Heir of Golden Storms
Chapter Twenty-Two

My wings react, pushing me towards Haldol just as I slide the Cursemaker back into my belt. I grab an arm with my both hands seconds before the Earth Queen crushes him with the earth. I try to lift him up, but he is heavier than I can carry. Still, I move him away, inches from the floor. Haldol starts laughing.

The Earth Queen sends earth snakes from the ground towards me. I must move from side to side, unable to rise due to the weight of Haldol. He continues laughing as I try to keep him alive.

“Shut up!” I yell at him.

I swing him and let go of him. He lands meters away. I land on the ground, and turn around, extending my arms to the sides to protect Haldol with my body. An earth snake comes flying towards me, but it stops several feet from me.

“Why are you protecting him?” the Earth Queen shouts, appearing behind the petrified snake. “He attacked your court and almost killed you! He deserves to die!”

“He is going to be father!” I say. “Not matter how horrible he is, I will not be the reason for my nephew or niece to grow up without a father!”

“Pathetic,” she tells me. “Move or I will crush you with him!”

“Crush me,” I defy her. As much as I need her for this war, she also needs me to break the curse.

The Earth Queen stares at me, her brown eyes showing fury. She lowers her hand and the floating dirt and stone crumbles. “All of you, faeries, are weak,” she says. She walks towards me and looks at Haldol, who is on the floor. She then shouts, “Your king has fallen! This war is over!” Knights turn but they do not move. Then the Earth Queen whispers to me, “Grab the king and threat him. Show mercy and they will leave.”

I do not think that it is a great idea faking that I might kill Haldol. Sephira thought that the sprites queens and kings were myths. That means that they might have ruled over hundreds of years, even before the sprites were imprisoned in the Slumbering Forest. The Earth Queen must know what she is doing. I draw the Cursebreaker.

I point the sword at Haldol’s neck. He looks at it but does not move. “Retreat now or the reign of your king will come to an end!” The knights do not move. I start tracing the sword through his skin, leaving a trace of blood. The fabric of the shirt breaks when the sword passes. When I get to the heart, I lift the sword to bring it down.

“Stop!” Haldol shouts. Then he whispers at me, “You showed me mercy from the earth sprite. With this, I am no longer in your debt.” He coughs and then shouts, “Retreat! Spread the word to the Court of Swarm! We have been beaten!”

“Knights, chain him and free him at the edge of the Court of Mountains when every enemy knight has left our land,” I say to the nearest knights.

“We will,” Sir Fafner answers. He is standing several meters away and is making his way towards Haldol. “Come on, stand up,” he tells Haldol as he pulls him from his teared shirt.

I spread my wing and start rising. “Where are you going?” the Earth Queen shouts at me from below.

“To the castle,” I say. “I need to know what happened to my people.” I need to know what happened to Thalia. I need to know if she is all right.

“We fulfilled our end of the bargain,” the Earth Queen says. “It is time to pay yours.”

“The curse has waited years to be broken,” I say. “You can wait a few minutes more.”

I push myself to the sky and towards the castle. Seconds later, I feel something flying close to me. I shift to see and find the Earth Queen. She is standing on a piece of rock that she is controlling to fly. She is not even moving her hands to control it. Her arms are crossed on her chest. Her straight black hair, that stops where her chin ends, does not move with the wind. Her chin is up, showing superiority. She does not even look tired after this battle. It scares me to think about how powerful she is.

“Where is Thalia?” I ask to the knights that are standing in front of the Storm Castle’s entrance.

“Right here,” Thalia answers behind me.

I turn around. She is flying without wings or a raven. Her dark purple hair floats in the air. Behind her flies Glade and North next to him. At first, I do not understand, but then I see the Wind Queen behind them. She is moving the wind around them, controlling where they go.

Thalia lands and I cannot help but run towards her. My wing expands as I run, looking more excited to see Thalia than me. My arm stretches and I hug her. She remains still but then hugs me back. “You are all right,” I whisper.

“Of course, I am,” she whispers back. “I am a strong independent woman. My storms can make yours look like pleasant breezes.”

“I would not expect any less,” I answer as I pull back. I know that I have storm magic and that I could have used it during the battle, but I could not. It would have brough many questions that I do not have the answers to. If the sprite kings and queens would not have agreed to help me, I would not have hesitated to use everything I have to stop the war, and that includes the storms.

“Storm King, I believe that you owe us something,” the Earth Queen says. “I refuse to wait more. I have my village to attend to.”

“What did you agree to?” Thalia asks. “What did it cost you to ask for their help?”

