by T. K. Kiser
Carine brushed off her skirt. “I’m going to help Giles get firewood.”
David didn’t acknowledge her.
Pine branches waved in the slight breeze. Long wild grasses grew around the soft dirt. Dusk grew darker, so Carine picked up any pieces she saw. A squirrel watched her from the trunk it was clutching. A bird ran through the grass. A line of ants wound around a flower stem. Even the woods were livelier than the campers. She’d ruined everything.
Carine reached for a stick at the base of a tree near a coiled vine. The vine convulsed, shrinking and expanding like a constricting snake. Her armful of sticks clattered to the ground. The top of the vine unwound from the tree. It pointed at Carine like the head of a reptile. With a racing heart, she batted at it, but as her fingers neared, the vine’s head attacked. Carine jumped back. The rope snapped around her wrist and pulled her to the tree. It had her arm in three tightening coils.
Carine screamed for help. She ripped at the vine with her left hand, pulling against it with her weight. The grass seemed to shudder. Another vine crackled against a high branch. It shot down as the first pulled her arm.
“Help!”
It was no use. The second vine wrapped her torso to the tree. Her head slammed against the rough bark. For a moment her vision blurred, but through the trees, she discerned the white spotted horse. Giles looked small and distant as he rummaged for something in the dirt. Could they not hear her?
“Hel—”
A black-gloved hand muffled her scream.
“Shh,” said a voice behind the tree.
Carine trembled. The scent of leather drifted to her nose. It was the smell of her distant home, as though that fragrance too was meant to torment her.
“I told you to go back. You disobeyed.”
Her heart pounded. The sorcerer had followed them. She wanted his voice to give her clues, but since he whispered, his words just sounded airy. She couldn’t tell how old he was or how strong. He didn’t have any noticeable accent. She just knew was he was powerful. He was the one who overtook Esten and killed Limly.
“I’m going to remove my hand. Do not scream.” He didn’t have to finish his threat. One Manakor word from him and the snake-vine would finish its job.
Carine gasped for air. He hadn’t blocked her nose, but she still felt suffocated. She didn’t dare turn, so her head remained against the bark as the vines constricted her. “Don’t kill me.” Her voice came out smaller than she expected. “It won’t do you any good. Killing me won’t make the princes go back. They will never surrender Esten to you.”
The sorcerer breathed slowly, but his rhythm was broken as he formulated an answer. From the height of his voice, he didn’t seem tall or especially big. Just an average sized man with an extraordinary misused Gift.
“Let me see your face.” If she saw him, she could learn how to defeat him.
“No, I don’t want to frighten you.”
She could have laughed—this coming from the one that had killed Limly and captured her, all with magic. She had seen scars on Alviar. She had seen death with Selius and Limly. She wondered what about his appearance could be so scary after all. “We know about you. You’re like Firebrand.”
“We?” That wasn’t the part of the sentence that she thought would surprise him. “Is that why you didn’t go back, because of the others?” His voice faded as though he were watching the campsite.
Her blood raced as her mind filled with questions. When the sorcerer told them to turn back, she had assumed that his primary concern was the princes. She had thought he wanted them to return. But the question he asked made it clear that the sorcerer wasn’t after the princes. He was after her.
“Don’t hurt them,” she said. But even as she spoke, he was striding toward camp, a hooded silhouette in her periphery. “Hey!” she yelled, praying one of the princes would hear her. “Hey!”
No one reacted. Carine reached down for the drawstring bag that hung at her waist, but the vine looped around her arm constricted as she strained. Her fingers lost all feeling as the blood stopped flowing.
Carine strained again and managed to pick up the fabric. Her fingers fumbled around for her awl.
She found it and struck the vine. It broke around her wrist, leaving a dying bracelet. Carine tore through the other holds, mutilating the vines, and breaking herself free. She stumbled back to camp, where the fire spat and hissed. Giles brandished a sword, but he wasn’t wearing any armor. Neither of the princes were.
“What do you want from us?” David yelled from the fire.
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” Giles said, poised for battle. “We will not go back.”
The hooded sorcerer stood on the path. Before anyone could stop him, he stretched out his gloved hand and spoke. They didn’t have to hear what he said. The sword hurtled out of Giles’ grip, whipped around, and pointed at his chest. Giles stepped back, disarmed by his own blade.
“Please, sir,” Carine said, panting as she stepped out from the bushes, “release them.” She struggled to figure out what he wanted. “You’re not a Heartless One, are you?”
“I am not,” he hissed, turning as though the thought offended him.
“Then how are we offending you? All we need is flame to protect Navafort. Think of the people who need help.”
The sorcerer paused just long enough for David to draw and throw his sword. “Giles!”
Giles caught the blade and blocked the floating sword.
The floating sword swung. Metal clashed. The blade swung again. It wasn’t tied to a knight, so it lashed at him from all angles.
“Stop it!” David yelled to the silent sorcerer. “Stop this!”
The horses whinnied as Giles backed into them. He tripped, but blocked the floating sword with all his strength. David jumped to his brother’s side. The sorcerer’s blade gashed into him. Everything stilled until David grasped his side and collapsed.
