“Cress,” Teagan breathed. She only had eyes for her wife. Cress was here. Cress was alive.
“Teagan.” At the familiar sound of her voice, tears filled Teagan’s eyes. Cress looked healthy enough. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, defiant and daring. But Teagan saw the exhaustion in her wife’s eyes, the weight of the Shadow Realm on her. Her eyes roved across her body, making sure that she was unharmed. She noticed a dimness to Cress, as if she could see Cress’s soul losing its light. She seemed all right for now, but Teagan’s anxiety would persist until they were both home safe.
Before she could take even a single step towards Cress, before they could say anything else, the woman on the marble throne spoke up.
“Hello, Teagan of Wystira. We’ve been waiting for you.” The Shadow Princess had white hair that swept to the floor and pooled around her legs, and eyes the color of darkness. She crooked a finger, and Teagan walked forward cautiously.
“Cress was just telling me all about you.”
“She was?” The Princess’s piercing eyes regarded her lifelessly. No emotion showed on her statuesque face. Teagan found it just as disturbing as the empty palace.
“I was listening to the story of your love, how you met and when you married.” The Princess smiled, but it didn’t meet her eyes. She was stone, unchanged and unmoved. Teagan had hoped to appeal to her humanity, but did the Princess even have it anymore? She looked like a human, but she was not mortal. “The way you sacrificed yourself for her.”
Teagan looked over at Cress, whose expression was carefully blank, and then back to the Princess. Cress had been here for the length of several days already, and Teagan didn’t know what this meant, but it felt like the Princess was baiting her. “Yes, I’d do anything for her. And I’ve come to take her home.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. You see, if I just let you go, if I just give you what you want, then all my subjects would be unhappy with me.” The Shadow Princess spread her arms wide, as if to encompass all her people in the valley.
She wouldn’t let them go. After all Teagan and Cress had gone through, the Shadow Princess wouldn’t let them leave the Shadow Realm. Teagan’s thoughts raced, thinking of all the souls she’d stolen with false promises and unfair rules. All those who’d been torn apart by the skeletons, who had lost themselves in the desert or had been drowned in the river.
“How dare you,” Cress spat, her familiar temper rising. At least the Shadow Realm hadn’t broken her spirit. “You gave me your word.”
The Princess laughed. “My dear, I’m the queen of this kingdom of the dead. I don’t have to keep my word.”
Cress glanced at Teagan, red high on her cheeks. She was angry, but not just angry; this was how she looked when she was about to do what she wanted regardless of the consequences. It was how she’d looked that night they fought and Cress left without waiting for Teagan to come with her.
“She promised to let me go if you came after me.” Cress turned back to the princess. “You filthy liar.”
“Now, there’s no need for names,” the Princess said, a cruel smile on her lips. Cress cursed long and loud, throwing out every single bit of profanity she had learned at the knees of her sea-faring uncles. Teagan swallowed down her desperate laughter.
Cress was so strong. She’d do whatever it took to get what she wanted or desired—she would fight to the very end.
Teagan had hoped she would be as strong someday.
The Shadow Princess sat with her chin in her hands, gazing at Cress as if she was a particularly fascinating specimen. Emotion sparked behind her eyes now, and it made her seem more human. When Cress was finished, she simply asked, “Are you out of breath and getting ready for a second round, or have you tired of your useless shouting?” The way they spoke so familiarly to one another settled in Teagan’s chest in the worst possible way.
But it was easy to force away the jealousy that used to show up more often, because Cress was fighting for them. She hadn’t come all this way to lose Teagan, and Teagan hadn’t come all this way to lose her.
“Don’t you bargain with people?” Teagan asked. “Don’t you make deals for those who make it through the Road of Silence?”
“Not anymore,” she said softly, quietly, and Teagan wondered at the story behind her words. What could ruin the Princess’s desire to reward those who were strong enough to survive? But she knew she’d never find out, and it burned inside her, this thirst to know. This must have been what Cress had felt like, all those weeks traveling and disappearing into libraries, searching for the Shadow Princess. Teagan hadn’t understood it then.
“We came all this way because of your story,” she began.
“And what stories do they tell about me?” The Princess turned her full gaze on her, and Teagan wanted to shy away from the dark depths. The Princess was centuries old, and even though her face remained unlined, her eyes betrayed how ancient and powerful she truly was. “Are they the good ones, about how I saved the world from terrible monsters and united a kingdom that had been lost under poor leadership and a curse that only I was able to lift?” She tilted her head, saw the truth in Teagan’s eyes, and smiled. “But no, that wouldn’t scare children into behaving properly, would it?”
“What about the stories about how you destroyed your kingdom?”
“I didn’t destroy it,” she said. “I brought it with me.” Teagan felt the truth of that sink in, remembered the young girl who helped her find her way to the palace. These weren’t people who traveled the Road of Silence but her people? Were they the ones who lived during her time, or were they later generations? She had so many questions; she chanced a glance at Cress, who didn’t seem surprised at all. She must have already gone through this with the Princess.
