24. Chapter 24
24
BEATRICE
Throughout my life, adults and peers had described me as mature, responsible, and wise, never guessing what went on behind my calm smiles and sage nods. They could have no idea how terrified I was that someone would glimpse the out-of-her-depth person behind my mask.
“I fly you to the palace?” Chicky offered eagerly.
I swallowed hard at the very idea. “Um, thank you, but I think I’ll just climb back up through the boulders.”
“Beeetrice afraid to fly?”
“No! Well, yes, I guess I am.”
“Ah.” She nodded sagely. “I not push you. Humans are slow to grow up. I meet you there!”
My mouth still hung open when she disappeared from my sight.
“Cheeky bird-kitty,” I grumbled while climbing. That griflet knew me too well.
Once I reached the passage between the cliffside and the palace, it seemed narrower and darker than before. The vines appeared distressed, and more ice lined the pond.
The increasing cold deepened my foreboding.
But as soon as I stepped through the back door, the sight of Chicky waiting for me in the hallway loosened the tightness in my chest. I wrapped my arms around her neck, and she sat up and hugged me with her wings and her eagle talons. “What are we going to do?” I mumbled into her feathers.
We must do what we know is right .
Thanks. I winced, smiled at the irony, and felt stumped. Following my own advice would be much easier if I had a clue. One step at a time, I reminded her as well as myself.
Some of the household servants were still around. I knew this because they provided a lunch for me, basic but filling. Chicky insisted she could feed herself and politely thanked whoever might be listening for the many meals they’d provided for Dodger and her.
I echoed her sentiments. “I’ve never seen you, and you can’t speak to me, yet I’ve felt accepted by friends since the day we arrived. Thank you so much. I don’t know how much longer we will all be here, but we’re together now.”
I couldn’t sense the Gamekeeper anywhere nearby.
While Chicky headed outside to hunt, I returned to my refuge, the music room, and picked up a hymnbook. I played and sang for hours, the words and music soothing my spirit.
Darkness fell early. When I tired of playing and returned to my chamber, the lamps lighting my way seemed dim. But some thoughtful servants were still at work, for I found a crackling fire on my room’s hearth, and someone had laid out a shimmery bronze-silk jumpsuit and matching heels.
Amazed at the sight, I gaped, burst into tears, then laughed at myself. “Thank you! It is lovely. You want me to dress for dinner?” Why else would they lay out something so utterly impractical?
I took my time in the bath. When I emerged, wrapped in a silk kimono, Chicky was lounging on the hearth, picking at her gleaming talons with her equally sharp beak. “Better?” she asked.
“Yes. How are you?”
“Ready for next adventure,” she purred.
I leaned against her side and dried my hair before the fire. “You sound as if you know what your next adventure will be.”
She tilted her head to look at me with one bright eye but said nothing.
I opened my mouth, ready to ask what she was thinking . . . then quickly reconsidered, feeling even more unsettled. I took extra care while applying my makeup, braided my long hair with bronze ribbons entwined, and slipped into the lovely clothes. After all that effort, I paused to admire my reflection in the wardrobe’s mirror. I looked glamorous and rather mysterious by firelight.
“Beatrice be brave.” Chicky’s reflection appeared beside mine, her words sounding more like an order than an observation.
“Brave?”
“Not listen to fears.” She ruffled up, shook herself, then seemed to deflate, smoothing her feathers with her beak. “Chicky eat in kitchen. Let you talk.”
I made a quick escape, trying not to project too much significance into her words. Only a few lamps lit my way to the dining room, and once I arrived there, I missed Win’s company.
Where was Dodger? Had he and Winifred made it to Faraway Castle?
Trying not to focus on my fears, I let my eyes stray to the statue of dancers between the picture windows. Strange, how it always made me think of Niel and the Coronation Ball. Stranger still how a dream could feel like a memory. I vividly remembered the way that young king had made me feel. Lovable. Desirable. Interesting.