“David!” Carine ran forward, not caring what the sorcerer might do. Blood leaked onto his shirt and hands. “No,” she whispered. “David, can you hear me?” She turned him over. He gasped for breath. His face looked pale already.
“Dragon’s bane,” David whispered. “I’ve been hit.”
Her heart was breaking.
“The sorcerer is gone,” Giles announced.
Carine looked up. The sorcerer had vanished, as though he had never stood there at all.
David moaned.
“Move away, move away,” Giles said. He lifted the dripping fabric of David’s royal clothes. “The blade went through his side. He’s hit, but it doesn’t look bad.”
Carine ripped her surcoat and wrapped David in the fabric. “So he will survive?”
“Tie it tight and he will. This could have been far worse.”
“Are you sure?”
“He just has to stop bleeding and he’ll live.” Giles glared. “Until he feeds himself to the dragon... because of you.”
Carine’s hands shook. David winced as she wrapped the fabric around his torso. When her hand passed his side, she paused and took the vial of gullon blood from his pocket.
As David’s eyes squeezed shut in pain, Carine slipped the vial into her drawstring purse, which she then hid behind her back. If he wouldn’t listen to reason, she would have to force his hand.
Giles shook his head. “You are losing a lot of blood, David. Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” David moaned. “Don’t use the gullon blood.”
“I was not going to. You’ll be fine.”
David insisted. “I mean it. Limly can’t have died for nothing. Don’t touch it. The blood is for the dragon, not me.”
Carine forced a smile against her guilt. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Good, thank the flames. I have to get to the dragon.” David winced as he reached in his pocket for the vial. “Giles…”
“Yes?”
“Give me the vial.”
“I didn’t take it from you,” he sa
id, an eyebrow raised at the accusation.
David went limp. “Carine, check my pocket. Do you see it?”
“No.”
David slammed his head against the ground. “He stole it. That flaming sorcerer stole our only hope.”
38 Lake Lore
A few nights later, they made camp at the edge of a lake that sparkled in the bright moonlight. Carine was overlooking it alone when David slouched up beside her.
Ever since he’d discovered the vial was gone, he’d barely spoken to anyone. He just held onto Carine as she led the horse. His only communication was wincing every few hours when Carine changed his bandages.
He was wearing his simple surcoat, without chainmail or any weapons. His expression was just as vulnerable, and it melted her heart. Every few hours they’d been changing the bandage, and the last few wraps had come off with less blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“How are you feeling?”
“You don’t have to change the subject. I owe you an apology.” David took a seat at the water’s edge. He stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands, careful not to hurt his side. “I shouldn’t have said that about your sister.”
“It hurt, you know.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been such a jerk lately. I’m really sorry.”
She nodded, meeting his eyes. “You’re forgiven.”
It didn’t seem right to hold onto his transgression. She wondered if he’d be saying that if he knew what really happened to the gullon blood.
“You know”—he skipped a stone over the water—“I thought this was my fate or something. Marcel’s the regal one, Giles is the capable one, and I’m…I thought I could be the heroic one.”
“You are heroic. You’ve come all this way to help Navafort. And you’re continuing on despite your wound, despite the sorcerer’s demands.”
He scrunched his nose.
Carine considered sharing her suspicions that the sorcerer was after more than the princes’ acknowledgment of his power, but the suggestion would mean that she had more to do with Esten’s plight than David and Giles. It couldn’t be.
“Plus, who cares what anyone else thinks? People think I’m weird for not going out during Festival. You probably thought I was insane when I cut my hair. Everyone does what they think is best. You don’t have to try to impress anyone. Believe me, the people who love you are already impressed.”
His brown eyes were like tree trunks in the moonlight. “Thanks.” He leaned back, resting his head in his palms. “I wish I’d apologized sooner. I’ve missed out on a couple days of what could have been good talks.”
Carine hugged her knees and smiled.
“Grandfather isn’t like you at all. He does care about impressions. In fact, I think that’s all he cares about. Have you ever been to the fencing competitions?”
“A couple,” she said, “if sneaking in the back with my mom counts as being there.”
“Ha!” His mirth died quickly. “Giles has been training to beat Marcel for years. Marcel always wins, but only because he has the best trainer. When we were twelve, Giles beat out all the adult knights. He almost made it to the final round, where he’d fight Marcel. He didn’t make it that year, but this past year, he did. Did you see it?”
“No.”
“I’m glad. You should have seen Giles. He doesn’t always show emotion that well. Sometimes I think he has one expression. But he was excited for this match. He knew he was going to win. Everyone did.” David’s tone wasn’t so thrilled. “Minutes before the match, Giles was getting dressed up in the training room. My grandfather sent in four armed knights. They broke his wrist. He could barely hold his sword.”
“Just so Marcel would win? That’s horrible.”
David snapped a twig at his fingertips. “Giles tried to beat him with his left hand but lost. He’s been training though. He wants to enter next year, once he’s ambidextrous. He’s hoping to be strong enough to fight off any soldiers that might be set on breaking both his wrists.”
Carine shook her head. “Marcel may be king, but he’s your family. Family doesn’t treat each other like that.”
