18 Zarev
We linger at The Missing Shoe for two more days, mostly because I can see in Rapunzel’s eyes that she’s hesitant to leave. Her statements last night were kind, but I’m not sure she acknowledges the weight of her decision.
Traveling around with Death by her own free will? Our time together would be spent finding the dead and sending them on, traveling to places of sorrow and fear. She’s light, and healing, and goodness, and taking her with me to find the dead not only feels cruel, but it’s a waste of the abilities she’s been granted.
Abilities I still don’t quite understand. That magic didn’t come from Midas alone, who can only kill, and no matter what I try to dig up on Dorah, it seems she only comes from a mundane life with no real magical ties. I don’t think Rapunzel’s healing side came from that wicked mother of hers.
For their part, Ray’s family tries and fails to not be nosy. Some of the younger siblings don’t know who Rapunzel is, but anyone Elsie’s age and older is in the loop. Dahlia hates lying to her children, so the princess’s identity is a shared secret amongst the family. So long as danger doesn’t come knocking at the door, it shouldn't be an issue.
I still think it was a mistake to tell Thomas, Genevieve, and Elsie, but they were all adamant things would be okay. Must be the cynic in me, but I have a bad feeling about it.
Elsie tries to entertain the princess the longer we’re here. She’s a little tough to get to know, much like Ray, but the two of them warmed to each other, making me worried about Rapunzel leaving the first friends she’s ever made more than I am that we’re going to have to move on soon.
Rapunzel is the opposite of the tavern children. Elsie is all curiosity pouring out of warm green eyes and a typical teenage attitude. At least Genny is humble, but Elsie is outspoken and sometimes pigheaded.
“You do look like someone I’d expect to meet from Tressa,” she says in a low voice, studying the princess. This is the third time they’ve had this debate. “Like, you’re so golden. Not skin-wise, I totally think you need to spend some time in the sun. But your hair is like silken rope. It’s so pretty.”
Giving her a bemused smile, Rapunzel pulls a section of hair over her shoulder. She stopped braiding it so tightly since we decided to stay here for an extended period, and I think she prefers to leave it free.
I trace a finger along my neck, reminding myself of the grip she had on me not long ago that made me come so damn hard. If I wasn’t already dead I would be worried about that, but there should be no reason that Death can sire children. I’m sure someone down the line would abuse that power. I’m simply satisfied to not have to concern myself with another problem.
“I bet this thing is a mean whip,” Elsie goes on, and my lip twitches. She has no idea how close she is to being accurate. “I heard a rumor that you can snap necks with it.”
Rapunzel chokes on her mead, and I hide a smirk behind my own mug. The rumors are rampant in the tavern right now, and every time we have sex, it’s known throughout the place. I’ve tried to keep her quiet, but short of knocking her unconscious, it isn’t going to happen.
That, and sometimes the loud grunts and moans come from me. Specifically if she’s choking me while she rides me.
Innocent princess, my ass.
Rapunzel blushes, and it’s cute that she still gets embarrassed by our antics. I don’t think she enjoys being watched but when we’re in our own little world, she truly comes alive. “Um, that’s an idea.”
Elsie winks when Thomas calls to her, getting up to head back to work. “It’s a good one too. I saw the red on Zarev’s neck last week. You go, girl. Make Death bow to you.”
Rapunzel is in danger of bursting to flames when Elsie walks off, and I have to cover my laughter by clearing my throat. Rapunzel looks one breath away from throwing her mead at me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she went through with it.
She’s gone back to tracking all the stories she’s learned and the princess's elegant penmanship fills countless notes upstairs in the room. Writing down stories turns them to legends, repeating the legends creates a myth, and the myths of the Grim Reapers are already abundant. If someone snatched her notes, it would get the rumors about the four of us soaring again, and any of that knowledge making its way back to the Mad Queen could have tragic consequences.
I just don’t have it in my heart to stop her. She’s only tried painting once with a few oil paints I picked up from wanderers, but the passion she used to cover the walls of her room isn’t there. Maybe because out here she doesn’t have to create her own world, she has the freedom to live in a real one.
Wiping her mouth, she tries to distract from Elsie’s joking words. “Umm, heard anything about Modred?”
I snort. Her guilty conscience will be her undoing if she isn’t careful. “No, Princess. His soul is wandering now. When we meet again he will likely be mad and hostile, a soul left to suffer. It’s my fault for not reaping him sooner-”
“You couldn’t,” she interrupts, but I just shake my head.
