Heir of Golden Storms
Chapter Twenty-Four

“Hello, Glade, it is good to see you again,” the woman in red says.

“My lady,” Glade answers bowing. I thought that she was a friend of Glade, not someone who Glade has full respect of.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I wanted to see how my spawn is doing,” she answers, looking at me. “You caught my eye after the dance at the engagement ball at the Court of Miracles. That is why I made Glade keep an eye on you.”

“Why is that?” Thalia asks as she stands up.

“Oh, you must be Rowan’s wife, Thalia,” the woman in red says. She looks back at me. “I would congratulate you, Rowan, but we all know that you did not choose her as your wife.” She turns back to Thalia. “It is rude not to present myself, but I will not give you my name, since names are a powerful thing. Instead, I will let you call me Crimson, since both times that Rowan has seen me, I have been wearing red. Red is my favorite color, so maybe that is why.” She then rises an eyebrow. “What was your question again?”

“Why did Rowan catch your eye at the Court of Miracles?” Thalia reminds her.

“Ah, you see, I saw through his enchantment,” Crimson answers. “I was surprised to replace a little prince with one of the strongest enchantments on him. It only took me a dance to see right through.”

“You knew?” I ask.

“Of course,” she answers. “I am surprised that you did not know. Seventeen years without knowing what you truly are must be a new record.” She then turns to Glade. “Glade, darling, could you bring me a cup of wine. I am thirsty.”

“Of course, my lady,” Glade answers.

“And fetch North for me,” I say. Crimson might tell us why I have horns and wings and with North’s new knowledge on magical creatures, she might know if it is true. Glade nods and walks out of the room.

“Do you want me to wait for Glade to continue talking?” Crimson asks. “As you know by now, I like to talk. Maybe that is the only weakness that I possess, but of course, when you have spent ages as a submissive lady that only can speak when she is asked to, then you will understand why.”

Ladies today are free to speak. Of course, they cannot interrupt a king when he is speaking, not even a prince. That is what I am changing with Thalia. If Crimson spent years without being able to speak unless directed to, she must have lived decades ago, if not centuries.

“Why do I have horns and wings if no other faerie has them?” I ask.

“Uh, cutting to the chase, I like it!” Crimson says. She bites the air as if indicating that I am feisty. “Because you are like me.”

She does not move, but the enchantment that she has on her disappears. She now has a pair of black wings, identically to mines. Two black horns have appeared on her forehead, shorter than mines. Her blue eyes have been changed to black wider eyes.

“Surprise,” she says. She then grunts. “Why don’t you remove your enchantment? You disgust me looking like a faerie.” She looks at Thalia. “No offense, Thalia. I think that you are beautiful in comparison to other faeries.”

Thalia does not answer, but Crimson does not wait for an answer either. She snaps her fingers and the enchantment on me disappears. My wings spring and my horns erect. How is she able to remove someone else’s enchantment?

“Much better,” she says after she sighs. “Funny, your wings are bigger than most men. Normally, women’s wings tend to be bigger than men’s wings.”

“There are others like me?” I ask.

“Well, like you, no,” she answers. In that moment, Glade walks in through the back door. He has a golden goblet in his hand, the goblet that only royalty use. Behind him enters North with a book in her hands. When she sees Crimson standing, and Thalia and I tensed, she retrocedes to get out of the room.

“North, stay,” I say. She stops taking steps back. Glade hands the goblet to Crimson and returns to stand next to North.

“You have wings and horns,” I tell Crimson. “You are like me.”

“No,” she answers and takes various sips from the stolen wine. “You are half-faerie. I am nothing faerie, thankfully.” I look at North. Her hypothesis about me being half-faerie is true. “You see, I am a curse pixie. You are half-faerie and half-pixie.”

“What?” I ask. “Aren’t pixies supposed to be tiny? Aren’t they supposed to have wings that shine in different colors?”

“Not exactly,” North says.

“Uh, an intelligent faerie. I like it,” Crimson says. “Carry on.”

“They are different kinds of pixies, exactly like faeries,” North continues. “Faeries can have storm magic or winter magic, while pixies can have certain things too. They can have different wings that represents what kind of pixies they are. I did not know that your wings were of a curse pixie. And about them being tiny, I think that they can turn small if they want.”

