Regina Rising

by Wendy Toliver

  “I know Cora is powerful, but she only wants the best for you. So do I.” She closed the space between us and reached for my hand.

  I yanked it away and raked my fingers through my hair. “Please stop saying that. You’ve proven where your loyalty lies.” I crossed my arms over my chest. My heart thumped hard within my rib cage.

  “I’m not loyal to your mother, Regina. I’m afraid of her.”

  “Well, now you know how I feel,” I harrumphed.

  Claire wiped her face with the back of her hand, and I flexed my jaw, reminding myself that no matter how pitiful and remorseful she appeared, she’d been aligned with my mother all along. She was a traitor, and I didn’t know how or when, but I was going to make her pay…and pay dearly.

  “Oh, Regina,” Claire said between sniffles, “I would have chosen to be your friend, even if Cora hadn’t taken my heart. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. The best I’ve ever even dreamed of having.”

  I was gathering my boots to leave when something she’d said stuck in me like a barbed thorn. “My mother…took your heart?”

  A memory from when I was twelve seeped into the forefront of my mind. Hwin was lying in her stall on her side, dead. Jesse was sweeping. The bristles of his broom were coated with dark red dust. I didn’t know what the memory meant, but something deep inside of me told me this time, Claire was telling the truth.

  My own heart felt like it was pumping rocks rather than blood. “What are you talking about?”

  She grabbed my hand and placed it on the left side of her chest. I closed my eyes, waiting for the telltale thump of a heart through her nightgown. I felt nothing but the erratic trembles of Claire’s sobs.

  My head was spinning. “I don’t understand. How can you still be alive if you haven’t a heart?”

  “She said it was her favorite—and most evil—spell of all,” Claire explained. “When she has somebody’s heart in her possession, she can, at any given moment, squeeze it, causing excruciating pain—or worse, smash it, turning it to dust.”

  The floor of Claire’s bedroom seemed to fall. I collapsed to my knees as my mind pieced together the puzzle. My mother had murdered Hwin. In the name of protecting me—or perhaps in an act of revenge—she’d ripped the mare’s heart out of her body and crushed it into a powder. The image of Jesse sweeping away the dark red dust played over and over again in my mind’s eye.

  Now my mother had Claire’s heart. “At any given moment, my mother can kill you,” I whispered.

  Claire nodded. With the heel of her hand, she futilely wiped her tear-streaked face. “The day she walked into ma’s tavern, I agreed to keep an eye on you and report back to her with anything that seemed dangerous or suspicious to your well-being or well-breeding. Basically, she wanted me to be her eyes and ears, to help her protect you.

  “It was all right at first, and to be honest, I was envious your mother cared enough to keep such a close eye on you. When you confided in me you wished to learn magic, I told her. She came undone, blaming me for putting the dangerous notion in your head. She said it was too great a risk to allow our friendship to continue, and threatened to get Uncle Giles to send me home straightaway. I didn’t know how she would make him do that, but I knew better than to underestimate her power.

  “I begged her to let me stay. I didn’t want to go back to Port Bennett. Furthermore, I wanted to stay, because of you, Regina. Because of our friendship. When I told Cora this, she said it was a good thing I’d caught her on a good day, and she’d strike another deal with me. She’d let me stay here, and allow me to remain friends with you, but in order to protect you, she had to take precautions. Of course, I didn’t realize what she meant, exactly, until the day before I brought you to the marketplace. I showed up at your door to see if you’d like to go on a horseback ride, but Cora said you’d already gone on one. She expected you back shortly, so she invited me into the library to wait for you to return. That’s when she closed the door and…”

  “Ripped your heart out,” I finished when she seemed incapable of doing so herself. Having uttered those four words out loud made it horribly, gut-wrenchingly real, and I wished I had remained silent.

  Claire nodded. After blinking several times, she forged on. “Cora is going to give my heart back. She promised.” She walked over to the windows and wedged open the square one in the center. “Then again, maybe not,” she added, paying no mind to the rain spilling in and pooling on the sill. “Maybe she will crush it, to punish me for confessing all of this to you now.”

