The Magic King Page 19

  I’d gone to bed that night hoping against hope that he’d show up in my room again, so that I could ask him why he’d shown me all that and made me love him more than I’d ever felt or known was possible before in my life, and then he’d just left.

  He didn’t come for me. I sat up in my bed, staring out the window, frowning because there wasn’t just light outside, but big fat, fluffy clouds floating past. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  I’d made him promise me a week, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there anymore. I felt deep, painful, and wonderful things.

  When I’d seen us making love... My nostrils flared and I scratched at my arms, causing the sunlight to glint off the stone on my ring. I’d not had that on then. I’d learned to control my powers, directing them all toward Rumpel and keeping them away from our staff and children.

  My stomach coiled tightly as I remembered the erotic scenes of lust played out before us on his memory reel. I thought he might have tried to keep those from me, but Rumpel had shown me everything, and I’d felt his weakening resolve to keep me at a distance begin to dissolve to crumble. As we’d watched our life together, I’d felt him start to soften toward me, no doubt remembering what we’d once been and knowing what we could be again.

  I slipped my ring off, and instantly I felt my powers roar to life, swell mightily, and surge like a wave slapping a shore within me. I closed my eyes and trembled as the powers I’d suppressed nearly half my life came fully awake.

  I bit my bottom lip and fought through the nauseating wave of it, telling myself over and over to not fight it but to simply let it in, to accept it as part of me and not separate from me.

  And slowly, bit by bit I began to relax and ease into the prickling heat and fire of so much dark magic.

  “Missstresss,” Dalia gasped, and the obvious pain and grit in her voice made me snap my eyes open.

  “Dalia,” I cried and shook my head, noting the large whites of her eyes and the unmistakable rise and fall of her chest.

  My powers worked on anything living, not just males.

  The scent of sulfur filled my nostrils. I fumbled with my ring, slipping it on and shaking wildly.

  She cried out the moment my ring was safely back on and stumbled into the bed frame, gripping it so tight her knuckles lightened to a shade of dark gray. “Wh-wh-what was th—”

  “I’m sorry, Dalia, I’m so sorry,” I muttered, crawling on my knees toward her so that I might hug her, but she shot back on her heels, holding her hands out before her as a shield.

  My heart ached at seeing the wild fear in my friend’s eyes. I slowly lowered my own hands. “I’m sorry,” I whispered again, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were here.”

  She looked on the verge of tears. “I’m... I’m so sorry, misss, I cannot, I can’t—can’t—”

  And then she vanished, leaving only a thick plume of sulfur in her wake.

  I did cry then. Maybe it was Rumpel’s rejection more than Dalia’s, but it didn’t matter. I was alone in this place. I would go. I would leave that day. It had been a terrible idea to go there at all.

  Just as I got out of that bed to dress myself, I recalled Euralis’ desire to walk the woods with me. I’d completely forgotten about our meeting until just now. I clenched my jaw. Much as I wanted to run away, I could never do that to him. But what if I do something else reckless and make him hate me too?

  Scrubbing at my stupid tears, I yanked on the first gown I saw that I was moderately certain I could tie up myself. I dressed quickly.

  When I glanced in the mirror, I cringed. My eyes were bloodshot, and the skin beneath them was a deep shade of purple. My nose looked swollen and was a shade of awful cherry red. My hair hung long and limp around my shoulders. I looked like a mess, but having one’s heart shattered tended to do that to a person.

  Hugging my arms to my body, I closed my eyes and whispered, “You can do this, Shayera, he is waiting. After that, if you still need to, you can leave.”

  Danika’s name burned a hole on the tip of my tongue. Turning on my heel, I went to finish up getting ready for my day.

  MY MEETING WITH EURALIS was more awkward than I’d hoped it would be. I understood that a certain level of strangeness would exist between us, but I’d hoped for more than moody silence and furtive glances he would toss at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. He wasn’t the only one, either. I hadn’t known what to do or say.

