The giant bird turned in a wide arc and the wind whipped through my hair as we soared straight into the current. I settled back and watched the stars float by above our heads, trying to figure out what I could say that might convince her to forgive me. But how would I explain that I let the Council get into my head, or worse, that the thought of kissing her meant more to me than any other kiss I’d ever had?
Alizeh circled the familiar peak, slowing down to land, as the tiny cottage appeared below us like a dot on a map. The windows stood dark as the surrounding night, so she might have already gone to bed. Was it even that late? Or maybe it was early tomorrow already? Flying all day had messed with my concept of time. Alizeh landed as smooth and graceful as always, and I slid off her back as the odd feeling of the stable ground beneath my feet buckled my knees.
“Thank you," I said, as I rushed across the yard. I grabbed a fish from the box by the tree and tossed it toward the bird, her sharp beak shredding it almost instantly. I owed her so much more than a partially rotting fish, but it would have to do for now. Once I returned to the castle I would have the kitchen prepare a feast deserving of the most decorated knight.
"Good girl." I tapped her beak and she closed her eyes with a contented cooing sound. "I'll be right back."
I took the narrow winding path toward the dim cottage. No lights were visible from the ground either. The flowers in the tiny garden flopped over on their stems waiting for the morning sun to wake them again from slumber. Maybe it was a lot later than I thought.
By the time I reached the door, a thickness had already built in my throat. I swallowed, trying to force it down as my fist hovered beside the wooden door. I’d come all this way and still had no clue what I would say to her, but I hoped the right words would come when I saw her face. I clenched my teeth and knocked.
The sound echoed between the peaks, but inside the house remained silent.
I knocked again, louder but trying not to sound too aggressive.
Nothing.
I looked at Alizeh out in the yard and shrugged. She turned her head to the side watching me with upended eyes.
One last try.
I banged my fist harder and longer, the sound reverberating through the mountains. "Veda, it’s Fallon. If you are in there please come to the door. I'm sorry it's so late, but I really need to talk to you.”
I leaned against the wall next to the door, one foot crossed over the other and waited.
Still nothing.
“Veda,” I called again, “I just need five minutes, then I promise I’ll leave if you want me to.”
The moon moved miles across the sky while I stood there by myself, holding up the wall. I’d never had to chase a girl before. Any time I did something to offend one of the tavern girls, I simply continued on with my life and they came back the next day pretending like nothing happened. The thought stung in my chest. I hadn’t exactly been the most upstanding guy. Maybe I deserved this. I’d done so many people wrong that now I had to pay the price. Except, I never knew karma would be so all-consuming. Veda deserved to be mad at me. I deserved to be standing out in the dark begging for her forgiveness. But who knew that it would sting this bad?
"She's either not home, or I screwed up even worse than I thought,” I said to Alizeh as I snaked back down the path. She'd already made herself in a comfortable pile, but as I approached she laid her massive head on the ground, her eyelids drooping as she fought sleep.
I sat beside her and leaned against her wing as the slow rhythmic rise and fall of her lungs provided a warm cushion behind my back. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable sleep, but I’d had worse over the last few days. Besides, even though Veda’s comfy old couch lay only fifty feet away, I couldn’t risk violating her trust again by breaking into her house. If she’d found me sleeping there in the morning, she’d likely throw me off the mountain and deserved the right too. I pulled the shoulder bag onto my lap and dug through the contents. Mainly fruit peels and scraps remained, but I found a squished sandwich along with a couple of bright orange clementines near the bottom. I peeled back the rind and took a bite of clementine. The sweet juice exploded in my mouth as I closed my eyes and let the weight of the day pin me down.
Slowly my mind sunk into the emptiness of sleep. The future king, the Crown Prince of Aboria, laying in the dirt, waiting on a girl.
4
30th May
My body ached. Every inch of flesh pressed against the hard ground as I tossed and turned the night away, my subconscious shouting at me for being so cruel. Anything else not beaten by my restless sleep burned deep with the scars of sunburn, and I still had who knows how many days of searching I had left.
