My siblings tried to hold it all back, but then, a figure appeared from among the group, one I recognized all too well. A long-haired blond man created a spell out of thin air. Next to him, a purple dragon appeared, screeching loudly and revealing strikingly sharp fangs. More familiar figures appeared around my family, shape-shifters, pixies, vampires.
They all lunged at my brothers and my parents, and just like that, I snapped. I shot forward and unsheathed my blade, blocking the magical attack with my weapon. “Enough of this!” I called out. “You’re not going to beat me.”
The magic users in front of me started to laugh. “Are you serious, Prince Leonard?” the witch Anelah asked. “You have no chance against me.”
In her voice, in her words, I heard the real witch—Anelah’s mother. She had practically given herself away by saying “me,” not “us.” All of this was only an illusion which she had cleverly crafted from my fears.
“You wouldn’t harm your brother’s mate, would you?” Rapunzel asked, fixing me with a mock-innocent look.
“You are mistaken,” I told him calmly. “I have no intention of fighting you—any of you. I trust you.”
Yes, Rapunzel had hidden his ancestry. Yes, his mother was the same witch who’d once enchanted Medwin. Yes, Kirril had left Arthuria for a dragon, and some people had called him a traitor for it. But I knew better. I had seen the love between Medwin and Rapunzel, between Kirril and Dineiro. I had shared a meal with Dineiro’s Merlinian friends and had fought side by side with them to free one of their own. And all my choices, their appearance in my life, and my insistence to help them had led me to this point, to Briar.
The damn witch was throwing my doubts and nightmares at me, but those fears were in the past. I could understand now what my brothers felt for their chosen mates, because I felt the same for Briar. And I knew that this sort of love could hold no deceit.
I took a deep breath, focusing on the strength I found in Briar’s faith in me. Instead of lunging with my sword at my opponents, I buried it deep into the cracked cobblestone path at my feet.
Screams erupted all around me. I jumped back and caught a flash of motion through the corner of my eye. I turned, just in time to catch my mother attacking me, her lips drawn into an angry snarl, her eyes flashing with killing intent as she tried to bury her sword in my flesh. “Traitor!” she screamed.
My father, now seemingly recovered, joined in on the fight, and so did my brothers. The magic users cast all sorts of enchantments at me.
But it was futile. None of their attacks could touch me. I just smiled and caught my mother’s blade in my hand. “I won’t ever betray the ones I love,” I said calmly. “That’s why you can’t win.”
The ground started to shake, and the illusions of my family and friends vanished. I found myself falling again, just like I had earlier that day, through the strange portal that had carried me to the Dryad Kingdom.
Once more, I collapsed into the grass, panting hard as I struggled to process what had happened. I knew I’d won the first battle when I saw I was exactly where I’d started my journey throughout Briar’s lands, in the tiny grove created by magic.
Of course, Rosa had been right when he’d said that the dream world would be different. The briars and vines covered with roses were gone. In their place stood a strange dark forest, more ominous than anything I’d ever seen in my life. They formed a barrier just as effective as the one in the real world, but in it, I saw nothing of Briar—just darkness. I could almost recognize some of the trees. They seemed like mammoth, twisted versions of arbors I’d seen in the real world, but I couldn’t be sure. Merlinian vegetation was different from Arthurian one.
Just the same, it seemed obvious that these particular plants were under the witch’s control. Rosa’s voice soon confirmed this. The creature reached out to me, his weak voice sounding in my mind as if through a thick filter. “Well done so far. But be very careful. This is a realm the witch can control with ease. One false move, and you’ll be stuck here forever.”
“I have no intention of allowing that to happen,” I told him. “Briar is relying on me.”
After that, the time for conversation was over. I lifted my sword yet again and approached the edge of the forest. As I stood there, strange whispers reached my ears, some angry, some frightened, others hopeful or even filled with hatred.