“Nothing I could not handle,” I say as I lift my hand to feel her face. My thumb brushes around the freckles of her cheekbone. I give her a warm smile. “Do not worry, I will explain everything when I come back. For now, check on Kalani and Breeze. Make sure that they all alright.”

“Oh, the kids, I hope that they are all right,” the River King says. I do not know when he and the Forest King arrived, but they are standing beside the Earth Queen and the Wind Queen. The Earth Queen gives him a look. “What?” he answers. “I love kids. They are a miniature version of faeries, so innocent and pure before they become monstrous.”

“Your words come out different, making you sound as if you have other intentions,” the Earth Queen says. “You must find better words to express yourself.” The River King looks for help from the Forest King, but he only shakes his head.

“Where is this curse?” I ask.

“At the Forbidden Forest,” the Earth Queen answers.

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I stand in front of the Forbidden Forest. There is nothing but stone under my boots. Trees of the Forbidden Forest stand aligned as if they were plant in that way on purpose. The trees continue in a line to the left and to the right. I know that they end up at the coast, and even after the coast, there are corals aligned the same way. They are a wall that separates us from whatever lies beyond.

“Break the curse,” the Earth Queen says. That is when I notice that the sun is already out. It must be late morning.

“I do not think that this is a good idea,” I warn her. “It is called the Forbidden Forest for a reason. Even the courts agreed on the same law that no one should ever go into this forest. The one who placed the curse did it to protect us from what lies beyond.”

“To protect you?” the Earth Queen asks. Then she laughs. “Do not tell me that you think that this curse and the curse of the Slumbering Forest were placed to protect your specie? King Nyx of Miracles created this curse to exile us.”

“No,” I say, remembering the story that Ailsa told Haldol many weeks ago outside of the Miracle Castle. “You were the one to start a war. You killed faeries and that is why King Nyx cursed you to leave the rest of your days in exile. He was protecting us from you.”

“That is not how it happened,” the Forest King says, shaking his head.

“We should know,” the River King says. “We were there.”

“We did not start the war, King Nyx did,” the Earth Queen says. “He wanted to make his court a land of purebred faeries.”

“Purebred?” I ask, confused of what she is talking about.

“Faeries and sprites can have children together,” the Earth Queen says. “We lived among faeries. We created families of mixed races. We were equal, and the racist king did not like that. He started the war, pushing every sprite of the Court of Miracles away from his court, but those who remained were cursed to live at the Slumbering Forest.

“We were not the only one affected,” she continues. “There were other creatures living in other courts. He banished them all to the other side of the land, where he cursed treefolk to become the Forbidden Forest.”

“What happened to the half-sprites and half-faerie?” I ask.

“Half-sprites and half-faeries do not look like us,” the Earth Queen says. “Their appearances are of faeries. The color of their eyes and their magic were the only things that they inherited from sprites. King Nyx searched for every single one of them through the land, killing them one by one. He killed men, women, children, babies, and even pregnant faeries that were suspected to be carrying a half-sprite.”

I take a step back. Why would she tell me this story? Could she be lying? Can sprites lie? Even if they cannot lie, there is no reason for King Nyx of Miracles to exile every sprite. He could not have been that racist.

“I do not believe it,” I say. “King Nyx would not have been capable of doing that. He did not have a reason to.”

“We do not need you to believe us,” the Earth Queen says. “You agreed to lift the curse before the lesson in history. King Nyx did not need a reason to exile us; his racist nature was enough. Your family are all the same. Your father sent you to his dungeons when he knew that you were not his blood. Your brother killed your father and blamed it on you. Faeries are all horrible.”

She makes an excellent point, even if her hate for faeries can blind her. The High King taught us not to befriend faeries from lower class. That is why I did not like North at first. He also taught us to demand to be treated how our title demands to. That is why I always used my title of prince whenever I could. King Nyx was his ancestor. There is a chance that he was even more discriminatory than the High King.

I turn back to face the trees of the Forbidden Forest. I am afraid of what I might set free if I break the curse. I place my hand on the tree in front of me. It feels cold and it is not whispering like the treefolk of the Slumbering Forest did. These treefolk feel as if they do not have life in it, as if they died waiting for someone to break their curse.

I close my eyes and imagine. I imagine the voice inside me that came once to curse Zephyrus. I imagine the trees lively. I imagine myself sinking inside of them. I imagine my heart merging with theirs, taking every impurity until their hearts are clean.

I open my eyes. A purple light is coming from my palm, spreading through the tree like a spider’s web. The light connects to each tree, each one lighting up in the cracks of their surface. A few seconds later, and when I know that the light has reached every tree, I feel the curse break. I feel the sudden wave of magic escape the forest. The trees do not move after the curse has been lift, unlike what happened at the Slumbering Forest.

