The End of The Cursed

‘A footnote in history, is the small village of Edenhoven which sheltered the missing heirs during their hiding. It is scarcely worth mentioning however, as it died out with the noble family that once governed it.’ – History of Gyllene

Rearden sat on his horse waiting for his ‘proxy’ bride to arrive. The whole thing was off in every way. A married woman standing in for the Princess? It was not done. A proxy marriage was a compromise, but a dangerous one. If the Princess was too far away, or even not coming at all, then what? Proxy marriages were binding even in such difficult circumstances. In order to end it, the proxy would need to die. If it became clear that this was all a stalling tactic meant to delay him while they amassed an army, he would have to kill the proxy. Killing her would be difficult as man of passive character, but possibly a necessary evil, to avoid being duped if the wedding was indeed a ruse.

He squinted in the sunlight as he watched for her across the expansive field. She was supposed to be coming with minimal accompaniment. Any whiff of soldiers with intent to assassinate him, and he would have to shoot her on sight. Another reason why it was imperative that the proxy be someone of importance. A ‘nobody’ would be considered an expendable sacrifice. Especially if this were simple plot in order to buy time while Gyllene got their army through the snowy passes. If they got an army to the border, they would be able to slaughter him without effort.

His eyes were not working properly. The woman he saw was riding toward him on what looked like a massive bear. She was glowing in the sunlight as though she were made of brass. He rubbed them experimentally. He still saw it. She must be a witch. He knew such things were tolerated in a land like Gyllene that was steeped in curses, but in Twyle it was very much illegal. It still surprised and unsettled him. Was her bear properly tame? He wondered if this was a breach of the agreement against arms. Did he have the right to have his archer shoot her? Should he? A bear would be an unusual method of regicide.

The girl was getting close enough that he could see her more clearly. His breath caught in his throat in surprise. There would be no killing her. No matter what she did or what this was, she was safe from him. No one of his acquaintance had ever looked so much like an angel. Innocence and beauty radiated from her like sunlight, he almost thought he could smell church incense in the air as she reached him. Like most men, he had one of two reactions to a woman of such apparent innocence, and his was to protect, rather than to corrupt.

The young noble who traveled with her took her hand and helped her to dismount from the bear. He wore no crown, so he was not the Prince. The Prince had apparently been delayed, a fact which had initially made him suspicious of the arrangement. Now that he had seen the girl he was not. No one would risk the safety of so great a treasure. If the Prince had allowed her to arrive without him, it was for good reason. The girl smiled beatifically and curtseyed to him.

“Majesty.” She said simply. Her voice was musical and soft. She kept her head bowed while extending her hand towards him in a swanlike motion. He wanted to dismount his horse and take her proffered hand, but he did not want her to see that he was a cripple. He leaned down from his horse and took it awkwardly. He pressed his lips to her soft hand, inhaling in surprise. Her skin felt like satin to the touch and smelled of honey. He released her hand. He had kept his lips pressed to it for too long. The strange taste of her skin lingered on his lips. He fought the urge to lick them. Magic coated the witch like a candy shell.

“My Lady.” He replied belatedly. “Thank you for coming.” He looked at the bear. It was watching them placidly. He had all but forgotten it after taking her hand. “Is your bear entirely tame?” He asked somewhat nervously. She smiled and ran a hand over its dark brown back.

“Not entirely no. It is usually quite gentle, but it is a stubborn beast. It can be rather dominant, irritable and even arrogant at times.” Her eyes sparkled with barely concealed mirth. He could not understand her reaction to the question.

“Your bear is arrogant? How could one even know such a thing?” His amused smile disappeared as it was replaced with disbelief. “You mean that you can communicate with it?” He asked. She smiled.

“I try. It doesn’t always listen particularly well.” A grin broke across her queer golden face. Only her lips and teeth weren’t gold. The strangeness of her gigantic bear could not compete with the strangeness of her allure.

“Can you speak to all animals? Or just this particular one?” He looked at the bear closely. Its eyes were disturbing…they didn’t look mammalian at all. “I mean…is it an animal? Or is it your familiar? You are a witch as they said, aren’t you?” He asked. This was necessary information. A witch changed the balance of battle. The last Gyl witch had ended the realm of Eillene.