“We can turn small,” Crimson says. “I prefer being normal size, since it helps me blend with faeries.”

“But what do you mean that no one is like Rowan?” Thalia asks. “Does that mean that no one is half-faerie and half-pixie?”

“No,” she says. “All the half-faeries and half-pixies disappeared time after we were exiled, and the Forbidden Forest was created. Simply because faeries and pixies were separated, and everyone at the other side of the Forbidden Forest started killing anything that resembled faeries. Too bad for them.” She then looks at her red nails of her hand that is not holding the goblet. “Anyway, thanks for breaking the curse. Now, I can go out every day, not only whenever there is a special event.”

“I regret breaking the curse,” I say.

She shrugs. “I do not,” she says. “But why do you regret it?”

“Why?” Thalia repeats. She sounds almost offended, as if the question has an obvious answer. “We could not sleep last night because an imp wanted to take our eyes out! That same imp killed the magical expert of our council!”

“Ah, so that is why you were talking about me when I came in,” Crimson snaps her fingers.

Instantly, the imp enters through the throne room’s doors. It is small with a light red skin. It has long pointy ears, even longer than faeries. It does not have any hair, instead it has smalls horns, as if they were thorns, on the back of its hands and fingers, shoulders, and head. It has red wings and a long tail with a sting at the end.

The imp climbs Crimson and stands on her right shoulder, playing with her blonde hair. It smiles at us, showing pointy tiny teeth. Its eyes are completely wrapped in darkness. How it can see in daylight is a mystery to me. Maybe it doesn’t, and it can feel its master where she is.

“This is one of my babies,” Crimson says. “I am its master.” Somewhere, I hear North gasp. “You should have laid down a pile of things shiny like jewelry to draw it out. Then you could have burned it or throw it at the sea. They cannot swim. Here, I will show you.”

Crimson walks to one of the walls. No knight stops her. She pulls one of the torches off it and gives her goblet to a knight. With her free hand, she grabs the imp and puts it on the floor. She lets go of the torch. It falls on the imp, lighting it up. It runs around, laughing the same way that it did last night. It stops running, dropping. The fire dies out, leaving only ashes where the imp once stood.

She said that the imp was her baby. She just killed it. What is she capable of? She steals the goblet back from the knight. She kicks the ashes as she takes a sip from the wine. Then, she stands back to where she was.

“You need to get rid of every creature that is haunting our court,” I say.

“I can do that, but I will not,” Crimson answers. “We have been imprisoned for most of our lives. Now that we are free, we want to be free.”

“And my people have to suffer because of it?” I say, annoyed at her answer. “I was the one who lifted the curse that set them free! The least you could do is leave my people alone!”

“No,” she answers. “They are faeries after all, and faeries were whom exiled us. We suffered because of them. Now it is their time to pay.” She then replaces something interesting in her wine and looks back at us. “What I can do is keep them away from your castle and everyone who resides in it. Take the offer. It is the sweetest deal that I can think of.”

“That is not enough!” I shout, voice coming deeper and grave like when I cursed Zephyrus.

“Uh, are you going to curse me?” she asks, smiling. She turns around, not waiting for what we have to say. She starts walking towards the exist, her wings and horns vanishing in the process. “You will understand one day why the faeries must pay, and that day will be when they know that you are not one of them.” She hands the goblet to a knight and leaves through the throne room’s doors.

I grunt when she leaves. I take the crown off my head and put it on the throne. “No more pleadings for today,” I tell the knights. I am too frustrated to hear everyone’s complaints. Besides, everyone is going to mention the creatures attacking the court. I spot Glade. “Did you know about this? Did you know that breaking the curse was going to doom us all?”

“I did not think that this was going to happen,” Glade defends himself. “I thought that the creatures were going to be kept at the other side. Even if they came to our side, she said that they were going to behave.”

“Did she say it, or did you imply it?” I ask.

“She said it, but their words are not worth as much as faeries’ words,” Glade says. He is being nonchalant, and it makes me angrier. “Pixies can lie.”

“Lies!” I yell at him. “I am half-pixie and I cannot lie!”