“I should’ve pushed harder to try. I was more concerned in protecting you, but letting another tortured soul loose in Mystica doesn’t help anyone. That’s someone else the Queen could try to manipulate and control if given the chance.”
Rapunzel nods seriously, dropping her gaze to her mead once more. Every time I tell her a story, the reality of Mystica sets in a little bit more. This isn’t a carefree world we live in, and Mystica is a long way from Happily Ever After. We fell off the train somewhere around Once Upon a Time, and we’ve been derailed ever since.
Rapunzel tosses back the last of her drink, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand again. I would pay a good bit of money to see the King and Queen’s reaction in Tressa to their daughter’s poor manners. I think she’s going out of her way to toss aside the lessons they tried to drill into her brain, and it’s nice to see her choosing a path for herself.
I grasp the mug, and she lets go with ease. I’ll miss the comfort of the tavern when we leave. “Refill, Princess?”
She nods, leaning back on her stool. I stand and head towards Thomas, my scythe a heavy weight along my back as I move. I never used to mind the reassuring weight before, but now the blade gets in the way of my activities with Rapunzel from time to time. If it wouldn’t be such a risk to leave it hiding with my shadows when it isn’t in use, I’d store it there. But it could take seconds too long to call the blade back to me, and precious lives could be lost.
I can’t risk that.
As Thomas fills our mugs again, Ray appears beside me. He leans against the bar, not speaking directly to me, and that’s a bad sign.
“There's some travelers coming through from the north,” he says. “They claim to have news from the guards who rode on Arthur's ship back to Camelot.”
“How?” I quirk a brow, keeping my eyes straight ahead. Camelot is days away with the Knights surrounding the Kingdom always on guard. It’s difficult getting in or out when Pendragon is constantly paranoid of someone usurping his throne. At least when he’s in Tressa that insecurity seems to disappear for a time. He’s too busy being a leech to the golden family to stress about his eternal reign over Camelot.
“Rumors carried in the wind,” he replies, glancing towards me. “There’s unrest in Camelot. Arthur was gone for too many days and nights, and they say he returned home with less hair and one missing nephew. His rage is centered on Tressa, and the royals of the land are taking notice.”
My eyes narrow. “The Mad Queen?”
“Supposedly she’s eyeing Tressa, but that’s little more than rumors. She would have to sail on the Endless Sea for almost two weeks to avoid the jagged rocks close to the shore of Mystica, and a sneak attack on the water is impossible. The kingdom would see it coming. To go by land, she’d have to cut through Thornton Palace, and Lucius would let us know immediately if the Queen tried to breach his lands. Camelot might let her pass without issue, but she would raise hell here in Sherwood until she reached the wall.”
And even if she did reach it, there’s no guarantee a breach would occur. The Golden Wall has lasted through my entire life and well into my death. Rapunzel’s never known a time the wall wasn’t there. It’s powerful, and the Queen would need to kill many to get inside.
I don’t know if she would waste the manpower traveling from the far north to one of the southernmost kingdoms in Mystica. It would be easier on her troops to wait until Camelot loses its cool and tries to seize Tressa. That would kill fighters on both sides and she wouldn’t need to do any dirty work.
My jaw flexes. Knowing the Queen’s underhanded attacks, that will be the route she chooses. Self preservation is one of her top priorities.
“Just rumors, of course,” Ray goes on, looking around the tavern again. “Merchants were spreading the word to people along the paths in Sherwood just north. I hid in the shadows and eavesdropped, but they shared nothing more of value.”
Thomas slides the mugs back in front of me, and I grip both handles tightly. “So why tell me?”
“Because there’s unrest in the forest. You see it every time we hunt. The Flowerborne keep surging from the Red Woods. Either something is happening in the garden and the Mad Queen is trying to force Legs to follow another harebrained idea, or the poisoned earth is starting to fight back. More Flowerborne could mean more casualties along the paths in the forest.”
I think back to the gingerbread house and the terrifying moments after I arrived, thinking the mimicking plants already skinned and roasted the princess. Those beasts were corrupted by the darkness in the soil they grew from, and consuming mortal flesh is one of the most obvious signs of madness.
We’re supposed to eat the plants, not the other way around. It’s a twisted parallel, one that I hate to consider. Those Flowerborne have blood on the brain, and until you either behead or crisp them, it’s hard to be rid of them.