“Not to all animals.” She replied. As if to answer his question, a pheasant appeared at the corner of her skirt. “And yes – I am particularly familiar with this bear.” She bit her lip as if suppressing a laugh. “You need not fear for yourself or your army. I am here to honor a treaty of peace. I will cast no spells to harm you or your men.” She ducked her head again respectfully. Now he understood why the girl had come with no military accompaniment. She didn’t need any. She was a witch, and she had an enormous bear at her side. An army would be superfluous.

He looked at the young man beside her. He had coughed into his hand as though he wished to speak. The King of Twyle had forgotten all about him. He was so very ordinary when compared to the girl or the oversized bear.

“If you please your Majesty. We should begin preparations for the ceremony. The Prince will be arriving by this evening and he will expect us to have completed the necessary proxies before signing the treaty.” Pelynor gave a flourish of his green cap. Rearden nodded, this must be the Duke’s son, the emissary.

“Of course. I have brought my cleric with me, and he is ready to perform the binding.” He glanced at the bear. “Will you be dismissing your animals?” He asked. The girl laughed.

“The bear I will send away until tomorrow morning when I need it to return to the Estate. The pheasant, I’m afraid will stay with me unless I kill it. It will not leave.” She seemed to think that was a good enough explanation. “You will be returning to the Estate with us I imagine?”

“If all goes well.” The King replied. It had to go well. He could not kill someone with a face like a sleeping child, and as she was a witch…it was possible that he literally could not kill her. “If you will follow me this way? I will show you to the tent where my cleric is waiting.” Gilda nodded agreeably and turned toward her bear. She rested her head against it briefly.

“Goodbye my love. Please do not worry. I will see you soon.” She stroked its fur. It turned and walked away from them peacefully. Rearden had never seen so strange an interaction. The girl turned back to look at him.

“Now I am ready.” She and the young nobleman followed him toward the large cambric tent he had set up. She was either very trusting, or very powerful. For all she knew he could have an ambush waiting to harm her or take her hostage.

Gilda wondered to herself if he was going to dismount the horse or lay flat against it in order to enter the tent. He didn’t look crippled scarcely at all, but the fact that he was mounted could hide his disfigurement. He appeared to only have a slight crook to his back, but he was quite handsome and aristocratically featured. Was it possible that she was not betraying Freya so very utterly in performing this proxy wedding? He was at least interested in peace, seemed polite, and he was as finely featured as a statue. As they reached the edge of the green tent, he bent down almost to the neck of the horse and entered it still mounted.

“Will you not dismount for the ceremony?” Gilda asked with curiousity. He shook his head.

“It is tradition in my country for the man to be married on horseback. Despite being a proxy wedding, I will still honor the customs of my countrymen.” He spoke firmly, but his words sounded false and hollow, as if underneath them, he was afraid of something. “I will dismount once the ceremony is complete and we have signed the contract.”

Gilda felt a strange sense of deja vous as she dressed into a night gown and laid herself down on the bed to the far right of the broad sword. She was going to be lying in a bed with a man she scarcely knew and she was fairly certain that nothing was going to happen. The difference this time, was that she didn’t want it to. Also, the man that she did love would not be beside her, but outside the tent standing guard and no doubt hating every second of it. The ceremony itself had been short, almost not worth mentioning – other than the many torn glances of the cleric who CLEARLY thought a witch was an inappropriate proxy. At one point during the proceedings he had ‘accidentally’ splashed her with holy water – a truly bizarre occurrence, given that Twyle was protestant and Holy Water was most likely unlawful to possess!

The flaps of the scarlet canopied marquee opened and King Rearden came in. Off of the horse she could see why he had refused to dismount before they had signed the proxy marriage agreement. His legs twisted and bowed beneath him and he could scarcely walk without significant assistance from a cane or a servant. One of his men helped him through the doorway and to get onto his side of the bed. He laid down gratefully on the rather poor rope and feather mattress as if the short walk had been painful for him. Gilda had felt significant pity for the man when he had come in to dine with her and to meet Freyr at dinner after the abysmal ceremony. Freyr was so utterly tall and imposing, especially in the tailor-made clothes provided by the Duke. He had looked every inch the Crown Prince, and it was obvious that Rearden knew he did not. He had used a cane then, rather than a servant. He looked as though he had wanted to appear less crippled, but he was so twisted and stooped, that it was obvious a servant would have been better. He’d sat beside her and Freyr, nearly unspeaking during 7 courses, although he had scarcely touched a bite. Pity had overcome her anger at his country, surprisingly quickly.

