“It is The Ruby of Damu! Then you must be Princess Eladria!”
“There is only one way to know for sure,” Jake responded, his eyes as wide as Wil’s and filled with excitement.
“Told you,” Zoe muttered. “Rich parents.”
Selena was so busy shooting Zoe a glare that she didn’t see the dagger that appeared in Wil’s hand. A sharp pain stabbed her index finger and traveled up through her hand and arm.
“Ouch!” Selena yelped as Wil grasped her bleeding finger and squeezed mercilessly. “What are you doing?”
Muttering to himself about obtaining irrefutable proof, Wil held the stone beneath her bleeding finger and watched in fascination as one drop of crimson liquid fell onto it. He released Selena’s finger and she quickly pressed it to her lips to lessen the sting. In an instant, the stone began to glow brightly, casting its scarlet rays over the faces of everyone in the room.
Zoe and Rose gasped, but Selena just stared, transfixed at the glowing gem.
“What does that mean?” Selena asked breathlessly, mesmerized by the ruby’s shimmer.
Wil glanced up at her with joy dancing in the depths of his blue eyes. “It means that you must come with us immediately.”
“Wait just one minute,” Rose interjected, snatching the ruby from Wil’s thick fingers and shoving her body between him and Selena. “No one is going anywhere until we get some more answers. We do not know who you are, where you come from, or what your business is with my granddaughter.”
“Our names are Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, if you must know, and there is no time for explanations!” Wil said with a sigh. “If you come with us, we will tell you everything you need to know once you’re on board our ship.”
“Can I come?” Zoe quipped.
“No one is going … ” Rose trail off, her eyes rolling back into her head before she sank to the floor in a crumpled heap.
“Gram!” Selena cried as she sank to her knees beside Rose’s limp form. “What’s happened to her?”
Jake knelt beside her and pointed to the leg of her blue jeans. Selena hadn’t noticed until now that they were stained with blood and ripped. Sometime between Titus’ crashing through the door and Wil and Jake ripping the roof off, the wolf must have sunk his teeth in her leg. Selena felt tears stinging her eyes as she took in Rose’s pale complexion.
“The bite of a Werewolf is fatal,” Jake said, his eyes serious behind his glasses. “You have no choice except to come with us now if you want to save her.”
“She’s not going to turn into one is she?”
“Zoe, for the love of God shut up!”
Selena pressed a hand to Rose’s cool forehead and sighed. “She’s so cold. Did the bite make her sick?”
Jake nodded. “A bite this deep could kill her within days. She is going to become very ill and it’s not going to get better. We need to take her to Goldun.”
Selena’s head spun with the intake of all the new information. Werewolves, flying ships, lost princesses, her blood making a ruby glow like a firecracker, and fairytale kingdoms named Damu and Goldun … none of it made any sense, but then, it didn’t have to. If she could get her grandmother the help she needed, then there would be time for questions later.
“How long is the trip, and what are we supposed to do about the hole in the roof and the knocked-out Werewolf?” Selena asked calmly.
“We will use Fae magic to shield the house from human eyes,” Wil said. “All who pass here will see the house as it was before. Repairs can be made later. As for the wolf, we will have to take him with us.”
“Um, maybe forget what I said about coming along,” Zoe said with a nervous chuckle. “I’d rather not have to share ship space with him.”
“He will not be able to harm you,” Jake said. “It’ll be perfectly safe.”
Selena grabbed Zoe by the arm. “My life as I know it is over,” she said, stabbing her best friend with a look that said she wouldn’t tolerate any opposition. “My identity, my past, everything is changing and it all feels like some kind of dream. I need something around to remind me that this is real. I need you, Zoe.”
Zoe smiled and pulled Selena into a tight hug. “Well dang girl, you don’t have to get all mushy on me. I’ll go, okay?”
“What are you going to do about your parents?” Selena asked.
“I don’t know yet.” She turned to Wil. “How long will this flying ship trip take, anyway?”
Wil shrugged before bending to lift Rose into his arms. “Time does not move the same in Fallada as it does her. One day there is only a few minutes here.”
