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LET us begin our journey today in the dungeons beneath the dungeons, inside the royal castle of Fairendale, the most beautiful of all kingdoms in our fairy tale land.
Here, in this infinite blackness, Aleen, a prophet of one hundred forty-two years, is not sleeping, though all the children and prophets behind her are. They have run out of light in this prison, you see, a prison where they have remained since King Willis ordered them here. The boy, Calvin, who has brought their provisions day after day, has not visited in some time, though Aleen cannot be sure quite how long it has been since he last left them. The children do not like lying awake in darkness, and so they sleep, until light can be found again.
Aleen is thinking. She has been thinking since the last candle burned out. She is thinking of what is coming.
You see, Aleen has learned from Yerin that she is very near her one hundred forty-third birthday. A prophet’s one hundred forty-third birthday is a very special one in the time of a prophet—the only birthday when they might summon one last spell of magic. And while that may seem like quite a generous gift from this magical land, it must be said that if a prophet decides to use that one bit of magic, they give their life to do so. A prophet will die for magic, if she so chooses.
This is what occupies the mind of our prophetess. Should she risk her own life for the sake of the children? Should she remain here and bear what is to come? Should she set something entirely different in motion?
Aleen reaches for Yerin’s hand. He is the only prophet awake in the dungeons. Truth be told, he is the only prophet strong enough to wake. The others have fallen into a deep sleep, having been without sunlight and warmth and a full table of food for far too long. Yerin touches Aleen’s shoulder.
“What is it you will do?” he says in the gentlest whisper he can manage.
“I do not know,” Aleen says. “But the children.”
“You will die,” Yerin says, and if we could see through the dark, we would see a single tear pass across Yerin’s white-stubbled cheek.
“Yes. I will die,” Aleen says. “But I do not have much of life left.”
“You would if we escaped from this dungeon,” Yerin says.
“And you have Seen our escape?” Aleen says.
The two, you see, have talked long and quiet, as the children slept behind them. Aleen knows what it is that Yerin has Seen. It is not, alas, good news. But there is something Aleen can do. A circuitous route, to be sure, but something that might change the vision Yerin has shared.
“No,” Yerin says.
Aleen pats his knee. “All will be well, Yerin,” she says.
“But you will die,” he says. His voice breaks, and he clears his throat.
“Hush, now,” Aleen says, as though she is speaking to one of the children. “We must not wake the children.”
They are quiet for a time. And then Yerin says, “You have never told me why it is you lost your Sight when you came to this dungeon.”
“I do not understand it myself,” Aleen says. “I suspect it is because my Sight is connected to the Old Man’s Great Book.”
“The Old Man’s Great Book?” Yerin says. “How came you to possess such a treasure?”
“I studied beneath the Old Man,” Aleen says. “He passed the book on to me when he died.”
Yerin grows quiet once more. He is thinking of another woman, a young woman he knew many years ago, who studied beneath the Old Man. A young woman he loved and lost.
Their hands find one another in the dark, as if they always belonged entwined. And at the precise moment when fingers lock around fingers, a great vision plays across Yerin’s mind.
Oh, yes. There will be a sacrifice. And it will be brilliant.
He squeezes Aleen’s hand. She smiles in the dark, though no one can see her. They fall into a patchy sleep, together.
Not enough time has passed for Captain Sir Greyson to return to the kingdom of Fairendale. He was sent out to scour the other kingdoms for more men, after his died in the fiery dragon lands. But Sir Greyson, truth be told, has no heart left in him. He is returning to Fairendale a beaten man. He did not even make it to the first distant land before he turned on his heel and began walking home.
So he is walking, slowly, tiredly, back to the village, where he will kneel before his mother and tell her how he has failed her this time. He is an honorable man, of course, but this he simply cannot do. He cannot keep chasing children. He cannot continue to build an army that will serve only the king’s best interest. He cannot do whatever the king bids any longer, and so he knows that his mother will most likely die by this decision, for a man who defies the king is a man who will not receive the medical provisions necessary to keep his mother alive. He would be the one to tell her himself.
Though the crueler of the kingdom’s faithful people, were any to exist, might berate Sir Greyson for his cowardice—for a man who knows a mission is doomed before it even begins and so abandons that mission is a man ridiculed for his decision—we know that he has, perhaps, chosen the more honorable thing: defy a king and save the children.
It is true that the neighboring kingdoms do not look so kindly on Fairendale now that the news has traveled of what King Willis has done to the children. It is true that, even now, as we speak, another king is writing angry correspondence to King Willis, demanding that he let the imprisoned children go free. (You might be wondering who this other king could possibly be. But you must be patient, dear reader. That is a story for another time.) It is true that King Willis will hear advice from no one, until the missing children are found and his throne is secured for good.
