by C. R. Jane
"How did you know this would happen?" I ask, feeling betrayed that he would force me to go through that without warning.
"It was the drink I had Gwenny give you. It's kind of a mind refresh concoction. We use it to help those of our people who suffer from memory loss. When you can live forever, maladies creep up quite often."
I'm still shaking, going through everything I saw in my dreams.
"I can't believe that was my life," I say softly, a tear falling down my face.
Aiden sits on the bed next to me and captures the tear before it falls off my face. It feels like a very intimate thing to do.
"I can only imagine the horrors you have been through. I would have given anything to shelter you from them."
"Who took me?" I ask.
Aiden looks angry at my question. He stands up and walks over to my window, his fists clenched at his side.
"I don't know," he says, "but whoever it was will pay."
I feel a chill at his pronouncement but can't think further on it. I have a million more questions, but my brain is aching, and terrible images keep floating through it.
"Do you have anything that will actually help me to sleep? Everything keeps running through my mind. Please make it stop," I sob, a plea sounding in my voice.
I shouldn't trust any other potion he gives me after what he just put me through, but I'm desperate to escape from what I just saw. Maybe I really am suffering a mental breakdown and imagining this world if that is what my life was like.
Aiden pulls a tiny vial out of his pocket that contains a clear liquid. He hands it to me, giving my hand a sympathetic squeeze as he does so.
"This will help you to have a dreamless sleep," he tells me. I give him a dubious look.
"Please forgive me for tricking you earlier, but I didn't think you would drink it voluntarily."
"Why was it so important to you that I remember all of that?" I ask, a little hurt leaking out of my voice.
His gaze locks on mine. His eyes hold a steely strength that is both inspiring, and intimidating, at the same time.
"You can't become the Queen I know you are capable of being without first confronting your past," he tells me steadfastly. "If it is as awful as I imagine it was, then you must be able to use it to become stronger."
I'm impressed by how much he seems to believe in me, but an errant thought distracts me from the message he is trying to get across.
"Everything that I remembered seems to have happened recently. Yet, you said that I've been missing for close to forever. Why can't I remember all of that?"
There's a flash of what looks like panic in his eyes for a moment that I must imagine because it's gone in a second.
"I've never known the potion not to work," he answers, not actually sounding that perplexed by my question considering the fact that he's telling me that my continued memory loss is a novelty.
"You might have had some kind of mental block put on you at some point. Maybe you did it yourself to protect yourself from the horrors that you've been through," he guesses. "I'll tell the court historians to be looking for answers first thing in the morning."
I nod wearily. I feel more tired than ever and unscrew the vial to take the sleeping aid he gave me. He takes it from me quickly after I fill the syringe.
"No, my darling," he says in a cautioning voice. "It only takes one or two drops. Any more than that and you could be sleeping for days."
Nodding my understanding, I drop two drips on my tongue, erring on the heavier dose to make sure that my memories don't come tearing through my dreams anymore tonight. I settle back in bed and immediately start to fall asleep. I feel Aiden's presence hovering over me and a light brush of his lips against mine before I drift into a blissfully, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 5
I can tell that I've slept quite late when I finally wake up the following day. I stretch out my stiff arms and look around. There's a platter of various baked goods sitting on the dining table in my room, and I'm grateful that Gwenny allowed me to sleep in after my trying night.
I put on a robe that's been laid out on the trunk at the foot of my bed, and grab a few pastries from off the table before walking out to the balcony to survey the village waiting just beyond the castle walls. Just like the day before, it's a perfectly sunny day with not a cloud visible in the sky. The sky here is a strange lavender color and I see the white outline of two moons in the distance.
As I look at the picturesque village laid out beneath me, it's easy to forget about the horrors of the night and imagine that I really am in some sort of fairytale kingdom where fairies and magic are real. I can see that the streets in the village are made of cobblestones, and that the buildings are all painted different bright colors. One thing that strikes me though is that there is no one wandering the streets. As far as I can see, the village looks abandoned. How odd. A knock on my door distracts me from my musings. I walk back into my room from the balcony, pulling my robe tight around me.
"Who's there?" I call.
Aiden comes walking in without answering, stopping abruptly when he sees that I'm still in my robe.
"I apologize darling, I've just been eager to start the day," he tells me, looking me up and down with heat in his eyes.
"I'll be right out," I tell him shyly, keeping my gaze averted from his hungry stare.
"I'll just wait outside," he says, his voice even deeper than usual.
I hurry to look for the closet that I know must be waiting for me behind one of the various doors in my room, and gasp in awe when I finally find it behind the second door I try. It's enormous, and filled to the brim with so many clothes, it's impossible to know where to start to pick out an outfit for the day.
Upon closer examination I'm bemused to find that all of the clothes seem to be dresses, although luckily none have the petticoats and corsets I was worried about the day before. I pull upon a drawer looking for underthings and blush when the first one is filled with various sets of lingerie. Two more drawers are filled with the same thing. Wishful thinking on Aiden's part it appears.
