 
### Dissever

By Tracey Ward

## Dissever

By Tracey Ward

Text Copyright © 2014 Tracey Ward

All Rights Reserved

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_Part One -_ Annabel Lee

_It was many and many a year ago,_

_In a kingdom by the sea,_

_That a maiden there lived whom you may know_

_By the name of Annabel Lee;_

_And this maiden she lived with no other thought_

_Than to love and be loved by me._

_I was a child and she was a child,_

_In this kingdom by the sea,_

_But we loved with a love that was more than love_

_I and my Annabel Lee—_

_With a love that the winged seraphs in Heaven_

_Coveted her and me._

_From_ _"Annabel Lee"_ _by_ _Edgar Allen Poe_

# _Chapter One_

When I met Roarke, I was deep in hiding. I hid a lot as a child. I wasn't disobedient, not really, but I was trouble. Some would argue I still am to this day, Ro being the loudest. But that day, that incident, that moment of hiding – it wasn't my fault. I know all children say that, believing firmly that they are blameless victims, but that time I happened to be right. About being blameless, not a victim. Don't ever call me that.

I was eight years old with long blond curls and eager green eyes. As a child I was short and a little stout. Pudgy, if you asked my father. Did it hurt to be called a pudgy piglet by my own father? Yes, of course it did, but not as much as other things. Pain is relative.

He was looking for me that afternoon. While I knew it was delaying the inevitable, I ran to the gardens to hide. Tucked behind the castle's kitchen, nearly forgotten at the base of the back tower, lay a small yet impossible maze. Although I'd spent countless hours inside of it, I'd never reached the center. My mother insisted she hadn't either, though she lived her entire life inside the castle. In fact, she didn't know anyone who had defeated the maze. That fact, that mystery begging to be solved, was more than I could stand. Other's abandoned it, forgot about it. They resented it for being impossible to defeat. Too incredible to understand. I saw it as another lonely child begging to be played with. And so I did. Endlessly.

That day I made my way quickly through the weaving paths of stark white stone, the sound of my hurried breathing and the crunch under my feet filling my ears. I constantly checked over my shoulder, peeked around every corner before turning it, always convinced my father would materialize out of nowhere to snatch me up. The scent of salt from the sea filled my nose and throat as I ran, the spray of the waves crashing against the jagged rocks of The Shallows and rising around the island in a constant shroud that I could feel in my clothes, on my skin, in my breath. It kept us hidden from the rest of the world. We were protected. Confined.

I rounded a corner I thought I knew. I was counting the turns, running through the map I had in my head of the sections of the maze that I had been through over and over again, but what I found stunned me. Instead of the small alcove full of soft green grass with a white marble bench, I entered an orchard.

It was too large to be part of the maze, to be encompassed inside the towering green hedges. Rows on rows of trees spread out before me, each of them perfect golden yellows, greens and browns at the end of their season. The lines were impossibly straight, too perfect to be natural, but there they were. Straight as arrows running on and on forever into the infinity beyond my sight. It smelled of sweet fruit, cut hay and freshly churned earth. It felt like warm sunshine and it was then that I realized I couldn't see, hear or smell the ocean at all.

"Hello."

I whipped around, startled nearly to screaming. Tucked in a corner of the hedges was a boy. Even though he was sitting, I could tell he was taller than I was. Probably a couple years older as well. His hair was dark and unruly, his skin caramel perfection that glowed in the scattered sunlight, but it was his eyes that stopped me. That ruined me forever. They were a brilliant blue, the color of cornflower.

I knew then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was one of them. One of the Outsiders.

"Hello," I replied hesitantly, my eyes roaming the orchard. As far as I could tell, we were completely alone. I was rarely allowed to be alone with anyone, but I was never to be alone with a boy. And I absolutely, positively was never to be even in a crowded room with an Outsider. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"I'm not allowed."

"Says who?"

"Well, I—" I stuttered, not sure who would be first in line to scold me for being here. My mother, my father, the Prince, the King. The head cook would want in on the yelling, I was sure. "I don't know exactly."

"Do you even know where you are?"

"No," I admitted reluctantly.

He smirked at me. It was irritating, smug and charming "Then how do you know you're not allowed here?"

I fought the urge to smile at him, choosing to glare at him instead. "I guess I don't know. Is this part of the maze?"

"Sometimes."

"Either it is or it isn't."

"You're part of the maze right now, but not always. Only sometimes."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he replied calmly. "You weren't before, but you are now and later you won't be again."

"Is that a riddle?"

He shrugged silently in reply.

"You're a bit of a know-it-all, aren't you?" I asked him hotly.

"Maybe, but at least I know where I am."

I glared at him again.

It was then, as I was shooting daggers at his face with my eyes, that I noticed several small gleaming figures scattered in the grass in front of him. I took a hesitant step toward him, drawn in by the sight of them.

He noticed my attention.

"Here," he said amiably, holding out one of the figures to me. "Do you want to see it?"

"Can I?"

"Sure. Sit down, come play."

He said it so easily. So simply, as though asking me to sit on the ground and play was something that happened to me every single day. I promise you, it did not. Other children were afraid of me because they were afraid of my father. I was never allowed to get dirty or hurt or tired, so I was a terrible playmate. But I didn't want to be. I wanted to run and have fun with the other children of the castle. I wanted to be just another child being too loud in the corridors or leaving toys scattered in their room for their mother to step on and curse the day they were born. But I wasn't and I never would be, because I was—

"What's your name?" the boy asked me.

I hesitated, not wanting the weight of my name to make him change his mind about playing with me. I didn't want him to fear me.

Finally, I answered softly, "Anna."

"Do you want to play, Anna? I'm waiting for my mum, but she'll take awhile. We have plenty of time. Do you like tarts?"

I frowned, confused by the sudden change of subject. "Do I like tarts? Like the desert?"

