by L. R. Patton
Table of Contents
Title Page
The King's Pursuit (Fairendale)
Move
Wink
Hope
Proposition
Hidden
Clearing
Sleep
Practice
Shoe
Escape
Trapped
The End
The Established Order of the King's Guard | The Kingdom of Fairendale
How to Live Sustainably in Fairendale
About the Author
A Note From L.R.
Read all the books in the Fairendale series!
Book .5: The Good King’s Fall (a prequel)
Book 1: The Treacherous Secret
Book 2: The King’s Pursuit
Book 3: The Perilous Crossing
Book 4: The Dragons of Morad
Book 5: The Fiery Aftermath
Book 6: The Mysterious Separation
Collector’s Editions:
Books 1-6: The Flight of the Magical Children
To see all the books L.R. Patton has written, please click or visit the link below:
www.lrpatton.com/store
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Copyright ©2016 by L.R. Patton. All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To my children,
who have taught me what it means
to search for something important
Move
THE sun does not shine. It has simply disappeared in all the days after the children fled the village of Fairendale, some of them captured by the king of the land, some of them disappearing into the Weeping Woods that surround the kingdom, others gone missing entirely. Or perhaps the sun cannot find a reason to shine, for there is no longer laughter filling the streets of the village. There is only rain falling, pooling, washing away the red that the king’s steward could not reach. The world has turned gray and cold.
Some of the people take to their beds, sick with grief over the loss of their children after King Willis decreed that every Fairendale child would be brought to his castle so he could find the magical one who might threaten his throne. The Roundup has stolen their children and their very lives, though these remaining villagers, in truth, go on living. There is a tragic difference, dear reader, between living as if one were dead and truly living.
This time, when Death moves through the streets, he does not glide in the same manner he does when there is fever and sickness and hunger, when he can steal his victims in one fell swoop. This is Heart Sickness, and it is a hold-on sort of dying, a slow dying, another every day, and so he waits. And waits. And waits.
Death does not like waiting.
But there is one who does not take to her bed. There is one who sits alone at her table where a daughter with green eyes used to sit. There is one who gazes out the window and watches the rain and ponders.
She ponders and ponders and ponders. She makes her plans.
And then, when the sky remains unchanged and she is sure the people will go on in their slow dying way, she moves.
For she was always a woman who moved.
THE king paces on his pedestal, lumbering and slow. He is a large man, one given to sweet rolls and sitting. The court fills with men, but they do not make as much sound as one might expect from so much armor clashing against itself. King Willis watches them, impressed by the silence of their movements, mesmerized by the silver catching light, blinking at him. He would never tell them they impress him, of course, for then they would demand more provisions, and he is not a generous man, not anymore. Perhaps he was once upon a time, but a kingdom demands much of its king. A king cannot always remain generous.
King Willis watches his king’s guard, and he swells with something akin to hope. This will be a good day. He is certain of it. These men will bring him news he wants to hear. News of found children.
King Willis nods at Sir Greyson, bidding him speak.
The king’s son, Prince Virgil, stands beside him. It is time he became a king, King Willis has taken to saying of late. For when the lost children are found, when the one lost who holds danger over the throne is found, it will be Prince Virgil who will decide what must be done with him.
One might agree that our prince is too young for this sort of responsibility. And it is true that Prince Virgil does not like thinking about what might happen, about what he might have to do. So when his father’s men come filing into the throne room, it is with different hopes that he watches them. Hopes that dare to say, Keep them hidden. Keep them safe.
“They are a sight,” King Willis says. He stands beside his son now, one hand on Prince Virgil’s shoulder. Prince Virgil tries not to notice his father’s foul breath of garlic and lamb.
King Willis, in truth, places his hand on his son’s shoulder not as a fatherly gesture but because his legs are buckling at the knees. He will need to sit down soon. He is out of breath, and his feet burn in their black boots. He hopes the men are nearly finished filing in. It is the king’s custom, you see, to stand when his captain brings in the guard, but he did not know there were so many. Hundreds, but thousands? Are there thousands in this room? He cannot tell. Next time he will request a private meeting with the captain.
Prince Virgil says nothing. He merely stares, for the king’s guard is quite a sight, even to a boy of twelve. They are clad in their sturdy metal breastplates and helmets that obscure their faces so they all look the same, but for their heights and muscular builds. Their swords, strapped across their waists, bump against their hips. They are a force.
“Think of it,” King Willis says. “Just think of it.” He laughs, a silent laugh that ripples all the way across the folds of his stomach so that Prince Virgil’s attention moves to the black belt that is no longer a real belt but is only a suggestion, with new holes poked all along its front end. It will not buckle soon. His father is growing larger by the day. The crisp white shirt beneath his father’s purple robe is nearly bursting its buttons off. Prince Virgil stares at one gone missing, right in the middle, where the whitest part of his father’s belly is peering through. Prince Virgil looks away, embarrassed for his father.
