clayton Photo + Design

www.cortneypearson.com

Created with Vellum

 For Duane

All that glitters is not gold.

-William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II, scene vii
 CONTENTS

Map of Zara

Prologue
After
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27

Invitation to Review!
Also by Cortney Pearson
Acknowledgments
About the Author
 MAP OF ZARA

Pirate: n., one who acts without authority, who attacks and
robs ships at sea. Scoundrel. Crook. Thief. Murderer.

Princess: n., one who is the daughter of a monarch. Precise.

Educated. Flawless. A servant of her people.
 PROLOGUE

THREE YEARS AND THREE-HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR DAYS

BEFORE.

T he rain fell lightly at first, like teardrops into puddles, until it

stabbed faster, sharper, harder. Cali wasn’t sure if the agitated sea
had made the raindrops grow fingernails or if it was Undine’s doing,
but either way, she felt each bead of crystal rain on her exposed
hands and neck. Despite the parasol she fought against to block the
weather’s reach, it matted her hair to her temples and plastered her
skirts to her legs.
“Are you sure you won’t go belowdecks?” Darren called over the
urgent wind. His usually sandy hair was matted brown against his
temples, and his face was mashed into deep concern. The ship
tossed at each swell of water, the waves hungrily gulping at the
descending heavenly drops.
“I’m sure,” Cali called in response, holding her parasol with both
hands and staggering her feet for balance. Her father had ordered
her belowdecks when the rain first began its percussive tune against
the wood, but one of the privileges of being the princess meant she
could ignore the king’s orders. “We’re so close now, Darren. I don’t
want to miss it.”
“The boundary will still be there whether you see it right away or
not,” he said, raising a hand to shade his gaze from the downpour.
Rain dripped from his eyelashes, his lips, and his chin. “You’ll feel
more comfortable in your quarters.”
Cali doubted that. The toss of the robust, sturdy keel upon the
waves had an undeniably unpleasant effect on her stomach,
regardless of the weather. She’d spent as much time as she could
with her face to the wind, and a storm was no exception.
Now that she’d turned fourteen, her father had been easing her
into an understanding of her duties as princess of Zara. And one was
overseeing the homage that was paid to the boundary slicing
through the center of the Impius Sea, cleaving it into east and west,
dividing Zara from the other lands of the world.
The boundary was said to be a forest right there on the sea,
entrapped like a caged dream of branches and leaves and magic.
Not an island but a marker, signifying where one half of her world
ended, keeping her from where the other half began.
The drum of raindrops against her wind-rocked parasol slowed,
the wind hushing along with the sudden stillness. Lowering the
handheld canopy, she blinked wetness from her lashes. A solemn
silence stroked the top of the crests, smoothing them out, luring
them into stillness. Darren wiped his face as well, pushing a lock hair
out of his eyes.
“I’ve never seen the boundary, Darren,” she said, staring past the
stern toward the direction they headed. Her hair stuck to her neck.
The heavy starch of her muslin dress dragged against her body, but
she managed to walk her weighted skirts farther down along the
railing. “I won’t miss its first appearance for anything.”
Darren kept pace with her, not watching the Impius Sea West as
much as he was her. Her cheeks scalded with the heat from that
expression, from the sensation of it, from everything he was. It drew
her to the darkness of belowdecks, the cold metal and shadowed
space between cannons where he’d asked her to meet him the night
before. She pulsed under the memory of his bass-drum voice
admitting he cared more for her than he ought to.
She hadn’t known what to say. Two years her senior, Darren had
been her friend, her playmate, and the boy from the servant’s
quarters, the healer’s son. He’d told her he knew there was little
chance of anything between them, especially since she was only
fourteen. But she’d always been older, whether her age wanted her
to admit it or not. Credit it to her station as princess, her upbringing
with countless tutors and poise instructors, to the expectation she
acted as a princess should even from a small age, but a certain air of
maturity had always accompanied her wherever she went.
“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” she’d said with a plea in her
whispered voice. “I’m here for my father. For my people. It will be up
to me to maintain the homage we pay to Undine Daray.” The sea
witch.
“Do you always think of being a princess?” he’d asked, sitting on
the floor with one leg bent and hugged to his chest. “Don’t you ever
see yourself as just a girl?”
“But I’m not just a girl.”
His lip had quirked up. He’d scooted in just a little bit closer. The
light flickering from the lantern he’d brought with him had
shimmered in his eyes. “You are a girl, Cali. Right now, right this
moment. And right now, I’m just a boy, looking at a girl, wanting to
kiss her.”
Cali’s mouth had gone dry. Suddenly, it hadn’t been the sea
making the boat rock beneath her. It’d been the warm, eager glint of
flame in his glance. Why had he done this now? He’d known they
could never be anything more than princess and healer.
Still, she hadn’t moved as he’d knelt onto both knees, cupped her
face in his hands, and pressed his lips softly to hers.
Her heart had sparked like a lit cannon in her chest, but she’d
kept her eyes open. All she could do was think. About the soft
pressure of his mouth. About his fingertips. About the way his
eyelids were fringed with such dark lashes and how tenderly and
unquestionably they’d closed. She hadn’t been sure how a kiss
should feel. Was this what one did? Should she touch him back?
Why did people close their eyes when they kissed anyway?
He’d held the kiss a few lingering, pleasant seconds before
pulling away. His eyes had been questioning, quivering, delighted.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while now,” he’d said. “But I wanted
you to be old enough first.”
“And I’m old enough now?”
He’d pursed his lips. “Yesterday was your birthday,” he’d said with
a shrug. “I know it’s not possible, but I wanted to ask anyway.
Before I leave. Do you think if you weren’t being groomed as a
princess that you could…well…”
“What do you mean, before you leave?”
Footsteps had trodden past before she could answer. Darren had
been obliged to stand and join them, leaving Cali to tiptoe back to
her own quarters.
She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question again now, partly
because she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer, and partly because
she wasn’t sure what any of it meant. The kiss, his glance, any of it.
So she kept her attention on the horizon. Gray clouds clustered
with gentle gloom across the leftover sky. A glow settled below
them, bestowing a hush to the pacified sea below.
“Why are we slowing?” Cali asked. Unease coiled through her rib
cage. She’d never felt such a dense, beautiful dread before.
“A ship, sire!”
Cali and Darren raised their heads simultaneously to the lookout
in his position on the yardarm. No older than Darren, the boy clung
to the main mast and stared toward to the upper deck where Cali’s
father, King Marek, stood beside the captain. Her father descended
hastily down the ladder before taking the spy glass the first mate
offered him.
Cali lifted her wet skirts and scurried over, eager for a closer view
as well. She squinted across the calmed sea, the sun reaching
through a break in the clouds, and barely made out the speck of
another ship in the distance behind them.
“Whose ship is that?” she asked.
Her father passed her the spy glass. Through its small glass
scope, she perceived a majestic vessel with a black flag heralding
the image of a closed hand. “See the black flag, the white insignia?
That indicates it’s Merritt Drachen’s vessel.”
“Merritt Drachen? The pirate king?” Cali’s heart thundered, out of
fear or excitement she couldn’t tell. She’d heard stories of the
pirates who careened across the sea, claiming no land as their own
but preferring to plunder everything they could from that land
nonetheless.
 “Aye, my girl, but he is only the captain of the Iron Fist. The ship
itself belongs to someone else.”
“To you, Father?” she asked.
Darren chuckled beside her. She hadn’t realized he’d
accompanied her across the deck to the starboard side.
“No, Caliana. Even my ships don’t truly belong to me.”
“I don’t understand. You’re the king. All of Zara belongs to you,
including its sectors and property. You commissioned the Vigorous’s
construction. You oversee its sailors. Our naval captains answer to
you.” As they one day would to her.
“I am the king, which means Zara, its citizens, and lands are
under my stewardship. But just as I rule Zara, there is one who rules
the sea. And the rules of the sea are different from those of the
land.”
She recognized his careful, patient tone. It was the tone of a
teacher now, explaining vital facts to his pupil.
“They’re Undine’s rules,” she said solemnly.
“Every drop you see around us is Undine’s domain, Caliana,” her
father said, staring out at the increasingly blue sky. It was shedding
its gray skirts for those of a lighter shade. “It’s why we’re on this
venture.”
“The homage,” she said. “The solstice offering.”
“Exactly. The sea—and everything it touches, including our
shores—belongs to her. Those who don’t acknowledge it pay a heavy
price.”
“Like the pirates?” she asked.
Her father lowered the spy glass. “What you need to know for
this voyage, Caliana, is we’re paying homage of all new birth during
the past year. Our best crops. The feathery hair trimmed from
newborns in our kingdom, the first cloth that enwrapped them and
offered them protection from the cold. Ribbons cut from the
bouquets of brides at the commencement of their marriages. These
things keep Undine satisfied. It keeps her from seeking them out.”
His words slathered a chill across her arms. She thought of the
melancholy lullaby her nursemaid used to sing as she aired out
sheets and stoked fires.
B e wary the tale of the pirates, me lad,
Be wary the tale of the sea.
In its depths there be monsters,
Grave dangers be had;
If ye speak ‘em, ye’ll bring danger on ye.