"Yeah. I hate them," he said, producing a small white box from beside him on the grass. He held it up to me, the blue ribbon around it fluttering in the breeze. It was cornflower blue, like his eyes. "Do you want it?"

I shook my head hard. "I shouldn't. I'm not supposed to have sweets."

"Why not?"

"My father says they're bad for me. That they'll ruin me."

"Oh." He looked completely confused by the idea of being ruined by a pastry. "That's alright then. I'll do something with it."

"Why do you have it if you don't even like them?"

He shrugged. "My mum gave it to me this morning. Said it was a present. But it's wild-berry and I can't stand wild-berry anything."

My eyes lit up while my mouth flooded with longing. "Wild-berry is my favorite," I mumbled.

"Then you should take it," he insisted, holding it out to me again. "You'll like it. My mum's a great cook. Best in the village."

I'd never eaten anything from the Outsider's village. Their wares were everywhere in the city surrounding the castle. The castle kitchen even took deliveries of baked goods, meats and ciders from them, but my father had always been very clear that I was to have nothing to do with any of it.

And yet I took that package. I knew there'd be hell to pay if my father ever found out, but at that moment I couldn't have cared. There was something magical about this place. This orchard tucked in the corner of nowhere beneath a glowing yellow sun that promised never to tell your secrets.

Did I say before that I wasn't a disobedient child? That may have been an exaggeration. Let's say instead that I wasn't an intentionally disobedient child. But if the opportunity presented itself...

"Thank you," I said, lightly trailing the soft cotton ribbon through my fingertips.

"You're welcome. So, do you want to play with me or no?"

I smiled at his gruffness. "Yes, please."

But when I went to sit down, I hesitated. The shining silk fabric of my purple dress winked in the sunlight, mocking me.

"What's wrong now?"

"I can't—My dress, it will—I shouldn't," I stuttered again, feeling stupid.

"No worries." The boy rose up on his knees as he removed his simple gray coat. He laid it out on the grass across from himself and sat back down, gesturing for me to do the same. "Sit there. I've seen my da do that for my mum loads of times."

"Thank you very much."

"What do you want to play?" he asked, getting straight down to business dividing his small, wooden figures between us evenly. "Sailors and pirates, highwaymen and cat burglars, knights and sword-fighters? I'll warn you now," he told me seriously, pointing a figure of a man with a sword at me, "I'll not play princes and princesses."

I scowled at him, offended. "I didn't ask you to."

"Good."

"Why not?"

"Why not what?" he asked absently. He was back to dividing again.

"Why won't you play princes and princesses?"

"Because we're pretending," he answered simply. "Let's play sailors and pirates, yeah?"

I grinned, feeling excited. "Yes, please."

For what felt like years, the boy and I played there in the grass beside the orchard together. No matter how long it was, ten years or ten minutes, it was the best time of my entire life. He didn't care who I was or who I was going to be. He didn't care who my father was or what he could do to him if he found us here together. In fairness, it was because he didn't know, but it didn't change the fact that the anonymity felt wonderful. I felt like a child for the first time in my life. I managed to completely forget myself, to become absorbed in the games we played. In the sound of his voice, the melody of his laugh.

"You're pretty," he said suddenly.

I realized I had been staring at his face, memorizing it. I had no illusions I'd ever see him again. I wanted to bottle this time and carry the memory of it, of him, with me forever. But now he was staring at my face too and I felt myself blush.

"My father says I'm a piglet," I muttered, looking away.

"You make a very pretty piglet."

I snorted a laugh, looking up to find him smiling at me, his blue eyes laughing.

"What's your name?"

"Roarke. But all of my friends call me Ro."

"May I call you Ro?"

"Yeah, 'course," he said, his smile widening. "You're my friend, aren't you?"

And I was. And he was mine. A true to the bone friend who thought I was pretty and played fantastic games with me as though I was nothing fragile and nothing special. Nothing other than Anna, which was all I ever wanted to be. It was the first friendship I'd ever had and it would prove to be the only one that would ever truly matter.

That moment hidden in the sun dappled orchard beneath a perfect azure sky, that was the first time I fell in love with him. It would happen again many more times over the years. Sometimes more than once a day, in degrees and frequency too great to recall, but this particular one, this first one, I will remember forever. And forever, I now know, is a very long time.

"I thought I heard another voice in here."

I spun around to the entrance of the orchard, stunned to find a woman standing there. I hadn't heard a sound on the rocks, although I may have been distracted by Roarke. She was clearly his mother. She had his dark hair, caramel skin, and while her eyes were greener than his, they were equally startling. She was beautiful and exotic, just like he was.

"Please don't tell anyone you saw me here," I said hurriedly, standing up abruptly. I accidentally stepped on Roarke's coat in my rush. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to. I hope it won't stain."

"It's fine," the woman said, coming closer.

"I really should go," I mumbled, curtseying to her awkwardly. "I'm sorry for intruding."

The woman laughed lightly. "You didn't intrude. What's your name, dear?"

"Ann—Annabel Lee."

She looked me up and down slowly, her eyes smiling.

"So you're Annabel Lee," she mused to herself.

I flinched, the sharp sting of my anonymity lost piercing my gut.

Her eyes flicked down to the ribbon clenched tightly in my small, tense hand. She smiled. "I see you found someone to give your present to."

"She likes wild-berry," Roarke said defensively, standing up behind me. I noticed then how very tall he was. How broad his young shoulders already were. "I can't stand it. It was a lousy present."

"I told you it was a present but I never said it was for you."

"Oh," Roarke grumbled. Then he tapped my bare arm lightly, his fingers large and warm on my skin. "Do you want to play next week? I can bring my figures again."

I looked to his mother, sure she'd say no. Knowing who I was, it changed things. It made knowing me dangerous. Playing with me, that was suicide. But she shocked me when she smiled openly, shrugging her shoulders.

"It's up to you."