  I knew both too much and not nearly enough. It left me feeling as lost and confused as he must have felt.

  I enjoyed the walk with him, all things considered.

  The instant I’d exited the castle, it was like a curtain had lifted in the sky. Never, which once had been steeped in darkness and shadows, was a strangely glorious gray world teeming with life and even hints of color.

  Dark birds wheeled in the sky, and large and the gnarled wooden fingers of the twisted leafless tress poked straight up and waved slowly back and forth in the gentle, slightly chilly breeze like a macabre hello.

  There was even grass and flowers on the ground. The colors were dull and muted, but they most definitely held a hint of green. Colorless as the world was, there was an odd sort of prettiness to it too.

  I’d never known there were so many varying shades of gray, and that gray could be remarkably varied in tone and lightness, appearing sometimes heavy and just shy of black and other times like freshly fallen snow with a hint of powdery blue to it. The heavy pall of depression I’d suffered in my room slowly lifted the longer I walked through a land virtually unrecognizable from the one I’d entered just a short few days ago.

  I oohed and aahed when I stroked the soft petal of a bluish gray rose, because it felt like caressing the softest velvet. Its stamen gleamed like freshly poured silver. But it hadn’t been the only flower like that, as we stood in a verdant field of them.

  Whenever my leg had brushed up against one, I heard a strange little chiming of bells, and upon closer inspection I discovered the song came from the flowers themselves.

  Euralis grinned up at me, and I grinned back at him, and that was the one moment when we truly bonded over our shared love of nature. In a moment of childish enthusiasm, I threw all caution to the wind and began to run through the garden.

  I startled my companion. I saw the way his eyes grew and the unsure look in them, but then he appeared to be gripped by the same kind of madness, and only seconds later he joined me.

  For a time, I not felt like a grown woman, but like a child again, and I saw that same weight lift off of Euralis too. The moment was all too brief, but it felt wonderful. We heard the bell-like song of the flowers and watched as the wind spun with pewter threads of pollen scattering to the breeze.

  When it ended I was reluctant to walk away, knowing that the moment parted he and I would go back to being quiet and introspective. I also learned something about this place I’d not realized before.

  For a place as foreboding from the outside as Never appeared to be, it was also wonderfully different and exciting. As though by tacit consent, Euralis and I spent several hours walking the trails and looking for more treasures and wonders.

  We walked along the shore of a very placid lake for a bit, before turning east and going down a well-trodden and crooked path. It led us nowhere, but we simply turned back from where we’d come and walked all the way down past where we’d started. Our aim had only been to wander and maybe even get lost.

  At one point, we did. We’d taken so many twists and turns that we became terribly turned around, but that was also kind of exciting too, because it was the first time I spotted something actually living and moving within the trees, other than the birds. A large buck meandered through the trees, eating from a succulent-leafed bush of waxy-looking silvery petals.

  He was regal and elegant, wearing a large twelve-pointed rack with bits of velvet dangling off the tips and flowered vines threaded throughout it. On its hind end, its coat changed color, to something deeper and richer, a
nd where that darkness was I could clearly make out the image of a crown. I didn’t know if it was a simple mark from birth or whether that deer was more magical than the ones that used to roam through my woods back home, but I felt magic then. I felt the ripple of something powerful, and it moved me to tears.

  I smiled and bowed to the buck. And though I couldn’t be certain, it did appear to me as though the deer inclined its noble head at me.

  I’d expected Euralis would feel the same sense of wonder as I did. But the instant I turned to look at him, a rumble of sound vibrated through his chest. The buck went still, his head turning toward us, and the whites of its eyes grew large and blinding. Its nostrils flared and a hard grunt reverberated through its thick neck. A second later, it bounded off, leaving a wake of brightly blooming light-pink—nearly white— baby’s breath behind.

  Only once I looked back at Euralis did I understand why. The boy’s face had contorted, altering just slightly from that of a human to a beast. The bristle of whiskers popped out on his cheeks, and even his canines had lengthened.