S uch tales better kept in the silence, me lad,

Such tales should ne’er be utter’d.
For once words escape lips
They can ne’er be withdrawn
And to Undine your soul will be fetter’d.

W hy did speaking of such things bring down the sea witch’s wrath?
Did her father believe in such superstition? Cali had heard of the
homage every year, at the fall solstice. It was the celebration of the
harvest, of one year ending and another beginning. She’d seen new
mothers drop wrappings of their children’s hair, their fingernails—
anything expendable that could be offered in supplication—at the
palace steps.
“The pirates pay no such homage,” Darren said. Cali startled.
She’d forgotten he was standing beside her. He was watching her.
Again. “They sail her seas and take without giving.”
Cali glanced at Drachen’s vessel. The Iron Fist was a speck on
the horizon, sailing in a perpendicular direction from their current
course. “Then how is it they can sail at all?”
“I won’t speak of it here.” Her father growled the statement.
“Cursed,” she mumbled in wonder.
“It’s why they’re always on the move,” Darren whispered in her
ear with an unwarranted kind of familiarity, as though speaking a
great secret. “They never stop long enough for her to catch them.”
 The captain signaled Cali’s father, removing his tricorn
momentarily from his graying hair to wave it toward the king. He
replaced his hat and stroked his beard, waiting for her father to stalk
toward him and return to the upper deck. She wondered what they
spoke of.
“You aren’t scared, are you?” Darren leaned in, warming her
body with his proximity.
“Of pirates? Never.” A sour swell burbled in the pit of her
stomach. She prayed the lie didn’t show on her face. Drachen was a
name and a curse all on its own. It was far more fearsome to her
than speaking of Undine Daray. “They’re vagrants and scoundrels. If
Undine has cursed the pirates, it’s nothing they don’t deserve.”
“I know,” Darren said, anticipation clear in his voice. “I can’t wait
to see one up close.”
Cali’s chest seized. She stole a peek over his shoulder, to the
speck of the Iron Fist sailing away. Certainly too far for them to
encounter on this voyage. “What does that mean? Why would you
ever do that?”
He angled toward her. “I wanted to tell you last night. After we
—”
Cali’s mouth dropped. “Was that why you kissed me? You were
saying goodbye?”
“I’m joining your father’s navy. It’s why I was allowed on this
venture—to see if I’d be seaworthy.”
A different kind of fear struck her. Men in the navy were gone for
years at a time, sailing to the edge of the sea, attempting to find a
way beyond the boundary or searching out pirates to be brought to
justice. Storms were a risk, as were the pirates themselves. She’d
heard stories of young sailors being lost at sea.
Certainly Darren was seaworthy. He was tall and painfully
handsome. His body was lean and strong. Arms muscled from days
of hard labor and mind quick and active from studying herbs and
chemicals under his father’s tutelage. She stared at his chiseled
cheekbones in shock.
“You can’t!” Darren was only sixteen. He couldn’t be serious.
“I want to see the world, Cali. I’m tired of the servants’ quarters.”
 “Tired of my palace, you mean.”
“You heard your mother the other day when she as good as
banned me from your family’s wing. She made it quite clear I wasn’t
good enough for you.”
The reprimand had rung in Cali’s ears too many times to count.
Darren had touched Cali’s arm as they’d stood outside the door to
her bedchamber. Cali wasn’t sure what her mother thought they’d
been up to, but he’d come up to bring her a book, nothing more.
The most embarrassing part was her mother scolding him in front
of Cali. Mother had treated Darren exactly as one might a
scavenging dog on the hunt for denigrating scraps when he’d come
at Cali’s request for company while she awaited her tailor’s arrival.
“It’s too dangerous,” Cali said. “You heard what my father said
about Undine and the pirates.”
“I don’t care.” Darren rested his elbows on the railing behind him.
The wind tossed his drying hair, swooping it over his brow. He
appeared older in that moment. Handsomer, somehow, with his
brown eyes and brows stitched in determination. She pictured him
older, wind-worn, and tanned when he finally returned to her from
one of his ventures.
If he returned at all.
“The legends are real, Darren. Why do you think we’re out here
sailing at all, risking our necks to pay the homage the sea witch
requires from our shores?”
“I don’t belong at your palace, Cali.” A muscle in his neck
quivered, and he released a humorless laugh. “I shouldn’t even be
calling you that. Your Highness.”
“Don’t,” she said. She wanted to touch him but thought better of
it, gripping the railing instead. “When I’m crowned princess, the
kingdom will be mine. I can change the laws.”
Cali hadn’t wanted to return his claim of love last night. She
hadn’t understood what he meant. But something was stirring inside
of her now at the thought of him leaving. Something she knew she
wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.
“You can’t control everything,” he said.
“Yes, I can.”
 “You can’t control me.”
“I can.” She stuck up her chin as an impulse seized her. “I
command you to stay in Zara. You are never to set foot on another
ship as long as I’m alive.”
Indignation tripped through his gaze. “You can’t do that.”
Straightening her shoulders, she elevated her head and brushed
her wet hair behind her back. She pounded the tip of her parasol to
the wood, feeling childish and exactly fourteen in that moment, but
continuing anyway. “I am your princess, the daughter of King Marek
Brahmvir, and one day I’ll be ruler of the land of Zara. It is my wish
for you to stay near me. Is that understood?”
Darren’s face hardened, squeezing dry the humor and adoration
that often lingered there, replacing it with stone. He didn’t answer
immediately, waiting for her to rescind her command.
She didn’t.
“As you wish, Your Highness.” He stormed away from her.
She knew she’d commanded something he could never fulfill.
Someday, she wouldn’t be fourteen. She would be a woman. A
princess. A queen.
And queens didn’t marry their servants.
But she couldn’t risk him leaving her. The very thought carved
her out in an instant, and she wouldn’t back down. Not ever.
But nothing stayed the same forever. Her nurse had told her—it
was one of the true pains of shifting from child to adulthood. A
ripple gusted over the rolling waves, guiding their way, rocking the
deck beneath her and proving it was impossible to remain standing
still even when one wasn’t moving.
Darren went below and didn’t return, not when they arrived at
the opalescent boundary and dropped their homage of blossoms and
fruits, of hair and teeth and scraps of fabrics, to float aimlessly
across the water. He didn’t emerge from his room until the next day
in the galley for supper where he refused to so much as glance in
her direction.
The snub thickened the knot in her chest. No matter how hard
she tried to fight it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that one day she
would lose him to the sea. One day, it would stand between them.
There would be nothing she could do about it.
Cali would never let that happen. She would never let the sea—
or its witch—have any kind of hold over her. All that day, and all
through the return voyage to Zara’s shores, she vowed this would be
her final venture near any part of the sea.
She would never go near it again.
 AFTER

