Up ahead, I found one of the oddly shaped paths and stepped onto it. As I walked, the path curved slightly to the left, and at the end, it branched into three lines. I hiked each path, but stopped at the end of the third path and removed the box from my pocket.
The sunlight made the glowing symbols almost impossible to see, and I had to step off the path and into the trees’ shadows just to get a glimpse of the swirling symbols.
“There,” I said to myself as I found the Y-shaped symbol.
It wasn’t an exact match to the path, but was it close enough? If so, what next? My magic had recovered somewhat after using it against the witch, so I let my powers flow into the cube. Nothing. The mixture of Faythander and Earth magics surrounded the cube and dissipated, just as it had when I’d attacked the witch. It was as if I hadn’t used any magic at all.
I could solve this, I really could—I just had to use some imagination.
What if I were supposed to use a certain spell? Could the symbol represent the word for a certain spell? But most spell words were never written down, as each practitioner used unique spells and no two spells were exactly alike.
I paced down the path. If I wanted to know more, I’d need something else to compare it to. When I found the next oddly shaped pathway, I stepped onto it and followed it around a large loop, with smaller, half-circle-shaped symbols inside it. I also recognized this symbol on the box, and I held the cube as I paced the trail, tracing the matching symbol on its side, willing it to give up its secrets.
I attempted a few more spells but got the same results as last time. After exploring the rest of the garden, I found four more oddly shaped paths, and each corresponded in most part with the shapes on the box. But whatever I tried, I couldn’t activate the box’s magic.
Drat.
I found a bench and sat on it, watching as the sun rose higher in the sky. I was hungry, tired, I had a headache, and it was morning. Not a good combination. Seriously. It seemed Heidel and I had something in common. My magic felt my irritability, too, and my ability to think was also suffering.
Stuffing the box in my pocket, I took the path back to the castle. Tall parapets rose into the sky, reflecting sunlight in some places, and covered in moss and vines in other spots. By the time I made it inside and back to my chamber, it was near noon.
A wraith waited outside my door, and I stopped short.
His emotionless gaze took me in.
“She waits for you,” he said.
“The witch?”
He nodded. “I will take you to her.”
Staring at my door only a few feet away, so close to the bed where I’d hoped to get a few minutes of sleep, I wasn’t sure if I should follow him. But disobeying the witch would only make my situation worse. Been there. Done that. Wouldn’t happen again.
“Fine,” I grumbled and followed the wraith down the hallway.
This had better be life-or-death important.
When we approached her chamber, the heavenly scent of cooked food came from inside. As we entered, I found the round table filled with bowls of steaming soup, plates of fruit and cheese, loaves of freshly baked bread, pastries covered in chocolate, and golden goblets filled with frothy white liquid.
The witch waited beside one of the tall windows overlooking her garden. She turned around as I approached, and the murder I’d seen in her eyes when we’d been in the dungeons had disappeared.
She gave me a warm smile, one that almost made me think she was normal—if normal meant a power-wielding, half-dragon, half-witch who changed people into mindless subservient slaves. Or not.
“Sit,” she said, “and eat.”
I took the chair across from her, and we both sat. Maybe if I hadn’t been starving and ready to collapse from exhaustion, I would’ve given some flippant remark on how I refused to eat with the likes of her, but I was neither full nor well rested, so I grabbed a handful of cheese and stuffed it in my mouth.
The sharp flavor melted on my tongue. I ate the fruit next, and then the soup, which reminded me of a French onion soup I’d eaten at one of Houston’s fancier places back when I’d dated Brent—when he’d footed the bill so I could afford to eat at places like that. I hadn’t thought about my ex in a while. Although he’d recovered from the bloodthorn incident on Earth, he still had a million questions for me. But those were worries for another time.
Silvestra watched me as I ate, although she only nibbled her food and took small sips from her goblet.
“Have you discovered a way to open the box?” she asked.
“No.”
“Have you gotten close?”
“I’ve made some progress, but it would be helpful if you gave me a hint.”
“A hint?”
“Yes, you know, tell me what the symbols mean or what language they’re written in. At this point, anything would be helpful.”
“I see.” She sipped her drink while keeping her eyes on me, then placed her goblet on the table. “I can tell you that the answers are not found where you’ve been looking.”
Awesome. I’d been looking in the wrong place the whole time. What other good news did she have for me?
“I will also tell you that you must stop doubting yourself. Opening the box is within your own capabilities.”
“But it’s not made of any magic I’m familiar with. How can I open it if I don’t even know what spells to use?”
She only smiled. “Keep searching.”
She must have gotten some sick pleasure watching me blunder around the castle like an idiot. I was sure it would give her endless amounts of joy when I failed and became her prisoner. I had the urge to toss the box out the window and drag unconscious Kull out of the castle—if only I could find a way to get that collar off his neck. Hence the key. And the box. Which meant throwing it out the window wouldn’t work. It looked like I was stuck playing her stupid game while Kull suffered. Some things were so not fair.
I finished the food and prepared to leave. When I scooted the chair away from the table, she stopped me.
