Might.
By making Sorrow his personal advisor, Rumbold’s father had secured her protections for as long as he reigned. By selecting her as the future king’s godmother, he had effectively bound Sorrow for a lifetime. The castle would be safe as long as Rumbold lived, and with one of the most powerful fairies in the Land by his side, Rumbold’s safety was assured.
But binding only meant obligation, not willingness. Safety did not mean love.
And vice versa.
He held the knife to his godmother’s throat and realized he needed to leave this place. She stood still as a doe with a scent on the wind, her powdery-white skin reflecting in the bright blade. It was one thing to slip past an animal’s defenses, but making the kill was another entirely. The former was merely a matter of intelligence. The latter was one of heart.
It took a certain kind of man to murder: a man who could slide off his conscience as he slid off his horse, a man who knew the right place, the right speed, the right pressure required, a man who could get the job done and move on. As ready as Rumbold might have been to take his own life, he knew he was not ready to take the life of another human—he squinted at Sorrow—or another almost-human. Sorrow had not so much as flinched when he had approached her. Those violet eyes knew his measure. It only served to fuel his anger.
He replaced the knife in its sheath, but did not back away. “I hate this waiting, waiting, waiting. I’m ready to get on with the rest of my life!”
“I know,” was all she said.
He growled in frustration at the cherubs in the ceiling, as useless to him as anyone else. He was a prisoner in this castle, in his own body, until such time as Jack’s godmother’s countercurse came to fruition. It would have run its natural course on Rumbold’s eighteenth birthday, but lo, his arrogant godmother had to test her skills and attempt the impossible. Thusly Sorrow had extended his sentence indefinitely. The prince’s eighteenth natal day had come and gone and Rumbold had remained human. The people of Arilland had breathed a collective sigh of relief. Everyone, that is, save Rumbold. The curse hung low over his head like a dark cloud.
“I have to leave,” he said.
“Go,” said Sorrow. “But return on your birthday, so we will know when the curse comes to pass.”
No apologies. No hope for the future. Her remarks should not have surprised him. His life had never been his own; as prince, he was the sole property of Arilland. No one truly cared what happened to him, as long as he remained hale and sound of mind, so that they all could go about their lives unbothered and unburdened. He was a face under a crown, a bum on a throne, a voice of reason only when there was none else to be had. He could be called a son or a man, but in truth he felt like neither. No one loved him for who he was; they loved him for what he was. And so long as that what disrupted everyone’s lives as little as possible, it was allowed to exist.
Exist, yes, but no one said he had to stay. There was no sense in staying.
He remembered the reflection of Sorrow’s pulse in his blade. His cold fairy godmother had a heart, but it only beat for itself. Everyone in this palace was similarly selfish, it seemed. Only Rumbold’s heart never beat on its own behalf. It beat for his father, for his subjects, for the good of the kingdom. Once upon a time, it had even beat for his mother.
No wonder he valued his life so little. He needed to stop living it for everyone else.
“Destiny knows your ending,” Sorrow said to his back. “But you choose the path you take to get there.”
“So I shall,” he muttered. And so he did. That night he dressed in houseboy rags and stole a horse. He rode all day and night headlong to the coast and booked passage on the first ship out of the harbor. Leaving was far easier than he had imagined.
Becoming someone else was decadent.
Rumbold enjoyed the freedom of the open sea, the simple life on a ship, the possibilities of an entire as-yet-undiscovered world laid out before him. He enjoyed the salt mist and the clear, star-filled nights. He enjoyed the strange ports of call with their foreign smells that permeated the air and the food and the people. He enjoyed both the still and the storms. He even enjoyed the pirates.
The ship that bore him was easily taken and quickly plundered, and Rumbold attempted to prove his worth to the crew with a slim rapier that was more decorative than useful. His skills with said rapier could be similarly described; he discovered the hard way that pirates fought dirty. They did not fight by rules; they fought to win. The prince was quickly taken down by the pirate’s first mate. He was named “Trouble” and marked as such. But they let him live. Moreover, they let him stay.
His real education began on board that tiny clipper ship, as far away from a dusty library and a hall of portraits as he could ever be. Rumbold learned the value of a hard day’s work. He learned discipline and loyalty and camaraderie. He learned how to cheat at cards, how to lie both to women and with them, and how to steal a man’s most treasured possession from right under his nose. Or behind his back. Or off his arm. Or out of his left breast coat pocket. He learned how to laugh, and how to make someone else do so in turn. He learned how far he could swim before his muscles cramped. He learned how many lashes he could withstand before his tears betrayed him. He learned how long a man could remain conscious in icy water, or without air. He learned the songs of the sea: the whales, the waves, the seals, and the sirens. He learned to guide himself by the stars so that he would never be lost, no matter how adrift he felt inside his soul. He learned how to sharpen both his knives and his wits. He learned how to be smart. He learned how to be selfish. There, on that ship, Rumbold learned to live.
It was also where he learned that he could not die.