“Good evening my Lord.” She whispered when her lips made the decision to speak or not speak before her mind had.

“Good evening.” He whispered back. He was on the far edge of the bed with his back hunched away from her.

“Do you wish for me to speak? Or shall I be silent?” Gilda asked tentatively. When she had researched the life of nobility, she had not researched this. There was no circumstance in which she thought such information would be useful. He rolled towards her, careful not to touch the very sharp blade between them. A silk scarf had been dropped over the blade during dinner, and had sliced itself cleanly in half to demonstrate the fitness of the ceremonial instrument.

“I do have some questions. I imagine that you do as well.” His voice was a gentle tenor, beautiful and rich in the darkness.

“You may ask me anything you like.” Gilda pulled the cream colored embroidered blanket from her side of the bed more tightly around herself. It was cold, but she was more concerned about the effect that her smell might have on him…even though he was human.

“Tell me about yourself.” He ordered, his tone authoritative, but curious. His hand reached across the space between them, but not for her. He traced the jeweled settings on the ceremonial sword with his fingertips as if attempting to find the boundary between them.

“Would you not rather hear about Freya? The Princess of Gyllene I mean.” Gilda looked at the small slit in the door of the tent. It was open a tiny fraction, every breath of wind outside twisting the thin red fabric slightly and exposing a glimpse of the night sky and a stoic figure standing outside. She knew he could hear everything even from where he was.

“Is she anything like you? In appearance?” The King withdrew his hand from the sword. He didn’t like the look of any part of himself next to the glittering thing, or the glittering girl beside him. He hoped that his actual bride would be nothing like her. Aphrodite deeply resented her marriage to Hephaestus. Any beauty forced to marry a man as physically twisted and abhorrent as he was would. He half hoped that the curse the Princess supposedly bore was disfiguring in some way. It might do something to mitigate the disgust he felt. The uglier a man is, the more deeply he longs for great beauty, and the more shame it causes him. The hour he had sat on his horse beside while a Cleric had gone through the ritual of binding had been the most anxious of his life. He’d needed it to conclude before she saw the extent to which he was deformed. If she called it off, he’d need to go to war with a country benevolent enough to offer him it’s Princess in exchange for his cessation of petulant and aggressive behavior. But the Cleric had droned on forever about the inflexibility of marriage, and a strange turn to the bizarre with a lengthy treatise on the evils of magic. He’d feared he was going to fall off the horse before it was over!

“She is nothing like me. Not in appearance, not in spirit… She is much better, truly.” Her voice was tinged with its own shame, a fact which made no sense to him. She sighed. “My grandmother was the witch who cursed the family of your bride. She made me look the way I do through magic. There is nothing about me, that is in the slightest bit special or interesting.” She exhaled softly, unaware that even her breath perfumed the air with a honeysuckle scent. “Freya is in every way superior to me. She is strong, intelligent, and beautiful. There is no person kinder and more deferent to the needs of others. I can at least assure you that you will be happy with her. Any man would be.” Rearden shifted slightly in the dark, but was not coming towards her, so Gilda did not move.

“You know her well.” It was not a question, but rather a statement.

“I considered her my sister before I was Princess Consort. She is honestly the only friend I have ever had. Being raised by a witch is fairly isolating.” Gilda tucked her head in deeper into the pillow. She didn’t like being reminded that she was actively betraying someone she loved.

“May I confess that you fascinate me? You are impossible in appearance, your life must have been so strange, but when you speak, you seem much more like any other girl.” Gilda laughed. He intended it as a compliment, but ordinary was nothing she had ever aspired to be.

“If you find me, a girl essentially made of magic to be ordinary, then you may be a perfect match for Freya.” Gilda admitted quizzically without elaborating. She could feel his eyes looking at her, but she didn’t turn to meet them.

“Were you very ugly? Before the witch altered you?” His voice was not unkind, but the words stung. It was something she had often wondered.

“I never thought of myself that way, but I must have been. She didn’t think I was good enough as I was, not anything about me…” Gilda closed her eyes, squeezing tightly to avoid tears.

