I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Elian looked into Caelian’s eyes.

The thing looked back.

"What do you want," Elian said.

Not loud. Not afraid. Just asking.

The smile on Caelian’s face shifted — something almost appreciative in it. Like it hadn’t expected the question so quickly.

You’re not from this world, it said. Are you.

Not a question. A statement. The tone of something that had known for a while and was only now bothering to say it.

"What do you want," Elian said again.

His destiny was written long before you arrived. The voice moved through the room strangely, filling the corners. He should have been dead by now. You kept him. That took — considerable skill. A pause. I respect it.

The smile widened.

And a pretty thing like you, keeping watch over him. The eyes moved across Elian’s face with a specific, unhurried attention. Such a pleasure.

Elian rolled his eyes.

"You’re flirting with me," he said. "While possessing my husband."

Multitasking, it said.

"What do you want."

When I kill him, it said, conversationally, I gain a physical body. My own. Twenty years he has been feeding me — his suffering, his fear, the beautiful slow wearing-down of everything he is. It tilted Caelian’s head slightly. When I finally finish it, all of that power becomes mine. Permanent form. Real presence in this world.

It looked at Elian.

I could take his face, if you like. Since you seem attached to it. A gift, darling. For making this so entertaining.

"Don’t," Elian said flatly.

The person who commissioned all of this, it continued, ignoring him, died some years ago. Which means I have no master now. I kept the arrangement going because — why not? It suits me. The rituals, the noble families, the sending in the corridor. It sounded almost fond. Very well designed. I’ve simply been enjoying the benefits.

"Why him," Elian said. "Specifically. What is your connection to Caelian."

The smile went still.

Find it out, it said. Where’s the enjoyment in me explaining everything? The eyes moved to Elian’s face again. Find it out. And then we can meet properly. Face to face. A pause. I cannot wait.

"I’m never going to be with you," Elian said.

The temperature dropped.

What, it said, very quietly.

"You heard me."

Pretty, it said, and the word came out differently now — the warmth gone, something underneath it that was much older and much colder. Pretty things break so easily.

"Get out of him," Elian said.

The windows shattered.

All of them. Every pane in the study, simultaneously, the glass exploding outward in one sharp violent moment that filled the room with the sound of it and left the night air coming through in cold gusts.

Elian hadn’t moved.

He stood there with the glass around his feet and the night rushing in and felt the scale of what he was dealing with settle into him like a stone dropping into deep water.

I have never, he thought, felt power like that.

The thing looked at him through Caelian’s eyes.

It knew he was scared. He could see it knowing. The way the smile came back — different this time, satisfied, the specific satisfaction of something that had just reminded him what he was dealing with.

It moved Caelian’s hands.

Cupped Elian’s face.

Cold. The touch entirely wrong. Caelian’s hands, but nothing of Caelian in them.

Such a sweet face, it said, almost gently. Don’t make me destroy it.

Then it left.

Not gradually. All at once — Caelian’s body lurched, dropped, and Elian caught him before he hit the floor, both of them going down to their knees among the broken glass, and Caelian was gasping and gripping Elian’s arms and Elian was holding him and shaking and trying very hard not to show it.

The door burst open.

Riven first — he’d forced it, something about the lock, his shoulder still raised from the impact. Then Sable. Then Rowan, pale and fast. Then two maids who’d been in the corridor. Then Edmund, appearing with the quiet efficiency of a man who was always where he needed to be.

They all stopped.

The study. The shattered windows. The glass across the floor. Caelian on his knees. Elian holding him.

"What happened," Riven said.

Elian looked at him.

He tried to find words.

He’d faced spirits for twelve years. He’d walked into haunted houses for money. He’d cleared battlefields of the dead and exorcised things that had been waiting in the dark for decades.

He had never been that afraid.

"Elian," Sable said, sharply. "What happened."

He looked at his hands.

They were shaking.

He pressed them flat against Caelian’s back and held on and tried to remember how to speak.