When I was awake, I generally imagined the perfect man for me as less . . . well . . . “Arrogant” seemed too strong a description for Niel . . . Maybe he was rather self-centered, but that was typical of royals.
Ugh. If I could have chosen my dream man, he would certainly not be a king.
But . . . but then he wouldn’t be Othniel—Siegfried III, who was literally my dream man.
A plate of steaming roasted vegetables and chicken, a bowl of diced fruit, a pitcher of water, and a lump of cheese waited at my usual place. Just when I was pondering how I might carry it all up to my room, the Gamekeeper appeared in his usual chair—a mere shadow.
I let out a startled yip, but blessed relief followed. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Thank you.” His voice was quiet. “May I sit with you while you eat?”
“Please do! I always enjoy your company. Chicky is eating in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen staff spoils her,” he remarked, and I heard a smile in his voice. “I enjoyed your music today.”
Heat rolled into my face. “Oh!” I tried not to wince. “Well, crying while singing a hymn may be therapeutic to the spirit, but it impairs my sight-reading, for sure.”
“To my ears, your music was genuine and lovely. I expect the Almighty appreciated it even more.”
“Thank you.” What else could I say?
After a silent blessing, I began eating, but I had so many questions! Trying not to sound worried, I first asked, “Do you know if Dodger and Win arrived safely at Faraway Castle?”
“They arrived at the enemy’s camp in early afternoon.”
My heart plunged. “Oh no!”
“Don’t worry. Win ordered Dodger to carry her into battle, but not even the Mirror could persuade him to join the rebellion. Thanks to Bogdan’s training, he managed to grab Win and escape the enemy’s control. They are now safely in the mountains with Kai, Princess Eddi, and their winged horses.”
“Win must be furious,” I guessed.
“No doubt, but Dodger has figured out how to manage her. He may not be the Golden Griffin, but he’s a hero in his own right.”
“Oh, my dear sweet boy!” I slumped back in my chair. “And are they safe? Eddi and the others, I mean.”
After a brief pause, he said, “You needn’t fear for your loved ones, Beatrice. Our allies will prevail.”
I nodded, picking at my food. I didn’t usually feel self-conscious in his presence, but something had changed. “My maids laid out this fancy outfit, and I didn’t want to disappoint them,” I blurted before thinking it through.
“You are always beautiful, Beatrice. Your kind, loyal, tenacious spirit outshines any clothing you might wear.”
I closed my eyes, feeling simultaneously a surge of joy and a wave of panic. “Thank you,” I managed to whisper. Would he ask again? What should I do? Earlier I’d been upset that he’d stopped asking, but now . . .
His voice was so deep and quiet that I barely heard the words: “Dearest Beatrice, will you marry me?”
My fingernails dug into my palms, and my chest felt as though it might burst of panic. “Oh, no! I . . . I cannot! I do care dearly for you, but I cannot marry a Beast!”
In the silence following my outburst, his sorrow was almost palpable. Ever so slowly he rose from his chair. “Then I must leave you now. Grace and peace to you, my dearest love.”
With those words, he was gone.
Shock pinned me to my chair. That farewell had sounded almost . . . final. “Oh, dear Gamekeeper,” I whispered.
My eyes were dry, and my heart was cold as I returned to my room. While climbing the marble staircase, I wondered if these were the very stairs Niel had descended when I first saw him. If so—and I was fairly sure of it—somewhere down one of those dark halls was the ballroom. I didn’t want to see it or the library; I didn’t want to see the garden or the unicorn fountain, wherever those places might have been. I didn’t want to relive those dreams.
When Win’s story of the Beast slaughtering everyone in the palace—including the beautiful king—flashed through my mind, I felt too numb to fear the shadows.
Chicky joined me on the stairs so smoothly that I didn’t react. “Beeetrice is sad. I will help you feel better,” she said, sounding determined.
“I don’t want to dream of Niel again.”
“No dream,” she agreed cheerfully. “Beeetrice needs her happy ending.”
