by Ward, Tracey
“He’s chosen by the Saints. Just as the Queens are,” my father insisted. “Show some respect.”
“I respect none of this witchcraft.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath, though I couldn’t tell who had done it.
“You’ll be the death of us all,” King Phillip said, sounding defeated.
There was a long silence. I grew anxious, afraid they would leave the room at any moment and find me. My heart pounded in my chest, my feet slid across the stone floor. But as I prepared for my flight down the hall, Frederick spoke.
“Get away from me!” he cried.
When the High Priest spoke again, I didn’t hear his words coming from the room, yet I understood them perfectly. As though they’d been spoken directly in my ear.
I began to tremble.
“They will have her, one way or another. None can stop them. Not you, not I… not the Outsiders.”
“The Outsiders?” Frederick asked. “What do they have—“
“She will be theirs, though you and you alone can delay the inevitable. Refuse to marry her and they will take her here and now. If you marry her as you are meant to, they will let you keep her until you have an heir. Think of the years you could give her. The extension of her life you would grant her.”
“What if we never have a child?” Frederick asked, his voice rough and strained.
I could feel the Priest smiling. “She is a lovely girl, Frederick. You will spend years lying in bed beside her night after night after night, her soft, warm flesh pressed against yours. The sweet scent of her in your nose, your lips hungry for her taste—“
“Stop!” Frederick cried.
The Priest’s voice grew hard. “An heir will be produced. That much is certain.”
“You’re a damned devil,” Frederick whispered shakily.
“You will marry her,” the Priest commanded in reply.
There was silence again. I held my breath, unsure what I was hoping for. Unsure what to dread. When Frederick spoke, I felt myself collapse inside.
“Yes,” he answered tiredly. “Yes, I’ll marry her.”
***
I didn’t sleep that night. The Priest’s voice swirled inside my mind, giving me gooseflesh and making me cringe in the dark. I had held out hope that Frederick meant it when he said he wouldn’t marry me. I thought that would be my loophole, my escape from the guilt of refusing to marry him. If it was his decision then it was him condemning the island to death, not me. It was horrible of me to want to shift that guilt to him, but maybe I was just that; a horrible person.
I planned to marry two men, meaning I would lie to one of them when I said my vows. I knew who I’d be lying to and it made me feel infinitesimally better to know he would be lying to me as well.
That afternoon I was sitting on the large windowsill in my bedroom, looking out over the courtyard and willing the night to come, when a knock sounded at my door.
“Come in.”
There was a pause before the door opened slowly. Knowing that hesitance could never belong to my father, I glanced over to find Frederick entering reluctantly. He was dressed immaculately, his tall frame exactly as it had been for years. His face, however, was forever changed. His thick, lovely hair was almost gone, replaced by ragged scar tissue that ran from his scalp down his face, around his neck and disappeared into the collar of his shirt. He was wearing a mask that made no attempt at looking natural or human. It was coverage only. For hiding. It was opaque and black, covering his face entirely accept for two holes that let his unmarred eyes shine through and a thin slit in front of his mouth.
“Did you design it to be frightening?” I asked him, not bothering to stand up or bow.
“Maybe. Is it?”
I shrugged. “It could use some rouge.”
I heard him chuckle behind the hard shadow of the mask. He glanced at the door behind him that still stood partially open. Propriety said it stay that way. Actually, propriety said he not be in my room at all, least of all unchaperoned.
“Close it,” I told him.
“Are you sure? I think I should because there are things we have to talk about, but—“
“Close it,” I repeated, dropping my head back against the wall behind me. “I don’t wish the entire world to hear my fate.”
He hesitated. “What fate is that?”
“My eternal damnation.”
“Are you referring to marrying me?” he asked, his voice low and angry.
“No. I’m referring to the Saints,” I spat sarcastically, “and my marriage to them.”
Frederick closed the door quickly. The click echoed through the large room.
“What do you know?” he asked urgently.
“Everything.” I rolled my head back and forth against the wall. “Nothing. Too much, too little.”
“You know about the Saints and their demands?”
I nodded warily. “They demand me as payment for our continued safety from the outside world. Just as they demanded your mother. And the Queen before her, and the Queen before her, and the Queen—“
“How do you know this? Who told you?”
I sighed, debating. Did I tell him the truth and risk his wrath at the Tem Aedha? Or did I lie, as everyone else in the Court lied every single day, keeping secrets, shrouding the truth as the Saints shrouded the island?
I thought of Bronwyn. Of her strength, her surety.
Your father and your King, they don’t scare us.
I doubted Frederick, even in his fear mask, would scare her either. Besides, I was beyond tired of lies.
“The Tem Aedha told me. They told me everything.”
“How in the hell do they know about it?”
“Because the Saints aren’t saints at all. They’re something else, something called Elementals. One of the Air and many, many more of the Water. And there’s another, one of the Earth. He speaks to the Tem Aedha. He protects them in their forest.”
Frederick remained silent, thinking. I could hear his breathing inside the mask. It was slow and even.
