Soon

THERE is another who watches the woods burn. She is new to these woods, but she is not new to Fairendale, though none of the people, as they are today, would recognize her. She has known this land since the day she was born, but she has come here a stranger. She stands at the edge of the woods, almost to its burning, and one would not be able to see her all that well if one were to look, for she is clothed in smoke and mist, though she wears the most beautiful dress of green silk that the kingdom has ever seen. Her hair is piled on her head, red and long and shining, and her eyes are of the deepest green, greener, even, than the leaves of the forest that, just now, are shriveling up in the heat of fire.

If one were to see her clearly, one might call her beautiful indeed.

She moves inside this corner of the woods, a corner that does not dare burn with the presence of this powerful enchantress. She holds her staff toward the farthest side, and a house appears, a house that is not wide but is tall, leaning, and boasts a beautiful garden in the middle of flames. She must be very powerful indeed, to make a paradise such as this one. She moves through the gardens, opening flowers, tilting her head. She makes another flower bush, over beside the front entrance of her house, and she calls up some roses by the porch, and then she walks up the steps and into the house, where she outfits the walls and the two bedrooms and the kitchen and the den. There will be another one coming here, but not for some time. She must be patient. She will wait.

This enchantress, one might agree, is a master of magic, and her corner of the woods remains bright and green and full of color. She is a master of magic, and her house remains invisible to all except her and the few she will permit to see it.

But, mysteriously, the green corner of earth is not invisible at all, and if one were to walk through the woods as they will appear tomorrow, with their blackened trees grieving for all the men lost in the flames of the dragons, one would marvel at how this small patch of land was left completely untouched, how trees and bushes and flowers remained even while all the trees and bushes and flowers around them disappeared in a great roar of fire.

When our enchantress has done making her house and giving it just the right touches, she nods her head, as if there is another here with her already, and then she retires to her bed, for she is weary, and magic drains even one as powerful as she.

So she sleeps until the morning sky is late and full of sun, and the sun breaks holes through all the charred trees and reaches into her window. The smoke is still thick, but it does not congregate around her patch of land, and she looks out the window to see that the fire has ceased burning.

It is almost time. Oh, yes. It is almost time.

Still, she must wait. Someone is coming. She will find her, and then the events that have been ordained since Fairendale’s earliest days will begin in earnest.

***

PRINCE Virgil wakes to the smell of smoke and the castle buzzing all around him.

Though the castle is far removed from the bounds of the forest, its people have watched the forest burning all night. Dragons, the servants say. Dragons are coming, and the servants flit about the castle with so much fear in their eyes that Prince Virgil knows he must find his father and discover how much truth is held in their words.

It is telling, dear reader, that the first person our dear Prince Virgil thinks to find is his father, in a confusing time such as this one. Prince Virgil, you see, has been sitting on that magical throne more and more of late, and he is beginning, alas, to forget all the light. There is still some left, yes. There is still some that his mother tends every night when she comes in to kiss her boy goodnight, but it is not much anymore. Sadly, the darkness has begun to win in our prince. So this is why, you see, he searches for his father rather than his mother.

But his mother is waiting in the halls between the throne room and her boy’s room. Perhaps she has known, with the mysterious knowing that only a mother possesses, that her boy will wake wanting answers. And perhaps she wants to be the one to answer them, rather than allow her son to hear what answers his father may provide.

Queen Clarion catches Prince Virgil in her arms. He does not sink so easily into them anymore, for Prince Virgil is growing taller and harder. She kisses the top of his head, trying not to think that the reason he fights against her arms is because the darkness has already won. No, it cannot be. Her boy is still mostly good. Love holds him in the light, and this moment Prince Virgil surrenders.

“My dear boy,” Queen Clarion says, until, finally, Prince Virgil pulls away to look in his mother’s eyes. They are as beautiful as ever. Blue pools of kindness. He could get lost in the waters, but he notices a shadow at the corners. Sadness? Regret? It is impossible to read.

“What is it, Mother?” Prince Virgil says. A bit of him shakes, deep down. Perhaps he is aware of the battle waging over his heart.