Alongside her, similarly unspeaking, the King of Twyle pressed his fingers to his eyelids. He felt deep affinity for this young woman who knew as completely as he did, that what she was as a person, was unequal to what was expected of her by others. If a blade had not separated them, he would have taken her hand.

Lord Phillip hid himself behind a large outcropping of rock. The night air, despite the season was heavily perfumed with the smell of freshly shorn hay. The climate of this piece of land was inexplicable. The field that the tents were set up on had just been mown. Five tents for the cripple’s small accompaniment and the auburn haired noble were pitched on the edge of the field. The hay stood in stacks as tall as trees all across it, like small fragrant mountains or hills. Although the out of season crop confused him, he was intensely grateful for it. His horse was tied up happily hidden behind one of the mounds, silently and unobtrusively eating the unexpected bounty. Phillip was free to slink through the night from mound to mound, coming ever closer to the girl. No one would see him with all the cover available.

He knew she was in the central tent. He had seen her go in with the crippled man. He was losing track of how many bedmates the girl had. The little slut would give herself to anything, seemingly without reason. This latest admirer, while certainly well dressed, could barely walk. He’d been half carried in by a servant. Some lover he was going to be! What reason could she have for this behavior? Other than her inherent wickedness and slatternly inclinations of course.

Her supposed husband – the giant – stood outside with apparent calm. He faced away from the tent looking off into the deepening night. His hands were in fists by his sides. Phillip could make no sense of his being alive, or his actions either. The young Lord looked up at the sky. It was dark and almost moonless with the starlight blinking above him like the eyes of a great audience. Phillip would not be disappointing them. No matter how things turned out tonight, there would be a show.

Chaos was his only hope for success. Just as Miss Lamb had suggested it would, the opportunity presented itself. He slid himself into the shadows behind one of the large white tents at the edge of the field. The air here was too moist for what he wanted. One of the strange fissures in the ground was open here. It was gasping soft wet air upwards like pale smoke into the darkness. He moved away from it, wraithlike and silent in the night to the second tent. He lit a small cloth soaked in brandy aflame and laid it on the ground next to the tent. He quickly moved to the next tent, doing the same thing as he crouched behind it. He would burn the witch after all. It had been six months since his first attempt, but he was finally going to succeed.

The tents caught fire almost too easily. They must have been treated with oil and wax in order to be water resistant, but it made them like wicks to his fire. Soon the clearing was blooming with giant flowers of flame. People were running and screaming. A long haired soldier with his hair on fire looked like a candle on legs, running through the night. The mounds of nearly dry hay were perfection. They went up like tinder in a gush of heat and fire. The field itself might have been daylight. The glow of flame was like an earthbound sun. Panicked shouts of the dozen or so men filled the air, along with the screams of the ones who had been injured. They knew they could not put out so much fire. There was precious little chance of escaping it as it grew around them, every scrap of mown grass catching light. The heat in the field was intensifying. They would all be cooked or smothered by the smoke even if they didn’t burn.

Phillip began to doubt if he would be able to get back to his horse in time to get to a safe distance. A smart man did not stay to bask in the heat of the fire he had set. But he had no choice! He needed to watch long enough to make sure that the girl burned. Burning the witch was his focus, but he did not want to die with her. There was no elegance in setting a trap that killed the trapper as well. He felt he had more dignity than to die with his prey, as there was no justice in falling to the same punishment as the guilty. To be killed in pursuit of righteous retribution was one thing, but to die by one’s own inadvertent hand? He glanced around himself quickly. He had forgotten one variable. He had lost sight of the giant. Where was the demon he had tried to kill? He wanted to shoot him, properly this time, before fleeing. He couldn’t see the man anywhere.

“Did you think I didn’t memorize your scent?” A deep voice asked from behind him. Oh. Damn. Now he knew where the demon was. Phillip had kept his eyes solidly on the tent where the girl was, but he had been distracted by the men on fire. He thought that the creature would focus on saving his woman. Apparently not. Strong hands lifted him and turned him around. His feet no longer touched the ground. The beast of a man held him up to his face. Phillip struggled to reach his gun, but his one arm could not reach it from the position the monster held him in. The bottles in his breast pocket shattered. Phillip bit back a cry, both for the glass entering his skin, and the loss of his laudanum. But he wasn’t going to survive this. He would never need it again.

