"Ozemis, my lady." He bowed his head. "Be wary of you speak to about this."
I nodded. When I walked out into the trees I was enveloped by darkness. The stars twinkled in the heavens above and the light of the moon was just bright enough to allow me to find my way back to Zepher, who was thankfully still waiting for me.
She nuzzled her head against my neck as I embraced her. "I'm alright my love."
I quickly mounted her and we raced through the woods. As we navigated the rough terrain my mind wandered back to that little cottage.
The man's words lingered in my mind and my instincts, which I had found to be infallible, told me he spoke the truth. Was I really to be felled by this strange woman?
I felt the wind whipping at my face as we drew nearer to castle Drasal. I also felt the tears stinging my cheeks.
The castle came into view and I was relieved to be home. I wanted to find Sharian and tell him what had happened. I headed toward the stable and found that I would not have to go looking for him. He was waiting for me.
"Erelia where have you been?" he said. His brow was furrowed and he rested his hand on his forehead in exasperation.
"Excuse me?" I asked him.
"I'm sorry your Highness." he said. "I don’t mean to question you but, I…I was worried."
"I know it's late. I am sorry if I worried you." I didn’t want him to worry about me. I also didn’t need him making a fuss over nothing.
I lead Zepher into her stall and placed a large bucket of carrots and oats down for her. I kissed her gently on the nose. I turned my attention to Sharian. He looked defeated. He looked as if he would fall over from exhaustion.
"Are you alright?" I asked him.
"I'm alright now. You're safe. That's all that matters." he said.
Sharian was tall and he had a rugged look about him when he allowed his beard to grow out a bit. His hazel eyes were captivating and they danced in the flickering of the torchlight.
"You worry too much." I told him. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Oh yes, there's no doubt about that." he said. "I was actually quite worried about the poor fool who might approach you. You might slay him for simply asking directions."
"Actually, that's why I was gone so long. I need to talk to you but you must swear that what is said will stay between you and me."
"Of course." he answered. Next to my father, Sharian was the only other man I trusted.
We walked from the stable to the front entryway of Drasal castle. The huge stone archway soared overhead and the iron gates were retracted. We went underneath and emerged in the courtyard where a fountain, adorned with a larger than life statue of the Goddess Freya, stood.
My father commissioned the statue. The Goddess represented love, wealth, war, and divination. He respected the Gods but he seemed to hold the Goddess in his heart. She bore a remarkable resemblance to my mother, which I am certain was no coincidence.
Sharian followed me past the statue and into castle Drasal's magnificent entryway. Stained glass windows lined the walls from top to bottom. Tapestries hung from the wooden crossbeams, and the Starsinger family crest was displayed on a bright purple cloth.
I ducked off down a long dimly lit hallway and into my favorite room in the entire castle. The library. Shelves crafted of the finest oak, inlaid with intricate carvings, stood around the perimeter of the room. The shelves nearly reached the ceiling and the grand fireplace was burning brightly, casting shadows all about. I closed the heavy wooden doors and turned to Sharian.
"I have to tell you what happened to me." I said.
"I'm listening." he said, his arms crossed against his chest.
"When I went for my ride in the woods there was a man. He was lost and I helped him get back to his cottage but…" I hesitated. I knew how Sharian would react if I told him I had ventured into Marauder's Grove.
"What? What happened?" Sharian was concerned.
"I went inside and he told me that, well, that I was going to be killed."
Sharian stepped forward and grabbed me by the shoulders. "He threatened you?" He was shaking and I could see the look of panic in his face.
"No. He didn’t threaten me. He was a sorcerer of some kind. He saw a vision in his seer's stone."
I watched as the look of concern faded from Sharian's face. His shoulders slumped down and he rolled his eyes.
"You scared me!" he said, clearly annoyed. "I thought you had something serious to tell me."
"This is serious!" I shouted.
"Shhh!" he hissed. "Calm down."
"Don’t tell me to be calm Sharian. You may not believe in sorcery but I do and I believed him."
"You're right. I do not believe in such things. Do you know why? Because soothsayers, magicians, whatever they want to call themselves, are only liars and cheats looking to take advantage of gullible people."
"I didn’t pay the man to read my fortune. He sought me out." I snapped. "And you should know better than anyone that I am no fool."
Sharian looked at me with pity and disappointment in his eyes. "What did he say?"
"He said he saw me riding into battle. He said he saw me felled by the sword of a strange woman, a sorceress. He knew about my scar."
Sharian appeared to be studying me very closely. He knew that I made a great effort to keep my scar hidden. I rarely wore anything that showed the full length of my arm and the only reason Sharian knew about it was because he was there the day it happened.
Sharian bowed his head, he approached me slowly and pressed his forehead against mine. "I would never let anything happen to you."
I closed my eyes. Ozemis' words echoed in my head. I believed him. "You won't be there every second, of every day, forever."
"I could be if you would let me." he said.
"You love me?" I asked him. I already knew the answer.
"You know that I do." he said softly.
"Then why do you insist on trying to cage me when you know I wish to be free?" I hadn’t anticipated that our conversation would veer off in that direction.