  “Euralis, are you—”

  He gulped, still visibly trembling. I saw the concerted effort it took for him to unclench his fists. Giving himself a slight shake, he said, “Forgive me, I’m feeling rather out of sorts of a sudden.”

  My heart immediately sunk. His gaze continued to roam all around, looking at everything and anything, except for me. I was surprised to note that I didn’t want him to leave me yet. As quiet and withdrawn as he’d been, I’d enjoyed my time with him.

  But Euralis was clearly not up for it any longer.

  I nodded. “Are you well?”

  He glanced at me quickly but immediately looked back down at his feet. “I’ll be fine. But I think I should leave for now, I’m not good company at present.”

  He turned to go, and I reached for him, grabbing hold of his elbow. He paused, but his entire body had stiffened. Snatching my hand back, I flexed my fingers, feeling strangely like crying. “Was it something I’ve done?”

  For just a moment, he looked up at me, and really held my gaze. It was only then that I read the sadness etched onto his brows, the soft frown that seemed permanently stamped onto his lips. “You’ve done nothing, heart of my heart—”

  I shivered and wanted to tell him just how much I loved hearing those words from him. It felt good and right. But the words stayed stuck in my throat.

  “—this is just much... harder than I’d expected it to be. Perhaps tomorrow I can be better company.”

  With Rumpel and me at an impasse and my future so uncertain here, odds were good that my tomorrows were few. At any moment, I might have to leave. My heart sank. I wanted to tell Euralis so and apologize to him. I wanted to tell him... I didn’t know what, other than I was so very sorry for everything. On the verge of tears, all I could do was nod and step back. What could I say that would make any of this better? Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Clenching his jaw, he stood there for a moment, looking as though he wanted to say something, but after a second he shook his head, spread his arms and was instantly enveloped in a shimmering veil of heat.

  I gasped when he shifted. It was so seamless. One moment he was a beautiful onyx-skinned boy, and the next a large and powerful bird of prey.

  I’d never known he could transform into a bird too. He’d said he could fly, but I’d misunderstood, thinking he meant it figuratively.

  With a cry, he took to the air, and with two mighty surges of his massive wings he was airborne.

  There was such power in his movements and an easy rhythm that let me know he’d be a force to be reckoned with if he ever chose to be.

  I wanted to call him back to me and tell him that I truly felt something now, something deep and real. But what if I’m ultimately forced to leave? What if in the end Rumpel and I simply cannot figure out our way back to one another? Is it fair to Euralis to give him hope like that only to snatch it all away?

  I didn’t think so, so I watched him wing off until he was no more than a black speck in the vast sky. I cried one lonely, bitter tear of regret.

  Up until just a second before, the woods had been silent. But now the weeping woman cried her song of melancholy. And it was silly, but I could almost imagine that she wept for me and for my heartache, that she felt it as keenly as a blade to her heart.

  I bit my upper lip and told myself to breathe. This pain will get better someday. I had to believe it.

  As I listened to her song, I again wondered who she was and why she was there. Why does she always cry that way? Why does it always sound of such bitter heartache? What was her story?

  I looked around me, shivering and hugging my cape tighter to my body. It was getting colder out there, and no longer did the woods feel full of possibility. There was a slight sinister edge to what had been welcoming and warm just seconds before.

  I should have tried harder with Euralis. I should have broken the ice somehow. I’d just simply not known what to say.

  After the events of the night before, I’d had terrible dreams of Rumpel’s dark laughter echoing all around me as he shoved me off into the darkness, telling me to go and to never come back. Then I’d seen glowing red eyes everywhere, mocking, jeering and taunting me as I’d screamed out much like the mournful cries of the lonely woman I heard each day.

  Sniffing, I realized I’d begun to cry again. Feeling miserable and cold, I decided to turn back to the castle. But then I thought about Rumpel, and I sighed. I wasn’t sure I felt physically strong enough to deal with him that morning.

  My steps were slow and plodding, and the winds had picked up. Her howls were excruciating to hear. I couldn’t stop the flood of tears as I listened to her terrible song.

