by J. B. North
“Thanks,” Princess Cecile said after we’d finished eating. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on.”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised that she’d actually said something nice. “No problem.” I brought my knees to my chest and tried to rub the chill from my arms. “How much longer is it until we reach the castle?”
“Five hours, as long as we don’t have to stop again,” she answered.
We sat quietly until the sleet turned into a misty drizzle. Then, deciding to take the chance, we shifted into our second forms and flew back out into the night.
I could see the lights of the castle when the wind kicked back up and rain started to pour again. Since this was Princess Cecile’s territory, I hung back to let her lead the way.
The fortress was shaped like a cube, with no towers except for a disconnected one built across a wide moat. In the dark, the castle walls looked like black concrete. Each window was barred with spiked iron, the same kind that surrounded the moat in a tall, foreboding fence. Princess Cecile made her way to the tower, seemingly the only entrance and exit from the fortress, at least from this side. She landed and shifted form where the light didn’t reach, so I did the same.
Then, slowly, she walked forward into the light, clothes and hair dripping with rainwater.
“Who’s there?!” someone boomed through the roar of the storm.
“Princess Cecile Vierra!” she shouted back. “And a friend!”
After a moment of silence, the door at the bottom of the tower opened and two guards came out, carrying lanterns. They raised them to our faces, and upon seeing that Cecile was truly who she claimed to be, they bowed. “Allow us to accompany you inside.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
As soon as we were back in the tower, one of the guards approached a ladder and yelled up, “Lower the bridge for the princess!”
As we waited for the bridge to come down, Princess Cecile said, “Did my servant come to tell you of my arrival?”
The guard shook his head. “No, this was quite a surprise, milady.”
She looked at me, the corners of her mouth pulled down in worry. “In that case, I’ll need someone to notify my father of my arrival. He’ll want to know.”
“Are you sure you want to risk waking him up?” the guard asked.
“He wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He nodded and when the bridge clicked into place, we continued onward. Inside, the fortress was just as unwelcoming. The walls were gray and lined with the heads of animals and old weapons. Pelts littered the floor in a thick, multicolored carpet. Four large, muscled guards stood at attention as soon as we got through the doors, faces carefully blank.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it.
As if knowing what I was thinking, Princess Cecile raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?” she asked, waving her hand around.
“Intimidating,” I answered truthfully.
She gave me a satisfied smile. “This is home.”
It was hard to believe that someone as graceful and beautiful as Princess Cecile had been raised in a place like this.
“I can take it from here,” she said to the guard. “Tell my father that I’m in my room when he’s ready to see me.”
The guard bowed his head in acknowledgement. I followed Princess Cecile through another door, into a hall with a high ceiling and white pillars, tinted gray by the lack of light. There were windows, but they were barred just like the ones I’d seen at the front of the building. Princess Cecile crossed through the pillars to get to a large door with spikes. It seemed like such a door should be locked, but the handle turned with no problem. Cold air blew out from inside. I peeked into the room, but could barely see anything.
“Excuse me, milady,” came a voice from behind me. I stepped aside for a small servant girl who carried a bucket of kindling. She hurried inside, toward a fireplace that I could barely make out.
“Ivy will take care of the fire. You may go,” Princess Cecile said to the girl. The girl gave a curtsy, and scurried out of the dark room into the lit hallway.
I went over to the fireplace, and began to arrange the wood. When I reached my hand forward to light the fire, I could feel Princess Cecile watching me closely. Within minutes, we had a roaring blaze.
She came closer for the warmth. “It is amazing that you can do that. In your human form, no less.”
I turned to study the room. “The power isn’t my own,” I replied. The plant amplified whatever power God had given me.
Despite the spiked door, it was actually the first welcoming room I’d seen, though the walls were still gray as a gargoyle. There was a bed piled with pink pillows and an entire wall of drawn pictures. Separated by a few stairs, there was also a small library with a sitting area. I lit a lantern I’d found by the bed and carried it over to the wall to study each of the drawings.
“Oh, don’t look at those,” called Princess Cecile from the fire. “I thought I was an artist when I was a child, but most of them are absolutely horrible.”
It was true, some of them were pretty bad—such as the scribbled one of someone holding what I assumed was a puppy…or a monkey…or a baby. But as I continued to walk along the wall, the drawings got more and more detailed until I reached the end, where she’d painted a picture of battle. She didn’t leave anything out. There was lots of blood and the heart-wrenching faces of people in pain and people with bloodlust in their eyes and people who were sobbing. Even though I wanted to tear my eyes away from it, I couldn’t.
I jumped when I heard her voice right beside me. “You’re probably wondering why I would paint such a thing.” Her eyes appeared haunted as she studied her own handiwork. “There are people who want war. There are foolish boys who say they’re not afraid of it, that they could hold their own in a fight. But war isn’t just a fight. There is blood and death everywhere. There is pain and dying screams. There are loved ones that you lose. War is horrifying.”
