The Cursed Thorn, page 1
The Cursed Thorn
Twisted Ever After
Book One
Nicole Zoltack
Copyright 2018 by Nicole Zoltack
Cover Artist: Rachel Morgan
All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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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
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Other Books By Nicole Zoltack
About Nicole Zoltack
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
To those who love fairy tales even as a grownup
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Chapter
One
The king stared down at him with hawk-like eyes, and Hale Tempest just knew he was thinking of Hale’s older brother. It’s been five years, and he still wishes I had been the one to die instead.
“The reports from the warehouses show our stores are far too low for the upcoming frost and winter season. How do you explain this?”
Hale rushed to gather up the papers his father flung at him. Thankfully, other high members of the council weren’t here to witness his humiliation. His father’s condemnation was bad enough.
He scanned the reports with mounting horror. “I don’t understand—”
“I don’t either. How can you be expected to keep your people fed and free from the desires of every uprising if you cannot keep their bellies full?”
Hale swallowed hard. It was just like his father to not be concerned with the people’s happiness, only that they were suppressed enough to not want to rebel. “But I sent the River Tribes an offering of—”
“Did you check to see if your tribute ever reached its destination?”
“Of course I did!” But now, doubt, that ugly serpent, was rearing its ugly head.
“Did you send more messengers or did you send a pigeon?”
“A-a pigeon?” The doubting serpent was sticking out its forked tongue.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” The king’s stare would be enough to turn Medusa’s head into stone.
“Telling you.” Hale imagined a spear piercing through the serpent of doubt, but two more sprung in its place like hydra.
His father snorted. “Pigeons are killed easily or laid aside. It’s best to always send at least three. Even then, that might not be enough.” The king laid his hands on the circular table and stood. His rings—all seven of them—glittered in the flickering candlelight. It was midday, but the king did not always feel warm, so even during the sunlit hours, he burned candles. “You are not enough. Not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough. How can you possibly one day rule over the kingdom if you can’t handle the one simple request I gave you?”
Gave after five years of begging for his father to give him a chance to prove himself.
Hale opened his mouth, but the king continued, “You’re too fanciful. You live in castles in the sky. They’re built out of sand, boy, and they open up and swallow you hole. You aren’t made of strong even material to be a king.” He shook his head, disgust twisting his features and deepening the lines around his eyes and mouth. “Your mother coddled you and fed you too many stories of knights and dragons. Well, dragons aren’t real. You’ll never slay one. You’ll never be a hero.”
“You only loved me when I was the spare.” Hale couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Everyone knows you always favored Robert, that he could do no wrong in your eyes—”
“Robert would have known better than to turn to the River Tribes for aid. They’re laborers. They don’t care for payment. They don’t want gold or coins. All they care about is their soul and their food and their fat bellies. Why would they be willing to part with theirs when we have nothing to offer them?”
“I…” Hale clamped his mouth shut so tightly his jaw ached. He could have sworn his father had said to do just as he had in the meeting before he had given over the food duties to Hale, his first important task for the Kingdom of Istrance. Yes, he’d admit that he found most meetings to be boring and pointless, but that was only because his father never allowed him the chance to speak. The king only cared about the opinions of his advisors, and his second son did not qualify.
“Have excuses galore, I would think.” The king snorted and drummed his fingers. “What am I going to do with you? I have half a mind to send you over the gates when the riots of starving peasants start to rush the gates. They can flesh on your bones.”
Hale set his teeth on edge and stood. “I know you said to approach the River Tribes.”
“Your convoy never reached them.”
“How can you be so certain,” Hale ground out. He straightened, taller than his slightly hunched over his father, and stared down at the king. A thought occurred to him, and he scowled. “You paid them off.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Either you hired highwaymen to rob them, or you bought off the River folk so they wouldn’t help. Either way, this is on you. Not me.” Hale jabbed his finger toward his father.
“You have nothing but words, and what are words? Nothing but air. That’s all you’re filled with, Hale. Air. There’s no room for hopes and dreams and aspirations within you.”
But his father wasn’t denying his claim, and Hale’s anger grew with every passing second, becoming surer and surer of his claim. “You set me up to fail.”
