“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, I am. He needs to be dealt with. Besides, those who refuse him will be protected. Tyson has magia. He would never help his father, and he will protect those who would dare oppose him.”
“Sheree, Tyson will be here. They will come here when they are married. The curse will be set after they arrive here in Hearthstone.” Karen looked bewildered.
“Tyson needs to remain. He will be needed to give the men of the realm hope. No, it must be done on the eve of the wedding, and with the wedding scheduled, Ourobus will need to be within Ormshire. It’s the perfect setting.” Sheree’s head spun as she went over the details in her head.
“That is not going to work. What of Renella? How do we get her out of Ormshire?” Karen squealed.
“She is not bound to Ourobus. She could leave after the curse,” Sheree stated.
“How? If we set all the women within to perish with the enactment of the curse, she will perish with you all. I will have lost both of my daughters.” She paced the floor quickly. “No, I can’t allow that.”
“Karen, she will return to you. It will not be a loss. You must tell Rowan, or I will have him hear me,” Sheree demanded.
“I cannot.” She slammed her feet like a small child as she left the room.
Sheree sat and waited to see if she would return. When she did not, she decided to take the matter into her own hands and went to find the king. She located the throne room, which seemed to have been turned into a meeting place. A long wooden table sat in the middle of the runner, which led from the doors to the base of the stairs, to the stage. The big heavy drapes hung over the windows, blocking out the sky as the sun set. Sheree gave a wave of her hand and pinned the drapes to see the stars glowing bright. The sky was the color of grapefruit, and high above, it twinkled.
“Ahem.” Farlow cleared his throat as he entered the room, having seen Sheree inside. From behind, Sheree’s long brown hair could have been mistaken for the long auburn hair of Karen. Their frames were similar, since they were both average height and slim.
As Sheree turned around, Farlow started to excuse himself, then realized who it was he had walked in on. “What are you doing here?” he asked, mild-mannered.
“I wished to speak to Rowan, although I think you will do,” Sheree said calmly.
He looked at her, stunned. “What makes you think the king, or even I, would speak to the wife of the man who murdered our kin?” His voice was harsh, and his demeanor conveyed disdain.
“I wish to help you rid the world of my husband. Now will you speak with me?” Sheree became rigid as she spoke.
Farlow relaxed a little. His shoulders fell to a more comfortable position and he pulled out a chair to sit. “I’m listening,” he said to her calmly, but was still unsure.
Sheree spent the better part of two hours trying to convey to Farlow what she and Karen had figured out with Oma’s help. She made sure he knew every detail, including Renella’s need to stay with them in Ormshire.
“We are all making sacrifices. She will know her choices too,” Sheree said as she headed out of the door to claim her horse for the journey home. She needed to speak with her children and the princess.
Chapter Eighteen
Cherry Valley
The room was dark, but the light coming in the window and around the curtain let me see where I was each time I fell asleep and woke again. I hadn’t had a full night’s rest in so long, I couldn’t remember what it felt like.
As I lay in my mother’s bed, I took in the sweet scent of her perfume. I had sprayed it once or twice before lying down, but it still smelled as if she were in the room with me.
I opened my eyes to remind myself of where I was, but the room had changed. Where the dresser—opposite the bed—would have been was a pad of dirt.
I turned on my other side to see the window gone, but in its place was the front gate to Ormshire Castle. Not being there in a hundred years hadn’t made it unrecognizable to me. Since getting my memories back, it had only felt like I had been gone for a few days.
Realizing I had been lying on a small mound of straw, I got up and looked around further. There was nobody in the courtyard in front of the castle; not a single person to clutter the street past the front gate either. The front of the castle wall was torched—like it had been set on fire recently—and the glass was missing from the pane of windows where the throne room would surely be.
I walked closer to the gate and peeked inside. The guards, who normally stood on either side of the main entrance to the castle, were not at their posts. Neither were the guards that sat in the tower to raise and lower the gate at the wall. I walked slowly to the main door and noticed a tall pole sticking out of the ground below the windows with the missing glass.
In Cherry Valley, that type of pole would have been a telephone or electrical pole. However, being in the land of magia and fairies meant things worked without electrical wires. The power of the heart stone under the Hearthstone Palace gave power, energy, and life to everything within Pylira.
As I got closer, I could see that a limp figure hung from the top. Her hands were bound together above a slumped-over head, and her feet were bound as well. I noticed the green fabric with the light from the sun. It reflected off the satin as the wind moved it about. Then reality hit.
“No!” I screamed so loud, I could hear my own voice echo through the air. “No…please, no!” As fast as my feet could carry me, I rushed to the hanging woman. The edges of her skirts were scorched, but nothing more. Ourobus had not attempted to burn her to death, but merely hung her in the hot sun until dehydration had taken its toll. Her face was windburned, and her lips were so dry, they were no longer pink. I tried to use my magia, but I was unable to. I could not free her.
“Mother!” I screamed over and over, trying to get her to move, flinch, or moan. Anything to let me know she was not gone. “Please, say something!”