“There are other dryads trapped here, not only Briar,” Rosa told me. “Everyone is under the witch’s curse. She wouldn’t risk breaking their stasis, not even in the dream world, but their spirit endures there. Given that you’re an Arthurian, they might stand against you.”
Great. Why didn’t that surprise me? I didn’t look forward to fighting Briar’s friends or family, but in the end, it was a little fitting. After all, I had once felt the same prejudiced wariness toward the Merlinians my brothers loved. I’d just have to prove myself worthy of Briar’s affection.
Of course, that was easier said than done. If Rosa was correct—damn him anyway for not warning me before—Briar’s kin could very well be in this forest, too. If I slashed the wrong thing, I could harm someone close to my beautiful mate.
What little I had learned about the Dryad Kingdom couldn’t really help me. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on Briar, on my memory of him. Holding onto the image of his smile, I moved my sword down in a slashing motion, aiming it at the plants in front of me.
The vegetation yielded to my mastery of my blade, and I walked forward, using my instinctual connection with Briar as a guide. Well, at least that was what I aimed for. It wasn’t quite so smoothly. I stumbled more than once and fell face-first in the ground—which turned out particularly unpleasant when it became apparent that there were animals as well as plants in this forest. I guess it made sense—but I would have preferred to learn that little tidbit by actually seeing a creature, not stumbling straight into a large pile of excrement.
It certainly didn’t help that the plants didn’t seem inclined toward any affectionate caresses now. In fact, the thorns seemed more liable to castrate me than grope me. Even with this most dire threat aimed at me, though, I managed to make my way through the forest with my gonads intact and only minor injuries to my dignity. The witch needed to find something more impressive if she wanted to keep me from Briar.
Once I surpassed this first obstacle, I went on to follow the same path Briar had led me through. I crossed the forest where I’d met Rosa, noting how dark, silent, and ominous it seemed. As I stepped into the grove I recognized as Rosa’s, I half expected roses to bloom around me, just like they had before. Naturally, it didn’t happen, but my presence did trigger something. A million thorns flew straight at me from every possible direction. I dropped to the ground and rolled behind a tree just in time to dodge the first wave, but more came at me. Several slashed my cheeks and struck my thighs and shoulders—and suddenly, it was very obvious that I should have been more careful with what I wished for. The witch did have more weapons in her arsenal, and if I wasn’t careful, I could die as a thorn pin cushion.
Thankfully, my agility didn’t fail me even if I was in the dream world. I managed to evade most of the projectiles and left the booby-trapped area behind. Once I was safe, I removed the thorns that had embedded themselves in my flesh and bandaged my wounds as well as I could. This definitely had to be a dream, because I’d never bled so badly in my life, even from sword wounds.
Shaking my head at my musings, I continued on my way. Finally, I reached the place where the barrier of briars was supposed to be. Just like Rosa had said, it was missing here, but in its place stood a huge stone wall. There was no door that I could see and a moat filled with water blocked the immediate access to it. Even if the water itself seemed harmless enough, I could distinguish faint shapes underneath the surface, and I gathered it wouldn’t be wise to try to swim across.
For a few minutes, I stood there, considering my next move and assessing the advantages and disadvantages of my adversary. The
witch had the upper hand, or so it would have seemed. However, this was a world of dreams, not necessarily one of magic. In this realm, I had as much power as she did. I just had to channel it somehow.
Once more, I sought out my feelings for Briar. We didn’t have a complete connection, not like the ones my brothers had said they shared with their respective mates. I was still uncertain on many things, and a part of me still couldn’t understand how I could be so drawn to a person I’d only met minutes ago. But whatever questions my rational side asked, my heart could answer. And in those replies, I found the strength I needed to reach out to the very core of this dream world.
This was still the Dryad Kingdom, and I was the mate of the dryad prince. The soul of the realm had granted me entrance once before. Some things might have changed, but that was still true.
