Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses

by A. W. Cross

  Careening forward, she caught sight of the silver water, took the deepest breath her screaming lungs could manage, then she dove.

  A beastly man’s gaze snapped through her mind, alerting her senses. Yellow irises gleaming within pools of ebony. Grey skin. Black hair. A sleeve of tattoos decorating his fingers, his left arm. The gentlest touch she had ever felt. Her eyelids jolted open to a hundred memories, a thousand sounds, a million emotions.

  Hovering in the water, her gown and hair splayed about, she saw through the world before her. Through Myre. To the Land of Youth.

  Muted laughter bubbled, just behind her; vibrant colors licked her mind. Glittering stars danced on a current or a breeze, and she found their faces, their wings. Air abandoned her lungs, but she breathed in normally, calm rushing her veins like a drug.

  Somewhere in the images, the feeling, the magic, she remembered everything. Including herself.

  And she was furious.

  Blinking off the other world, Fayre turned, rising to the surface like a feather. In the light of what Merlin had done to her—what? Hours before—Roald and all his kingdom seemed little more than a pesky gnat. Nevertheless, she had to face him.

  Breaching the surface of the water, she continued rising until she stepped onto the lake. It shivered, stilling like glass, and Roald’s party broke through the treeline, torches raised.

  Roald jerked his horse’s reins, stopping it. Fayre tilted her head, meeting the beast’s eyes, and the white steed bucked. A tiny smile quirked her lips when Roald landed on his rump and the horse ran off into the woods. She took a step toward him upon the water.

  Gaining his feet, he drew his sword. “Stay back, witch. I know you for what you are now.”

  “No,” she murmured, “you have never, and will never, know me. Perhaps if you’d even tried, we wouldn’t be here, but all you saw was all you are likely to ever see, unless someone intervenes.”

  Fayre drew her hands over her hair, flicking dampness away and leaving coils of red buds in their wake. Roald’s muscles tensed, his knuckles going white, and she didn’t bother tempering her glee. A taste of the fear he brought upon her. Fitting. More than fitting. Overdue.

  “You think very little of women, don’t you?” Her gaze skimmed the other men with him, remembering how they’d looked at her when she’d passed on her way to the palace. “You all do. This world does.” Her head shook then. “No, that’s unfair. I know beasts with more tact and sympathy and heart than you. So surely not all men find themselves in the same festering pot.”

  “What evil are you planning?” Roald hissed.

  “Evil?” Fayre selected a bud from her hair and held it between her fingers. The rose grew, its stem elongating along with its thorns. “Rather than evil, I’d like to call it a gift, should you accept. I think you will.”

  A breeze poured through the clearing, choking the torches in an instant, but no one dared move as words trickled from Fayre’s tongue. “Roald Arthur Pendragon of Camelot, your ambition, desires, greed, and pride far outrank any positive traits you presently have. However, if you can overcome them, learn to love someone other than yourself, and earn their love in return before the last petal falls, you will become the greatest king this world has ever known. If not…you will remain as monstrous as your heart, and your kingdom will fall with you. Neither you nor this land will remember your name.”

  Fayre tossed the bud, and the moment it hit the ground, power surged. Wind beat against the trees, throwing every mortal to the grass. They scampered to their feet, fumbling for their weapons, but their wide eyes caught on the rose before their hands touched any hilts. Taking root, the flower vibrated with magic. Thorns leaped, the size of bodies. Like snakes, they shot out on either side, pushing Roald and the humans back within the town’s boundaries.

  Fayre watched through the cracks in the giant rose’s wall of thorns as Roald’s body stiffened and twisted. His mouth dropped open in a scream that exited as an animal’s cry, then he turned, running, and the thorns clamped shut, closing her old home off from the rest of the world.

  She looked up. The massive rose bud, crimson and bobbing, rested in the night sky beside the moon. Her vision spun when she stepped toward its trunk, but she caught herself on the bank, tossing off the wave of lightheadedness by placing her forehead against the ground. She couldn’t stop yet.

  Auber. She had to find her way home to Auber. What if Merlin had hurt him again?

