“Thanks,” said Amelliea smiling shyly, admiring the tattoo.
“So what would you have wished for?” asked the innkeeper, a twinkle in his eye.
“For my father to be set free,” answered Amelliea sadly, her voice breaking and her brown eyes becoming wet.
“You are so selfless, I cannot help but grant you both of the things you wish for!” smiled the man.
“Both things?” asked Amelliea in surprise. “Whatever do you mean? Hold on,” she said sitting up and looking at her arm. The letters reappeared as she did so. “You can wield magic?”
“Oh no my dear, I’m afraid not,” laughed the innkeeper. “I am but a humble wish granter.”
“A wish granter?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never heard of a wish granter before,” she said.
“I am from another place, where whish granters are quite common,” he said.
“What kind of place do you speak of? A place in the Seven Regions?” asked Amelliea in confusion.
“Another planet,” he clarified.
“Then you must have come here through a windore!” she said in wonder.
“Why yes, there is a windore not far from here in the Citrulene region,” he smiled, delighted in her astonishment. “Now are you ready?” he asked, rubbing his hands together as though warming them up.
“For my wish?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I have to know one last thing,” she said, making him pause once more, “how did you put that marking on my arm?”
“It was my wish to give it to you,” he said simply.
“How many wishes can you grant?” asked Amelliea, growing ever more curious.
“But one a year,” he answered humbly. “Though I have saved up a few.”
“You must have to keep your abilities a secret so no one takes advantage of your gift,” she said, and the innkeeper nodded solemnly. “You’re secret is safe with me,” promised Amelliea.
“I know it is,” he answered. The short man rubbed his hands together once more, this time closer to his face. He whispered as he moved his fingers in a circular motion as though he was washing his hands. Without warning, Amelliea felt a sharp stabbing pain in her right shoulder.
“Ouch!” she cried, and sat back in her seat. Her missing arm began to grow out before her very eyes. She stared in shock, as the silver piece of armor cupping her missing arm was knocked off by a rapidly extruding elbow, followed by a forearm, a wrist, and then finally a hand with five fingers. “What in Windiffera is this?” she asked, lifting up her new arm and flexing her fingers. She held up both of her matching hands.
“I knew you would be too humble to ask for it,” smiled the innkeeper. “Both of your wishes are now a reality.”
“But—I—never—” began Amelliea.
“No need to thank me, I’m happy to spend a wish on a worthwhile cause. Truly it is I who should be thanking you, for one must never waste a wish!”
“Th—thank you!” said Amelliea, at a loss for words. A new arm was the last thing on her mind, but he had made such a sacrifice for her to have it. She thanked the wish granter for his kindness and generosity.
“Now go to your father,” said the innkeeper, “I expect they will be releasing him soon.” He grabbed a dishtowel and began to mop up the spilled soup.
“How can I ever thank you?” asked Amelliea.
“Just keep being the good person you already are,” smiled the man. “Now hurry!”
Amelliea rushed to the door.
“I almost forgot,” said the man making Amelliea pause with her new hand on the doorknob. “The incantation imprinted on your wrist means make real your dreams, in ancient Citruleneion, a language lost to us now for over ten thousand years.”
“I’m honored to have those words on my fighting arm,” said Amelliea before rushing out into the street.
Chapter 46
The Long Lost Child
Amelliea made her way to the castle. For the time being her strength was more or less stable, and she covered the distance with ease. She came upon the castle doors. The guards seized her at once.
“Let go of me!” cried Amelliea.
“You are fool to return here!” said one of the guards.
“Look at that!” said a second guard pointing out her new arm. “She’s grown a limb!”
“Take her to the Queen,” said the first guard, and Amelliea was taken away.
“Unhand me this instant, I’m here for the release of my father!” said Amelliea.
“I advise you to be polite, if you value your life!” hissed one of the guards before pulling her through into the Queen’s study. The study was a medium sized room, with a wooden floor and several large windows that came to identical arching points at the top. The furniture was fairly ornate, but considerably plainer than that of the Gator place.
The Queen was sitting at her writing desk with a quill in her hand, lightly looping some words onto a scroll. She stood upon seeing Amelliea and dropped her quill, splattering black ink onto her work. “What is this?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.
“My lady, she came to us on her own,” explained one of the guards with a bow.
“I’m here for the release of my father!” repeated Amelliea.
“Where did she get that?” asked the Queen, staring at Amelliea’s new arm.
“We know not, your highness,” said the guard.
“Leave us,” said the Queen. The men looked at each other with unease. “I said leave us!” shouted the woman. The guards hurried out the door. “What do you want?” asked the Queen of Amelliea.
“My father,” replied the girl simply.
“What else?” asked the Queen, looking intently at the blond girl.
“Nothing more,” said Amelliea in confusion.
“Nothing?” The Queen turned away and looked out of one of the windows. She folded her arms across her chest as though she were suddenly cold. “I knew this day would come.”
“This day?” asked Amelliea, raising her eyebrows.
“The day you would return to me—my daughter!” said the Queen, her voice full of emotion. Turning around, she extended her arms to Amelliea.