As I thought this, a surge of power flowed through me, finding an anchor in the certainty of my emotions. Vines burst out of the ground and wrapped themselves around my waist. They carried me over the moat and deposited me safely on the other side. Strange fish-like creatures tried to lunge at me, but didn’t reach me, instead clashing against the solid vines.
Sadly, when the vines came in contact with the wall, they withered away. At the other side of the moat, the plants couldn’t help me. Frustrated, I held onto my sword and buried it into the smooth surface of the stone, as high as I could reach. I retrieved my second weapon, my dagger, from my boot and gripped it in my hand.
Using my sword as my only point of support, I hoisted myself up on the wall. What followed was a struggle of grappling and holding on for dear life, chipping off pieces of the wall with my dagger while my sword kept me from plummeting to the ground and possibly my death. The higher I went, the smoother and more resilient the wall became. At one point, its surface actually turned slick, as if covered with a strange, smelly liquid that made my fingers slip whenever I tried to ascend. On the whole, it was pretty hellish, so much so that when I finally reached the top, I almost couldn’t believe it.
I sat on the edge on the wall, drawing my breath and looking into the distance. From this height, I could see the labyrinth that hid Briar’s private garden, and beyond it, something that looked suspiciously like a humongous, mountain-sized tree. I didn’t know how I had missed it back in the real world, because it seemed so impossibly obvious here.
“It’s the palace, the Great Tree,” Rosa told me in my mind. “With luck, you won’t have to go there. Go on, Arthurian. You’re very close.”
His words encouraged me, or would have, except I suddenly felt something wasn’t quite right. It might have been in Rosa’s tone, or in the way the wind began to blow here, in the dream world. “Rosa?” I called out. “What is it?”
No reply came this time. A million different scenarios rushed through my mind, and all fatigue vanished. I started to climb down the wall, moving as quickly as I could and probably far too recklessly. At one point, I lost my grip on the dagger, but by some miracle, I managed to keep myself from falling.
Still, it seemed to take forever until I finally set foot on the ground. The moment I did so, however, the seemingly solid earth melted into quicksand. Before I even knew what was going on, the pit started to swallow me whole.
Even as I froze, I growled in anger and annoyance. Arthuria didn’t have dragons, trees that threatened to castrate you, or strange witches who suddenly decided they were out for your blood—at least not natively. However, Arthurian wilderness could be very dangerous, too, and I was well trained in what to do if I fell in quicksand. Therefore, I knew all too well that flailing and struggling would be counter-productive. I seriously didn’t have time for this.
I was considering the advantages and disadvantages of tossing my sword aside when it occurred to me that yet another thing felt off. This particular pit seemed deeper than any I’d seen before and it appeared to be sucking me in quite viciously. In fact, if I hadn’t known any better, I would have said the thing was alive. Then again, here in the Dryad Kingdom, anything was possible.
Alive. I wasn’t sinking into quicksand—I was being eaten. Throwing my weapons away—which, because of their weight would have been the smart thing to do in a normal scenario—would have sealed my fate. I could still fuck this up. I could very easily be mistaken, but in my heart, I knew it was not the case.
Holding onto my weapon tightly, I began to shove it through the pit as hard as I could. I used my momentum to force my body out of the so-called quicksand. It was a risky strategy, since under normal circumstances, it could have pushed me deeper. However, my gut feeling turned out to be correct. The sand-like substance began to shudder around me, as if in protest. The entire pit shook as my blade slashed through it. Before I could make my own way out, a sudden force spat me out of the pit. I flew straight through the air, landing several feet away, covering in a translucent, sticky liquid that I guessed was either saliva or blood.
I was quickly growing tired of the witch’s tricks, but they just made me more determined to reach Briar. I got up and headed toward the labyrinth, needing to see my mate so much it hurt.
By now, my muscles were screaming in protest. My arms ached after the effort of scaling the wall, and the wounds from the thorns itched and burned. Most of the bandages seemed to have fallen during my fight with the sand pit creature. For all I knew, the injuries were going to get infected even if I was in a dream world. My rational side told me to stop and at least wash my wounds, but I simply couldn’t do so. I kept going, running until I reached the center of the labyrinth.
