Chapter 4 The Tale of Enzo the Fool
The Tale of Enzo the Fool
Demelza and her sisters loved Hush Manor and Hush Manor loved them back.
It had always been a restless and roving place, but when the chirping sounds of Araminta’s brood echoed over its stones, the Manor discovered a new purpose.
For the first time, the Manor did not shuffle through the moors, but swayed, for it noticed that a certain movement lulled the girls to sleep.
It tried to shush them the way Araminta did, but its stones made an awful groaning sound and so it quickly abandoned all thoughts of lullabies.
For the girls, the Manor sprouted ballrooms spangled with snowflakes and banisters made for sliding and animated the dim and dusty armories where the bones of ancient knights genuflected and leapt to play.
Prava liked to say that Hush Manor was the only domicile of its kind … but this was not entirely true. On the other side of the impenetrable mists surrounding the Silent Lakes loomed Hush Manor’s twin: Rathe Castle.
Rathe Castle was the ancestral seat of the royal family descended from the line of Enzo the Fool. Prava himself had built Rathe Castle for the royals, although he had done so under significant duress and therefore liked to pretend it didn’t exist at all.
Prava could spy into time itself and soar into the clouds with a snap of his fingers.
But he could never—ever—step foot onto or spy into Rathe Castle without an invitation.
And since he had—more than once—expressed a desire to wipe out the monarchy and install himself as ruler, he was never invited.
Banishment from the court had been a fair price to operate the Silent Lakes district independent of royal meddling.
“I could rule this entire place and do it far better than those fools,” Prava would mutter darkly.
“Then why don’t you, Papa?” Demelza had asked.
“Alas, my love … no one but the royal family may sit on the throne, and it’s all thanks to Enzo the Fool,” Prava would say, practically spitting the name.
Centuries had scrubbed the truth down to a tale, but for all the twists and flourishes the poets had added over the years, only one piece was never disputed.
When Enzo found the Isle of Malys, he was greeted by the Isle’s reigning witch queen. Or perhaps she was a goddess. Such differentiation depended on who did the telling of the tale. Whoever she was, she fell in love with Enzo, and in return for his hand in marriage, Enzo extracted a boon.
As the Isle’s magic was tied to the throne, Enzo asked that only the male descendants of his line could sit upon it.
The boon demanded so much magic that the witch was forced to give up her own name, but she was in love and no sacrifice was too great.
Such a magic, however, could not take place without a contingency.
Enzo was powerful, but he was only mortal, and if one of his line died without an heir then the Isle would be ruined.
Perhaps Enzo could have expanded the conditions of his boon, allowing only those of his line and their consorts to sit upon the throne, but Enzo was a heartless man.
He sweetened his words and clarified his boon thusly:
“Only my male descendants or whomever possesses their hand and heart in marriage.”
The sea witch, still besotted, granted his boon. Time passed and Enzo waited until she had borne him a few children before attempting to divorce her and banish her from the Isle. The sea witch was, understandably, enraged.
“It was I who gave you your power,” she said. “Repent and perhaps there will be hope for you yet.”
“All the power is mine,” Enzo laughed.
“That is not so,” pointed out the sea witch. “The power also resides in whoever possesses your hand and heart in marriage.”
“My hand you have, but my heart has never been yours.”
“Is that so, husband?” The sea witch then promptly cut out his heart. “Well, now I have both.”
Thus the magic was hers.
From that point on, marriage became a matter of life and death for the royal family.
The gentry of the Isle often fought for the hand of Enzo’s descendants, but once someone had it, they rarely wasted any time going straight for their heart.
Everyone possessed two lives, but the first lives of the male descendants of Enzo the Fool were famously short.
Nothing would have delighted Prava more than being able to send one of his own daughters as a potential bride, but it was impossible. Only the sons and daughters of the gentry were considered eligible partners for the descendants of Enzo. Prava found the whole thing very offensive.
“Our daughters are beyond aristocracy! They are magic! It is insulting!” he would say.