  A sound made her squint toward the forest that the thorns didn’t block from view. The sound repeated in a pattern, but everything was tripping like she had downed a glass of wine. Maybe more than one glass.

  When her vision cleared enough to see who was there, she recognized the sounds for what they were. Clapping. Slow clapping.

  Golden hair. Blue eyes. Half a grin.

  Merlin emerged from the trees.

  15

  “You,” she hissed, everything wobbling and teetering as she forced herself to her feet. “What have you done with Auber? Where is he?”

  She thought his brows knitted, though it was difficult to tell with everything spinning thirty ways at once. She had to shake it off.

  “Auber?” he asked. “Auber’s fine; tragically, the same as always. Not surprised. Not thrilled. Another time-out for a couple centuries, and he can try again, I suppose.”

  “You didn’t.” Fayre gripped a huge thorn to steady herself. “How could you isolate him like that again?”

  “He’s hardly isolated. He’s home, safe and sound.” Merlin’s lips pursed, and he folded his arms. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re painfully young. But let me attempt to explain. If your child, something you brought into existence, began plotting to commit genocide, would you or would you not say sending them to their room was a proper response?”

  She swallowed. “There had to be another way.”

  “To make him see reason? Or to provide him the incentive to work on his character?” The man’s gaze trailed up the stalk behind her to the rose bud. “I’m afraid Auber’s story and Arthur’s start in a similar manner, with similar curses. I was younger then, probably as young as I look, so maybe that’s why things didn’t work as I’d foreseen in that time. Rather, I don’t believe I could foresee in that time. Auber was supposed to, against all odds, fall in love with, and earn the love of, a human.” Merlin snorted, and Fayre winced at the similarity. The man continued, “He got it half-right. I’m assuming the curse only broke because you are who you are, Nimue.”

  “I’m Fayre.”

  “Yes, yes, and I’m Merlin, Merlinus, Emrys, Ambrosius…some of us have many names for the many chapters of our lives. My meeting you here right now is but the conclusion of your first.”

  His words echoed in her heart, and she gripped the thorn, finally seeing clear. “What about Auber?”

  “Hatred still fills him.”

  Fayre’s shoulders went rigid. “Have you taken his heart again?”

  “Parents must do what is best, even if it’s hard. I’m sorry, Nimue. Truly, I am. Rest easy knowing he doesn’t remember you, though, so it won’t cause him pain.”

  Fayre’s world broke into trillions of deadly shards.

  “What?” Her heart pounded, thudding painfully. She couldn’t find a moment to catch a breath. Lip quivering, she pressed her back against the rose and sorted through her memories. Memories of the month. Memories of the day.

  The mirrors. She had been drawn to the mirrors, because they weren’t just mirrors. Even separated by worlds, she had felt Auber beyond the glass. He had been right there, watching over her in the moments he couldn’t reach her.

  “I’m here to do something similar for you,” Merlin continued, oblivious. “I can’t for the sake of your destiny take your memory of him, but I can weed out the love, so being apart doesn’t hurt.”

  “No!” she screamed, and wind ripped past his robes, flailing them and his long braid. “You aren’t taking anything from me. Do you want to know
why? Do you?” She shook, chest heaving.

  Merlin’s lips pulled in a mad smirk. “I’m riveted with anticipation.”

  Her eyes blazed; she rocked forward away from her support. “It was hard to tell in Myre, but you’re human.”

  “Why, yes. We are. What of it?”

  She lunged. “Humans lie.”

  ✶

  She was gone. Auber watched helplessly as Fayre’s fingers reached for him through the glass, then disappeared. His world caved, and his heart hammered. It hadn’t done that for so long that he’d forgotten the way the grip of pure, unadulterated fear felt vibrating within him.

  Merlin’s invisible hold released him, and he slapped into the floor, not bothering to break his fall. Peeling himself to a seated position, he stared at the man he’d spent so many years in awe of, then so many years hating.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” Merlin cracked his neck and frowned. “She’s fine.”

  “What do I have to do to get her back?”

