The meadow vanished deeper into the mist, which rose like an amethyst tide. Evermore, the Question became a distant adumbration as the mist swelled into fog.

  “Question, why do you so wish to see my end?” the knight asked.

  The Question replied, “I must.”

  “You must?”

  “Why do you seek the dead?” the Question asked in return.

  “I’ve been tasked so by the king,” the knight replied.

  “If you do not, will he send for you?”

  The knight thought for a moment, then spoke. “No, I cannot imagine he would. To venture here is to die.”

  “Then why do you seek the dead?”

  “I seek peace for my love and my dearest friend,” the knight confessed. “Rest.”

  “Can you not let them rest where they lie?”

  “To do so would mean damnation,” the knight explained, his voice strangled, taken by the fog. “They must be buried and given absolution. Dignity.”

  “Must,” the Question said, its voice muted like a fist pounding against wood buried deep. “We are all damned. The end is absolution. Death is dignity. You should know best of all.”

  The words pressed into him as a vengeful blade with a lifetime of thirst—silent, deliberate, and somehow patient. He felt the wound and let it bleed.

  “I must,” he finally said.

  “I know,” said the Question.

  The knight closed his eyes for only a moment. When he opened them again, the Question had gone. Or, rather, he had lost it.

  “Where are you?” the knight called into the fog as he continued forward.

  “I’m here,” a voice came, like a gentle hand’s caress.

  The knight froze.

  “You’ve found me,” the voice said.

  It sounded familiar in a way he couldn’t explain, yet unwelcome in its tenderness.

  “Who speaks?” the knight asked, slowly unsheathing his sword.

  “Your heart,” the voice replied with a clarity unobscured by fog.

  For a moment, the knight saw in his mind the face of the princess as she spoke. Eight years since he’d last heard her. Tension that crawled through him like strangling vines fell away, leaving him feeling unburdened.

  It frightened him.

  His grip loosened. Reluctant, he let it. His sword fell, landing at his feet, stuck in the dead ground like a headstone—calling him to remember, a marker of all that could not follow him further.

  “Princess?” the knight asked, uncertain. “Marigold?”

  “Yes,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s me.”

  The knight swung around, finding only purple fog and his own hands outstretched and fading among it. He shook his head.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned slowly. Her visage crept into his vision like frost on glass. In full view, the warmth of her smile thawed the cold of his longing heart.

  “You live,” the knight muttered. “How?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, taking his hands and holding them against her chest.

  “And I, you,” he replied.

  “Hold me.” She thrust herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. His heart raced and, if only for a moment, he wasn’t sure how to react. The moment passed, and he wrapped his arms tight around her. Lavender, soft and comforting, poured into his lungs. Beneath it, something else.

  Marigold pulled away.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I’ve missed you dearly, my love,” she said, a faint glow seeping into the fog, its purple color fading into white.

  “I’ve dreamed of nothing else for eight years,” the knight replied. He looked at her through watering eyes. Something looked different.

  He blinked.

  A tear fell.

  His love stood before him as the fog lifted. The sky was blue, and the sun radiant. Not a cloud above the kingdom. Only blue.

  What was that smell, the knight wondered.

  “They’ve prepared a feast,” Marigold said, taking his hands and leading him through her private garden and into the castle. “Can’t you smell it?”

  The knight smiled. “I can.”

  Practically skipping, she led him down the hall, at the end of which her room waited. The tapestries that hung hadn’t changed, at least not that he could recall. One of the castle set high upon a hill, triumphant above the cursed world. One of a young Marigold and her proud mother, lavender halos above them, delicate and luminous.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Marigold, but not Marigold. He tore his hand free from hers and looked upon her with scrutinous eyes.

  “What is it, my love?” she asked.

  It was her. His dearest love. His whole heart beat for each soft word from her lips and each joyous step they took.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just…” the knight trailed off. From the food and the flowers came another familiar scent—one his mind couldn’t place, or refused to.

  “My poor love,” she said, pressing her body against his. Her sultry breath danced across his face, across his lips. “You’ve been imprisoned far too long. You must be shaken.”

  She brought her face closer, until he could see only the bright emerald twinkle of her eyes.

  The smell, a specter, possessed him. Nameless, it haunted.

  “Kiss me,” Marigold said, demanded. “Kiss me as you did when we last lay together in my garden.”