Glancing back to Rapunzel, I think of her golden hands. There wasn’t time to talk back in the gingerbread house, but she’s trying to learn and channel her powers with Genny now. She might be able to torch the Flowerborne the next time we cross paths,
I sigh. The problems in Mystica never end. “Who started the rumors?”
“Some guard on the ship. He called his wife from Vail. Says the princess set fire to the kingdom and killed Arthur’s nephew.”
Well, it isn’t entirely incorrect. “Arthur is going to try and make Tressa look bad. Blaming the princess throws everything people know about Tressa into question. At least no one knows what she looks like I suppose.”
Raymundo stares back towards our table. “The rumors will do their job, brother. She looks like gold and has that sweet, innocent thing going. Look at all that hair. People will put things together the more the rumors spread.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s why we’ve overstayed our welcome in the tavern.
“There’s no rumor yet of Midas retaliating,” he continues, pushing from the bar. “But ma does want to speak with you. Let me take the princess her next drink.”
My brows pitch high. I like Dahlia, and in a lot of ways she’s like a second mother to me. But we rarely chat in private since most of my matters are nearly identical to the issues Ray faces. “Me?”
“Yes, shadow boy.” I glare at him when Ray laughs. “She wanted to show you something.”
I sigh, turning to wave at Rapunzel before moving back towards the office. She frowns briefly before Ray makes his way over and her frown turns into a brilliant grin. At least she won't be bored while I’m gone.
All the rumors floating around Mystica are creating contradictory stories. Some claim the princess is dead, some claim she’s in a love affair with Death, others claim she was dead all along and the royals pretended she was among the living. None of them are quite right, and if our luck holds, no one will figure out how to put all the pieces together until we leave the tavern.
It might have to be by tonight if things get any worse. I’ve had Rapunzel keep her things ready to go for a couple days, itching to leave but not ready to take her from the first place she seems happy. Back on the roads in Sherwood, we’ll be in danger again.
I pat my breast pocket as I knock on the office door. Ray gave me some more pixie dust, but the stuff is in short supply. Who knows when another Lost Boy will willingly betray Peter to pass along more. This is all I’ll have for a good long while.
“That you, Zarev,” Dahlia calls from inside, and I push open the door. She’s in the middle of some reorganizing, one side of her desk clear for once as she looks at a thick stack of envelopes.
I give her a soft smile when she looks up. “Ray says you want to see me?”
“Ah, yes,” Dahlia replies, shifting through the stack of letters. Some have yellowed with age, others look pretty new. It reminds me of the traveler's log. “Your Rapunzel-”
“She isn’t my anything, Dahlia.”
The old woman looks up, giving me a bemused grin. “Uh, huh, sure. Rapunzel read the log recently, as you know. She mentioned one story…” Dahlia trails off as she continues flipping through the stack. “She said it was about a woman who was a mistress.”
“It’s not that uncommon,” I say, surprised she’d point out a detail like that. Mistresses are common across Mystica, and more recently I’ve heard of kept men who play with the wives outside of relationships too. It sounds messy, and I have more than enough to deal with to not care to be involved in a mess like that.
Dahlia waves a hand, grabbing a few envelopes from the stack. “It got me thinking.”
“About?”
From the stack she hands over three envelopes she pulled, sliding them into my hand. They don’t have a name on them, they are just numbered 1 to 3. “These. I remember a woman once who wrote these during various stays here at the tavern.”
I blink. “I’m not following, Dahlia.”
My second mom sighs, looking at me like she sometimes does her own children. “Give these to Rapunzel to read. She mentioned a Lady Tremaine, and I know it’s been many moons since that woman traveled through but it got me thinking. Sometimes people leave letters or documents that are separate from the log, so I store them in case someone comes looking for their loved ones. Writing has power, it tells the story when we cannot. And that Tremaine woman was someone’s mistress.”
“Charming.”
She looks one step away from slapping me in the head. “Listen to me, Zarev. That woman was stark raving mad when she came through here. It was almost three decades ago when the tavern was just starting to take off. She looked starved, her cheeks hollow and her eyes sunken, but I remember her clothes. For being so frail she wore a cloak spun with golden thread, and when she couldn’t pay for the rooms she gave me a golden ring without question. That ring paid for our food and mead for a solid three months.”