"I would love to, but..." I should have said I couldn't do it. That my father would never allow it. That it could mean jail or death or worse for them if he ever discovered me here. But how would he? I didn't even know how I'd gotten here, how could he? "I don't know how to get back here. I've never been to this part of the maze before."

"That's because it's not always open," the woman replied.

"Told you," Roarke said.

"Know it all," I hissed at him.

"We can get you here," the woman told me. "If you'd like to."

"I'd love to."

"Then we'll see you in a week."

I was horrified when tears sprang to my eyes. They rolled down my cheeks uncontrollably as I tried my hardest to pull them back in. My breath hiccupped in my throat as I struggled to control myself, but I couldn't. Despite her words, I was perfectly certain that I'd never see either one of them again.

I felt Roarke's hand on my shoulder, light but strong. Kind and reassuring. It made me weep harder, burying my face in my hands. His mother surrounded me with her arms. With her scent like cinnamon and a low cooing sound that I felt all the way to the blood in my veins. I calmed almost instantly in her arms, my face pressed against her soft, dark hair.

"That's alright. You're alright."

"I have to go," I mumbled, sniffing and swiping at my cheeks to clear them. I felt the hot burn of embarrassment on my face. I was dying to leave, to hide my pitiful weeping eyes. I didn't want Ro to remember me as a crier.

The woman lifted my chin with her fingertips, her green eyes dancing with flecks of gold caught in the sunlight. I stared at her, entranced as she gently took the ribbon from my hand.

"Chin up, dear one," she told me tenderly, tying the ribbon in my hair. "There's a long road ahead and this is only the beginning."

# Chapter Two

I was meant to marry the Prince. He knew it, I knew it, and my father definitely knew it. The whole damned kingdom knew it. But as much as I didn't want it, I was my father's daughter, his property as much as his horses. If he wanted to barter me for a bigger and better title, better even than the one he bought by marrying my mother, then that was his Saints given right. He was a notorious social climber, made acceptable to the wealthy only by the fact that he was so insanely good at it. He was terribly handsome and eerily charming when he wanted to be. I think it got to the point where they firmly believed that he'd been born to the wrong station. That taking him in amongst themselves was a restoration of the natural order.

Then, when he and my mother produced a daughter chosen at birth to marry the three year old prince, they knew they were correct. Justified. Righteous.

Being a child, I escaped my life by imagining other fates. Fates where Duke Walburton, a dashing man who was handy with a sword, fought for my hand from the Prince and won. I'd marry him, move to his lavish estate outside the castle walls and spend the rest of my life surrounded by his lovely, lazy dogs. Sometimes I dreamed I did marry the Prince, discovered a deep undying love between us and we would leave the island forever. But no matter what happened in my wildest of dreams, I was very careful about one thing in particular; I was never made Queen.

Just two nights after I met Ro, my mother and I were in my bedroom dressing for dinner that night. Most girls were dressed by servants, gossiping with them as they laced up their corsets, pinching the life and breath from their bodies. My mother and I dressed ourselves for this very reason. We hated gossips. They were always digging, always dropping lies in your ear like poison to see if you'd bite. My mother once told me that they could dangle their lures all they like, she wasn't eating worms to make them happy.

"Is it alright, mother?" I asked her in an excited whisper. "Can I see him again?"

My mother sat back on her knees, sighing. "It's dangerous, darling. So very dangerous."

"I know that," I muttered miserably.

And I did know. I knew it was a risk for him just as much, if not more so, than it was for me.

"Is it worth it to you?"

"Yes," I told her seriously. "He's a wonderful friend."

She grinned. "You only just met him."

"I can tell. He's not like the people here."

"Well, thank the Saints for that," she mumbled, straightening the hem of my dress. Eventually she sighed, looking up at me again. "I know you want a friend. Badly."

Her eyes were sad, piling guilt on my heart. My mother would have given me the world if she were able. She'd have taken me from the castle years ago if there were anywhere to go. But we were trapped in so many ways.

"Is it too much to ask?" I whispered, barely daring to hope I could actually return to the orchard.

She considered me for a long moment. Her brown eyes slipped out of focus, no longer seeing me. I wondered what it was she did see. Was it the room behind me? Or the maze beyond those walls? Was it the village on the other side of the island, deep inside the darkened forest? Or was it something else, something beyond our borders? Beyond time and air and water, reaching out into the corners of her own imagination. Her own dreams of escape and a life bigger, brighter, better than this.

"Never meet him anywhere but the orchard," she finally said quietly, her eyes snapping back to mine. "And if there's trouble, let him hide you. Do you hear me?"

I nodded, not understanding but making the promise anyway. "I swear it. I'll listen to him. But what if he asks me to go beyond the castle walls? I'm not allowed out there."

"If it's to hide you, you do it. You have my permission to go."

"This is very dangerous, isn't it?" I asked softly, made a little afraid by my mother's seriousness.

She nodded solemnly. "It is. For all of us. But it's worth it."

"How do you know that?"

My mother looked at the ribbon in my hair, the color of the boy's eyes following me wherever I went. She surprised me when she smiled faintly at it.

"Because they found you."

I had no idea what that meant. Even now, all these years later, I don't completely understand what my mother was talking about. What she saw when her eyes slipped out of focus for those long, breathless moments. But the world does not depend on my understanding to keep its momentum, so fate carried on as it pleased.

My mother went to find my shoes in my bureau just as my father entered the room. He didn't knock, he never did. He also didn't abide locked doors. Not from us, at least. He was dressed to perfection, ready for dinner in the Great Hall sharing a table with the King, the Queen and Prince Frederick.

He smiled when he saw me, nodding approvingly at my mother.

"She looks lovely, Evelyn. Well done," he praised as he circled me for a closer inspection. I heard an annoyed grunt as he passed behind me. "What is this?"

"What is what, Charles?" my mother asked, her voice tired.

"This ribbon. The blue one in her hair. Is that even silk?"

"No, it's not. It's a simple cotton ribbon."

