CurseBreaker

by Taylor Fenner

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luckily land isn’t far away and the North Wind has just enough strength left in him that he manages to hurl me onto the rocky shore under the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon. I can’t believe we did it; we actually made it to the palace.

  Behind me, in the sea, the North Wind crashes into the water. He’s too weak to raise himself up or return home. His misty hands rest loosely on the rocks below my feet and flowing water enters his open mouth, his large eyes drooping closed and glazing over lifelessly. It will be a long, long time before he is strong enough to get home again.

  Feeling nearly as sore and run-down as the North Wind from not only this leg of my journey, but the days and days on the road I flop onto my back on the rocky beach.

  I just need to catch my breath. That’s it, just a few minutes to close my eyes and catch my breath and I’ll storm the castle and get Dyre back, I vow as my eyes flutter shut.

  The sound of rustling fabric wakes me from my slumber. When I open my eyes I’m met by a set of beams and a ceiling instead of the sky above the beach I fell asleep on. I sit up abruptly, unsure of where I am or how I got there.

  A small round room greets me, and a raven perched on the window cocks his head as if to ask what I’m staring at. Looking down I find myself laid out on a hard pallet covered with a scratchy wool blanket.

  The door to the room opens and someone carrying a tall bundle of cloth bustles into the room. I kick the blanket away and hop to my feet defensively.

  At my sudden movement, the person behind the cloth exclaims, “Oh,” in surprise and the cloth towels and linens tumble out of her arms onto the ground. A girl about my age in servant’s clothing stares back at me and by the look on her face, she’s as startled by our encounter as I am.

  She smothers the look quickly saying, “I did not expect you to wake so soon.”

  “Where am I?” I ask. “Why have you brought me here?”

  The maid bites her lip worriedly as she makes sure the door is shut and bolted behind her. I immediately feel like I’m being locked in a dungeon. “I found you sleeping on the beach, milady. If the Queen had found you there she would have killed you on spot or else locked you away in the palace. I brought you here for your safety. You were so out of it that you didn’t even stir when I moved you; your skin was feverish so I gave you a poultice to cool you down.”

  “Oh,” I feel foolish for my outburst. “Thank you for helping me. I did not mean to fall asleep, but it has been a tiring journey.”

  “You’re here for the prince, aren’t you?” the maid asks hopefully.

  “I am,” I confirm.

  “I knew it would be you,” the maid perks up. “I knew you would be coming for him, Freya told me.”

  “She hasn’t made it easy on me,” I laugh.

  “Since when is anything worth having in life easy, milady?” the maid asks wryly.

  “You’re right,” I nod. Looking out the window in the dark night I add, “I need to see Dyre right away. I need to get him out of there.”

  “You can’t, milady,” the maid shakes her head furiously.

  “Why not?” I raise my eyebrow in question.

  “The palace is crawling with guards,” the maid explains. “Your prince has tried to escape twice so the Queen doubled up the guard. You cannot just storm the castle; you would be killed before you even reached the inner chambers of the palace. Even I am not allowed in the palace anymore.”

  “Aren’t you a palace maid?” I ask, eyeing her thick red woolen gown and pink apron. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun reminding me of Rana and I instantly miss Rana and her quirky personality. This maid reminds me of a younger version of Dyre’s shy maid.

  The maid shakes her head, pulling me out of my reflections. “No, I am not a maid. I was a palace witch; I cast charms and prepare potions and remedies for the creatures of the court. When the prince arrived the Queen banished me to this cottage so I could not assist the prince in any way.”

  “Drat,” I mutter as I begin to pace the room. “How am I going to get into the palace?”

  “I have an idea,” the maid that’s not a maid says. I look up at her expectantly. “The Queen will be gone for the next three days. She lures new victims to the palace when she tires of the prisoners she already has locked away. Their boats founder off the coast and she brings them here under the guise of a safe haven then either enslaves or imprisons them, stripping them of their treasures. Most of the guards will accompany her to aid in her captures leaving the palace defenses weakened. Wait until morning for the Queen and her men to leave then try to coax someone into letting you inside the palace walls.”