Zoe nodded. “Right, so I just need a weekend alibi?”
Selena sighed. “Don’t look at me, I have no idea how any of this works.”
“Weekend sleepover it is,” Zoe said, whipping out her cell phone. Selena turned back to Wil, who was carrying Rose to the rope ladder dangling from the side of the hovering ship.
“I know you have many questions, Princess,” he said as he paused, one foot up on the rope ladder. “All will be answered for you in time.”
“That ‘princess’ bit is going to take a while to get used to. Be careful with her!” she added as he began his ascent.
Wil paused and grinned at her over his shoulder. “I don’t think that princess bit is going to be as hard as you think.”
~*~
Chapter Four
Selena stared over the side of The Adrah, the Grimm brothers’ flying ship, her eyes wide as the landscape of Twin Oaks, Texas grew smaller and smaller. The wind whipped her titian hair around her face and neck as she leaned against the ship’s railing. It all seemed like something out of a dream; a flying ship, clouds rolling by at arm’s length, a Werewolf trapped in the brig below, and a mystery that was very slowly unfolding. There hadn’t been much time for talking with Jacob and Wilhelm working to get them underway.
Zoe and Selena had watched them in awe, as they rapidly turned and pushed the numerous levers and buttons lining the side of the ship’s engines. After coming on board, the girls were told that the ship was propelled and kept aloft by steam, which came from the massive engine taking up most of the deck. As they’d walked slowly in a circle around the churning machinery, steam billowed from a large chimney-like opening and up into the ship’s pristine white sails. The hulking thrusters beneath the shift propelled them along at a steady clip through the blue sky and toward the orange, pink, and purple sunset.
“This is so Chronicles of Narnia,” Zoe said as she approached Selena. She had been busy watching Jake and Wil direct the crew of ten men and the two hadn’t spoken much since leaving Twin Oaks behind.
“I guess you can just call me little Lucy then,” Selena scoffed, “because no one back home is going to believe this.”
“Who cares? You’ve been waiting your whole life to leave Twin Oaks.” She swept her hand out in front of them, indicating the stretch of blue sky and the burning orange sun beyond. “Now’s your chance.”
Selena tried to manage a smile, but couldn’t. There were still too many questions unanswered. She turned to find Jacob Grimm striding across the deck with a brown, leather-bound book tucked under one arm. He’d removed is hat to reveal hair that was shorter than his brother’s, but equally gray.
“Jake!”
He stopped and adjusted his spectacles. “Princess Eladria,” he said with a bow. “We’ve stowed your grandmother in a cabin below deck and given her a sleeping draught. She’s resting peacefully for now, although I am expecting the fever to begin before the night is over. I’m afraid things will get worse before they get better until we get to Goldun.”
Selena nodded. “All right. How long will it take us to get there?”
“We will enter the realm of Fallada by sunrise. We journey to Goldun for two days from there.”
Selena pressed her fingers to her aching temples. “This all seems like so much to take in,” she said. “Is there time for you to start from the beginning now? Can you tell me more a
bout Damu and who I really am? And if you know why Titus was sent to hunt me, I’d be glad to hear that, too.”
Jacob cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses for what had to be the millionth time. “Certainly, Princess. If you’ll follow me, we’ll go below deck now. Wil is there and the four of us can sit in our cabin comfortably.”
Selena and Zoe followed, dodging the bustling crewmen as they moved busily across the deck. Selena was disarmed by the fact that they kept stopping their work to bow every time she walked by. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.
Selena paused, staring down through a metal grate that covered the little hold that Wil and the crew had called the brig. It was barely more than a hole in which they’d stashed Titus, who lay on his side, still unconscious. Her heart wrenched at the pitiful sight. She couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he was in his wolf form, stretches of lean and powerful muscle beneath a downy pelt of white and pale gray.
“Come on, Selena,” Zoe called from the stairwell leading below deck. She and Jake were already descending.