I stretched my arms above my head and finally opened my eyes.
Ahhh!
Two massive yellow eyes hovered just above me. I screamed again and clawed myself backward, ripping the tops of my fingers as I pulled myself away.
Alizeh squawked and shook her head. Small bits of fluff from her feathers billowed around her, like bronze snow.
"Don't do that when I'm sleeping."
She tilted her head and stared for a moment, then ignored my panic and tried to rummage through the bag I'd been using as a pillow.
I let go and fell back to the ground digging the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and letting my heartbeat go back to a normal rhythm. Alizeh had a point though. Time for breakfast.
I staggered over to the side of the yard and pulled the last fish from the box. I tossed it in the air for Alizeh, then stared up at the lone tree and its shady branches. Small apple-like fruits grew in several clumps within the blanket of leaves and hung just low enough that I might be able to reach. I jumped up and swiped with my arm, dragging down a few branches and shaking a few little green orbs to the ground. I scooped them up, wiped off the dust, then wolfed them down and choked on their tartness. I bit into another and my lips puckered tight. Awful. But the contents of my mother's care package had run low after last night's dinner so unless Veda came to the door this was all I had. I flopped down beneath the tree and enjoyed the cool shadow the leaves overhead provided. Nothing seemed to move in the cottage, no silhouettes in the windows or open doors to let in the morning breeze.
I rolled my neck in a circle, still trying to stretch out the stiffness from sleeping on the ground. Maybe Veda really wasn't home, or maybe she'd tiptoed around me this morning and already disappeared. But unless she had another bird, which could be possible, she wouldn't have left Alizeh here. A giant thing like her would be hard to miss, and definitely made the worst alarm clock.
But leaving here without trying again would be foolish. I stumbled toward the cottage and knocked on the door, each pound slow and solemn as it echoed through the wooden panels.
Nothing.
I slumped against the door frame. What now? I still had the higher peaks to search, but the probability that my father could've climbed that high seemed unreasonable. Maybe I should just sweep back over the valley, go home and refresh before going out again? Besides, what if Captain Amir already had news of a sighting? Or maybe, I stood up straighter as the faint glimmer of hope sparked in my veins, maybe he'd already come home. If that were true, then wasting another day searching would be useless.
Except, since I’d already spent nearly a whole day flying all the way up here, I could always go the rest of the way up to the temple. I could give one last quick check through the mountain peaks for my father, I’d get a chance to talk to Veda’s father again and finally get the truth, and possibly, Veda would be there and I could try to explain. I launched off the wall and ran down the path.
"Alizeh, time to go.” I scooped up my bag from the ground and launched myself between her shoulders. “Take me to Edwin Macario."
The spire of golden light rose into the sky as we soared closer to the temple. Below us, the gilded statues and babbling waterfalls glittered in the afternoon sun. I scanned the yard, hoping to see Veda standing in the garden or sitting on the
grand staircase, but they both sat empty. The entire yard lay quiet, just like the first time Veda brought me here.
Except as we circled closer, something seemed different. A large box loomed at the end of the yard in the farthest spot from the temple. Something moved inside the box, back and forth, its shadow darkening the ground beside it but barely distinguishable through the series of bars that constructed the top and sides. As we neared closer it looked more like a cage, one fit for a tiger or a bear, or maybe worse. I shuddered and steered Alizeh to the opposite side of the yard, away from the box. She reared her head back at me as she touched down and I shrugged. She scratched her feet along the ground, refusing to stay still as I stroked her feathers and nearly tossing me off as I tried to dismount.
Snarls and growls emanated from the cage. Alizeh bucked, her head tilted toward the sky.
“Easy, girl.” I shushed and tried to calm her, but she wasn’t interested in my comfort.
