“Servants to clean up after our meals, to light our fireplaces and fluff our pillows. Riches to purchase what you love most. Words.”
My fingernails dug into the soft wooden counter.
Words…
“Books,” he whispered. “All the books you could want, Rose. Beyond the walls, they have bookshops. Can you imagine? You could open your own blacksmithing store and read on quiet days, not stand under the burning sun for most of your life—”
“Enough.”
I turned back to the washbasin. I turned my back on his pleas. And I dove my hands into the basin to wash the dishes.
“I can’t hear any more.” My voice was stiffer than my iron muscles. “All I can do is wish you good fortune. I won’t stop you.”
“I know.” Lock exhaled a quiet breath of disappointment. “No one can.”
With a huff, I stormed out of the kitchen and left Lock to clean up. Normally, my workshop was my sanctuary. A temple, in some ways. But that evening, I took refuge in my room—in the forbidden books I kept hidden under the floorboards.
Finally, when the hour was late and my eyes ached, sleep swept over me, and I fell into an awful dream of old tales.
The First Witch
No one ever saw the witch and survived to spread her story.
Those who dared step foot on the scorched, black sand were never seen again—by anyone other than the witch. Souls, trapped on the island with an isolated creature forever.
The witch could never leave the Black Woods, so she wandered and lived among her children—the trees. Whenever she passed them by, their trunks bloated and black sludge bled from the cracked bark like sap. A greeting to their mother.
For centuries, the witch wandered the slick, sludgy floor of the dangerous woods, and feasted on any life that dared blossom there.
Somehow, stories of her leaked to other parts of the lands—tales of her skin, paler than moonlight, her inky veins that surged with power, the black that spilled from her white lips, and her stench of death and rot. But no one ever saw the witch and lived to spread the tales of her.
Until one man was spared. The Old King of Hearts.
A kind king, a father to his people.
The Old King had been travelling the dangerous, choppy seas between worlds when pirates attacked his ship. Crew and ship destroyed, the Old King became lost at sea with his Knaves.
One by one, the Knaves drowned. And when all that was left was the weakened king, a shore of black sand and rotten water dragged him in with the tide.
The Old King became stranded on the shore of the Black Woods. The first to be spared by the witch.
The witch of the Black Woods watched as the king grew weaker on the sands. Days passed, and she stayed trapped in the barrier of her children. Trees surrounding her for eternity.
Then one day, the king—close to death, starved of food and water—saw the streak of white among the blackness.
He saw the witch.
“Please.” The wind carried his broken voice to the witch. He struggled to his knees, his face hollower than the heart of the witch he begged to. “Help me—please.”
The witch did not help him that day. She sank back into the darkness, and left the dying king on the shore.
The next day, the witch appeared in the crack of the trees, inky shadows sweeping all around her. The king begged, the witch watched, then she left.
But on the third day, when the witch’s gleam danced between the trees, the king did not beg. His nearing death had stolen his voice and weakened him to a limp body on the shore.
That day, the witch helped him.
With the branches of the trees growing all around her like vines, the witch dragged the Old King into the Black Woods.
Chapter 3
My faint reflection stared back at me, distorted by the panelled window.
Not unlike the moss that grew on the rocks by the sea, tired grey eyes caught the glint of the sun kissing the horizon. Blond curls framed my tired face and fell down way past my shoulders. Hair strings only held the blasted curls in place for so long now, it was in dire need of kitchen-scissor attention.
“The sun’s rising,” I said, chewing a mouthful of walnut bread. “We should leave now.”
Perched at the kitchen bench, Lock stirred honey into his cup. “But I haven’t finished my tea.”
“You haven’t started your tea.” The curtain fell back over the kitchen window as I stepped away. “Bring it along.”
“Last time I took tea into the carriage, I spilled it all over the upholstery. I thought Marybelle would behand me for it.”
“She’ll behand you for deceiving her, disobeying her, and running off to the tournament, but you’re worried about spilling tea in the carriage.” I shook my head. “Sometimes I don’t know whether to admire your delusions or pity you for them.”
Lock winked his chocolate eye at me. “As the beauty from the King’s Head Tavern tells me, I’m one of a kind.”
Rolling my eyes, I peeled off my glasses and gave them a quick clean with a cloth. “I’d like to meet the fools who shower you with compliments.” I slid the glasses onto my upturned nose. I added, “But it might be difficult to meet mere illusions of your mind, because I know for damn sure that Maple would never call you ‘one of a kind’ and mean it as a compliment. Frankly, I’m not sure she can say anything other than ‘can I take your order’.”
“Aren’t you a testy teapot this morn.” Lock slid from the stool by the counter. “Come, come, stop dallying. We should leave now if we’re to avoid the hullabaloo.”
I shot him a tired glare.
Lock pretended not to notice as he set to buttoning his ruffle shirt.
Ceremony clothes were simply wretched. Ruffles and layers and lace. They reminded me of shredded linen, caught in the path of a crazed Jabberwock.
As someone who often ran at the sight of skirts and dresses, I felt most uncomfortable in my own ceremony clothes, and spared little pity for Lock.
