The Cursed Crown

by Matthew S. Cox

  Sleeping entwined with the woman she loved surpassed any sense of security offered by a locked door, guards, a castle, or even a sword by the bedside. For the first time in many years, Oona enjoyed a deep rest, not having to worry about war, assassins, or her dearest love rejecting her.

  The coach bounced over a rough patch of road. This journey to Ivendar, the capital city of Evermoor, had been expected… though she had hoped it would’ve been her father undertaking the task. However, after what he had done, Aodh Talomir walking into Ivendar would not have ended well. Kitlyn disliked the truth of it, but the reality of his death being the best possible outcome for both kingdoms couldn’t be denied.

  Meredith and Piper sat in the rear-facing seat opposite them. The younger girl had mixed feelings about going, to which Oona had offered her the choice to remain at the castle. Piper feared she may get in trouble if anyone in Evermoor recognized her since she had outed herself as a spy and chosen to abandon her mission of assassination. On Kitlyn’s assurance that she would ensure her protection, Piper decided to come along.

  Oona fidgeted.

  “Hmm?” Kitlyn glanced over at her.

  “Oh, just thinking about our last trip to Evermoor.”

  “These accommodations are far nicer.” Kitlyn leaned close and muttered, “I’d rather be bound hand and foot in a wagon than killed on the spot. Given how much they hated ‘the heir’ based on lies, we should consider ourselves lucky Ralen had a true sense of decency.”

  “Still. They rather treated us cruelly. Making us use a bucket indeed. Not even untying our legs.” Oona’s face reddened in anger. “I hope I do not see any of those men.”

  “If what Ralen said has any truth, I doubt anyone will see those men.”

  She sighed. “Well, the one wasn’t too bad. The man I made sleep.”

  “I’d just as soon forget that wagon ride entirely.” Kitlyn frowned at the window. Hopefully, Ralen did kill the man who grabbed her breast. Or perhaps Omun had already done that at the keep. He had left quite a few bodies in his wake. More deaths that should never have happened but for her father’s greed.

  The previous night spent at a roadside inn had been pleasant despite the surprising number of curious people who wanted to meet her. Most acted as though she’d had no connection at all to the former king and she’d swooped in to save Evermoor. She found it reassuring, especially when traveling so far into a nation that had been calling for her death since the day of her birth, that they had all revised their opinion of her so drastically. Of course, looking at Evermoor, the effect of what she had done couldn’t be any more obvious.

  All the trees, flowers, and shrubs appeared vibrant and lush. The land itself gave off a tangible sense of life. Even Piper couldn’t help but stare in awe at the change in her former homeland. Kitlyn imagined farmers’ crops had rebounded as well to a point given how late in the season they had returned the Heart. According to the waitress at the inn last night, some people who lived far from the Alderswood where the land had turned grey also showed signs of withering. With the Heart returned, their entire kingdom brimmed with life.

  From the moment they had crossed the Churning Deep yesterday, energy stirred within Kitlyn’s chest as if in response to the Alderswood acknowledging her presence here. On top of the glow from all the things she’d done with Oona, the sense of welcome from the great tree lifted her spirits in defiance of the dread she harbored for this meeting with the Evermoor king.

  Would he talk down to her or praise her for returning the heart? The man had sent assassins to kill her as an infant and a young child. He’d ordered the assassin who murdered the previous queen. He’d sent the assassin, Ian, who’d nearly forced Oona to drink noxious poison—a story her wife couldn’t get through a retelling of without sobbing. She still had the occasional nightmare of watching that man convulse so forcefully his back broke.

  Kitlyn narrowed her eyes, entertaining an uncharacteristic moment of viciousness and taking satisfaction in such a painful death. Truly the gods paid him back for his cruelty in the most appropriate way possible.

  “Who is to die now?” asked Oona. “You’ve that look in your eyes again.”

  “Thinking of meeting King Volduin, which made me think of assassins, which made me think of that man who gave you poison.”

  Oona cringed. “He is… gone. I wonder if there is any truth to what Ralen said.”

  “About that order of assassins?”