Amelliea stayed put as though she were glued to the floor. “It can’t be!” she said, willing it to be untrue. Looking at the Queen, she suddenly began to cry, her chest rising in silent sobs. Amelliea realized with a jolt that she and the Queen had similar facial features, and that the Queen had looked familiar to her in the arena because she had reminded Amelliea of herself!
“There-there my child,” consoled the Queen, her own eyes filling with tears as she wrapped her arms around Amelliea. “We are together at last! It was so long ago that I lost you, I feared I would never find you!”
“You’re my mother?” sobbed Amelliea, overwhelmed by the news.
“Yes, my long lost child! I thank my lucky stars that on this day you have returned to me!”
“My father!” cried Amelliea. “I must go to my father!”
The queen’s expression grew cold. “He is not your father.” She turned Amelliea around by the shoulders to face a large portrait hanging on the back wall of the room. “King Harold Donovan the 3rd is your true father!”
Amelliea looked up at the portrait of a man who had brown eyes very much like her own. He was a blond-haired man with a tired, serious face.
“What happened to him?” asked Amelliea.
The Queen placed a hand on Amelliea’s back. “He was poisoned,” she said, a dramatic note of tragedy in her voice.
“Do you miss him?” asked Amelliea.
“Of course,” said the Queen, turning her back to the painting.
“I shall never know him,” said Amelliea, her heart aching. She remembered at once about Bloom and the pain he must still be in. “Please, I beg you, do not keep my fa—friend captive in your dungeon!”
“As you wish my child,” said the Queen with a thin smile. She snapped her fingers and
two guards entered the room at once. So quickly did the guards return, that Amelliea suspected they had been eavesdropping. “Take her to the magic wielder!” commanded the Queen.
The guards directed Amelliea out of the room. “What did you say to her?” one of them hissed to the girl. Amelliea ignored the question. They led her down a long corridor and then up into the stairwell of a tall tower. Up and up the stairs they climbed until they reached a half a dozen jail cells built at the very top of the tower. Bloom was in the furthest cell, his hands shackled to the floor. The crolackrolite stone was resting on a wooden shelf several feet away from him in a shallow groove that looked to have been specially carved to hold the stone.
“Father!” cried Amelliea, rushing to the bars. The old man in the cell only trembled in pain, unable to even respond. He lay on the floor looking frail and weak. The guards fumbled with the keys. “Hurry!” shouted Amelliea. She tore the ring of keys from the man’s hand and jammed what looked like the right one into the lock. Swiftly pulling open the door, and racing into the cell, Amelliea retrieved the stone and rushed it back to Bloom, pressing it into his wrinkled hand. She knelt before him, crying at the state of her beloved father. Bloom began to age in reverse, growing rapidly younger and younger. His hair became less gray by the second, and his shoulders filled out with muscles. The lines in his face began to smooth out and his age spots disappear. Suddenly, the age reversal ceased, leaving Bloom looking about a decade older than he had before. Amelliea embraced him.
“I’m alright,” said Bloom, hugging her back. He wiped the tears from Amelliea’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said. The girl helped him to his feet, and Bloom looked around himself weakly. “Now I’ve seen the dungeons of all seven regions!” he said, making light of the hard situation. He put the crolackrolite stone away so he could hold Amelliea’s hand, and that was when he noticed that his daughter had not one, but two arms. “Hold on a minute,” he said, turning her this way and that, “how did this happen to you?”
Amelliea looked at the guards listening in on the conversation with fascination. “It’s a secret,” she said.
“I see,” said Bloom with understanding. “Well, it suits you,” he smiled, taking her new hand as they walked together from the dungeon.
Chapter 47
The Potion
The Queen insisted that Amelliea and Bloom stay in the castle and visit for a while. Amelliea wanted to leave at once after the way Bloom had been treated, but the wizard urged her to get to know her mother, arguing that it may be her only chance to do so. They were given separate chambers not far from the quarters of the Queen herself. The rooms were tastefully decorated and comfortable, with private bathing tubs set deep into the floor, and wide beds layered with extra warm feather-stuffed blankets. Amelliea and Bloom went to collect their belongings from the inn in the city, and while they were at it, they gifted the innkeeper and wish granter an entire chest full of gold from Bloom’s enchanted coin purse.
The Queen made it clear that Amelliea was very much wanted and welcome to live in the castle for as long as she wished since it was her true home. It was announced to all the townspeople that the young Princess and true heir to the throne had at last been found. Amelliea’s coronation was scheduled to take place on the first day of the following week in the great hall.
“Why that day?” asked Amelliea over breakfast with the Queen. Bloom had declined to join them, wanting to give them time together to reconnect.
“Why because, my dear girl, that happens to be your birthday!” said her mother.
“My birthday?” repeated Amelliea unable to repress a smile rising to her face.
“Yes,” said the woman, taking Amelliea’s hand. “It will be magnificent, with a banquet non present shall ever forget! Everyone shall be invited, even the counsel members that oppose me.” She smiled darkly, and looked away as though she had accidently revealed too much. “In the meantime, we must get you measured for a gown.” She looked at Amelliea with a sizing glance. “You have a lovely figure, why do you hide it beneath such ugly robes?”
