by Bo Burnette
“What choice did I have? To be a slave to Kenton or a slave to myself?”
“There are other choices a man can make. Submission is not always bondage. You could have been a noble citizen of this realm.”
“I had no other choice. Now you—you have a choice to make.” He pressed his sword, and thus Philip’s own sword, against Philip’s neck. “Will you have my life, or his?”
Her heart pounded, her chest heaving with tension. Philip caught her eye for a moment, a determined glint still sparkling in his eyes’ many colors. With a glance, he signaled below them, down to the river, and Arliss understood his thoughts.
“I would choose both your lives, if only because I do not desire the blood of my own kin to be on my hands. But I cannot allow this evil to keep eating away at the heart of my land. Thus, I do not ask forgiveness for what I must do, nor do I pity the rage it will cause you. But I do pity you, Thane.”
“Spare me that, Arliss,” he hissed. “I don’t need your pity. You will die once I’m done with the son of Carraig.”
She raised her bow and found a good aim, near the center of the front wall, where an immense pile of white flowers clustered even higher than the rest of the piles which spread the length of the fortified dam. “All men die. But we shall not die this day.”
Her fingers relaxed, and she released the second fiery arrow of that long day. Philip slipped down out of Thane’s grasp. Thane’s sword sliced back on thin air where Philip’s neck had been.
A sound like a thousand crackling fires erupted behind them, and Thane turned to look just as the wall exploded. The flame from the arrow trailed through the flowers, creating dozens of brilliant white flares. Countless stones collapsed to the ground in a heap of flaming rubble. Then, rushing slowly at first as if it had to regain its strength after so long an imprisonment, the river came running and leaping over the wall’s destruction. Water drenched the warriors in the bailey as they pursued the Reinholdian forces.
Thane’s head snapped back towards Arliss and Philip, his eyes livid with rage. They gave him no more chance to soliloquize or to attack them. They joined together and thrust him from the top of the dais.
With a great splash, Thane landed in the middle of the overflowing river which cut through the base of the mound. He stabbed his sword into the riverbed to slow the flow of water which carried him on towards the dark opening. The water was too strong for him to hold on.
“You have destroyed my fortress,” he shouted, “but you have not destroyed me! Know that I will have revenge upon the land of Reinhold! I shall fulfill my oath, and I shall break your line!”
And he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Some stories end rather suddenly, leaving hardly a trace of having ever happened at all. Others lumber on, casting loose threads and unanswered questions even as they resolve others. Arliss soon saw that her story fell into the second group: her tale still had many threads to tie up and many questions to be answered.
Thane had fled. Where, no one knew. The important thing was that he had been purged from the realm. Arliss and Philip entered the hole Thane had disappeared through, but they found no sign of him. Instead, they found something remarkably different from what they expected: a lush oasis, nestled within the corners of four mountains. The river which ran beneath the stone mound exited the other side as a majestic waterfall which tumbled down into a vast pool surrounded with greenery. And thus Arliss discovered the true heart of the land of Reinhold.
A few stragglers from Thane's army had escaped the destruction of the fortress and still roamed abroad in the darker parts of the forest. Arliss knew she and her company could do cleanup later.
First they had to deal with their own problems, their own sorrows. Nathanael was borne back to the city with a great procession of mourning. Seeing the bier, Elowyn cast herself down beside her fallen brother and wept until the deep wells of her eyes had dried up. Yet afterwards many said she became even more kind and wise than before.
Arliss kept her promise and saw to it that Philip and Erik obtained official knighthood. Brallaghan, too, was knighted, though not before Philip—much to the chagrin of Lord Brédan. But he had little reason for shame, because Arliss insisted that the new Sir Brallaghan be made head of the city guard in Nathanael’s stead.
As for Ilayda, she managed to escape the battle with little more than the usual crick in her neck. And, no matter what happened, she continued to insist on calling Arliss “silly princess!”