“I do not wish for you to fail,” she said.
“Really?” I asked. “It seems you’ve set me up for it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if I don’t open the box in time, then you win. You get both Kull and me as your slaves. But if I do manage to open it, it means you lose, it means Kull and I escape and you’re down two pawns. I don’t see how my ability to open the box benefits you in any way, and so that is why I don’t think it’s possible. You’ve given me hope by handing me a key and a promise, but that promise is locked inside a box that can’t be opened.”
“It cannot be opened,” she said, “because you do not believe it’s possible.”
“No. It can’t be opened because you won’t allow it.”
“That is a lie.”
“Prove it.”
She stood. “All I will tell you is that I very much wish for you to open that box, because if you do, my assumptions of you will be proven correct.”
“What assumptions?”
“Open the box,” she said, “and you will find out.”
She left the room without another word, leaving me alone to ponder the box. Silvestra confused me on so many levels. What were her motivations? What would I be proving by opening the box?
Frustrated, I left the room and returned to my task of wandering the castle’s hallways. On the bright side, I’d wandered the halls for so long now that I finally knew my way around the place.
I didn’t return to the gardens. If Silvestra were right and I’d been looking in the wrong place, then I would find somewhere else to look. Removing the box from my pocket, I examined it once again. It looked no different than it had before, although being inside gave me the advantage of seeing the symbols with more clarity. An idea struck me, so I found a dark, windowless room, stepped inside, and took a closer look at the symbols.
I focused on each s
ymbol in turn, but as I focused on the circle symbol with the half-moons inside, I gasped as I saw what it really was—a human skull.
Varying shades of light gray formed the bones around the eye sockets and pronounced forehead, while darker shades made the teeth and jawbones.
Skulls on Faythander, just as on Earth, represented death, but why would a skull be on this box? Surveying the other symbols, I noted that they all seemed unchanged. None of them looked any different except the image of the circle.
What was I missing?
I hadn’t seen the image of the skull in the rose garden, but I’d had a really bad perspective. Maybe it was time to get a new perspective.
I exited the room and took the stairs, searching for the castle’s tallest tower. Half an hour later, after finding rooms filled with wraiths who sat silently doing mundane tasks such as washing or mending, and other rooms where the wraiths simply sat and stared at walls, I finally found the tallest tower with a view of the garden.
The tower was cylindrical, with a staircase spiraling up the center. When I reached the top, I found windows circling the room. As I stood at the glass looking out, the view amazed me. Against the sky I found a brief shimmering, as if the castle and its garden were encased in some sort of invisibility dome. The magic it must have taken to fuel such a spell would have been exponentially huge—and I could only assume the life forces of the witch’s captured wraiths were fueling it. It also made sense as to why I’d never seen the castle before—not in the air while flying over the mountain, and not when I’d explored the cave to the undiscovered land at the top of Dragon Spine Mountain.
The garden spread in all directions but ended abruptly where the stream turned into the waterfall on the horizon—where I’d hoped to escape with Kull. What most shocked me was the arrangement of not only the oddly shaped paths, but of each individual plant. The entire garden was an elaborate map of Faythander.
The continent of Faythander was loosely shaped like the prehistoric continent of Pangaea, but in Faythander, the land was split into five massive kingdoms. Pixies inhabited the southlands, which were represented on the garden map with an L shape and two horizontal lines through the center. The elf kingdom was the largest and took up the eastern and central portions of the map, marked with a triangle shape and a circle in its center. On the western side, the kingdom of the dragons and Wults filled the space with symbols of the Y and a backward 3 shape. The northlands, which until recently had been the territory of the goblins, was left blank.
In the map’s center I found the skull symbol but wasn’t familiar with any kingdom the skull could represent.
I held the box and scanned its symbols, then matched each one to one of the symbols represented in the garden. Six facets of the box, represented by only five symbols—four that corresponded to the races of Faythander, and one that was a mystery.
The shape of the skull was located at the garden’s bottom center, which was loosely where Dragon Spine Mountain stood. Since the witch’s castle stood so close to the entrance of the undiscovered land, I could only assume that the skull was a symbol for it.
Alarmed at the implications, I studied the box and garden, hoping I’d missed something, but I found nothing new. I could only come to one conclusion, and it scared me more than I cared to admit.
The skull was a symbol for black magic.
CHAPTER TEN
I made it back to my room where I found the wraith who had been there earlier. A shimmering blue dress was draped over his arm.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“My Lady wants you to attend tonight’s ball. She has requested you wear this.”
I eyed the dress. “Do I have to?”
“My Lady wishes it.”
Sighing, I took the dress from him. As I hefted the gown, I almost dropped it. The thing had to weigh more than a suit of armor. After entering my room, I locked the door behind me and then inspected the dress.
It was made of several layers of translucent fabric, and each layer was darker than the next. On the outermost layer, the entire bodice had been beaded with diamonds, and I had wild ideas of transporting back to Earth with the thing, selling it, and living the rest of my life as a millionaire cat lady.
