“I think that would be a sage idea.” Alara took her fork from the air and caught a wink Cedric gave her as he sat down next to the sorcerer.
It was something Tomas used to do when they were in meetings with the council, and they couldn’t openly speak of their feelings. The members of the royal house had to be neutral in all things while in meetings. It was something his mother taught him when they were still just a betrothed couple awaiting their special day. Whether it was a wink to say he was proud of her or a simple nod of agreement, she blushed.
Alara shook it from her memory and deliberately looked to her food as Belinda excused herself from the room.
The afternoon proved to be more interesting than the morning training. Iren enchanted the rock once more to show Declan at the palace.
He sat in a room alone. At first, Alara thought it was his bedroom, but then she recognized the place that was to be his nursery when she found out she was expecting. The same room Tomas turned into her living tomb.
She hadn’t thought about that time until then. Everything they’d been through since she awakened kept her from thinking about how trapped she’d felt in her own mind; convulsing and screaming, with no one to hear her.
She watched as Declan sat in the chair beside the bed. She got the impression he spoke into the void as if she were still sleeping there. For a small moment, she was glad she could only see him. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, the image was gone.
“Are you ready?” Iren placed the rock between them.
“Yes.” Alara sighed heavily, and her shoulders dropped. She slouched for the first time ever, and it felt good. When Iren gave her a disapproving look, she sat up straight. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to look at this rock and imagine it as a bird.”
“A bird?”
“Yes, a bird.” He sat back on his cushion.
“Fine.”
Alara straightened her back even more. She managed to hold her conversation and shock everyone in the room, all while the fork stayed in the air. She hoped it meant she would be able to achieve a bird out of stone.
She sat concentrating and imagined the rock had a beak and legs, then wings, and finally color. It was a yellow bird in her mind. When it chirped, she heard it. Opening her eyes, she saw the rock was in the shape of a bird.
“Or did you want living?” She playfully asked Iren, who did not seem amused at all.
“You lost your concentration. Once you opened your eyes, the beautiful little canary turned to stone.” The old man shook his head and rose to his feet. Alara realized for an old man who needed rest, he sure did move around a lot.
“Sorry. I was just hoping it was a bird.”
“Yes,” he said, his back to her. “You thought in the last moment that you just needed it to be a bird. So, then it was. A stone bird.” He stepped in front of the rose. “Come here. Let us try something.” He pulled the orb from the air where it hovered above the table.
Alara stood in front of him, the table between them. Iren’s hands reached towards her and offered her the rose. “Hold it.” He shook his head for her to take it. “The idea is to break the glass and let the rose die. So, what if you just imagine the rose dies?”
“I couldn’t. The glass is what keeps the rose alive. So, if it’s not destroyed, the rose will live forever. However,” she thought for a moment— “if the rose were removed from the glass, it would surely die. It needs to remain inside the glass to survive.” She stared at the glass for a moment.
“We need the baron,” Iren said. He turned to Cedric, who bolted from the room.
“It’s not about magic at all.” Alara continued to speak out loud as she thought about the task at hand. “No one broke the spell to wake me. A splinter was removed from my finger. The rest of it was my own subconscious holding onto what happened to me.”
“Time,” Iren pointed out.
“You’re right, it was just time. I finally unlocked the feelings I was having. I admitted them to myself, and that broke down the shield. It got rid of the residual magic from the curse, allowing my body to age and letting me use the magic given to me. So, if the baron wants to be free of his curse… I know what he has to do.” She smiled so full, she threw the glass-encased rose in the air, but it just went back to hovering over the table. When the baron and Belinda walked in with Cedric on their heels, Iren watched as Alara laughed.
“What is so funny?” The lady of the house was not too impressed with the behavior of her lost friend.
Alara stopped laughing as best she could and explained what she figured out about her curse. A guttural rumble emitted from the baron before he paced the length of the room. “So,” he started, and stopped in the middle of the room by the glass, “if I want to end this, all I have to do is go out there?”
Alara glanced around at everyone. When Iren didn’t offer up the answer, Alara stepped forward. “Yes. All you need do is step outside of this castle. It is preserving the magic which is keeping you in this form.” She tried to explain it so he could understand. “You see, it’s not that Talia is powerful. Her power only comes from being clever. She has no real power over you. It’s you who have confined yourself to this form. Once you admit that, you’ll be free.”
Alara remembered the flame.
“That’s why she wants it.” She turned to Cedric, grasping him by both of his hands. “What do Tomas’ memories tell you about her that we don’t know?”
Cedric contemplated Belinda and the baron as Alara went off about his memories being blended with the deceased king’s. “Alara?”
She nodded at the baron and his wife before speaking to Cedric. “It’s far less than what anyone would be used to. I see that now. What Tomas and you did was short of genius. I don’t know how I feel about it on a personal level, but for the means of stopping her, it was brilliant.”
“Fine, then I guess I’d have to say you’re right. Talia tied her spells to people based on their own fears and insecurities…” His eyes went wide. “You?” He gave Alara a questioning glare questioning.
