“The guilt never gets any less. If I hadn’t witnessed it myself, I’d never have believed she’d done it. I screamed at her, and she turned with unseeing eyes and walked past me to our chamber. Like a fool, I’d raced down the stairs in hopes of saving the babe. But I arrived to find my servants standing in a circle, and when I pushed my way through…” He paused. “I-I saw my child, lying on the ground, his bones crushed.” Silence blanketed the room. He picked at invisible lint on his trousers and tried to steady the quiver in his jaw.
“When I returned to the chamber, my wife lay asleep on the bed as though nothing had happened. I sent for the healer that lived by the healing springs in hopes she’d cast out whatever spell had overtaken my wife. When Risette awoke she went to nurse our child and, finding him gone, she panicked. It was then I forged the story that the healer had gone crazy and dropped him. I couldn’t bear for my wife to know the truth, so we buried our son and allowed the villagers to burn an innocent woman at the stake because they also wanted someone to blame for the Fürsts’ disappearance.”
I recalled the girl he spoke of, and her screams mingling with the cries of ecstasy of the crowd. I had stood with my vater at the window in the shop. The glow of the flames had lit the evening sky. Vater’s hands had clenched at his sides, and following muttered curses, he’d said, “They’ve gone crazy.” Chills clawed over my arms at the unnecessary act that had ended a life.
“King Gian paid me a visit soon after to inform me of what he’d done to my wife and again stated his desire. Afraid he’d stop at nothing to obtain this power, I went in search of the Totholz forest, where the Vormacht magic was rumored to be hidden. I searched for two years before returning home. And soon after, my wife became pregnant with our daughters. She had never recovered from our son’s death, and our fear of what he’d do if I didn’t find the power consumed her.” Voice ragged, he wrung his hands as painful memories awoke. “She pleaded with me to return to the forest. And this time, I was successful. I brought him back the power, and by then my wife had given birth. And for a while we were happy, until the day King Gian paid us another visit and revealed to Risette what she had done. There was no end to his cruelty against my family.
“The fear of what she could do to our daughters drove her crazy. She refused to mother them in any way, and I had to hire a wet nurse from the village. One day after I’d returned from town, a servant informed me that Risette had requested she be chained in the cellar to protect the babies from her. I convinced her that she needed time away from the estate and to return to her family in France. Soon after, I received word that she had taken her own life.
“It was at this time that King Gian amped-up his quest to control the Zwilling power. King Gian ventured into the monastery in the Himalayas where a dwarf king had entrusted the monks with hiding the scrolls. By the time Gian’s men had finished his massacre, only one monk remained. They tortured him, but still he wouldn’t talk. It was when they discovered the monks’ sacred writings hidden in a crypt that King Gian threatened to wipe their teachings and history from humans forever. The monk revealed there was a dwarf keeper entrusted with the scrolls that they’d given sanctuary. No one was permitted to look upon the scripts but the keeper. They scoured the monastery for his body and didn’t find him. Suspecting he had escaped into the mountains with the scrolls, King Gian sent his men after him. But…”
“But what?” I said.
“The monk said the scrolls and the keeper were protected by a magical spell conjured by the Reinheit. The keeper was never found. From that day, Gian believed that if the dwarf Reinheit had entrusted humans with the scrolls when the Zwilling revealed itself, it would be in them. He began using humans as test subjects.”
“Testing them how,” I said.
“He sent his men into hamlets and cities, scouring them for humans with any physical abilities believed to be beyond what is normal for humans. He tried to summon the Seelenfresser, but their skulls could not sustain the force of his mind control, and their brains disintegrated.”
I gulped back my horror. “How do you know this?”
“I saw the corpses in his mines. The ones he didn’t kill in his attempts, he imprisoned to work his mines. He uses his tribesmen as overseers for his human slaves, against their will.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because the same unseeing gaze my wife had in her eyes the day King Gian killed my son shone in theirs.” His eyes misted.
“Does King Jörg know of this?”