  Spying a bench, I plopped down into it.

  The sky above me swirled with thick black bands of darkness, and there was a definite hint of frost in the air. It was almost as though Euralis had taken all the warmth of the day away with him.

  I felt absolutely miserable.

  “You will break me if I see you cry.” His voice, so deep and dark and terribly wonderful broke me out in a wash of shivers, and my belly warmed with threads of desire. I hated my visceral reaction to him, even now. And yet, I found myself heartened and grateful that he’d come to me.

  “Rumpel,” I breathed his name like a benediction.

  I drowned in the sight of him. Gorgeous, that’s what he was, a bright splash of color in the now depressingly gray Never.

  His long blond hair was loose and whipped behind his head like a banner blowing in the breeze. He was tall and powerful of build, with skin as white as my own and eyes as blue as the skies of my home. But it was not this version of the man I craved most.

  “May I?” he asked and pointed to the empty spot beside me.

  I curled my fingers together on my lap, telling myself that I needed to keep calm and not say anything because I was too raw, too heartsick to play nice. But as always, the Dark Prince was my one true weakness. I shrugged.

  He sat. His massive frame radiated heat and I shivered into it, leaning in just a little closer until our sides touched and my body lit up like a spark. He smelled wonderful, always of burnt cherries and cloves. I inhaled him in like a woman drowning. “Euralis will not always be so—”

  I shook my head, anticipating what he might say. “I understand. He loves me, but he doesn’t know me. He wants to. I don’t blame him, Rumpel. The curse has left a swath of devastation in its wake, hasn’t it?”

  I wasn’t just asking about Euralis, and he knew it, because his eyes were huge in his face as they raked over me with blazing tenderness.

  I trembled, hating how much one look from him turned me into this needy, desperate version of myself.

  “I am sorry for last night,” he whispered and I caught his fingers flinch, as though he waged an internal war within himself.

  “For which part? For showing me our truth, or for running away from me again?”

  He winced, s
houlders visibly deflating. “I thought this would be easier, I thought”—he growled and raked his fingers through his disheveled hair—“I don’t even bloody know what I’m thinking anymore.”

  “Then stop.” I shrugged. “It’s really that simple. Stop thinking. Stop overanalyzing every little thing. You did this, don’t you see, Rumpel? You remade me. You did everything to ensure that someday I’d find my way back to you, and now that I’m here—” I paused, feeling like I might burst from holding the words inside of me. But I was angry and confused. Mostly, I was upset with him and with the bloody stupid curse that took my memories and my life away from me. It took my children, my world, everything away from me.

  My breathing hitched, and I screwed my eyes shut, trying in vain not to show how much I hated what had been done to me and to us. I was the one unable to fully remember, but I was remembering. Sometimes it was a sigh, or a touch, a look, or a whispered promise of unconditional love.

  I didn’t know how I could remember any of it, because I wasn’t the same person. I’d been born anew. I wasn’t like Rumpel, because I’d completely ceased to be when the curse had ripped through our story, and yet the ghost of that life was still in me, still trapped inside of my chest. And bit-by-bit, little by little I remembered.

  The pad of his thumb brushed up my tear. I shivered and looked at him through bleary eyes. His face was one of shattered pain.

  I wanted to hold him, wanted to touch him. I wanted to feel him, skin to skin, heart to heart. I wanted to be grounded in this world, I wanted something to hold onto. Anything at all.

  “Don’t cry, Carrots.”

  It was both torture and heaven to hear him call me that. Then stop pushing me away. I thought it, but the words couldn’t push past my too tight throat.

  The woman’s ghostly song threaded through the winds. I closed my eyes, listening to the song of the female. Who is she? Why is she here? And why does no one else seem to care? It was strange, but in the days since my arriving, I’d grown strangely attached to her haunting song of woe. I hated that I thought that, and wondered if I were becoming a monster. Shouldn’t I care more? Shouldn’t I wish to go find her and save her?