D r . B auer lifted the sheet over the kitchen maid’s head. While the
ghostly fabric concealed her lifeless eyes and the telltale spots
speckling her skin like poppy seeds, it did nothing to staunch the
smell of ammonia, sweat, and rotted cabbage permeating the
infirmary. It was the smell of shattered hopes—of death—and it
knotted in Cali’s chest like something tangible.
“That’s one more,” Dr. Bauer said, wiping his forehead with a
handkerchief. His voice was too tired to be fully audible. “Might as
well be claimed by the sea witch herself.”
A tear trailed down Cali’s cheek. “Her name was Hannah,” she
said, feeling this was a crucial detail in the moment.
Hannah wasn’t just another who’d fallen victim to the necrosis,
and neither was she just another kitchen maid—she’d been Cali’s
friend. They’d giggled together, played cat’s cradle, and romped
along the palace grounds. Time passed as childhood faded, and their
friendship took on a different hue made of delicious palace gossip
and heart-kept dreams. Hannah had even snuck forbidden notes
from Darren beneath the silver-domed lids covering Cali’s trays of
food, in order to help keep their correspondence hidden from the
king and queen.
And now Hannah’s form lay lifeless beneath a sheet.
Cali shuddered, an entire realm of sadness burrowing deep inside
of her.
“Yes, it was,” Dr. Bauer said, “and I fear who might be next.”
 “Can nothing be done?” Cali asked, wondering where Darren
was. Violent coughing erupted behind her, and she knew she’d see
the uncontrollable convulsions ravaging the invalid bodies of the
patients if she were to turn. The necrosis plague swept its way
through the system like a storm, leaving damage and disaster in its
wake. She was tempting fate even being in the same room as the
inflicted, but when she’d heard Hannah was nearing the end, Cali
couldn’t stay away.
Besides, Darren was down here, and she hadn’t spoken to him in
days. She’d been so ensconced in her upcoming birthday, in
coronation preparations, she hadn’t had the time to sneak away or
even to respond to his missives. Her mother had forbidden him from
attending the ceremony. Cali had to see him one last time before the
coronation took place.
“The necrosis acts quickly,” Dr. Bauer said, cleaning his glasses
and guiding Cali from the infirmary to the corridor. The air was
cooler, less stifled. Inhaling deeply, she sucked in a clean breath that
did nothing to suppress the quivering of her stomach. Hannah was
dead. How many more would it take before a cure could be found?
“Hannah only began to show the spots a week ago, and now…”
One week. That was all it took for the spots to spread, to shrivel
a person’s fingers and render their fine motor skills useless, for the
symptoms to devastate a person’s body completely. In his last note,
Darren had told her how busy he’d been in the infirmary, how
sleepless his nights were, how diligent they’d been in testing
different combinations of herbs and remedies to find something that
might quash the effects.
“How long do the others have? Has this spread to the rest of the
kingdom?” After Cali’s ceremony on her birthday tomorrow, she
would officially be crowned princess of Zara. It would become her
responsibility to resolve this matter.
“I’m afraid so,” Dr. Bauer said. “Several cases have even been
reported in the Wild Rose and Wheaton sectors of the kingdom.”
“So far out?” Wild Rose was closest to the ocean, the farthest
from where the palace stood on the border between Zara and the
Pereo Desert. It was why the air was so much drier at the palace
than near the harbor.
Tiredness dragged below Dr. Bauer’s eyes. “I’m afraid no one
stands much of a chance unless a cure is found.”
“And you don’t have one.” She already knew as much.
Perhaps there was a way to appeal to the sea witch. Her father
had recently paid the homage at the boundary, but Cali had yet to
actually see Undine Daray. Her presence was always spoken of—
Undine was the author of all ruined things. A decimated crop,
plagued by hailstones. An ink blot on parchment. Unrequited love.
Whether the witch was at fault for the mishaps personally, it was still
her name they cursed. People needed someone to blame. Cursing a
being no one had ever seen was the best option.
Cali thought of the bedazzling boundary, an expansive borderline
of an impenetrable, metallic substance that diverted light and
blasted it across the radiant sky like shooting stars. She’d only ever
seen it once, during her voyage almost exactly four years ago. It had
hummed with sheer, untouchable power—had stretched as far as the
eye could see and reflected the sailors’ images back to them the
closer they got. But Cali hadn’t felt mesmerized. She’d been too
distracted by her argument with Darren to pay much attention.
She glanced around once more. “Where is Darren?” she asked.
“Is he resting?”
Dr. Bauer’s weary gaze turned piteous. It carved inside of her,
nodding at the worry she’d felt at not seeing him in the infirmary
immediately.
“Where is he?” she asked again.
“Princess,” the doctor pleaded.
Why wouldn’t he give her a straight answer? Either Darren was
