by Tara Brown
Maddox held me tightly to him. "Going somewhere, Princess?"
"Max. Oh, thank the gods, you found me." I kissed his cool cheeks and lips.
“You were forced upon me; I never found you.” He pulled back, annoyed for some unknown reason. "Your grandmother said you needed somewhere to sleep for the night. She said she wanted you to wait here for her."
I frowned. "She knows about us?" I didn't know whether to be excited or scared.
“No.” He shook his head. "She came to my mother last night, said she needed to speak to the king while you were asleep. She wanted to help you get out of your marriage to that ridiculous brat. You have to stay here in case your father refuses to back down, and then I imagine your grandmother plans to smuggle you from the kingdom." He wasn’t confused. He was angry.
"She drugged me and had me snuck out of the castle? She wants to meet me here? In your cottage, of all cottages?" I looked past his front door at the path to the bustling village. “I’m still here in the kingdom? None of this makes sense.”
He put me down and pulled off his red cloak with a large sigh. "I think she's afraid you might make a run for it. She would rather protect you from the terrible choices you tend to make irrationally. She wants you out of the marriage, and if your father says no to breaking it off, then she will dress as a peasant and you will flee together. But I am just guessing as she didn't completely divulge her plan to us."
I pointed at him. "Why you and your mother? How does she know you?”
He shook his head. "I don't know. I just did as the queen mother asked me to, like a good peasant."
“Stop with the peasant nonsense and tell me why my grandmother would come here. Why she would trust you with me?” I shoved him back a bit, earning a growl.
His blue eyes heated up. "Watch yourself, Princess."
"You let her keep me here while she discusses my future with my father, something no one wants to let me choose for myself? I thought you were my friend not a coward. We could have run together if you just told her how you feel about me." I was suddenly annoyed, sensing that he was lying about something, as if he too was in on the act of choosing for me.
He grabbed my arms, holding me there in that spot. "NO! NO, WE COULDN'T! DON'T YOU SEE THAT?" His face twisted in anger. He had completely given up on us.
I trembled in his arms, but instead of shouting some more, he pulled me in and hugged me. His voice broke, "Where would we hide? Roland and your father would find us. They would kill me and take you back, and Roland would make everything worse for you. Don't you see your grandmother is your only hope? Things are as bad as they can be for you. But make no mistake, Amillia, there is no us. There never will be."
I savored a last second of the warm, heartbreaking embrace, stood on my tiptoes, and kissed his lips once. A single tear slipped down my cheeks. "You just won't fight for me, will you? I've fought for you every day since I met you. I would have lived in a cave or any home we built together, just to be with you. No matter how many times I put myself out there, you shoot me down. Shame on me, I suppose."
I turned and bolted from the door, desperately needing to be away from him. I didn’t want to face him or the truth of the things he had to say. He always had too much common sense.
I ran through the village, within the castle walls, and out the back road to the woods, past the township. I pushed my legs until I reached the cave. Then I entered and dove into the wings of my friend.
My only real friend.
Artan nudged me and moaned. I hugged him and tried to think of ways to escape the aspects of my life that were changing too quickly for me to handle. Instead, I avoided life and we had a nap. It was bliss.
When we woke up, I told Artan about my problems. He was a good listener, partly because he loved me and tolerated it when I blathered on. But mostly it was that he didn't talk back.
I left the cave first, like I always did, and slipped through the forest. I wasn’t watching for the guards Roland might send for me. I was watching for the red cloak that would be impossible for me to avoid. The feeling of his lips upon mine as my heart burst with love was impossible to deny. Even in anger, I loved him more than I loved myself.
The most dangerous kind of love.
I pushed away my feelings and whistled at the edge of the forest.
I expected Artan would shoot up into the air and fly too high for anyone to see, like he always did when I whistled to tell him it was safe. What I didn’t expect was for him to almost crash-land on top of me. He made noises like growls and stopped me from going across the field.
“Artan, you clumsy oaf. What are you doing?” I struggled to get him off me and walk, but he wouldn't let me pass. I peered around him, terrified we’d been spotted or discovered. In the distance I could see smoke from the village. He spread his wings and growled, snorting hot air at me. "Artan!" I shoved him aside to better see where the thick piles of black smoke were coming from. There were too many spots to assume just one.
From the look of things, the village was engulfed in smoke. It was far more smoke than normal, and on the wind I could swear I heard screaming. Artan pushed me with his huge face. His green eyes looked scared, as scared as I was, but the fear and terror motivated me to find out what was happening.
I tried to run but he shoved me again. I lifted my face, staring into the depths of the green flames inside his eyes. “Artan, it’s my brothers. It’s Maddox. They could be in trouble. What if a fire has gotten out of hand?”
He snorted and lowered his head to mine, rubbing and growling. He was letting me pass him but he was warning me he wouldn't sit by and let me run into danger.
“I’ll be right back.” I kissed him once on the cheek before I ran, racing through the woods, across the farms, and over the fields to the back side of the castle. As I neared the gate of the massive wall, I smelled something I have never before. The smithy, cook fires, and the homes have never let off a scent like this one. It smelled grim.
