Heartless

A swift breeze flowed through the branches of the Wood, skirting along the tops of the trees, then wrapping about the trunks, flowing faster than water as it went. It came at last to a grove of white aspens and shook the branches in a wild rustling before dying away into nothing.

Felix sat upon the edge of the bed in the white room that had been his since he arrived at the Wood Haven, patiently allowing Dame Imraldera to check his bandages. She clucked to herself as she always did while cutting away the old dressings. But when the trees made their soft susurrus above them in the strange vault that was neither ceiling nor forest, she paused and looked up, a strange expression crossing her face.

“What’s that look for?” Felix asked, watching her.

“What look?” She blinked and turned back to him.

“That faraway, no-longer-paying-attention-to-what-you’re-doing look. Like you were suddenly a thousand miles away.”

“No, no!” Imraldera laughed. “I am very present.”

“Good, because you’ve got a knife in your hand.” Felix added, “What’s wrong?”

“I was listening, that’s all.”

“To thin air?”

She laughed again and went back to work on his bandage, wrapping the soft gauze around his shoulder. “Remember, I can see and hear what you cannot, Prince Felix.”

“Oh yes.” He shuddered. “How many are in this room with us now?”

“You have at least five attendants at all times. They minister to your needs even as you sleep, keeping off Faerie beasts who would do you harm.”

“Beasts?” Felix looked around his chamber. He had grown used to it with time – how much time he could not imagine, for it was impossible to measure time in the Halflight Realm – but suddenly he remembered how open it was, and he saw more of the forest than he did of the white walls. And he remembered the bestial roar he’d heard the night he walked the moonlit hall. “I’d forgotten. Are there many beasts in the Wood?”

“More than you can imagine,” she said. “The Far World is not a safe one.”

Felix snorted. “Then why are you keeping me here?”

“Because the Prince’s Haven is safe, and his servants, your attendants, will let no harm befall you.” She patted his shoulder and tugged at his shirt. “There, you are done. Button yourself up and lie down again.”

“I don’t want to lie down,” Felix said, buttoning his shirt. “I’ve been lying down for ages – probably a good hundred years at least.”

“The best way to heal is to rest.”

“I have been resting.” He got to his feet and paced to the other side of the room, which once more overlooked the wild landscape of Faerie, so oddly familiar yet so foreign. He could see the Northern Mountains from here, though back home he knew they were much too far away to see. Strange that they seemed simultaneously much closer than he knew them to be but also ten times more distant. He knew he stood in Goldstone Wood, yet from where he stood, the Wood seemed to stretch out for miles upon miles, an ocean of trees, much more vast than he had ever believed the familiar forest he had always known to be.

And the Goldstone he knew had never held wild beasts.

“Dame Imraldera,” Felix said, “when can I go home?”

He turned around to speak to her and saw her standing with her back to him, her head turned so that he could see her profile. Her mouth was open, her brow puckered, and her eyes stared again at an empty space in the air.

“Dame Imraldera?”

“Felix,” she said, turning to him suddenly, as though she hadn’t heard him call her but needed him quickly. “Felix, I’ve just received word of your father.”

Felix’s stomach dropped to his feet. He felt dizzy watching the expression on her face and reached out to grab a tree for support. “What?” he demanded.

“He has been taken. By the . . . the Dragon.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

Felix sank to the ground, too weak with relief to stand. Alive! His father still lived. Capture was not the end; capture could be fixed. Dead he could do nothing about, but capture . . .

Imraldera moved to his side and bent down to touch his shoulder. He looked up at her sharply. “You must let me go,” he said.

“Felix, I – ”

“You must. He’s my father!” Felix felt tears burning his eyes and pounded his fists into the hard dirt beneath him. “You cannot make me sit here a minute more when my father’s life is in danger!”

“Felix, there is nothing you can – ”

“Don’t tell me that,” he cried, knocking her hand away from his shoulder. “He’s my father. That counts for something. I can help; I know I can.”

“The Prince will – ”

“Aethelbald isn’t here.” Felix took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to speak like an adult rather than a child in a tantrum. “When was the last time you heard from your master? Honestly.”

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