“I always thought my life was being lived for me. I felt trapped in my own body. She just helped make it a reality.” Alara’s eyes filled with tears she wouldn’t let fall. Not yet. She wiped them away. “You don’t know how difficult it is to be told who you’re going to marry, where you’re going to live; who you’re going to be. When I became pregnant, I felt like I was finally in control of something. That was my child. Then I was informed I wouldn’t be raising him. He was to be with a wet nurse and tutors until he could be sent away to school. They said it was for his own safety.”
“Oh, Alara.” Cedric held on to her, and she let him wrap her in his arms. Then she politely stepped from his side when Scarlett bound into the room.
“What’s going on?” Taking in the state of the room didn’t give her much to go on.
Everyone stood quietly. Alara swiped at her eyes once more, and then Iren stepped forward.
“We are waiting for the baron to break his curse.”
“Outside?” the baron asked.
“Yes. Outside.” Iren pointed to the door.
The beast in man’s clothing took a deep breath in and exhaled. He took his wife by the hand, and she walked with him to the door. Once in front of it, Cedric pulled it open. The baron turned and nuzzled his wife’s hand with the scruff on his face. His gold eyes glowered at Alara for a moment until he took another breath and a single step over the threshold.
The tawny fur covering his body fell to the ground and turned to ash, leaving the hair that stopped at his shoulders. His eyes went from golden to blue. Clothes too big hung loosely over the flesh of a man. His feet shrunk, each with five toes, just as his hands had five fingers.
Alara smiled. “See, told you it would work.” She moved to the front of the castle as Belinda stood by her husband’s side.
The castle thundered. Cedric grabbed the rose encased in glass and hurried outside with Ir
en on his arm. Scarlett ducked under the doorway just as the rocks around the great room lifted from the floor. As rock and stone reassembled, the ground thundered and shook just as it had when the four of them first arrived.
“What’s happening?” Belinda yelled over the noise.
“Everything done is now being undone, just as my curse lifted when I was able to break it on my own. I woke with help, but the final straw was admitting my fear. He must have realized his own.”
“Talia seems to do well with cursing those whose fears involve being trapped,” Iren recalled the years he spent on the island. Though if he really thought about it, he had admitted his fear before she ever laid the groundwork for his entrapment. The curse on Ikrith was a way to keep all of the healers from the rest of the population of Anaphias. Nothing more.
The ground stopped shaking, and the door opened again to reveal the castle anew. Nothing was broken or out of place, and when Cedric looked down at the rose inside the glass, it had turned to ash. “Looks like this curse has been lifted as well.” He handed the glass to the baron.
Baron Geleon lifted his gilded cage and dropped it to the ground, which shattered on impact. The glass was no more.
THE four of them stayed on with the baron and Baroness for another two days, awaiting word back from Thea and the fae. Alara’s primary concern was getting Iren to the safety of the fae so he could recoup from his ordeal with Talia. It had become increasingly evident that she had siphoned more of his power from him during her last visit. Whether he knew it or not, Alara couldn’t tell, but she was painfully aware of it.
Besides catching up with her old friend, Alara paid no mind to either of her traveling companions. Scarlett had spent the evenings thinking of home, and Alara could see the worry in her eyes. She couldn’t tell if that worry came from what her people would be thinking of her return or of her own curse. The night they were to arrive in Shagari was to be a full moon. Tension mounted in the air whenever they spoke of reaching the mountainous region of her home.
Belinda would be giving them a carriage to use, making travel more comfortable. Not only could they preserve their strength and energy for the terrain they would take on foot to reach the keep of the mountains, but Alara would be able to stay hidden away from those they encountered. With Scarlett at the reigns, Cedric and Alara would ride undercover, keeping her fire red hair away from prying eyes. Now that they knew Talia’s reach could extend all the way to the wastes, there was no telling who she had in her pocket along Anaphias.
The night before they were to leave, Cedric found Alara alone, enjoying the evening air. The cool breeze pushed strands of hair around her. He reached out, pushing it behind her ear, startling her for a moment.
She looked up at him and saw what she’d been avoiding. Those pristine blue eyes stared back at her. The eyes of the man she once loved more than anything the world had to offer. Now, the love she held in her heart was for her son, and as much as it surprised her, for his brother as well. She still felt love for the man who had been her husband, but he was gone. However, looking at Cedric, she could see a part of him did, in fact, live on.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he began when she hadn’t said a word. “I’m still me. I’m not asking you to think of me as Tomas, but as Cedric.”
“I do,” she managed.
“I know you're going through a lot right now. Maybe when all of this is done with, we could talk about it. What Tomas did, and why I said yes.” He moved a hand to her cheek, and she felt the warmth spread to her. It spoke to her, making parts of her soul awakening that she didn’t know lay dormant.
“We have time now. Besides, I am curious why you would agree.” She took a step away from him and sat on the half wall overlooking a small patio. She had wandered out on to a balcony through one of the second level rooms, a large sitting room Belinda used to entertain guests.
“What can I say? I was young, and I, like every other lad my age, had a crush on the queen. When you married Tomas, it broke a lot of hearts.” He gave a light laugh, and she smiled in spite of the seriousness of their situation.
