by R Cavanaugh
“Why did you lie?” Rose asked him with nothing short of venom in her voice.
“I didn’t want those who were supposed to retrieve you if you refused to come with me to go after you.” He stopped and looked at her as if what he was about to tell her next was his biggest mistake. “But I had kept a picture of you and my older brother Don found it. He showed my father and my sister Topaz that I had found you and assumed that you didn’t want to come back to save your people…”
“What do you mean save my people?” Rose replied angrily and started to feel a sense of fear slip into her skin.
“I tried to stop the Draughtningrs from going after you, but they called me a lovesick fool and told me that I better tell them where I had last seen you or else.” James was talking very quickly at this point, and Rose knew that she must be showing signs of lashing out. When he next spoke, Rose barely caught what he was saying. “So then I told them…”
“You told them!”
“…but I knew I had to try to get to you first, but when I found out where you were, they were already heading your way, so I called you.” While he stopped to breathe, Rose realized she knew what was about to happen next.
“When the people after me entered my shop, I hung up on you. And you went to the place you said you would meet me, hoping that I would show up.”
“When I saw you heading my way with the Draughtningrs right behind you, I knew I was too late and that the Draughtningrs were going to get you first. Then my brother, who must have followed me, wrestled me to the ground and told me that you would be dropped off at our place, where you would be told about the Tiara of Emerald Thorns.” He stopped and look at her. “And how it would be your job to find it and that your people are relying on you.”
“James, what do you mean by my people relying on me!” She said all of this with her eyes practically shooting sparks. She couldn’t believe him. She was not the queen of a nation or, even more concerning, of an entire planet—she had secretly decided to believe that she was, perhaps, on a different one. She wanted the whole story, and James was going to tell her, whether he liked it or not. “I want the truth now, James!” she said, screaming at him once more.
“Fine, Rose,” he said softly. “But would you please stop yelling and sit down?” he asked, “because it is a long story.” She saw nothing wrong with the request and decided to sit on the bed.
“Well?” she said hotly, and he sat down and said,
“Rose, it would probably be best to start at the beginning.” As he said this, Rose leaned back against her bed board, waiting for the tale to begin…
Heartington Castle
Igneous Stipes, who was bored out of his mind, sat on his throne while listening to his advisers on the goings-on in his kingdom of Aquamarine. They were sitting in Heartington Castle, which was at the center of the city, Decorus Regnum Corset. Igneous, who was tall and well built, pale, with fiery-orange eyes and charred-black hair, was thinking about things he would rather be doing and was getting annoyed. What did he care if the people wanted less taxes or that some of the women refused to be his servants for the required year? It really wasn’t his problem. At that very moment, his trusted aide entered the room.
“All of you, clear out now, for I have told you many times, these petty problems do not concern me.” His voice seemed so forceful and impressive; he liked it that way. While watching his advisers leave, he slowly approached the man who always got what he wanted done, no matter what it was. Closing the door as the last man left, he turned toward the newcomer, who was known as Exotius Obscurum.
Exotius Obscurum was built similar to his lord and master, but with some small differences. Exotius had a deep tan and had funny blue eyes that, in contrast with his hair, which was black with streaks of red and orange, made him recognizable by just about everyone. Which, thought the king, was a good thing, because if Exotius was entering the house of a subject, the subject knew that they were in trouble.
“So, Exotius, what real news is there for me to hear?” said the king as he approached him, gave him a quick glance, and then continued walking toward his throne. And in reaching it, he sat down. Now facing his servant, he waited for the answer.
“My King Igneous, I must inform you of the disappearance and reappearance of some members of two of the most revered families in our great kingdom.” As he said this, the king looked at him, thinking about what he had said.
“Which two families are you speaking of, and who would dare leave a mark on their family name to venture out of this world without our permission?”
Exotius stared at him for a minute and then, as if choosing how to put something in the perfect order, spoke.
“My king, it was Liam and Aphra of the Draughtningr family and James of the Tungston family. They seemed to have wanted to beat the other family to something in that other world. I did not, however, see them reenter our world, but through my lines of communication, I am told that they have retuned.”
Exotius waited for the king to reply. He did not have to wait long.
“You say the youngest Tungston boy left and returned, as he did about three years ago. I wonder what he has found in that world that is so interesting.” Igneous looked at Exotius with a flame in his eye. “They don’t call the king’s flame revealing without reason do they Exotius? Now go find out what is so interesting in that other world.”
“How would you like me to handle the situation? After all, it was only days ago that I convinced your new maid that saying no was a bad decision.” Exotius smiled as he thought about that last statement.
“Whatever it takes, my friend,” he said as he smiled evilly, “whatever it takes.”
“Oh, by the way, there was said to be a young woman with black hair that was unconscious and being carried by the Draughtningrs.” Exotius seemed to be saying this as an afterthought, but this afterthought worried the king.
“Did this woman have pale skin, a firm figure? Was she around twenty-one, and did she have green eyes?”