As if that were possible.
A fire crackled on the hearth in my bedchamber as we entered. To me, the room felt like a refuge. The whole palace was my refuge.
The Gamekeeper had sounded positive about the future and safety of Faraway Castle, so surely the Forbidden Palace would also be safe, and all would soon return to normal.
While Chicky headed for the hearth, I stood before the wardrobe mirror and loosened my hair, watching it ripple over my shoulders with gold and bronze highlights. I had never thought of myself as a beauty—few men had ever noticed me when Princess Eddi was around—yet my reflection showed me a young woman who might pass for a screen siren of nearly a century ago, back when Niel had been young and gorgeous and so very alive.
While standing there, I admitted, if only to myself, that I’d worn the lovely jumpsuit to dinner just in case my Beast showed up. And then I’d rudely turned down his marriage proposal. Again. I was the selfish beast of this story, striving to be beautiful in the eyes of a person whose marriage proposals I consistently rejected.
I didn’t want to break his heart—I loved him dearly. But how could I marry a Beast?
Desolate, I dropped my face into my hands and prayed, “Help me to see the truth!”
I blinked tears away, paused, and then blinked faster at the mirror before me. Instead of my reflection, I saw booklined walls on either side of an open door. Between my position and that door stood a desk piled with a jumble of books and parchments. I knew this room; I’d stood in that doorway before. But instead of the Gamekeeper’s shadowy form, I saw a man drop into the swivel chair and slump over the chaos on the desk, his face in his hands. Fascinated, I stepped closer to my wardrobe, closer to his chair.
Could it be?
Muscle had filled out his tall frame, yet even from mostly behind I recognized Niel. I might almost have reached through the glass and touched his golden-brown hair, which was longer than I remembered it, almost shaggy. He rubbed his forehead with all ten fingers, slid them down to rub his eyes, then dragged both palms over the stubble on his jaw while slumping back in his chair. The chair turned with a squeak, giving me a knee-melting-good look at him.
Spying on Niel through my mirror should have felt no more awkward than my unexpected visits to his world, yet this seemed . . . sneaky. “How are your plans going?” I asked.
He jolted to his feet, overturning a mug on his desk, which spewed pencils that rolled and clattered, one by one, onto the floor while he looked me up and down. Shadows underlined his eyes, but his expression brightened like a sunrise. “Beatrice!” His hands lifted, then clenched and fell to his sides.
“Are you working through the night?” I inquired.
“How . . .? What is this?” He briefly studied the mirror’s frame, shook his head as though to clear it, tripped over his chair leg, nearly fell, and then stood directly before me, his gaze never leaving mine. “My darling, are you here? In my time, I mean?”
“I don’t think so.” I glanced back at my bed, then past it to meet Chicky’s gaze. She blinked, appearing all innocence, but I recognized her magic. Hesitantly, I placed my hand flat on the mirror glass. “I’m looking at you through my wardrobe’s mirror. It must be another dream.”
But when he pressed his palm to mine, I felt its warmth. Suddenly bold, I linked my fingers with his and tugged gently. His hand followed mine. I was still gaping in surprise when he turned sideways to squeeze through the mirror’s frame and stepped into my room, into my time.
One moment, we stared into each other’s eyes; the next moment, we were in a clinch. “You’re here!” I gasped, half sobbing into his shoulder. His eager kisses on my forehead, my temple, my cheek . . . even the roughness of his day-old whiskers against my skin stole my breath. He was so solid, so warm and real and familiar that it ached somewhere deep in my soul. “How? How are you here?”
“I don’t know, and just now I don’t care.” Breathless, he pressed my head to his chest, where I heard his rapid heartbeat. “How much time has passed for you?”
“It’s hard to tell here. Maybe a month? And for you?”
“Nearly three years. I’m twenty-seven now, and you’re still twenty-four?”
“I’ll turn twenty-five on . . .” I paused. “No, wait. Maybe I already did?”
