I gave him a hug as Cynder unhooked our horse from the wagon. Hopefully, the border guard wouldn’t notice he had fewer horses going back than coming in.
Having recharged his magic thanks to a good night’s sleep and a great breakfast, Cynder was able to pick up his wand and, once again, change our appearance. He lightened his hair and darkened mine to a similar auburn hue.
“If anyone asks, we are brother and sister, heading to the Thalian capital for a vacation.”
The journey was even rougher than I’d remembered. I’d made this particular journey once before with Luca. Back then, we’d had a carriage to shield us from the weather. Now, at the beginning of November and with nothing to shield us, we plodded along at an excruciatingly slow rate. I insisted we stop at inns along the way, both to rest and enable us to be ourselves each evening. Cynder only agreed when I pointed out that the horse needed to rest too. It also gave us the opportunity to eat warm meals – sorely needed after a day in the cold.
Three days later, we finally arrived in the capital. The imposing Thalian castle with its red slate-topped turrets stood magnificent as always. A thrill ran through me, as I remembered the happy time I’d spent here, spoiled only by Pittser trying to kill me.
I’d left on horseback behind Cynder, just as I was arriving today.
With no way to contact the royal family in advance, we had no choice but to speak to the guard on the front gate and ask to be let in. It was only when Cynder waved his wand in front of my face to make my own features reappear, that the guard took notice. He opened the wrought iron gates quickly, understanding my urgency, and led us under the portcullis into the central courtyard.
My heart hammered in double time as he walked up the stone steps to speak with a guard at the door. The last time I’d come here, I’d been greeted by Queen Sarina herself. Now, I was forced to wait until the door guard went to fetch her. I had no way of knowing how the queen, or the king for that matter, would react to me being here. For all they knew, I was dead, killed by Cynder. My pulse rose as the minutes ticked by, and no one appeared.
The original guard was now waiting by our sides, probably on the order of the door guard. I could understand why everyone was suspicious. I’d be suspicious too if a dead person turned up at my door with her murderer in tow.
A curtain twitched, and I caught Sarina peeping out. It was only for the briefest of seconds, but it was enough for me to catch the expression of shock on her face.
A minute later the door guard emerged from the palace and nodded at the gate guard. As Cynder and I climbed the stone stairs to the Castle’s main door, the door guard held up his sword to us. Inside a second guard greeted us in the same way. Fear ran through me as I wondered if we’d made a terrible mistake. The two guards led us to a room I’d not seen before. It was smaller and less grand than the rest of the castle, but it was cozier. To one side was a beautiful chaise lounge covered in a royal red fabric and to the other was a mahogany desk. Sitting behind the desk was an ashen-faced queen.
“Your Majesty,” I curtsied. Cynder followed suit.
“Charmaine?” she asked, bringing her hand up to her mouth. “Is it really you?”
I nodded and gave her a shy smile.
Her eyes widened. “I can’t believe it. I’m in shock. I thought...”
“It is me. I’m alive.”
She gasped, uncertain that what she was seeing was real. “It can’t be!”
“I assure you it is,” replied Cynder.
For the first time, she saw who it was I was traveling with. Her eyes, already wide with the sight of me, widened even more at the sight of Cynder.
Her already white face paled even more.
“He...he...” she stammered, her beautiful features contorted in fear. She found her voice and shouted. “Guards!”
King & Queen
“Please don’t do that, Your Majesty. He’s with me. We need to speak to the king urgently,” I fretted. My eyes went to the door as though the guards would walk in at any moment to take us away.
“He’s upstairs. What’s going on?”
“Please, can you get him? We need to talk to him now!” The urgency in my voice was unmistakable. I’m sure she must have caught the fear in it too.
She wrung her fingers in her hands. I’d never seen her so skittish. “I don’t understand what is happening here.”
“Please!” I begged. If she didn’t summon the king, I was going to have to go looking for him myself and in a castle this huge, it would take me forever to find him.
A couple of guards entered the room. I pleaded with the queen with my eyes.
“Can you ask His Majesty to come down here, please?” she said to them with authority. “It’s rather urgent.”
They bowed again and left the room. I exhaled sharply. Finally, I would be able to tell Luca’s parents the truth. Now all I had to do was to get them to believe me.
Five minutes later, the king blustered in.
“What is it? I was...”
He stopped talking as he saw who was in his wife’s study. I watched as his mouth opened to form a perfect O shape.
I curtseyed again. “Your Majesty.” He bowed his head to me in a daze. “You’re dead!”
“I assure you I’m not dead and as you can see that I’m not dead, you’ll also be able to see that I wasn’t murdered by Cynder.” I indicated Cynder to my right.
His eyebrows shot up as he took in the sight of Cynder by my side.
“I think I need a drink,” he said weakly. “Do you have any whiskey, Sarina?”
The queen shook her head in mock frustration. “No, but I could do with one myself. Maybe we should all head to the parlor.”
The king nodded. We followed him to the wood-paneled room I’d been in the last time I’d been at the castle. Then, Seraphia and I had drunk champagne instead of whiskey. With a heavy heart, I realized I’d have to tell them the truth about Seraphia too. This was going to kill them.