With one last look into the brig, Selena trailed Zoe and Jake down the stairs and into a dark hallway. They found Wilhelm in a dimly lit cabin that was barely large enough to contain wall-to-wall bookshelves, two small cots, and two desks overflowing with books and stacks of loose paper. Wil sat at one of the desks, a candle flickering beside him as he hunched over a sheet of paper with a quill pen in hand. When they entered, he pulled pen away from paper and laid it beside the open inkwell.
“Well,” he said, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. “Is Her Highness ready to hear the whole of it now?”
“Yes,” Jake said as he shuffled over to the unoccupied desk. He dropped the leather volume he’d been carrying on the table and began to unbutton his brown vest. “I thought you would delight in telling it to her.”
“Wonderful! You do know how I love spin a good yarn.”
Jake mumbled incoherently and lowered his head over the book, flipping it open and taking up his own pen. He quickly lit a candle and seemed to block everyone else in the room out.
“Don’t mind him,” Wil said, waving his hand in dismissal toward Jake. “My brother would rather daydream and scribble in his notebooks than carry on an actual conversation. Please, have a seat … if you can find one.”
Selena and Zoe shuffled through what seemed to be mountains of paper before locating two wooden, rolling chairs. They pushed them right up to Wil’s desk and sat, looking across the scratched wood at him expectantly.
He studied Selena closely, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. After a while Selena raised her eyebrows and cleared her throat.
“Well?”
“Hmm, yes, the story. My apologies, it is just that you are a remarkable image of your mother. I cannot believe I didn’t see it before. It is clear to me that you are one of them.”
“Them?” Zoe questioned. “As in princesses? There’s more than one?”
Wil nodded. “Yes, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Allow me to go back to the beginning, to a time when the world of men existed in harmony with Fallada. I know that the notion of a Werewolf or a Faerie might seem like fairytale balderdash to you, but that is because the times I speak of have been forgotten. They are recorded only by the tales written in books by men like Jake and I.”
“What happened?” Selena asked. She wasn’t even going to question his claims. After everything she’d seen today, she had no reason not to believe him.
“Men, in their usual fashion, ruined everything. There was a time when we were allowed to move freely from our realm to theirs, back and forth at our leisure. We were welcomed by Fallada and her people and we marveled at the world that existed just beyond our own borders. The violence and greed of man overruled good sense, and in time they began to covet Fallada’s riches and power. Armies rose up against Fallada and invasions were planned. In his infinite wisdom, the High King Endroth, called his council together and proposed a solution: erect a wall between Fallada and Earth, erase the memory of the land from the history books to ensure the safety of Fallada’s people. After much deliberation, and disagreement from some parties, the decision was made and the Fae began using their magic to create the wall.”
“The same sort of magic you used on my house,” said Selena, remembering how Jake and Wil had walked the perimeter of her house chanting before boarding the ship for departure. They had worn odd-looking talismans around their necks and seemed to lose themselves in the task as they circled the yard, speaking in a language Selena didn’t recognize.
Wil nodded. “Yes, only much more powerful. Adrah, the Queen of the Fae, led the effort, and soon the world of Fallada was closed away forever, safe from all intruders.”
“Aren’t you and Jake considered intruders?” Zoe interrupted. “Aren’t you humans?”
Wil smiled. “Yes, but we were allowed to stay. Jacob and I could not imagine a world in which Fallada did not exist. We had already reached our twilight years and knew that we wanted to spend our last moments in the kingdom we thought of as home. We staged our deaths a few years apart—it took several years for the wall to be complete—and crossed over with the help of the Fae. It was our intention to live out our last years in the Fae kingdom, Goldun. Things did not go according to plan.”
“Is this when the war started?” At Wil’s raised eyebrows Selena shrugged. “Before Titus went all Teen Wolf on me, he said something about losing his parents to a war.”