The monster gripped his long hair with one hand, and his remaining arm with the other. Phillip screamed in pain. There was not enough medicine or spirits in his blood to mask the agony of being held this way. He glanced over the man’s head to see the center tent catch flame. The anguish in his veins was momentarily replaced by triumph. He laughed wildly.

“Her tent is burning. Your slut is dying because you wasted your time on a dead man.” He managed to gasp out. It was true. It wouldn’t have taken long before his bowels ruptured, or his addiction caused him to overdose. The beast had lost to its own lack of intelligence. Even if the demon managed to survive again it would be without his precious witch. His survival was already unlikely. The spot they stood in was wreathed in flames.

“Those were your last words. Make what peace you can wretch.” The giant said quietly, evenly, without emotion. It was the last thing Phillip heard before he was separated from himself. His neck was snapped, his body disconnected, into actual pieces, torn apart like so much refuse. He’d had no time to draw his pistols, no time for a last word, no time even to spit in the face of the creature. The creature dropped his mangled carcass and ran off toward the fire. Phillip’s eyes turned glassy and dimmed. Swiftly and unceremoniously he just ceased to be.

Freyr darted through the flaming field. He had to get to Gilda. He should have ignored the wretch and let it live. He should not have gotten distracted from the one constant in his life which was keeping Gilda alive. Every last tent was on fire now. The one she was in would be no different. Had she gotten out? The smoldering smoke from the still damp hay in the humid field was thick. Even his superior eyes could scarcely see. The scent of burning hay filled his nose to the point where it was impossible to catch Gilda’s scent, powerful as it was. The moments he had wasted with Lord Phillip had allowed the fire and smoke to build.

He saw her! She was being assisted by one of Rearden’s men to drag the King away from the center of the field. Unless they could all find horses, there was no way that they could outrun these flames. They were all dead already, just walking corpses. Freyr sprinted toward her. If she would just drop the man she was dragging, he could put her on his back and they had a prayer of outrunning this. She would never do that. He would have to force her. Gilda glanced up as he reached her side, coming out of the smoke and becoming visible suddenly.

“Help me! We have to get him out of here!” She pleaded, her face already streaked in soot. The King’s eyes were wide with fear as he almost struggled powerless in their arms. Freyr shook his head. There was no time for that.

“Instruct your witch to make it rain! Make her use her powers!” Pelynor screamed at Freyr. His face was a mask of pain. Freyr saw that his leg was burnt. He must have burnt it rescuing the King from the tent which was now only a wall of fire. Gilda was crying silently.

“I can’t!” She was frantic, the golden orbs of her eyes were lost in the growing white. Freyr tugged the King’s shoulder from her grasp.

“What are you doing?” Pelynor demanded as Freyr swung a screaming Gilda up over his shoulder.

“Run dammit!” Freyr ordered him as he looked around himself for the best direction to run in. Which way was out? All he saw was an endless sea of black smoke. Gilda was hitting him with her fists. She didn’t want to leave the crippled King to die. Did she not realize that if they didn’t leave him they would all die? He would drop her if she did not stop her kicking and beating him with her fists. The roar of the flames was only slightly less deafening than her screaming in his ear to save the King. She bit him hard on the shoulder and he nearly dropped her in surprise. DAMN! He bent down and picked up the King. He slung him over the opposite shoulder.

“Shut up Gilda! Hold still or we will never make it.” The guard and Pelynor were staring at him in blind amazement. They had never seen a man with this much strength. No one could carry two people this way and still run. “Shut your mouths and run if you still can!” Freyr roared at them. The sound was tinged with a guttural mammalian sound. Freyr picked a direction and began running. The weight of Gilda and the cripple were nothing, but the unwieldy shape of them slung over his shoulders decreased his speed. The way they flapped against him as he ran was distracting and disconcerting. He burst through a wall of flame as he rushed to get clear of the field. If the hay had not been mowed they would have had no chance. Because it had, they might live. The blaze was collected into giant pyramids of fire, but there was nothing to burn on the ground. His lungs were aching. There was no oxygen in the air for the level of exertion he was expending, his lungs were filling only with poison and ash. He could hear the gasping of Pelynor running behind him struggling to keep up. He did not hear the secondary breath of the guard. There was too much screaming in the air. It was not all fear, most of it was pain. Even if they lived, the night was filled with death.

