Chapter Two

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

 

“This is my pond! How dare you invade without my permission!”

The boy—the invader—stood from where he had been sitting on the banks, staring into the calm brownish-blue water. Gabriel was immediately entranced. His eyes were the same green as the vibrant grass that so lushly bordered the pond, and his hair practically glowed in the noon sun.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this pond had an owner,” the boy said, and his voice was soft and lyrical, like birdsong.

Gabriel pretended to think for a minute, frowning and rubbing his chin. “If you’re nice, I can share it with you. Ponds are really at their best when you have someone to splash with.”

It wasn’t like his silly big sister, what with her dress fittings and tea parties, was interested in playing with him anymore. No, this beautiful, wonderful boy was perfect to play with.

And play they did. All summer, every day, Gabriel would sneak away from lessons and luncheons, and every boring thing his parents wanted him to do. There Sean was waiting. They swam and fished, and romped through the grass. Sometimes they went off into the royal forest to play at being bandits in the trees. Other times they explored the reeds at the far end of the pond where they caught frogs for Gabriel to take back to the castle to torment his sister with.

“My master says if I don’t pay attention to my lessons, one day someone will turn me into a frog,” Sean joked every time, but he never hesitated to dig in the mud to get the largest, slimiest frog that would really make Gabriel’s sister scream.

After seven weeks, however, it all came to an end.

“My master says we are leaving for the next city in the morning, now that summer is over,” Sean said on that terrible day. “We will winter on the other side of the mountains, and we must leave now before the snows block the pass.”

Gabriel knew his mouth was hanging open and his eyes filling with tears as despair quickly set in.

“But, I convinced my master. This city, your home, is the perfect place to spend the summer,” Sean continued hastily. “We will be back. I promise you. Next summer, let’s meet at the pond.”

It hurt to say goodbye as the sun set that afternoon, but Gabriel bravely watched Sean’s back as he headed towards the city that lay below the castle. Only when he couldn’t see Sean any longer did Gabriel turn and head in the other direction, up to the castle where his neglected lessons waited.

The summer, he told himself firmly. He only had to make it to next summer, and Sean would be back.

Gabriel half expected it to be a lie, all those months later, as the summer finally really began to settle in after a hard winter and wet spring. Still, he went down to the pond and there, waiting for him as if he had never left, Sean stood.

The pattern repeated itself for seven years straight. Sean would appear at the start of summer, and for seven weeks they would play, growing close as only best friends. Gabriel was thirteen by then, but he still loved to play in the mud as long as Sean was smiling happily at his side. His mother had passed away two years before, but that only seemed to make his father all the more strict. Lessons, lessons, lessons, and then getting yelled at all summer for skipping out on his tutors and coming back covered head to toe in muck. As long as Gabriel could see Sean, he didn’t care.

And Sean was wonderful. He was shorter than Gabriel and still had the rounded face of a child. Gabriel was pretty certain Sean was older than him, although he didn’t look it, but that didn’t stop his smile from growing even more beautiful as the years went on.

Then that seventh summer drew to a close.

“My master has decided we should head overseas, to see some of the countries on the other side of the world,” Sean said softly, all cheer gone from his face and voice. Gabriel’s heart sank. He knew from his lessons that it would take months for a boat to reach those foreign lands, and it could be years, if not a decade, before Sean was able to return.

“Don’t leave me,” Gabriel forced out from between stiff lips, knowing his face and body were frozen in fear. “Please, Sean.”

Sean shook his head. “I’m not. I told my master I’m staying here. I’m going to become a knight and serve you for the rest of my life.” He reached out and clasped one of Gabriel’s hands in his, pulling Gabriel close so they stood with their shoulders brushing. “My master yelled at me. Told me I was giving up everything she had taught me, but I told her… I told her you were worth giving it up for.”

And then Sean was leaning close, and although Gabriel didn’t know why, he found his own chin tilting. Their lips met in a firm but chaste kiss. Gabriel groaned. He wanted more than this, but he didn’t know what more entailed. Sean knew, because he pressed closer so their bodies touched in just the right way.

The next seven years passed in busy happiness. Gabriel actually attended his lessons, learning how to be third in line for the throne, a role that would have him supporting his sister in keeping the kingdom peaceful. Sean worked hard as a page, then a squire, as he trained to be a knight. It only took two years before Sean was taller than Gabriel, and he kept growing until he was well over six feet tall. Thanks to his sword training, he had shoulders to match his height.

They had to spend their days apart, but their nights they spent together, exploring where that first kiss eventually led. Everything was almost idyllic, until the moment his sister suddenly collapsed and their troubles began.