“Would they speak with me?”
I frowned at him. “Who? The Saints? They only speak to the High Priest.”
“Hang the High Priest. He’s Satan himself as far as I’m concerned. I’m asking about the Tem Aedha. Will they meet with me?”
I stared at him in shock. “You hate them. You and your father both.”
“Annabel, they saved my life.” He took several steps toward me, out of the shadows and into the light of the window. His mask took on a yellow glow from the fading sun, his eyes shining brightly inside, making him appear softer. Kinder. More earnest. “I would have passed through The Tombs were it not for them. I’d have died for sure.”
“I thought you’d rather be dead,” I whispered sadly.
“Wha—why would you say that?”
“I heard you last night. You told your father you’d rather be dead than be as you are now.”
Frederick chuckled hard, shaking his head. “Take nothing I say to my father to heart. Not anymore. What he did to my mother… It’s unforgiveable. It’s something I won’t do to you. Not if I can help it.”
“So you won’t agree to marry me after all?”
“No, I will. I have,” he said, sounding defeated. He fell into a chair across from me. “I had to, otherwise they’d be giving you to the Saints today. I agreed to buy us time. I came here to explain that to you, but it seems you know more than I do.”
“Not much. Only what the Tem Aedha have told me.”
“Which is why I need to speak to them. Maybe they can help us out of this mess. All of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Annabel, I want to free the island,” Frederick said passionately, sitting forward and putting his arms on his knees. “I want to release us from this terrible bond we’re trapped in. I want to free us from the Saints.”
“Elementals.”
“Yes, the Elementals. The Earth that the Tem Aedha speak
to, can he help us? Can he overpower the Air and Water?”
“I don’t know. I imagine if he could, he would have by now.”
“But have they asked him?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“We have to find out. This could be our chance. It could be our solution to saving you. To saving us all.”
I didn’t feel half the hope I heard in Frederick’s voice. I knew it wouldn’t work. If there was a chance that the Earth could have freed us, that it could save me from this terrible fate I faced, Roarke and his family would have made that bargain already.
“Will you help me speak to them?” Frederick insisted, feeling my hesitance.
“Of course, yes,” I agreed. Then I eyed him hard. “But if you harm them in any way, if you betray their kindness, I will not marry you. I will abandon the entire island and leave you all at the hands of the devil.”
I couldn’t tell through the small slit in the mask, but I though Frederick smiled.
“You have my word, milady.”
***
Frederick and I spoke all afternoon. I told him everything I knew, everything the Tem Aedha had told me, and he told me what he knew as well. Nothing much was different from what I already knew, though I was surprised to find out that my father had known my fate longer than even Frederick had. My father, it seemed, was a very faithful and close follower of the High Priest. Though it didn’t surprise me in the least that he was drawn to a man of such power, it did shock me to know that he was brought into the man’s confidences.
As the sun finally set and I heard the sounds of people entering the halls heading for dinner, I told Frederick to leave. He was surprised by my forwardness, but he nodded and left without comment. I had promised, a million times at least, that I would arrange for a meeting between him and the Tem Aedha. Now I only had to find out who their leader was, though I had my suspicions. Suspicions I’d harbored since I was thirteen.
With Frederick gone, I leapt into action. My heart was a wild thing in my chest, beating ferociously and crying for freedom. For the first time in weeks I cast off my black dress, black stockings, black gloves – all of it. I stood in my room nearly naked in my white underthings, breathing deep and easy. I let my mind go blank for a brief sweet moment. I didn’t think of my father or my mother or the King and Frederick or the dead Queens or the devils in the sky and sea.
Ro. I only thought of Ro.
I didn’t have simple dresses anymore, but what I did have was a very ornate, white nightdress. It had appeared last winter just before the final festivals. Just before the dawn everyone in the castle came together, still dressed in their nightwear, to exchange gifts, eat and sing together, celebrating the coming of a new year. My father, I have no doubt, had wanted me to wear it to entice Prince Frederick. I’d worn a gray, shapeless gown beneath my mother’s thickest robe instead. The white nightgown still hung unused in my closet.
I put it on now, admiring in the mirror the way that it hugged my body snuggly without the rigidity of corsets. The way it flowed out easily at my feet without the bulk of tulle and skirts. The neckline was shockingly low and I felt a little embarrassed that my father had chosen this gown with me in mind. Too many of my private affairs were made other people’s business.
This night would be different. I would finally take something for myself and make it mine. And no one, not birds, fish, angels or devils, could ever take it from me.
Chapter Sixteen
When I arrived at the edge of the maze, he was there waiting for me in the deepening twilight. The sky was purple, turning blacker by the second, and the temperature dropped swiftly with it, making me acutely aware of the breeze blowing through my hair. I had to make a conscious effort not to run to him. Pulling my dark cloak tightly around my thin dress, I walked slowly toward him.