here, or he wasn’t. But the chances of him leaving now when things
were at their worst were unlikely. Either he’d gone in search of more
herbs or…
Cali’s eyes locked with the doctor’s. His expression said what he
refused to speak aloud.
Her tongue swelled to the roof of her mouth, trapping in the fear
attempting to escape. It couldn’t be. Darren couldn’t have it, too.
 “You shouldn’t even be down here at all. Why don’t you return to
your rooms?”
“Undine’s wrath, I will,” she cursed, turning away from him and
breaking for the servant’s sleeping quarters.
“Princess,” Dr. Bauer called, but she allowed the sound of her
footfalls to drown him out.
One, two, three, four doors down, and she didn’t bother
knocking. She rammed her way through the feeble wooden door,
skimming the familiar room Darren shared with the other apprentice.
Their amenities were so much simpler than the extravagant spread
of furniture, fine fabrics, and unrestrained trimmings in her chamber
floors above. Washbasin below the square of window cut into the
stone, thin, frail rug woven by Darren’s sister and snuck in at
Caliana’s bequest, two brass beds with the barest white bedding,
and a single occupant.
He laid beneath the sheet, still in the lightweight, russet-colored
clothing of his trade, his body writhing like an uneasy mountain. A
stream of coughing broke from him, and the sound cranked her
heartbeat to a gallop.
“Darren!”
He flopped to his back and stared at her. Gone was his jaunty
manner, the easy smile, and the eager glint in his gaze. Spots
speckled up his throat. Infested the edge of his jaw. They prowled
down his forearms, though they hadn’t yet reached his wrists. A
sheen of sweat hung near his hairline, matting the tawny locks to his
forehead.
“Princess! What are you doing in here?”
“Not you, too,” she said, approaching his bedside.
“Don’t—” More haggard coughing erupted, and he turned away.
“—get too close, Princess.”
“I was down to see Hannah. She’s dead, Darren. And you—”
Cali’s voice broke.
Coughing fit expired, he rolled with effort to face her instead of
the wall. “You shouldn’t be down here,” he said, clearing his throat.
“You should return to your own rooms.”
 Clenching her jaw, Cali sank onto the bed, taking his hand in
hers. It was clammy and cool, unlike his usually confident warmth.
“Like a pampered princess? I don’t think so.”
A frightening gleam lit his eyes, as though he were taking her in
for the last time. She squeezed his hand. This would not be their
final meeting. She refused to allow it.
“Like the woman about to rule in her parents’ places,” he
corrected.
“You know I wouldn’t abandon you.”
He coughed again. “Yes, but apprentices can be easily replaced.”
His tender tone contradicted the harshness of his words. “You can’t.”
A rush of emotions beat through Cali’s frame. The bitterness of
change collided with the fresh newness of it in her chest, banging
like drums. She was born a Brahmvir—was set to inherit the royal
line. That had always been a fact. But tomorrow evening was her
eighteenth birthday. Tomorrow would make the event a certainty.
She would officially be crowned princess of Zara.
Cali both longed for the coronation and dreaded it. Her father
had been guiding her for years now about the more serious affairs of
the kingdom, from handling taxes to providing for the poor to
confronting whatever tough decisions might arise. She felt ready and
eager, the way she imagined a well-practiced musician did before a
performance.
But the coronation would make her Darren’s superior in every
way. Crowned princess was one step away from queen. The
breathtaking crown waiting in Cali’s chamber—with its glistening,
blood-red rubies, sparkling silver diamonds, and polished gold—
didn’t care one whit about her carefree summers spent in his
company, the hopes they’d exchanged, or the burning in her veins
just being in the same room as Darren Marcov. That crown
demanded rank, propriety, and a specific breeding, all of which were
sizes he could never tailor himself to, no matter how badly they both
wanted it.
“Neither can you,” she said, bringing his damp hand to her lips.
“Don’t,” he cried again, slipping free of her grasp. He turned
away from her. “I can’t do this to you. You have to leave.”
 “I won’t—”
“Now, Princess! Go, please. Before it’s too late.” His words carried
an edge she’d never heard from him before. The final plea of a dying
man. They were accompanied by another bout of ragged coughing.
Footsteps shuffled behind her. Dr. Bauer captured her by the
shoulders, tugging her insistently. “Come, Princess. He’s right; you
shouldn’t be in here.”
Cali’s eyes stung. She pegged them to Darren, refusing to let him
out of her sight while she allowed the doctor to guide her away. A
thousand thoughts tumbled through her mind—so many things she’d
like to say to him. She didn’t care that none could change her blood,
or his. Cali would die before she allowed Undine to take him.
“I’ll figure this out,” she promised him in desperation as her feet
crossed the line between his room and the corridor passing it. “I’ll
find you a cure.”
But he was caught in a coughing fit and couldn’t respond.