*

It was on that unhappy thought that Gabriel opened his eyes, blinking against the late-morning sun filtering through the trees overhead. Day seven had already begun.

Seven days of lying here, broken. Gabriel knew he had eaten. There were stores of jerky and hardtack kept in the tunnels for emergencies, and he had a vague memory of finding berries one of the times he had headed to the river for some water and to bathe. Mostly, though, he just floated through the day as if he were sleepwalking. He lay in the little hollow among the roots of an ancient tree and watched the sun move across the sky, and then watched the stars emerge and twinkle overhead. He couldn’t think, just curled up around the constant pain radiating through his chest.

“The signal is coming from over here, I think,” a voice said off to Gabriel’s left. He knew he should have felt alarm. If the enemy had finally found him, he would be captured and executed, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. Sean should have been curled between the tree roots with Gabriel, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere, not anymore.

“You said that five minutes ago and we’re still walking,” another voice replied without ire.

“No, I’ve got it this time. See, the magic is starting to pulse as we get closer. Last time we were just in the right vicinity, but this time he’s got to be within sight of us.”

The first voice kept talking, blathering on about something. Gabriel didn’t bother listening, tuning out the words and the voice, until a shock of purple hair suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Found him!” The purple hair turned, and a face appeared with lavender eyes set wide over his cheekbones and a bright smile stretching his cheeks. “Told you,” he told someone over his shoulder.

“Great. Move back so I can get him out of there.”

The purple hair disappeared and another man moved into view. He reached down and gripped Gabriel under his arms, gently pulling until he was freed from the roots and out on flat ground. This second man had dark hair, shaved on the sides with a thick braid running down the center. The tail ended somewhere down his back.

Gabriel opened his mouth to complain about being moved, but then the dark-haired man turned and looked at him, and Gabriel’s mouth snapped shut in surprise.

“Your eyes.” His voice croaked from disuse and tears, but the words were clear enough.

The man smiled wryly and touched his cheek with his fingers. “It’s nice to see after all these years the eyes still hold true in the family.” Gray shot through with blue streaks, exactly the same as Gabriel’s eyes—eyes he shared with his father and sister. Any other similarities were absent—Gabriel was fair with golden hair and light skin where this stranger was dark—but that eye color didn’t lie.

“Who—” Gabriel swallowed, trying to make his voice work. “Who are you?”

“You don’t know? You summoned us with your necklace,” the purple-haired man cut in.

Gabriel looked down at the necklace hanging around the collar of his shirt. It was silver in the shape of a tower, with amethysts studded along the walls. Father always said it was Wizard Rap’s tower, but Gabriel had never made the trip all the way out to the border to see it in person. Could one of these men be Wizard Rap?

“Of course, he doesn’t know. It’s been a hundred and seventy years since I gave that to Gabby,” the dark-haired man said. “I’m sure its purpose was lost, and it simply became a family heirloom passed down through the generations.”

“My father gave it to me when he named me Gabriel,” Gabriel said softly, looking down at the charm as his eyes filled yet again.

“Ah,” the dark-haired man said, his voice full of understanding. “Come on. We caught a hare on our trip here. Let’s set up camp and start a fire, get you fed, and then we’ll see how we can help.”

“No fire!” Gabriel said, grabbing the dark-haired man’s arm. “They’ll see and they’ll come looking. Sean saved me. I have to hide for Sean. For Sean.” His hand fell back to his lap as he curled back up around the throbbing pain in his chest.

“It’s okay. We can keep the fire hidden. Come on now, Gabriel. We just need to get to the clearing over there.”

Hands helped him to his feet and steadied him as he stumbled where he was led. It felt like only a moment later that Gabriel found himself seated on a log, a cup of water in his hands, and the warmth of a fire bathing his face.

“Come on now. Drink.”

The dark-haired man waited for Gabriel to obey, and the cold liquid felt nice on his parched throat. Gabriel took another sip as the man sat on the ground across from him.

“I’m sorry we’re late. Zel and I got a letter from an old friend asking us to come help solve a curse. We felt your call from the necklace just as we crossed the border into Monrath and came as fast as we could.”

“Zel? I thought the wizard was named Rap?” Gabriel couldn’t help asking.

The purple-haired man let out a laugh. “I guess that is one thing that will never change. No, my name is Zel, and I’m the wizard of your famous tower. This is your…well, I guess you can consider him your uncle, Ishiah.”

Ishiah? Gabriel knew that name. Everyone knew that name and the story that went along with it. The bastard prince who had bravely taken on the Rapunzel Tower tasking, noticed the mindless hoard was about to invade, summoned the Monrath Army, and was instrumental in defeating the enemy. Then, when his time at the tower came to an end, Prince Ishiah resigned his commission and vanished. Some said he had gone off with his lover, the Wizard Rap; others that he had enough of war and had wanted a peaceful life in the south with his mother’s people. Some said the royal family could still call on his immense strength in times of dire need.