She pulls him into one of the many chairs situated within the hallways of the castle. The hallways are long and taxing on servants who are sent from one end of them to the other all day. That is the accepted reason for the chairs. But most of those in the castle know that these chairs exist for King Willis, for he cannot traverse an entire hallway without growing weary. So the chairs are large and roomy.

Queen Clarion kneels before her son. “Something has happened,” she says.

“Yes,” Prince Virgil says. He had known it when he woke. The castle was never as loud as it is today.

“The woods are burning,” Queen Clarion says. “They began burning last eve.”

“Why?” Prince Virgil says. “Why are the woods burning?”

Queen Clarion looks at her son. She grips his hand. “They are saying it is because of the dragons.”

Prince Virgil feels his legs grow cold. Dragons. He has never seen a dragon in all his years, but he has heard all the stories. The dragons have never been friends of his family. What do the dragons want?

“Why would they burn the woods?” Prince Virgil says.

Queen Clarion shakes her head, her golden hair shifting across her shoulders. “We do not know. We wait for word.”

“Is it my father’s men?” Prince Virgil says.

“It is only speculation,” Queen Clarion says. “But it is rumored that all your father’s men have vanished.”

“Killed by the dragons?” Prince Virgil says.

“Perhaps,” Queen Clarion says. “Or perhaps by some other danger.”

“What other dangers?” Prince Virgil says. “What other danger could set the forest on fire?”

Queen Clarion watches her boy, though she says nothing. She is looking for a trace of the goodness that used to shine from his face. Even his skin has begun to look older, wiser, perhaps. But his eyes. Yes. There is still kindness in his eyes. He is thinking, even now, of his friends, said to be in the forest.

“We have heard no word of the missing children,” Queen Clarion says.

Prince Virgil nods but does not say any more.

“Virgil,” his mother says. He looks at her. His brown eyes lock with her blue, and they are connected for one moment, two, three. He feels a warmth spread through his chest, and he does not want his mother to look away, ever. He only wants to feel the safety of her gaze upon him at all times, for this is security. This is love.

“If there are dragons, Mother,” Prince Virgil says, for what he has read in his mother’s eyes has given him great courage to speak his mind. “Will we not be destroyed?”

Queen Clarion drops her eyes then, staring instead at her hand covering Prince Virgil’s. “It is uncertain,” she says. She looks back up, fixes him with her warmth. “But we can hope for mercy.”

“If my father’s men crossed the boundary line, there will be no mercy,” Prince Virgil says. He feels the icy dread begin to cool his mother’s warmth.

“We do not know for certain,” Queen Clarion says. “The dragons and the people have long been separated. Perhaps there is hope.”

“The woods are on fire, Mother,” Prince Virgil says. He stands now, his hands spread out beside him, as if he is asking a question with arms instead of his mouth. “What could there possibly be of hope when the woods burn?”

Queen Clarion, alas, cannot answer this question, for it has haunted her long into the night, from the first moment she saw the flickering light begin to the west of the castle and wondered what it meant. But she can do something more. She can weave a story. Stories always brings unexpected hope.

So she says, “Sit, my son. I would like to tell you something.”

And Prince Virgil does. He is not so far gone that he cannot do as his mother asks.

Queen Clarion tells him the story that many of the village children have heard all their lives, but this boy has not heard since he was quite young. It is a story about dragons, about people riding the dragons, about provisions being obtained on the backs of dragons rather than the dangerous trips across the Violet Sea. She tells him of the partnership, of the love, of the kindness extended from man and dragon alike. She tells him how this partnership changed at the hands of King Sebastien, for the dragons had defended King Brendon, and King Sebastien could not forgive them for that. The dragons, in the war, lost many of their own, and they could not forgive that, either. And so both people and dragons lost much, but it was, perhaps, the dragons who lost the most, for they lost their very reason for loving the people. And the loss of love is a great loss indeed.

“So you see, my son, we used to have peace between us and the dragons,” Queen Clarion says.

“That matters not now,” he says. “There is no peace now.” He motions toward the direction of the forest, though there are no windows where he and his mother sit.