I tried to reach her, but she was hung so high on the post that her feet were all I could reach.
“Renee?” she whispered to me.
My heart thudded in my ears so loud, as my pulse quickened, that I hardly heard her. “Mother, I’m here.” I put my hands over her bare feet so she could feel me next to her. “I can’t help you down. My magia…it’s not working. What can I do?” Hot tears fell from my eyes and blinded me.
“Nothing…there is nothing you can do. You’re not really here. I used what I had left in my stone…so I could…say goodbye.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, looking up at her, and saw her smiling.
“No, there has got to be something I can do. Something to help you!” I cried and pulled at the ropes tied against her ankles. “Help! Somebody help me!”
“No… I know what needs to happen now. It’s okay, Renella. I will be with your sister again.” She let her head slump down so her chin rested against her chest, and her eyes closed.
“What needs to happen? Why is it you? Why did you stay here?”
Tears burned against my face, and my eyes stung. Grief overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t stand the weight of my own body any longer, but I held her. I would not let her die without being as close to her as I could.
“You have to defeat him. We cannot stop what has been started. He needs to be defeated.”
“How am I supposed to do that? We have to find the great power. Do you know who it is?”
“Yes…” she said with a heavy sigh. “I love you, Renella. I have faith in you.” Her body went limp as she spoke those last words.
I put both of my hands to my head and dropped to my knees, screaming.
I felt hands on me as I kicked and felt like I was being weighed down by something.
“Renee!” Tabby screamed at me as she pulled the blankets from my tangled body. “Renee, wake up.”
I stopped moving and looked around the room. The light was off, but I could see in what little light came from the window. Tabby knelt over me as I la
y on the bed and forced my lungs to breath. In…out.
“What happened?” she asked as I tried to sit up.
My face was still sticky with the remains of tears I had shed. My eyes stung and felt as if sand had gotten in them. The light flickered on, and all the houseguests stood at the foot of my bed.
“She’s gone,” was all I could manage.
“Who’s gone?” Ty sat next to me and tried to reach out, but I moved away and got off the bed on the other side of the room, away from the group. As I walked to the window, it started to dissolve away from me. I placed my hand on the wall, but it had become so thin, I could see through it until it disappeared altogether. The circle of the cul-de-sac outside looked as though it floated on air, and then it too disappeared.
As the trees melded and moved, and the grass turned from the beautiful, plush green of Cherry Valley to the straw-looking blades of Pylira, I stood and watched as the suspicions regarding my mother’s death and the spell were confirmed.
Soon, the lamp posts and all the houses had gone. I looked back at my friends to see they had remained where they stood. The two worlds simply blended together until one was gone and the other remained. The people of the cul-de-sac had not appeared. I wondered where they would have gone to.
Once the world stopped moving and the air felt clearer, I drew on the energy of the heart stone. The river nearby and to the right meant we were closer to Ormshire than we would have wanted to be under normal circumstances.
I turned to the left and started walking.
“Where are you going?” Tabby asked as she ran to stop me.
“I’m not leaving her there.” I kicked a rock as I tried to move past her.
“Who? Where?” Chase and Nolan asked.
“My mother is dead. Your father strung her up like a witch to be burned at the stake…and just let her die. You left her behind!” I screamed at Ty and started to go after him, my fists clenched, but Farlow stepped up and grabbed me before I could connect. “I’m not leaving her there,” I repeated. I stopped fighting against Farlow’s hold so he would let me go.
“Fine, but you can’t go alone,” Sheree said. “Now that the passage is down and the curse is gone…we don’t know if he has magia again or if he’s still that monster.”
I stood in front of Sheree and pointed a finger at her. “That man will always be a monster…until the day he is gone.” I kicked at another rock and turned toward Ormshire Castle, not caring who followed behind me.
I wasn’t interested in anyone’s condolences. I didn’t want to talk about it or share my feelings. What I wanted was to get my mother’s body off that pole and bring her home to my father. She deserved that much.
I turned to glance behind me and saw that every one of them had decided to follow me into the monster’s den. I couldn’t be concerned with that. If I let the grief inside me take over, I knew it would make me into the wounded creature I felt I was. I had to be strong; for my mother, for my father, and for my people.
One thing was for certain; my mother was right. I had to find the great power and help it defeat Ourobus once and for all, killing anyone who stood in my way.
We reached the mountain pass that looked over the castle, and I noticed I could no longer feel Tyson. It was as if the link had been severed. With the curse gone, maybe that was just one more thing it took with it.
I stopped and looked over the east wing of the castle walls.
“If we climb out, onto that ledge right there, we can reach the top of the wall and climb over at the tower,” Tabby pointed out.
“I have no intention of sneaking into the castle,” I told her as I climbed down the cliff.
“Then what are you going to do? Walk in and knock on the door?” Sheree yelled at me, her frustration and worry evident. I knew she would be hard-pressed to return to that castle, even for a task so important to me.