  Claire clutched her chest and began breathing arduously. I rose on shaky legs and rushed over to her, stopping short by a couple of paces. “Claire, are you all right?” I asked.

  Claire’s life was literally in my mother’s hands. The horrific thought filled every part of my body, tensing my muscles until they ached and burned. “Is my mother crushing your heart right now?” I asked. I felt hurt, confused, and scorched by Claire’s betrayal, but I did not wish her dead. I surely didn’t want to watch her die.

  Claire dropped her hand from her chest and caught herself on the windowsill. Rainwater trickled from the flooded ledge, splatting on the stone floor and wetting her feet. “I’m all right,” she said, her tone tinged with disbelief.

  On quivering legs, I made my way over to her vanity to find her a handkerchief. When I opened the drawer, I spotted a piece of parchment, and on it was a familiar signature.

  I reached for it just as Giles entered the room. Through his round wire-rimmed glasses, he peered first at his niece, then at me, then back at her again. “Is everything all right, Claire?” he asked, his voice pitched with worry. “Please, lie down. You’re overexerting yourself. And Regina,” he said, facing me only a split second after I’d slipped the letter into my pocket, “thank you for coming by. You’re welcome to wait out the storm in the comfort of my living room. The fire is stoked and biscuits are laid out.” He nodded, polite yet stern.

  “I will see myself out, thank you,” I said as levelly as possible. Turning my back to them, I pulled on my boots and darted out of Claire’s chambers and through Giles’s enormous hall—my eyes too blurry with looming tears to distinguish any of his furniture, artwork, or servants. Everything had been reduced to a streak of muted colors, whirling around me like a windmill.

  When I ran outside and saw my beautiful steed waiting for me—so faithful and strong—I collapsed into him, shaking. The cool rain washed down my hair and back as I buried my nose in his mane. I could have stayed there forever, breathing in my favorite smell, but I needed to get away from Claire. I needed time to contemplate what she’d told me, everything from the deal she’d willingly made with my mother before I’d met her, to now, when her heart was in my mother’s hands.

  “Regina,” Claire cried from the front door. “Please, let’s talk. There’s more.”

  Turning my back to her, I fished the letter out of my pocket.

  Dear Regina,

  I’m sorry to disappoint you tonight. I never wanted to hurt you, but I cannot in good conscience allow you to believe there is something between us when my heart belongs to someone else. I am returning the perfect apple you gave me, as I am far too imperfect to have it. I hope you find your happily ever after.

  ~ Jasper B. Holding

  A mixture of rain and tears dampened the paper, smudging the ink. In no time, every last word he’d written became nothing but a black smear, and the paper began falling apart.

  “What did you do?” I asked, holding the soggy letter up in the air. “Go to the bridge, steal the letter meant for me, and toss the apple—also meant for me—into the river, hoping I’d never know the truth?”

  “I had to get rid of the apple, Regina. It was cursed. Whoever bit into it would fall into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by True Love’s Kiss. I honestly did not know until Cora told me what she’d done—”

  I didn’t care to hear the rest of her explanation. With the help of the dream I’d had the night before
my final lesson with Jasper, I realized my mother’s evil plan. She’d meant for Jasper to eat it, and when my kiss wouldn’t break the spell, I’d find out the hard way I was not his true love. His heart belonged to someone else, as he’d written in his letter. He was in love with the girl in the head bandage, nightdress, and bare feet. The one I used to call my friend.

  “I wanted to spare your feelings, Regina. I couldn’t bear for him to break your heart,” she said through the rain.

  “Don’t you realize you’ve broken it?”

  All I could think of was getting as far away from Claire Fairchild as possible. Once my tears started spilling, they blinded me. To make matters worse, the slippery rope and my shaky hands made the task of untethering Rocinante a real challenge.

  From behind Claire, I heard Giles beckoning for her to come back indoors. He had his hand on her shoulder and was guiding her back into his house.

  “Please, come wait in here, at least until the rain stops,” Claire begged.