“No,” Queen Clarion says. She looks off toward the forest as well, hardly seeing the wall between her and the fire. “There is no peace now. But perhaps there might be.” She touches her son’s hand again. Her eyes grow wide. She smiles. “It is entirely up to you.”

Prince Virgil does not say anything for some time. He is thinking over all that his mother has told him. Her story would make his grandfather solely responsible for the tension between people and the dragons, and his grandfather is dead. Her story would mean that though the dragons did not like the royal family when King Sebastien was on the throne, they loved the people still. It would mean that the dragons could be won again.

“Will they attack us before we might agree to peace?” Prince Virgil says.

“One cannot say for sure,” Queen Clarion says. She eyes her son. “We are all in danger if they do. And if your father’s men broke the treaty...”

“Why would they break the treaty?” Prince Virgil says. “Why would they go where they know they cannot go?”

Queen Clarion folds her hands across each other. “Your father is a difficult man to refuse,” Queen Clarion says.

“They must have seen the missing ones,” Prince Virgil says, and just like that, his eyes grow dark once more. Queen Clarion searches, but she cannot find the tiny spark that spoke of goodness. It has been swallowed by all the black. He continues on. “The missing ones must have crossed first. That is the only reason my father’s men would have crossed as well.”

“We do not know,” Queen Clarion says, but her words are lost on her boy.

“I hope they were all consumed,” Prince Virgil says. “I hope we never hear of them again.”

“You do not wish it so,” Queen Clarion says. “You speak before your heart is ready.”

Prince Virgil narrows his eyes. He is not interested in hearing what his mother has to say. “I must go to my father,” he says.

Queen Clarion places her hand on her son’s arm. It is soft and gentle and warm, but he shakes it off all the same. He does not think kindly about the children who have crossed, whether there are friends among them. They are all foes to him now.

“Stay with me,” Queen Clarion says. “Let us breakfast together.”

Prince Virgil turns away. “Father is waiting.”

Queen Clarion tries once more. “What if?” she says. “What if your friends died among the flames?”

The words hang between the two of them, daring Prince Virgil to choose, once more, mercy and compassion and goodness. And the battle thickens. If one were to look in Prince Virgil’s eyes, one would see it quite clearly. There is the goodness, in light brown flecks. There is the evil, turning them black. Brown, black, brown, black, until, in the end, the black comes and stays.

“I do not care,” Prince Virgil says. “The better that they die.”

“No,” Queen Clarion says, for she knows what his words mean.

“I hope they are gone,” Prince Virgil says, his voice loud and authoritative, filling the entire expanse of the hall.

“No,” Queen Clarion says once more.

“They do not deserve to live,” Prince Virgil says. “They defied the orders of the true king.” He spins on his heel and heads for his father’s throne room.

“Virgil, please,” Queen Clarion says. A mother cannot give up, you see.

He turns back. They are too far apart, but she crosses the distance with a swishing of skirts. She touches his face. “You are becoming a man,” she says. His eyes soften again.

“So my father says,” Prince Virgil says.

“You must choose to become a good man,” she says.

“I am already a good man,” Prince Virgil says.

“Yes,” Queen Clarion says. “But sometimes we can lose who we are in the decisions we make.” She bends her head closer, for Prince Virgil is not as tall as Queen Clarion yet. “Sometimes we can lose who we are in the decisions others make for us. Do not let that happen.”

And it is with great triumph that Queen Clarion watches the flecks of goodness return to her son’s eyes, for this moment at least.

“I shall not,” Prince Virgil says.

“Beware of the throne,” Queen Clarion says.

“My father...” Prince Virgil does not continue, but Queen Clarion knows that he is trying to tell her his father requires him to sit the throne at every session. She knows this. She has stared from the shadows when no one else was looking.

“Find me when you are done with your father,” Queen Clarion says, for if she can undo the work of the throne, goodness might yet win for good.

Prince Virgil nods. He looks at her one moment more, and then he stalks away.

Queen Clarion watches him go, this son she has loved since the day he was born. He walks as she remembers his uncle walking. This gives her hope.