He silently stepped back, encouraging my entrance into the hedges. We walked casually at first. We took our time as we came to the orchard, then went deep into the trees. When the world changed and the forest rose around us, we followed a different path that led away from the village and toward the mountain rising in the distance. Eventually I felt his large, warm hand take hold of mine. Then he was walking faster, his pace brisker and the hand holding mine pulled me forward. I matched his pace then passed him, pulling him. He did the same, pulling ahead of me. Then we were running. We sprinted through the woods together, running as fast as we could. It felt like the night on the cliff’s edge when I nearly died. But with my hand in his I knew I’d never fall. I felt free and wild and too excited to breath.
When we reached the cave I couldn’t breathe for another reason. This was happening. It was real. I was marrying Roarke, a feat I never imagined I’d accomplish. The entirety of my childhood flashed before me, every moment we’d ever spent together and the longing I’d lived with since we’d been separated. It was overwhelming.
“Are you alright?” he asked gently.
I breathed deeply, nodding at him. “Yes.”
“Are you sure? It’s sudden, I know. We don’t have to do this if you’re not sure. We’ll find another way.”
“Ro,” I laughed incredulously. “Marrying you is the only thing I’m sure about.”
“Good, because I was binding you to me whether we were married or not.”
I slapped at his chest. “Are you joking?”
“No.” He put up a hand to stop me before I shouted at him. “Remember! My decisions now, yours forever after. Just give me this.”
“That is such a terrible deal.”
He shrugged. “You’re the one who agreed to it.”
“I don’t know that I actually did.”
“Well, either way we’re here now. Are you ready for this?”
I smiled at him sweetly. Then I pulled back the hood on my cloak, exposing the long yellow tresses of my hair that fell free over my shoulders. I wore it completely untethered, just as I did when I slept. But it was my dress that stopped his breath in his chest. The long flowing white fabric that hugged me gently from my shoulders to my waste before flaring out and cascading around my legs. It was simple, just cotton and lace, but it was all me underneath and I knew from the look in his eyes he was aware of it.
“You look lovely,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you.” I took a deep breath. “So, what now?”
“Now we get married.”
***
“A tattoo?!” I cried, looking in horror at the tools he unwrapped. “You never said anything about a tattoo.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Ro.”
“What did you expect? That we’d say a few words to each other and your eternal soul would become part of me?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, but I definitely didn’t expect needles. I thought we’d light candles and chant something together, maybe eat dirt or something.”
He scowled. “Why would we ever eat dirt?”
“To take in the earth and bond with Ila?”
“That is…” he sighed, sounding defeated. “That’s insane. But it’s surprisingly not far from the truth.”
“So what’s the truth?”
“The ink of your tattoo will be infused with my blood and earth.”
“You mean dirt.”
“No, I mean earth.”
“We’ve had this fight before and I still don’t know the difference between the two.”
“It’s not really an important issue right now,” he muttered, arranging his bottles of inks and who knew what else.
“Ro, you can’t put dirt in my blood.”
“Earth.”
“I’ll get sick,” I insisted, ignoring him.
“No, you won’t. It’s all part of the ritual, you’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I liked it better when you called it a ceremony,” I mumbled, crossing my arms around myself, examining the dark walls of the cave.
It wasn’t a terrible place. The ceilings were high. I could see tree roots crisscrossing
wildly above me, holding a roof of soil over my head. It was comforting somehow. Like something solid and ancient holding up the sky.
“The ceremony is safe,” he amended, looking up at me. “I’d never do anything that could hurt you.”
“You said your people haven’t done this since landing here. You don’t know what it will do.”
“I know what I’ve read, what I’ve been told. The only variable in this I can’t completely count on is the Ila. The Tem Aedha have built a strong relationship with it over the years, but we’re asking a lot. We’re asking it, a being that has existed under the thumb of the Sylph and Undines for centuries, to essentially spit in their face. I won’t lie to you, it’s risky.”
“Can it give me away?”
“What do you mean?”
“If it accepts me, can it change its mind and give me to them? You say it’s been oppressed for centuries, what if it chooses to ransom me?”
When he met my eyes, I could see the pain in them. He’d thought of this. “It’s a possibility. There are no guarantees in this, none but the guarantee that if we do nothing you will be forced to marry Frederick, bring him an heir and be cast to the devil to be his plaything for all eternity. Anything is better than that.”
I nodded in agreement, though I knew that the only silver lining to our worst case scenario was that Roarke would go with me, a thought that left me sick to my stomach. But I knew him. I knew if I refused, he’d find a way to perform the binding anyway and my refusal would only have promised us both a place in eternal torment. We wouldn’t have even tried for salvation. The weight of his forever rested on my shoulders, pressing me forward.
“Prince Frederick wants to meet with the Tem Aedha,” I said suddenly, changing the subject.
Roarke looked up at me in surprise. “Why?”
“He believes you can work together to solve the problems the kingdom faces with the Saints.”
“Really? Since when?”
“Since I told him your people knew more about the world than he does.”
Roarke laughed. “I’m sure he loved that.”