"It belongs on the peasantry. She has finer things than that, I've seen them. I've certainly paid for them. Where are they?"

"She has many more at her vanity."

"Find one. Something silk or lace."

He finished his pass around me, finding nothing else to his disliking.

"You'll walk in on the arm of Prince Frederick, Annabel Lee." His voice was full, a smile tugging at his lips. He was proud. I didn't know exactly what I'd done to earn this, but I reveled in his rare, happy gaze. "You'll remember to mind your manners with him?"

"Yes, father," I quickly agreed.

"Don't speak of anything frivolous. No nonsense. In fact, do not speak unless spoken to, do you hear me?"

"Alright, but I have to tell him about the frog in the fountain."

My father frowned. "What?"

"The frog in the fountain. Frederick says there's a frog that lives in the fountain and he named him Corbis. He asked me to help him watch out for the frog so I have been. I have to tell him that I have nothing to report today. He'll want to know."

"You'll tell him no such thing."

I frowned. "Can I tell him if he asks me?"

"No," my father replied, his voice becoming tight. "You will not bring it up to him and if he asks about it, you will tell him you are frightened of frogs."

"But I'm not frightened. Why would I be frightened of frogs?"

"Because ladies do not go hunting for frogs."

"But I'm not hunting Corbis, I'm—"

"You will not!" he said sternly, stepping toward me.

I saw my mother straighten to my left, tensing.

"Yes, father," I muttered, lowering my face to the floor.

"Chin up!"

His words made me think of Roarke's mother and her gentle hands. I sniffed hard, willing the tears to stay away.

"Are you crying? Why is she crying?"

"Because you're shouting at her. Leave her to me. We'll meet you outside in the hall," my mother told him, coming to my side with a strip of frilly black lace in her hand.

My father shook his head as he turned for the door. "See that she doesn't show up red faced and squalling. And change her hair."

The door closed decidedly behind him. My mother smiled warmly at me as she deftly pulled the ribbon from my hair. When I saw it in her hand, I reached out wildly for it and clutched it tightly. She looked surprised for a moment then nodded in understanding, releasing it to me without comment. She carefully tied the other ribbon in my hair, then sat back and held my face between her hands.

"You look beautiful, Annabel Lee."

"Thank you, mother," I said quietly. "So do you."

"Thank you." She scrunched up her nose in a disgusted face. "Should we get this over with?"

I giggled shakily, nodding.

When Prince Frederick walked me silently into the Great Hall for dinner, I could feel my father's watchful eyes on me. I was dying to mention Corbis, but I knew better. I held my tongue and dutifully took my seat when Frederick pulled it out for me. Almost immediately I had to stand up again.

"There's no need to give them help. They have all the hands they need," King Phillip exclaimed, entering the hall trailed by at least eight other men keeping close at his heels. "What is their population now, anyway?"

"We aren't sure, sire."

King Phillip glared at the old man. "How do we not know? Go count them and then we will know. It's not hard."

"It's not easy either. We can't exactly go walking into their village counting heads, Your Majesty," the man replied, unconcerned with the King's disapproval. "They live on the farthest side of the island in the mountains. They have a main village, but many of them live hidden in the forests. I imagine their numbers are greater than we assume, but we have no way of knowing for certain."

"Submit a census."

"They don't respond to them."

"Then they should not be on the island. Either they submit to my rule or they are welcome to leave."

"Sire," the old man said patiently, "we all know that's not an option."

"It's always an option. They crashed their way in, they can find their way back out."

A silence fell over the Great Hall, no one wanting to speak against the King's opinion but everyone knowing the statement was ridiculous. There was no sailing off this island. The rocks in The Shallows made it impossible. Many had tried and many had died.

"Majesty, about the fishing labor..."

"If they have so many in their numbers what do they need with more bodies from us?"

The old man cleared his throat. "They feel that if they are supplying all of the labor and absorbing all of the risk in fishing The Shallows, they should reap all of the rewards."

King Phillip laughed as he resumed his trek to the head of the table. When he sat, he watched all of us sit as well, looking satisfied.

"Tell them that's madness. Ludicrous. They are our guests on this island. The fact that we allow them to fish The Shallows and till the land are gifts that we can easily take away. Hell, we gave them land to live on!"

"We gave them the forests," Duke Walburton spoke up, taking a sip from his goblet. "The mountains. It's nothing but rock, moss and bark. Not exactly fine farming land."

"They farm," my father interjected.

"They farm for us on our land."

"With us. We share the harvests."

"And we share _their_ harvest of the fish from The Shallows. Shouldn't we be involved in the labor of that?"

"Of course!" my father said sarcastically. "While we're at it, why don't we invite them to move into the castle as well? Be our honored guests?"

"Most don't feel that they are guests of this isle, Charles," Duke Walburton replied calmly. "They've been here for over a hundred years. Not one of them alive today wasn't born on this island."

"Are you siding with them, Patrick?" The King asked incredulously.

He shrugged. "Not siding with them per se, but they make a fair point."

"No," King Phillip replied with a shake of his head, causing his many chins to sway. "They were never wanted here. No one ever has been. The very fact that we didn't kill them, something we still could manage, should be entitlement enough. Or we can cast them out, let The Saints take care of them. But no, you're right, if they need help in fishing The Shallows then we should contribute. By all means. Clean out the prison. There are good strong backs there. That should be all the help they ever need."

I watched as Duke Walburton hid a frown from the King behind his goblet, the tightness around his eyes his only tell.

"Enough about the Ten Alah. They're taking away from our land and our dinner this fine evening."

"Tem Aedha," the old scribe corrected quietly.

"Foolishness! If they want to live here and join with us, they should stop using that foolish name. They are men and women of Kilmarnock!"

I leaned across the table toward my mother where she sat beside Duke Walburton.

"But, mother, if they are people of Kilmarnock, why does he say we should kill them?"