  The knight’s heart raced. Butterflies filled his stomach, fluttering in a tangle of knots. A sour taste rose.

  That smell—lavender and bread and something iron-sweet.

  The knight grabbed the princess by her arms and pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length. He turned his head away slowly, placing her at the edge of his sight. She struggled, if only to get in front of him once more.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, a quiver in her voice. “You’re hurting me, my love. Please, stop.”

  “Be still,” he said, low and demanding.

  “Please, kiss me and you’ll see. Kiss me and you’ll know. You are free, and you are safe.”

  “Be quiet, and be still,” the knight repeated. His gaze clamped down on her, and the princess squirmed, trapped in the narrow corridor of his sight.

  All at once, his eyes shot open and he shoved her away. He reached for his sword, but it wasn’t there. His breath came in sharp, panicked bursts, like some caged animal.

  “What are you?” The knight took a step back.

  A woman he did not know, draped in a ragged wedding gown, smiled. It filled him like a poison and muddied his thoughts.

  The knight staggered. The smell of rot came like a sting.

  “My love,” Marigold said. “It’s me.”

  The woman spoke, her voice as sickly sweet as death, her beauty waxing and waning like flickering candlelight—never staying long enough to trust, always just enough to lure.

  Something foreign in him tried to push aside what hid in the flickering shadow, focusing only on the beauty in the light. It sickened him to see the truth, but the lie had been lost—lost enough to make him see.

  Milky white skin, smooth as silk, laid carefully over a bloated, rotten corpse.

  Turning away, the knight shouted, “Lies!”

  “Love,” she said.

  The scent was unmistakable. He’d smelled it for years, from his own broken flesh and the puddle below him. The tapestries stole his attention again. Upon them, the dead lay in piles. He shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, there were no tapestries, only the dead lying in piles.

  This was not the castle, but a cave.

  She was not the princess, but a ghoul.

  “Back, foul temptation,” the knight ordered. “Take your lies and stay back!”

  “My darling,” the ghoul choked out. “I would never lie.”

  “You’re not the princess! You’re not Marigold!” The knight’s anger carried his words with the weight of drawn steel. He backed out of the cave, the swirling purple fog reaching out for him.

  “Lies are truths you won’t accept,” she said, shambling toward him. “Take me. Embrace me. Kiss me and know the truth. Let me ease your troubled mind and broken heart. I can feel your pain. It calls me. I hunger only to heal.”

  “Lies, still! You hunger only for flesh and bone and blood!” The purple fog swallowed him whole, devouring the ferocity of his voice and dulling it to a muted whisper that hardly felt like his.

  “Love me, knight,” the creature sang. “Take me and love me.” Her laughter danced through the fog. It surrounded him completely.

  “Question!” the knight screamed.

  It did not answer.

  Something caught his foot, and he fell backward. A sharp sensation ran through his neck. Blood pooled in his throat. He reached for the wound and held it. Beside him, his own sword stood, bloodied.

  The pain brought a familiar clarity.

  “You’re hurt. You suffer,” the ghoul said, in bouncing echoes. “I can heal you. I can banish the longing from your heart and fill it with love everlasting. Just as you are.”

  Climbing back to his feet, the knight’s throat healed as he released it. He pulled his sword from the earth, gripping it with both hands.

  “Give me your immortal heart,” she whispered in his ear, her arms wrapping around him from behind, constricting. “Taste my lips and feel loved.”

  Once more, the weight he carried threatened to lift from him, and he wished to allow it. If this was a lie, he’d test it. Pain had never lied to him.

  Lifting his sword, the knight turned it on himself. He pulled it in, through his stomach. It slid through, biting. Behind him, the ghoul wailed, releasing him and staggering back.

  The knight pulled the sword from his stomach and turned, nearly losing his footing in a dizzying sway. Still, he marched toward the flailing creature, this deathly bride, and swung his blade.

  Her head fell with a thud, the sound traveling no further than he could see, swallowed by the fog. The knight held his wounded abdomen with one hand and marched forward, stepping over the body and dragging his sword behind him.

  He couldn’t know how long or how far he’d walked, but by the time he reached the edge of the fog, he’d healed.

  The Question landed before him, as imposing as ever, and said simply, “You chose suffering over peace everlasting.”

  The knight pushed past. Deeper still, he journeyed into the cursed world before him.

  “There is no such thing,” he growled.