But a knot of fear makes its way into a corner of her heart, where it gazes around the warm chambers, burrows in so it is perfectly comfortable, and reaches its cold fingers out as far as it dares go.

Queen Clarion walks back to her chambers, where eyes do not follow her every move, and weeps.

***

PRINCE Virgil does not go to the throne room, as his mother suspects. He ventures down into the dungeons beneath the dungeons, where he has never been before. He climbs down every twirling step along the staircase into the darkest dark he has ever known, with only a small candle to guide him, and all the while, his legs shake with a fear so thick he could reach out and touch it. He knows that the magical children are kept behind bars, as are all the prophets. He has no need to fear the people who are behind the bars. There is no magic in this dungeon. That was seen to long ago, when a skilled magician was said to have charmed the walls with a spell so strong it could never be undone. It was said that the spell not only kept prisoners inside their cells but it also stripped them of all magical ability. No one knows if this is so, for these dungeons had never been used until now, as far as anyone knows. But if one were to look, one might notice, in the corner of the darkness, far removed from the children and the prophets and the cell in which they have been kept, a pile of bones.

To whom do these bones belong? Well that, dear reader, is something we cannot say for now.

So as Prince Virgil descends these steps into the dungeons beneath the dungeons, he believes he is safe, but still fear grips him. For the darkness, what lives in our imaginations when darkness covers us, is another thing altogether.

Every now and again, Prince Virgil hesitates on the stairs, the candle shaking in his hands. Does he really want to do this? Does he really want to see starving children and prophets who have not known the sun for many days, and some of them years, and the woman with hair like serpents?

Something moves him again. Something pulls him down, down, down into the ground.

He hears the whimpering before he sees them. He has not yet rounded the corner that opens into the cell room. He is startled by his shadow on the wall, and then he smiles a bit to himself. It will be a fearsome sight for all the children. Well, good. They deserve a little fear for what they have all put the kingdom through.

When he rounds the corner, he scans the cell. There are bodies everywhere, lying on their backs, curled up on their sides, slumped along the walls, half dead it seems. Children are not nearly as populous as the old ones. Only the children and a handful of the prophets have lifted their heads to see who comes down the stairs.

“The prince,” one of the prophets says. “The prince has come to see us. How very kind.” It is the old woman, half blind, for old eyes do not adjust quickly to light when they have spent so many days in dark. She must know his shape. Or perhaps she has seen him coming with her Sight.

The children sit up now. “Are we free?” one of them says.

Prince Virgil says nothing, though he has the sudden urge to laugh. What is wrong with him? He did not used to be so cruel. His vision grows blurry.

“Do you come to set us free?” another of the children says.

Prince Virgil shakes his head. “I cannot set you free,” he says. “My father...” But he does not finish, and in the space between his words and whoever would speak next, Prince Virgil grows angry. It is not so easy describing this anger. He feels it begin in his heart and then move its scorching tide out through his fingers and, finally, his mouth. “You will never be set free.” His voice is harder, deeper than he remembers, rough and ugly. The children gasp. One of them starts crying, and he likes the power their weakness has granted him. So he says the words again. “You will never be free.”

“But we are innocent,” a boy calls from the back. “None of us has a single bit of magic. They have tried us, and we cannot do it.”

“But you could be lying,” Prince Virgil says. “Or hiding your powers, as the boy in the kingdom did for many years.”

“These children do not hide anything,” says the prophetess Aleen. “The one you seek is out there.” She points behind him. Prince Virgil has no way to guess in which direction she points, for the stairs and their twisting and turning and the blackness that surrounds their every side has eliminated all sense of direction Prince Virgil may have possessed, which, in truth, is not much.

But a curious feeling spreads through him now. He is glad, so glad, that his friend lives. And yet he is afraid. Need he fear Theo? Or has Theo fled forever?

“It is not easy to do the right thing when we see only what we want to see,” Aleen says now. “These children.” She motions behind her. “They are innocent.”

“My father has a reason for their imprisonment,” Prince Virgil says, though in this moment, he cannot quite remember what it is.