My mother's eyes became large and panicked. She shook her head and pressed her finger to her lips, silencing me. I slumped back in my seat feeling defeated and ignored. Luckily my father was far too involved in a grumbling discussion against the Tem Aedha to have heard me. As I picked at my dinner, I accidentally caught eyes with Duke Walburton.

He was grinning at me.

# Chapter Three

Every delivery day I waited anxiously in the kitchen, pacing the floor until the head cook, Mrs. Pomphel, shouted at me to sit still or get out. Without fail the threat of missing out on Roarke sent me to take a seat beside the hearth. I anxiously chewed my fingernails until his mother arrived. Once she showed up, gave me a smile and a nod, I ran from the room to the maze. Every time I entered the maze after seeing her, I immediately found the orchard. No problems. On days when I was feeling ornery, wishing it was a delivery day when it wasn't, I would go in search of the orchard on my own. Despite memorizing every twist and turn to get there, I never found it.

But on the days when it was open to me, I would burst into the warm sunshine glow of the orchard with a smile on my face and excitement beating wildly in my heart. And he was there every time. Happily waiting patiently for me to arrive. When he'd look up at me and smile, my heart would stutter in my chest. My stomach flipped and I felt as though I might be sick. It was a strange, terrible feeling, one I had never known before. But I liked it. I craved it.

We played every game under the sun, exchanging ones he knew with ones I knew and making others up as we went along. Those were my favorite, the games we made together. The ones that sprung up naturally between us and made us roll around in the grass laughing and shouting until our sides ached.

One afternoon I was so eager to see him that I ran too quickly, too clumsily. I stumbled just outside the orchard. I reached out to catch myself but my hand slid into one of the hedges, finding a sharp branch that slit down the center of my palm. I cried out in pain and surprise, falling to my knees on the white stones, clenching my aching hand.

Roarke exploded from the orchard. He was beside me instantly.

"Oooh," I moaned, afraid to look at it. I didn't care for the sight of blood, least of all my own. "Ro, it hurts. Oh, it hurts."

He frowned at my pained expression then looked around us at the ground, searching for something. All he found were white stones turning red and brown as my blood dripped down onto them, pouring in a steady stream from my palm. My heart sank when he leapt up, running through the maze into the orchard. He had left me. He had left me alone. My hand ached worse because of it.

When Roarke came running back to me, I sighed with relief.

"What's in your hand?" I asked through clenched teeth, my curiosity squeezing its way out between them.

"Your salvation," he said with a small smile. He opened his palm for me to see.

I frowned. "It's dirt."

"It's earth," he corrected, though I did not see the difference.

"What will you do with it?"

In answer, he spit into his palm, wetting the earth. He then clamped his hand tightly around it.

"Give me your hand."

"Are you going to spit on it?"

"No. Now give me your hand. Unless you want it to keep hurting."

"I don't," I said quickly, relinquishing my injured palm.

He held it firmly in his, carefully avoiding the cut. Then he slowly applied the moistened earth to my palm. I cringed, expecting a horrible sting. But it never came. Instead the pain slowly leeched out of my skin, evaporating on the air. I looked up at Ro in amazement, ready to ask him how he did it, when I saw his eyes were closed, his lips moving quickly and silently as his fingers continued to roam over my injured flesh. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but it seemed as though there was a rhythm to it. Like a song.

Suddenly his eyes opened. They fixed immediately on mine, startling me.

"Feel better?"

I stared at him in wonder. "You're magic."

He shrugged, grinning as he wrapped my hand in a white handkerchief.

That night when I unwrapped my hand, expecting to see an angry red cut, I gasped. My palm was white as snow with nothing but a mild pink welt to show for my trouble.

***

Queen Elizabeth Anne died two years later. Despite dining with the Royal Family almost every night, I knew very little about her save for the similarities in our names. I asked my mother once if she was named after me. She laughed and told me it was probably so.

King Phillip never shed a single tear, not that I saw, but Prince Frederick was despondent. Though I never saw him cry, I will forever remember his round ten year old cheeks being blotchy and red. He was growing into a young man more and more every day. After the death of his mother, I swear I hardly recognized him. It made me fearful for what would happen to Roarke, who was only one year younger. I prayed for the good health of his mother every night.

"How old is your mum?" I asked him one afternoon. We were sitting in the grass eating apple slices and cheese curds that squeaked against my teeth as I chewed.

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "Very."

I frowned. "No, she can't be very old. She doesn't have any white hair."

"Then kind of. She's kind of old," he amended.

"Do the Tem Aedha really live forever?"

He looked up at me, suddenly paying attention and frowning. "Who says we live forever?"

"Everyone. I hear it all the time. You live forever, you speak to the trees, some of you can fly, though if that were true I don't understand why you don't leave the island. If I could fly, I'd leave. I'd leave tomorrow."

"Well it's not true. We die just like you. We do everything just like you. We aren't different, Anna."

"Yes you are," I replied, catching his eye. "You are completely different and utterly wonderful."

He smirked at me. "You're mad."

"Yes," I agreed, intentionally squeaking my cheese in my cheeks.

"How is Frederick?"

I lowered my eyes, feeling sad just thinking about him. "He's upset. Always very sad. The funeral is tomorrow. I don't want to go."

"But you have to?" he asked. When I nodded, he sighed. "You have to do a lot of things you don't want to do."

I snorted a laugh before saying emphatically, "Yes."

"I wish I could go with you. I'd hold your hand and let you cry on my shirt."

"I wish you could too." I felt my heart pound in my chest as I considered my truth, then I whispered, "I wish you could always be with me."

"Me too," he whispered back, no hesitation.

We smiled at each other conspiratorially, sealing our secret inside the manicured walls around us.

"How did she die?" Roarke asked abruptly. "No one in our village knows."

"I don't know. No one here knows either. I guess it was the storm."

"The lightning storm a few days ago? That's when she died?"

"They think so."

"How do they not know?"