  My throat tightened, and I wished to go back in time, to when no matter how insufferable my life had seemed to be, Claire had been there to shine hope on my path. But as Giles finally succeeded in getting his niece inside and closing the door, I knew everything had changed.

  Luckily, the knot finally came loose, and without so much as a glance back at Giles’s house, I climbed into the saddle. As Rocinante worked up to a gallop, I cursed the mud, the rain, the tree that had toppled over and blocked the road, my mother, and Claire. Most of all, I cursed myself.

  How could I have been so naive? How could I have believed Claire was truly my friend? How could I have opened my heart to her? And when everything came crashing down, how could I have allowed myself to cry in front of her?

  All my life, I’d hated feeling frightened. Now I realized I hated feeling vulnerable even more. It was as if someone were hollowing me out with the apple corer Rainy used when she baked cobbler or tarts.

  As my home came into view, I stopped crying and set my jaw, knowing what I had to do.

  After leaving Rocinante in Jesse’s hands, I slipped into the foyer past a stony, sleepy Solomon. The door to my father’s smoking room was ajar, spilling a slat of light into the hallway. I thought of when I was six, when he’d invited me to sit on his lap and told me that tale about the old man and the snake. The man had continued to feed the snake, even after it had filled him with deadly venom. Biting the man was in his nature, the snake had explained. The story made sense to me now.

  I stormed past the smoking room without glancing inside. The maid, who was in the midst of mopping the landing, jumped, obviously startled.

  “Where is my mother?” I asked.

  Her gaze dropped to the trail of muddy footprints I’d left on the tiles. “Her Highness took her morning meal in her chambers,” she said, her tone pleasant but her face flushed.

  Not bothering to remove my boots, I tromped up to my room, stomping and grinding mud into the snake woven into my rug. Next I headed to my parents’ quarters. Instead of knocking first, I swung open the double doors, finding my mother in one of the high-backed forest green and violet chairs of her reading nook.

  I expected her to say something about the unacceptability of barging in, but she simply nodded a greeting, as if she’d been expecting me. The impression of her slender body quickly disappeared from the lush cushions as she stood. “I do enjoy a good read on a rainy day,” she said, crossing the enormous room and tucking her tome under her pillow on the bed.

  April, eleven years earlier

  Lightning flashed and thunder crashed. Rain pelted and lashed my windows angrily. I covered my head with my blankets, but each time I peeked out, the shadows were still there, swarming my bedroom like soul-hungry wraiths.

  “It’s going to be fine, Isabella,” I told my favorite doll. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”

  She stared at me, her big dark eyes glinting and the hint of a smile on her rosebud lips. I could tell she didn’t believe me. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Hugging Isabella close, I scurried down the long, dimly lit hallway to my parents’ chambers and, with my shoulder, nudged open the enormous double door.

  “What is it, Regina?” My mother’s voice came over my father’s snores.

  “May we sleep with you? Just for a little while?” I asked.

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Regina. Not even that incorrigible mutt of your father’s is afraid of the thunder.” She waved her long fingernails at the hound-shaped lump at Daddy’s feet.

  “I’m not scared, but Isabella is. So, may we? Please, Mother.”

  She sighed. “Very well, but only until the storm passes.”

  I wiggled under the covers and tucked my doll next to me, making sure her tiny tiara didn’t snag the fine linens. The lightning seemed even bigger from my parents’ giant windows, but thankfully, the shadows looked nothing like wraiths, soul-hungry or otherwise.

  Maybe if I play like I’m asleep, she’ll allow me to stay here all night, I thought as I plumped my pillow. I shut my eyes tightly and breathed deeply, smelling my mother’s new lotion and Thaddeus’s doggy breath and hearing my father’s loud snores and soft wheezes.

  Several minutes later, when my mother’s snores offset my father’s, I reached out to cuddle Isabella, only to discover she was gone! I opened my eyes and bolted upright. Thank goodness, she wasn’t missing after all. She’d merely fallen to the floor. The bottom of her shiny pink gown poked out from beneath the bed. I rolled over to my belly and reached for her.

