The group moved through the hallway and poured into the dining hall, where a splendid supper had already been laid out on the long wooden tables.
“Come eat with us!” called a raven-haired boy to Amelliea.
“In a moment, Gregory,” she answered as Galvan came up beside her.
The Prince shot Gregory a nasty glance and the boy sat down in his seat without another word.
“Woo-hoo!” cried another young man from their class. He was much more handsome than Gregory, and his looks even competed with that of the Prince. “You did it Amelliea! I knew you could do it! Wow, you really showed that evil—” he noticed the Prince. “—girl!” he finished. “You’re my hero!” he said, high-fiving Amelliea with a loud smack.
“Thanks Garrison,” said Amelliea shyly.
Galvan stared daggers at him.
“Okay, see you later then,” muttered Garrison, retreating to join his friends. Amelliea and Galvan could still hear Garrison talking as he moved away. “Did you see that knife disarming technique, boys? I taught her that in class,” boasted Garrison to the other students.
“No you didn’t! You don’t know the first thing about knives!” protested one of the others.
“You insult me, Gilbert!”
“If you’d trained her yourself, Garrison, she’d be with the healers right now!”
Galvan turned away from them. “You have many admirers,” he said in irritation.
Amelliea chewed her lip. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t want to fight her, especially not like that, in front of everybody.”
“I’m sure it will only do her good,” smiled Galvan.
“I don’t think she’s the type to benefit from humiliation,” said Amelliea.
“Are you really worried about Gabriellen right now?” asked Galvan.
“Well, she’s probably feeling very alone,” said Amelliea. “All of you are here with me, but who is there with her? If it had gone differently, would I be in her place?”
“You could never be in her place no matter what, and trust me, I know her well enough to be certain that she prefers to be alone at a time like this,” said the Prince. “I too would want to be alone if I were her.”
“I suppose I would also,” agreed Amelliea.
“Amelliea, will you play something for us?” asked the Prince, as two servants entered the dining hall carrying a large silver harp. The men carefully set down the instrument at the center of the room.
“Alright,” agreed Amelliea with a smile.
As she moved towards the instrument, everyone grew quiet. Suddenly, all the Gators stood up. Amelliea glanced up also to see the King of thieves entering the room. Everyone bowed to their ruler before taking their seats once again. Amelliea curtsied, and then sat before the harp. The King nodded to her, and she began to softly play. As her fingers danced across the strings, Amelliea could not help but think of Gabriellen. Though she had beaten her in combat, Amelliea still felt outside of Galvan and Gabriellen’s friendship. She wondered what connected them so deeply and why the Prince insisted that this cruel girl was his best friend. It was obvious that like herself, Gabriellen had strong feelings for Galvan. Amelliea realized it was time for the Prince to decide whom he wanted to be with, and she only hoped that he would choose her. Calm on the outside but her heart aflutter, Amelliea began to sing. She sang a song of victory and soldiers returning home after a war. The lyrics seemed appropriate in that hour of victory. The song was met with the ecstatic clapping and hooting of her classmates. Even the trainer listened with a smile lingering on his face, a rare occurrence that Amelliea could not help but notice.
After the meal, Amelliea retreated to her chambers and decided to contact her father. It took a moment for her to find him in the enchanted mirror, and she sat nervously on the edge of her bed holding the cold, silver-framed reflective oval in her hands.
“Hello my dearest Amelliea!” came Bloom’s familiar voice after several long minutes of swirling white fog drifting eerily behind the glass. His face came into focus. He looked tired.
“Father, I am relieved to see you,” said Amelliea. “For a moment I was worried something terrible had happened to you, and that I would never see you again.”
Bloom was laying on the ground. “I assure you I am quite alright,” he said with a weak smile.
“Are you resting?” asked Amelliea.
“Um? I am in deed, er— resting,” he muttered, stroking his beard. “Tell me about yourself. How do they treat you at the palace?”
“They treat me well,” said Amelliea. She turned the mirror to her open dresser. “Those gowns were all sewn for me!” she said, showing him her new collection of dresses.
“They are splendid!” smiled Bloom. “And the Prince? Does he ignore you still?”
“No, not anymore,” blushed Amelliea.
“That is good,” chuckled Bloom. He closed his eyes and seemed near fainting.
“Father!” cried Amelliea. “What is wrong?”
He jarred awake, “nothing—nothing is wrong, my dear—nothing.”
“Did you find it?”
“Find what?” asked Bloom.
“The scroll!” said Amelliea, alarmed that he did not remember.
“No, I did not find it,” sighed Bloom. “Though I found something else that is no less interesting.”
“What is it?” Amelliea inquired, her brows tense with worry.
The image shook as Bloom moved his mirror to face downwards toward the ground. “Footprints,” he said.
“Whose footprints?” asked Amelliea.
“I am not exactly certain. You see, at first the prints appear to be that of a wolf,” he pointed to the dirt in an exhausted, delirious sort of way, “but then they change. He showed her one of the morphing prints. “They gradually transform into—that of a man! I must find out what creature this is.”
“Father, do be careful!” urged Amelliea. “I want to help you, I will come find you!”