My eyes widen. I don’t remember ever hearing about this woman, but depending on when the timelines add up I might’ve already been bitten by that point. I really didn’t associate with any friends directly after the attack, and my family died so soon after that everything is a blur. “You think she was from Tressa?”
Dahlia leans in, grasping my hand over the scars. “I’m positive. It was after the wall, but some citizens from Tressa escaped. They all ranted about the tyrannical rule of Midas. But this woman seemed to bask in the tales of the Murder King. She loved those stories. Her eyes would glow, and I remember she’d spend long hours sitting in the tavern at night trying to eavesdrop on some of the stories that came through. I think she even slept with a few of the men to gain more information from them.”
“You think…” I shake my head, the idea seeming preposterous. “You think this woman slept with Midas ?”
“I think there’s a good chance she was close to the Golden King,” Dahlia corrects with a shrug. “She kept to herself, so I didn’t do much digging, and I was bitter about Tressa at the time. I didn’t want to hear anyone praise the king who would torture with gold.”
That sounds right. Dahlia usually has nothing nice to say about Tressa. She remembers the kingdom before the wall, and even though she’s told all of us many times that she never visited the kingdom, Midas’ torture was legendary. People wanted to flee from the kingdom before he made that impossible.
That was part of the push to go check on the kingdom when the dead didn’t rise. It didn’t start immediately when the wall went up, but over the years less dead appeared until they stopped altogether. That isn’t natural.
“Rapunzel’s words got me thinking is all,” she continues, dropping the rest of the envelopes back on her desk. “I’ve never seen the woman since, and I think she might be gone from this world. If she did have a connection to Midas, and the princess had no idea she exists…”
“She’s dead,” I agree. “Or sent away from the castle. Many kings mess around and banish the mistress when they are through.”
Dahlia gives a sharp nod. “I’m aware. But Rapunzel felt for the woman. If she’s from Tressa, maybe there’s a connection that the princess can resonate with.” She shrugs, dragging a hand over her face. “It might not do any good, or it could be beneficial. I think I read these once, but so many people leave so many letters and notes it’s hard to remember. And this was long ago. She’s lucky that Tremaine stuck out to me.”
Nodding, I slide the letters into a pocket opposite my hand blade. I’ll hand them off in the room. People might not come up and talk to the princess, but she draws a lot of attention. If there’s someone out there who recognizes her, or someone who is following her for the King, then we should be careful. I don’t need anyone assuming these letters are recent and jump to conclusions.
There’s enough of that going around.
I’ve just turned back to the door when the triplets rush in, carrying between them the youngest baby and a chubby, sleeping toddler. “Ma!”
Saul. He’s the most outspoken of the three. Steven and Sammie are quieter, willing to stand back when their brother is worked up.
Dahlia scoots from behind the desk, and I crouch down in front of the three. They are young, young enough the terror in Saul’s voice is real. “Boys! What is it?”
The triplets peer up at their mom, the brave force against a never ending storm. “Ray said we had to come back here. Some men collapsed outside. They are bleeding really bad.”
“From Village Three,” Steven supplies, and I remember that it’s a puny, unmarked village a few hours from here. Less than fifty people live there, in houses spread so far apart claiming it’s a village is a stretch.
“Says the Flowerborne attacked,” Sammie breathes, looking up at us. He’s the most soft spoken of the three, and he looks close to tears. I worry that gentle heart will be destroyed when he can no longer hide in the shelter of the tavern.
“Flowerborne,” Dahlia gasps, turning to me. I nod, already knowing what must happen next. “An attack on my home? Absurd! Where are your siblings?”
“Genny went outside with Thomas,” Saul says again, muscling the toddler in his arms. “Elsie is getting all of us down to the bunker to hide. Ray just checked that the walls are secure.”
I remember the bunker. Dahlia put blood, sweat and tears into the structure when we were very young, before her other kids were born, claiming we needed somewhere safe if the Flowerborne tried to attack.
“Good,” she barks, grabbing two of them to spin them around. “All of you, downstairs. Get into the weapons cabinet if you must, but we hold our own here, boys. No one gets into The Missing Shoe and lives to tell the tale.”
I help Dahlia shoo the kids away, eyeing them as they hurry to the back and downstairs to a bunker that’s infused with magic and love. It’ll hold through any storm.
Strong fingers dig into my arm, and Dahlia drags me down into her face. “Get that princess and run.”