Sir Greyson nears the edge of Fairendale’s land, and the cold ball of fear moves from his chest to his throat. He does not want to return to the castle at all, for he does not want to face the wrath of King Willis. Sir Greyson knows nothing of what has passed in his absence. He does not realize that Prince Virgil has been taken by the village people and stowed away somewhere, safe from watching eyes.
He moves through the village’s quiet streets, his feet aching beneath him. And though he would like nothing more than to stop at his mother’s house, he does not. He simply continues on his way, his head drooping, his steps shuffling, his pace somewhat slower than it had been moments before. He must return to the castle. He must be honest with the king. He must finish the job, though the king will surely relieve him of his duties once he discovers what Sir Greyson has not done.
He misses his mother. Does she yet live? He will know soon enough. But it will not be soon enough for him.
Sir Greyson knocks on the door of the castle. It is quiet and still. He knocks again. Surely someone is still here. Surely they have not all abandoned this great structure of stone and iron. Surely the dragons have not attacked while he walked the lands aimlessly. Sir Greyson feels a pinch in his chest. He opens the castle doors, unsure of what he will find. The hallways are as quiet as the exterior. His steps echo on the marble floors. He heads straight for the throne room.
There is no one stationed at the double doors, so Sir Greyson pulls them open, with great effort, himself. The king is hunched over his throne, his head in his hands. He looks as if he has deflated a bit. Has the king stopped eating? Has his stomach shrunk in the days since Sir Greyson has been gone? It is impossible to tell.
Sir Greyson does not know where to begin. He clears his throat. King Willis looks up.
“Captain,” he says, and he straightens a little in his seat.
“Sire,” Sir Greyson says. He draws nearer, unable to speak another word. It is the exhaustion, perhaps, or the sadness, or the failure. He does not quite know what stays his tongue.
But he has no need to say anything at all, for King Willis says, “My son,” in the exact place where Sir Greyson had expected him to say “What news do you have for me?” Sir Greyson stops on his way up the red carpet.
“Your son, sire?” he says. “Has something happened while I have traveled?” He clears his throat again, as if to cover up the lie, though it is not really a lie so much as it is an exaggeration. Sir Greyson did not travel. He merely wandered.
King Willis rises from the throne. His eyes are tortured, red, as if he has been crying. Sir Greyson has never seen his king cry. Might the prince be dead?
“Is the prince well?” Sir Greyson says.
“They have taken him,” King Willis says, and Sir Greyson is more confused than ever.
“Who has taken him?” he says. The dragons? What would the dragons want with a boy?
“The people,” King Willis says, and he flings an angry hand behind him, back toward the village of Fairendale. “The people have taken my son.”
Sir Greyson sucks in a breath. The village people? They have taken the prince? His mind whirls with the possibilities. Perhaps the king will let the children go. Perhaps he will call off the search. Perhaps the village will return to its former beauty.
And then Sir Greyson asks the next question that baffles him. “How?” he says.
“While you were gone,” the king says, and now his eyes turn angry, as if it were Sir Greyson’s fault he was not at the castle to protect it from the villagers.
Sir Greyson does not want to draw his king’s attention to why he was gone in the first place, so he says, “Who took your son?”
“The village people,” the king shouts, though Sir Greyson already knows this.
“Who among the village people?” Sir Greyson says.
King Willis waves his hand. His eyes crackle black. “A woman with flames for hair and eyes the color of the castle lawn.” King Willis pauses for a moment, blinks, breathes, and then, “As it used to be.”
There is only one woman in the village with flames for hair and eyes the color of the castle lawn. Cora.
Sir Greyson’s heart clenches. What has she done?
“I have sent everyone away,” King Willis says, “to search.” The king’s shoulders slump once more. “There is no bread. There are no cakes. There is no Cook.”
Of course Cook would be the one person King Willis would miss the most. Is this where his sadness lies? Does he feel sorrier for the loss of Cook or the loss of his son?
“Queen Clarion,” Sir Greyson says. “She is safe?”
King Willis waves his hand. “Yes, of course,” King Willis says. “What would the people want of her?”
“And everyone else has gone searching for your son?” Sir Greyson says, still trying to understand.
“Searching for my son?” King Willis says. “No, they have not gone searching for my son. They have gone to find the missing children.”
Sir Greyson stares at his king. What must it be like to care more for finding a magic boy than finding your missing son? He cannot imagine it.
“The servants are gone?” Sir Greyson says. “Cook?
“She disappeared into the woods and did not return,” King Willis says.
“Garth?” Sir Greyson says.
The king tilts his head. His eyes narrow. “Garth? Who is this Garth? I do not know anyone named Garth.”