Carefully, I placed the gown on the bed. Warm, slanting sunrays filtered through the window onto the floor and bed, making the jewels glow. I stepped to the window and looked outside. Evening was approaching. A whole day was nearly gone, and I didn’t feel any closer to opening the box. I pulled it out of my pocket and studied the symbols again.
The magic was a gentle hum filled with subtle power. After learning the meaning of the symbols—each representing a different race on Faythander—I realized that the odd gray color could have been caused because the magic was a blend of all five.
It made sense. I’d never seen it done before, but that didn’t make it impossible. The only way to know for sure was to test my theory, so I turned the box to face me with the symbol of elven magic—the C shape—on top.
I let elven magic flow from my hands into the symbol. Controlling the magic was tricky as all it seemed to do was bounce off the box, but I finally managed to focus the power directly into the symbol. As I did, the symbol glowed brighter. The magic surrounding the box changed color as it broke apart, creating a rainbow of colors—pink, green, and amber—on the walls and ceiling. The light dazzled my eyes. The swirling magic brushed my skin, an odd sensation with all the magics combined into one, until they finally faded, and all the blue elven magic disappeared.
The C symbol on the box disappeared.
Finally, I’m getting somewhere! I felt like jumping up and down on the bed.
My hands trembling with excitement, I turned to the symbol of the dragon magic, the Y. Although I didn’t naturally possess dragon magic, I had Faythander magic, and since all magic on Faythander branched from one common source, learning to control other magics was possible. I’d been taught many dragon spells, but would they work? Saying the word for magic in the dragon tongue would hopefully do the trick.
“Einoxulus,” I whispered and let the spell flow into the stone.
As before, it took a bit of artistry to get the magic to flow with precision into the shape, and it took a few tries, but finally, the magic united with the symbol. Green swirls of light surrounded the box, intermingling with the other colors until the green faded, and as before, the symbol disappeared.
Sitting on the bed, I felt my head spinning. They were simple spells, but they still needed power, which happened to come from my energy. Two spells down, three to go. I still felt like jumping up and down on the bed, but maybe with a little more restraint.
The Wult, pixie, and black magic spells remained. The only easy spell would be the pixie. Since the Wults didn’t possess magic, I wasn’t sure what to do about that one. Worse, I knew there was no way I could manipulate the spell controlling black magic. But I would worry about that one when I got to it. First, I had to take care of the pixie symbol.
My heart clenched as my thoughts turned to the pixies. Sometimes I forgot that my closest pixie friend, Uli, had died, only to remember that she’d given her life to save Faythander. It was a painful reminder of the world I lived in, and I wasn’t sure my fate would be any different from hers.
Breathing deeply, I pushed the thoughts of death aside and focused instead on the stone. As with the last two spells, I used an incantation I’d learned from the pixies and guided the magic into the stone. Energy drained from my body, making me glad I was sitting. Rose-colored magic sparkled above me and disappeared, leaving me with two symbols: Wult and black magic.
I rested on the bed, feeling as if the magic had taken every last ounce of my energy. There was nothing left. Sleeping would restore my magic, but did I have time? Glancing outside, I saw the sun had sunk low and turned a glowing orange that announced the end of the day. My eyes closed, and without another thought, I fell asleep.
#
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br /> I awoke to a dark room. My stomach churned and head pounded. Sitting up, I found the gown lying on the bed with me. I cursed as I snatched up the dress. What time was it? Had I missed the ball? Silvestra would strike me dead if I missed her stupid party.
I dressed quickly, brushed my hair, and then glanced in the mirror. Running my hands over the gown’s light blue, velvety fabric and sweeping skirt, I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. She was some ethereal creature with elven ears, bright green eyes, dark reddish hair, and a gown that was suited for a fairytale castle.
Turning away from the mirror, I grabbed the stone box before stumbling out of the room. When I approached the ballroom, music drifted into the hallway. My shoes echoed off the marble tiles until I stopped at the large double doors, pulled them open, and entered the ballroom.
Wraiths crowded the room in their customary attire of masks and elaborate clothing. The tide of bodies pressed in around me as I wandered across the enchanted floor. The lilting, calming surge of music broke up my worries. I found myself drifting over the floor, floating.
Instead of the stars and planets represented on the tiles, I floated on a silver sky. My feet touched the tops of clouds, and I felt their mist and magic fill my lungs.
A strong hand grabbed mine, and I spun around. Kull stood behind me, although I almost didn’t recognize him. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his skin was ashen. He looked more like a wraith than I cared to admit.
“Kull,” I gasped.
He smiled. I found pain in his eyes, but he pulled me close and the pain seemed to disappear.
“I was worried you weren’t coming,” he said.
“I fell asleep. But I’m shocked to see you here. You weren’t even conscious this morning. Are you okay?”
“Well enough. Whatever magic that witch uses is some wicked stuff.” He touched the collar around his neck. “I don’t feel like myself.”
“You don’t look like yourself, either.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve made some progress with the box today. You’ll be free before tomorrow evening. I promise.”
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