He chuckled softly. “Time can be difficult to pin down. It’s a good thing we’re ready to act before I’m too old for you.” His voice was as rich as ever, with an added edge of confidence.
“Ready to act?” I moved my hands to his chest and pushed away just far enough to look up at his face. I could not imagine a more attractive man—all hard muscle and latent energy. He’d obviously been spending time out of doors: he was tanned, and his hair was bleached in streaks. His fathomless eyes enchanted me more than ever, glowing like amber in sunlight.
“Yes, everything at this end is ready to prepare for takeoff, so to speak.” White teeth gleamed when he smiled, and he shifted his hands to gently grasp my arms. “Oh, how I long to kiss you,” he groaned, “but I don’t dare. Not yet. We must talk.”
Those doubts I’d had about him?
Gone. I was head over heels for that man.
It wasn’t safe. He wasn’t a safe person to love. I knew that. I’d always known.
But I loved him anyway.
“What exactly are you preparing?” I managed to ask despite my distraction.
“We have the spells ready. Tomorrow is the day. Arabella—my cousin, you know—has figured out how to stop my aging process for one century. Pukai will handle everything else.”
Pukai? The name sounded familiar, but just then I couldn’t place it. Remembering our most recent conversation, I asked, “Who will take over as King of Adelboden?”
I glimpsed a brief flare of impatience in his eyes before his gaze lowered to my lips . . . “No need to worry about that,” he stated. “Not for a long time anyway.”
Even though I felt like putty in his grasp, I shook my head. “But . . . your subjects are sure to notice when their king never ages.”
He heaved a patient sigh. His hands slowly, gently sliding down my arms to grasp my hands made it difficult to think. “Maybe I’ll use stage makeup?” He grinned, but then his voice tightened: “I don’t know. I’ll find a way to make it work. Imagine the governmental stability of a hundred-year rule! My subjects love me; I’ve done great things for Adelboden. Everyone thinks so.”
His words only increased my concern. “I’m sure you’re a good king, but using magic to extend your rule seems like, well, an unfair advantage. Are your subjects aware that you’re a mage yet?”
“No.” He huffed, shifting his gaze from mine. “But it’s hardly an unfair advantage. My real life will be in limbo until you and I meet in your time. My mother unexpectedly passed away not long after our last meeting, and . . . I just . . . I can’t bear the thought of losing you too! Beatrice, for you it’s been just a few days, but for me it’s been years. Years of utter devotion, and I’m prepared to continue living like a monk for longer than a natural lifetime just so you and I can meet in your time and marry! How could that be considered an advantage?” His gaze was intense, compelling. “Please understand,” he pleaded, suddenly sounding like a child.
My mind spun. He wasn’t using magic on me, but the power of his words and will were concerning enough.
“Beatrice,”—his voice deepened further—“I cannot predict the exact date you’ll see me again, but it will be close to the time of this dream. Be looking for me.”
“But something must have gone—”
Eyes flaring wide, he vehemently shook his head, and his grip on my hands almost hurt. “No! No!” He sounded and looked both frightened and determined. Something like fire in his eyes and voice set my heart racing even faster. “Don’t tell me the future! If I knew, I might do something to alter it, and that could be disastrous.”
When I twisted my hands, he instantly released them, leaving behind the heat of his touch. “Oh! No, no, no! Did I hurt you?” He stood with his fingers outspread as if he were afraid to touch me again, and his lips moved as if seeking the right words to reassure me.
“No, I’m all right.” I rubbed my upper arms, trying not to shiver. “I promise to look for you. In the future.” I didn’t dare say more for fear I might accidentally ruin everything with a slip of the tongue. Maybe I already had. Or maybe he had. How could we know?
“You will? You’ll keep waiting?” Hope returned to his eyes, and he tugged and twisted his little finger. “I nearly forgot. This is for you.” He held out a dainty ring. “I’ve been prepared for a third meeting—magic tends to work in threes. It’s a promise ring.”