“Where have you been all this time?” asked the queen. “Luca is worried sick. Oh goodness me, he’s going to marry that dreadful woman!” Her hand flew up to her mouth. She seemed so unnerved, unsure of herself. I’d never seen her this way before. The king poured four very generous glasses of whiskey and downed his in one go before passing the rest around and pouring himself another. Even he was rattled by my arrival.
I glanced at Cynder who nodded. I needed to tell them everything.
“Luca knows I’m alive. He knows Cynder is alive. On the day of our wedding, Cynder wasn’t kidnapping me, he was rescuing me.”
Theron sniffed and adopted a quizzical look. “Rescuing you from what, my dear?”
I sighed. I wanted to put this gently without hurting them, but I realized there was no way to do that. “He was rescuing me from Luca. You see, it was Luca who planted the bombs at my palace. He was planning to kill me to get the crown.”
Both the king and queen looked at me as if I was telling some kind of joke and they were waiting for a punch line.
When it didn’t come, Theron spoke. “That’s preposterous,” he blustered. “He loves you. He’d get the crown anyway if he married you.”
I could see the queen nodding slightly beside her husband. I couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with him or on the verge of fainting.
I pulled a chair over for her just in case. She sat down, giving me the smallest of smiles.
“Actually, he would only become the prince consort,” argued Cynder. “He wouldn’t become king by marrying the queen.”
“But it’s the same, just a different title,” huffed Theron.
Cynder carried on, trying to make Luca’s parents understand. “But that’s my point exactly. It’s the title he wants. Prince consort doesn’t have the same value. The king is the highest ranking person in the whole kingdom. A prince consort is one below the queen. Luca has had enough playing second best. He wants to be number one!”
“Luca has spent his whole life in his brother To
mas’s shadow,” I agreed. “He’s resentful that Tomas, a man who really isn’t that interested in being the next king, will get the crown when you, sir, pass away. When Tomas married a Magi; a group of people that Luca thinks are beneath him, it only compounded the issue. He couldn’t bear it that a Magi was going to be the queen here when he could never be king. The fact that Seraphia and Tomas have two sons makes it extremely unlikely that he’ll ever get the throne in Thalia. Seraphia told me that he hated her for a long time, but when he saw an opportunity to become king in my country and saw my desire to integrate the Magi, he began to suck up to her.
“He had a good feeling he’d be picked as one of the four. Why wouldn’t he? Already a prince in his own right, good -looking, charming. He was known as a ladies’ man before the ball. He knew what it took to woo women. He still does. Remember the woman at the dinner party at his house, his PR lady? He’s sleeping with her. He probably was the whole time. Who knows?”
Sarina made a sound of horror. This must be so difficult to hear, but she had to know.
“When he had what he wanted, me, he hatched a plan to kill me and my family ensuring that he would become king. Everything was planned until Cynder and some others found out. It was only after the wedding that I found out the extent of his lies. He has guards all over Silverwood looking for the pair of us. He wants us both dead. He’s been hunting the Magi too. In less than a month’s time, he will be king, and he’ll be able to do whatever he likes.”
Theron swirled his whiskey around in his glass as if contemplating whether to drink it or not.
“I know there are a lot of things happening in Silverwood at the moment and I can’t say I agree with everything that Luca is doing,” he said, downing the whiskey. “Marrying that Bloom woman when he barely knows her for a start, but I’m afraid you are wrong. He’s made it very clear to us that he’s missing you terribly, and I’ve seen no mention anywhere of him hunting the Magi. I will agree with you that he wasn’t too fond of Seraphia for a long time, but recently they have been the best of pals. If anything, he’s become an advocate of the Magi.”
“He’s lying to you. Everything is a lie!” I shouted in frustration. Cynder took my hand to calm me down.
“Seraphia!” I said, “Where do you think she is?”
The queen’s brow furrowed, and she frowned. “She’s at her parent’s house down south. Her mother has been quite unwell, and she’s gone down there to look after her. Why?”
“Her parents are on vacation.” I sighed, looking to Cynder for help. He nodded in encouragement. I knew I was hurting these people which in turn hurt me. “Luca has her. She’s locked in his basement.”
The king’s eyebrows shot up. “Why ever would he lock Seraphia in his basement? It makes no sense.”
“She’s locked in his basement because he’s planning to kill her. She, along with some other people, has been printing a newsletter to tell the people of Silverwood the truth. Luca found out and caught them. The execution date is set for one day after the royal wedding and two days after he becomes king.”
Theron shook his head. He had a pained expression on his face.
“I’m sorry, this all sounds very far-fetched. I think we need to contact Luca and bring him here to sort this mess out once and for all.” Both Cynder and I shook our heads abruptly, but it was the queen who spoke.
“No need. I called him when they arrived.”
“He knows we are here?” I felt physically sick at the thought of it. The last thing we needed now was for Luca to come and capture us here.
The queen looked pained. “When the guard told me, I didn’t believe...I had to take a look for myself. Of course, I had to tell Luca the good news immediately.”
“What did he say?” asked Cynder quickly, giving me a quick glance. I could see the fear in his face. It matched my own thoughts.