  “Regina, what are you doing?”

  “Wh-what’s going on?” my father asked, floundering to a sitting position.

  Mother said calmly, “Nothing, Henry. Go back to sleep. Regina was frightened of the storm, so I allowed her to sleep in here until it passes.”

  My father grinned sleepily, and as his head hit the pillow, he mumbled, “You’re a good mother, Cora, my darling.”

  “May we sleep with you the whole night through?” I asked my mother as I picked Isabella off the floor and tucked her in again.

  “The storm is over,” she answered, even though it was thundering and raining as much as ever. “Come now, Regina. I will walk you back to your room.”

  Before I knew it, Mother had me by my hand and I had Isabella by hers, and we were being dragged to my bedroom.

  “Good night, Regina.”

  I obediently climbed into my bed. “Good night, Mother.” I covered Isabella’s head so she wouldn’t see the wraith shadows, and I covered mine, as well, so she wouldn’t feel all alone.

  At some point that night, I heard an unusual noise, and I lowered the blanket off my face so I could take a peek. I thought it was probably a wraith that had returned for me, but it wasn’t. It was Mother, lying next to me, snoring softly.

  Tuesday, May 23

  Lightning struck, illuminating every detail of my parents’ majestic bedroom for a split second. I felt my mother’s eyes rove over me, from my wet, matted hair to my soiled clothes and, finally, my stockinged feet.

  “Regina, what in the land happened to you?” A crinkle appeared atop the bridge of her nose, making her appear more disgusted than worried. “Have you any idea how filthy you are?” She straightened the gold-and-crimson tassels on her pillow. “Where have you been?”

  I stepped closer to her, trying to ignore the buckling sensation in my knees. “You know where I’ve been, Mother.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What is your meaning, Regina? Out with it, and mind your tone. I have a busy day ahead of me.”

  Whimpering, Thaddeus leapt off the bed, landing with a thunk, and waddled as fast as he could for the door. Part of me—almost every single part of me, truth be told—wanted to follow him. However, it was as if my feet were nailed to the floor. I swallowed hard and choked out the words, “You have Claire’s heart.”

  A darkness eclipsed her eyes until they were as good as black. I braced myself for whatever spell she was going to cas
t on me, but when she lifted her hands, she merely smoothed her hair. She padded to her bureau and slid open the top middle drawer. Then she withdrew a small wooden box with pinecones carved into it and flipped up its top. “I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out,” she said. “I’d thought my daughter was smarter than that.”

  As her fingers splayed around the bright red organ, I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. It was as if the heart she held in her hand were my own. It beat slow and steady, and I was at once horrified to see it and relieved to know it was still full of life. It took me a while to look away from it, and even longer to meet her gaze.

  My mother seemed to be thoroughly scrutinizing my reaction, possibly even enjoying herself. Her head tilted and her left brow arched, and the faintest of smiles graced her lips.

  “How…how could you do that to somebody?” I asked.

  “I’m your mother.” She placed the heart in the box and put it back in its drawer, as if it were merely a necklace or a diary. “It is my job to protect you.”

  “Forgive me for not feeling grateful,” I said, blinking and glancing off to the corner of the room to keep from crying. In a single day, I felt like I’d shed more tears than I should in an entire lifetime.

  “You blamed me for your not having any companions, so I gave you one,” my mother said with a casual shrug. “It was a gift. You should be grateful.”

  “But—”

  She rolled right over my protest, her voice rising. “Magic is not something to be taken lightly, Regina. Once you crack open that door, there is no closing it.” She slammed the drawer shut, shoving the wooden box and its ghastly contents into the depths of her bureau.

  “Are you going to keep her heart in that box?” I asked.

  “What would you have me do? Crush it?” She rubbed her hands together. “No, no. Too messy. Besides, it would take a toll on your father if Giles had to mourn yet another death in his pitiful little family. Though I have to say, your friend is lucky,” she said, running her fingers along the arch of her bureau. “I don’t usually show mercy to those who don’t hold up their end of the deal.”