My own ruffles came in the punishment of a black knee-length skirt of lace and satin, itchy stockings, and a cream peasant blouse that I couldn’t tie tight enough over my chest to hide every slice of skin. The lace-up boots weren’t so bad, but I had to remind myself to break them in at some point.
“How do I look?” he asked, setting the teacup on the saucer. He spread his arms and swayed his hips from side to side. “Dashing, yes?”
Without interest, I grabbed the bunch of holly from the counter. “Much like you do every day.”
Lock wiggled his brows. “Why, thank you. And you look like a pirate. All you need is a bird on your shoulder and a hat.”
“A ship, too,” I added. “Then I could sail far away from your insufferable arse.”
“Well, I never,” he gasped, then ruffled my curls. “There, now you match that skirt of yours.”
Lock quickly downed his tea and sped out of the kitchen, leaving me to glare after him.
He was just as infuriating in the carriage. It was all I could do to not elbow him or sneer as he waffled on. At one point, I had a rather dreamy thought of ramming those ruffles into his mouth just to get a moment of peace.
He blathered on and on about the made-up tale of how he managed to woo Holly when she was alive.
Holly was older than me when Lock first came into our family. She and him never had any misunderstanding that they weren’t brother and sister.
Lock came from the dead friends of my parents, something that Holly used to point out regularly. It had it made her feel better about their weird, twisted romance.
Lock’s ramblings drifted into the background.
Halfway down the bumpy hill, I rested my temple against the carriage door and gazed out the window. It was murky, in need of a wash, but I could make out the faint early-morn lights of the village. Wisps of pinks and oranges, tangled with the brown smudges on the glass.
Sneaking into the carriage was the welcome smell of the fresh sea salt, crisp in the a
ir. But the familiar fragrance of Catherine’s Bakery was missing.
“—and I marched right up to Augustus,” said Lock, raising his finger in the air. “And I looked him in those furious little eyes of his, and I said—I said, ‘I love your daughter, sir. I wish to marry her, and I will! With or without your blessing.’ Well, he shook my hand, is what he did. Shook it, hard.”
I snorted and tucked my favourite dagger into my belt. “That’s not what happened at all. I remember him chasing you with a broom after he found you and Holly kissing in the workshop.” The blade of the dagger hung over my skirt. “Does anyone believe the nonsense that spills out of your mouth?”
Lock took a moment to think. “Yes. Many people, in fact. I’m a natural storyteller.”
I made a face at him.
Lock pinched my pale cheek. “Why are you so nervous? Scared someone might realise your talents and whisk you away to the Queen’s Army?”
I shrugged, my fingers finding the ballerina pendant below my collarbone. It had been Holly’s necklace before she’d died.
I never quite cared for ballerinas. Holly had loved them, thought them beautiful, whereas I’d loved knights and witches. Still, I adopted the necklace after Holly’s death, as if it meant keeping a piece of her with me always.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It could be one thing, it could be a dozen. Maybe it’s got something to do with this day … And that I might never see you again.”
Holly might’ve never seen Lock as a brother, but I knew him no other way. I’d lost one sibling to death—the thought of Lock meeting his end in the tournament chilled me to the bone.
Lock reached out for my hand.
Our fingers entwined and he slid closer to me on the seat.
“Don’t say things like that, Rose. You will see me again, and it will be when after I become a champion. I swear on it.”
There seemed to be heavier meanings to his words, but I couldn’t be sure. The tournament had no champion. Of those who survived, the promising ones were recruited.
Silently, I nodded and looked out the window.
We rode the rest of the trip in silence, until Ark slowed and parked us at our regular market spot just down from the Square.
I lumbered out of the carriage, careful not to dirty my unsullied boots and stockings. Marybelle would spiral into a fit worthy of the queen if I ruined my ceremony clothes.
Beside me, Lock fiddled with his combed hair.
I double-knotted my peasant blouse and looked up at the cliff that dropped to the sea. At the edge sat the Forbidden Well—a cobblestone basin, caved in on itself.
Stories of the Forbidden Well were told from before I was born, even before my parents were born. It had been around since the beginning of the village.
It was the reason the villagers first settled between the sea and forest. The well had been seen as a sign of good fortune.
Its story changed depending on who told it.
A girl fell up the well; Three sisters lived at the bottom; It led to the Four Lands.
Whatever the story, I didn’t believe. It was all drivel.
The Forbidden Well was a place of mourning, and that’s all it would ever be.
Lock still combed his fingers through his hair and traced my gaze to the basin. “We’ll head up there after we have registered.”
Tables were plotted along the shop fronts, even cutting off access to Catherine’s Bakery. That explained the missing aroma of Catherine’s best breads and tarts.
Queues had already grown at the tables, and slithered through the muddy lanes of the Square like snakes. If we had left the cottage minutes earlier, we might have beaten the crowd to the royal stations.
I turned to the carriage horse, whose greying coat was hidden by a cloak that I’d sewn for him some months ago.
“We’ll be here a while,” I said, and unhooked him from the carriage. “Rest in the shade and I’ll meet you back here when I can.”
Ark’s nostrils flared and a big, warm gust of breath shoved out of them.