I finally tore my eyes away from the painting when the door opened. I turned to see a short figure with a bald head and a full beard standing in the doorway. “Cecile?”
“Father,” Princess Cecile said as she walked forward. When she reached him, she didn’t hug him. She just stood there, her hands clasped together.
King Torran stood a full head shorter than his daughter. He was an odd looking man with thick black eyebrows and large ears. The only thing he and his daughter shared was the purplish eye color.
“What is the meaning of this?” he growled, the bridge of his nose wrinkled as he scowled at her. “You were supposed to—”
Her shoulders tensed. “I think you should know that I brought important company.”
He seemed to notice me for the first time, and he raised an eyebrow. “Important company? More important than the prince of Leviatha?”
“Yes, actually,” the princess said.
“Who is she, then?”
Princess Cecile stepped from between her father and me. “She’s the one you’ve been waiting for. The phoenix.”
King Torran stood in stunned silence…and then burst out laughing. “You stole her from Leviatha?” he asked with a gap-toothed grin.
“I didn’t steal her,” Princess Cecile said. “She didn’t want to get married.”
The king shook his head, suddenly serious once again as he looked at the ground. “This is going to threaten the peace with Leviatha,” he said while stroking his beard. He lifted his head and smiled slightly, “But ever since I heard the phoenix had been discovered, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the fighting stopped.”
“But how can I make it stop?” I asked, speaking in his presence for the first time.
His gaze flitted to Princess Cecile. “Have you told her anything?”
Princess Cecile shook her head. “What little I know is still secret.”
“Good. Then we can start from scratch. Follow me,” he ordered as he swept back into th
e hall. “It’s time you both see what lies beneath the castle.”
-Chapter Twenty-two-
As soon as we walked out of the bedroom, we were flanked by armored soldiers. It struck me as odd to be walking through the halls with a king when he was only wearing a robe, but that was overruled by the excitement of learning the prophecy. The excitement and the dread.
For the prophecy to be so famous, the task at hand must be nearly impossible.
Next to me, Princess Cecile seemed excited as well, but her eyes were tinted with something I couldn’t quite place. Jealousy?
My attention was divided when we came to a halt beside what looked like a plain gray wall, no different than any other in the fortress. The king muttered incoherently to himself as he ran a hand over the stone.
“What?” Princess Cecile asked when I didn’t have the nerve to speak up.
“It’s been years and years. I can’t remember which stones to press.” He turned to his men with a determined scowl. “Bring the battering ram. We’ll bring this wall down one way or another.”
“What’s on the other side?” I interrogated as the guards filed out.
“Patience,” the king said. “It will only be a few more minutes, and then you’ll know everything.”
The king still stared at the wall, his eyes squinting as if he were still trying to remember how to get to the other side. Finally, the men came back, bringing more soldiers to help carry the heavy log.
King Torran pushed us back. “Hit the wall right where I was standing,” he ordered his men.
The battering ram was maneuvered around to face the wall, and then the guard at the helm shouted, “Ready? Heave!”
The men drew back as far as they could and hurtled the beam into the wall. The entire palace shook, but the wall remained seemingly unharmed.
“Ready? Heave!” the man repeated, and they drove the battering ram into the wall again. Dust fell from the ceiling like snow drifts.
“Are you sure you can’t remember how to open it?” I asked, afraid the roof was going to collapse on our heads.
The king didn’t answer, instead choosing to keep his attention solely on the men who were ramming into the wall over and over again. People were beginning to gather at either end of the hallway, but the king waved them off when he saw them.
After about fifteen hits and no progress, the king muttered, “This isn’t working,” under his breath. He walked forward as they were readying themselves for another blow. “Stop, stop!” he yelled. “We need to try something else.” He rubbed the back of his bald head, and then his eyes focused on me. “You, Ivy. Why don’t you try something?”
Glad to have the ceiling still intact above my head, I stepped around the guards and studied the wall. Like the king had before, I rubbed a hand against the stone. When my skin touched the wall, it seemed to hum with energy as one of the stones lit up. I pressed my hand against the cold surface and the light faded as another stone above it lit up. This happened seven times before something like a click sounded and the wall began to rotate.
The king clapped his hands together as a dark tunnel appeared. “That’s what I wanted to see,” he said, that gap-toothed grin showing again. “Guards, stay here and make sure no one passes. This is something that we need to do alone.”
The majority of the guards nodded, and after the king lifted a torch from the wall, Princess Cecile and I followed him down the hall.
“Why haven’t you ever taken me down here?” Princess Cecile asked.
“Because when you were little, you were barely able to keep a secret.” He brushed a cobweb out of his face and continued. “And when you were older, I had forgotten the code, as you just witnessed.”
Before long, the tunnel siphoned out into a larger room, one just as empty as the tunnel before it. “There’s nothing here,” I said, gazing around the room.
“Don’t give up hope just yet,” the king replied.