I glanced around, knowing we were alone but double checking anyway.

"They can't find her body," I told him quietly.

His eyes widened. "Then how do they know she's dead?"

I lowered my voice further, forcing Roarke to lean in closer. I wasn't supposed to know any of this and my father would lose his mind if he heard me talking about it. It was all things I'd overheard whispered at dinner when people thought I wasn't listening. But I was always listening.

"They found her shoes and a scrap of her dress. That's all. And it was surrounded by dead grass. Everything else was alive, but the grass in a circle around her shoes was completely dead."

"Was it burned? Was she struck by lightning?" Roarke asked, taking a bite of his cheese, loving the mystery.

"It wasn't burned, just dead. No one knows what happened to her. It's like she disappeared. And you know what else? They say no Queen's body has ever been found. They die all the time and none of them are ever seen again. They call it the Queen's Curse."

Roarke looked at me dubiously. "No Queen has ever been buried? Ever?"

"Only one," I insisted. "Forever ago one Queen died of old age in her bed, but her life was awful. Her and the King's. All kinds of things went wrong for them."

"Like what?"

"Like unborn babies and strange illnesses. Like a terrible storm with fiery rain and huge waves that swept people out to sea. The same storm that brought in a ship full of strangers that crashed in The Shallows..."

"The night my people arrived," he said in a hushed tone.

"What are you two whispering about?" Roarke's mother asked, suddenly appearing in the orchard.

"Nothing," Roarke said immediately.

"Uh huh," his mother replied doubtfully. "I know that 'nothing' and it always means something. Usually something I'll end up apologizing to someone for."

"I haven't done anything wrong in a week."

"Oh, well, let's throw a party for you. Roarke hasn't misbehaved in days. Ring the church bells and shout for joy."

I giggled as she pretended to dance in celebration. Roarke scowled at her.

"You're being weird," he told her.

She laughed. "Oh, honey, if you're just now realizing that your mother is weird, you're not nearly as smart as I give you credit for."

The next day I attended the funeral. It was boring. It wasn't that it didn't make me sad that Queen Elizabeth Anne had died, but the entire day was dedicated to the mourning process. To a seven year old girl used to being active, sitting for hours in a cathedral wearing the bleakest, heaviest dress imaginable was pure torture. Not to mention the fact that because it was the Queen's funeral, the reclusive High Priest, who the very sight of gave me chills, was performing the ceremony. He was short and withered, looking impossibly old with loose gray skin and faded eyes. I'd only seen him up close twice and both times had terrified me. His voice was hollow and raspy, but hypnotic and lilting at the same time. It was so quiet it seemed impossible I should hear him, yet it carried across the cathedral, over the hundreds of heads ahead of me and nestled into my ears.

I didn't care for it.

"We commit the soul of our loving Queen to The Saints of the sky and sea and to the eternal peace found there within. Pray they find her soul a worthy showing of our people. May she arrive as testament to our faithfulness and gratitude for their eternal protection. What better thanks can we give than the spirit of our beloved Queen for their constant love? What better home for her essence than in the bosom of our perpetual guardians? Would that they continue to stand watch over our Kingdom and never again let us fall victim to the dangers of the outer realms."

It was here in hour three of his pleadings for mercy and protection that I inevitably began to doze. I rather unfortunately leaned over onto my father's shoulder. I awoke with a start when he sharply pinched my arm.

Mercifully the service ended two and a half hours later, around the same time my backside went from numb to aching. The Cathedral cleared out slowly and I had to remind myself not to hop from foot to foot with my anxious energy. I was eager to go outside, to catch a few forbidden glimpses of the bustling city of Kilmarnock.

When our carriage joined the processional trailing the large ornate vehicle that bore her 'remains', we were paraded through the city. People lined the streets to wave their hands and handkerchiefs at the somberly adorned carriages. I wondered if they knew she wasn't there. That the lead carriage was filled with nothing but a pair of old shoes and a tattered square of gossamer. Would they still line up to say goodbye to such things?

"At least attempt to look sad, will you?" my father scolded as I craned my neck to look outside the carriage.

"I'm sorry, father." I said, but I wasn't.

Soon we reached the edge of town and began to make the journey up the steep hill toward the graveyard. To the large tomb overlooking the sea where the monarchy were laid to rest. I had begun counting the pearls in the length around my mother's neck to keep my eyes busy and away from the windows when something caught them anyway. I lurched to the side, reaching out the window to catch the falling white flakes.

"Is it snowing?" I cried delightedly.

My father gave me such a stern squeeze of my hand that I whimpered as I cowered back in my seat. His green eyes shot down to mine and the stern line of his mouth pared with the tension in his jaw spoke volumes. I would pay for this moment.

"I'm sorry, father," I said, and I was.

He shook his head, looking away. I knew I wasn't forgiven. My mother gently wove her fingers through mine. When I looked up at her with tears of fear in my eyes, she grinned and shook her head gently.

_All is well,_ she mouthed.

I wasn't as sure as she was, but my troubles were momentarily forgotten as I watched white flower petals drift in through the carriage window and land in her red hair.

Craning my neck, I looked beyond her to see the ground strewn with wild flowers of all kinds and colors. I stifled a giggle of joy as I wondered if the sky was raining flowers. If the clouds were in mourning as well. Was this the Saints crying?

Then I saw them up on the hillside. At its peak, gathered on an outcropping directly above us, were the Tem Aedha. They wore simple cotton clothes in all different colors, but each one was bright, vibrant and alive. Each and every one of them held a basket from which they pulled handfuls of flowers, casting them down on top of us. Onto the road leading to the tomb.

"Disrespectful savages," my father growled.

"I think it's beautiful," my mother said softly, smiling up at them.

"Do you see what they're wearing?"

"I do. We're mourning her, they're celebrating her. It's a wonderful gesture. Ellie would have loved it."

"You should not refer to her in such a familiar way, Evelyn. She was your Queen."