"Marriage is not a cage Erelia."
"No, it is not. It is your idea of marriage that is the cage." I said. Sharian looked away. "Why can you not be free with me? Stop trying to turn me into something I am not. Accept me for who I am."
"I do!" he said. He seemed frustrated. "But do you know what your father's advisors say? The men of the court, do you know what they say? They say you are too wild. That it isn't proper for a princess to wield a sword."
"I don’t care what they say! They are not the ones who are tasked with overseeing this kingdom when my father dies! If I were a man they would laugh at me for not knowing how to use a sword but because I am a woman, it isn’t proper? I've never heard such hypocrisy in all my life!" I felt my heart racing as I tried to quell the anger bubbling inside of me.
"Please Erelia, I never said I agreed with them. I just--"
"Just what?" I interceded. "You're so afraid of what others think that you would conform to something you don’t even believe in to appease them?"
"No!" he shouted.
"Then what? What is it?" I shouted back.
"I love you! I love you more than anything in this world and I would see you protected from them! Your fathers advisors would see you married to someone else, and I simply cannot bear the thought of it!"
I reached out and pulled Sharian close to me. He took my face in his hands and kissed me. He wound his arms around me and I felt his heart beating wildly in his chest and his fingers trembled as he ran his hand along my cheek. He had never kissed me before. Not in all our years together had he been so bold.
He pulled away from me and looked at me as if he were waiting for me to scold him. I said nothing.
"I'm sorry." he said. "Please forgive me your Highness."
"There is nothing to forgive." I said. "My heart has always belonged to you." He stared at me, into me, and he did not waver. "Surely you know this."
"I hoped, I wished, but I did not know for sure." he said.
"Sharian listen to me." I started. "All my life I have wondered if I was good enough, proper enough. When I told my father how I felt he told me something I will never forget. He told me that in his eyes, not only was I good enough, I was more than enough. He told me that I did not have to compromise. I did not have to conform because who and what I am is more than he could have ever hoped for. I didn’t believe him at first, but I do now.
"I have learned to make myself hard. To fight like a man. To argue like one. But I fear that in that process I have closed myself off to things I should not have. It was not my father's intention to have me hide from my feelings for you behind my fight to remain independent."
"I love you still." Sharian said.
"And I you."
Sharian held me and I tried very hard to keep myself from trembling.
"We will face whatever is to come together." he murmured. "I will stand with you, always."
I had always known that Sharian was my ally, my friend, but in that moment felt as if we could be more.
CHAPTER 3
Kiss of the Sorceress
My father's time was growing short. He no longer spoke to me when I sat with him and preparations were being made for his funeral.
I refused to speak about it. I knew I would have to face the inevitability of what was happening, but I could not bear the thought of it while he still lingered in this world.
"You will not speak of these matters in his presence, is that in any way unclear?" I said to Scias as we sat in my father's chambers.
Scias Trevils was one of my father's most trusted advisors. He was brilliant strategist, but he had a habit of inserting himself into things that had nothing to do with him. I loathed him completely and made no attempt to hide it.
"You Majesty must understand that the funeral will be an opportunity for the entire Kingdom of Drasal to grieve the loss of the King. We must discuss it." Scias turned his nose up as he spoke. I resisted the urge to reach out and wrap my hands around his thick little neck.
I stood up from my chair and stood over the stalky little man. I could smell the copious amounts of lemon grass oil he used to cover his putrid body odor. "You would do well to remember who you are speaking to."
"Of course your Majesty, it's just that you may be too close to the situation to think clearly right now." he said.
I was indeed holding back the urge to cry, to scream, to storm out. But I did not allow my feelings to show at that moment. This imbecile was one of the men Sharian warned me about, one of those who would see me married off to some barbarian whom he could manipulate.
"Do not patronize me Sir Trevils." I warned. "I am not to be trifled with in my hour of grief, lest I make the hasty decision to banish you from court. Forever."
"Of course your Majesty." he answered, glaring at me with his beady black eyes.
I looked at my father. His chest rose and fell but his skin was ashen, his lips a muted purple. I wanted to run to him and lay on his chest as I did when I was a girl. I wanted him to take me in his arms and tell me everything would better in the morning. But he could not. I felt broken inside.
I left Scias and my father's attendants and walked to the great hall. The large stone room housed two tables almost as long as the room itself. My father's throne sat on a raised platform at the far end of the room. Banners of red and gold were slung between the large windows and flags representing each of Drasal's many territories hung from the rafters.
I walked to my father's throne and stood before it. My tears fell freely and I did not wipe them away. My life was changing and I was powerless to stop it. Sharian seemed to be my only ally and after Ozemis' warning, I did not know who to trust. Certainly, Scias was planning something. I would see to it that he was banished as soon as I had the power to do so.
Just then, a noise caught my ear. A low, resonant hum seemed to fill the air and a shiver ran up my spine. I turned to see someone standing at the entrance of the great hall. It was a tall figure, clothed in a dark green cloak. A shock of long red hair spilled out of the hood but the person's face remained in shadow.