W orry stole C ali ’ s sleep that night. She tossed and flopped in her
bed but try as she might, she couldn’t surrender. Her mind spun like
a roulette board, and she felt just as uncertain of the following day’s
events as she would if she were actually playing the treacherous
game of chance just by breathing.
Darren had the fever. Not to mention how many others of their
staff filled the beds below, or the countless citizens suffering across
the sectors that made up the kingdom. How could they go on with
the coronation with so many afflicted? It seemed too heartless.
Huffing, Cali kicked aside her blankets, hoping the cooler
temperature would seep into her feverish skin. But the air wasn’t
any cooler outside the blankets than in them. It would do no good to
remain here, waiting for sleep to come.
Strange. There was no glow from the fire. Its coals had fizzled
out as they always did in the night. She slipped a robe over her
nightdress and silently crossed her chamber, ignoring the dull ache
gnawing in her joints.
Moonlight winked at the crown behind its glass near the dormant
fireplace. It shone against the fabric of the prismatic coronation
gown on display beside the case, pieced and sewn to fit her every
curve.
The gown had a way of straightening her posture, of steering
back her shoulders and lengthening her neck. Sparkling needlework
on the soft pink bodice snaked its way along the generous skirts. It
brought a glow to Cali’s cheeks as though the gown had been spun
from stardust. She’d angled her head in admiration just enough
during her fitting the day before.
“You look lovely,” her chambermaid, Daphne, had said. “The very
image of a princess.”
This was who Cali was. Along with her father’s training, her
mother had prepared her in managing the staff, in the approval of
meals, and also in disciplinary methods should the need arise.
Seeing herself in the coronation gown as old as Cali’s surname—
worn by princesses and queens throughout generations of Brahmvirs
—had made way for possibility to settle into reality.
She longed to become princess, more than anything else.
So why did her heart feel like it was at war?
It took more effort than it should have to lift her fingers against
the glass. Her limbs were heavy, her mouth parched, and this
accursed heat still hadn’t left her skin. She couldn’t shake the image
of Darren lying sick in his bed.
The look he’d given her; the calloused tone his voice held when
he’d begged her to leave; the honey burn of his too-pale glance; his
clammy hand in hers…they were a hint, a warning sign she didn’t
want to heed. That had been her fear since he’d kissed her four
years before—their first and only kiss—when he’d pledged his
intention to sail away and leave her. Their souls would be separated
by their status. Cali would take separation now if it meant he would
stay alive. She could handle being parted from him as long as she
knew he was well.
 “Something must be done,” she told the darkness. The words
smacked like stones in her mouth, crumbling like sand and leaving a
desert behind. Thirsty. She was so thirsty.
She turned to her washbasin with sluggish steps. It was hot—too
hot. Her feet grew heavier, dragging as if with a shackle on each.
She stumbled, gripping the edge of the basin for support and
knocking the pitcher off. It fell, shattering to the marble floor with a
thunderous crash.
Water collected around her bare feet. Strength drained from her,
wilting her like a parched tulip in too much sunlight. She collapsed to
the floor, curling her arms to her chest, but not before catching sight
of the tiny, speckling spots crawling along her skin.
 CHAPTER 1