A promise ring? How could I promise him anything when I had no control over the future?
Nevertheless, with trembling fingers, I accepted it. White and red, its stones glittered against my palm. “It’s the most beautiful ring anyone could imagine.” I glanced up but couldn’t hold his burning gaze.
“Will you wear it to remember me?”
I slid it onto my right-hand ring finger. It fit perfectly. “Yes, but you know it will vanish when I wake up from this dream.”
“You’ll still have it. I know you will.”
When I looked up, I could see the wardrobe through his body. When I reached for him, my hand passed through his arm.
His expression mirrored my shock. “No! No, no! It’s too soon— Beatrice!” Even as he spoke, his voice faded into a distant echo: “Don’t forget: I love you!” I stared into his hopeful, anxious eyes until they vanished, then rushed to the wardrobe. But its mirror revealed only my own desolate face. “Niel,” I whispered.
I felt . . . numb.
Dazed, I climbed into bed, still fully clothed. Chicky rested her neck and head on the pillow beside mine, her feet still on the floor, and gently preened a lock of my hair as if it were a feather.
My bedside lamp was still on, but I’d dreamed of Niel, so I must have been asleep. “Was I sleep-walking?”
“No, Beeetrice was awake. You frightened the king.”
I sat bolt upright. “What are you saying?”
“Chicky helped you pull the king here.” She tugged my hair as if to illustrate how I’d pulled Niel’s hand. “But the past pulled him back.”
I flopped down on my pillow and turned to look directly into her eyes. “You helped him come into our time? With your dream magic? But how? I was awake!”
Looking smug, Chicky said, “I’m a golden griffin. I have day dream magic too.”
“Did he see you?”
“Maybe.”
I lay very still, trying to wrap my mind around the strangeness. “I’ve been dreaming about Niel because of you, even when you were still inside your egg! How did you know how to do it?”
“When you touched my shell, I see pictures of you, very young. You walked into the king’s time through your auntie’s magic gateway. So, I use your magic and mine to help you get more memories. I don’t think the king knows how I borrow his magic, but maybe.” She sounded slightly guilty. “He loves you, so I help him too, but I can’t tell you his secret.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I’m afraid his magic plan, whatever he was trying to do so that we could be together now . . . it didn’t work. Something must have gone wrong nearly a hundred years ago.” I swept my arm to indicate our surroundings. “And here we are in his dying palace.” I couldn’t bring myself to mention the Beast.
Chicky tilted her head, looking quizzical, then backed off my bed, retreated to the hearth, and settled down, heaving a massive, almost resigned-sounding sigh. “Chicky and Dodger do all we can to help him.”
My griffin said nothing more, and soon I heard a soft snore. Asleep that quickly? What a strange creature she was! I reached to switch off my lamp, but something on my hand twinkled in its light, and I froze, staring in disbelief. The promise ring was still on my finger. How could that be? Clenching my fist, I studied it up close. Maybe it had stayed with me because Chicky pulled Niel and the ring into my time?
Dainty diamonds framed an exquisite red stone. A ruby? An engraved pattern in the platinum setting of tiny twining vines and leaves completed the ring’s beauty. I knew little about jewelry, but I knew what I liked, and the ring was perfection. I pressed it to my lips and sighed, my heart quietly breaking.
If Niel’s plan had worked back then, he would be with me now. Or maybe the spell did work all those years ago, but Win’s story was accurate when she claimed some magical beast had been sent to kill King Siegfried III.
Even while my heart ached, relief flowed through me. Which made no sense at all.
Back in my days as Princess Eddi’s companion I’d thought of myself as the wise sidekick character. Ha! What a joke. Most of the time I didn’t know my own mind. Or heart.
Ever since our meeting in the palace library, I’d fought off a haunting suspicion that even if Niel did manage to cheat time and meet me in his distant future, his main objective would have been to rule his country beyond his natural lifespan, not to marry me.