“Sprites cannot lie either,” he says, defending his previous sentence. “You are half-faerie also. That side might keep you from lying.”

I take a deep breath and continue walking towards the back door, expecting Glade to be following me. “Why did you not tell me about her?” I ask, lowering my voice in order to erase the hints of anger.

“I could not,” he says. “She made me promise that I would not talk about her until the curse was broken.”

I stop and turn to face him. Behind him, Thalia and North stops. “You are telling me that she asked you to keep an eye on me because she knew that I was going to break the curse?”

Glade nods. “I was her emissary between her and the kings and queens of sprites. I was supposed to test your abilities with the Slumbering Forest before breaking the curse of the Forbidden Forest.”

I was used from the beginning. Glade lured me to the Slumbering Forest the first time to break the curse. When I told him that I heard the treefolk whispers, he pushed me away from the forest. He knew that I could break the curse, but he did not want the sprites kings and queens to know.

The second time I entered the Slumbering Forest, I was looking for Glade. He found me and made a deal that I should come back with the Cursebreaker to break the curse of the trees. The next time I went, I could not break the curse. The Cursebreaker failed.

“The Cursebreaker had nothing to do with breaking the curse of the Slumbering Forest, did it not?” I ask.

He nods. “Everyone believed that the Cursebreaker could break the curse, but it did not. The person who has the magic to break curses is the only one who could break the Slumbering Forest’s curse. The Cursebreaker worked as an amplifier to the person’s curse breaking magic.”

Crimson knew that. Glade knew that. That is why when I arrived at the Slumbering Forest from escaping the Court of Miracles, Glade told the sprites kings and queens that I had the Cursebreaker. He wanted to save me from the kings and queens because he needed me to break the curse. He needed me to believe that I could break it on my own.

“What are we going to do about the creatures at our court?” I ask, wanting to stop talking about how Glade and Crimson played me. I walk out of the throne room.

“We could hunt the creatures,” Thalia says. “It would take a lot of time, but we now know how to get rid of imps.”

“We do not know if they are all imps,” I say. “And even if do get rid of all the creatures, what is stopping other creatures from coming from the Forbidden Forest?”

“Well, I did not want to say this,” North says, “but you could put the curse back on the forest.” I stop to look at her. “You are half-curse pixie and you can break curses. You can even cast curses. Why don’t you curse the Forbidden Forest again?”

“I do not know how,” I admit.

“If the Cursebreaker served as an amplifier,” North says. “What is stopping the Cursemaker to work as one?”

Elvia was the one to destroy the Cursebreaker. With its remaining, she created the Cursemaker. She is an excellent smith. She even named the sword “the Cursemaker”. Does that mean that she knew that the Cursebreaker was an amplifier? Does that mean that she turned the Cursebreaker into the Cursemaker not only by name but by trait?

“Fetch Elvia for me,” I tell the nearest knight. I look at Glade. “Do you have any problem with cursing the forest once again?”

“No,” he says as he shakes his head. “I thought that breaking the curse would make every creature closer. I did not know that my lady was going to let them attack the courts. I hate conflict.” He shakes his head again. “If this is the only way to ensure peace, then I am with you.”

“I have a book in my room about pixies,” North says. “I can go fetch it while you wait here.”

“We are going with you,” Thalia says. She puts her arm around North shoulder, stopping her from complaining. Thalia and North lead the way and I follow with Glade one step behind me.

“I do not trust you,” I whisper to Glade. “You are playing a double agent between Crimson and the sprites kings and queens. I do not know what you are telling them about my court. I cannot afford to have someone I do not trust in the council.”

“I understand,” Glade answers back. “I am not playing a double agent. The sprites kings and queens spoke with my lady the night of Easton’s engagement ball. She told them that she had a way to break the curses. She did not tell them how. She only left me there as an emissary, to be the bridge between them and her. She never contacted me, and I guess that is why they sent me with you after you broke the curse. They wanted me gone.”

“Did Crimson contact you after you came here?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “Today was the first time that I saw her after the ball.”

“What did you do before she sent you to the Slumbering Forest?” I ask.

“I rather not say,” he says. By the tone in his voice, I know that he does not want to remember those days. If he does not want to remember those days, why does he treat Crimson with respect? Why yell at me when I spoke about her as if she were his lover?