"She was my friend first. I watched her eat mud as a child, pinned her hair on her wedding day and held her hand as she gave birth to Frederick. We were familiar as two people could be." My mother looked at him hard and held his eye. "It's why you love me, Charles."

I expected this to start a fight, as any contrary statements always did with my father, but I was shocked to find he couldn't hold her eye. He looked down at me briefly, but my mother tugged me away from his hand, pulling me closer to her side. He shocked me again when he let me go willingly.

That night I was certain I would be punished for my offenses during the funeral, but my father was whisked away by the other Lords of the Court to pass the night in mourning with the King. Still not convinced of my reprieve, I begged my mother to let me sleep in her bed with her.

Late in the night we were awakened by aggressive shouts from the hall. I shot up straight in bed, clutching the covers in my hands so tightly my skin ached. When a gentle knock sounded on the door, I nearly screamed.

"Just a moment," my mother called, leaping from the bed as though she had been expecting this.

She wrapped herself in a dark robe then motioned me over to her side of the bed with a small smile. I moved quickly as she hurried to the door.

I heard mumbling between her and whoever was on the other side, then a garbled shout and a light airy sound that startled me more than the shouting. My mother was giggling. I made my mother laugh often, but I had never in all my life heard her giggle.

She moved aside from the door to let our guests pass into the room. In the low light coming in from the hall I could make out two men of equal stature, though one was all but being carried by the other. Thinking someone was wounded, I hurried to my mother's side. Up close I could smell alcohol and vomit coming from the two. I scrunched my nose in disgust.

"What's happened?" I asked, feeling scared.

"Nothing, darling," my mother said quietly, pressing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Your father has simply...mourned excessively. He'll be alright."

"Not for a day or too, he won't," the man carrying my father chuckled.

He grunted as he hefted his load onto the bed where he let him crash back onto the mattress. My father's arms splayed at strange angles as his head lolled to the side. He promptly began snoring.

My anxiety slipped away as I watched Duke Walburton stand to his full height, his dark blond hair curling down onto his forehead. His face was flushed and unshaven and I realized I had never seen him look so disheveled. He smiled at my mother. When I glanced up at her I saw her smile back. She looked perfectly wonderful there in the moonlight with her long red hair down on her shoulders and a smile on her face. I wished she could be like this always. Ever comfortable and happy.

"Thank you, Patrick," she told him quietly.

He gave her a small bow. "Given a job, milady, I will see it through to the end."

My mother laughed, glancing at my father. "You may have been overzealous. I said intoxicated, not dead."

"Did you say intoxicated? I could have sworn it was incapacitated."

"Which is what he will be for days, it appears."

"Then I have done you more favors than asked."

"I am further in your debt. If I live a hundred years I will be never be able to repay you."

"Yet there is no harm in trying," he replied with a roguish smile. "Maybe you would both agree to have dinner with me tomorrow at my home? There will be no meal in the Great Hall and Charles won't be able to look at food, let alone eat it."

My mother hesitated, her smile faltering. I couldn't bear it.

"Yes!" I shouted.

The three of us froze, looking nervously at my father's sleeping body. He did not move. Duke Walburton smiled again, then looked from me to my mother.

"Annabel Lee is on board. What about you, Evelyn?"

I looked up at her imploringly. "Please? Can we?"

My mother laughed quietly. "When did you become such a fan of the Duke's?"

I shrugged. "Anything to get out of this castle."

"Amen to that," Duke Walburton heartily agreed.

***

The King never married again as I so surely thought he would. I imagined that every woman in the kingdom would want the chance to become Queen. Everyday Frederick and King Phillip took their places beside the empty throne on which Queen Elizabeth Anne had sat for my entire life. Probably longer, though I wasn't sure. As far as I knew, the world sprang fully formed into existence on the day of my birth.

When my mother and I finally were able to make good on our dinner date with the Duke it was nearly a month later. My father was at some important meeting for some very important council he was a part of, leaving my mother and I to our own devices for an evening.

My mother came alive that night. She was always happy and wonderful with me, but there was something different about her there in that large home with the clever man at the head of the table. She seemed younger somehow. Lighter. They talked for hours, laughing until tears trickled from their eyes. I found Duke Walburton charming, but what they found so funny often escaped me. My true joy in being there was Rupert.

Rupert was a large gray dog the Duke said he had purchased for hunting but who really sat around the house and shed on everything. He spoke of him with distain but rubbed the dog's ears affectionately. My favorite part of the night was when we all retired to his study where I was allowed to roll around with Rupert on the large, ornate rug on the floor. With my father, animals were dangerous and forbidden and I giggled at the thought of the fit he would have seeing me playing with a dog that weighed more than myself.

At only seven years old I had come to realize something that I wouldn't fully understand for quite some time. I loved my father dearly because he was just that; my father. I did not, however, like him.

Not at all. Not a whit.

The world continued to turn, a year passed and the kingdom eventually came out of mourning for the lost Queen, though Frederick was never quite the same again. He had always been very kind to me and he was still was, but something was missing. The playfulness I was so used to seeing never returned. As he spent more time with his father he became much more like him. He was more interested in the older women at Court while he became much louder in his opinions on all things regarding the kingdom. _His_ kingdom, he was quick to specify. I lost interest in speaking with him. He was a young man and I was still a little girl, something that set us worlds apart. Still my father paired us together every chance he could find. Frederick walked me into the Great Hall for meals, we played croquet and horseshoes in the courtyard lawn together when his father was busy and Frederick wasn't called upon to run _his_ kingdom.

Though we'd known each other all our lives, I'd never called him a friend. So when he pulled away from me, I didn't miss him much. What mattered to me most was the light in my mother's eyes and the plain cotton ribbon I tied in my hair on delivery days.

"Why do you still have this?" Roarke asked, tugging on the bow in my hair gently.

"Because you gave it to me," I said, swatting his hand away.

"I gave you a tart."