He sighed. “If the Marcels don’t have their reputation, what do they have?”
Carine chuckled. “Honor to them for that? What a joke.”
“Tell me about it.” After a moment, he added, “I like to think there was at least one Great Marcel.”
“Your father?”
He smiled. David plucked some grass and sifted it through his fingers. “It makes me jealous the way you talk about your parents.”
“Really?” She missed them. In a way, his confession made her glad; it was proof that she and her parents shared something real, even when now they felt so distant.
He shook his head, his eyes tranquil. “I’m glad you have that. It makes me grateful for my brother, which is weird enough for us. This is the closest Giles and I have been in years. It’s good.”
Carine got that warm feeling that made her wish she still had a sibling too. “Giles told me the same thing.”
“Really?” David grinned. “He cares after all.”
Carine nudged him playfully with her shoulder. “See? You don’t need heroic acts. You have us.”
He smiled sadly. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice anymore, do I?”
She put her arm around his shoulder and looked out over the ink-black lake that glistened in the moonlight. She was glad he wouldn’t be risking his life, but with the vial safely tucked in her drawstring bag, she felt wrong being the one to steal his dream.
39 Daffodil in Love
Flowers, fruit, vines, and vegetables bloomed in bending branches that ran together, as if they were somehow one.
The breathtaking assortment stretched into the distance until its beauty peaked at a building—or almost a building. Its walls were woven of living tree branches and decorated with blooms.
“Verdiford,” David breathed, outstretching his arm to touch a passing blossom. “Don’t you see how this is better than Midway?”
They entered a long walkway of bowing trees. Carine inhaled the luxurious rose scent. She followed David’s lead and reached out to the trellises that grew upward to the music of the castle muicians. Fauns, stationed at intervals on both sides of the road, blew into woodwind instruments in incredible, harmonious melodies. The plants alongside the path swayed and grew in response to the song. It took her breath away.
The building grew more spectacular and less distinguishable from its surroundings with every step. It was alive with nature. Portraits hung on trees, and cushioned chairs sat next to bushes, blurring the transition between inside and out.
Giles watched the bits of wall that sparkled white in the sunlight under hanging flowers and rows of fruit trees. “Stay alert. We may be entering Verdiford, but it’s no protection from the Heartless Ones or from the sorcerer.”
The castle lord stood at the end of the hall. He had hairy faun legs that angled slightly, as faun legs did, and head hair piled around a blue cloth strip. Thick horns spiraled from his crown of leaves. Over his shoulders he wore a sash filled with nothing but dirt, from which sprouted forth grape vines that wrapped over his arms and around his torso. A morning glory bloomed on his shoulder.
“Welcome, Your Majesties,” he said in greeting. “I heard rumors you were coming here.”
Their hosts did not wait to feed them Verdiford ham and pears, thank the flames. Truly, Carine had never been fed so perfectly and to such delectable satisfaction.
After a private concert by the city’s finest cellists and a tour of the Gardens of Ether, Lord Tauno bestowed upon them a torch dipped in the enchanted sap that kept the dragon’s flame alive.
In awe, Carine held the torch that was to save their kingdom. She thanked the lord. “Lord Tauno, you have been so generous. But we have an errand here. Could you help us find a scholar named Ansa?”
“Ansa of Resforb? How wonderful that you ask. She is
in the opera playing tonight. Do you care to see it?”
“Which opera?” Giles asked.
“Hardly Ever Roses. I assure you it is a classic.”
“Ansa the scholar is in the opera?”
“Yes, that’s quite right,” said Lord Tauno. “She plays the daffodil.”
“A prized role if I remember correctly,” Giles said.
“Showoff,” David whispered.
Lord Tauno escorted them deftly to a long, slow decline. A hundred fauns were seated in front of a curtain made from dozens of hanging, flowering vines. The orchestra, armed with every instrument from strings to percussion, stood ready in a dip in front of the stage. With a bow, the lord waved his hands for them to sit and ducked away out of sight. The prelude gave way to the opening act, and costumed fauns filled the stage as the vines pulled back.
Carine had never been to an opera. Her family had never been able to afford the tickets of any shows that came to Esten on tour. Tonight, the stage was alight with strong emotions, face paint, and beautiful floral costumes.
Carine barely noticed the time as the show flew by, but in the middle of the second act, the narrators began to sing of a daffodil who, mistaking a moth for a butterfly, fell in love with it. Ansa’s costume was similar to normal faun attire. Her shirt was full of pockets of soil, but only one flower bloomed: a daffodil, right in front of her heart. Her long blonde hair was like a waterfall.
The narrator sang as Ansa danced:
One day there was a daffodil
Bending softly as the sun rolled by
She felt a gentle patter on her face
It was the patter of a butterfly!
“There she is,” Giles observed.
“I know.” Carine watched, looking for clues in the careful, flowing way that Ansa carried herself. The moth character danced beautifully around the daffodil.
But then the day turned to night
And the butterfly took flight
Climbing upwards toward the fiery light
Unaware of its killer bite.
The lighting changed as stagehands puffed out the illuminating lanterns. Only one remained lit. It was central stage, and the moth headed right for it.