"Something was here," he said. "It’s gone now."

It was the most useless answer he’d ever given.

And it was all he had.

Rowan was the first to move.

He crossed the room, glass crunching under his boots, and crouched beside them. His hand went to Caelian’s shoulder.

"Caelian," he said.

Caelian looked at him. His eyes were his own — entirely, completely his own — but the focus wasn’t quite there yet.

"I’m alright," Caelian said. Rough voice.

"You’re not," Rowan said. "But okay."

He helped him up.

Elian stood and looked at the room. At the shattered windows. At everyone’s faces turned toward him, waiting.

"Something broke," Elian said. "I don’t know what. There was a sound, everything went at once, and he fainted from the shock of it." He kept his voice even. Completely even. "I’m sorry — I don’t have a better explanation right now."

Rowan looked at him.

Elian looked back steadily.

Rowan didn’t push.

"Can you walk," he said to Caelian.

"Yes," Caelian said.

"Then let’s get you out of this room."

Edmund appeared at the door with the composure of a man who handled crises as a professional function.

"Shall I have the windows seen to, Your Highness?"

"In the morning," Elian said. "Thank you, Edmund."

"Of course." The small bow. "Shall I bring anything to His Highness’s chambers?"

"Just water," Elian said. "Thank you."

Edmund went.

Rowan guided Caelian out. The maids followed. Sable caught Elian’s eye on the way past the door — a look that said later — and went with them.

Riven was the last one out.

He stopped beside Elian in the doorway.

Looked at the shattered windows. At the glass. At the empty frames with the night coming through.

"Later," Elian said quietly.

Riven nodded. Left.

Elian stood alone in the ruined study for a moment.

He looked at his hands.

Still not steady.

He pressed them flat against his sides and went to find Sable and Riven.

They met in the outhouse.

Riven shut the door. Sable sat. Elian remained standing because he couldn’t make himself sit down.

"It spoke to me," he said.

He told them everything. The flirting. The admission that its master was dead. The cat and mouse. The physical body it would gain when Caelian died. The glass. The hands on his face.

When he finished the room was quiet.

"I don’t know," Elian said, "if I’m happy, scared, or something I don’t have a name for." He looked at the wall. It knows I’m looking for it. It knows I’m from somewhere else. And it wants me to find it. He paused. It’s enjoying this.

"Which means it thinks it wins regardless," Riven said.

"Either way," Elian said, "it’s not afraid of us. It’s not trying to stop the investigation. It’s — inviting it." He pressed his fingers together. "I don’t like it. An enemy that wants to be found is an enemy that’s already planned for being found."

"Or it’s been alone for a long time," Sable said quietly.

Elian looked at her.

"Twenty years," she said. "Its master died. It’s been running itself. The rituals, the noble families — but none of them can actually see it. None of them know what it is." She paused. "And then you arrived. Someone who can see it. Who can talk to it." She looked at him. "It might genuinely want the game."

Elian stared at the wall.

"I don’t care what it wants," he said.

"Two weeks," Riven said. "Eclipse is two weeks away."

"I know," Elian said.

He looked at his hands one more time.

Steadier now. Not much. But some.

"We don’t change the plan," he said. "We don’t react. We prepare for the eclipse and we identify it and we move." He looked at them both. "Whatever it wants from me — it doesn’t get it."

Sable nodded.

Riven nodded.

Elian looked at the door.

Two weeks, he thought. Just two weeks.

He went to check on Caelian.

He looked at his hands in the empty study.

Still shaking slightly.

He pressed them flat on the desk.

You showed yourself, he thought. You came out and spoke to me and shattered the windows and held my face.

You’ve been in this palace for twenty years, and tonight you showed yourself.

You’re no longer comfortable staying invisible.

He thought about what that meant.

About an entity that had operated in the shadows for two decades suddenly deciding to make itself known.

You’re not scared of me, he thought. You’re curious.

That might be the most dangerous thing about you.