Miraculously they cleared the field. His feet felt bare rock beneath them, the heat of it burned. His clothes were singed almost entirely off. His shoes no longer existed. He continued until the air felt cooler. The pain in his body became noticeable as the heat and smoke got further behind him. Gilda had stopped moving at all and was limp across his back. He set Gilda down on the bare rock which was warm and wet. He had found the water which could save them. He set the King of Twyle down beside her. Gilda coughed and choked as she tried to continue breathing, her chest was heaving and she was making horrible striderous gasping sounds. Color came back into her gray face. She looked down at her night dress in surprise as heat stung and seared her skin. Parts of it were still glimmering with sparks. She patted herself feverishly until they were out. The King was almost naked. His linen night shirt gone and his body was covered in burns. His lungs didn’t work as well as the others did, he was the color of chalk, and was wheezing horribly.

“Freyr, sit down. Let me heal you.” Gilda said, her eyes were gigantic with fear and pain, and they had filled with tears.

“I’m fine. Heal him.” Freyr pointed to the semi-conscious King. Gilda shook her head and took his hands. Freyr looked at them for the first time. His arms were burned unbearably. He looked down at his feet, they looked like red wax, melted. He could scarcely move them. His shirt was mostly gone and his leather pants had been burned off from the knee down. He hadn’t noticed. He had been too focused on saving Gilda. He was a disgusting, red, inhuman thing. She was ignoring his protests and spreading her stinging tears along his skin. Her eyes were overflowing as she knelt by his feet and legs.

“Lay down Freyr.” Her voice was hoarse. “Please. Please. It will make it easier.” She pleaded. She was reluctant to touch his wet red skin, but she had to. Freyr laid down obediently. Gilda was crying copiously. He found he could not stand anymore anyway. He could scarcely hear her crying anymore. He lost consciousness without even being aware of it. His whole body looked and felt like raw meat. Dawn was coming, and he would live, but at a price.

King Rearden sat uncomfortably on the stone ground. His body was always in pain, but the hard wet stone beneath him only made it worse. He glanced to the side at the witch. The girl had not slept. She had healed the Prince, then himself, then Pelynor, then finally herself. She was lying near the little creek that was just a trickle of water running down the rock, her face in it, mouth open. He hoped she was still alive. She was so still. Water ran into her open mouth and down the side of it. She didn’t appear to be swallowing or closing her mouth. He wanted to crawl towards her and put his fingers to her neck to test for life, but he still couldn’t move. Every portion of his body was immobile, as if the witch’s healing had paralyzed him in order to knit his limbs back together. He could never move well, but at the moment he could not move at all.

He had not known pain until the fire. He thought that the fever and the continuous ache of his limbs was pain, but it had not been. Burns covering 75% of your body was pain. Salt tears stinging your flesh-less frame was pain. Feeling your body connect itself together again and regrow its skin was pain. His limbs felt like they were stretching and twisting with a whole new fever of agonizing hurt. He had to tear himself out of his pity. His savior could be dying. She was still so unmoving, her skin was a pallid yellow instead of glowing gold. The girl blinked. Thank God. She was alive. She swallowed the water that flowed down her chest gratefully and gulped more. She glanced upward at the sky with panic stricken eyes as if it held some import. What could it possibly matter?

Dawn was creeping across the night like ruby fingers into the darkness. Pelynor glanced at the sleeping Prince on the ground. Panic filled his eyes as well. He swung his head in the direction of the girl who met his eyes in an agonized sort of way.

“What’s wrong? Is he dead?” Rearden asked. Pelynor shook his head.

“No. But we may be if we do not move.” He looked intensely frightened. The girl pushed herself up. She was nearly bare of clothing and what remained of her nightdress was soaking wet. He would not have thought it possible to feel lust toward someone when you had just regrown all your skin, but it was.

“I cannot move.” He admitted regretfully. His legs were rigid and stiff. The skin on the top of them was smooth and unburned, but they felt like they were cracking from the inside out. He did not like showing weakness in front of the girl, but his pain was a prison which made it unavoidable. Pelynor stood shakily. His leg had been almost gone by the time they had reached the little stream. When the glittering girl had cried on it, it had been more of a blackened cinder than a limb. Now, miraculously it looked almost like the other one, only it was covered in a web of white scars. He offered a hand to the girl. She took it and rose to her feet. She had no scars. Her skin was golden again and perfect from toe to chin. Her nightdress was the length of a shirt. She had been slung over the Prince’s shoulder head first. Only her bottom half had entered the flames. She was naked from the thigh downward, but her legs were devoid of burns or markings.