“We can help-”
“No,” she snaps, stepping back. “The Flowerborne could be scouts. If they see a princess of gold and a Reaper, it will be obvious who the two of you are. We can skate under the radar most times, but if Midas is at all looking for his child, the rumors will explode if the Flowerborne find you here. The both of you need to go. Surely you’re strong enough to shadow hop to safety, boy?”
My skin pricks. That sounds like running away, something I cannot stand doing. “Let Rapunzel hide with the kids and guard them. I can help.”
Dahlia pauses, placing her hands on her hips. “Don’t disrespect that girl by hiding her with the children. She’s strong Zarev, we both know it. Stronger than she can possibly know. The two of you will be fine so long as you leave now. If the Flowerborne are coming this way and pummeling through villages, they’re searching for something. Even if the two of you aren’t on their radar, you don’t need to be.”
I hate that she’s right. My instinct is to stand with my brother and my family and protect them. But if it does more harm than good I won’t be able to live with myself.
She shakes a finger at me. “Go. Take the bags we both know you packed and run.”
“Where?” I snap, flying through my options. I don’t have a plan where to take Rapunzel next. It’s part of the reason we’re still here at the tavern.”
Reaching forward, Dahlia fists my shirt and drags me down to her level. “That girl has the Golden Touch, doesn’t she? She glows like sunlight and heals like a balm. She burns brightly and can hurt those who hurt her. She’s resilient. She rises with the flames.”
I shake my head. Dahlia sounds nuts. “And?”
“And, my boy, she has the kind of crazy that comes with power untapped. You know the last place I saw something so pure it glowed golden no matter the time of day.”
My eyes narrow, but I know what she’s hinting at. The most colorful, bizarre, life altering place in Mystica.
“The Butterfly Garden.”
Rapunzel struggles to hold on when we hop. I dragged her back to the room despite her protest, forcing the bag Dahlia gave her across her back without so much as a goodbye to the family. She’s enraged about that and rightly so, but right now I need to make sure that agents of the Mad Queen don’t spot us hiding at the tavern.
She does understand that, though, no matter how angry she is. Once we’re ready with our packs, I pull her body to mine and wrap us in the shadows.
Hopping through the dark is a bit like diving into water with your eyes open. It’s a mad rush, leaving you feeling disoriented and a little off balance when you resurface. I can hop between the shadows across the land, and each time I touch down in a spot it’s like being shoved back beneath the waves.
Rapunzel’s grip is fierce as we move. Putting space between us and the tavern is the only way to ensure one of the Flowerborne doesn’t follow. It’s hard to catch a shadow, and I hop for several minutes before stopping north of the tavern, miles and miles separating us from the others.
She gasps when we stop, shoving away from me to be sick in the trees. I didn’t give her warning, not when I heard the inhumane screech of the Flowerborne just outside the tavern. Part of me wants to leave her safely here and go back, but that’s just unreasonable. Anything could happen out here in the forest.
When she recovers, she spins on me and shoves away the water flask I try to hand her. “You didn’t even let me say goodbye!”
“There wasn’t time.”
“They need us!” she argues, shoving me. Her hands are hot to the touch, and that power within threatens to bubble over. “They need you! We have to go back.”
“That is more dangerous for everyone.”
“Screw the danger!” she seethes, glaring at me. “Those things scream like the dead. They are going to seize the tavern-”
“That won’t happen-”
“Kill the occupants-”
“Ray will never allow that-”
“And ruin the place!” she finishes, fisting her hands. “And you just left them there!”
I sigh, rocking back on my heels. How to explain to her that Dahlia needed us to go?
She spins away, crossing her arms as she paces. “They deserve our help. Not your cowerdance.”
“You know that isn’t it,” I snap.
“Then take us back!”
I shake my head, and it looks like I might be in danger of getting burned. “The best thing we can do is not put a target on their backs. Right now it’s just a tavern with civilians. With a missing princess and a wayward Reaper on the premises, the tavern would quickly become a place of tyranny.”
“But I ran away from Midas!”
I blow out a breath. “I don’t think that matters to the Flowerborne, Rapunzel.”
She opens her mouth to say more but I see the moment the fire in her eyes diminishes; there’s nothing else she can say. As much as it pains me, we would be more of a burden staying at the tavern than we are leaving. We’ve already had a run in with the Flowerborne before, and we don’t need to make a habit of it. We should be lying low.