His father spread out his hands. Wine had stained his teeth, so when his lips curled back into a semblance of a smile, his teeth looked almost bloodied. “You are a failure because you are one. If you had checked yourself, you would have realized what had happened, maybe in time to correct your mistake. As it is—”
“You would have your own people starve and suffer to make a point?” Hale’s right hand clenched and unclenched. It was a good thing weapons were forbidden in the council room or else he would have been sorely tempted to use his sword on his own father… or at least threaten him with it.
“Phaw.” The king swatted his hand as if Hale was nothing more than an annoying pest. “I am not the fool you are. The people will be fed. I have seen to it myself.”
With that, the king swept out of the room, his cape of burgundy sweeping behind him. The doors banged shut behind him.
Hale slowly sank back into his seat. His heart was pounding, and his palms grew damp. His father had planned on his failing, had taken measures to ensure it. At least he didn’t make the people suffer for my blunder.
But what if next time, his father wasn’t around to save him? What if did fail his people when he was king? He never wanted the crown, but as the only living Bexley offspring, he had no choice in the matter.
Neither does Father, whether he wishes it otherwise or not.
If only Robert hadn’t fallen! On his twentieth birthday, the king had honored the prince his choice cut of the roast. One taste and Robert choked. His face had turned pink then red then a dark, deep purple. He gasped, unable to breathe, and died before he fell out of his chair and onto the floor. The king had been beside himself. Questioned and even killed some of his servants, convinced it had been an attack against the crown. There was no evidence of this, though, and the animals that had eaten the rest of the roast had not fallen ill. Still, ever since, the king had a royal tester eat a portion of all of his food and drink a few swallows of his drink before he would eat. He didn’t care to check Hale’s food, although he didn’t think it was necessary. Robert had died of suffocation, as preposterous and unheroic of a death as it was. To listen to their father talk about it, Robert had died with a hundred arrows and still managed to slay a few enemies yet before giving over to the pain.
Their mother, the queen, had died shortly thereafter. A broken heart over losing her beloved son, or so the king thought, and he relaunched his unsuccessful investigation, and this one was just as unsuccessfully. There was no plot to kill the line or to overthrow their regime. It was all his father’s mind. He had been better of late; however, now that he was starting to
Hale had never wanted to be king. He wasn’t sure he would make a good king. His father hadn’t been a good example of one, and his grandfather had died when Hale had been only two. The only idea Hale had of a good king came from the stories his mother had read to him, the same stories his father had scorned. Because he’s nothing like a good and just king.
But his father did have a good point—that life out and about was nothing like those in the storybooks. He could aspire to be like the just kings he’d read about, but he had nothing truly applicable to utilized. He was all alone.
If only there was a way for someone else to have the crown, for him to not be the heir, for the kingdom to be in better and more capable hands…
<<<>>>
Horseback rides had always been a means for Hale to try and reason through messes, to sort through his issues, or at least try to. One pass by the stables revealed his father was yelling at the stable hands, and the whole point of a ride would be to get away from the king especially. Hale pivoted on his heel and marched away and opted to go as far as he could by foot.
Traveling throughout the castle grounds was not easy. Everyone recognized him, and a few guards asked him questions pertaining to their duties. They, at least, gave him some measure of respect, even though they and he all knew Hale had no jurisdiction over them. His father would never allow Hale to have another opportunity to prove himself, not after his blunder. He cheated, but he does make a good point. I should have sent a captain to go with the shipment. I should have gained absolute certainty that the trade had gone through. I should have gone personally. I should, I should, I should… Next time would yield a different result, and Father is afraid of that. Or maybe he knows something I don’t. Maybe I can’t do it. Can’t inspire people. Can’t get them to love me.
His father certainly had never bothered to worry about his people’s love. “If they are safe and fed, they won’t complain any, and that’s all you can ask of each other,” he used to tell Robert. Hale, when he had been about ten, had sneaked into the room, hiding behind the large, dusty, heavy red velvet curtains. “It’s not necessary for people to love you.”
