34 Raymundo
I know without saying a word that Zarev doesn’t want to be here. Dragging him away from Rapunzel’s side is next to impossible, and while I’m happy my friend found some peace with the princess, we will only be gone for the day.
There isn’t much to do in Tressa. This is my first visit to the Golden Kingdom, and it’s rather unremarkable with every occupant dead. We checked the village as soon as we arrived, and true to Midas’ words we found no one living. Their souls were gone, all the bodies crumbled and broken throughout the village. This was a mass murder.
All for the greed of a King.
I kick a stone, the small, shattered piece skittering across a half-constructed hallway. Zarev is down in the gardens, a blip in the distance where I left him, and I’m just wasting time as he observes whatever it is that’s caught his attention.
Maybe this place was marvelous before the royals died, but now it’s a sad excuse for something that should be amazing. The gold is missing in large part all around the kingdom, and even Midas’ golden hand is gone. Someone cut it off at the wrist, doing a bad job separating his flesh from the gold so it looks like a hack job.
I look down into the garden again. Zarev’s spending a strange amount of time with a gigantic rose, and after he muttered about Legs, I stopped questioning him. That woman has more magic than she knows what to do with. I wouldn’t be surprised if the crushed flower twists back to life and eats him while he stares.
It would be a very Wonderland move.
Kicking another chunk of stone, my foot catches on something beneath. I have no idea where I am supposed to be in the castle, but this room seems to be some weird space between levels, almost like it had been hidden.
Bending, I tuck my bow and arrows back into their spots on my back. Unlike the ungodly size of Zarev’s scythe, my weapons can blend in and are easy to store. I never envied the weapon he chose to fashion back in Wonderland.
Pulling the item free, I glare down at the title of a book that’s been partially crushed by the crumbled castle. Into the Looking Glass.
Curiously, I start fanning through the book as I stand. The spine is broken and the front cover pulled most of the way off the binding. Someone took incredibly poor care of this book even before the castle came down on it.
The book makes no more sense when I open it, the table of contents in the front just a confusing mess:
Fountain of Youth
Swanling Lake
Pool of Truth
Lake Wonderland
The list goes on, making even less sense. Swanling is the unofficial name of the lake in Swan Lake. I’ve seen it countless times, usually when the princess of the kingdom is busy trying to shoo me away.
She’s a curious creature. Once upon a time we were friends, but we grew up and she stopped speaking to me. Then I died, and she had to keep living her life.
Now we rarely speak, the princess hiding her life behind a tangled web of lies.
“Doing some light reading?”
I snap the book closed as Zarev approaches. His hands are tucked in his pockets, his blade across his back. He looks tired, and I’m sure I do, too. There might be less spirits in the kingdom than expected, but that doesn’t mean the numbers are small. We’ve seen a great many dead today, all of whom came from distant lands. None of the spirits were ever occupants in Tressa.
Tucking it into my cloak, I shrug. “I found it.”
Zarev stares for a moment, his haunting red-orange eyes seeming to try and burn a hole through my cloak like he wants the book back. But he shakes his head, pacing past me. “One more check around the fountain and we can head back.”
“No one’s coming through,” I tell him, thinking of the mostly dry pool. It was leaking out, and Zarev advised against touching the water. If it’s cursed with gold, I have no interest in getting touched by it.
“Can’t hurt to check.”
I scoff, shaking my head before he jogs and jumps, slipping into the shadows. We can shift in this form but it’s faster to jump from one shadow to the next if you want to get someplace quickly. I sigh and follow him, ready to get on my way back to the tavern.
Ma will worry like she always does if I’m late, and I know my siblings stress if I’m away for a long time. It’s simply one of the burdens of being the oldest.
Zarev does a quick sweep of the clearing when we reach it. The guard who had been a rabbit is still lying there, the air heavy with death. And despite his searching, the so-called Cheshire cat is missing too.
Tressa belongs to the dead now and her secrets seem to have died with the royals.
I blow out a breath, watching Zarev’s eyes sweep the space once more. “We won’t find anything else here today. Let’s head back. Maybe Lucius will finally respond.”
Every day, Rapunzel calls our friend. He’s yet to answer the call of the seeing stone, which isn’t altogether unusual given Lucius’ disgust with most of the world. He can’t see anyway, so he wouldn’t be able to tell us for certain if someone who looks like Rapunzel ever visited his palace prison.