“I am a warrior,” explained Amelliea simply.
“And a champion!” replied the Queen, handing her a large glittering object the size of a large apple. It was the Citrulene heart! Amelliea had not noticed the trophy before though it had been sitting on the table right in front of her. Now, she took it in her hands and looked carefully at the heart-shaped stone. It was a solid, yellow crystal with tiny flecks of copper captured deep within the transparent stone. Copper caught the light at different angles, sparkling from inside the sun-colored gem as though it were fairy dust.
“It’s exquisite!” said Amelliea. She smiled at her mother, unable to entirely comprehend the complex feelings churning inside of her. A servant came to collect the used dishes. He misgauged the weight of his tray, and as he swayed to re-balance it, a single ceramic teacup tipped over the edge and smashed on the floor.
“You blundering fool!” shouted the Queen. “That cup was worth ten times the value of your meager life!”
“I—I’m sorry, your Highness—” stammered the frightened servant.
“You will pay to replace it.”
“But I haven’t the money!” cried the man.
“Than you shall pay with the only thing you have left—your life!”
“It’s only a cup,” said Amelliea, trying to reason with her mother. “He did not mean to break it.”
“If he cannot preform his simple duties, then he is more useful to me dead, since his death will at least motivate my other servants to work harder.
“Please, do not be strict with this poor man.”
“I cannot afford to be so sentimental as to let an ineffective servant live.”
“I beg you to spare him, and show him mercy.”
“Whatever for?” asked the Queen.
“Why, because it is wrong to kill someone for an honest mistake!” Amelliea chewed her lip. “I shall pay for the cup on his behalf. How much did it cost?”
“All the gold in the Citrulene region,” said the Queen with a smile, inventing a price she knew her daughter could not pay.
Amelliea handed the Queen the Citrulene heart, the priceless trophy she had won in the competition. “Here, take this rare gem as payment for the cup. I trust it will suffice.”
Later that afternoon Amelliea was sent to the sewing room. Apparently, the gowns she had brought with her from the Gator region could not be worn in the Citrulene castle, seeing as they were deemed too revealing and improper by the Queen. Amelliea was instructed to stand still on a small wooden stage, while several maids pinned fabric this way and that across her body. Instantly the favorite person in the castle, Amelliea received nothing but praise and complements from the servants and ladies in waiting.
“What lovely hair you have,” said the head seamstress. “And such long, slender legs! You will hardly need to wear heels with gorgeous legs such as those!”
Amelliea smiled at the flattering words and looked down at the brown fabric wrapped around her torso. Suddenly, as she stood there on the stage with her arms out to the sides, her heart rate began to climb as it did before until it drummed at her temples in a pulsing storm. The light seemed to dim in the room, and the walls began to spin around her.
“Oh my goodness!” cried the head seamstress, as Amelliea fainted, falling into the arms of the many ladies densely standing around her. When she came around, she was lying on the floor. Amelliea asked for her father.
“Send for the Queen,” said the head seamstress to the maid.
“No! My father—please!” moaned Amelliea.
The ladies looked at one another nervously, but finally did as the girl asked.
Several long minutes later, Bloom rushed in and knelt beside Amelliea. He felt her pulse. “She has the—a fever,” he corrected his statement half way through. Take her to my room, and bring me fresh water, mint, rosemary, thyme, and a cooking pot.
“Very well,” said one of the maid
s, and hurried from the room.
Bloom carefully picked up his daughter and carried her to his chamber. Without pulling back the covers, he lay her down on the bed.
“What’s wrong with me?” Amelliea asked, lifting her head off the pillow.
Bloom was silent. He went to work building a fire in the fireplace.
“What’s happening?” asked Amelliea again, beads of cold sweat forming on her forehead as she trembled with her entire body.
“You were bitten,” Bloom replied.
“Bitten?” whimpered Amelliea.
Bloom nodded, “By the werewolf.”
Amelliea collapsed back down on the bed. Bloom leafed through an old book he had fished out from his pack. It was the same book that Master Dellwen had encouraged him to keep all that time ago, when he had first learned of the incurable nature of his curse and in his upset state had been inclined to destroy the volume. Who knew that some day he would need that very book to save his own daughter’s life? The wizard flipped through the ageing pages until he came to a recipe for a potion designed to cure a werewolf of involuntary transfiguration. The maid returned bringing the cooking pot, a pitcher of water, and the herbs he had requested. Bloom thanked her and instructed her to leave the things by the fireplace. When she left, the wizard bolted the door closed behind her, and quickly got to work.
He placed the iron caldron over the fire, filling it with most of the water from the pitcher. Muttering to himself he tossed pinches of powders from his own stash into the boiling water of the caldron. Giving it an occasional stir with a wooden spoon, Bloom cast no less than three spells upon the potion, until it shone a light silver color and swirled with a viscosity that was thicker than water. Bloom crushed a dry branch of mint, and added it to the mix. The contents of the caldron exhaled with a magical poof of sparkling silver steam.
“What does mint do for it?” asked Amelliea from the bed.
The Curse (The Windore Series Book 2) Page 30