The queen had thought differently. From as early as age five, Hale remember her reading him stories and adding little tidbits at the end, mostly her thoughts on the story. She’d also create her own stories about people in the kingdom, changing them only slightly so he could laugh and laugh once he realized whom she was talking about, and make the people seem not so scary. Little Hale couldn’t quite grasp how important it was to be a prince, but he knew he would have to deal with the people eventually. She made them less scary, more human, and as he grew older, he realized his mother loved their subjects, and they adored their queen in return.
She had spent equal time with both of her sons, although there had been several times when she had been confined to her bed. Only later did he learn why. Several miscarriages and stillbirths. Robert and Hale were the only two to survive infancy, her first two children at that. How many she had miscarried, how many had been born dead Hale had never learned for certain. The numbers varied from three to fifteen. Thinking of it made him feel shame, guilt, and sorrow.
The king, however, hardly spoke to Hale at all. Hale had his mother and a few friends so he didn’t care… at first. Hale and Robert had been as close as brothers five years apart could be, and so Hale’s resentment had been geared to his father. What kind of a subject was he, a prince at that, a son, to resent his own father? He would say that he hated the king, but plenty of times, he would become angry, frustrated, and dismayed with the man.
By now, he had left the castle behind, wandered through town, and passed through the outer castle walls to the grasslands beyond. The land here seemed fertile enough, but the soil just refused to grow crops. Why, their alchemists never could say. Some of the people whispered about curses, but there was no truth in that. Curses weren’t real, just as dragons weren’t.
There was nothing to see but grass to the north, east, and west, but to the south, several miles away, was a large hill. Hale struck out for it. Even after walking for a good bit of time as measured by the passing of the sun, the hill seemed no closer. How strange.
He had traveled this way before, but nothing like this ever happened before. Still he persisted, and eventually he reached the base and climbed up to the crest. Down below was a lumbering forest, the trees massive sentinels as if guarding against the coming night.
Hale couldn’t remember a forest being here, but he felt compelled to keep moving forward. After all, what did he have to return home to? He might be a prince and live in a castle, but he felt inadequate and unworthy of both. “Even if Father hadn’t waylaid my plans, it’s possible bandits could have stolen the contents of the convoy. The results would have been the same—no food for the people. It would have been my fault.”
He paused and closed his eyes, a hand resting against the rough bark of a tall, towering oak. The cries of the hungry, the gnashing of teeth, the wailing of babes at their screaming mother’s breasts… he could hear them all, see them all, including Maggie the girl who tended the cows, Ferick the blacksmith with the nasty burn marks and wicked “X” on his cheek, Gus who was one of their many cooks… All of them were starving, melting away to only skin and bones, cursing Hale, spitting at him, tearing at his flesh to gnaw at his bones…
Gasping, Hale opened his eyes. The air in this place felt strangely heavy. Although he had only just broken through to enter the forest, he felt as if he had a long while to go to break free. Move forward or go back. Wasn’t that always the question?
For another few minutes, he walked forward until even the little light that had filtered through the full branches overhead diminished, making it almost impossible for him to see where to go. He turned around then, meaning to leave the forest behind and return home, but he walked far longer than he should have and could not break through the many lines of trees. Soon, he realized he was hopelessly lost. Every direction looked exactly the same, and he couldn’t be certain which way would lead back to the castle. Darkness was coming, and he wasn’t able to see his compass.
Hale tried to feel for tree branches, seeking moss to orient himself to north. His hand missed the tree trunk entirely, and he landed face first in a pile of dirt. Disgusting. He spat out the grime and wiped his mouth with the back of his hands. I can’t even go for a walk by myself without getting lost and tasting dirt. What kind of a fool of a prince am I?
Squaring his shoulders, he stood.
That was when he spied it. Lights. Drawn to them like a babe to his mother, he approached, his feet growing surer with every step. The lights belonged to the strangest cottage he had ever seen. It was more of a cross between a cottage and a tower with its great height. How curious and confusing. Undeterred, Hale walked straight up to the door. As if possessed, his hand knocked on the door.
I can add reckless to foolish now.
Chapter
Two
Whenever nighttime was descending in the enchanted forest, Azalea could feel it. It was warm, comforting, and familiar. The shadows and darkness were her only friends.