  “Can’t you take me in?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, “no, milady. The palace is spelled to keep me out. The few guards left around the grounds would be alerted to us immediately. You’ll have to find another way in.”

  “Alright,” I concede, “but enough of this ‘milady’ stuff. Just call me Hel.”

  “Like the goddess of the dead?” the girl blanches and takes a step back.

  “Not exactly,” I shake my head, “it’s a nickname. Anyway, what is your name?”

  “When the goddess of death asks your name it’s unwise to answer,” the girl responds politely.

  “But I am not the goddess of death,” I point out, “Merely a girl named Helga that everyone calls Hel.”

  “I suppose I believe you then,” the girl relents. “My name is Magda.”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I grin as I relax my stance and stride over to the window. From the window’s view of the ocean, I can still see the North Wind’s crumpled body lying dormant in the sea. “I don’t suppose you have a remedy to give the North Wind his strength back, do you?”

  Magda’s frightened look is enough of an answer, but she rushes to the window and spies the North Wind in his resting place and gasps. “You are something to behold,” she murmurs to me, her face alight in awe.

  “I don’t understand,” my forehead creases in confusion.

  Magda shakes her head, “I will leave you to rest now, oh great one. My room is just down the corridor if you need me.”

  She scurries out of the room before I can stop her and demand that she start making sense. Down the hall, I hear a door open and click shut as all of the candles in the cottage blow out as one.

  A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts. I’ve spent the night curled up by the open air window watching the waves crash over the shore, occasionally nodding off as the darkness of night fades into the golden light of dawn.

  Magda lets herself into the round room, “Oh, you’re already awake.”

  “I slept off most of my tiredness before I woke here last night,” I admit. “Is she gone? Is it safe?”

  “The Queen has just left, milady,” Magda explains. “I saw the ship set sail with my own eyes. By the time you’re dressed and ready she’ll be long gone.”

  “Thank you, Magda.” I rise from my seat beside the window, just now noticing the ship fading into the mist shrouding the castle and the island it sits on. Turning to face Magda I add, “and please, like I said, call me Hel. All that ‘milady’ stuff makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m just a girl, probably not much older than you.”

  Magda grins and shakes her head, “do you wish me to help you dress?”

  “No, it’s quite alright,” I shake my head negatively. “I’m capable of dressing myself.”

  “If you insist, milady,” Magda nods as she bows halfway and disappears from the room.

  I groan and lunge for my pack beside the bed. From its’ over packed depths I pull out my last clean dress. Salvaged from many different dresses the skirt is made up of multiple different colored fabrics, giving an illusion of rainbow colored handkerchiefs. The skirt rests on my waist, just below a tightly cinched bodice the color of moss. Maroon fabric covers my arms and bust, barely sewed to the green bodice below. I must have gotten sloppy in my mending w
hen I created this dress, but there’s no time to wash any of my other clothing in the sea.

  I decline Magda’s offer of breakfast and set off onto the castle grounds with Magda’s concerned gaze boring into my back. For the first time, I set clear eyes upon the crimson palace that sits upon the island. Even though the castle sits on an isolated island a series of tall fortification walls surround the palace, hiding the gatehouse. Beyond the walls and the inner courtyard, at least five towers shoot toward the sky, prompting me to think the castle itself is constructed in the shape of a five-pointed star. And everything – from the parapets on the walls to the spires atop the towers, to the stone buildings themselves – is the color of freshly spilled blood. Surely the Queen must wish to give off a sense of forebodingness and misery by creating a palace that color.

  As I stare up toward the dozens of tiny square windows I idly wonder which of those windows Dyre looks out of, staring at the sea beyond, brooding about life. I wonder if he’s been thinking of me the way I’ve been thinking about him or if he’s given up all hope that I would ever find him.