I glare up at the sky, the sun still high and mocking us. I can keep shadow hopping, but so long as the gold in my chest aches I can only go so far. I’m about ready to start carving the gold out of my chest to speed the process along.
“They need you,” she grumbles, sinking down to the ground. Leaves crunch beneath her knees as she sits. “You’re powerful. You could help.”
“Don’t discredit the others. You’ve never seen Dahlia with a frying pan. Magic or not, she’s almost as dangerous as Raymundo when it comes to her children. She’ll shoot an arrow or stab with a sword if it means protecting her babies.”
Rapunzel glances up at me. “But you could help.”
“Or I could make it worse. Admit it. This is where we need to be, no matter how much we hate it.”
She throws her head back, the long strands of hair spilling around her like golden streams. She hasn’t wrapped the hair around my neck except that one time, and I almost ask her to do it now. Anything to distract from the moment.
A sudden growl echoes around us, and I reach for my scythe. When I look at Rapunzel, ready to protect her from whatever has us in its sights, I still. She has her arms wrapped around her middle, her cheeks turning red. I grin, lowering my weapon. “Are you hungry?”
She scowls. “It seems like an inappropriate time to bring that up since we’re running.”
I sigh, looking around. Berries aren’t the only thing that grows in this forest, and after pulling on her arm for a moment, she stands and follows me.
A few minutes later, I reach out and pluck down a plum. Her eyes widen, looking from the tree to the fruit and back again. “You just knew where this was?”
“I know what to look for,” I correct, handing it off before sitting beneath the tree. I dig out the seeing stone, waving a hand over the flat surface as Rapunzel slides in beside me.
“This again?” I’ve shown her the stone here and there over the last few weeks, but everytime I try to use it, no one’s ever available. I really only use mine to communicate with the other Reapers, and with Legs once upon a time. She hasn’t answered on a stone in a long time, and I’m beginning to think hers is missing. She’d sooner throw it in the river than risk someone finding it.
“We can see if Ray will show us what’s happening,” I explain. “I briefly did that for him when I was walking through Tressa, but since I didn’t find anything of interest out in the town, he didn’t ever have anything fun to watch. It was harder in the castle. So much gold… it reflected weirdly in the stone. It’s hard to see that way.”
Her eyes dance over the stone, tracing it with her finger. “Will it distract him?”
“If Ray can’t answer, he won’t. It’s possible there won’t be much fighting; half of the Flowerborne don’t know how to do much more than move.”
“So we ran away for nothing,” she grumbles.
“No, it was time to move on.”
She bites her lip but doesn’t say more, and I use the time to try and connect. I could reach out for Ban or Lucius and see if they have any news, but Lucius is startling to see and Ban is difficult to deal with at the best of times.
The stone flashes, indicating that my message is being seen. A moment later Elsie appears on the smooth surface, one eyebrow raised. “I bet Ray it would take less than an hour for you to check in.”
She doesn’t look hurt, or even winded and I feel a small sense of relief flooding through me. “And?”
Elsie shrugs, “You should see this.”
She shifts around on her side of the stone, and Rapunzel scoots close enough she’s almost in my lap. I keep an ear out around us, letting my shadows rise up and lock us in a protective bubble while Elsie moves around.
When she shifts the stone, we’re looking at Raymundo and Dahlia. They are out front, a few tradesmen standing nearby, and Elsie must move around to be less obvious because the scene moves a little further away.
But the voices are clear.
“No one walks into my lands and wrecks the place,” Dahlia snarls, hands on her hips. “You’re scaring the little ones and all my guests! I should turn you into a centerpiece.”
There are three Flowerborne on the ground, one lacking a face but their leaves and stems move, and two more than remind me of the half-human versions from the gingerbread house.
“We is following the Queen’s needs,” the middle flower says, a bright peony with a face that reminds me of a girl, her cheeks a brighter pink and her eyebrows made out of the petals. “She is looking for the girl of golden thread.”
I blink, and Rapunzel nearly rips the stone from my hands. “They are looking for me!”
“Shh!”
“No girl like that here,” Raymundo says easily, and I watch as he twirls an arrow. They’ve either dispatched the rest already, or this is all that made it through the woods to the tavern. A few people might’ve panicked seeing them this deep in the woods, but a fresh Flowerborne with no skills is easy to kill. “Just us travelers and tavern keepers.”
“You be a Reaper,” the third flower says, this one a bright yellow. The voice sounds male, but the face is impossible to make out at this distance.