But tonight, in person, he’d seemed so passionately devoted to me that I’d desperately wanted him to be my hero.
Did he really love me, or was I nothing more than a convenient means to an end?
If dithering were a competitive sport, I’d have shelves full of trophies.
My one faint comfort in all this mess was that my Gamekeeper had certainly not killed Niel or the palace servants. The Gamekeeper was kind and trustworthy. His magic had protected and sustained Faraway Castle all my life, and everyone who worked for him knew that he was good. Even the thought of him soothed my aching heart.
At that moment, I knew that I loved the Gamekeeper, beast though he was.
Strangely enough, it was not just friendship love—I was in love with him. I’d denied the truth—fought it tooth and nail for years. But the Gamekeeper was honorable, considerate, humble, and so many more virtues . . . He was the one person whose company I knew I could enjoy for the rest of my life. He would be a beloved friend rather than a husband in the usual sense, but I could live with that.
Niel had attracted me beyond anything I’d ever imagined, but he was the sort of man who must always have his way, win the prize. A potential tyrant.
Niel wanted me. I knew he’d become fond of me, but mostly I’d felt as if I were the prize he’d chosen to win or die trying. His love was possessive, demanding, and very flattering. But the Gamekeeper’s love was much deeper than passion.
“His love is everything I know love should be—kind, patient, selfless, forgiving, and so much more,” I whispered.
Chicky scrambled to her feet, wings thrashing, and huffed a quick breath. “Beeetrice love the Gamekeeper,” she stated.
I could only stare. “Have you been reading my mind?”
She shrugged her wings. “You allow me to read your thoughts, but you don’t want me to interfere. So, I don’t.”
“I . . . I couldn’t see the truth until just now.”
My griffin nodded wisely, the corners of her beak pulling up in a strange smile. “Beeetrice too full of fear to see anything real. You love the Gamekeeper. You should find him and tell him so before he dies.”
Arabella
I winced at Prince Briar’s question. “Yes, I suppose now is the right time to tell all. You must understand, I’ve repented and paid the price for my interference in world history for nearly a century now. All of us have.”
“We’re running out of time,” Rosa reminded me.
She was right. In the back of my mind, I sensed the renewed fury of the enemy’s attack. Even as we spoke, Faraway Castle’s borders were being pushed inward by a terrible magical assault as the Gamekeeper’s protections faded away. By the latest account, the enemy troops would soon reach the playing fields at the base of the castle’s magical gardens.
Every one of us was pouring magic into the defenses even as we talked and planned, and we all knew how outnumbered we were. Creatures from across the continent and beyond had come to take part in the destruction of the Trollkarl and the ascendancy of fay magic, with the bearer of the Mirror of Alviss ruling over all.
My mind knew that the crisis wasn’t entirely my fault, but my heart groaned over the extent of my responsibility. Memories of that fateful day still haunted my waking and sleeping hours.
“I had compiled the enchantments necessary to freeze the king’s aging process,” I began, my voice thin and cracking, “and Pukai was preparing spells to conceal our magic when Niel suddenly burst into our secret workshop beneath the mountains, exclaiming that this was the time, the only time it could be accomplished. To this day, I don’t know what upset him so much, but we went along with his pronouncement and prepared to cast our joint spell.”
I looked directly at each of my listeners in turn, then said, “Don’t ask.”
Every member of my small audience nodded in somber agreement before I continued. “I prepared and began the enchantment, with Pukai lending magic to anchor it. I had nearly completed applying the enchantment to Niel when he slipped something into it: an add-on that would allow him to keep ruling Adelboden while he waited for Beatrice to be born and grow up. If he’d asked us ahead of time to include it, we might not have quibbled—after all, merfolk royalty often rule for over a century. But his devious behavior startled and angered both of us, and we reacted simultaneously . . . not necessarily wisely.” To say the least.
“Which of you turned King Siegfried III into a Beast?” Rosa asked.