“What happened?” the River King asks.

“Why are they not moving?” the Earth Queen asks.

“They are dead,” I answer as I turn to face them. The Forest King nods, not feeling the life inside of them. “I broke the curse. My job here is done.”

The Earth Queen nods. “I would like to say that this is the last time that we will meet, but I doubt it. Our fates are sealed, whether you like it or not.” She turns around to start walking away. The kings and the queen do the same.

I rise to the sky and head towards home.

***

“So, what happened after you left the war room?” Thalia asks, opening the bathroom door. “Did you go directly to the sprites?”

I am only on my undergarments when she opened the door. I quickly grab my pant and pull it up. I know that she does not mind seeing me like this, but I do. We spent the rest of the day checking the towns and the people sheltered. There were not many casualties, but mostly were knights.

“Can’t you just wait until I walk out of the bathroom?” I ask her.

“No,” she says. She does not add anything. She waits for me to answer the question.

“I went to the High King,” I say, putting my shirt on. It gets stuck with the wings and I must enchant me for the wings to disappear and let the shirt pass. I lift the enchantment and my wings appear, breaking the back of the shirt where they connect to my skin. I need to ask a tailor to create shirts that are opted for my wings and horns.

“What happened there?” Thalia asks.

“He humiliated me,” I say. “After that, he agreed to stop the war, but Easton killed him, or had him killed. He blamed it on me.”

“What?” Thalia asks. “Now you have been blamed by two deaths of the royal family!”

I nod. “I am probably wanted in most courts,” I say. “Easton is going to be the next High King. He killed Zephyrus and the High King to get to the throne. Who knows what he can do?”

“I did not know, and I am sure that mother did not know either, what we were getting into when I marry you,” Thalia says, shaking her head.

“But it is not all that bad,” I say, walking to the door where she is standing. I grab her hand. “You got me. That should be enough to cover my family’s evil deeds, right?” She pushes me.

“Arrogant,” she says, turning to walk towards the bed. She moves the sheets from her side of the bed and sits. “What would Gracin think if she knew what her husband was capable of?”

“Believe it or not, she was the one to stab the knife into the High King’s heart,” I say as I move to the side of my bed. “I think that he is the mastermind and she is the heartless assassin.”

“Oh, they were meant for each other,” Thalia says.

“Just like you and me,” I say, grinning. She rolls her eyes.

“What happened afterwards?” she asks, evading my statement.

“I asked for help from the kings and queens of sprites,” I say. “They agreed to help me if I broke the curse of the Forbidden Forest.”

“You broke the curse of the Forbidden Forest?” Thalia asks, alarmed. “I have seen things in there.” I remember when she told me this before on our way to the Court of Autumn. “There are creatures lurking between the trees, creatures that we are meant to be scared of.”

“Do not worry,” I tell her. “When I lifted the curse there was not any sign of life. The treefolk were dead. Maybe the rest of the creatures are too.”

A knock in the door interrupts what Thalia was about to say. I stand up, but she stands up too. “I will answer the door,” she says. “If it is Breeze, it will give you time to enchant yourself.”

I nod and she moves to the door. She opens it enough for her to see, but for the person outside to not see the room. It does not take her a second to open the door completely. She turns to look at me and says annoyed, “It is for you.”

Outside, Hesperia stands. She is wearing a dark purple gown as if she was ready to go to sleep. Her blonde hair is loose. She has a cut under her green eye, probably a war casualty. I walk towards her as Thalia walks towards me. Thalia brushes her fingers through my fingers before going back to bed. She might want to make Hesperia jealous. She never liked her.

“What?” I ask after I close the door to the room. I stand outside with Hesperia.

“I needed to talk to you,” Hesperia says. “I need closure. I need to know how you feel about me.” She stops. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

I nod. “You did not talk to me, even when I approached you.” We were six years old by that time and it was on lecture when we met. “You were the shyest girl on school.”

“I was shy because of you,” she says. “I fell in love with you at first sight.” She laughs to herself. “It is funny to think that Caspian was who brought us together.”

I look through my memories to picture them when we met. Caspian was clumsy, always falling but laughing when he got up. Everyone liked his ocean eyes and they let him know it. He would always smile at the compliments. He has not changed much throughout the years.

Hesperia was different than how she is now. She was shy. She spent her free time looking for bugs on trees or bushes. She even spoke to them. I once tried to approach her before Caspian united us. She was talking to butterflies that landed on her head, nose, and arms, but when she saw me, she ran, butterflies following her.

“How is Caspian?” I ask her.

