“There must be more. You’ve yet to speak of betrayals, vows, or curses, Madame Cronatia.” His elbows rested on his knees, and the wilted flowers drooped where his pants draped his shins. “Don’t stop now. I’ve waited over a decade for this tale.”
Crony ground her jaw to repress a sad smile, for how short of a time was ten years in the grand scope of things. “May-let we trusted one another too quickly with too much, Dyadia and me. She confided the fears she be havin’ about her son. Worries o’er his dangerous ambitions, his dabblings in necromancy in hopes to find immortality. In return, I admitted me one fear.”
Luce lifted a red eyebrow, looking entirely too wolfish to be so handsome. “And that would be?”
Crony shook her head. “Nothin’ ye need know for the tale.”
Giving up her immortality to grant the princess another chance at life . . . that was something she still couldn’t tell Luce; it risked interference, for should Luce know, it might affect the outcome in ways Crony couldn’t predict. Nay, she wouldn’t chance it. She opted instead to be crafty with her words. Distract him with an emotional revelation.
“Immortals be but a distinct few. We’re given the opportunity upon conception to live on the earth, or on the celestial plane, out of sight of mortals. Only six of us walk upon the terra, each of us descended from ancient beings: gargoyles, chimeras, seraphs, or demons. Those four immortal classes were enemies, historically. So we be hard-pressed to find someone with which to live out an eternity. In the mortal mindset, to stumble upon another like yerself, to have trifles and tricks to learn and trade, it be a gift. But for an immortal, to feel as if yer long, plodding steps have been bestrewn with new paths flaunting two pairs of footprints instead of one—it be a miracle. Dyadia and me, we both be wise enough to hold it close, in the beginning. I cherished her. For her frightful beauty, for her mystical talents, for her maternal ways with her son—something I would ne’er experience for meself. Harrowers don’t be made to have offspring. We lose that ability the moment we take the power. And we keep the curse till we be flushed of our magic, passing it to another soul. Whether mortal or immortal, monstrous or indistinct, a harrower recipient must be a willin’ vessel, and ready to swear off any hope for children however long their commission. Me mistake was takin’ on the power while being immortal. Eternity be a long time to live without family.” Crony dropped her gaze to the flower stems curling down to Luce’s shin, finding herself thinking upon the princess again, wanting so much for the girl to find her way, but unable to make it happen herself. Is that how true parents felt? “But there be a downfall to an immortal having a child, and it is far greater than the pain of ne’er havin’ one.”
Luce nodded. “Because they will one day outlive said child.”
“Aye. That was Dyadia’s greatest fear. Hard to becalm such a worry, but I heared her each time she needed to be heared. It seem to satisfy her some bit, to have a companion such as me. And on me end, none I had met in that long walk felt so much like home. Like belongin’.” Crony’s chest warmed in remembrance of those happier days. “Dyadia became me beloved family, and more.”
Luce smiled, gentle and heartfelt. The sort of expression she’d only seen him impart on Stain. “Well, smack my snout and call me vixen. Never thought to hear something so pretty from the lips of a puckish old witch like yourself.” His eyes were teasing, but his features fell to somberness. “Something horrible happened. For you to be so far apart now, to have lost one another to opposing realms. Tell me . . .”
Crony disliked this part of the fairy tale: the moral test, the downfall of the hero. Better she leap in without hesitating, better to fall headfirst—eyes painfully open, always open—into those final memories; better than to pause and anticipate the agony, to remember how her heart would rip anew when she relived her grandest mistake.
The final battle to save the two kingdoms from the drasilisks had been won. Between the hand signals used by the infantries so the halberdiers could carry out their lethal formations in silence, and Cronatia’s and Lachrymosa’s presence on the front lines combining their magics—her ability to make weapons of nightmares and his to communicate with the creatures mentally—the victory belonged to the kingdoms.
No more drasilisks were left. Their gargantuan, beheaded, rotting forms laid coiled in fields set afire. The noxious stench of their burning scales—like puss-filled boils roasting on a spigot—signaled freedom at last. A proclamation went out, and both kings sealed an alliance swearing if any sign of the destructive creatures appeared in Eldoria or Nerezeth, they would be hunted down and eradicated, for the good of all life. The people celebrated, anticipating a future without fear.
A future that was short-lived.
“Some five months later,” Crony said, her voice shaking now, “the sun began to bow to the moon at unreasonable hours. The winter came early, when spring was just raising its pink-petaled head. Fear crept ’cross both kingdoms once more.”
The drasilisks had preferred to hunt at night, and over time had developed an uncanny ability to call down the moon, even in midday, to darken the skies so they might feed on those out tending fields or fishing. Now, even with the creatures extinct, confusion fell upon the two kingdoms once more, though nothing fell from the sky.
King Kre?imer called Cronatia to his throne room early one afternoon, when the skies were cloaked in midnight. He believed he’d discovered the cause of the strange occurrences; after having Eldoria searched and finding no sign of drasilisks, he reached out to King Velimer to do the same. However, the king had fallen ill, and their sorcerer, Lachrymosa, was serving as regent—the king’s eldest son being too young to rein. King Kre?imer had sent missives to the sorcerer, asking him to search Nerezeth from border to border, but each one came back unanswered. So Kre?imer sent spies into their kingdom, and it was soon confirmed Lachrymosa was harboring a live drasilisk, though no one seemed able to find it.
Crony didn’t tell her king that day how she’d been in contact with the sorcerer’s mother via a one-eyed albino crow. It would visit weekly, perched upon Crony’s window to converse, as if Dyadia were sitting right beside her. Crony didn’t want her king to doubt her loyalty to Eldoria, for that had not changed in spite of her friendship with a sorceress from the opposing kingdom. And she wasn’t hiding anything of import, as Dyadia had refused to confirm or deny her son’s guilt during those unconventional visits.
On a gloomy day, the sky heavy with dark clouds, Eldoria’s infantry prepared to march into Nerezeth with intent to behead the beast and the sorcerer responsible. They planned to leave within the week. Crony had received another message from Dyadia, this time in a note tied to Thana’s scaly white leg. The sorceress pled for her to come to Nerezeth’s palace in the depths of the forest posthaste, but to keep it secret, for her son had made a tragic error.
Crony left before the infantry, telling King Kre?imer only that she was to investigate the strangeness in the skies by meeting with Dyadia.
Thana flew above her during the three-week-long journey, as if to ensure she came alone. The albino crow took her leave once Crony arrived at the black castle and was escorted alongside Dyadia through the glossy, obsidian halls. Dyadia dismissed the guards then grasped Crony’s hand and spoke casually, as if catching up over tea. Her forced composure made Crony uneasy, but she played along, sensing the depth of Dyadia’s pain, knowing somehow that her son was dying, seeing it in her eyes. Knowing more, with every step, why she had been called to the sorceress’s side. Though dread filled her heart, she followed on.
They walked down a sloping staircase that led into the dungeon, past cells rife with the scent of urine and body odor, and the moaning of prisoners. When it looked as if the corridor stalled at a dead end, Dyadia magically manipulated a row of stones, coaxing the wall to open another set of stairs. These led deeper into the earth, into a passage almost a full league beneath the castle.
Though Crony had no fear of the dark, her spine tingled with a bleak premonition, compounded by the all-too-familiar scent of puss-filled boils somewhere within the dripping, moldering dampness.