I finally find underwear that doesn't scream "do me", not that Aiden would know the difference, and walk out to the hallway where he is waiting.
"What do you have planned for today?" I ask him, bemused by how excited he seems to be.
"I'm going to take you through the village, allow the people to see you so that news of the Queen's return can spread to the land. After that we will begin to remind you exactly who you are."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I'm going to begin to teach you magic."
"Pretty sure I don't have a magical bone in my body," I tell him, half lying. There's definitely something different about me, I'm quite confident about that. I'm nervous to find out exactly what that is however.
"It will all come to you," he replies confidently. "You are from the most magical lineage that the world has ever seen. We just have to coax it out of you."
"Did I have magic before?" I ask. His eyes darken, and there's a flash of anger that passes over his face that he pushes away quickly. I immediately feel bad. It's obviously very painful for him to talk about my past. I wish there was some kind of book I could read that could catch me up instead of having to get everything from him.
"You were more powerful than anyone realized," he finally tells me, although the way he says it seems like he is almost resentful about that fact. I decide to drop the topic and we have our first tense, awkward silence as he leads me out the castle gates, nodding at the soldiers posted there. Once we get there I notice that the village seems to be bustling. It's strange that it looked so empty when I was gazing at it from my balcony. It's now teeming with life.
The villagers remind me of a scene that you would see in Belle's French village in The Beauty and the Beast. They are all wearing old fashioned clothing, the women in dresses
and the men in simple pants and loose blouse looking tops. They all look happy and well-fed, perfect really. They nod respectfully as we pass, but Aiden's presence must be a commonplace thing as few of them stop to look at us. I do notice that the ones who do turn our way keep their eyes carefully averted from me. There's a group of children playing with a ball in one of the charming courtyards we pass by. I move to walk over to them, but Aiden gently grasps my arm.
"Not now darling. It would only frighten them to have the Queen impede on their play."
I nod disappointingly, and we continue on. He points out various things of interest but never actually interacts with the villagers. Aren't these supposedly our people? Shouldn't we be talking to them? I resolve to talk to Aiden about this once I get my feet under me. I'm still not completely sold on the concept that I'm a queen, but now that I know about the life I was living before Aiden saved me, I'm willing to embrace this life wholeheartedly.
There's so many shops and bakeries that I would like to try out, but Aiden walks me past them all. I decide that I'm going to come back to the village without him so I can actually experience it.
My tour of the village is decidedly brief and before I know it he is leading me out of the village and back onto the castle grounds. My annoyance with him over the disappointing "tour" disappears from my mind when I actually pay attention to the view I have of the castle as we walk towards it rather than away from it. I gape at its enormity. Looking at it, I can't help but feel the same sense of foreboding that I do walking down its hallways. It's dark, just like it's master. My forefathers must have been a depressing sort because I can't see myself ever having felt at home within its walls. It fits Aiden far better. The same black stone as was on the inside covers the outside. There's turrets and towers everywhere. I can imagine that one or two ghost stories have originated from this castle. Maybe this castle fits who I am now, after a life of scars and abuse. I can't imagine though that it would have fit the old Eva if she and Aiden were so happy together.
My thoughts are interrupted when Aiden leads me to a courtyard that has strange cauldrons boiling here and there. I laugh to myself thinking that the cauldrons are the perfect touch to the creepiness of the castle. Aiden looks at me inquiringly and I stifle my grin, not wanting to offend him about my disdain for his…I mean our…home. There are interesting smells emanating from the cauldrons, creating a heady mix that makes my head spin a little. Aiden stops at each one and stirs them, closing his eyes in concentration as he brings spoonfuls of the steaming elixirs up to his nose. A few times he must have smelt something wrong because he grabs what looks like herbs that are sitting in dishes on a table set up on one side of the courtyard, and throws them in the pot, muttering a few words as he does so. I jump when one of the liquids changes from a putrid brown color to a lime green one from just one handful of what looked like blades of grass. He laughs at me and straightens up from where he had been bent over adding things to the mix.
"I thought you said that we were Fairies?" I ask him. "This looks more like witchcraft than anything else," I tell him, motioning to the bubbling pots.
"We do have magic, but I've always found myself attracted to the inherent beauty of a potion. There's something intoxicating and seductive about the slow tendrils of smoke of a well-made potion. It's a power that requires work while magic usually doesn't. You either have magic or you don't. Potions require devotion…and your whole heart."
Aiden stops speaking and there's again something in his eyes that is hard to read as if there's a camera reel playing images, or memories, in front of him that I can't see.
"But we'll get to all of that on another day," he says, breaking away from the trance his impassioned speech had put him in. "For now, we will start back with the basics. Surely there's some sort of muscle memory for magic and it will all come back to you the more we practice," he tells me confidently, leading me down another path, the smell of the cauldrons along with the sound of their bubbling contents soon disappearing around the bend as we walk for what seems like a mile.
