Nine hundred and ninety nine years earlier

"How could you?"

The piercing shriek was loud enough that it echoed across the ballroom and my fingers stilled on the pipe I was playing. As if sensing something was wrong, my magic halted the playing music and the dancers who filled the floor looked to me in confusion before scattering at my expression.

The fleeing guests allowed me my first sight of the interruption. A tall, imposing woman dressed in a formfitting black dress with a thin lace cape billowing behind her. Even at this distance, I realised her full attention was on me and her fury was palpable. From the edge of the dancefloor, people whispered behind their hands, looking both thrilled and scandalised. It had been a little while since anyone dared interrupt one of my parties and the last person who had was thrown rather dramatically into the moat.

Although the woman's face was lovely, as all creatures in my kingdom were, she wasn't familiar enough to be a regular at court, or pretty enough to be one of my many female conquests. How could I have offended her so deeply that she would interrupt my evening like this? Perhaps I had rejected her at some point? Spinning the ornately carved pipe, a gift from my mother, between my fingers, I waited for her to explain herself.

If there was one thing my father had taught me before he died, it was that royalty fears nothing and never begs for answers. With my long legs hanging over the arm of the throne, I knew I cut a casual figure and could see it increasing the woman's annoyance as she marched towards me.

The guards moved to cut off her approach, but my raised hand stopped them.

"What a pathetic excuse for a prince." the woman spat when she stopped at the bottom of the steps before me.

I tilted my head to the side, brows raised in amusement. "So you know who I am?"

My voice was quiet, and even the whispers in the room stopped. For even they knew my quiet for what it was. A precursor to either fury and laughter. My temper was legendary, and those who crossed me seldom lived to tell the tale.

"Doesn't everyone." The woman countered.

Some might say she had me at a disadvantage. She knew who I was, but I didn't know her. I didn't need to know her name to know what she was.

My power reached lazily out and identified her. Sorceress. Interesting.

"You storm into my home, interrupt my party, and insult me. One might think that you were trying to start a war, little witch." I replied carefully, keeping my voice even.

Her eyes narrowed. "I'll think you'll find you did that, little prince, when you threw my sister in a moat."

My brows shot up, and it took a moment for me to school my expression. In the two years since my father's passing, I had thrown exactly two people into that moat. The first, a decidedly unfunny jester who tried to joke about the fact I had to wait until my twenty-fifth year to be crowned King. The second, a woman who had broken in a few months earlier.

It had been quite the entertaining evening after an annoying day where I had been forced to fire several advisors who thought it was acceptable to steal from the crown. Too important for me to retaliate for their betrayal, the intruder bore the brunt of my wrath.

If I had a heart, it might have even bled for the little sob story she tried to spin about sickness in her village and supplies being needed. It was a weak excuse, at best, for the armfuls of food they had caught her with. As it was, I decided a little dunk in the moat, and sending her on her way was a suitable punishment for hiding in my stables and stealing from the kitchens.

She was lucky I left her with both hands. My father would have called for them to be removed to mark her as a thief forevermore. Perhaps I was getting soft? The stranger certainly didn't seem to think so.

"I'm assuming your sister was the little thief who was caught stealing from my kitchens back in the summer?"

"She wasn't stealing, she was begging for help. Only to be tortured and turned away." She hissed and her hands clenched into fists at her sides, betraying the violence she was no doubt planning.

I didn't move, or give a hint I was concerned, as I reached for the well of magic inside of me and called it to readiness.

"A little dunk in the moat is hardly torture." I scoffed.

"It is after she walked for eight days to get here and ask for help to save those of us in the village too weak from a sweating sickness. Almost the entire village had it and less than half of the people survived." She snapped.

Oh. There it was. My icy heart twinged a little with something like guilt. A feeling I quickly squashed.

"If it were that bad, then there is very little I, or anyone, could have done." I replied dismissively.

She scoffed and shook her head. "My sister idolised you. The prince who brought back joy to the kingdom? She thought that if anyone would help us, it would be you. If I had been in my right mind, I would have told her she was a fool and not to go. As it was she did, you let her down just like I expected you to." Her disdain for me burned into my skin. "And do you know what she said? What she sobbed after she crawled back to our village, her hands and knees bloody?"

I didn't move or speak,

"She said she couldn't bear to go on and begged me to leave her body to the streets, for at least the rats there are gentler than any man. My poor foolish sister." She shook her head. "My sweet, naïve, dead sister." Each word was punctuated with a step up the stairs until she grew level with me. "You are responsible for her death and you will pay penance for what you did."