The inhabitant of the cage roared again, and I froze, the terrifying sound too familiar to be a coincidence. It smacked its large hairy paws against the cage bars, and its razor-sharp claws clicked against the metal. A rough and tangled mane framed its enraged face as it bared a row of lethal teeth.
“Dad? Is that you?”
The beast growled and rammed the side of the cage with his shoulder. The bars rattled but still held him captive.
“Dad, it’s me, Fallon.” I ran across the yard, nausea building in my gut. “Don’t you remember?”
He growled again and tossed his head back, then slammed the cage again. I jerked away, keeping my hands far from the bars. Who knew how long he’d been locked up here? Had he eaten? Did he think I did this to him on purpose? The questions flooded my brain, but only one answer rang through the noise--I needed to get him out.
I walked around the outside of the cage until I found the door and the iron lock holding it in place. My father followed my every movement and mimicked my steps. Stalking me like a lion does its prey. I examined the lock. Pretty standard from what I could tell, but once it came off, how would I get my father off this mountain? I grabbed the side of my head as my mind reeled. Only one problem at a time.
"Don’t worry, Dad, I'll get you out of here”
I gripped the side of my shoulder bag and yanked the metal buckle from the front. My fingers ached as I stretched out the metal to a long strip with a pointed end. I stuck the end in the lock and fished around trying to move the tumblers, but it wouldn’t work. My father paced inside his cell growling and banging on the bars, the lock shaking in my hands every time he smacked the wall.
I dug deeper trying to find the sunken spot where I could pop the lock. The number of doors and private cabinets I'd invaded should have made this an easy task, but the lock wouldn't budge. Either it had some other mechanism or the adrenaline coursing through my limbs scrambled my technique.
I pressed harder then heard a snap as the thin metal buckle broke off in the iron lock.
Banging my hands on the bars I tried pulling again rattling the bars of the cage and the door, but the lock stayed shut tight.
From the ground, I grabbed a sharp rock and smashed it as hard as I could against the latch. Sparks flew on contact, but I reared my arm back and smashed it again. Barely a scratch showed on the metal.
"What do you think you're doing?"
I smashed the rock one last time against the cage. More sparks flew. I whirled around, the rock clasped in my fist, and came face to face with Edwin Macario.
"I'm trying to break the lock on this cage. What does it look like? You can't just lock up my father like this."
His face exploded in a rainbow of colors, each one angrier than the last. “Of course I can. And I should."
He grabbed the rock from my hand and chucked it over the side of the mountain. "Your father is dangerous. A danger to me, to everyone else, and most likely himself. The cage is for everyone's safety. Do you honestly not think before you act?"
The purple fury crept up the sides of his face from his neck, and he pushed me away from the cage. I regained my balance and tried to circle around him, but he stood directly in front of the door.
"You expect me to believe that you're trying to keep him safe? He's been missing for days. My mother has the entire royal guard searching for him. She is sick with worry. If you were protecting him, why wouldn't you tell someone that he was here?"
“Because he asked me not to and I wouldn't betray his trust like that,” Edwin shouted and my head jerked back as the words smacked across my cheek. “Your father came to me, I didn't find him. If he wanted me to tell the castle, I would've, but he wanted to be left alone.”
I tossed my hands through the air, the anger rising from the bottoms of my feet and I trembled as it started to take hold of my limbs. "You're telling me he scaled the highest mountain to the tallest peak without any help just to find you? How stupid do you think I am?”
“From where I’m standing, pretty damn dumb since you tried to let a dangerous beast run free without a backup plan. I don't know how he got here. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I woke up the other morning and he was sprawled half-dead across my doorstep. I fed him and took care of him and now I've locked him up until we find a way to reverse whatever spell he's under." Edwin gazed into the cage at my father, his chest rising as he took a deep breath then exhaled loudly. "I want to help him as much as you do. But my way will be a lot safer for everyone. Plus it was his choice to come to find me instead of going home."