  Merlin paused, blinking. “Previously, you’d be trying to kill me by now, so I guess you really have changed. Nimue would have that effect on even the great Auberone, I suppose.”

  Tension welded Auber to the floor, and his jaw clenched. “What did you just call her?”

  “‘Nimue’. You know Nimue. I told you stories of Nimue when you were the size of my palm.” A wistful smile softened the wizard’s features. “Her legends far preceed yours. What I didn’t tell you, however, is that they tangle under a different name.”

  “Titania…” The word passed Auber’s dry lips; he had suspected she might be his Titania after he had indeed figured out how to regain his heart, but never Nimue. “Both Nimue and Titania are revered as faery queens.”

  “Precisely.” Merlin glanced at the broken mirror, and Auber did as well. His teeth clacked, a sour taste filling his mouth. The memory of when Merlin had forced him to the Land of Youth seemed raw at the forefront of his mind. He had fought then, just like Fayre, and broken the dining room walls. His heart pinched, and his eyes closed. How could he miss her so much it hurt already?

  “Are you going to try to leave me here?” he asked.

  “Try?” Merlin’s brow jumped.

  “I’ll fight my way back to her if it kills me.”

  “Elly…” Merlin sighed, setting his arms akimbo. “Not five seconds ago I confirmed your tales were linked. You are destined to be together; no need to worry about that. She is starting a new chapter in her life and in the worlds’.”

  “What are you planning?” Auber growled.

  Merlin strode toward him, wise not to get too close. “You remember what you are? What I’ve called you since first you walked through Myre and discovered the Land of Youth?”

  He snarled, “The Gate Between Realms.”

  Merlin nodded, appearing unperturbed. “A gate. You open and close. You’re a barrier of protection, allowing only who you deem entrance. Nimue is something much more dangerous. You see, Elly, she’s a bridge; a flawless product of both sides. It will take quite some time yet…but she is the catalyst that ushers in a new era for both worlds.”

  The wizard started for the mirror beside the broken one, and Auber launched to his feet. “Where are you going?”

  “Beginnings must have endings to exist.”

  His eyes searched the wizard’s, his chest tightening. “You wouldn’t dare hurt her.”

  Merlin’s brows rose. “I would dare, when I have to, but some others will beat me to it.” He stepped through, disappearing.

  Auber barreled after, but the mirror spit him out in the Land of Youth. His quiet bedroom glared, and his heart panicked. Whirling, he pressed his hands against the glass of his bedroom wall. The full wall mirror didn’t budge to let him through. It only flickered, displaying an image of Fayre’s crumpled form on a forest floor.

  Roald hovered over her, staring down, and his eyes narrowed above a carnal grin.

  Terror sliced Auber in two. Bile stung his throat. His fists clenched.

  But all Auber could do was watch the man fit his hands to Fayre’s tender curves, lift a woman who wasn’t his, and walk away.

  16

  Sweat beaded on Fayre’s forehead, pain erupting between her wing bones as Merlin’s elbow jabbed her. Tumbling face-first into the ground, she rolled out of the way before the man could pin her. Crumbling leaves and dirt soiled her gown, smeared her cheeks, but she wouldn’t give in without triumph.

  “You’ve just cursed a kingdom, Nimue. Take a breath. Many older than you wouldn’t be able to stand right now.” He casually deflected a piercing vine that sprouted before him. The stalk withered and died. “What are you even attempting to accomplish? You can’t kill me. I’m ancient.”

  Fixing her fingers like claws, Fayre pulled up, drawing black brambles from the earth. Merlin evaded them in a blink and was before her, hand outstretched. He blipped her forehead.

  The pain split her skull, shooting her into a tree. She skidded against the bark to the roots, her back scraping raw. Her teeth clenched, screams caught in her chest. Curls of muddy hair dripped over her eyes, and she panted.

  “Nothing to say?” Merlin approached, each step reverberating, bouncing between her eyes.

  “What am I supposed to say to you?” She gasped for air, pushing against the ground, but her arms shook, and her legs couldn’t find her feet.