  Not sure the best way to go about conning my way inside the palace walls I sit down on a boulder below a window in the parapet and begin tossing the golden apple Sage gave me up and down to give my hands something to do.

  It’s not long after I sit down that the window above is thrown open and a monstrous creature with a three foot long nose that’s wrapped around an arm covered in patches of scaly snake-like skin, sticks her head out the opening. Her canary yellow eyes bulge out of her head and pig ears stick out from underneath an orange colored wig styled in an elaborate updo. So this fearsome beast is the princess that Dyre is being forced to marry.

  With hands the color and shape of crab claws she gestures to the golden apple in my hand eagerly, “What do you want for your golden apple, you girl?”

  “It’s not for sale for gold or money,” I reply as I toss the apple once more and catching it in my hand with a flourish.

  The princess pouts unhappily. “If it’s not for sale for gold or money, what can I give you that you would sell it for? I must have it. You can name your own price.”

  “Hmm,” I pretend to think about it for a minute. “I want to see the prince who lives here. If I can see him and be with him tonight, you may have the golden apple.”

  “Yes, I suppose you can do that.” The princess replies reluctantly. A thin, forked tongue shoots out and wiggles between her sharp fangs. “If you come back at nightfall the guards will let you in and retrieve the apple to give to me.”

  I hurry back to Magda’s cottage and tell her about my encounter with the princess.

  “That’s Princess Serpentina, the Queen’s sister. She takes after their troll mother,” Magda explains as she stirs something brewing in a cauldron that fills half the room.

  “I’m even more determined to save Dyre now,” I tell her. “There’s no way I would subject him to a lifetime waking up next to that.”

  Magda giggles, “She does have a face only another troll could love. Now come help me with this potion. It will help you kill time until it is time for you to see Prince Dyre.”

  When darkness begins to fall I stand at the entrance to the gatehouse awaiting the guards’ arrival to give me access to the palace. Just like everything in Dyre's palace is good or silver, everything in this palace is decorated in varying shades of red – from the red stone walls to the shiny red granite floors, the palace fixtures, right down to the guards' head to toe red uniforms.

  Two massive hooked nosed trolls dressed in the ridiculous red uniforms appear at the gatehouse and yank the golden apple from my outstretched hand before grabbing my arms on either side and dragging me down the corridor despite my audible protests. If Serpentina thinks she’s going to trick me and throw me into the palace dungeon, she’s got another guess coming.

  The guards pull me down one corridor then another before shoving me up a narrow stairwell tucked inside one of the towers. To the very top they take me until we reach a locked door. The heavier of the two hook faces pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door before shoving me inside the dimly lit room and shutting the door behind me with an ominous click.

  The room behind the door turns out to be a small bedchamber, not a dungeon. Laid out under a yellow patchwork blanket lays a figure. I creep closer to the bed cautiously and recognition makes my heart swell as I lay eyes on Dyre for the first time in so long.

  He’s sound asleep, so I shake his shoulder to wake him up. When he doesn’t stir, I grasp both his shoulders in my hands and shake him harder. “Dyre, wake up. It’s me, Hel. I’ve come to rescue you.”

  Still, he doesn’t so much as twitch in his sleep. “Come on, love,” I coax as I lean down, like I had done all those nights ago, and place an urgent kiss on his lips. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t kiss me back, and doesn’t even sigh in his sleep.

  “Dyre,” I yell his name as I strike him on the cheek. When that has no effect I scream louder, “Dyre please, wake up. I don’t know how much time we have.”

  Next, I grab the pitcher of water off the bedside table and douse him with it. Nothing happens, not even a slight movement.

  “What has she done to you?” I cry as I place feather light kisses on his bare chest, tracing the tattoos carved into his chest with my lips. Still, Dyre does not wake.