“No, not even Gian’s own people know of his crimes,” he said. “The tunnels he performs his sorcery in are undiscovered by his tribesmen.”
I felt a frisson of anger. “Why didn’t you warn the villagers of his activities?”
“Because I believed, as long as they remained naive, they were safe.”
“You didn’t think to seek the help of the mountain dwarves?”
His gaze shifted downward. “After what I saw in that mine, I knew I had to protect my daughters. I was all they had left. So, after I was escorted from the mines that day, I packed up my household and fled back to England.”
“What made you think he wouldn’t send his men after you?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “But I hoped with the distance and his obsession with summoning the Seelenfresser, he’d forget me. Besides, he wasn’t the only one seeking magic. After King Gian used my family as blackmail against me, I spent my time while searching for the Vormacht seeking protection against him. As you can see, my home isn’t typical of men of my station. Magic fills every crevice, and it provides protection not only for me and my children, but for mystical beings that have been hunted to exploit their magic. Together we are stronger. Together we have established a fortress to keep out those wishing us harm.”
“That is all well and good, but what of Schläfrigz? You must come with me and expose King Gian. With your help and that of the mountain dwarves, we may stand a chance.”
He heaved a sigh. “If I’m correct in my assumptions that King Gian has succeeded in animating the Seelenfresser, then I’m afraid nothing I can do will stop what he has planned. However, I feel I have no choice but to return and try to set right the wrongs of my past.”
Farrah and Zuna sat on the blanket spread on the grass in the garden with their necks craned and their eyes regarding me with anticipation.
I placed a hand on my chest, evoking passion and yearning from my audience as I told the fairy tale I’d woven in my head since I was a girl. “Time was running out, and Küni rode his steed urgently toward the farm. If he didn’t confess his love for the girl, she would marry another.” My voice cracked with feigned emotion.
“But he can’t. Prima is his true love,” Zuna said with a sorrowful expression.
“Yes, but she doesn’t know this,” I said. “She believes he will never see her as she sees him. She worries that she will spend her life always loving a man that will—”
“Never see her as the woman she has become.” Tears welled in Zuna’s eyes.
Farrah’s hands twisted the blanket. “But Prima must have Küni because, without him, she will die of a broken heart. She already lost so much. Her mum, her papa, and her sister.” Her brow furrowed, and her eyes flashed. “This is a dreadful story. I shan’t listen to it anymore. You said this was your favorite story of all.”
I smiled and lifted a finger. “You must wait and hear how the tale ends.”
Zuna used the back of her hand to wipe her tears. “Please, tell us more.”
“Küni arrived at the homestead to find the prince, his royal carriage, and entourage waiting in front of the cottage. Prima stepped outside. She had foregone her rags and was now adorned in silks and jewels fit for a princess; she was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. But the look of sadness on her face puzzled him. He dismounted and raced to her.
“‘Küni,’ she cried. ‘What brings you to my doorstep?’
“‘You can’t marry the prince,’ Küni said, and grabbed
her hand and held it over his heart. ‘It is I you love.’”
Farrah and Zuna groaned and awed, holding on to my every word.
“‘But you do not love me,’ Prima said, and tears brimmed in her eyes.
“‘You are wrong. I’ve loved you for some time, but I’m a simple man without treasures and servants to wait on you,’ Küni said.
“‘I care not for those things,’ she said.”
The girls leaned closer.
“‘I would love and provide for you until my body breathes its last breath,’ Küni said, his stormy gray eyes holding hers.
“‘Can it be true?’ Prima clasped her hands to her chest. ‘Do you return my love?’
“Küni nodded and wrapped Prima in his arms, and they shared a kiss, and for the first time in her life, she felt whole. When they broke from the enchantment of love pounding in their hearts, Prima told the prince she couldn’t marry him, and though brokenhearted, the prince departed.”
The girls squealed. “And Küni and Prima lived happily ever after?” Zuna asked.
I laughed. “That’s right. Prima finally finds the love she has always wanted, and Küni and her live a long life together.”