Outwardly, I showed no sign that her story had affected me, as I stood slowly and came face to face with her. "You want compensation for your loss? You will not get it. She was punished and sent on her way. What happened after that is no problem of mine." I replied coldly.

If looks could kill, then the one she gave would have struck me down.

"I want nothing other than for you to suffer. I want you to know the agony of trying to save people you care for and never succeeding. All I need is for you to feel an ounce of the pain I do at her loss. And I have the perfect solution."

I gave her a guarded look as I waited for her to reveal whatever it was she had planned.

The smirk on her lips told me she was enjoying having me on edge. Then she whispered something in an unfamiliar language and threw a small glass bottle at my feet.

At first, nothing happened as I looked down at the shattered glass and splatter of red across my shoes. I had rather liked this pair.

Then a red mist curled up from the liquid, twisting around my lower limbs. Blood magic. My breath caught in my throat. Before I could formulate a response or reaction to the unfolding scene, a scream caught my attention.

The doors to the ballroom had locked behind the now amused woman and it trapped my terrified people with me. The guards hadn't moved and a glance to my right revealed them pinned against the wall.

"What is this? They have done nothing. Let them go." I snapped, breaking my rule to never beg for answers in defence of the people here.

"Oh, they are innocent, are they? Just like my sister was." She laughed, "I wonder, did they stand by and watch what you did?"

I supposed mentioning the fact they had actually cheered would not be the most helpful for this conversation.

My magic fought to escape, but something was holding it back, dragging it down until I felt as weak as a child who had not yet come into my magic.

"Blood magic is banned. Now explain what you are doing?" I demanded, fighting to move my feet from the trap of mist.

"I am making sure you suffer, little prince. I am cursing you to live the same year over and over again, never ageing, never at peace and never free from your ties to this castle, save for a few days a year." Her cackled laughter sent shivers down my spine.

She had clearly planned this, and I had vastly underestimated her.

The smile on her face grew as, with a flick of her hand, the doors unlocked and people yanked them open, falling over one another in their eagerness to escape. "As your people flee from this sinking ship, they shall become the rats they are and overrun your kingdom. They will listen to you if you call, but you cannot protect everyone, little prince. Perhaps it will even kill you trying. Oh, I do hope so."

"Stop this. What do you want? Gold? Riches? Land?" Desperation clawed my insides as the elaborate dresses and suits which once contained the lord and ladies of my court collapsed in the doorways and rats ran from them down the corridors.

She shook her head, "You have nothing I want any more."

I watched her turn and make her way towards the door. She couldn't just leave. "Wait!"

She stopped, but didn't turn.

"You called this a curse? Every curse can be broken. What do I need to do?"

She glanced at me over her shoulder. "All you need is the one thing you will never find, never be worthy of. Love."

I reeled back at her words. "My people love me." I offered, knowing even as I spoke the words that they were hollow.

"Your people abandoned you. Your guards may have stayed out of misguided loyalty, but they do not love you and the curse will not leave them untouched, either."

I shook my head. "So you want me to find my soulmate?"

She shook her head. "If you want to break this, you'll need to find your soulmate, but that's not what I want. I want you to search and search until it all feels hopeless and breaks you. I want you to suffer, little prince. I thought I made that clear."

"How long do I have to find her?"

"Forever."

My shoulders slumped in relief. At least there was time to find my soulmate.

"Don't look so happy. You should know I'll never make it that easy. There are certain rules you must follow." She raised three fingers, dropping one with each new rule. "She must never know who you really are until the love is true. You must win her hand in a wager. You only have one month to fall in love."

"One month to make someone fall in love with me?" I frowned. That didn't seem that hard. Women regularly threw themselves at my feet. How hard would it be to make one think herself in love with me?

"Oh, little prince." She chuckled. "Your soulmate will be reborn as many times as it takes for you to reach her. Then maybe I'll let you keep her, or maybe I'll destroy everything you hold dear. Let us see how long it takes and how much you learn."

As she continued her exit, the surrounding guards started screaming, but all I could hear was her voice singing:

"Fair of heart and fair of face,

She'll release you from your curse,

Free her town and free your heart,

To make the spell reverse.

A town in strife, a promise made,

That you shall have her hand,

Then just one cycle of the moon,

To make her understand."