Omar and Ellie quietly gasped, but Briar added, “And which of you confined him here in the mountains?”
I swallowed hard, coughed, and blinked back tears for the first time in many decades. “I turned him into the Beast, using a curse not even his power could touch. Pukai confined him to these mountains. Faraway Castle and the Forbidden Lands were already Niel’s personal property, inherited from some branch of the family. It was Pukai’s idea to move the royal palace onto the Forbidden Lands, effectively ending the Kingdom of Adelboden. Several years later, when Niel chose to develop his family’s castle and its lands as a resort, Pukai placed Palau Kalah in Faraway Lake to remind him that she was always watching.”
“The capitol and other government buildings now stand on the property in Bludenz where the palace once stood.” Prince Briar said. “I toured them as a kid.”
“I don’t remember that tour,” his twin sister remarked.
“It was after the griffin stole you,” he informed Ellie, then turned to me and humbly said, “Please pardon my interruption, ma’am.”
I nodded, impressed by his unassuming manner. That young man had what it took.
But his twin was still curious. “What does the Gamekeeper look like?” she asked. “He always looks just shadowy to me.”
Ouch. I’d hoped no one would ask. “Well, he’s sort of a shifty lion-bear-man-thing.”
A startled silence followed.
“I was rather short-tempered that day,” I muttered.
Prince Briar deadpanned, “You don’t say?”
I suppose I had that coming.
Ignoring the jab, I resumed my confession. “In the years after the palace vanished, Adelboden became the republic we know now, but the people still invent legends about what happened to their young sovereign and his palace. The courtiers inside the palace at the time of the curse found themselves standing on a suddenly empty hillside covered in its native flora and fauna, but the loyal servants remain even now in the palace with their King, waiting with him for the curse to be broken.” I paused for a moment, thinking back. “I honestly don’t know how Pukai arranged it, but I believe their lives are somehow tied to his.”
“And what exactly does that mean?” Prince Omar inquired, as intently curious as the other three. “How can the curse be broken? How can these lives be recovered?”
I hesitated before attempting to articulate the convoluted situation in the least shocking way possible. “If the Beast reveals his true identity to anyone, he will die. So, his beloved must love him enough to accept his marriage proposal without knowing he is the king in beastly form. If she does agree to marry him, he will return to his human shape and resume aging at a normal rate for his natural lifespan. If she does not accept his marriage proposal before the one-hundred-year deadline ends, then he will die, along with all of the enchanted servants.”
Heavy silence ruled while they considered this revelation. Bitter shame flowed over me, and tears burned my eyes.
“When do the one hundred years end?” Rosa asked in a tone of deepest concern.
I grimaced. “I don’t remember the exact date or time, but it could be any day now. Pukai might know.”
Jaws dropped, and murmurs of dismay filled the room.
Prince Briar recovered first, and his intensely blue gaze bored into me. “In case everyone hasn’t entirely grasped the situation, I want to hear the truth directly from you, Lady Arabella. Please tell us: Are King Siegfried III and the Gamekeeper of Faraway Castle and the Trollkarl, as in, the mysterious sahir mage who with his wisdom and unmatched magic has maintained the balance of power throughout our world for many decades . . . Are they all the same person?”
“Yes.” My voice squeaked.
A fraught silence followed.
Briar cleared his throat and continued, “So, if and when the Gamekeeper dies, his magic that currently protects not only Faraway Castle but our world from invasion, war, and all manner of catastrophes will vanish?”
“Yes.” I could produce only a hoarse whisper.
“Why haven’t we been warned? We might have been preparing for this looming disaster for decades!” Anger laced Prince Omar’s usually mellow voice.
At that propitious moment, a new voice spoke into the tension-fraught room. “It’s my fault. I didn’t want anyone to know. A foolish choice, I know.”
“Pukai!” I leaped to my feet, flooded with relief. “You’re here!”
“Obviously. More to the point, I’ve brought along an army, and reinforcements from around the world are arriving.”