  “Yes. Their idea of where we go after our life ends differs from Tenebrea’s realm.”

  Kitlyn nodded. “I remember. The evil go to the Banefallow, the good to The Glimmering Vale. And those who are neither particularly good nor particularly evil roam the world as spirits until they figure out where they belong.”

  “If that is true,” said Oona, “then that man may be haunting the land still. I fear he may desire revenge. Ralen said those assassins perform some dark magic that spares them from the Banefallow no matter how vile their deeds.”

  “You should not worry, my love.” Kitlyn squeezed her hand. “For what better weapon could there be against dark spirits than Lucen’s light.”

  Oona smiled.

  After several hours of travel across placid countryside, the coach slowed. Merchant wagons flanked both sides of the road with men and women selling everything from late season fruit to baubles, clothes, and even a selection of cheapish weapons. Kitlyn caught a passing glance at a table of swords, about a third of which appeared Lucernian in origin, all likely scavenged from dead soldiers. She almost missed having a blade at her hip, but her present attire—a dark green gown and flat-soled shoes—didn’t afford her the option. However, as a queen visiting a foreign nation, the odds of her needing a blade of her own didn’t seem too high. And in the event of unforeseen circumstance, she had her magic. A five-hundred-pound stone spire jutting up from the ground more than made up for a lack of a longsword.

  Piper kept her head down, her pale, delicate face hidden behind a curtain of dark chestnut brown hair. Oona’s grip on Kitlyn’s hand hadn’t loosed at all. She clearly felt a bit like a mouse on her way into a house of cats. However, she had much more practice at royal things and managed to keep an outward poise in spite of her fear.

  Soon, the merchant carts gave way to small shops with walls resembling trees grown in spirals and whorls rather than cut planks. Some of them even had leaves still sprouting.

  “Are those shops alive?” whispered Oona.

  “Good chance of that,” said Piper in a timid voice. “The shapers raise them from the earth. Most people here try to avoid harming trees. Cut wood is taken only from already-dead ones.”

  Kitlyn clenched her jaw. They dare not hurt a tree but would murder me in my bed as a child? Her sudden rush of anger leaked out her nose on a sigh. Anyone would take extreme steps when facing the extermination of an entire kingdom.

  Men’s shouts arose outside, greetings called back and forth from the Evermoor soldiers that had joined their escort and the Ivendar guards. Curious citizens trotted over, trying to peek into the coach. Whenever someone caught her eye, Kitlyn returned a smile and a wave.

  They’d arrived at the capital city late in the afternoon. Based on the weakening autumnal sun, she guessed it perhaps an hour before dinner. Something Beredwyn had once said came back to her mind. Ivendar and Cimril sat far enough apart that time wound up being slightly different in the two cities. The way the sun passed overhead put the Evermoor capital roughly two hours ahead of Cimril. Not that she really noticed the change during their trip, but it struck her as odd to think about how it would be presently sunnier back home.

  Like a curious child, Kitlyn leaned closer to the window, ogling the city. Telltale whirls or patterns in the walls of many buildings suggested they had been more grown than constructed. Despite that, they had a remarkably similar appearance to structures from Lucernia, except for ones where deliberate gaps between the thick roots served as windows. Those resembled the sorts of dwellings s
he’d read about the elves living in.

  Trumpets blared, announcing their arrival at the castle. The King of Evermoor, Lanas Volduin, had constructed a surprisingly normal looking keep of stone, though the lack of visible bricks revealed it as far from being mundane. Kitlyn smiled to herself, thinking of how her magic could liquefy stone, allowing it to be shaped to her desire before re-hardening.

  It would’ve taken an army of stoneshapers to make an entire castle.

  The coach came to a stop, and attendants opened the doors on the right side. Oona, being on that side, exited first. Kitlyn followed. Meredith and Piper stepped out after them, though the younger girl took Oona’s hand in both of hers, staring down at her shoes as if she’d done something wrong.

  She said she’s from Lamneth. If I recall, that is far to the south. No one here should know her.