C ali ’ s mind was a streak of hazy stains and sharp edges. She blinked
in and out of awareness until the strong scent of ammonia and
perfume brought her to consciousness.
She coughed a few times, nearly knocking over the small bottle
of smelling salts her mother held beneath her nose. It was too
indicative of the death below her floors.
“Thank goodness,” her mother said, touching a hand to her
chest.
The room blurred into focus. Cali was in her own chamber. Her
legs were spread beneath the lightweight blanket stuffed with down
feathers, usually such a comfort in the chilled nights, but now felt as
if it baked her alive. The book she’d been reading the day before sat
patiently closed and waiting on her nightstand beside a flickering
lamp, the wick dipped in a glass half filled with oil.
Cali adjusted her legs, but couldn’t shake the incessant ache
bedeviling her joints.
“Darren is ill,” she said. Her mouth tasted like sawdust.
“Never mind the apprentice,” her mother said, sitting back. Her
black hair was laced with threads of silver. Cali had always loved
those streaks, imagining they’d been selected one by one by the
stars to make her mother appear wiser. “What I want to know, Cali,
is what were you thinking?”
Cali attempted to sit up, but her limbs had other ideas. They
shook beneath her weight before giving out, and she flopped onto
the sweat-saturated mattress.
“About—what—” A small cough crept up her throat. She cleared
it away.
“You were in the infirmary!”
Cali tried to align her thoughts. She knew how her mother felt
about her associating with the staff as though they were equals.
How could Cali explain she’d gone down to wish Hannah a final
farewell?
“And now—” Her mother’s voice broke. Gesturing to Cali’s arms,
her mother retreated at the sight of the spots.
Cali glanced down at her fair skin, a shock of fear rising in her
throat. Her robe had fallen open. Inside, several speckled dots that
hadn’t been there before were visible. Panic fisted over her heart.
This was why she hadn’t been able to sleep. Why she’d felt hot
and feverish, unable to rest and relax. They’d spread so quickly. How
long had she been lying in her bed?
And if it had been a long time, how was Darren doing?
“You knew about this sickness, Caliana. People are dying. Why
would you expose yourself? Now you’ve gone and spread it to the
very wing we were hoping to confine.”
Dr. Bauer had said something about quarantine, but all Cali had
been able to think about was her friends. Her actions seemed so
foolish now, especially from her mother’s perspective. She was right
—logically, anyway. But in Cali’s heart, she knew she couldn’t have
stayed away.
“Didn’t you hear, Mother? Darren has caught it. He—” Another
cough tickled its way up her throat. This time, it escaped.
Clearly horrified, her mother covered her gaping mouth with her
hands. She backed away several more paces toward the door. Her
shadow loomed behind her, arching to the painted ceiling like a
brigand set to attack.
“The coronation will be postponed,” she said, as though that
were all she could think about in this moment.
“Mother…” Cali’s cough came on so strongly she summoned the
strength to sit up just so she could bend over her knees. “There is
no cure. We must find one!”
 “Do not leave your chambers,” her mother urged. “I will send
Daphne in.”
“No—”
“She was cleaning in here earlier. She will be in no further danger
than she already is.”
Cali shivered. It was so like her mother to believe the staff was
dispensable. What would become of Daphne? Cali wished there was
some way to warn the poor chambermaid.
Before she could think of a recourse, her mother fled from the
room, slamming the door behind her.
Cali lifted the sleeve of her robe to examine her arms. A series of
reptilian marks speckled from within her elbow and down to her
fingers. She pictured her hand wearing down like Hannah’s had,
shriveling like matchsticks at each end.
“We must find a cure,” she breathed, fear seizing her chest and
creating a cadenza with her pulse.
A soft knock broke her thoughts.
“Her Majesty sent me, Princess,” Daphne said as she entered.
Brave gesture, knowing what contagion now lingered in the fabric of
the carpets, the pillows, and anywhere Cali might have touched or
breathed, spreading the unseen toxins.
Daphne was a few years older than Cali, with olive skin, a pretty
round face with generous cheeks, and a ready smile. She was stout
with the kind of calming personality that made Cali feel safer just by
being near her. Which only made Cali feel worse.
“I’m sorry it has come to this, Daphne,” Cali said. “I wish you
didn’t have to be summoned.”
“I heard the news, Princess. About Master Darren, and now you.
Have you no idea how it spreads?”
“Proximity, it seems,” Cali said, hugging her robe around herself
and sagging onto her feather pillows. “What are we to do?”
A teetering silence collected between them.
“I’ll draw you a bath, shall I? A little relaxation will help.”
Such kindness in the face of impending death. “Yet, you’re
confined here with me. Forced to serve me and contract the necrosis
yourself.” It was unfair in every way. But what else could Cali do?
 Hopelessness crashed over her in perpetual waves as she soaked
in the bath, staring at the spots on her body. How soon would the
symptoms worsen, not only for her, but also for Darren? For Daphne
and the others ranging across the sectors of her kingdom?
How soon would Cali wither away and die?
She already knew the answer. One week. One week and she
would be powerless to help anyone else, much less herself.
“What are we to do?” she asked the increasingly tepid water.
“Princess, if I may?”
Cali startled. Lingering near the edge of the copper tub, Daphne
held up Cali’s red chenille robe. Cali pushed up with trembling limbs,
collapsing into the water. It took another few tries for Daphne to
help lift her legs over the copper sides of the tub. Daphne slipped
the robe over Cali’s shoulders, helped her dress in a fresh
nightgown, and led her to her freshly sheeted bed.
Cali nestled in, weakly resting her drained body against the tower
of pillows near the headboard. “You were saying?”
Daphne tucked her lip in her teeth, clasping her hands before
her. “I know of a woman who can do incredible things. This woman
concocts potions and performs rituals the likes of which not many
have seen. She isn’t from Zara—she stays on the outskirts of
Wheaton to keep out of the king’s sights.”
“Of course,” Cali said. Magic was thought to be one of Undine’s
worst traits. The gift of magic itself came from Undine, and any