Sir Greyson thinks it better not to mention that Garth is the boy who does whatever the king bids. But perhaps he should have, for the next moment King Willis says, “Where are your men?” as if noticing for the first time that Sir Greyson has entered the throne room alone.
The captain clears his throat. He does not say what is jumbled in his mind to say—that the people in other kingdoms would not come to the aid of Fairendale if he were to travel and ask them this favor; that a man he met on his way, early on, told him people all across the lands have begun calling King Willis a tyrant, like his father before him; that he did not, in fact, do what he was bid to do.
Instead, he says, “Perhaps it is time to let the children go, sire.”
It is quite astonishing how quickly the eyes of King Willis can move from the softest brown to the darkest black. Their flash causes Sir Greyson to take a single step back. “Never,” King Willis says. “I will never let them go now.”
“Perhaps they will trade your son for their children,” Sir Greyson says.
“Never,” King Willis says. “I will never give in to the demands of the people.” He clenches his teeth together. “They will never win.”
Sir Greyson knows the people of the village. He knows that winning has nothing to do with what they have done. But for a man like King Willis, the possibility is impossible to imagine. So Sir Greyson merely keeps it to himself.
“Have they made demands?” Sir Greyson says.
“Of course they have,” King Willis says. His arm sweeps the throne room. “They are not foolish people, I will give them that much.”
“You are vulnerable here, without men to protect you,” Sir Greyson says.
King Willis turns on his captain with a rage that is terrifying. Sir Greyson is glad that he is ten paces away and that King Willis would have to walk down four steps to reach him. He has never seen his king walk down steps without the aid of his page. “That is what you were supposed to bring me,” King Willis says.
From somewhere deep within him, Sir Greyson finds the courage to tell his king the truth. “Our neighbors will not come,” he says. “They do not believe in your ways.”
King Willis lets loose the loudest growl Sir Greyson has ever heard. The king’s face turns red and then purple before he is finished. His hands ball into fists, and he raises them toward Sir Greyson. “You will find me men,” he says. “Or you shall be dismissed.”
“There are no men to be found, sire,” Sir Greyson says. “I am prepared for your dismissal.”
The two men stare at one another for a time. King Willis grows calmer. Sir Greyson grows braver. “They only want their children, sire,” he says.
“They will not have their children,” King Willis says. “They can have my food and my provisions and the ornate beauty of this castle, but they will never have their children.”
It is clear to Sir Greyson, dear reader, that King Willis has crossed beyond mere pursuit and into dangerous obsession, for it is obsession that can twist a heart so wildly that one cannot see reason or strategy or even truth beyond what one believes is truth. King Willis, you see, believes that the unarguable truth is he must capture all the children or he will face a death so brutal it cannot be told in stories.
And though it seems quite ridiculous to us that a king might die if he does not secure a throne, for man can surely live a full and happy life without ruling a kingdom, there is a reason our king believes this, of course, as there is reason that every man and woman and child believe what they believe. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Sir Greyson is not finished with King Willis. “Perhaps you might return the children who do not have magic. Perhaps we can send them back to their parents and they will be satisfied with a compromise. Perhaps then they will release your son.”
King Willis shakes his head, a vigorous one that makes his curly hair, wisps the color of sand, flap about his face. “No,” he says. He points at Sir Greyson. “You will find my son. We will keep the children.”
Sir Greyson sighs. He had hoped this would be over. He had hoped he might return to his mother and nurse her for her final days, for once he leaves the service of the king, she will not have access to the medicine that keeps her living. The captain dips his head. “As you wish, sire,” he says.
“Find my son,” King Willis says. “Bring him back. And if they will not willingly give him, you shall take him.” The last words are spoken as one might speak a whispery threat, intended to bring fear to whomever hears it. Whispered words, with the right force and face behind them, are much more terrifying than the loudest ones. King Willis has perfected this art, for he watched well his father before him.
Watches him still.
But wait. I am afraid I have shared something this story is not quite ready to share. Yes, well, forget I said a word.
For now, let us turn our attention back to our captain and the king. Sir Greyson has just shivered, the whispered words of King Willis walking down his spine and back up his chest. “Very well, sire,” Sir Greyson says. “Right away.”
He spins on his heel and moves toward the door. But before he has left the king’s presence entirely, before the door has closed on his passing, he turns back. And what he sees takes the shiver that crosses his back and chest and turns it into an ice-cold sword that burns through his belly.
The king, you see, has lifted the curtain on whatever it is that has sat next to his throne since he inherited the kingship. A mirror. Long and clear and golden at the oval edges. And though Sir Greyson cannot see the reflection in the mirror, he hears his king begin to speak.
King Willis, speaking to a mirror.
Whatever could it mean?