We’re just turning to jump back into the shadows when a great screech echoes across the land. In a single breath I have my bow and arrow, and Zarev is gripping his scythe. The cry is high and pained, like whatever creature is screaming is in great pain.
Our eyes meet, a silent agreement that we’ll observe the creature before reacting and going for a kill. There are a great many oddities in Mystica.
Across the sky, a swarm of birds passes overhead. It takes a moment to realize it’s a flock of swans, heading down the coast and across the sea towards hotter climates. I usually miss the migration because of all the work we do.
But something is wrong. These birds fly in no specific formation, their wings beating in panic. As I watch another creature crests over the distant treetops, climbing high into the sky as my eyes widen.
It’s a bird with a bright white chest surrounded by deep black feathers that look like knives. They gleam unnaturally in the light, and the creature’s neck twists unnaturally, letting out an explosive cry. The birds around it start to panic and fly in all directions. My eyes narrow, watching as the bird flaps about and ruins formation but doesn’t move to attack any of the birds that stray too close.
“What the hell is that,” I ask, notching an arrow. This thing is vicious, mad, and far too large to be a normal bird. I can’t make out much else at this distance, but the thing is uncontrolled in its movements. It lists left and right like it’s off balance.
“It looks mad,” Zarev supplies, scythe in hand. His weapon is going to do little from this distance, however we may be able to launch our shadow magic if need be.
I close one eye, tracking the beast across the sky. Finally its giant maw gets too close to one of the other birds, and its wide head snaps out to clamp over the body. It slices straight through the smaller bird, like biting off a chunk of an apple.
The bird it bites comes away missing its side and one wing. The poor thing plummets from the sky, disappearing into the trees in the distance.
The other creature spits out the wing, the missing limb shooting off in the opposite direction. I keep my eye on it.
“Don’t shoot unless it attacks us,” Zarev mutters.
“Do you think it’s from Wonderland?”
“Maybe. Or from Swan Lake. You know the rumors.”
I sigh. We all know the rumors. Problem is, there’s no merit to them. King Leonardo and his wife Queen Florence are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. There’s no way they would let something nefarious take place in their kingdom.
The bird flies closer to the clearing where it appears to finally spot us. It opens its mouth, revealing sharp, shiny teeth as it dives. It’s definitely moving to strike.
Zarev could shoot shadows at it while I’m aiming, avoiding something fatal. But when the creature roars and reveals a second set of wings that rises from the first, I let the arrow fly.
This thing is a monstrosity, and the monsters of the world deserve nothing but Death.
I should know. Death has already claimed me.
The bird plummets quickly and as it nears the treetops, the thick, black feathered body begins to change. As it disappears behind the treetops, I see blonde hair fly up and away from the body.
My eyes meet Zarev’s, and we appear to have the same idea. Shifting into the shadows, he chases me this time as I look for the felled bird. It must be a trick of the light. Nothing else makes sense. But the hair is too pale to be Rapunzel’s, more white-blonde than gold, and we need to know why that is.
Had it consumed a human and spit out its last bit of lunch when I shot it?
Finding the creature takes several moments since we’re looking for the bulbous body of a frightening black bird. When I see a head of white-blonde hair lying in the woods, I think my eyes are deceiving me.
Stepping closer, I know they aren’t.
A woman lies on the ground, her fluffy hair fanned out as blood leaks from the wound I shot into her arm. Her breathing is heavy and the long billowy sleeves of her dress are soaking up the blood from her wound. Gasping, her eyes move slowly towards me when she finally takes notice of us.
The dress is quite unusual. The bodice is all white feathers, and the top part of her skirt is made of black feathers. A flowy white skirt bursts from beneath, and the once-white sleeves are sheer from the elbow down.
I know this girl. I’ve seen her many times, but something is terribly wrong with her face. She should have two eyes but there is only one - a green orb staring up at me, wild and frightened. The other, the one I know to be gold, is missing, leaving a bloody hole staring back at me. Her skin is slick like this injury only just happened.
But the woman is unmistakable. As Zarev steps in behind me, I know he recognizes her, too. I bite my lip, staring down at her in shock. “Princess Odette.”
Her one panicked eye dances between us, her fingers twitching on her good arm. Her breathing picks up as panic sets in and I approach her, holding my hands up so she can see I mean her no harm.
Shooting her out of the sky was definitely a bad idea.
“R - reapers,” she gasps, looking between us. Her voice is raspy, like she hasn’t used it in a while. “Reapers. Help! I - I need help. A demon shot me from the sky.”