“It wasn’t until the wall was completed that we realized that a terribly evil deed had been committed. You see, Fallada is governed by a High King and Queen and below them are the rulers of the four regions. There is Goldun, the realm of the immortal Fae, Damu, the desert region, Zenun, the underwater kingdom, and Mollac, the icy region. The queen of Mollac, Eranna, was against King Endroth’s plans from the beginning. She is a vain and selfish woman who could think of nothing other than having humans worship her. Eranna hoped to enslave the human race and rule them with King Endroth at her side. It was her anger and jealousy that moved her to commit the great evil.”
“We had no way of knowing that Eranna had taken Sorcerers and Witches into her counsel. By the time we discovered just how powerful she had become, it was too late. She had already done away with the seven princesses.”
“Seven princesses,” Zoe murmured with a shake of her head. “Somehow that makes the fact that you are one feel less special, doesn’t it, Selena … or Eladria?”
Selena rolled her eyes at Zoe. “Just call me Selena, Zo. What happened to them, to us?” she asked Wil.
“Banished. Sent away, over the wall and into the world of men and scattered about. Two came from Mollac, two from Damu, two from Zenun, and the seventh is the daughter of King Endroth and heir to the throne of Fallada. Since you and the six other girls were taken, Fallada has fallen into darkness and Eranna has been gearing up for a takeover. Her dark army grows by the day and she has taken many lives and prisoners in her quest for dominance.”
Wil’s eyes clouded with sadness and he lowered them, leaning back in his chair and hooking his thumbs into his suspenders with a sigh.
“Even King Endroth has fallen to her evil. She holds him captive in her iron fortress.”
“Why iron?” Selena asked.
“The only beings strong enough to go against Eranna are the Fae and they are harmed by iron. Large quantities of it will suck the life from a Faerie faster than you can blink. She plans to use her iron fortress to shield herself from Adrah until she can gather enough power to rule.”
“I don’t get it,” Selena said, running a hand through her hair. “What does all of this have to do with me? I’m guessing Eranna is the one who sent Titus after me?”
Wil nodded, his expression grim. “Yes. The Werewolves were the first to fall into slavery under Eranna’s cruel hand. Those who dared to go against her had no choice but to go into hiding. Eranna is using them against each other, pack aga
inst pack. Those loyal to her are her hunters and those who are not are slain. It is clear that this boy, Titus, is one of those loyal to her.”
Selena shook her head. “No. I can’t believe that.”
“Do not be fooled by his pretty face girl,” Wil warned, leaning forward to rest his hands on the desk. “A Werewolf’s eyes are the same color whether he’s in human form or animal form. What color eyes did the wolf have that attacked you, I ask?”
“Red,” Selena answered, shivering as she remembered the unnerving glow.
“Exactly. He is possessed by Eranna and therefore one of her servants. He is not to be trusted.”
“Then why warn me?” Selena asked, shooting to her feet. “The first day he saw me in the woods he could have killed me, but he didn’t. Titus had several opportunities after that first day to take me out and he didn’t! Why would he do that if he were possessed?”
“I do not know, Princess. You should consider yourself fortunate. Titus will not be the last of Eranna’s servants to come for you.”
“Why? What do they want with me?”
“You are different, are you not? You have abilities that are inhuman?”
Selena nodded, casting a nervous glance at Zoe, who knew nothing of her hidden talent. Zoe frowned.
“You do? Cool! Ooh, are you super strong like Wonder Woman?”
Selena sighed. “The Flash would have been a closer guess.”
Zoe’s mouth fell open. “Super speed? Are you kidding me?”
Wil smiled. “Yes. You possess the same power as your parents then. The speed of the centaurs of Damu.”
“Centaurs?” Selena groaned, picturing the half-human, half-horse creature in her mind. She remembered them from Greek mythology. “One crazy thing at a time, please. Back to what you were saying about Eranna’s hit men coming after me.”
“Each of the lost princesses is vital to the power of Fallada. There is a prophecy that Eranna fears more than anything. She had hoped to avoid it by sending you all away, but now she knows that Adrah has sent us after you. She will stop at nothing to secure her throne and to do what she must keep you from claiming yours.”
Daughter of the Red Dawn (The Lost Kingdom of Fallada) Page 5