Just like earlier, I froze, unable to move a muscle. This time, though, it wasn’t Briar’s beauty that kept me immobile. Instead, it was his absence.
The bed of roses was still there, exactly where I remembered it. I could even see a very faint indentation where his body had lain. However, that only made it more obvious that he wasn’t there now.
Rosa’s voice reached out to me again. “Briar isn’t in his private garden,” he told me, his tone filled with urgency. “The witch changed his location.”
I had the overwhelming urge to kick him, and perhaps I would have if he’d been physically present. “I can see that,” I replied, managing to keep my calm only because I knew panicking wouldn’t help. “Where else can he be?”
“His quarters in the palace,” Rosa quickly replied. “In the highest room of the tallest tower.”
The highest room in that obscenely huge tree? How was I even supposed to get there? Briar had never showed me, and if I’d had so much trouble reaching the labyrinth where I’d actually been before, I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to find navigate the dryad palace.
Nonetheless, I had no doubt that I could do it. The alternative was simply unthinkable. I couldn’t not achieve it, so, for what seemed like the millionth time, I nodded. “Show me the way.”
Rosa did, or at least he tried to. Something that looked like a rose with wings appeared in front of me and started to guide me away from the labyrinth’s center. I would have very much liked to say it went well, but it didn’t. The veil between the dream world and the real one seemed to become thicker with every second that passed, and the only thing I had to help me was a peculiar cross between a rose and a bat.
Even so, I followed. On occasion, the rose-bat led me up to dead ends, which didn’t really fill me with confidence when it came to Rosa’s ability to act as my guide. But since I had no other choice, I persevered, and mercifully, my patience was rewarded when we finally left the labyrinth.
I now found myself standing in front of a winding cobblestone path framed by tall, hulking trees. There was something unsettling about those trees, and somehow, I knew that if I tried to pass them, I’d run into an unpleasant surprise.
However, the rose-bat was advancing onto the path, and I could do nothing but follow. I held my blade close, my every muscle tense as I waited for the attack.
The trees started to stir from the very first moment I set foot on the road they guarded. Their br
anches seemed to grow bigger, and an ominous hum sounded around me. Vines burst from the ground, wrapping themselves around my arms and legs. I was just about to slash them off, but then something stopped me, a feeling that reminded me of the time I’d been granted passage through the forest of briars. I’d narrowly avoided killing the roses that belonged to Briar. I could only follow that same gut feeling and hope it didn’t get me ripped apart.
My gamble paid off, and the vines soon released me, allowing me passage. Rosa proceeded to uselessly explain why that was. “They are other guardians who fell under the curse’s power when their children did. Their magic is limited because of their predicament, but they can and will stop you if they think you are a danger for the Dryad Kingdom.”
Of course he couldn’t have told me that before I’d figured it out myself. Sometimes I really thought he hated me. Perhaps he himself believed that I was dangerous for Briar and the Dryad Kingdom, or maybe he was merely testing me. The gods only knew what made Rosa act the way he did.
In the end, it didn’t really matter, because I wasn’t here for Rosa. Grateful that the other guardians wouldn’t attempt to stop me, I ran forward, following the rose-bat. It seemed to take forever, but finally, I reached the closed gates of the palace. The very top of the gates looked like two weeping willows with their branches entangled, and the main structure seemed to grow from the large trees instead of being crafted by the hand of man. Under different circumstances, I might have admired the masterful beauty of it, but now, I was too busy focusing on the huge red rose in front of me.
I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised that the witch had such minions in the dream world. Still, it bothered me that she had managed to twist the symbol of Briar’s innocent and passionate perfection into something so obviously monstrous. The petals of the rose parted to reveal something akin to fangs. Its thorns pointed at me threateningly, and it walked on its roots, using them like an animal would legs.
Briar Rose and His Not-So-Charming Prince Page 5