Just three days after Thane’s defeat, Arliss sat in an immense chair in the castle library, loose ends and questions filling her mind.
Chief in her mind stood the mysterious visitor in the burgundy cloak, who had vanished without even a hint of his paths or intentions. From where had he come? He had disappeared in the direction of the sea. Did he dwell on the isle? And what connection did he have with Thane?
Her father’s thick Bible lay wide open on the arm of her chair. On her lap, the ancient leatherbound book, which seemed to hold so many secrets, lay open across her legs. She had reread the entire volume from the beginning, and now had only one page left. She was about to turn the final page of the book when the door opened and the sound of heavy boots clamped into the library.
She looked up at her father, a true smile spreading across her face—feeling truer than it had felt in a long time.
Kenton picked up his Bible, gently closing it as he stroked the creased spine. “It seems I was wrong.”
“About what?” Arliss ventured.
“About stories. You know, I told you stories couldn’t save a man’s life. Well, you and your fiery arrow leapt from the pages of legend and saved our city.” He gazed at the faded volume of Scriptures. “And I realize that this book—this life-saving book—is one great story, the story of blindness becoming sight and death becoming life. What makes it so great is that, beyond any other story, it is true.”
“It is truth.” Arliss stood. “Father, I—I am sorry. I ought not have run away. I ought not have defied your orders.”
Kenton reached for her face, stroking her golden hair behind her ear. “I ought not have pushed you away. I was too blind to see that, despite your rashness, you were in the right. Peasant and princess are not so different at heart.”
At his words, her heart quavered with a hopeful thrill. “You mean…”
“Philip is a fine fellow. Or Sir Philip, as I suppose I ought to say.”
She laughed. “I think he’d rather leave the title off. But you are right: we are not so very different, after all.”
Nodding, Kenton took her hand and led her to the window of the library. She set the old book on the reading stand beside the window and looked out. The last page of the book slid and turned itself.
Far below, in the queen’s garden, a colorful mix of people and plants streamed throughout the lush grove. Her mother sat upon a bench not far from where Nathanael had been buried. Philip sidestepped a sprawling burst of newly-planted Lasairbláth, his cousins Erik and Keelin following behind him.
Whether Philip saw her out of the corner of his eye, or whether some impulse in his heart urged him to look up, she did not know, but he gazed up at the high library window at that moment. Even up on the second story, she could see his eyes, still as curiously filled with colors as the first day she had seen him. A smile spread across his lips as he looked up at her, and she allowed the smile on her face to spread into a laugh.
Despite the last words of the book beside her, which proclaimed “The End” to all its readers, she knew it was not the end.
It was only the end of the beginning.
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Acknowledgements
But for those specific people, the really legendary ones…
My mom and dad—biggest cheerleaders and supporters. Thanks for pestering me to write even when I sometimes didn’t feel like it. And thanks for putting up with me when I wrote even when I had other things to do.
My older sisters, Kendall and Courtney—for criticizing me when I needed it, and for understanding me when no one else did.
My youngest sister, Susanna—for waiting patiently. This story is for people like you.
And my other sister, Kelley—you read this book before anyone else. You understand it better than anyone. Even eating cheese.
Abigail—you know who you are.
Connor—the very first person I bounced these ideas off of. They’ve come a long way, but I owe the foundations to you.
Linda Yezak, my incomparable editor—you’re a gem. I couldn’t have asked for someone more honest or hilarious to make this story worth reading.
Chrissy and all the folks at Damonza—for the splendid cover.
Kelsey—creator of the stunning map of Reinhold. You’re more talented than you know. And thank you to Dylan, who knows why.
And finally my Creator, my Savior, who inspires me to create tales that remind us that life itself is a legend.
Bo Burnette is the author of Denver and the Doolittle Raid, The Lighthouse Thief, and The Reinhold Chronicles trilogy, as well as the short story “Finding Viola.”
Bo makes his home in Georgia, is a hopeless coffee addict, and desires to glorify God in all his writings.
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