“Think of it,” the king says again.
Prince Virgil does not know exactly what it is King Willis would like him to think of.
The king answers his son’s silent question. “They are all yours.”
Prince Virgil feels a jolt of something—fear? Pleasure? Thirst for this kind of power? He does not know that it is all three. That he could lead an army of men like this someday. That they would follow his every command.
That it might be stolen from him, when it is his, rightfully his.
Is it rightfully his without the gift of magic?
No.
Yes, of course it is.
The throne belongs to his family. His grandfather, the great King Sebastien, fought for it. He deserves to keep it. He will keep it.
But they are his friends. The children who live in the secret dungeon beneath the dungeon are his friends. The children who have gone missing are his friends. Surely a friendship is more valuable to our prince than a throne.
Alas, the hearts of men are not easy to understand.
The throne room grows quiet, dead still. The hall behind it ceases its shaking. The men have finally finished their entrance.
The king folds into his chair. It is the only way he can fit into it, this folding. He waits in the silence for one minute. Two. More. Prince Virgil shifts, but the soldiers remain perfectly, impressively still.
Finally, King Willis spreads his hands and says, in a booming voice that knocks against their armor: “Soldiers of the kingdom,” and the men salute, one great, thundering clap. Prince Virgil jumps. His father smiles.
“Think of it,” he says to his son. And this time Prince Virgil nods his head and smiles like his father.
“At ease,” the captain, a man named Sir Greyson, tells his men. The men fall back but stand ordered, tall, frozen.
“Soldiers of the kingdom,” King Willis says.
Only the captain moves. He removes his headpiece and bows to his king. King Willis waits until he rises again before continuing.
“For seven days you have traveled long and far and deep,” King Willis says. He does not move from his seat on the throne. In truth, our king cannot move. His feet cannot handle the weight of his body any longer. And so he sits.
One might think that a man who sits cannot command as much power as a man who stands. But one has never met King Willis. A man so large, sitting or standing, could command a world of power, if only for fear that one might be subjected to that great weight in some deathly way. For instance, one would not want to offend a king such as King Willis, for King Willis is a man known to lash out when anger climbs into his limbs. And though he is slow to strike a face or kick a thigh, it is much more likely that a man like King Willis would lose his balance and careen into a victim with a body large enough to flatten all the life from flesh.
King Willis, as of now, is sweating. But he is a man who loves his own voice, and though his feet find no relief in the sitting, though his back screams its ache, though his breath is short and hard, he will not lose any words in the speaking.
“You have been looking for thirty missing children,” he says.
Garth, the king’s page, raises a finger, clearing his throat. He is a tall boy with messy hair the color of Cook’s milk-less tea. He stands straight, rigid, so as to appear more than a boy, but one look at his face tells otherwise. Fortunately, the king has not looked at his face in all these days after, or Garth might find himself trapped in the dungeons beneath the dungeons, with all the other children, some of whom could be his brothers and sisters. They have disappeared, you see, and Garth just this morning was handed by the kingdom’s messenger another frantic letter from his mother. He has urged her to stop writing him at the castle, since he returns home every eve, but she is a mother who has lost eleven children. I am sure we could understand her grief. His mother wants to know where her children are. Garth wants to remain outside the dungeons. He does not have the gift of magic, but King Willis cares naught about gifts. He cares only for rounding up the children, all the children, for that is the only way he believes his kingdom will be safe from the one who would dare steal it.
The boy is terrified to interrupt, but he is more terrified of what might happen if the king were to miscount the missing children. The king glances at him for only a moment, hardly seeing him. Garth tries not to wither. The king has been known to run through pages like a book one might read, though he is a different kind of page. A Garth kind of page is a person employed to do whatever the king bids—run errands and open doors and help a king in and out of his golden chair, which is quite a large task. A page must also correct a king in his error, should he be brave enough. Garth, in truth, does much more than this. He also shines the king’s shoes and keeps his plate filled and helps the king dress, though the king is fast running out of clothes that fit. He fears that he will not be able to perform this task someday soon. And what will happen then? Garth needs this job at the castle, for his family is very, very poor, and they need the food his coin buys them. Filling the bellies of eight boys and four girls in one village house is more than his poor mother can do, though now his brothers and sisters have disappeared, so it has become easier, in a way, though Garth’s mother would not agree, for financial ease is never worth the life of a child. Garth does not know if his brothers and sisters sit in the dungeons or if they escaped from the king’s men. He does not know where the dungeons lie. But he will. He is already searching.