I shook out my hands, every part of me afire and my brain completely unable to get it under control. I glanced at my snarling father in the cage. What would I have done with him if I’d set him free? He might have killed me and ran off again so that we’d never find him. But Edwin? Something twinged deep in my muscles when I saw his smug face. Things didn’t add up.
"Why you?” I grabbed the sides of my head and tried to sort out my thoughts as I paced in circles. “Out of every place he could have gone, in the state he's in, why would he risk coming all the way up here just to see you?"
Edwin crossed his hands behind his back and widened his stance. "Because out of everyone in the entire kingdom he trusts me. He knows I might be the only one that can help him."
“Really?” I met his stare, not willing to back down so easily. Last time I’d been here he didn’t have the highest opinion of my family, but all of a sudden he was going to help? "Then how come he's never spoken of you?"
A dark shadow cast over his face as his proud smile deflated to an angry frown. "Because we had a falling out many years ago and I’ll bet he never intended on seeing me again. Besides, from what my daughter tells me you've been left in the dark about a lot of things. It's no wonder you hadn't heard of me."
I crossed my arms to protect myself while doubting every line he threw my way. He was right, someone had been lying to me, but was it really my parents or was it him?
Edwin softened his tone and stepped away from the cage. I stared after his every move, but stayed in one spot, still unsure how to react now. His ability to flip from angry to calm tossed me off guard. Maybe all the years of training to be a wise man helped control his emotions. Or maybe he didn’t really care that much at all.
”Your father and I used to be very close, and I worked for him at the castle. I was his confidante. A consultant of sorts."
"So, you were on the Council?”
"Not exactly, the Council can’t provide the same type of assistance that I can. In fact, the Council and I didn't get along very well."
"It sounds like there were a lot of people at the castle that you did not get along well with.”
He laughed, "You're right. People hate what they fear. They ostracize what scares them.”
I looked him over. Nothing about him, other than his self-righteous sneer, screamed menace. His bulky frame could easily be overtaken by the most inexperienced guard, even though his wider shoulders looked like he might have been muscular back in his younge
r days. "You don't look that intimidating to me.”
"Because you’re an arrogant know-it-all. Plus, you haven't seen what I can do.” An odd, mischievous twinkle flashed in his eyes and a chill pulsed through me.
“Watch that statue over there.” He pointed at the brilliant golden eagle perched on the right corner of the temple.
He closed his eyes for a moment and brought his hands together in front of him as if in prayer. The mountain fell into silence. Even the breeze stopped blowing while he postured in front of me.
Suddenly, Edwin whipped his right hand over his head and flexed his fingers into a claw shape. A strange blue light emanated from his fingertips and snaked through the air like smoke. It billowed higher and higher in the air as it snaked toward the eagle statue. A loud crack echoed through the peaks and the golden figure spread its metal wings as the blue light wrapped itself around the metal bird. The statue’s head turned and stared at us, then it pitched into the air and glided off the side of the building.
The eagle statue circled above our heads, flapping its wings occasionally to keep momentum. The sun reflected off its body, and I shielded my eyes, still not believing what I saw. Alizeh jumped to her feet and squawked at the gilded bird, chasing at it, her beak snapping loud and angry behind us.
"How did you…" But the words stuck in my throat as I kept staring into the sky, wonder and dread mixing a strange cocktail in my blood as my heart pounded a warning my chest.
"Magic," Edwin said, "I can do a lot of things that you probably haven't even dreamed of."
I’d heard of people who could do things like this, but never met one, especially not in Aboria. Enchanted creatures walked all over these lands, but humans who could wield magical powers, that was something only people in far off lands could do. Places like Enchantia or maybe even in Oz. But not here. Never here.
Edwin snapped his fingers and the blue smoke cloaking the eagle dissipated. Immediately, the metal bird’s wings fused back to its sides and it plummeted from the sky smashing into the earth between us. I stumbled backward from the aftershock and tripped over a rock falling down as well, the stones grating my elbows and sending a jolt of pain through my body.
Fallon: Son of Beauty and the Beast (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 6) Page 13