He walked forward, and as soon as his foot hit the stone in the middle of the room, the ground under us began to shake. Princess Cecile and I cast a worried look at each other. “Is that supposed to happen?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t I be running if it wasn’t?” said the king.
I wanted to go back into the tunnel for shelter, but as soon as I turned back, the floor dropped. I crouched down on unsteady legs and placed a hand to the ground to keep my balance. Soon, the tunnel was out of sight, just another shadow in the darkness above. If the battering ram didn’t bring down the fortress, this sure will, I thought.
Then, the rumbling stilled and the falling floor jolted to a stop. I pushed myself back to my feet and turned back toward the flickering torchlight.
“See? Not so bad,” the king grumbled, but I could tell that the hand holding the torch was shaking.
“How are we going to get back up?” I asked.
“It should take us back,” said the king, “but if it doesn’t, we all have our wings. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the tunnel somewhere up there.”
On the other side of the room, another tunnel had opened. Princess Cecile and I followed King Torran once again.
At the end, the torchlight only expanded so much, and the echoing room around us was a black chasm. I couldn’t see anything.
As I followed the king alongside the wall, I had to keep my focus on the floor. It was made of tile, but several times, I nearly tripped over fallen rocks that had crushed and cracked it.
“Somewhere here, there should be a…” He paused as he looked for it. “Ah, here it is!” He touched the torch to a groove that had been carved in the wall. It sizzled for a moment before the fire caught and began to spread. It swirled around the room, curving around the corners of the wall and illuminating the entire space.
Contrary to what I had believed, the room wasn’t very big at all. The ceiling was high, but not nearly as high as the last room.
I studied the area. We were standing on a platform, and below, row upon row of golden sarcophagi lined the space.
“A tomb?” I asked, taking an involuntary step backward.
“How’d you guess?” was the king’s sarcastic reply.
“No wonder I always thought the castle was haunted,” Princess Cecile muttered.
The king abandoned the torch and walked toward the single sarcophagus that was raised on the platform with us. “The prophecy is over here.”
As we picked our way through the rubble, I asked, “Are these your ancestors?”
He turned with a glint in his eye. “No. They’re yours.”
I steadied myself on the bannister. “My ancestors? What do you mean?”
He gestured to the engravings in the gold. “Take a look.”
The writing was loopy and somewhat difficult to read in the dim light, but I eventually made it out.
It read:
The phoenixes have fallen,
their fiery forms reduced to ash.
Darkness has overtaken the land,
ruled by a dragon’s hand.
But soon, another phoenix will come,
to slay the scaled beast.
What was divided into the five will become one,
when we rise again, bright as the sun,
to bring back a land of peace.
“That’s it?” I asked. I felt like laughing. “I’m just supposed to slay a dragon?”
The king raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it will be easy? Do you know how big a dragon is?”
“How could I? I’ve never seen one.”
“Neither have I, but I’ve studied them in books. They’re rumored to be as big as this room and capable of burning down an entire village with one breath.”
“It’s a good thing I’m immune to fire,” I said.
“Not dragon fire.” He gestured down to the tombs. “Do you want know how most of these phoenixes died? They were reduced to ash when the dragon burned down the palace that once stood right where we’re standing.”
My relief lessened. “Th
en if this one dragon was capable of slaughtering an entire community of my kind, what makes me different?”
“You’re immortal, aren’t you?” Princess Cecile asked.
“Well…I don’t know,” I said, absent-mindedly tracing the scar over my heart. “I don’t think so.”
The king coughed, eyes bugging out of his head. “Wait a minute… Y-you mean to tell me that you consumed the plant of eternal life?”
“Not on purpose,” I said.
“Well, what was it like?” he prompted.
“Painful,” I said with a grimace.
He wrinkled his forehead. “Painful? How?”
I pulled aside my sleeve to expose the ugly, jagged scar that traced across my shoulder. “It gave me this.”
He led me closer to the wall so he could study the scar in the flickering firelight. “Strange. From my studies, the plant was only supposed to give strength and immortality. I’ve never heard of something like this.”
Princess Cecile stepped up next to her father, a look of worry on her face. “Should we take her to the healer?”
“Absolutely not,” said the king, turning on his daughter. “We can’t have just anyone knowing the secrets of the kingdom.”
“But he’s been the family healer since I was a baby,” she argued.
“Still…” the king said. “I’m the only one that has studied the plant extensively. Unless you include Edibus Finch.”
Princess Cecile screwed her face into a sour expression.
“Who’s Edibus Finch?” I asked.
“My childhood tutor,” the king replied. “Taught me everything I know.”
“I guess we should pay old Edibus a visit, then,” sighed the princess. “Great.” The sarcasm was thick in her voice.
Curiosity got the better of me. “What’s so bad about him?”
“He’s just…hard to handle for long periods of time,” she replied.
The king shook his head. “That’s an understatement. Follow me.”