“And they had lots of children?” Hope beamed on Farrah’s face.
“Five, in fact,” I said.
The girls linked arms and lay on the blanket, staring dreamily up at the sky. “Do you suppose we will marry princes,” Farrah said to her sister.
“I don’t care if he is a prince, as long as he loves me like Küni loved Prima.” Zuna twisted to look at her sister.
I pushed to my feet. “Come now, we must get back to your studies.”
“If we were princesses, we’d never have to worry about arithmetic,” Farrah said with a huff.
“Head inside, and I will be along shortly,” I said.
After the girls had entered the house, I folded the blanket and gathered the picnic basket. As I turned to head back, I noticed Lord Winslow and Mrs. Potts engaged in what appeared to be a heated discussion. I’d met his lordship in the corridor that morning, and although he’d been gracious, he had spent the rest of the morning avoiding my gaze when our paths crossed. I’d wondered if my early departure the evening before had offended him. I studied them a moment longer, and as Lord Winslow turned to look at me, I lowered my gaze and hurried on toward the mansion.
The Valley—Lord Winslow
“You’ve been going around all day looking miserable,” Mrs. Potts said to him from where she stood at his side. “What happened between you and the girl?”
He glanced at the garden as the children stood and walked toward the house. Then his gaze settled on Valentina, and his heartbeat quickened. “I let my pride get the best of me and offended her in the process.”
“I warned you she isn’t like the maidens of the kingdom. She is the Reinheit for a reason. She is pure of heart. Much too good—” She caught herself.
“Why hold your tongue now, General? These human illusions haven’t stopped you from speaking what is on your mind before.”
She straightened and arched back her shoulders. “With all due respect, sir, she will never be your bedmate to discard when you’ve finished. She has a higher purpose to fulfill.”
He glowered at the general. “I don’t think of her like that. I grow tired of this mission and seeing you enrobed in women’s clothing.”
“Need I remind you, sir, that your vater has requested our presence at the castle,” Mrs. Potts said.
He stood looking at Valentina, and an ache formed in his chest. Her beauty and the innocence within her heightened his desire to protect her. The yearning had become suffocating. His time in the valley had made him soft.
As Valentina’s eyes met his, he choked back the mixture of emotions stirring in him and turned to Mrs. Potts. “We will go, but ensure your men are in place in our absence. Twice the Seelenfresser has managed to get past the barriers and enter this realm. If your men fail again, I will make an example of them for all to see.”
“As you request, Your Highness,” Mrs. Potts said and left him.
He looked back at Valentina as she walked toward the house, and he broke into a jog to catch up with her. “Valentina.”
She turned at his call and stopped to wait for him to catch up. “Good afternoon, my lord.”
“And to you as well,” he said. “I feel a bit of a fool for allowing my pride to ruin a night that was planned with good intentions.”
“I appreciated your thoughtfulness. I don’t recall a time that I’ve had so much fun. You never lost patience with me regardless of my poor dancing skills,” she said with a laugh. Her eyes gleamed like the prettiest of jewels, and the weakness inside him drew his gaze to her full mouth. Damn him for allowing a human into his heart.
“It was an evening I will remember,” he said. “I will be gone for a few hours, but you and the children have nothing to worry about. The guards will be on full alert.”
“I thank you for your protection,” she said sincerely, looking at him.
As a tendril of hair fluttered across her cheek, he wanted desperately to reach out and caress it away, but he had come to an understanding: Valentina Fürst was too good for him. To think there was a time when he would have scoffed at such a thought. After all, he was a prince, and she was but a farm girl and a human, at that. However, after months spent together, he’d come to regard her as a holy treasure guarded by the gods. As Crispian had stated, she was the Reinheit, and her calling was to protect dwarves and humans.
“You are a woman of quality, Valentina Fürst, and my family is better for having you.” He bowed at the waist. “Good day.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said.