As I made it through the gates I stopped, confused by the chaos and madness before me. The clang of swords and armor was mixed with screams and smoke.
It was a sight I never even imagined in all my life. I didn't even have a response other than to gawk and stare.
The guards—my father's guards—were fighting men in golden armor. Men I had never seen before. Had someone invaded us?
Something grabbed at me, making me pull back to find eyes I knew searching my face as he struggled and choked. The guard trainer, a man I loved more than my own father, looked at me with desperation. Something I had never before seen upon the man’s face. "Run, Princess!" His rough whisper rattled through him as blood dripped from his lips and cheeks, though I suspected none of it was his. "Run." Sweat coated his filthy face, but I could tell by the death toll surrounding him that he was going to win this, no matter what.
“Master, I can fight too.” I reached for one of his swords but he shook his head, glancing nervously around us. There was no one close to us as his men were holding them off.
“No, you must run. You must obey this command, my dear girl,” his voice cracked as he dropped to a knee and scooped up mud, standing again and dragging it across my face. Using his dirty hands, he pulled my hair up into a tighter bun and shoved me away from the castle. “You are the Thatchers’ boy. Find someone who is loyal to your father, Amillia. That is your only hope.” His words were lost in the chaos as I walked backward, away from him. I nearly pointed at the crowd of men in golden armor running toward him, but I didn't. I didn't need to. He spun, using his two swords as he had been trained in his homeland. He fought like it was a dance, spinning and slicing and dodging with little effort. That was the last time I ever saw him.
I turned and ran as he had instructed, but I didn't run the way he expected.
I wasn't running for the castle or safety. I was running for the cottage I had never been allowed in before that day. His cottage. I was never allowed in the peasants’ homes. It was the only ru
le I actually obeyed but only because Maddox made me. Had he ever invited me into his home before that moment I would have gone easily.
I scanned the muddy roads for the red cloak but I didn’t see it anywhere. When I finally got to the cottage, I burst through the door but nothing was there. A fire had been started in the back of it and was burning a hole in the back wall, near the bed I had slept in. “MAX!” I shouted softly, hoping he would be hiding, though knowing he was not the sort of man who would hide. He would be fighting, though he possessed little skill.
When nothing but the sound of the fire ruining his home responded, I turned to run, but a man with golden armor lunged at me.
"Stop, boy. Who are you?" His fingers bit in, and I longed to reach for his sword, showing him who I was.
But the words of my master trainer haunted me. I shook me head. "The Thatchers’ son. I-I—I'm a Thatcher."
He shook me, lifting me into the air. "Have you seen the royal family, boy? Did you see them running?" I shook my head. I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face—my muddy face. Not tears of sorrow or fear but pent-up desperate rage.
He dropped me back onto my feet, my legs nearly pushing back and dropping him. A flash of a scar along his eyelid caught my stare as he turned away. "I don’t kill children. I suggest you run, son." He spoke as though I were nothing. In that moment I was. I was not the brave girl I had always been. I was not the princess who would fight for her people. I was a coward, doing what my master trainer had told me to. I trusted him more than I did myself. His instincts were uncanny and his skills unmatched. I knew if he told me to run, he had a reason and I needed to respect that.
I pushed away the image of my people dying, screaming, and writhing. I pushed it all away and locked it up in my heart, letting it replace my feelings. I turned away from them all and ran to the stables. Everything felt as though it took a lifetime. Every step was slowed by the people falling around me and the clang of the metal as the two armies collided.
When I reached the stables, I stopped before I got inside. I didn't need to go any farther; my heart broke in the middle of two beats. That's all it took for the sight I saw to reach my brain.
In the mud and the dirt of the trampled stables was the red cloak.
The dark skies seemed darker.
The air was gone.
I found myself lost in my own yard for the smallest of seconds.
There was no way the thing I saw was the thing it was.
There, in the dirt and puddles of rainwater that tried to hide the blood mixing with the earth, was the red cloak. It was still, unmoving from the spot it had fallen. It and him. I knew he lay beneath it, though my eyes called me a traitorous liar. But the sword sticking from the back of it was the proof of what had transpired.
Tears and grunts spilled from me. My voice was gone. I tried to scream, but there was nothing. Even the air refused to come and save the crushing feeling of my lungs losing the battle to breathe.
I tripped my way along the blood-caked mud to the stables. The red-cloaked figure lay between two horses that were being readied to ride. I recognized the packs. One was mine and the other was his—Maddox’s.
Mine was a birthday present he had made for me once from a deer hide. He had hand stitched it with white daisies as the seams. I ran my fingers along the tight stitching I had mocked him for. No boy should have been that able to hand stitch flowers so perfectly.
I shook my head in small twitches.
It wasn’t him. The body before me wasn't him. There was no way that was the fate for us.
I dropped to my knees, my hands resting upon the cold, dead person in the mud. I lifted my face to the roof and whispered upon deaf ears, "Please. Please don't let it be him. I'll do anything. I will marry Herrick if that is your wish. Gods—do not let it be him." My voice broke at the end, not that it mattered. No one heard whispers so soft when surrounded by cries so loud.