“All right,” I say, understanding that there are some things that need time to be spoken about. “If you keep being this honest, you do not have to renounce to the council. I do not ask you to be loyal to me; you could hate me for all I care. I ask you to be loyal to the Court of Storms.” He nods.

We enter North’s room. She is the first to enter, trying to clean before we enter. She tries to make her bed as quickly as possible. She moves one pile of books next to the other. She even tries to recollect the papers and journals from her desk.

“Sorry for the mess,” she says.

“It is all right,” Thalia says, and I nod.

“What mess?” Glade asks as serious as always. This brings a smile in North and calms her down.

“Where is the book?” I ask.

“Oh, right,” she says, snapping awake. She moves to a pile of books on the floor and pulls a book from the middle. The pile wobbles but it remains standing. “Curse pixie, curse pixie,” she murmurs. She replaces the page and starts reading until she replaces what she wants. “Here it is. I knew that I read about curses somewhere. There are two rules about cursing. One is that the curse needs to have a way to be broken. If you do not mention how it can be broken as you cast the curse, then the curse will decide something simple that breaks it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Let me put it in an example,” North says. “If you curse the Forbidden Forest so that the creatures at the other side cannot cross, but you do not specify how the curse can be broken, then the curse will choose how it wants to be broken. It can be by simply putting a faerie to cross it or by setting the trees on fire.”

“What is the second rule?” Thalia asks.

“Um,” she says as if hiding it from us. “Every magic has a restriction. Miracle magic can only be used once and then you must wait several days to use it again. Ice magic makes me cold inside and I cannot handle heat like you all can. Well, curse magic’s restriction is that it feeds on your emotions. Every time that you cast a curse, it will take a tiny piece of your feelings. If you cast a lot of curses, well…”

“I could stop feeling,” I say. “I will become heartless.” I could stop being happy. I could stop caring for Kalani and Breeze. I could stop caring for the Court of Storms. I could end up not feeling for Thalia. “I will have to take the risk.” I cannot say that I will take the risk. I cannot risk not caring for Thalia.

“We should not risk that,” Thalia says. “Imagine yourself heartless. You will be more arrogant than usual.” I smile. She is cracking a joke, even though this is serious.

“It is only one curse,” I say. “One curse should not stop me from feeling anything.”

“But one curse could lead to another and then to another,” Thalia says.

“I know,” I say. “But I know that you will keep me in check. You will not let me do more curses if they are not necessary.”

A knock on the door stops Thalia from answering. Glade opens the door. Erie is standing outside with her helmet on.

“My apologizes for interrupting,” she says. “Elvia has arrived. She is at the main hall.”

“All right,” I say. I walk out of the room, and I hear steps behind me. It does not take long to reach the main hall, now that I know most parts of this castle.

Elvia is standing there, and to my surprise, she is talking to Hesperia. She even laughs at something that Hesperia says. Hesperia has on her hand folded papers, probably with her speech written in it.

“My king and my queen,” Elvia says as we approach her. She bows.

“Good morning, Elvia,” I say. “I have some questions about the Cursemaker, and I was hoping that you could answer them.”

“Of course,” she says.

“You built this sword from the materials of the Cursebreaker,” I say. “Did you know that the Cursebreaker was enchanted to help break curses?”

“I did,” Elvia says as she nods.

“You named the new sword the Cursemaker,” I say. “Is the Cursemaker an amplifier too?”

“It is,” Elvia says. “You see, I had help from Sephira. She added some materials to the sword, enchanting it. She said that you will need the Cursemaker someday, and she wanted you to be prepared.” She shakes her head slowly. “Sephira always anticipated the needs of the kings and queens.” I nod. This is the last gift of Sephira.

“What are you planning to do with it?” Hesperia asks.

“We are going to replicate the curse of the Forbidden Forest,” I say.

“Oh, I will tag along,” Hesperia says.

“No,” I answer. “You need to memorize your speech. We will be back in time for it.” Hesperia grunts as she looks at her paper.

“I know the speech already,” she says.