He left her standing there and went inside to change. His mind drifted back to the day at the market when he’d come to see for himself the incompetent human his vater believed was the next Reinheit. He hadn’t expected to behold such beauty. She had made rags and hunger look inviting, and like the woman he’d met in the forest all those years ago who had left him naked and humiliated, Valentina had enchanted him. His thoughts hadn’t been pure. The hatred in his heart for her kind kindled the desire to break her.
Obligated to follow his king’s orders, he took on the mission to become Earl of Chateau Winslow, protector of the Reinheit. He’d watched her from the window that first day as she stumbled under armloads of wood and shovelfuls of manure. He’d caught his breath when she arrived at the evening meal bathed and dressed in a gown stored within the wardrobe in her chamber. He’d felt wonderment and then anger at the temptation his vater had placed before him. He’d waited for the opportunity to judge her unqualified to hold an endowment awarded to dwarves, but each time she’d proven him wrong.
When the Seelenfresser had broken through the barriers of the realm and Valentina risked her life to save Princess Zuna, it forced him to honestly look at her. Where greed and lack of empathy for the living swelled within her brother, the very essence of Valentina’s soul gleamed with amity and benevolence. And he’d come to know in his heart that she was a woman of exemplary goodness, and for this reason, the Zwilling power had chosen the Fürst siblings as hosts.
Kingdom of Himmelart—Tower
The Träger peered through the tower window at the valley, a mere speck in the distance. She felt a vast ache to hold her children. When the loneliness and anguish became crippling, she forgot the reason she couldn’t leave. And days like today, she stood at the window and dreamed of a life that was her own, but that would never be. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek. In her hand, she clutched the scroll with the answers King Jörg and she’d spent the last decade searching for, but never could she have conceived the answer would come at so high a cost. She shut her eyes and laid her cheek against the cold stone wall of the place that had been both sanctuary and prison. The realization of what she had to do daunted her. There was no other way, and time had run out.
Deemed possessed from birth, people inferred s
he’d sucked the life from her mother, as she’d never risen from the birthing bed. She had barely started walking when she showed the first signs of magic and sent the servants into a panic. Whisperings of a witch child cast fear over her hamlet. And her papa, wanting to protect her and give her a chance at a normal life, sold everything and moved her to northern Italy, to a little village by the sea, where no one knew of Piera Francesco, the girl rumored to be possessed. And it was there that she had been the happiest.
In her twentieth year, she met Timo Fürst, a handsome traveler who had wooed her and her papa into considering him worthy of marriage. Timo moved her to his home in Switzerland. By the time she’d become pregnant with her first child, a son, she was trapped in a loveless marriage, but foolishly, she’d hoped the child would change her husband’s fits of rage and infidelity. After they lost their home in Schläfrigz, they moved to the homestead in the foothills of the Alps.
One day as she sat milking the cow in the barn, a weary traveler wearing a hooded, green calico cloak paid her a visit. Startled, she’d leaped to her feet, knocking over the pail of milk. She grabbed a pitchfork to defend herself. The cloaked figure lowered their hood and revealed their identity. Before her had stood a woman dressed in simple clothing with kind eyes and a gentle smile. Loneliness for the companionship of another woman prompted her to invite the traveler in for tea. They’d spent the next hour visiting, and as the traveler got up to leave, she reached out and embraced Piera, and it was then the woman revealed her true intent. A jolt had charged Piera’s body and energy more powerful than the magic she’d known enveloped her. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor.
“What have you done to me?” Piera had gasped, gawking at the traveler in astonishment. But the woman never uttered another word. Like a spirit of the dead come to visit the living, she vanished before Piera’s eyes.
After that day, Piera felt changes as the fetus continued to develop. Her hair fell out in clumps, and bruises spread over her flesh. Cuts turned into gaping wounds that would not heal. Her weight dropped, and her bones became like fragile china, yet the doctor said the babe thrived. Timo, repulsed by her appearance, found every excuse to stay in the village. Abandoned and scared, she believed the traveler had cursed her and her child. The magic that had existed within her since birth battled against the power of the newcomer.
The Maid of Chateau Winslow Page 19