“The stones of Rathe Castle and Hush Manor taunt me terribly … They whisper, you know, for siblings talk and such. They say that the latest royal sapling is gentle as a petal and searching for true love! Arris, I think he is called. Ha. Our daughters could have slurped out his trembling heart before the royal crown could even warm the boy’s head! ”
The only thing greater than Prava’s anger with the royal family was the pride he felt for his daughters.
Seventeen years had passed since the girls had hatched and they had all but conquered many of the Isle’s neighboring kingdoms from across the seas, seizing treasure and magics and sending these riches back to Hush Manor along with bags of candied local insects for Araminta and coins for Prava, who fancied himself an amateur numismatist.
With each land his daughters conquered, Prava pieced together the spell for immortality.
From the island winds where Eulalia ruled and the shifting deserts that Euphemia pillaged, Prava stole half the spell.
From the whispering caves of a lost land where Evadne seduced and the dusty library of a forgetful god where Eustacia connived, Prava wrenched the secrets of the spell’s second half.
From the enchantments of Dulcinea’s baleful song and Corisande’s soul-searing lament, Prava knew how the spell wished to be spoken.
Now all that was left was the sacrifice.
It was here that Demelza hoped—needed—to shine.
Language and stories were her specialty and it was she who realized the spell had been written in an ink distilled of midday sunshine and thus could only be performed when the sun was at its peak.
She had also been the one to deduce that the material upon which the spell was written was not vellum cured from the pelt of a white fawn, but winter moonlight reflected on the snow.
One could only read the spell wearing the very same fabric, and missing that detail could have been disastrous.
Prava had been so proud of her. Should you ever doubt yourself, my little one, remember that wings are no match for wisdom.
The words glowed through her entire being.
Everything was nearly ready for Prava’s spell. Everything except the sacrifice in question. A sacrifice of a _______ born of _______ and beast.
No matter what Demelza did, she could not coax out the missing words. Someone had injured the sentence, and so it often collapsed from the mere stress of being observed.
For the past year, Prava had been even more obsessed than usual and spent long hours in his study trying to decipher the sentence.
Demelza wanted her father to succeed, but in her heart of hearts, she wished to be the one to offer the missing piece.
Perhaps then her mother would finally let her live.
Demelza was the last of her sisters to remain in the nest, and if Araminta had her way, perhaps she would never leave.
“You seem rather despondent. Did you get another letter?”
Demelza turned to see the library wyvern at her feet.
The wyvern did not look like a dragon. It looked, if anything, like a rabbit.
But a rabbit with a long, scaled tail made of writing quills and who occasionally huffed out smoke.
The wyvern’s fur was the color of yellowed parchment.
Its paws were ink black, and wherever it hopped, it left behind lines of poetry.
The only hint of its dragon self lay in the eyes, which resembled banked fires and ancient gold.
Prava had hired the wyvern as his personal librarian when it was little more than a hatchling.
It had been cast out of its horde for collecting books instead of gold out of the belief that knowledge was a far greater treasure to possess.
Demelza agreed, though why it had chosen to take on the form of a rabbit made little sense to her.
Books are very flammable, the wyvern once told her. And rabbits are delicious.
The wyvern hopped closer, tapping an inky paw on a stack of correspondence.
“You did get a letter,” it said.
Demelza managed a weary smile. “Corisande’s latest report. Shall I read it?”
The wyvern rose up on its hind legs, nodding eagerly. Demelza sighed. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it. She had no desire to go down and see her mother. In fact, she didn’t wish to see anyone.
The library had sensed her mood and cinched the room tight like the drawstrings of a purse.
At the moment, the walls of books spiraled up and up, their end point obscured by the webs of fire spiders, whose intricate nests cast a soft glow on the rich green carpets and golden tables piled high with Demelza’s abandoned teacups and notebooks.
Until last year, it had just been Corisande and Demelza left in the nest. Demelza had selfishly hoped that Corisande might never molt but then one day she woke up and saw a pile of brown feathers on the floor of the nest. The next morning, Corisande was sent off to a faraway desert to serve in the court of a young queen as her personal secretary and spy. Demelza read the letter aloud: