I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Haywire

Elian put in the order before sunrise.

Sandalwood. Turmeric. Sindoor. Mango leaves. Tulsi — imported, expensive, he didn’t care. A brass bell. More rudraksha seeds than he’d ever used at once. He wrote the list in one sitting without pausing and handed it to Edmund with the energy of a man who was not interested in questions.

Edmund looked at the list.

Looked at Elian.

"Today," Elian said.

"Yes, Your Highness," Edmund said, and went.

By afternoon, the palace smelled like a temple.

Elian started with Caelian’s bedroom. Turmeric paste at every threshold — doors, windows, the balcony entrance. Mango leaves strung above the doorframes. Tulsi placed at each corner, freshly blessed by the divine being who had watched the whole preparation with bright, interested eyes and not said a single unhelpful thing, which Elian appreciated.

He drew the symbols himself. Floor, walls, the places where the spiritual pressure always seemed to pool and thicken. His master had taught him these — not the simplified versions he’d used on clients, the real ones, the old ones, the ones that required precision and took time and worked.

He took the time.

He moved to the corridor outside. Then the entrance to the royal wing. Then every threshold between Caelian and the outside world.

He was on his knees drawing a symbol at the base of the main door when Caelian appeared.

He looked at the turmeric on the floor. At the mango leaves above his head. At Elian kneeling with paste on his hands.

"What is this," he said.

"Protection," Elian said, without looking up.

"From what."

"All evil." He finished the symbol. Sat back to check it. "So that all goodness comes in and everything that means harm stays out."

A pause.

"You don’t have to do this," Caelian said.

"I know."

"If there is a God, they protect those who deserve it."

Elian looked up at him.

He looked at Caelian’s face — at the genuine, tired belief in it, the thing that had kept him standing through years of voices telling him to let go. He looked at the spirits still clustered in the corridor behind him, the ones Elian hadn’t managed to clear yet. At the snake, looser than last night but still there.

"I wish I could believe that," Elian said.

He went back to work.

The bell was the part that apparently broke something in the palace’s collective composure.

Elian had Caelian stand facing west — he’d explained this as tradition, a ritual for wellbeing, and Caelian had submitted to it with the expression of a man who had decided that arguing took more energy than cooperating.

Elian circled him slowly, ringing the bell at specific intervals, chanting under his breath. The sound cut through the spiritual heaviness of the room the way it was supposed to — clearing, resetting, breaking up what had accumulated.

Three of the remaining spirits retreated to the far end of the corridor.

The thing that wasn’t a spirit — Veylan’s sending — didn’t come close. Not even near the doorway.

Good, Elian thought, and rang the bell again.

When he finished, Caelian stood very still for a moment.

"Are you alright," Elian asked.

"I’m trying to determine," Caelian said carefully, "what exactly just happened."

"You’ve been blessed," Elian said. "It’s fine. Go about your day."

Caelian went, with the look of a man storing something away to examine later.

Sable found him in the corridor, stringing tulsi above another doorframe.

She looked at the mango leaves. The turmeric lines. The bell sitting on the floor beside his materials.

"You’re going to make him suspicious," she said.

"He’s already suspicious."

"More suspicious. The kind where he starts asking real questions."

Elian climbed down from the stool he’d been standing on. Looked at the doorframe. Adjusted a leaf.

"I’m scared," he said.

Sable was quiet. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

"I don’t know what I did that made Veylan accelerate," he said. "I don’t know if it was pulling the file, or you arriving, or the maid — something tipped him off that someone was looking. And his response was to try to kill Caelian through possession last night." He picked up the bell. Set it down. "So I don’t know what he’ll try next. And until I do, I’m putting everything I have between that man and whatever comes for him."

Sable looked at him for a moment.

"How many bracelets did you make," she said.

"Two. And one mala."

"How many necklaces."

"Three."

She looked at the doorframe. "Did you get the divine blessing on all of them."

"Yes."

She nodded once. Like that was the right answer.

"The rudraksha," she said. "How much did you bring in."

"Enough."

She looked at him. At the turmeric on his hands. At the completely unstrategic, unguarded fear sitting plainly on his face.

"He’s not getting through," she said. "Not through all of this."

"He wasn’t supposed to get through last night either."

She didn’t have an answer for that.

Elian picked up his materials and moved to the next door.

He finished as the sun went down. frёeωebɳovel.com

He stood in the corridor and looked at what he’d done. The whole wing smelled like sandalwood and turmeric. Symbols at every threshold. Leaves above every door. Salt in every corner, fresh and dense. Two bracelets on Caelian’s wrists, one mala around his neck — he’d made him wear all of it, fastening each one himself while Caelian stood there and said nothing. Just watched him with an expression Elian couldn’t quite read. Somewhere between amused and something else entirely.

The thing in the corridor stood at its usual distance.

It hadn’t come any closer all day.

Elian looked at it.

He thought about Veylan. About eleven years of patience thrown out in one night of possession. About whatever had changed, whatever had scared him enough to accelerate.

I don’t know which thing it was that tipped you off, Elian thought. But you panicked. And people who panic make mistakes.

And when you make yours, I’ll be ready.

He looked at the spirit.

"I don’t know if it’s him yet," he said quietly. "But if it is—" He picked up the brass bell. Turned it over in his hands. "You’re going to pay for last night."

The spirit looked back at him with its flat, patient non-expression.

Elian set the bell down and went to make dinner.

He found Caelian in the study afterward.

Caelian looked at him. At the turmeric on his hands. At whatever was on his face.

"I heard the bell from three corridors away," Caelian said.

"Good," Elian said. "That means it’s working."

"What is it working for."

Elian looked at him.

Caelian was wearing both bracelets and the mala. He’d put them on without complaint that morning, standing still while Elian fastened each one, watching him with the expression he used when he’d decided something and wasn’t going to say it yet.

"Protection," Elian said.

"From what specifically."

"Everything that means harm."

Caelian looked at him for a long moment.

"You look," he said carefully, "like someone who is very frightened and is doing something about it."

Elian said nothing.

"Is it working," Caelian said.

"Ask me in a week," Elian said.

Caelian nodded. Once. The acceptance of a man who had decided to trust someone’s process without understanding it.

"The bell," he said. "Does it have to be quite that loud."

"Yes," Elian said.

"Fine." Caelian went back to his papers. "Try not to set anything on fire."

"That’s not a ritual I practice," Elian said.

"Glad to hear it," Caelian said, without looking up.

Elian went back to work.