woman wielding it couldn’t be trusted.
Cali had no magic because of the boundary Undine erected to
block her from the magical lands of the world. But she knew
princesses in other lands who had been granted incredible powers.
Warning clamped over Cali’s ribs with a steely grip. She knew
very well the maid’s fear at even mentioning this woman who could
manipulate such power. Cali’s father, King Marek, was quick to stamp
out any kindling of magic. Even the mention of it earned a swift
extinction. Undine had purposefully separated them from the
magical lands. The king didn’t want anything existing under his
watch that might upset her or the balance he’d established.
But if this woman could help…
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no related content on Scribd:
always and to remember that the modern woman owes it to herself to go out
of the home and keep abreast with the times?”
But it was not a question. It was a statement. Freda made no reply and
her mother changed the subject with the satisfied air of the sower of seed.
“When you come to Ireland,” she told her father laughingly that night,
“you will sit on the doorstep and learn to smoke a pipe. And Gregory will
be president of the Republic. And I will be—(ask mother)—a model
housewife, chasing the pigs—”
They laughed with an abandonment which indicated some joke deeper
than the banality about the pigs.
“It’s a worthy task,” said her father. “I’ll come—and I’ll enjoy learning
to smoke a pipe and see Gregory run the government—and as for you—
whatever you do you’ll be doing it with spirit.”
She nodded.
“I’ve just begun to break my trail.”
Then the day came when they must leave the little frame house and after
the excitement of getting extremely long railway tickets at the station and
checking all Freda’s luggage through to New York, they said good-by to the
Thorstads and left them standing together, incongruous even in their
farewells to their daughter.
They were to stop at St. Pierre over night. Mrs. Flandon had written to
urge them to do so and Freda would not have refused, if she had been
inclined to, bearing the sense of her obligation to them. She had not told her
father of that. It amused her to think that her father and Gregory each felt
the other responsible for those Fortunatus strings of railway ticket. But she
wanted Gregory to meet the Flandons again that the debt might be more
explainable later on.
St. Pierre was familiar this time when they entered it in mid-afternoon as
she had on that first arrival with her mother. It was pleasant to see Mrs.
Flandon again and to taste just for a moment the comfortable luxury of the
Flandon house. Freda felt in Mrs. Flandon a warmth of friendliness which
made it easy to speak of the money and assure her of Gregory’s ability to
pay it a little later.
“You’re not to bother,” said Helen, “until you’re quite ready. We were
more glad to send it than I can tell you. It’s a hostage to fortune for us.”
 Then she changed the subject quickly.
“I wonder if you’ll mind that I asked a few people for dinner to-night.
You married a celebrity and you want to get used to it. So many people
were interested in the news item about your marriage and wanted to meet
Gregory and you. I warned them not to dress so that’s all right.”
“It’s very nice,” said Freda, “I’ll enjoy it and I think—though I never
dare to speak for Gregory—that he will too. I remember having a beautiful
time at dinner here before. When I was here visiting the Brownleys you
asked me—do you remember?”
“I asked the Brownleys to-night. They were in town—all but Allie. I
asked the elder two and Bob and her young man—Ted Smillie, you know.”
She looked at Freda a little quizzically and Freda looked back,
wondering how much she knew.
“Think they’ll want to meet me?” she asked straight-forwardly.
“I do, very much. I think it’s better, Freda, just to put an end to any silly
talk. It may not matter to you but you know I liked your father so much and
it occurred to me that it might matter to him if any untrue gossip were not
killed. And it’s so very easy to kill it.”
“You take a great deal of trouble for me,” protested Freda.
Helen hesitated. She was on the verge of greater confidence and decided
against it.
“Let me do as I please then, will you?” she said smilingly and Freda
agreed.
Helen felt a little dishonest about it. The dinner was another hostage to
fortune. It was gathering up the loose ends neatly—it was brushing out of
sight bits of unsightly thought—establishing a basis which would enable
her later to do other things.
She had an idea that it would please Gage, though he had been non-
committal when she had broached the idea of having Gregory and his wife
for a brief visit. Helen had seen but little of Gage of late. She knew he was
working hard and badly worried about money. They had sold a piece of
property to raise that thousand for the Macmillans and he had told her
definitely of bad times ahead for him. She offered to reduce the expenses of
the household and he had agreed in the necessity. They must shave every
expense. But it invigorated Helen. She had amends to make to Gage and the
more practical the form the easier it was to make them. Neither of them
desired to unnecessarily trouble those dark waters of mental conflict now.
Helen guessed that Gage’s mind was not on her and that the bad tangle of
his business life absorbed him. Brusque, haggard, absorbed, never
attempting or apparently needing affection, he came and went. Never since
Carpenter’s death had they even discussed the question of separation. That
possibility was there. They had beaten a path to it. But hysteria was too
thoroughly weeded out of Gage to press toward it. Without mutual reproach
they both saw that separation in the immediate future was the last
advantageous thing for the work of either of them and flimsy as that
foundation seemed for life together, yet it held them. They turned their
backs upon what they had lost or given up and looked ahead. Helen heard
Gage refer some political question to her for the first time, with a kind of
wonder. She suspected irony, then dropped her own self-consciousness as it
became apparent that he really did not have any twisted motive behind the
query. She began to see that in great measure he had swung loose from her,
substituting some new strength for his dependence on her love. And, when
some moment of emotional sorrow at the loss of their ardors came over her,
she turned as neatly as did he from disturbing thought to the work, which
piled in on her by letter and by conference.