Such knowledge would have frightened most men, but Rumbold had mastered his fear a decade ago at the bedside of one of the world’s great heroes. And so he began taking risks: leading the charge onto captured ships, walking the rigging unharnessed, going after men fallen overboard without aid or warning. The more frequently he shamed Fate, the less necessary each act became until he was putting himself in danger simply for the sake of it. In his arrogance he missed the covert signal that the skipper had given to alert the guard.
He was apprehended in a tavern on the coast of Kassora and returned to the castle in Arilland on the eve of his nineteenth birthday. Just as before, that day that passed without incident or transformation. It was a day that meant everything to the kingdom and nothing to the young man they celebrated.
Next year, Rumbold decided, there would be no celebration. No one celebrated someone they despised. His future feats would be reckless enough to make Jack Woodcutter wince. He would become infamous. Oh, yes. They’d be telling his stories for years.
He had to find Sunday. Somehow, he would make her see the insanity of these familial politics. His true love was too intelligent to let an incredible life slip away because of one emotional decision made by a very small boy so long ago. It was all just a horrible accident, surely she could see that.
But she loved her family too much to toss the matter aside lightly.
Human once more, Rumbold abandoned the shattered remnants of the bucket and the moss-covered rocks and the ruins of the well that had been his shelter for so many months.
Despite the whipping of the wind and the rumble of the sky, he vowed to see this through to the end...whatever it took.
He remembered the encounter with Sunday’s mother in the backyard that first afternoon. Fresh out of the transformation and clothed in naught but mud and scrapes, he had almost revealed a bit more to his true love at that point than either of them was ready for.
He could have told her that first night at the ball, revealed that he was her frog in prince’s clothing. Rumbold played through a sample scene and dismissed it out of hand. She wouldn’t have believed him, pure and simple. She wouldn’t have wanted to believe. Her family hated his, plain and simple. Sunday Woodcutter would have turned and walked right back out of his life without so much as a f
are-thee-well, the heels of her shoes leaving bloody footprints where they had crushed his stolen heart.
No, that wasn’t true. She wouldn’t have done that.
He would tell her things, things that only he knew, that only they spoke of, and she would have put her arms around him and hugged him tightly and maybe even cried a little and nothing, not even his father, would have been brighter than that moment.
But that moment had passed.
All the words he had were gone; there was nothing left in him to tell her that her good wishes were meaningless. He had already married Sunday a thousand times in his mind; nothing in the world had to change for Seven Woodcutter’s prophecy to come true. There was no going back now, no rewriting the past. As truly as he loved her, he couldn’t make her want him back.
“I wore Jack’s medallion once, for a time.”
Rumbold could still feel the ghost of its weight, hung from an imaginary silken cord.
“Did you know that? Do you know what such an object does to a healthy boy who does not need enhancements? It let me see beyond myself, realize my own potential, know the strength I would have if I became the best man I could possibly be. I made a great warrior and a good king, and every dream I had came true. But when I took it off I was just a boy again, the son of a cruel father and a dead mother in a life fraught with disappointment, the victim of a curse yet to come to fruition. I tried to be that good man. I tried until my future was pulled so far out of reach that my soul curdled and fell into despair. I damned that medallion and damned myself for ever having put it on.
“Jack was released from my family’s household fourteen years ago,” said Rumbold. “Uncursed, hale, whole, and fully human. He continued about his adventures and heroics, his flights of fancy and feats of unsurpassed bravery—all the adventures they sang about and more. His last valiant effort came about saving a young girl in the north from a wolf…which he did, but not before the wolf claimed his prize. I myself sliced open the wolf’s belly.”
He eyed the gold on Jack’s father’s chest. If Rumbold had the chance to wear the medallion again, what would it think of him now?
“The beast was empty. Jack was gone. That medallion was all that remained. And so I had it returned to you, sir, with a missive explaining everything. You obviously received it.”
Jack Woodcutter Senior had lied to his wife. He had lied to them all and kept that lie safe for over a decade simply to dwell in his own petty hatred. The medallion that had been returned to his beloved’s father marked the punctuation at the end of a life his Woodcutter siblings had never known he had. Whatever the rest of his story might have been, Jack Junior’s tale had not ended in Arilland.
Seven Woodcutter’s eldest son had lived.
Rumbold’s heart went out to Sunday’s mother. His own father was an evil, arrogant bastard, but he had never pretended to be otherwise.
“You will not marry my daughter.” Woodcutter was adamant, but his command no longer carried the strength of his previous rantings.
Seven’s hand dropped from her husband’s chest. “Yes.” The one word dripped ice and cut like a razor. “Yes, he will. It has been said. I have spoken the words. Not even you can change that, Jack Woodcutter.”
A weathered hand reached out to him. Rumbold looked up into the steel gray eyes of his true love’s mother. “Thank you,” she said.
Rumbold nodded in acknowledgement and added no further explanations; he had done enough damage this night. Seven began to pull away until she noticed the tiny silver and gold shoe he held far too tightly in his hand. “Shall I take that back to her?”