  He stepped on her ankle, and her mouth gaped in a silent cry. “You could answer my question.”

  Tears pooled as he ground her ankle with his boot heel. “I—” she choked, “I just want to live peacefully, explore, and have a safe place with the man I love.”

  “The monster you love.”

  “He’s not a monster!” She feared her bone would crack. “Perhaps the only reason he is any part a beast falls on you!”

  The pressure eased, and she sagged forward, reaching for her leg with trembling hands. Merlin’s smile ceased, an icy stare replacing it. He smashed her hand into the earth, crunching her fingers against oak roots.

  Her scream pierced the leaves above.

  “Look at you. You’re an infant. You’re oblivious. You’re pathetic. You’d be better off chained than exploring. I offered you peace of mind, but you threw it away. For what? The love of a monster.”

  Her fingers dug deep into the earth, a single word plucked from his speech. Chained. She’d spent her life in chains, every day watching them grow thicker, every day looking forward only to a new master.

  Blood spilled from her broken nails, and the earth throbbed through her in response. Chains. Fayre grabbed Merlin’s ankle with her free hand, clutching him until her knuckles turned an ashy shade. Pouring every ounce of strength she had left into the ground, she asked for chains. Wood ruptured the forest floor, shooting into the sky higher than even the rose bud. The wood coiled itself around Merlin, plastering him within a cocoon. When the trunk closed around his legs, Fayre wrenched her hands free and slapped her bleeding hands against the bark.

  It pulsed, thicker.

  Merlin’s wide eyes peered at her, the prison closing around his face last. As the wood crawled up his neck, he smiled, and the expression chilled her to death. Had she failed?

  “You will do well, Nimue. Take care of him, that world, this one. Protect the myths in my absence.” Light faded from his eyes. “I’m sorry to expect so much of your young shoulders… But great expectations follow anyone with any gift, and expectations are like chains. So, you see? At least in the end, like a good author, I was honest.” Wrinkles pinched the corners of his eyes, and he glanced up, breathing out.

  The tree enveloped him completely, and Fayre collapsed, panting, beside the lake.

  Every fibre of her being wailed in pain and weariness. She couldn’t wrap her mind around his words, the quote. She had read it in The Feather, by Emrys.

  Her gaze searched the quiet bark, and her heart pounded as she tilted her head back. The tree stretched well into the clouds, larger than any she�
�d ever seen. She covered her mouth with her hand while tremors wracked her body.

  He had pushed her to this end. He had pushed her to use everything she had. But why?

  Scooting back, she nearly tumbled off the bank into the water. Blinking off the callous sensations of being played, she turned toward the glimmering lake. Moonlight and ripples obscured her reflection, but dark yellow eyes gleamed in the depths.

  Her fingertips brushed Auber’s face, and the image cleared, smooth as stone. A swallow bobbed in his throat, his hands clenching into fists on the other side of the barrier.

  Sickness swelled in her gut when his eyes glanced the tree behind her, blinked, then returned to her face. “Did you know this would happen?” she whispered.

  His grey knuckles bled a ghost white, his lips pinching.

  Shakily, she inhaled. “Avalon. A legend surrounds that name.” Her eyes closed to erase the pain etched over his form for a brief second. “Is this it?”

  When she opened her eyes again, Auber nodded.

  “How much haven’t you told me?”

  His mouth moved, pleading in his eyes, but no sound carried through the worlds. Realizing, he scrubbed a hand over his face and opened his arms. Exhausted, she fell into the water, straight to the Land of Youth and into his embrace.

  His inhale shook, his thundering heart leaping in her ears as he pinned her against him, lending her every bit of his strength to keep her upright, grounded.

  “Why would he make me do this?” She wrapped her aching arms around him.

  “It’s the dawn of a new age.” The roughened words grated leaving Auber’s throat. “I’m so sorry, Fayre.”

  Behind her, the full glass wall reflected the towering tree, Merlin’s tomb, and she let her body sag. “This is only the beginning, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Her ear rested against his heart, listening to the beats as they calmed. Gradually, her eyes closed. “Auber?”