  A man with long, black hair, handsome slate-grey eyes, and a warrior’s chin emerged from a group of soldiers by the gate. His rich, violet tunic, black leggings, and fine boots suggested nobility or at least wealth. He walked up to them as casually as if he already knew them.

  “Princess Talomir.” He nodded at Kitlyn, then pivoted toward Oona, hesitating for a few seconds at the sight of a delicate crown on her head as well. “Oona.”

  The instant she heard his voice, she recognized Prince Ralen. Kitlyn raised a subtle hand at her entourage, stalling anyone from correcting him as to her title. “Oh… Prince Ralen. I didn’t recognize you in such fine clothing instead of your armor.” She returned a nod of greeting.

  “Well, it’s not so much armor as a shell I sometimes produce. Though, I occasionally feel the need to shed it and grow a new one.” He kept a serious expression for a few seconds before flashing a grin.

  Oona giggled. “It is good to see you well, and the Alderswood back to health.”

  Everyone in earshot let out a small cheer.

  “Indeed.” Ralen smiled. “Come. My father is quite keen on meeting you.”

  “Does that mean you have reached an accord with him?” asked Oona. “Last I remember, he had been rather cross with you.”

  Ralen nodded. “It appears his connection to the Alderswood went far deeper than any of us realized. With the tree’s slow death, he had grown ill of temper, mad with fear, and suspecting betrayal and deceit from every direction.”

  “He is healthy now then?” asked Kitlyn.

  “Yes, quite.” Ralen gestured at the doors. “There is no need for us to stand around outside.”

  Kitlyn looked past him at the castle, only two stories tall but much wider than her home. Everywhere she looked, highly detailed statuettes of animals adorned the walls of the interior, along with elf-like beings, faun, and other fey creatures. She had no doubt stoneshapers had crafted this place.

  Ralen led them down a short corridor that took them through a twelve-foot thick wall around the main keep to an interior courtyard. The keep itself took up more room than two city blocks in Cimril. The people living and working here didn’t seem much different from the citizens of Lucernia, other than having a browner tint to their skin and an affinity for much simpler, looser clothing. With the exception of the southeastern areas around the thicker moors—where Piper came from—the people of Evermoor had a somewhat darker complexion than the average Lucernian. Thick fog and frequent rain in the moors made paleness common in those who’d lived for generations there. This, of course, explained why she had been tapped as an assassin even as a twelve-year-old. She didn’t appear obviously from Evermoor.

  Everyone who noticed them offered smiles and friendly greetings. Oona responded in kind, though occasionally glanced over at Kitlyn with confusion in her eyes. A pair of halberdiers at the keep entrance snapped to attention as Ralen approached. Kitlyn followed the prince down a series of long, straight corridors with green runners carpeting the middle third of an otherwise polished stone floor. The random statuettes continued throughout, though the place had little decoration otherwise. No paintings or tapestries hung anywhere in sight.

  Kitlyn looked around at everything, feeling a bit in over her head. Her father and King Volduin had been dear friends twenty years ago. She wondered how often he might have walked these same corridors, or how many times these walls had heard his name spoken in curse since then.

  “I am told”—Ralen glanced over at her—“that around the time I restored the Heart to the great tree, my father collapsed and fell into a deep slumber. He awoke before I returned here, and the change in him was nothing short of dramatic.”

  “It is good to hear he is well,” said Kitlyn, perhaps a little too formally.

  Ralen offered a look of apology. “I am sure he regrets what he did.”

  “He believed he acted to save the lives of everyone in his kingdom, and his mental state had declined.” Oona offered a placating smile. “I cannot hold against him things he did that would not have happened if not for Aodh’s actions. We are fortunate that it was you who found us, though I am sure Lucen played a hand in it. Had not I been fool enough to attempt to flee…”

  He smiled. “Perhaps. We are all fortunate. Had you not, Ondar would have been dragged into this conflict, the war would have escalated, and there would have been little left of Lucernia—and nothing left of Evermoor by the time it ended.”