“And, pray tell, what is it?” says another prophet. He has a long white beard and eyes that Prince Virgil cannot quite see in the dark, as if they are holes instead of living, moving things.

Prince Virgil searches his mind for the right words, but they do not come easily. And then, finally, they do. “The people hid the magic boy from us all this time,” Prince Virgil says. “They must pay.”

“The children must pay?” Aleen says, at the same time another boy, with a voice of the same tone and resonance as Prince Virgil, says, “We did not know of a magic boy.”

And what if they did not know of a magic boy? Does that change what his father had done? Does it make it more cruel, more unnecessary? Prince Virgil is lost in a cloud of doubt and confusion. He sets the candle on the stone floor. Its flame shifts and dances.

“Your father wants you to see what he wants you to see,” Aleen says. “It is not always the truth.” She stares at the flick of fire.

The old man reaches through one of the bars, as though to touch Prince Virgil. But the prince is not so foolish as to stand close enough to be touched, so the man’s hands wave in the air instead. Prince Virgil can see his eyes now, however. They are liquid blue, like a sky that is submerged in water. He feels a jolt. They are Arthur’s eyes, only much older, set into waves of wrinkles.

“Prince Virgil,” the prophet says. “Please. Come closer.”

But Prince Virgil remains where he is. “Do you think I am so foolish as that?” he says. “Do you think I do not know what you want of me? You will never get it.”

“What is it I want from you?” the old man says. “What is it you think I desire?”

“My life,” Prince Virgil says. “My life for all of yours.”

“No, my boy,” the old man says. “I have seen what is coming. I know of the danger you are in.”

Prince Virgil shivers. Danger? What is it that is coming for him?

“Is it the dragons?” he says, but the words come out hardly a whisper.

The old man says nothing.

“Tell me, boy, what is it you want with us?” the prophetess says. She wraps her bony hand around the iron bars. Her knuckles appear as black marbles in the shifting darkness. “What is it we can do to be shown a bit of kindness?”

“But we have been shown kindness—” a child begins to say.

“Shush,” the old man says, turning toward the child. No one else speaks.

“Tell me where Theo is,” Prince Virgil says. “Tell me where I can find him, and all of this can end.”

“We know he is not here,” Aleen says. “That is all.”

“But you can See the future,” Prince Virgil says.

“We only See the future that wants to be Seen,” Aleen says. “Theo’s future is not a future that wants to be seen.”

In truth, dear reader, Aleen has not been able to See the future since she arrived here. She has depended on the gifts of Yerin and a handful of the other prophets who are not too weak to See. But her Seeing has gone dark.

“You are prophets,” Prince Virgil says. “You are supposed to know things.”

“Not all things,” the old man says. “At times, the future remains silent.”

“You have not Seen Theo in any of your visions?” Prince Virgil says. He does not believe them, and he is growing angrier by the moment.

“It is not easy to concentrate on visions when we are so hungry,” Aleen says. The bars cut her face into four distinct pieces. “Your father is not so generous to those of us in the dungeon.”

“You are given bread and water every day,” Prince Virgil says, though he is not entirely sure they are. He knows nothing of what happens in a place as dark as this one.

“Yes,” the old man says. “We are.”

“Is that not enough?” Prince Virgil says.

Would it be enough for our prince? He does not ask the question of himself.

The old man gestures behind him. “There are many of us,” he says, “and very little bread and water.”

“You are not good for much,” Prince Virgil says. “Perhaps I should just let you die.”

Aleen smiles, with those white teeth of hers. They seem to glow in the dark. “You have too much goodness to let us die,” she says.

Prince Virgil feels the warmth grip his heart once more.

“Tell me why I should let you live,” Prince Virgil says. “What are you good for?”

The old woman tilts her head. She is two heads shorter than the man, but the tilt makes it appear as though she has lost another inch of her height. “What else are we good for, indeed,” she says. “We populate your father’s secret dungeon. We seem to be doing a well enough job of that.”

“And that is where you shall stay,” Prince Virgil says. “Until we find the missing ones.” He takes a step closer, but then remembers the old prophet’s arms and steps back once more. “Or until you tell me where I might find Theo.”