“He said he would come here to see for himself. He said he was on his way!”
Heading Home
I looked over at Cynder. “We can’t stay here!”
“But you have to,” argued the king. “Luca will want to see for himself that you are still alive.”
“I won’t be alive long if Luca finds me!” I said, the tone of my voice getting more panicked by the second. “Have you not been listening to me? He needs me dead so he can become the king and marry Drusilla Bloom. If I’m alive, all his lies will come out.”
“I heard what you said, dear,” the king came over and patted my arm in a comforting manner. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. At some point, he’d finished the second glass too. “I think this is all one big misunderstanding. When he gets here, we can all sit down and hash it all out. I think you’ll find that you’ve got nothing to worry about. Luca loves you. He’ll get rid of that horrible woman when he knows you are still alive. I think it was only a rebound thing borne of mourning you, my dear.”
I could tell that he was trying to be nice and make me feel better, but his words were having the opposite effect. Luca was on his way.
I turned to Cynder, my face full of desperation. I didn’t know what to do.
“He’s days away!” said Cynder, coming over to me. He took the glass of untouched whiskey from my shaking hand and placed it down on a nearby surface. “We can be miles away by the time he gets here.”
I nodded in agreement.
“You can’t leave!” announced the queen. “Luca told me to keep you here. He said not to let you go under any circumstances.”
“He’ll be devastated if you go now,” agreed the king.
“I’m sorry, but we have to go!” I replied. “Unless you are going to keep me here against my will.”
“Of course not,” blustered the king. “But...”
I turned, heading for the door.
“What shall we tell Luca if you go?” asked Theron gruffly.
I turned back and looked directly at him.
“Ask him about Seraphia. Ask him about me. Listen to what he says and see if you still believe him. Then you can tell him that I’m not going to stop. He’ll never find me, and when the time is right, I’m going to bring him down!”
I stalked towards the door, Cynder hot on my heels. Just before I slammed the door behind us, I heard the queen exclaiming “Oh dear!”
I thought the guards might follow us as we raced through the castle to the front door, but nobody tried to stop us. The guard opened the door and let us leave freely. Even as we jumped back on our horse and left through the iron gates, I was expecting someone to chase us. It was only when we were a good few miles away that my panic subsided.
Cynder brought the horse to a standstill next to a homely looking inn. “Let’s get some food while we think our next move through.”
I nodded in agreement. I was hungry, tired and cold.
Cynder waved his wand over my face, and I could feel my features changing back to what they were before we went to the castle. We were once again the auburnhaired brother and sister.
The inside of the inn was cozy with a roaring fire crackling away in the fireplace. We took a seat in a booth in the darkest corner and ordered a couple of coffees and a roast dinner from the waitress.
“What now?” I whispered, not wanting to be overheard.
Cynder grinned. I wasn’t sure why. As far as I could see, we had nothing to be happy about.
“Don’t you see? Luca is doing us a favor.”
“By coming here to kill us?” I deadpanned.
“By coming here, yes. If he’s here, that means he’s not in Silverwood. He’s leaving the place with no one in charge.”
I didn’t see how that would help us any. His men would still be there and no doubt shoot us on sight. “If Luca knows we are in Thalia, he’ll know we somehow got across the border. Do you really think he’ll let us back in? I’m betting all those permits for the farmers will now be revoked.”
I speared a potato and took a bite.
It’s funny how having a hot meal inside you can make
you feel so much better, and so it was with me. By the end of the meal I couldn’t say I shared Cynder’s optimism, but at least I wasn’t as fearful as I had been.
I ordered some sandwiches to go. The trip back to Silverwood was a long one, and I had a feeling that Luca would get his men to all the inns along the route just in case we showed up. This was going to be our last hot meal for the foreseeable future.
The journey back was harsh, made harder by the dreadful weather conditions and the fact we had to keep off the main tracks so that we didn’t accidentally bump into Luca.
Snow had begun to fall by the time we got back to the border, and we still hadn’t come up with any idea on how to get through.
In the distance, I could see two guards standing sentry, one at either side of the roadblock.
“Can’t you just blast them with your wand?” I asked, only half-jokingly.
“Nope, blasting people is not a spell. However, you have given me an idea. Hold on!”
I wrapped my arms tighter around him as he kicked his legs. The horse bolted, nearly making me fall off in the process.
The roadblock got nearer and nearer until we were close enough for the guards to see us.
“Slow down!” I hissed. We were going to crash straight into it.
Cynder ignored me and pushed the horse faster. I closed my eyes, waiting for the crash. It never came. Instead, we took off. I opened my eyes to find us sailing over the roadblock. The horse landed deftly on the other side. I looked back to see the guards getting over their shock and pulling out their guns.
“They’re going to shoot!” I screamed.
Cynder waved his wand behind us and shouted out a spell, just as I heard the crack of a gun being fired. Seconds later another shot echoed through the night.
A volley of shots came at us, but none hit. We’d escaped. We were free.
Cynder kept the horse going until we pulled up at a familiar house. The door opened as we cantered up the farmhouse tracks.
Alan welcomed us back into his home. “Charm, Cynder, you’re back. How did it go?”
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