With a hoof to the ground, Ark nudged his face against mine, then spared a glare at Lock. He never liked Lock much.
Lock winked back at him. “I’ll miss you, too,” he said, then steered me up the lane to the gruelling queues.
We were separated by gender first, then the rest passed in a blur.
I waited in the queue until the sun was firmly above the horizon and making its way up to the curve of the sky. The holly in my hand had dried and crumbled under the rising heat, some pieces of it sprinkled the dirt at my boots.
Finally, I was called to the table where a blotchy-faced man with a bushy moustache lazed. After he took my details, I had to step on scales, then push my hands flat against an upright bag of sand. A healer from beyond the glass walls checked my health and then, the moustache man looked at me for the first time.
“Do you wish to enter the Order of the Knave?” he asked.
“No, I don’t.”
He nodded and scribbled some notes on the parchment.
“That’s a pity,” he said, then stamped my hand with a red cross. “You’re a prime candidate. There’s always next year if you change your mind.”
He dismissed me with a flick of the hand and before I could step away on my own, the next in line was pushing me out of the way.
I shoved through the throngs of people to the quieter lane ahead. It led to the King’s Head Tavern where most of the Knaves had parked themselves, perched on steps, steins of honey-ale in their hands.
As I made to wander back to Ark, a frail grip caught me by the elbow. I looked to see Maple’s sharp face, so different to her mother’s soft features.
Maple’s mother owned the tavern, and Maple had once been Holly’s closest friend in the village.
“Hi, Maple.” I tried my best gentle smile. She was a frightened thing, and one I didn’t want to spook. “Have you registered already?”
“Oh, yeah, I was there before dawn broke. Mother says I have to work from midday, so…” She tucked a strand of burnt-red hair behind her ear. Her blue eyes swept around the busy Square anxiously, and I suspected she loathed the visitors more than I did. More men in the village meant more unwanted grabbing at the tavern.
“I … I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” she said weakly, her freckles spreading into a light blush blotched over her high cheekbones. A frail and frightened girl, but she had the beauty of a porcelain doll. “Have you been to the well yet?”
“I’m waiting for Lock before I go up there.” My brows furrowed as I eyed her fisted hands and the scrapes on her wrist. “Do you want to come with us?”
Maple clutched onto my sleeves and yanked me closer. “I need to tell you something, Shoshanna. Lock was in the tavern two nights ago, and he was with a stranger … Someone from outside the village.”
I pried her fingers from my sleeves. Wrinkles threatened to ruin my cardigan.
“It’s Lock, he’s at the tavern a lot,” I said, looking around at the crowds. “And the village is full of people from outside.”
“Sh-she looked like Holly.” Maple’s voice shivered along with her bony hands. “I saw her … under the cloak. She ran before I could get close. It was her, Shoshanna.”
I blinked, a sudden lump in my throat. I managed to pull her hand from my sleeve and step back.
“Maple, I can’t do this right now. I have to find Lock, put these at the well—” I rustled the bunch of holly in my tight grip. “—and set up the stall. I’ll talk to you another time.”
Maple grabbed for me, but before she got hold, her mother appeared at the mouth of the path and shouted for her. In a blink, Maple was gone.
I sighed and stared at the door of the tavern where Maple had run through. Some of us, I supposed, dealt with grief in different ways—weaker ways.
Turning my gaze to the mud curving around my boots, I made to trek back to the market spot where I’d left Ark and all of my stall supplies. Lock would meet me there
soon, I hoped.
But something stopped me mid-step.
Frowning, I scrutinised the honey-brown mud as it darkened beneath my very feet. My head titled to the side. It could have been the glare of my glasses, but it looked as though the damp dirt was stirring with black. Shadows.
I looked up at the rest of the Square.
Shadows began to stretch across the slanted buildings, like bony fingers reaching for a prize. The sun shone bright above me, there were no clouds to cast darkness over us. And these shadows moved so unlike the shadows of people in the Grove.
Dumfounded, I stared at the gleaming sky, back at the shadows, then—my gaze found a Knave ahead, browsing over local women as if they were cheap jewels to be bartered for. The stretches of darkness reached him, crawling over his dirty boots, fingers of darkness closing in around his ankles.
They clutched.
And the Knave was yanked off of his feet by ghost-hands.
He hit the ground, hard. But his shout was muted by the sudden roar that blasted over the village from the frontline of the woods.
Startled, I watched as shadows poured out of the trees. Then, the sun illuminated them, banishing all shade and I realised they weren’t shadows at all.
Sheathed in black leather armour, a small army descended upon the village in the dozens, maybe a hundred.
The rebels.
The Heart-Breakers.
Chapter 4
The holly fell from my hand and hit the mud.
I drew my dagger and staggered back from the attack. Screams ripped through the air all around me.
Travellers unsheathed hidden weapons and turned them on the Knaves. They’d been planted here, waiting for their moment to attack. And attack they did.
I shoved through the sudden eruption of chaos.
Travellers scrambled for safe doors and market stalls, the Knaves and Heart-Breakers clashed all over the village with the searing sound of blades meeting blades, and the ground thundered with the rapid footfalls plaguing our small village.
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