Teagan ignored the implications of that revelation. “But you chose the darkness instead of light. You chose dark magic, the kind that harms and kills people, the kind that leaves rot in its wake.” Although it might be a grave mistake to criticize the Princess, Teagan couldn’t help herself. The dark, twisted magic, which corrupted everything it touched, was wrong. It went against everything Teagan believed in, against all the teachings of the Goddess.
The Princess didn’t deny it. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Because my prince, my dear husband, didn’t want me to rule beside him.” There was anger in her voice now, a rage undiminished by the passing of time which was finally given the space to breathe. It was as if Teagan was the only one who’d ever asked her this question. “He wanted me to be the jewel of his crown, not share it. I wanted to be the queen. I deserved to be queen. He was weak and helpless against my magic. He tried to fight, but I had always been stronger than him.” Then she slanted them a cruel grin. “And he regretted his choices, in the end.”
Despite the Princess’s malice and recklessness, Teagan couldn’t help but feel for her, ever so slightly. She couldn’t imagine being married to someone who tried to suppress her, who didn’t let her be herself. Cress had done the opposite; she’d pushed Teagan to go after her own dreams and put her own life on hold to save Teagan’s.
She looked over at Cress, and the love they had for each other was mirrored in their eyes. Teagan couldn’t imagine her life without her.
“His soul is still in this palace, trapped in glass,” the Princess continued wistfully. Teagan felt nauseous when she remembered the glass cases in the halls, the human-like wisps inside them. The Princess smiled that cruel smile again. “And I will enjoy adding the two of yours to my collection.”
Teagan’s legs shook. This was her last chance—her last opportunity to make her case. “Shouldn’t you at least hear us out?”
“I already have,” the Princess said with a gesture at Cress. “Your wife already told me why she is here.”
“But you haven’t heard my tale.” She didn’t think it would truly matter. The Princess didn’t appear to want to change her mind, but Teagan wasn’t going down without a fight. It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.
Teagan took a deep breath. “I lost my mother five years ago, and I thought I’d never feel alive again. I went to the Academy, thinking I’d follow in her footsteps and make her proud of me.” She glanced at Cress, who smiled uncertainly. “And then I met Cressidae. She was exciting and intense, a brave person with an artist’s heart. She made me realize that I shouldn’t be living for my mother. I should be living for me.” She returned her attention to the Princess, but couldn’t read her expression. “But then one of your creatures escaped this realm and went after us. It poisoned me and forced us to spend our days trying to find a cure, trying to find you, and I’m so tired, Queen Amalaris. Slayer of Monsters. Conqueror of Kings. Don’t you remember what it was like to go after what you desired? Don’t you remember how thrilling it is to find that something and realize you’d be willing to do anything to keep it? Give me the chance to truly live, with the love of my life. Please.” She hated to beg, but she’d come all this way, they’d come all this way, and this was Teagan’s last option.
The Princess was silent for several long moments, and Teagan felt her hope extinguish, the last of the hope she didn’t even know she had. She’d spent these days fighting bones and dreams, sorrow and monsters, and she’d thought it would be enough. She thought she’d been her bravest and strongest.
“All right,” the Princess said suddenly, and Teagan startled at the intensity of it. “I’ll let you go. I suppose two people so willing to die to get each other back should be rewarded. It’s been so long since I’ve had the likes of the two of you in my palace, and I find I’m in a very generous mood.” Teagan looked at Cress in wide-eyed happiness, until the Princess spoke again. “But on two conditions.”
“Anything,” Teagan breathed. She couldn’t believe she and Cress were going home.
“A test. You have only three days left, Cressidae, before your soul is mine. You had best get out of here before your time runs out.” Cress walked toward the door of the throne room, towards Teagan, towards their freedom. The Shadow Princess cocked her head and grinned at them. “You’re sure you want to leave before you find out what the other condition is?”
“What is it?” Cress asked coldly, mouth pressed in a thin line.
“You may not touch one another while you’re on the Road of Silence.”
Teagan’s expression creased with confusion, and then she quickly drew her hand away from Cress’s with a hiss, as if she’d been burned. Their fingers had only been inches apart.
“Oh, is that all?” Cress threw over her shoulder. What was Cress doing? They weren’t safe yet. And they wouldn’t be safe if Cress continued to respond to the Princess with such derision.
“We’ll comply with your conditions,” Teagan added softly. “We’ll go now.”
“But only if you give me a binding promise that you’ll heal Teagan.” Cress stared the Princess down, willing her to disagree.
The Shadow Princess inclined her head. “Very well. I give you my word, Cressidae and Teagan, that if you make it out of the Shadow Realm before the fourth morning, I will save Teagan and let you go.”
“The both of us,” Cress countered.
“The both of you,” she agreed.
“Thank you,” Teagan said. “For giving us this chance.”
“Perhaps true partnership in marriage does exist. But don’t forget,” she called after them as they hurried to get out of there. “Three days, Cressidae. Or your soul is mine.”