He rose and took her hands. His own, calloused from countless hours on the river, were warm and strong. “I beg you, do not, do not put your life in danger, particularly not for me. I will never forgive myself. The only thing that makes this entire madness bearable is the hope that you may yet survive, that one day you may live the life you have always wanted.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes. She looked away and said, “And they lived happily ever after.”
Titus shook. He cursed himself, but the shaking would not stop.
He had been twelve, cocky about his prowess in the Crucible after having vanquished the Monster of Belle Terre, the Keeper of Toro Tower, and the Seven-Headed Hydra of Dread Lake. His death at Helgira’s hand had obliterated any further thoughts of invincibility. In fact, it had been two months before he could use the Crucible again, and even then only to partake in the easiest, simplest quests.
In the years since, he had conquered his fear of the Crucible, but never his terror of Black Bastion.
The wyvern beneath him sensed his growing panic and decided to take advantage. It rolled and plunged, attempting to shake him loose. Practically joyous for the distraction, he jabbed his wand into the beast’s neck. It screeched in pain.
“Fly properly or I will do it again.”
Last time his approach had been blatant, at the forefront of a mob of attackers. He would not repeat that mistake. Helgira’s saga began with one of her lieutenants arriving at Black Bastion on a wyvern. Titus had wrangled a wyvern from Sleeping Beauty’s castle and would try to pass himself off as a soldier coming to warn Helgira of an impending attack.
The torch-lit silhouette of Black Bastion was beginning to be visible, a solid, foursquare fortress that crowned a foothill of Purple Mountain. He murmured a prayer of gratitude for the darkness—he could not see Helgira yet. The last thing he remembered from his previous foray was her slim, white-clad person, standing atop the fort, her arm raised to call down the bolt of lightning that would strike him dead.
In the aftermath, his convulsions had nearly snapped his spine. Even the thought of it made him shake again.
Black Bastion drew ever nearer.
This time, if he were killed, he would remain dead.
The landing platform was five hundred feet away. The wyvern was not trained to carry riders and had no reins. He wrapped his arms around its neck and pulled. It brayed, but slowed to a speed better suited for dismounts.
Soldiers surrounded him the moment his feet touched the platform. “We’ve been attacked!” he cried. “The Mad Wizard of Hollowcombe promised the peasants land and riches in exchange for our lives.”
Dozens of weapons were unsheathed. The captain of the guard held a long spear—one that could follow a fleeing opponent for a mile—at Titus’s throat. “You are not Boab.”
“Boab is dead. They killed just about all of us.”
“How could they kill Boab? Boab is—was a great soldier and an even better mage.”
Titus’s mouth was dry, but he doggedly repeated the plot of the story. “Treachery. They gave us drugged wine.”
“Why were you not drugged?”
“I wasn’t at the celebration. A peasant girl, you see. I thought she liked me, but she turned on me. I heard her talk to the people coming to kill me, so I stole her brother’s clothes and this wyvern to come warn m’lady.”
He hoped his gray tunic would pass for peasant attire.
The captain did not trust him, but he also did not dare not bring Titus to Helgira. With eight spears trained on him, Titus marched down the ramp to the bailey and into the great hall of Black Bastion.
The hall was crowded. There was singing and dancing. Helgira, in her white gown, sat at the center of a long table upon a great dais, drinking from a chalice of gold.
He stopped dead. Four spears pressed hard into his back. Still he could not move a single step.
Instead of turning angry, the captain chuckled. “Gets ’em bumpkins every time, she does.”
But Titus was neither bowled over by Helgira’s beauty nor petrified anew by fear. He was transfixed because Helgira was Fairfax.
She was twenty years older, but in her features she was identical to Fairfax. Her lips were the same shade of deep pink, her hair the same jet-black cascade he remembered so well.
This was the reason Fairfax had looked eerily familiar when they had first met.
Helgira perceived the arrival of the soldiers and signaled the musicians to halt. The dancers melted to either side of the hall, clearing a path.
Titus sleepwalked, staring at Helgira. Only after the captain smacked him on the side of the head and yelled at him for disrespect did he lower his head.
Before the dais, he sank to his knees, kept his eyes on the ground, and repeated his tale. The toes of Helgira’s dainty white slippers—with lightning bolts embroidered in silver thread—came into his view.
“I am well pleased with you, warrior,” she murmured. “You will be given a bag of gold and a woman who will not turn on you.”
“Thank you, m’lady. M’lady is mighty and munificent.”
“But you committed a grave breach of etiquette, young man. Do you not know that no one is allowed to gaze upon me without my permission?”