It was a name revered in Monrath. None of the royal family had dared name their children after him, not like they used Gabby’s name every few generations, and yet it had never been forgotten.

The purple-haired man—Zel—was still talking. “We’re here to help you, Gabe. Ish and I meant to get back this way sooner than we did, but there was this interesting new spell we found while traveling through the desert, and we were waylaid by a few years. That’s probably why some of our protection spells are starting to unravel.”

“Gabe, why don’t you tell us what happened? That way we’ll know what we can do to help fix it,” Ishiah cut in.

“You can’t fix it. Sean’s gone. You can’t fix that,” Gabriel said, practically yelling directly into Ishiah’s face. “Sean’s gone.”

“Tell us what happened. Start from the beginning.” Ishiah didn’t seem perturbed by Gabriel yelling at him. He held out a hand and gently rested it on Gabriel’s shoulder. The weight of it grounded Gabriel to the here and now, and he found his mouth opening.

The beginning. The moment Sean burst into Gabriel’s room, sword unsheathed in his hand, telling Gabriel to run, now. No, the story started six months beforehand, when his sister’s illness began; that was the moment when their troubles first started.

“My sister, Rory—Aurora—was walking in her garden one morning. She collapsed suddenly. As far as we can tell, she’s asleep, but no one dares get close enough to check. One of her maids rushed to her side when it happened, and the second she touched Rory, she fell asleep too. It kept spreading. Everyone who touched one of the sleeping victims fell victim themselves. Father had a glass roof put over the garden, then locked the door so no one else could get hurt. All the best scientists and theorists across the country have been searching for a cure ever since, and nothing has worked. The castle and Father were consumed by grief, to have the crown princess struck down like that. We worked hard to keep everything running smoothly, Sean and I. I signed orders for farm relief and to collect taxes. Sean sat in criminals’ court and met with the generals. We thought we could keep it together, but then the rumors started to fly.”

Gabriel paused to take a sip of water and to square his shoulders in preparation for this next part, but he couldn’t quite make himself look up at Ishiah.

“The kingdom was cursed, just like Rory, the rumors said. Backers pulled out of construction projects, our neighbors pulled out of trade deals, and even the eastern barbarians retreated behind their walls and refused to come out. And then rumors of salvation. Our northern neighbors knew how to release the curse. We just had to sign over all of Monrath. Give up our kingdom, become vassals of their so-called empire. We call our eastern allies barbarians, but the truth is the unconquered North are the true barbarians. Sean and I refused, and Father refused, too, when he could be pulled from the scientists’ sides.

“And then, seven days ago, someone opened the gates and let them in. Sean grabbed me and we ran. Sean made sure I got to safety, and he went to draw them away from me, left me behind, and he’s… Now he’s…” Gabriel broke off with a cry, burying his face in his hands.

“Interesting that the rumors actually used the word ‘curse,’” Ishiah said. His hand had moved from Gabriel’s shoulder and was instead rubbing his back in comfort.

“It means either the forgetting spell is starting to fray—unlikely—or it really is a curse,” Zel replied.

“What do you mean?’ Gabriel had to ask. He wiped his cheeks dry with the back of his hand, but that didn’t stop his eyes from continuing to water.

“I mean that a sleeping sickness like the one you described sounds awfully like a curse-type of magic spell,” Zel answered. “And the way you described those rumors flaring up so suddenly could be another spell too. Clearly the protections you and I left on the castle are beyond frayed.”

“Or they were removed,” Ishiah added. “The wizard would have to be strong, but it’s not impossible.” Ishiah moved away from Gabriel, walking over to the fire where he pulled something free and began cutting into it with a knife. “Here, Zel, Gabe. Food’s ready.”

A plate was pressed into Gabriel’s hands, and he mechanically began eating, barely tasting the hare and dried vegetables. All the talk of magic and spells, of what might have happened to his sister was meaningless. It was too late to save anyone. The castle was overrun. They had killed Father and Rory, too, most likely. And Sean—no, Gabriel wasn’t going there.

The plate was taken away when he was done, and Gabriel let himself be led to a bedroll.

“Sleep,” Ishiah said gently. “We’ll go take a look at the castle in the morning.”

The sun was just beginning to set, the light starting to weaken as it filtered through the leaves overhead. It was hardly time for bed, yet as Ishiah left him to go sit by the fire next to Zel, Gabriel felt his eyes drifting closed as the first real, deep sleep in seven days dragged him under.