  Kitlyn still wanted to drop a stone on someone’s foot for how they’d treated Oona in captivity, but if all of that had been Lucen’s will… better her wife suffer a brief humiliation than thousands die. At first, she doubted Ralen’s suggestion that Lucernia would have been destroyed, but the more she thought about it, the more possible it seemed. The closer Evermoor came to death, the more frenzied its people would fight. Rumor said Ondari soldiers wielded terrible weapons to augment their wizards, and had the power to raze entire cities to flat ground.

  Despite the truth or exaggeration of such stories, Ondar entering the war would have been a disaster.

  “Yes. We are all fortunate,” said Kitlyn. “Except for everyone who now walks with Tenebrea for that man’s foolishness.”

  He offered a somber nod, then pushed open a door that led to a large courtyard with clear sky above. Castle wall surrounded it on all sides, though the ‘room’ covered a vast amount of space. Archways led to branching corridors on the left and right. Straight ahead, perhaps fifty yards away, a giant tree formed a throne dais. Thick, wavy roots bent in such a way as to create a throne flanked on either side by a pair of smaller seats.

  The throne held a shirtless, muscular man with rich brown skin, tight black pants, and long, flowing raven hair. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties, and reclined slightly to the left, his chin propped up on two knuckles. His right hand draped off the armrest. In fact, his entire presence struck Kitlyn more like a pirate king reclining at the back of an alehouse rather than the ruler of an entire nation.

  Both Piper and Meredith emitted sighs of desire upon seeing him. Even Kitlyn had to admit he cut a striking figure, though she had little interest in him beyond settling the matter between their kingdoms.

  However, the figures in the four other seats shocked a gasp out of Oona and made Kitlyn blink in disbelief.

  Four women sat two on either side, each wearing only a diaphanous white skirt and an elaborate necklace of wood fragments and leaves. Three had flowers woven into their hair, one wore wooden bracelets on both arms. All four of them showed as much skin above the waist as their king, decorated with painted-on patterns in dark brown or white lines. Kitlyn stared mostly out of shock, though couldn’t help but admire their beauty. Their age eluded her, as they seemed simultaneously old enough to be her mother yet young. She couldn’t see their ears due to long hair, and half suspected them to be fey of some kind.

  The woman on the far right, King Lanas’ left, resembled Ralen and also had jet-black hair. Is that his mother or his sister? All four of them stared at Kitlyn with an intensity that put her on edge, though their gazes held no malice. A warm core of energy swirled around inside her as if i
n response to whatever they thought.

  By the time Ralen led the way over to the throne, Kitlyn decided to explain the women’s confounding nature as having the bodies of twenty-year-olds but the poise and eyes of people twice that age. They had to be using some manner of magic to stay young. Perhaps that had been what inspired her father’s tales of demons. Did he crave that for himself? Immortality?

  “Father…” Ralen stopped and gestured at them. “May I introduce Princess Kitlyn Talomir and Oona.”

  King Lanas momentarily appeared displeased, likely the name ‘Talomir’ making him think of her father.

  Ralen turned to face the girls. “Lady Kitlyn, Lady Oona, may I introduce my father, King Lanas Volduin.”

  “King Volduin.” Kitlyn offered a respectful bow.

  Oona mirrored the bow. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well, King Volduin.”

  “These are my father’s spiritcallers and companions.” Ralen gestured at the woman on the far left, a blonde. “Aina.”

  Aina nodded in greeting.

  “Beside her is Gerya,” said Ralen.

  The brown-haired woman somewhere between eighteen and thirty-five offered a pleasant smile.

  Ralen indicated the nearer woman on King Lanas’ left side. “Elder Naena, the matriarch of the spiritcallers.”

  Naena did appear somewhat older than the other three, but it showed more in her posture than on her face. She smiled at Kitlyn, then Oona before leaning to whisper something at the black-haired woman beside her.

  “Oh, quite so,” said the last woman.

  “And this is my mother, Lady Ilan,” said Ralen.

  Ilan stood and padded down the roots to the ground. She passed close by Ralen, pausing to offer a brief embrace, then approached Kitlyn. The painted lines on her chest formed a hawk-like shape at the base of her neck, the tail extending down between her breasts. “The Alderswood is grateful for what you have done. Its energy flows strong within you.”