  For the rest of the night, in between frustrated sobs, I yell and shake Dyre and try to cause as much sound as possible. Nothing I do has any effect on my sleeping prince and when the first rays of light appear on the horizon the long-nosed princess appears in the doorway with her troll guards and they drag me down the stairs despite my protests. My back slaps against each stair as they drag me down head first, their slimy hands gripping my underarms so hard I’ll have bruises later.

  They drag me through the palace and throw me onto the dead yellow grass outside the gatehouse. I close my eyes against the pain, hearing the gate screech shut once the princess and her guards have filed back into the castle.

  I drag myself back to Magda’s cottage, crawling and pulling myself across the castle grounds like a toddler.

  “Are you alright? What happened?” Magda cries as she darts out of her cottage and runs her hands over my sides to check for injuries.

  “I saw him, Magda.” I manage to croak, “I saw Dyre. But no matter what I did I couldn’t wake him. Then when the sun came out the princess returned and had her guards drag me down the stairs and throw me onto the lawn. I think my back hit every single stair on the way down.”

  “Oh you poor thing,” Magda coos sympathetically. “Let’s get you inside; I’ll brew up something for your back and get you all fixed up.”

  After Magda applies a salve to my back and I rest for an hour or two, I return to the spot where I first laid eyes on the princess the day before.

  More determined than ever I sit down on the same sun-drenched boulder and begin carding wool with the golden carding comb Saffron gifted to me. I feel bad using the witch sisters’ gifts as bribes but I don’t know of another way to get the princess’s attention.

  It doesn’t take long for the grotesque princess to appear overhead leaning out the window with her wrinkly cleavage spilling out of a copper colored dress that matches her hair.

  “You there girl, I want that golden carding comb, what do you want for it?” The princess demands in a shrill, honeyed voice.

  “This?” I ask, holding the comb up for emphasis. “This is not for sale for gold or money.”

  “Not this nonsense again,” the princess growls, “Well what do you want for it? I need that golden carding comb. Just name your stupid price.”

  “You’re welcome to it as long as I can go and see the prince tonight,” I reply, silently hoping that last night was just a fluke. Maybe Dyre was just exhausted from a long day of avoiding the troll-face princess glaring down at me.

  “If that’s really what you want,” the princess replies, a deranged smile spreading across her fac
e. “Come at nightfall and you shall be led to him in exchange for the carding comb.”

  I nod, pretending to wander off across the lawn.

  I spend the rest of the daylight hours strategizing about what I’m going to do differently tonight and if possible how I’m going to get Dyre out of the palace. I vow that this time I’ll pay closer attention to the twists and turns the troll guards take when they lead me to Dyre’s quarters. If nothing else, perhaps Magda will be able to hide us until transportation off the island can be arranged.

  By the time night falls and the guards come to the gatehouse to take me to Dyre’s bedchamber I’m ready. I stow my things away among the boulders on the coast, knowing if the guards catch sight of my shield or my weapons they'll take them. I can't let that happen, not in case I need them later. I toss the golden carding comb to the thinner of the two guards and he clumsily grabs it, turning it over in his gnarly hands in puzzlement. As I study the two guards in the torchlight I think they must be brothers. They look too similar to not be related.

  Their eyes narrow at me, thinking I’m up to some sort of trick and their hands clamp down on my arms roughly as they propel me forward. The entrance corridor dead-ends and they yank me to the left down a short hallway. From there we take another left and a right before we reach the stairwell to the tower where Dyre is being held. When we reach the top of the tower I realize there is a second door I didn’t see the night before, nearly hidden in the shadows beside the door to Dyre’s bedchamber.

  Before I can think on it too long the guards open Dyre’s door using the long skeletal key one pulls from around his neck and shoves me inside, the door locking behind me with an echoing click.

  “Dyre?” I whisper, the hopeful tone in my voice betraying me.

  Tonight the cobalt bed curtains are drawn, hiding Dyre from view. With shaking hands, I pull the curtain back and am met with the same disappointing sight as the night before. Dyre lies on his back, one arm carelessly draped over the side of the bed, his face a peaceful mask.