"I pity you Princess." A woman's voice echoed across the hall.
"Excuse me, do I know you?" I called back.
The woman turned and disappeared without saying a word.
How strange. I thought.
I began to walk towards the entryway when something stopped me dead in my tracks. A fear unlike anything I had ever felt before gripped me and I felt my heart gallop into an uneven rhythm.
"Father." I said aloud.
I raced from the great hall and down the winding hallway. I tripped on the hem of my gown, spilling headlong onto the stone floor.
"Erelia, are you alright." Sharian was there, helping me to my feet.
"Sharian! My father!" I couldn’t move fast enough. I couldn’t put my word together. A shrill, ear piercing noise cut through the air. A scream.
I pushed passed Sharian and ran down the hall. Sharian was on my heel, and we rounded the corner, approaching my father's chamber, together.
His attendant was standing at the door screaming, a look of absolute terror plastered across her face. I pushed her out of the way and entered my father's darkened room.
A woman in a green cloak sat, hunched over my father. A hazy light was emanating from my father's gaping mouth as the woman held her face so near to his that at first, I thought she may have been kissing him. I stepped forward to see that her mouth hung open, and the light spouting from my father was going into her.
"What in the name of God…" Sharian began to whisper, but stopped.
The woman stood up slowly and as she did she kept her face close to my father. His head and torso rose up off the mound of pillows as the woman stood. My father remained suspended in the air for brief second. The light coming from him dimmed and then sputtered out. His body fell lifelessly onto the bed as the woman rose to her full height and she tilted her head back, eyes closed, and laughed a low, haunting laugh.
I rushed to my father's side. He lay cold and grey and still in a heap on the bed. I pulled him to me and screamed as Sharian rushed towards the woman in the green cloak.
As he fell on her with his sword drawn, she picked up her hand and flicked her wrist. Sharian seemed to lift up off of the floor and fly into the wall with a sickening thud. The woman swept passed his crumpled body and as she reached the doorway she turned to look at me.
"Poor, poor Princess. What will you do? No mother, no father? What a terrible shame." she said. Hatred colored every syllable. And then she was gone.
Sharian moaned from the corner and I cradled my father's lifeless body and wept until everyone in the castle seemed to have descended on the room.
"Go after her!" I screamed.
"Who your majesty?" asked one of the guards.
"That woman with the red hair and the green cloak!" I stammered. "She killed him! Go after her!"
"I will go after her." Sharian said.
"Go with him!" I ordered. The guards rushed out after Sharian.
I held my father until his attendants pulled me away. I sat in my chamber at the east end of the castle and cried until there were no more tears left to shed. Grief overtook me and I felt ill from it. My body heaved and I felt as if I might be sick. I looked at myself in the polished glass that hung on my wall.
How much like my mother I appeared. Her dark hair and brown eyes were reflected in me but inside, I was my father's daughter. I was all that was left of him.
CHAPTER 4
Taken
Sharian returned the following morning with the news that he and the guards had searched everywhere including all of the castle grounds and the neighboring villages and had turned up nothing.
"You mean to tell me she has disappeared?" I asked indignantly.
"People don’t just disappear. She must be somewhere." Sharian replied. "We will find her."
"I will look f
or her myself." I said.
"Don’t be foolish. Clearly she is dangerous." said Sharian. The guards stood looking to me for their next set of instructions.
"Please give us a moment." I said to them. They left Sharian and I alone.
Sharian put his arms around me and I fell into the warmth of his chest. I was becoming more and more comfortable allowing him to comfort me when I needed it. He gently kissed my closed eyelids and brushed my hair away from my face.
"Erelia, this woman is gone. We will go after her I swear it but I'm not sure we should."
"Why not? We must." I insisted.
"You saw what she did. I've never seen anything like that." he said.
I remembered the way my skin had pricked up when she stood in the doorway of the grand hall. My body had known that something dark was in my presence even if my mind had not registered it.
"I don't know what to think." I pulled away from Sharian and paced the floor in front of him. "It was some kind of sorcery, something evil."
"Erelia, please. Be rational."
"How can you say this to me? You saw it with your own two eyes! What else could it have been?"
"I don’t know, but there has to be a rational explanation." I looked into Sharian's eyes and I saw doubt.
"I want to return to Marauder's Grove. I want to speak with Ozemis." I said.
"Erelia, please, can't it wait? We have to see to your father's funeral."
The low ebb of grief seemed to release me only for a moment as it gave way to seething hatred.
"I must find this woman. She will pay for what she has done." I said. I would not be moved. Sharian knew this, and he bowed his head.
"I will accompany you." Sharian said.
I nodded.
I went to the stables and led Zepher from her pen. I stroked her flowing mane and rested my head on her neck.
"Father is gone." I said to her, tears spilling down my cheeks. Zepher pulled her head back and stared at me. She lowered her head and bumped me under the chin. She understood and she mourned.
I kissed her on her nose and then swung myself up and onto her back. I touched the hilt of my sword and it comforted me.
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