“Everywhere,” the old woman says. She backs away from the bars and throws her hands in the air. Then she moves close again. “And nowhere.”

Prince Virgil moves as if to strike her, but she pushes away from the bars. His hands slam against iron instead.

“Ah,” the old woman says. She smiles, her black skin dancing in the candlelight like some kind of shadow. “So you do have a bit of your father in you.”

Prince Virgil shrinks back. No. He is nothing like his father. He would never hit a person. He would never hurt them. He looks at his hands that, moments ago, reached out to strike this ancient prophetess. His memory flashes. He sees his father strike Queen Clarion. His stomach clenches. Who has he become? Who is his father making him be?

His hand throbs from where it hit the cold iron, but sometimes it takes a bit of pain to help a boy remember who he is. And the iron bars have reminded him quite clearly. Aleen knew this, you see. It is why she provoked the boy. It is why she is smiling even now.

This boy is beginning to remember who he is. This boy is beginning to weep. “I only want this to be over,” he says. “I only want it finished.”

“As do we all,” says the old man, and this time his hand comes through the bars and rests on Prince Virgil’s head. It is a gentle hand. One that speaks of love and kindness and care. “As do we all.”

Prince Virgil does not know what it is about that touch, but it feels familiar, as if he has felt a touch like this one before, in his dreams. Or in another life. Or, perhaps, before he was born. Would that be possible?

“How can we finish it?” Prince Virgil says.

“We wait,” the old woman says. “We wait until the time is right.”

“And how long might that be?” Prince Virgil says.

“Some time,” the old woman says. “Some time yet.”

“And how will we know it is finished?” Prince Virgil says.

“Oh, we will know,” the old man says. “There is much more yet to come. And you will need to be brave and strong and true, my dear boy. Do you think you can be brave and strong and true?”

Prince Virgil looks at the man, and though he does not know quite what the old man means, he agrees. “Yes,” he says. “I will.”

“Good boy,” the man says. He takes his hand from the top of Prince Virgil’s head. “And what else is it that brought you down these stairs?” For the prophet knows what is in the heart of the boy, the two sides warring. He knows that Prince Virgil has also come here to see if he is good like his uncle and can help the starving children and the old prophets.

Prince Virgil looks at them, at all the children whose eyes he can hardly see, even by the light of his candle. He looks at the prophets, most of them lying still on the floor. He looks at the old man and the old woman, who seem to be the leaders of those trapped in these dungeons, and he wonders if he can, in fact, choose goodness. Might he dare defy his father and bring them food and light and water? Might he risk being banished from the kingdom as his uncle was before him, simply to meet the needs of strangers? Might he do it?

He looks at them for a very long time. They stare back at him.

No, he decides. No, he cannot. The throne is too important. He cannot live without it, and, besides, he is not his uncle. He could not survive alone in the lands. He had never spent a night outside the castle before.

He is not a strong man as his uncle was. He is not sixteen. He is merely twelve.

“You could,” the old man says, as if he knows precisely what Prince Virgil is thinking. He says nothing more.

Prince Virgil bends to retrieve his candle, turns and flees up the stairs, taking the light with him. He hears the children begin to wail behind him, and this makes him run ever faster, to get far, far away from the sound of starving children and the sight of an old man and woman who will probably die, with all the rest, inside their black prison.

He tries his best to outrun them, but a boy can never outrun his own mind. For the shadows of what he has seen and known in his life, the tragedies he has witnessed with his own two eyes, will haunt him until he looks them straight in the face. Prince Virgil cannot run from them forever.

Though he will try.

***

“Hush, children,” Yerin says to the ones who wail. “Hush, now, my dears. All will be well. Someone is coming to help us.”

“When?” the children say, for they think that perhaps this means they will be released from their prison and see the light of day yet again.

“Soon,” Yerin says. “But, for now, let us sleep.”

It is true, dear reader, that someone is coming. It is also true that he comes soon. But soon means different things to different people, and so we must wait to see what soon means to an old man like Yerin.