"It seems to me that you are implying my magic is going to take work," I tell him wryly, finally commenting on his impassioned speech about the so-called ease of magic use.
He rolls his eyes in response but says nothing.
The path finally leads us to an open glen surrounded by thick trees. There is a giant ring of what looks like mushrooms forming a circle just within the trees. I give a small gasp as Aiden leads me inside the circle. I can feel a slight humming coming from the earth, almost like the ground is vibrating with energy. My hair begins to slightly stand on end from whatever power is within the circle. Aiden turns to look at me.
"Do you feel it?" he whispers, his eyes wild with excitement, and what looks confusingly in this situation, like hunger.
I nod slowly, my eyes wide with shock and awe from what I'm experiencing. The mushrooms around us are beginning to glow. The light seems to be emanating from within them, like the power is seeping up from the ground.
"What is this?" I ask breathlessly.
"A fairy ring," he answers in an almost reverent tone. "One that hasn't worked since its Queen left the realm," he says, turning to stare at me intensely.
I can't deny that I feel something, whether that's magic, I'm not sure. It feels like the earth is calling to me, like its bidding me good morning after a long slumber. I feel energized, like something inside of me has risen up and is longing to escape. It continues to coil up inside of me until I find myself bent over from the pain of feeling so full.
"That's it. Let it out," he orders, sounding uncomfortably excited despite the fact that I'm currently hunched over in agonizing pain.
"I…don't…know…how," I stammer, the words hard to get out. My insides feel like they are about to explode out of my body. I fall to my knees, then on my face.
"Release it," Aiden cries out angrily.
My vision is blurring, I can feel blood streaming out of my ears and my nose. There's a loud buzzing in my head, a symphony of deafening broken instruments that threaten to drive me mad. I push myself to my knees, my heart is beating a hundred miles a minute and just when I've accepted that this is the end, a bright burst of golden light comes bursting out of me, incinerating the trees just outside the circle, and releasing the horrendous pressure inside of me. My back wretches open and the wings that first made their appearance during my captivity with the Reverend, and that I had somehow forgotten about, come bursting out behind me, pushing me face first back into the ground.
"Oomph," I say awkwardly as my heart starts to slow down and the buzzing in my head slowly dies down.
My wings flap disjointedly as I sit up and survey the damage I just caused. All of a sudden, I hear a slow clapping sound. It's Aiden, and he looks like I just gave him the gift he had been waiting for his whole life.
"She had that all along," he says, almost to himself.
Shaking his head, he walks over to me and helps me to stand. He looks fevered, his eyes still wild from what I assume was quite the adrenaline rush-almost getting killed by my golden beam of destruction. He takes a long look in my eyes and then suddenly picks me up, pulling me close and spinning me in a circle, laughing with happiness. His mood swings are giving me whiplash.
"You're incredible. An absolute marvel," he tells me ecstatically, still spinning me around in a circle.
I wobble for a second when he sets me down and his grin just grows bigger.
"That was magic I'm assuming?" I ask him, and he laughs at me again.
"That was more magic than I've ever seen," he corrects me. "Now that we know it's still there, we can start to harness it."
"I need to rest," I tell him wearily.
I can still feel drops of blood dripping steadily from my ears and nose, and the front of my dress is soaked. I also feel a bone deep tiredness as if my body used up every last bit of
energy. There's also the fact that I still have long black wings that are now dragging behind me, as if they too are tired and don't have the energy to stay afloat behind me.
Aiden seems to notice how I look for the first time, he also seems to notice that my wings are now out. He circles me, dragging a fingertip along a feather. I give an involuntary shiver. It feels invasive, and strangely personal that he is touching my wings, and I want to yank them away from him and pull them protectively back inside of me.
Surprisingly, I feel, and hear, a large crack, and that's exactly what happens as they suddenly retract back into my back. Aiden's examining me closely as if he can read how much uncomfortableness I was feeling.
"It's curious," he tells me. "But Fairies don't have wings."
I gape at him in astonishment, feeling a little bit lonely at the thought that I am an anomaly. I have just found a place that I supposedly belong after a lifetime of not belonging, and now it feels like I'm being told that it's not actually true. My exhaustion overtakes my hurt feelings though and I feel myself start to black out. Aiden must notice because he catches me right before I fall back.
It's been a month since we wed and He's kept to his end of the bargain. Every night we go to our chambers together and then He reluctantly goes out a side door to sleep in a different room. I made clear when we married that our marriage would be in title only. He has warned me that at some point that will have to change, but for now, He is obeying my wishes. I practice my magic in secret, trying to learn all the things that mother hadn't taught me while she was alive. 'If I could just get stronger, then all of this would go away' is the mantra I repeat to myself as I practice in one of the west tower rooms.
Beckham seems to be around every corner, across every room from me, always watching, but never speaking to me. It feels like torture having to see him so often and I wonder if that is his intention, to punish me for what I've done.