He waved her away, “No—no, my daughter, not yet.”
“When will you return?” she asked anxiously.
“Soon,” he answered.
“What keeps you, father? Do you still seek the scroll?”
“I seek it no longer,” answered Bloom. He shivered.
“Is it the treasure then, that holds you in those mountains?” asked Amelliea.
“No, I have uncovered plenty of gold and jewels, more than you can begin to imagine,” he smiled, holding up the empty-looking coin purse.
“All I want is for you to come back safe,” said Amelliea.
“I have but one final thing left to do, and then I shall be homeward bound,” he promised.
“What thing?” asked Amelliea suspiciously.
“Rest now, my child. I will explain everything in time. Now I must go, for it is getting dark and I have not yet set up camp.”
She bid him farewell with a heavy heart and returned the mirror to her nightstand. A moment later, the mirror had become an ordinary reflective glass once more. Amelliea sat in silence for a brief while, and then there was a series of dull-sounding thuds in the wall behind the bookshelf.
“Come in,” called Amelliea, looking over her shoulder. The bookshelf pushed open as before, and Galvan stepped into her bedroom dressed in a loose nightshirt and matching white trousers. Amelliea smiled, “What are you doing here?”
“Do you want me to go?” asked the Prince, gesturing behind himself to the bookshelf, while moving forward to join her on the bed.
Amelliea laughed. “Stay, since you’ve come.”
“A bit grumpy are we, Princess?”
Amelliea waved him away, “Galvan, really, why have you come?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he shrugged, plopping down beside her with a bounce.
Amelliea stared at the Prince in her bed. Something felt both dangerous and thrilling about him being there. “May I ask you a question?” she asked.
“Fire away,” said Galvan, putting his ha
nds behind his head and closing his eyes.
“How long have you and Gabriellen been friends?” asked Amelliea, laying down beside him and looking at his serene face.
He didn’t seem at all surprised that she had asked this. “She saved my life once,” he replied. “When I was just a boy I fell into a river, and unable to swim I nearly drowned. She pulled me out. That’s how we met, and we’ve been friends ever since.” He opened his eyes, “Why do you ask?”
“You seem—close, is all,” said Amelliea. “I think she would like to be more than friends with you.”
“Oh, is that what you think?” he teased, elbowing her in the ribs. “Your jealousy is unfounded, Amelliea, since she is not a contestant for my heart.”
“Jealousy?” huffed Amelliea, “It is not jealousy, but rather an attempt to understand why it is you love Gabriellen, so that I too may forgive her as easily as you.”
“I fear your good intentions are in vein,” said Galvan.
“She hates my guts, doesn’t she?”
“In deed she does,” he laughed. “With the fire of a thousand suns.” He pulled Amelliea into an embrace.
“Galvan, should we be staying up so late when we have to get up early to train?” asked Amelliea.
“We don’t have to get up early,” smiled the Prince. “Our training is complete.”
“No it’s not, that’s impossible!” protested Amelliea.
“But its true! You see, the training quarter has concluded, and in three days time, on the winter equinox, you will know your score. You will be presented a colored armband that will mark your rank among all Gator warriors. The highest possible rank is a green armband, and the second highest is burgundy. From there, in descending order you have blue, orange, yellow, purple, and grey as the final and lowest category. If you don’t like your rank, you can take the training quarter again and continue to refine your skills.”
“But—isn’t there a final test or something?” asked Amelliea.
Galvan looked at her with humor in his eyes, “You know how our master had each of us fight five different people at the same time, and tested our endurance with strenuous exercises, and the whole training session today was much harder than ever before?
“Yeah?” asked Amelliea.
“That was the test.”
“No!” protested Amelliea. “I had no idea!”
“Really? You didn’t even guess?”
Amelliea hit him.
“Hey, I’m royalty!” cried the Prince indignantly.
“I would have tried harder or something if I had known it was a test!”
“That’s why you’re not supposed to know,” said Galvan smugly.
“Well, did I pass at least?” asked Amelliea. “Will I even get a grey armband? When will I know how I did?”
“Like I said, you’ll know on the winter equinox.”
“But I can’t wait that long, I’m dying to know now!”
“You are just going to have to wait, its tradition,” teased Galvan.
“You’re a Prince, for goodness sake, do something! Surely you won’t just let me suffer in agony like this, will you?”
“I’m sorry, but you have no choice. You will just have to suffer through it with the rest of us.”
“You mean to say, even you don’t know your score?”
“Nope. Though I am hoping for a green armband.”
Amelliea sighed and lay back.
Propping up on his elbow, Galvan reached across her to turn away the enchanted mirror, and in doing so, briefly placed some of his body weight on Amelliea. He returned to his prior position, as though nothing had happened.
“Galvan, why did you do that?” she asked, feeling her emotions getting out of hand.
“I don’t like to see my reflection,” he answered.
“You don’t? But you’re so—handsome,” said Amelliea accidently, blushing furiously and then turning away.
“Mirrors make me uneasy,” he said vaguely. He brushed a lock of Amelliea’s hair away from her neck and kissed her gently just below the jaw.
“Galvan, I’m not made of unbreakable steel,” she said, feeling her heart begin to race.