“I hear Tomas had a fan club.” She smiled, thinking about it.
“He did. I was dating the president.” They both laughed.
Cedric moved his cloak, a dull green gifted by their hosts, and sat down next to her. He maintained some distance, allowing her not to feel overcrowded. “I lost my parents and my brother. The job at the palace was by way of a family friend. He’d worked in the stables and said they were recruiting new guards. I signed up, not realizing the king intended to place his prospective guards in the north tower.
“There were five of us. Any of us could have been in the room that day. Anyone could have been placed in the room with you instead of the hall, but I was there. I take my appointment at your side very seriously. When Tomas looked at me and asked if I had any family, I answered honestly. He had this look in his eye, just learning what Talia was and what she had done. He was on a mission. I was glad to be of service, and the truth is, it was before I knew what he had in mind.”
Alara watched him as he spoke. The memory brought a strain to his voice and his face. His eyes narrowed as he continued, and his voice caught. She placed a hand on his, and he took a deep breath before continuing.
“He took me to his study. Wrote out a letter, folded and sealed it, and handed it to me. He asked me to deliver it to a man in Esix, and then meet him at the shore of Grotia. We traveled to seek Iren and then to the house in Vlora, to the sisters.” He moved his gaze from the ground to her face. His eyes moistened as he spoke.
“You knew where Landon was?”
“Yes, but my memories were taken from me later on. They only returned when I broke the spell with the help of Thea.”
Alara hurt just then. More revelations of things kept from her. How could she blame him for keeping things from her when he’d had so much blocked from his mind? She couldn’t.
When she sat still, staring at her hands in her lap, Cedric continued. “He’d planned something radical. So much so that Talia could never find out. I put my life at risk for this and for you. It wasn’t about keeping him around for you. It wasn’t about making me the man you loved. It was all about giving me what I need to take care of you, even just as a guard— if that’s all it ever is. Make no mistake, the feelings he had for you are here,” he said, pointing to his chest. To the place that would be his heart. “But those feelings are only magnifying the feelings I had before my memories were returned. I felt this for you before Iren awoke whatever spell it was he’d put on me. All those years looking after you, being by your side... How could I not care for you?” He looked at her then. A tear streaked his face.
“I guess I’d just assumed whatever you were feeling was a manifestation of Tomas and Iren’s magic. Nobody asked me if I wanted to pick up where I left off with Tomas and start fresh with you as him. It’s maddening.” She stood to pace the small balcony. “I have to think of the boys. I have to think about my people. I don’t have time to think about me, but when I do, it’ll be me who decides about me. Not some good intention of my late husband.” She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it to rest over her left shoulder. It curled into a spiral, hanging down to her thigh.
“Believe me, I know that. I would never ask you to think of me as Tomas. I never agreed to that. Yes, I have memories, and I know you as well as he did, but what Declan said is false. My soul did not trade places with the king. I am not Tomas. I am Cedric, and although I know everything about you, including my feelings and Tomas’ feelings for you, I know you know nothing of me. I just hope to change that. Not because of some spell, but because I care for you. Just me.”
She stopped pacing and turned toward him. She would have gone to him then, she knew she wanted to, but the door to the balcony opened.
“Ah, just the two I wanted to find. Iren’s transport is here, and he is insistent on a hasty departure,” Belinda said, motioning for them to follow her in
side.
Belinda was not kidding about a hasty departure. Maglana was, in fact, loading Iren into a carriage as Alara and Cedric joined the rest of them at the front gate.
“Is it just you?” Alara asked the fae woman as she closed the door of the wagon. She looked around to see if any other fae were with her to help carry him to Idrisi.
“Yes, and before you fret, the carriage is much like the ship you took to Ikrith.” The woman spoke in her usual harsh manner. “We will travel to Idrisi where Iren can heal. He will be able to gain his strength and magic. When you require his expertise, send word.” She whistled and took to the sky. The carriage rose behind her and followed closely as she went. They were only connected by a small gold strand of magic.
Alara turned her head away, realizing she hadn’t been given a chance to say goodbye, though she knew she would see him again. The adventure they would head into would be too much for the old sorcerer to handle in his current state. He needed real rest and food at regular intervals to regain his strength. If Thea could help him recover his power as well, then it was all the more that he goes to Idrisi.
The night wore on them all. The upcoming travel plans were set, and they were all prepared to leave before sunrise the next morning. Alara strapped Brazen around her waist. She’d become accustomed to the weight of the blade at her side and felt lost without it. After a long, hot bath and a change of clothes, she’d begun to feel like her old self. Though when she gazed into the mirror hanging in her room, she’d had to stand there and study the features she was no longer familiar with. Since breaking the binds remaining on her curse, her body had continued to the age she would be if she’d been left to the fate of the rest of the populous.
The length of her hair was given by Thea during their visit to the land of the fae, and it was the length she would have grown over twenty years. She hadn’t decided if she would cut it or leave it as a new way to pay homage to her flaming red hair. It reached well beyond her waist to her thighs. If she weren’t careful, she’d sit on it.
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