“Actually, yes. The guards are no longer at their posts. There is nobody in the courtyard and the gate is still up.” I pointed to the west side, where the front gate was, which was visible from high above the wall.
“She’s there.” I pointed to the post sticking up, over the wall. “Just inside the front gate.”
“There may be a bit more activity down there once they realize she has passed,” Sheree said.
I stopped climbing down and walked back to where they all stood.
“My mother did not pass on. Your best friend did not pass on. Your murderous husband killed her. She did not pass on. She is dead!” I stomped back down the hill and decided to tune them all out.
“I can’t go, Tyson. If he sees me…” Sheree spoke to her son. “You should stay too, Tabitha.”
“Here’s an idea… How about you all stay? I’ll be right back.” I ducked behind a tree and landed at the bottom of the hill.
“You can’t do this by yourself,” Tyson said as he dropped down behind me. I was surprised that I hadn’t known he was there. I really thought he was going to let me do this alone.
Just as I obliged his tagging along, Farlow dropped down as well, with the help of his wings.
“I’m coming too. You’ll need help to get her down.” The way he spoke made me think he knew what I knew. That somehow, he had seen her too.
“Fine.” I scuffed past them and continued to the west side of the wall.
As the gate had come into view, I was able to confirm my suspicions; that in fact, there were no guards at their posts. The gate had remained open and the area was free of passersby.
I doubted very much that many people wanted to pass by the castle. Since the curse enacted, lives in Ormshire had to have changed dramatically. Many of the men there would have been mourning the loss of family members. I had never thought of what it must have been like to simply wake one day and have half of your family not there, without any explanation.
We rounded the wall and followed the path as I had done earlier in—What was it?—a dream? I saw that the glass within the castle walls was gone as I had seen it. The side of the castle walls had been scorched, and I noticed something I hadn’t earlier during my encounter with my mother in her final moments. The smell that encompassed the area was verminous. I retched at the smell of burnt flesh and bone, mixed with wood and stone.
“Over there,” I said, pointing to the front of the windows. I could see the top of the post, which stood alone in the middle of the courtyard.
As we got closer, I saw her skirts as they had been; billowing in the wind, charred at the edges, and hanging over her limp form as she hung from the bindings at her hands, which held her on the post.
Farlow flew to her hands and drew a short knife from his boot holster, freeing her as Ty held her legs so I could free the bonds at her feet.
As the fairy landed on the ground, he cradled her lifeless body in his arms. I wanted so badly to throw myself over her; to try anything to bring her back, but all I could do was kiss her forehead and turn to hurry away from the castle.
Sheree was right. There was no way of knowing if Ourobus and his people knew my mother was gone or if the passage, and subsequently the curse, had lifted. There was no way to know if Ourobus still held his beast form or if he had turned back into a man. I also knew if they caught sight of any of us, we would be killed on the spot.
I couldn’t be sure my magia worked as it had in Cherry Valley. My link to Ty had obviously been dealt a blow, so there was no way to know if I would be able to protect them as they helped me carry my mother out of that place.
We got as far as the gate before being dealt with even more questions. A large, black beast galloped to us from the main doors of the castle. I stood in terror as I watched the beast rear its head and bellow a loud roar. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Run.” Ty grabbed my hand to pull me away from the castle, but I couldn’t feel him. I stood still as the beast leaned back on its hind legs before pushing off the ground and lunging for me.
“Renee, run.” Ty started moving, but my feet woul
dn’t move.
I was only a few feet from the gate; from the confines of the cured beasts to Ormshire. Those who were inside the castle walls could not come out. Why wasn’t I moving?
As the beast drew nearer, I could see the steam of breath as it snorted through its nostrils. Its mouth drew open and was ready to grab me anywhere it could, but still my feet stayed still. I could hear the two behind me as they fled with my mother, draped in Farlow’s arms. He had taken flight and was beyond the wall, and I could hear Ty screaming my name. The beast headed straight for me.
I raised one hand, open to the beast as if I meant to catch him like a ball to a glove. As he drew closer and I could almost touch him, I clenched my hand closed into a fist.
The beast whimpered and thrashed and fell to the ground. I stared at the lifeless form as it lay before me on the ground, my arm still outstretched; hand clenched tight.
I looked up and saw flame sprout through the glassless window panes.
“Renee, what have you done?” Ty was back at my side, tugging me by the arm. “Renee, we have to go!” I could hear him yelling, but it was as if he were miles away. “Farlow…”
I felt his hands grip around my waist, and my feet left the ground. I let my body go limp as the fairy prince lifted me through the air, landing softly on the hill out of sight of the castle walls, where the others waited.
“What happened to her?” Tabby said from somewhere in the distance.
A fog washed over me, and the voices I heard had gotten further away, until at last, I could hear them clearly again.
“We have to get her to my father.” I stood, held out my hand, and lifted my mother’s body from the dead earth. She lay flat in the air, and with a wave of my fingers, my mother floated as I started the journey home.
The Curse of Ormshire (The Beast Within Book 2) Page 16