They sat at dinner in the long white-paneled dining-room, twelve men

and women. The three Brownleys and young Ted Smillie—Jerrold Haynes
because Helen wanted to have him meet Freda and Emily Haight because
she fitted in with Jerrold now that Walter Carpenter was gone. To these
Helen had added the young Harold Spencers because they were the leaders
of that group of young people who made or destroyed gossip. It was a
dinner party made up hurriedly on the excuse of Gregory’s celebrity and
such little intrigue as was hidden in its inception made it no less a pleasant
company.
Interest was concentrated on Freda and Gregory of course and under
Helen’s deft manipulation the story of their marriage and its secrecy was
told, lightly, but with a clearness of detail that sent Ted’s eyes rather
consciously to his plate once or twice as he avoided Barbara’s glance. Ted
was sitting beside Freda and paying her open homage when he could get her
attention. But Gage had much to say to her.
 “Are you still chasing romance?” he asked. “I always remember your
startling me with your belief that women were more attractive when they
believed in romance.”
“Yes—I’m still after it. I feel the least bit guilty towards Gregory.
Because while he goes back to Ireland with his heart in his hands ready to
offer it to the country, the whole revolution is to me not as great tragedy as
it is adventure. It is tragedy intellectually but not emotionally as far as I am
concerned while to Gregory”—she turned her head to glance at Gregory.
“And marriage is adventure too, isn’t it?”
She forgot Ted and leaned a confidential elbow towards Gage, resting
her chin in her cupped hand.
“I wouldn’t dare say it in the hearing of my mother or the feminist
feminists but that’s what it is. They talk of partnerships and new contracts—
but they can’t analyze away or starve the adventure of it. All this talk—all
the development of women changes things, but its chief change is in
making the women type different—stronger, finer, you know, like your wife
and Margaret Duffield. But even with women like that when it comes to
love and to marriage it is adventure, isn’t it? You can’t rationalize things
which aren’t rational and you can’t modernize the things that are eternal.”
She became a little shy, afraid of her words. “Mother thinks I’m a
reactionary. I don’t think I am. I want women to be stronger, finer—I’ll
work for that—but that’s one thing, Mr. Flandon. It hasn’t anything to do
with the adventure between men and women, really.”
He started at that. But Ted claimed Freda’s attention and reluctantly she
turned to him.
“I think you treated me rather badly not telling me you were married. I
thought all along that I had a chance, you know.”
The brazenness did not make her angry. Nothing could anger her to-
night. She was all warm vigor, pervading every contact between her and
every one else.
“Barbara looks very well to-night,” she answered with cool irrelevance.
Barbara did. She had dressed with her customary skill but with the wit to
avoid her usual look of sophistication. To-night she was playing the artless
simple girl for Gregory’s benefit, listening to him with only an appreciative
comment now and then. It was clear that Gregory was talking to her as he
talked to one in whom he felt there was intelligence.
 “And how clever she is,” added Freda reflectively.
The talk grew more general. Barbara called the attention of every one to
something Gregory had said, a concession for one who did not usually share
her dinner partners or else a successful attempt to break up other
conversations. Irish problems led to a discussion of general politics. Helen
was in the talk now—vigorously. Mrs. Brownley gave the retailed opinion
of Mr. Brownley before he could quote himself.
Gage heard without contributing to what was being said. He was
listening with amusement to Mrs. Brownley’s platitudes and half
unconsciously letting his admiration rise at the clarity of Helen’s thought
and the deftness of her phrases. What presence she had! In the
contemplation of her he felt the problems which had been harassing him all
day—deadlocks in plans, money shortage, fall away. As they had used to—
he slipped into memories and amazingly they did not cause him pain,
though even as he looked he saw upon her the marks of the work she had
done and would do, the new definiteness, the look of being headed
somewhere. But his rancor seemed to have burned itself out and with it had
gone the old possessive passion. He stirred restlessly. Some phœnix was
rising.
Mr. Brownley turned at his movement, offering sympathy.
“Nothing for us to do, Gage,” he chuckled tritely, “except to talk about
recipes. The women talk politics now.”
Gage did not laugh at the old joke.
“Women and men may get together on a subject yet,” he answered, with
heavy awkwardness.
Instantly it seemed to him that it was what he had meant to say for a long
time. He caught the incredulous, almost pitiful look on Helen’s face as she
heard and pretended not to hear, met the quick, wondering glance she
snatched away from him.
Her tremulousness gave him confidence. Impatient of his guests now, he
looked across at her, his eyes kindling. Whether they could work it out
through his storms and hers ceased to gnaw at his thought of her. He saw
her strong, self-sufficient, felt his own strength rising to meet hers, also
self-sufficient. The delight of the adventure, the indestructible adventure
between man and woman remained. His mind moored there.
THE END
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
rose with the bawn=> rose with the dawn {pg 149}
what a beneficient=> what a beneficent {pg 183}
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