“Yes to the first three,” he said, and just as the king let out a sigh of relief, he said, “her eyes weren’t open.” While Igneous was concerned, he decided not to show Exotius that side of him.
“I thought that you did not see them reenter our world?” he said as flames once again appeared behind his eyes. Lying was one thing that he would not tolerate. His aide seemed to realize what he had just said was contradictory to a previous statement.
“Sir,” Exotius exclaimed with an air of apology in his tone, “it was the source that we discussed previously that told me about the girl.”
The answer now fit the original story, but there was a lie in it somewhere; he could just feel it. He would have to just accept that he would not get a real answer, but he was going to ask again, and then there would be no false answers. He would be sure of that. Realizing that Exotius was still watching him, he made his face convincing enough so that he could turn and say that everything now seemed to fit.
“Go now,” he said after convincing his aide that he did believe the story he had just been told, “find the troublemaker going by the name of James Tungston, and find out what is going on between these two distinguished families that, up until now, got on so well.” He watched as Exotius turned to leave with a low bow. Alone once more, his mind fell on the strange young woman that was now on his planet. Shaking his head, he said quietly, “I’ll think about the young woman later.”
Thinking thoughtfully to himself once more, King Igneous watched Exotius exit the room to prepare to head to the house of Tungston to capture James and find out why Earth was so popular lately. The reason he loved what he did was because lies in his kingdom were punishable by law.
“Jenna!” he screamed, “Where is my horse, Infestus? Is he saddled and ready for me to ride?” A young woman of only nineteen years walked in, curtsied, and nodded solemnly and left without saying a
word. He couldn’t help but think that killing off her boyfriend had made such a huge improvement. Then, grabbing his cloak, he headed to the courtyard where he would mount Infestus and ride to the Draughtningr manor. What truly bothered him was that Devin Draughtningr would not do something as risky as to allow his children to further diminish his already-tainted trust with the king. “There is still a lot to be answered,” he said softly to himself. As he began to approach his horse, he straightened his face. The questions would be answered, or there would be lives lost.
Chapter 3
The Truth about the Truth
The Courtyard of Heartington Castle
Exotius had, after being dismissed, let out a long, slow breath. He had almost blown his cover when he had answered the question about the black-haired woman. Yes, he thought, I was there. After all, when those three people had left, it was to him that the soldier who saw them leave had come. He told his men to guard the entrance to that other world, and when he did so, he also decided that he, too, would watch the entrance to Earth as well, but he would not be seen by any of his men. While remaining hidden, he watched as one by one his men left their posts, something he had, at the time, thought that he would make them regret doing. Yet it was as the last of his men had left that Don reentered the planet, and he had not been seen leaving. With him was his brother, James, who seemed less than pleased to be where he was.
“I told you not to go,” Don said heatedly, “yet you did! You had your chance to do things the way that you wanted to, and you failed. You tried to hide your failure by not telling anyone what happened. You dishonored your family, and you forced us to turn against you for the time being, to go behind your back.”
“She has a right to choose what she wants to do, to believe!” James retorted, “She deserves to live a life that she wishes, not the life that we want her to. You have no right to boss me around and, I did what I did for our cause. She wasn’t ready to believe that she was from another world. You need to give these things tim—”
“No amount of time would have changed her mind!” Don said, cutting him off, “She didn’t believe you. She was never going to believe you, and your love for her is only making you blind.”
“I am not blinded by love!” shouted James, his cheeks turning a blotchy red.
“Yes, you are!” Don retorted, “The sooner you accept this, the sooner the fighting between us will stop. She is the key to freedom in this place, and you were throwing it out the door because you wanted to protect her.”
“Well someone has to because you refuse to do so, which is why—” James was cut off once more.
“Which is why you didn’t bring her back, why you wouldn’t tell us where she was, why you still feel that you know best!” Don’s face was outraged. “You are a fool, and it shames me to think that you, my own brother, would lie to stop us from finding her. We have little respect in the organization now, and I wasn’t about to let you diminish it any further!”
James seemed to be lost for words. His anger was visible in his demeanor and in his breathing. He turned away from his brother and must have said something very quietly and insultingly, because Don Tungston’s face was nothing short of shocked.
As the two brothers continued to move away from the entrance to Earth, Exotius was left to contemplate the very heated argument that he had just witnessed. There was something very odd going on. The brothers, as far as he knew, had always gotten on very well. Never had he heard of them fighting in such a brutal manner. There was more going on here than just two brothers arguing; there was something larger behind the arguing.
Exotius had very little time, however, to think on what had just happened, as there were now more people coming from that other planet. Aphra and Liam were reentering Aquamarine, but they were not alone. Liam was carrying a young woman with long black hair who appeared to be unconscious. Liam and Aphra, however, were not talking. In fact if he hadn’t been looking right at the entrance, he probably wouldn’t have seen them enter.