“We can drag him.” She said with determination.

“Why? Why must we move?” Rearden asked with concern. Both of them looked terrified even though the danger appeared to be passed. The fire was out! The heat had dissipated, they were all mostly healed. The only trauma remaining were the smoking corpses littering the field. The girl laid herself across the chest of her prostrate husband.

“Find us my love, when you awaken.” She kissed each of his eyelids with extreme tenderness. Amazing. A Prince and a witch who were actually in love. Not just a marriage of power and convenience. He envied her, but mostly he envied the man. She touched her forehead to that of her sleeping lover. It sparked the memory of her tenderness toward the bear, the words she had said.

“Find me. After the transition.” She rose and nodded to Pelynor. Pelynor glanced at the very confused King of Twyle, realization and disbelief were growing on his face.

“We have to move, because, the curse of Gyllene, of the Demon King, is extremely real.” Pelynor said as he and the girl grasped Rearden’s arms and began to drag him. Agony compounded agony and he could not think to ponder their words. Pain suffused every limb and there was no thought.

Clothilde sat astride her bear as they neared the edge of the mountain range. They had no need to pay homage to the estate or the Duke. The only place she cared to go, was to the Keep. Her daughter was there, and nothing would keep her from her. The rocks beneath them were slippery with a thin coating of snow so white it looked blue on the underside. The gray rocks were hard to see underneath their icy coating. Even a sure footed bear was having a hard time. It moaned piteously when it slipped and tore a muscle maintaining its balance.

“You I pity.” Clothilde said as she stroked the neck of the animal. The animal had done nothing to harm her. She patted it reflexively, healing it with her touch. The veins in her hands were prominent she noticed. Even after reverting to her true form she was still more than middle aged. When had this happened? She felt young. She felt like a girl, but she was an old woman.

“You despise me, don’t you?” She asked Grigor. It was an ideal time to have a conversation with him, as at the moment, he could not speak. She stroked the neck of the bear companionately. She knew Grigor was inwardly fuming that she was petting him like a housecat. “I’m sorry about that. We should try to be civil at least. We have a several weeks journey ahead of us, and kindness would go a long way toward making it endurable.” The bear was silent. She had healed its muscle pain with her petting and the bear at least was grateful.

“If you stole my daughter from me, why did you not raise her yourself? Why send her to live with strangers in the mountains? You risked your safety after I had proven myself capable of mass murder in order to deceive me about it. What did you hope to gain?” She knew the bear could not answer, but she didn’t care. The question burned just as brightly whether he answered her or not.

Habitually she grasped at a stand of rare mountain grasses which had a cauterizing effect. They could stem the blood flow from a wound without burning it. Even when all she wanted to do was kill, her unconscious instincts went toward healing. There was no conceivable reason for him to keep the child from her at risk to himself when he was taking no personal gain from it…unless.

“You didn’t want the child for yourself as it would inconvenience your new bride. You wanted to keep it from me, but you had no reason to hate me yet…except for what I am. This is about bigotry?” Clothilde could not wrap her mind around hatred that went so irrationally deep. She had saved his life when he had almost died, and he had forced her to kill men by the thousands. All she had ever done was to do his bidding with her craft. Still, he had withheld her child from her because she was a witch.

“Did you keep her from me to prevent her from becoming like me? Was that out of fear of her future power, or an innate hatred of witches?” The bear was of course silent. Had he done it in order to break from a witch he either loathed or feared? If they had no child together, he would never have needed to see her again. Or was it deeper than that? Had he wanted to prevent her from raising the child so that it could not become a witch itself? Ridiculous man. He must never have listened to her stories if he thought that was going to work. Her poor child. She’d had no one to guide her, no one to explain things to her. Her early life must have been terrifying for her. Clothilde ground her teeth. Whatever excuse he was going to give her would not mollify her. The suffering her daughter would have endured could not be undone. The only way to make it right, would be to increase his suffering. There were many many ways she could arrange that.