Ray chuckles. “That I be. We have no girl of gold. And you have no right trespassing here.”
“The Queen demands-”
“The Queen doesn’t govern this land!” Dahlia cries, and there’s a chorus of cheers that follow her words. “Sherwood forest has no true ruler. This is a land for the people. And we don’t need the Mad Queen’s influence here.”
“You will have it. Yes, yes,” the pink one says, bobbing its top-heavy head. “You will have it, you will see. The Golden Girl will have to die, indeed.”
I raise a brow. The rhyming is new. All that really tells me is this is probably a different patch of flowers from the last rogue plants we saw. They all seem to have different personalities.
“No Golden Girl,” Ray reminds, catching the arrow in his hand to prod at the plant. It hisses and stumbles backward to avoid the arrowhead. “What, little plant? Scared of Death?”
“Death has no power here!” the Flowerborne cries, its face twisting in disgust. “You have no power!”
Dahlia clicks her tongue, and it’s clear the two of them are in charge of this interrogation. “Tell your Queen to stop invading our lands. We don’t need mutant flowers and vengeful Queens.”
“Gives us the girl, and we leave,” the yellow plant argues, trying to rise up on its stems. It looks like someone slashed through them, and the plant is too weak to support itself. It stumbles forward and remains facedown, the pink one and the faceless plant ignoring it.
“They aren’t going to help it,” Rapunzel breathes in my ear.
“The Flowerborne don’t care for their companions like you and I,” I explain. “They grow from and out of the dirt, developing qualities no plant should have. Their emotional range is limited. These ones rhyme. The last ones you saw were blood thirsty and eating body parts. These aren’t creatures of passion. They are menaces at best.”
She doesn’t argue with me, and the middle flower holds up leafy arms. They haven’t tried to take on the qualities of a mimic, lunging forward to grab and attack either of my friends. Instead, they seem set on staying in their leafy forms. “Please! We look for the Golden Princess of Tressa. Queen says she’s here, over the wall so tall. She will be the vengeance we sought, great and small.”
“No princess here,” Dahlia snaps, waving her hands towards some of the traders standing nearby. “Here. Have these or drag them back into the woods to crawl somewhere else. We don’t need riddles.”
The tavern owner moves to walk back to the building, but the faceless Flowerborne reaches out and grips her arm. The bulbous head tilts back, opening up, like a flower in bloom.
A disembodied voice speaks, sending chills down my spine.
“They locked her in the tower, and grew out all her hair. They laid a trap so perfect, and lured us to the snare. A princess so kind, no one would contend. That to end the tyranny of a King, her life we must end.”
Rapunzel reaches for the stone, and I snatch it back before she can grip it in her hands. Ray’s voice carries through. “The princess of Tressa is a mystery. One who hasn’t visited here. If she is the key to ending the Golden King, we wouldn’t stop that demise.”
Her shoulders stiffen, but I think it’s more from surprise than terror. Her love for her parents dwindles by the day.
Turning the stone back, the flower that recited the riddle wilts over and dies, the black stem and dried up head breaking apart. The middle flower wilts, looking between its two still friends.
The pink face turns back up, looking between Dahlia and Ray. “The Queen will have the walls fall down. Fall down! Then the kingdom Tressa will be forever known.”
There needs to be more words to that, but the flower gives up, falling forward as well. The greens of its body turn brown then black, and in a few short minutes all three Flowerborne are dead.
She’s shaking her head at my side, looking ready to get up and run. “What’s happened?”
“They were messengers,” I grumble, tapping the smooth face of the stone. The images disappear, and I’m sure I will hear from Ray soon. “That’s why they crept so far into Sherwood. They were to deliver that riddle.”
“But why? Did they know I was there?”
“Does it matter? If there’s any question of the chain of connections, it’s been dashed. Arthur of Camelot must have shared something with the Mad Queen, or an informant from his crew did. For a person of Tressa to get news back to the Mad Queen would be almost impossible. Someone leaked your kingdom’s secrets back to the Queen. She must know that you’re somewhere outside the walls. And they want you.”
Rapunzel’s hands move to her hair, gripping at the strands like she does when she’s nervous. “So… the Mad Queen is looking for me.”
“No,” I say, glaring off into the distance. “Didn’t you listen to the end of the riddle? The Mad Queen is petitioning for your death, and she’s sending the message on a bed of lies.”