In heaves and panic, I hesitated a moment before pulling the sword from the cloaked person. I tossed the strange blade aside and grabbed the arm hidden by the cloak. I held tight for a moment, looking for bravery or stupidity or both. Neither came, but I turned the body over with a great bit of effort, moving mostly on instinct as I had become numb in disbelief.
But only numb for a moment. For the second I saw his beautiful face so still, I broke inside.
I collapsed onto his chest, blinded by a flood from my eyes as sound finally broke my lips in a heavy wail. I scrambled, desperately gripping to his limp arms, trying to get them around me. I shuddered from actual pain and heaves. I needed him to hold me once more.
Every time he held me it lasted but a moment as his dead arms fell back into the mud. I gave up, screaming into his earth-soaked chest. "Nooooo. Nooooo!”
My last words to him rang in my head, reminding me of the way we parted company. I grabbed his beautiful pale face and held it tightly. "You're not a coward. I know you are not a coward. I was the coward. I was the fool. I see that, I see you." My heart was broken. I felt it crack in half. My fingers felt like they couldn’t get a good grip on him, like no matter what I did, he would slip through my hands that were coated in blood and dirt.
I kissed his lips softly once and pulled the dirty red cloak from him. I lifted his cold hands and pulled as hard as I could, grunting and heaving as I dragged him from the back of the stables.
Instantly, as if he knew what was happening, Artan was there. His warm wings lit the air with heat that made me shiver. He dropped and grabbed Maddox and shot back up into the sky. I could barely make out the sounds of the battle going on in the village behind me as I turned and ran for the woods.
Chapter Six
We built a pyre.
I discovered something as we gathered the wood.
The death of love makes a hole inside you.
Unless someone important to you, more than your own heart, dies, you cannot fathom the hole. It is vast and limitless. It fills with possibilities and endless amounts of loss. And those two things torture you.
The hole is so big, you know deep down that you cannot ever fill it.
You must accept it.
But I knew I would never accept it. I would never let myself escape his death and the blame I deserved in it.
With his red cloak around my shoulders, and the smell of his blood filling the air around me constantly, I would suffer till my own death arrived.
I stood back with Artan and watched as he lit the bottom of the pyre with the biggest flame I had ever seen him breathe. The heat from it felt like it would melt my flesh. I leaned against him and wished I had just one more tear to shed, but I did not.
Voices behind us filled the woods. Artan lowered his body, just as he had many times before. I looked to where the voices were coming from and then to Artan.
"Meet me on the rooftop."
He closed his green eyes and jumped, shooting into the sky.
I pulled the bright-red cloak off and balled it up before running for the back of the castle and through the dozens of my father’s guards posted there.
Looking like a servant, it was easy to pass through the servants’ quarters and up into the stairwell.
Voices were everywhere. Screams and suffering had taken over the yard as we retreated to the castle.
I ignored everyone and raced up the stairs to my room and slammed the doors. I locked them and ran for the window. I leapt out onto the roof. I held the cloak tightly and climbed to where my dragon sat. The smoke made it almost impossible to see the ground.
When I reached him, he looked annoyed. I had taken a risk, rather than fly on his back. He was smarter than he looked.
I snuggled into him and we watched for many hours. I sobbed silently as the entire village burned to the ground. The guards fought but it looked as if we were losing.
I worried for my family, all except Roland. I hoped somehow he had managed to find his end. Though I knew that was unlikely. It was more likely he and Herrick were hiding out
in some closet, waiting and praying to live. I would have called them cowards but I had done the same. I had hidden on the rooftop, a spot no one could find me, and watched.
It seemed to die down, even though I couldn't tell exactly who had won. I looked at Artan and nodded. "I have to check on them. I'll be right back."
He nudged and whined but I rubbed his face and kissed his scales. "Hold this for me." I passed him the red cloak. He knew its meaning to me.
I slid down the roof to the valley where he had been born. I ran, jumped, and slid until I was outside my brother's window, passing by it to get to mine.
There on the ledge I heard the worst thing I'd ever heard from that window.
"He had to die. You see that now, Roland? You're king now, and he and his mercy for everyone is over. His tiresome reign is finally finished. He was a weak man," a voice spoke harshly of my father. The man I had assumed I would find injured at worst, certainly not dead.
"I know that. I just wish—well, I wish it had been different." Roland sounded sad. His voice and his sadness burned inside me.
My breath stopped as their words made a story inside my mind.
Herrick and Roland had killed my father?
My father who was king of these lands was dead, leaving Roland as king.
I froze as they continued speaking.
"You will still give her to me?" Herrick spoke with a smile. I could hear it in his tone.
I gagged as Roland sighed. "Yes. I don’t understand what you want her for. She is a brat. She's yours. Do as you wish. Take her to your lands. I have guards out searching for her now. She hides in some old cave." My heart was beating hard enough that I worried I might suffer an attack of it.
He knew of the cave? Did he know of Artan?
My fingers were gripping into the wood of the windows so hard moisture sprung from the tips. I eased up, leaving bloody marks on the wall.