“Yes, what is it?” the king says, clearly annoyed at the interruption. He is hungry again, and ready for this meeting to reach its end. His feet, though he is no longer standing on them, ache in a great pulsing clench. He will have to request a more comfortable pair of shoes. His are too unbearable, pinching at the toes and cutting into his heels.
“Thirty-one children, sire,” Garth says. He does not stutter as he does on occasion, when fear grabs the words and keeps them lodged in his throat. He is surprised at his clarity. His eyebrows raise of their own accord.
The king waves his hand, as if dismissing his page. “Yes, very well,” the king says. He takes a deep breath. Now he must begin again, for this is what a king such as ours does when his eminent speech has met interruption. “Soldiers of the kingdom,” he says. The commander bows and rises again. “For seven days you have traveled long and far and deep.”
The men remain perfectly still. It is impressive to see, reader. Can you imagine it? Thousands of steel-clad men, with no eyes to see, for their headpieces obscure much of their vision (one might ask why soldiers would wear a headpiece like this one. Well, would you want your head exposed in battle?), all standing perfectly still. The sun reaches through one of the windows and catches the breast plate of one of the men. It locks eyes with Prince Virgil. He squints. Garth stares at the ray that appears to hold all the shapes in the world.
“You have been looking for...” A pause, a sideways look at Garth, who straightens and colors. “Thirty-one children. Tell me, what news do you bring us?”
If we were to turn our attention to the commander of the king’s guard, we would know nothing of what he thinks or feels or what news he brings by studying his face. Sir Greyson has not flinched. He has not buckled. He has not moved at all. It would be difficult work to read the news that our good Captain Greyson brings his king. This is, of course, the very question Sir Greyson has dreaded the entire ride in this morning. He risks his life in his answer, as we shall soon see.
Sir Greyson clears his throat. “With respect, Your Highness,” he says. He bows again. The king, however, is impatient.
“Yes, yes,” King Willis says. His eyes gleam, as if waiting for good news, although a smarter man might deduce that no children brought in with the entire king’s army means that no children have, in fact, been found. But King Willis is not a man for much thinking.
Prince Virgil has noticed. Even now, he looks from his father to the captain. Even now he wonders what might happen to this good man he has known all his life.
“We have been as far as the lands of Guardia in the north and to the very banks of the Violet Sea in the south. We have walked as close to the lands of Morad as we dared, and we have searched the wastelands of Ashvale in the west.” He clears his throat again. “We have found nothing.”
“You have found nothing?” the king bellows. “The children have all disappeared? Impossible!” The king struggles from his throne. Prince Virgil stares straight ahead, trying to ignore the page who rushes to his father’s side, struggling, too, to pull the king from his chair.
No one else breathes. No one else moves. It is anyone’s guess what will happen next. Pr
ince Virgil hopes Sir Greyson will not suffer. His father could deem him incompetent. He could send him to the dungeons, or the dungeons beneath the dungeons. He could sentence him to death.
The same fears swirl and falter in Sir Greyson’s mind, too. He has done what he could, but would the king believe it was enough? Would he throw something? Would he demand heads? Would he dismiss, or reassign, or toss them all, every last one of them, into the dungeons? Surely not. Surely he understands what this search has cost Sir Greyson’s men, seven days and seven nights without rest and proper food and the presence of their families. Surely he will let them return home, at least for a time.
“They are hiding,” King Willis says. When Garth finally pulls him from his chair, the king paces the stage before his guard. His steps thunder, shaking the pedestal that was built for him years ago. It trembles against the marble floor. King Willis is a man who prefers looking down on his people. Arthur, the village’s most skilled furniture maker, was the man who crafted the pedestal. It is ornate, as is everything that Arthur has made, with swirls and flourishes and the kingdom crest, the head of a ferocious looking bear. Prince Virgil thought it magnificent and had told Arthur so on one visit to the village. King Willis hardly noticed it.
Sir Greyson’s head hangs low now. “We have searched everywhere,” he says.
“And you have questioned all the other kingdom people?” King Willis says.
“Yes, sire,” Sir Greyson says. Even his voice is weary. His face has lines it never wore before this seven-day journey began.
“How is it you have come home so quickly?” King Willis says, as if he has only just now noticed that seven days was not nearly enough to travel the realm of seven kingdoms.
Sir Greyson gestures to the men behind him. “I sent out parties,” he says. “The searching was urgent. We wished to find them before they reached the Violet Sea.”
“As if children would travel the Violet Sea,” King Willis says.
“We thought it worth pursuing,” Sir Greyson says.
“And these men,” King Willis says, as if “these men” are not in the very room where all gather. “They are trustworthy?”