“What does that mean?” he asked with a smile.
“It means I am not immune to your charms, and for that reason you have to leave.”
“I’ll behave. I beg you, fair lady, don’t send me away,” he laughed, moving in so close she could smell the lavender and rosemary soap that he used to wash. He lay his head on the pillow directly in front of Amelliea so that they faced one another. The distance between them could be closed in an instant by a single kiss. Amelliea’s knee was touching Galvan’s leg and an electric current seemed to pull from that point of connection.
Galvan interlaced his fingers with hers. “You are no ordinary girl.”
“Anyone could do what I do,” said Amelliea.
“And yet almost no one does,” replied Galvan, slipping the sleeve of her nightgown off her shoulder and running his fingers lightly along her skin.
“Galvan!” cried Amelliea. The word came out sounding breathy, betraying how she truly felt in the moment.
“What is it?” asked the Prince, leaning forward and kissing her mouth without waiting for her to answer. The kiss lasted for several long seconds, and then Galvan pulled away for a moment, only to move forward and kiss her again with even more passion than before. Amelliea touched his chest, making him break away.
“I don’t want you to stop, and that is why I need you to go,” said Amelliea.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” smiled Galvan, shaking his head.
“It makes perfect sense, and you know it,” replied Amelliea.
“Then I shall go,” sighed Galvan, getting up off the bed. “But know that I already cannot wait to see you again,” he added optimistically, before going through the secret passageway, and pulling the bookshelf closed behind him.
Amelliea let out the breath she was holding and then broke into a smile. She could not believe the Prince had kissed her! What did it all mean? She felt jittery with excitement and could only guess what the future would bring. Lost in her daydreams of Galvan, Amelliea did not notice how she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 36
The Gift
As Bloom lay on the ground trying to recover his strength, he realized that he had nearly been murdered. The ghosts around him masked themselves from his sight once more, appearing as a harmless mist, but Bloom was not fooled. Slipping in the mud, Bloom forced himself up and reached for his staff, which lay several feet away. The moment he touched the wood, the glowing crystal dimmed momentarily, and Bloom’s strength returned to him, flooding into his limbs in an electric current. “Neflehfate-youlaw!” he shouted, instinctively thumping his staff against the ground as he uttered the spell. A wave of energy exploded from where he stood, raking through the trees in a radius of over forty feet. There were countless yelps and small eruptions of light as scores of ghosts were yanked upwards and all crossed over in the same instant. Bloom felt a small crolackrolite stone tear through his palm and he brought the new stone up to his face to study. He rolled the tiny dark stone between his thumb and index fingers. Bloom looked at the crystal glowing in the knot of his staff with wonder. The staff had added a good deal of power to the simple crossover spell, and although Bloom had still formed a crolackrolite stone by uttering the incantation, the stone was one tenth the size it would have been otherwise. He knew in that moment that he had found a way to reduce the size of the stones he created, and he was uplifted by this fortuitous discovery.
Kneeling, Bloom studied the tracks on the ground once more. The changing prints of the wolf-man filled him with dread, yet he had to find out who they belonged to. He moved to follow the tracks but was interrupted by a cackling laughter erupting behind him. Bloom glanced back over his shoulder to see a hunched figure moving toward him through the trees. It was clearly a ghost, and yet it did not flee from him like the others. The ghost ru
shed forward, its transparent purple robes trailing in the breeze. Bloom realized that it was an ancient-looking woman. As she drew closer, he could make out blue markings imprinted on her wrinkled face and hands. Her fingernails were long and unkempt, and her hair was as white as snow. By the look of it, she had been very old when she died.
“I would not go that way if I were you,” she warned, drawing closer. “You are not strong enough to take him on.”
“Stay back,” said Bloom, positioning his staff in front of him.
The woman laughed again, in a way that was more cheerful then hostile, “I will not harm you. In fact I believe we can help each other.”
“You wear the robes of the first order,” said Bloom, recognizing her garb immediately. His own master of magic had gifted him such robes on the day he became a wizard.
“I served my King as you once served yours,” she answered, looking him over. “I have been watching you, you are a good man and a skilled wizard—the last descendant of wizard kind, if I am not mistaken.” She cleared her throat and smiled, a little choked up with those words. “I have some unfinished business I would like your help to complete.”
“I’m not sure I can help you—” began Bloom, eager to continue on his way, but she stopped him with a gesture.
“Long ago, I tried to stop Maddy from finding the Map of Inquisition, but I did not succeed,” she said.
Bloom gave her his full attention upon the mention of Maddy’s name. The ancient woman floated up several feet in the air so that she was at eye level with the wizard, who was much taller than she was.
“Delominar the Great himself requested that I protect the map from Maddy but the piratess slipped right through my fingers,” she held out a gnarled hand and made a trembling fist. “With great difficulty I managed to contain the horrors of the scroll being used and in the end returned the abominable thing to its maker. To my great dismay, Maddy stole it from Delominar once again. I used my final spell to keep the Map of Inquisition safe, but the map is indestructible in nature, and so I had no choice but to become a ghost in order to protect it.”
The Curse (The Windore Series Book 2) Page 23