“Last time that I saw him was on lecture,” she says. “He was distanced, affected by your disappearance. We were not allowed to talk about you. No one in the court was. The High King had only four children and nothing more.” She reaches for my hand slowly, but I move it behind me.

“Hesperia,” I say, trying to let her know that what she wants is not what she deserves.

“Rowan, I need to know,” Hesperia says. “How do you feel about me?”

“I am sorry,” I say. “I love you. You are my best friend, and I do not want to lose you, but I do not love you the same way that you love me.”

“Is there ever going to be a chance that you will see me as something more?” she asks.

“I…” I start to say but change thoughts. “Thalia has a lover. No one knows this except North and now you. She told me that she would not mind if we become something.” I sigh. “But I am not going to lie to you. I want my marriage to work and even if Thalia has a lover, I am going to give myself completely to her.”

Hesperia remains silent, looking down at her bare feet. She then looks up. “If she had not come to your life, do you think that you could have fallen in love with me?”

I imagine what would have happened if I never met Thalia. Hesperia would have told me at some point that she was in love with me. I would have given her a try, and I somehow see myself falling in love with her. I see the High King letting me marry her because she is royalty, and I see myself living happily with her.

But it would have never been possible. If Thalia had not come, the High King would have arranged another marriage for me. If he did not, I would have married Hesperia, but I would not have made the miracle and I would have ended up in the dungeons. Would she have saved me then? Would she try to speak to the High King in my behalf like Thalia did? If I managed to escape and ended up at Court of Summer, would she have come and taken me to the Court of Swarm? Would her father and stepmother let me stay with them?

I nod. “I would have,” I say. I want to lie. I want to let her down without any more doubts, but I cannot.

She nods. “Well, tomorrow morning I will be leaving,” she says. “I will not be a hindrance in your life.”

“Where are you going?” I ask. She must not be allowed to return to the Court of Swarm.

“To any other court that is not associated with the Court of Miracles,” she says. “I will find a job, live in a small house, or even marry someone who can protect me.”

“No,” I say, grabbing her hand. “Stay. I cannot promise you the love that you seek, but I can give you some. I can promise you protection. I might be selfish, but I want you here. You and Caspian were the only ones, excluding Marin, who understand me since I was little. You and he are what is left of my old family.”

“I cannot stay,” she says.

“Please,” I whisper. It takes her some seconds, but she nods.

“It sounds better than running around my entire life,” she says. Then, she smiles. “Besides, someone should keep you in check. Too much power might get to your head.” She turns, letting go of my hand. She starts walking away, but says, “I cannot wait for tomorrow to make the public announcement and to tell the Court of Swarm to screw themselves.”

I smile. The old Hesperia is back, and how I have missed her.

***

I wake to the sound of footsteps. I sit up. It is still dark outside, and the room is even darker. I look to my left and see the silhouette of Thalia sleeping. I hear footsteps again, but not normal footsteps, tiny ones. I hear them coming from the floor on my side. I look down. There is nothing there. Then I hear the footsteps running away and see the door open a little and closing.

I stand up. There is something here. I move to the door and open it. No one is outside on the hallway. Not even knights. I step outside and close the door. I hear the fast footsteps on my right. I start to follow. It might be a mouse that found its way towards this castle, but a mouse cannot open a door.

I hear a laughter, a tiny laughter, and I grow worried. Whatever made it inside this castle does not sound friendly. I accelerate my pace, following the sound of footsteps. It leads me through hallways and rooms. Each time I come close to the sound, the footsteps become faster. Then, a door to a room opens and closes. I enter.

I do not know where I am because I have never been in this room. It is too dark for me to see, but I turn to the left, looking for a lamp. I find a dresser and moving my hand through it find matches and a lamp. I light the lamp and rise the fire.

I am at a room, a guest room. An empty bed stands in front of me with its sheets spread on it. Someone was sleeping there. I move the lamp to the right, and almost drop it when I see what lays at my right.

A body stands in front of me. Its arms are extended to its side and the legs are spread. It is wearing a dark purple nightgown stained with something dark; it makes me think that it is a woman. I dare to take a step closer, my heartbeat warning me not to. Her hands are nailed through her palms to the wall. Her legs are also nailed to the wall through the ankles.

I lift the lamp to see her face. She has long blonde hair. She has her glasses on, but behind them there are no eyes. Instead, lays a pool of blood, staining her cheeks and around her eyes socket. Her eyes are missing as if something took it.

“H-Help m-me,” she breaths and I jump, letting the lamp fall to the floor. Her body lays still as I recognize who the raspy voice belonged to. Sephira has been killed by something unusual.

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