They seemed to want to get away from the entrance as fast as possible. This was the thing that troubled Exotius: this woman was not from that other world, for she had the markings of an Aquamarinian, not of an Earth creature. As they faded away into the night, his fears were heightened. He had long forgotten about the men that he had intended to punish. In fact he would use their absence to his advantage.
The thoughts of that evening had carried him all the way to the courtyard where his men awaited him. They were looking at him, expecting his orders. Yes, well, now that he remembered about punishing some of his men, he would do so when he reached Tungston Manor.
“Mount up!” he shouted, and as his men mounted their horses, he unsheathed his sword and looked at it. It needed to be sharpened, he thought. After placing it back in its sheath, he mounted his horse, Wildfire, and looking around at each of the men, he began to explain the plan.
“We have been ordered to go to Tungston Manor and take James Tungston into custody. He is of interest to the king and is to be unharmed.” As he looked around at each of them, he could see that the message had been received.
“Move out.”
He thought to himself that the truth about the truth was that no one wanted to hear it anyway.
Chapter 4
A Tiara of Emerald Thorns
Tungston Manor
“Many, many years ago, the battle for the crown of Aquamarine took place, and it started with one very ambitious yet very evil man named Igneous Stipes. Now Igneous, like every villain in a story you would read, possessed a quality that most people don’t give into: doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. He wanted to rule. He wanted all the power, and he was going to get it no matter what. His first attempt was disastrous, having only a few men, and when they were caught, he was forced to flee.”
“So he fled.” Rose asked, “So what?”
“I’m getting there.” James responded, “So anyway, he was forced to flee. When he was hiding, he was gathering loads of support from those that didn’t like the present king. The king at that point in time was King Joseph Heartington…”
“Heartington?”
“Yes, Heartington,” James replied, “may I continue?”
“Go ahead.”
“And while many liked him, when he was younger, he had made many enemies. His wife, Joanna, had only produced one child, Nicholas Heartington, before dying of overexertion. King Joseph wanted to have a peaceful kingdom, but Igneous was set on creating chaos. He had found many who would willingly join his cause by now, and one of the last people to join was Exotius Obscurum, a man who was notorious for leaving a path of destruction and despair wherever he went. These two infamous men soon were well known across the planet, and wherever they went there was tragedy, and those who supported them were allowed to join and keep all that they owned. Those who didn’t weren’t as lucky.”
“That’s disgusting,” Rose said with a look of revulsion, “you don’t mean they were…”
“Killed,” he said with a disturbed grin, “yeah, but it didn’t stop there…
“The women were either sold as slaves or were paired up with men that Exotius liked a lot. These activities couldn’t be ignored much longer. By the time King Joseph decided that he should probably intervene, the hand of chaos was already gripping the land.
“By this time his son, Nicholas, had found a wife by the name of Jemma, who was, while being fair, not the fairest ever seen with her well-built figure and her black hair, the likes of which could put the blackest of nights to shame. The king told his son to send his wife to a place of safety, for he would be joining his father on the field of battle.”
“Did she flee?”
“Yes, for unbeknownst to her husband, she was pregnant with what turned out to be a boy who would later be named after his father.
“Anyway, the battle that took place between Ign
eous and King Joseph was gruesome, and while the king’s men fought valiantly, when Igneous killed and decapitated the good king and his son, many of the men surrendered right there and then. Igneous declared himself king, and his best friend the leader of his army and security force. He seemed very confident that he had destroyed all the supporters of the old regime. There did come a day, however, that Nicholas Heartington II appeared. While the now very old Nicholas II seemed to not really know that he would have had Igneous’s title, Exotius convinced the king that he was indeed a threat.”
“Are you going to tell me that Igneous had him killed because his best friend thought him to be a threat?”
“Yeah,” James replied, “but before he was executed, the king told, or ordered, I should say, Nicholas II to tell him where the family hid the famous jewel-producing roses. Nicholas looked at him and said that the roses will never produce anything for him. Nicholas was tortured for the information, and just before he died, he finally revealed the location of the roses. That night Nicholas’s wife, Jane, fled their home with their adult son Neil and was never heard from again. And since Neil was never reported, the king never knew he existed. That evening Exotius was sent to bring the bushes inside the castle walls, and they were never heard of or seen again.”
“Wow,” Rose commented, “so where is the thing that involves me? I mean, there wasn’t really anything about a Rose Heartington in that story. Yeah, there were roses and there were Heartingtons, but there wasn’t a Rose Heartington.”
“Rose, let me get there, OK?” James said, rather frustrated, “Well, while some folks seem to think that the story ended there, it didn’t. That very evening a prophecy was made by an old woman by the name of Jasmine Traymeda, who was sworn to have lived for over two hundred years. In the prophecy it was said that the first girl to be born of a descendant of King Joseph would find the Tiara of Emerald Thorns that was produced by the emerald rose bush just before it was stolen. It is said that it will only reveal itself to that first daughter, and ever since, there has been a long search for her.”