I open my mouth to argue. “Bring her,” Thalia interrupts me. I flinch. “If something goes wrong at the Forbidden Forest, at least I know that she will defend us. Well, at least defend you, not me.”

“Fine,” I say. Thalia and Hesperia never agree on anything. I might as well agree on something they do.

***

I stand in front of the Forbidden Forest. The forest is quiet as if no creature wanders inside of it. They might hate daylight, like the imps. I have the Cursemaker in one hand. On my left, Thalia, North, Glade, and Hesperia stand in that same order from closest to farthest. I look at North. “Now what?” I ask her.

“I do not know,” she says. “Point the sword to the forest and try to curse the same way that you did at your wedding.”

“All right,” I say.

I point the sword towards the Forbidden Forest, and I close my eyes. I try to search for the dark creature inside of me. I try to search for the voice.

“What are you doing?” someone asks from behind me. I open my eyes and turn my head to look. Crimson stands behind me, yards away.

“Saints,” I curse under my breath.

“Rowan, concentrate,” Thalia says, and I see her move between Crimson and me. “We will keep her busy.”

“Of course,” Hesperia answers as she stands next to Thalia. “I should get my hands dirty once in a while.”

“Um, I can try,” North says.

“Are you…” Crimson starts to say, but she seems to get what we are trying to do. “No, no, no, no. I will not let you put us back in there!

“Rowan!” Thalia warns.

I nod and turn back to the forest. I close my eyes as I feel the wind starting to pick up by Thalia’s magic. I hear bees coming from the forest, called by Hesperia’s magic. I feel the air cool by North’s magic.

I close my eyes tighter. I need to concentrate. I block everything out. I think about the voice inside me. I think about my pixie side. I remove my faerie side. I am a pixie. I am a curse pixie. When I open my eyes, I see the glass sword growing purple.

“I curse the Forbidden Forest,” I say, the voice coming from somewhere else. “I curse that no creature can cross the Forbidden Forest. I curse that no creature should come from the Forbidden Forest unless they are faerie.”

A purple light goes out from the sword. It hits the forest, spreading to create a wall in front of it. North’s words come to my mind. I must indicate how can the curse be broken. I wish that I had thought about it before, but there was not any more time or more creatures would have come out. Instead, I let my distant voice do the talking.

“This curse cannot be broken except by the one who casted it!” The Cursemaker stops shining and the light wall disappears. The curse has been set.

I turn to see how everyone is doing. Glade is standing away from everyone, not moving. Crimson has her wings and horns out. She is flying, holding Thalia by the hair in one hand. She is flying towards Hesperia, who is ordering thousands of bees towards her. Crimson passes through them easily, without being stung. When she is a few meters away from Hesperia, I see something that surprises me.

North pushes Hesperia out of the way. She quickly creates a wall of ice in front of her. Crimson breaks the wall in front of North by only touching it. With her free hand, she grabs North by the neck and rises. North struggles, trying to take her hand off her.

I break my enchantment as fast as I can and launch myself towards Crimson. She lets go of North and Thalia when I hit her. She flies a few meters away, loosing balance in the air. She regains balance and does not think twice before diving towards me. I keep the Cursemaker steady, waiting for her to approach. When she is near, I swing.

Crimson catches the blade with one hand. It does not cut her. She draws her free arm back, spreading her fingers and showing her red claws ready to strike. She swings, but something catches her arm. Vines are wrapped on her arm. I look down. Glade is controlling the trees of the Forbidden Forest to grab Crimson with its branches.

“Glade?” Crimson asks, taken aback.

Glade does not show any emotion on his face. He moves his arms again and another tree grabs her other arm. She lets go of my sword and starts to pull away, being stronger that the trees. Glade keeps moving, adding more branches, vines, and roots to her.

“I cannot hold her much longer,” Glade shouts.

I close my eyes. Saint Saar grant me his magic when I earned his crown. He gave me the magic of the Court of Storms and now I must ask the court to help me.

I open my eyes, moving my hands in the process. A gust of wing comes, followed by another and another until it becomes a constant storm. It starts to push back Crimson as Glade pulls her with his trees. She struggles, but in the end, she passes the invisible wall and we let go.

She flies towards us, but she stops. She cannot get out. The curse worked and she is trapped in there forever.