He couldn’t bring himself to release this last shred of Sunday. Not yet. Moreover, he didn’t want to. “I’d like to return it myself,” he whispered. “If you don’t mind.”
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Beyond this page lies the original Chapter 20 of the novel Dearest.
If you have not yet read Dearest, I strongly suggest that you do not read past this point. Because I love you and don’t want you to ruin the story for yourself.
xox
~Alethea
Messenger
Dearest, Chapter 20
The messenger arrived the night before, though he did not make an appearance until daybreak. Conrad had no notice of the man’s arrival, but for the sixth sense that all messengers have when someone else turns up bearing important information.
Instead of making his way to the palace, the man ran straight to the Guards’ Hall. Conrad had watched his progress from the windows of the palace before running outside and tracing his footsteps like a whisper. Crouched in the hedges outside Duke Velius’s chambers, he stayed just beyond the square of lamplight cast from the open window. He heard the messenger crash through Velius’s door, presumably collapsing on the floor there.
“Erik!” the duke yelled at the man. “Erik!”
There was no answer. More guards arrived at the bedchamber door.
“He’s exhausted,” said the duke. “See if you can rouse him enough to for a hot bath, and then get him into bed. Have food waiting when he wakes.”
There were grunting sounds as the guards complied with the order. Conrad nestled deeper into the bushes as the duke approached the window.
“Gods help him,” Velius said to the starry sky. “Gods help us all. Eh, little bird?”
It was then that Conrad realized the duke was addressing him. He stepped out of the bushes as if it had been his intention to announce himself all along. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“You are a wise and talented young man,” said the duke’s dark silhouette. “You will go far in this life, father than you have ever journeyed before.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“I would recommend discretion at this time. I will not order you as a duke; I ask only as a man. A friend. A fellow soldier who cares for the princess you serve almost as much as you.”
Conrad removed his hat and gave a small bow. He had witnessed Velius in action, seen him fight, knew a little of what great and terrible powers he could wield. “What is it you would have of me, Your Grace?”
“This has been an evening full of joy,” said the duke. “I suspect the news my friend brings will unsettle us all once again.”
Conrad suddenly remembered where he had seen the messenger man before: upon his arrival at the palace in Arilland, dragging the body of a dead angel wrapped in a voluminous patchwork skirt—the angel he had come to know as Friday Woodcutter, the aforementioned princess who had taken him as her squire. The man had been bigger then, not stooped with fatigue, and his hair had been bright copper, not lank and dark with dirt.
Conrad wondered if King Rumbold appreciated the undying loyalty of those who served at his side. Tireless men like this guard, delivering his message at whatever cost. Wise men like Duke Velius, whose council took both the well being of his king and his country into consideration. Conrad had met a great many kings on his travels, and few could boast of such friendships.
“Wake your mistress after dawn,” said the duke. “That should be plenty of time. I’ll summon the rest of the family.”
“As you wish, Your Grace.” Conrad bowed again and sped off into the night.
At daybreak, Conrad returned from the kitchens with a warm pot of tea and some sweet rolls for Friday. He slid the tray onto the table and woke the princess as gently as he could, letting her know that she was wanted in the Great Hall. Then he slipped out the door and waited for her to ready herself.
Her talents undoubtedly sensed the anticipation in the air, because she was dressed in a flash.
“Should we fetch Tristan?” Friday asked as they made their way to the Hall.
“His presence was not requested,” Conrad said formally.
Friday obviously caught his tone. “Goodness. Do you know what this is about?”
“No,” Conrad said in earnest, for he did not. He only knew that the guard had arrived, not what message he bore, but he mentioned neither of those t
hings to Friday. Conrad had learned the hard way the folly of delivering similar tidbits of vital information out of context.
As they entered the Grand Hall they saw the guard before them, cleaned and dressed and looking far less dire than he had upon his arrival. Friday ran to the man and embraced him. She, too, called him “Erik,” as if he were simply another one of her brothers, but Conrad knew otherwise.
Erik swept the princess up into an enormous bear hug that made Friday giggle like a schoolgirl. The guard smiled at her laughter, but his worry lines remained. He set Friday down and politely greeted the rest of the Woodcutter family as they assembled before delivering his message.
Conrad noticed Erik’s jaw tense slightly as Friday’s ethereally beautiful eldest sister glided into the room. Neither the guard’s body language nor his aura seemed threatening in any way, so Conrad maintained his post at a respective distance. When Princess Monday’s eyes lit on the guard, however, his worry was accompanied by an immense sadness.
Duke Velius had been right. Whatever message Erik had come to deliver, it was not good. “I came from Rose Abbey as fast I could,” he said without preamble.
“You just arrived?” the king eyed his guard’s livery with suspicion.
“It was late in the night,” Erik said humbly.
“And you waited until now?” Rumbold clicked his tongue. “I’m surprised, Erik. You’re usually quite the gossipmonger. I expect better from you.”
The guard did not rise to the king’s jest, and the anxiety already building in the room became stifling. Immediately, the duke stepped forward. “Blame me,” said Velius. “It was I who gave the order for Erik to wait.”