"Well this was wrapped around it and it matches your eyes and I love it so I keep it," I explained, turning the page in my book.

We were sprawled on a blanket on the ground together. I was on my stomach with my feet in the air and my face hovering over an adventure book Duke Walburton had brought me from the city. Roarke sat facing me, his legs crisscrossed in front of him, an interlocking metal puzzle being worked furiously in his hands. One of the people in his village had made it for him and Roarke pondered over it all afternoon, never making headway in solving it. He was determined to defeat it whereas I was convinced it was an unsolvable joke being played on him.

"Oh," he said, putting the puzzle down in his lap. "Well then I want something from you. Something I can keep of yours."

"You can have this book when I'm done with it."

"No, it should be something meaningful to you."

I looked up, my face doubtful. "Was the ribbon meaningful to you?"

He shrugged.

"Well, what do you want then?"

That's when he attacked. He moved quick as a fox, his face darting in close to mine, his warm lips brushing across my own. It was the briefest of touches, feather light and ticklish, but it took my breath away.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered, staring at him in shock.

"Because that's what I wanted from you," he replied matter of fact. "Was it your first kiss?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now I have it and I can keep it always." He grinned, his eyes shining in the sunlight, making my heart stumble in my chest.

I had never thought of my first kiss. Like all of my firsts, I'd assumed it would go to the Prince. That it, like I, would belong to him. But that idea was shattered the second Ro's lips touched mine. One of my firsts, this intimate, simple thing that hadn't even existed until moments ago, was ours. It was born of us. I felt like we owned it entirely, Roarke and I, and I would leave it with him to guard for the rest of his life.

That was the second time I fell in love with him.

# Chapter Four

Five years later I turned thirteen. It was due in equal measure to sheer strength of will and the turning of the Earth around the sun. I was desperate to be older, dying to be a grown woman. Of course by the time I truly was grown I would wonder what the rush had been about.

For my birthday that year all I wanted in the wide world was to visit Roarke's home. It was an outlandish wish, an undeliverable gift, but I wanted it just the same. I dreamed of what his house looked like. Of what the village was like. I wanted to see his mother making pastries on a table beside a fire. I wanted to watch his father walking through their village looking so tall and impossibly sure of everything. In the eight years Roarke and I had been friends I had only seen his father a handful of times. He was an odd looking man with mismatched features that seemed almost ugly. Until he smiled. When he smiled, it all came together in a portrait of joy and light.

I began to notice over the years that my feelings toward Roarke were changing. That the stutter in my heart whenever he was near began to make sense. The friendly love I carried for him as a child was becoming something different. Something heavier. More confusing. I no longer saw him as beautiful the way I thought snow or the crystal calm of the lake were beautiful. I now saw Roarke as handsome.

"Of course he's handsome," my mother laughed when I told her. "He always has been. You had best prepare yourself, because it's only going to get worse. He'll only get taller and more dashing. His mother says he's been training with a sword. I know how you feel about that."

My jaw dropped. "What do you mean?"

"Close your mouth, fish," she scolded with a smile. I snapped my mouth shut. "Do you think I haven't seen you when you watch the tournaments? Every time Patrick wins a match or blows you a kiss, you flush red as fire."

"It's because he embarrasses me!"

"He does not. You love it."

I did. I did love it. I was the envy of every girl from ten to thirty when Duke Walburton carried my favor into a match. Father grumbled, saying it should have been Prince Frederick, even though Frederick wasn't old enough to enter tournaments yet. Another fact my father conveniently ignored was that Prince Frederick was sixteen years old, becoming a man more and more every day and the object of every girl's affections. There was a new woman on his arm every few days. He didn't have time for a now scrawny tomboy such as myself nor did I have the patience for him. He'd taken to reciting sonnets and handing out roses, neither of which I had any desire or use for. My new favorite pastime was drawing out maps with Roarke. We'd arrange his hand carved figurines on them then wage violent, bloody wars against one another. Though the wars were gruesome, the figurines were so beautiful it made me ache to visit his village every time I touched them.

"Mother?"

"Yes, dear?" she asked, a grin still on her face.

"Can I tell you what I'd like for my birthday?"

"No, let me guess. A new corset?"

I scowled in disgust. "No."

"Hmmm. A carriage perhaps? Really ornate? Completely insensible?"

"I'm barely allowed to leave the castle and I'm not supposed to go near horses. What would I do with a carriage?"

"I'm sure Rupert could pull it around the castle grounds for you."

I snorted. "No."

"Well, alright then," she said with a sigh. She took a seat beside me on the bed. "What _would_ you like, Miss Picky?"

I took a deep breath, gathering my nerve.

"I'd like to visit Roarke in his village," I told her, my voice almost a whisper.

My mother didn't move. I couldn't be certain she continued to breath. I knew it was a lot to ask, probably too much to ask in fact, but I had to do it. I gained nothing by not trying. Though, as I looked at my mother's frozen frame I had to wonder if I didn't _lose_ something by asking. If it didn't cost her something to hear me want it.

Finally her chest rose and fell sharply.

"Is that really what you want? More than anything else?" she asked, her eyes searching mine. "Because you have to understand how very dangerous a thing it would be. Not only for us, but for Roarke and his family as well. If your father were to find out..."

I quickly grabbed her hands in mine. "It's alright, mother. I don't want it that badly.

"Yes, you do," she said with a sad smile, "or you wouldn't have asked me for such a thing."

I bit my lip, unsure what to say. She knew me too well.

"I'll try to speak to his parents. It would affect us all so it's a choice we should make together."

"Without father," I said with a knowing grin.

My mother rolled her eyes. "If he had his way, you'd be locked in a glass case until you were sixteen and we'd never have any fun."

"He's certain I'll marry Frederick, isn't he?" I asked suddenly. I'd never asked about my betrothal before, though I'd always felt the weight of it.

My mother's brow pinched in concern. "Yes."

"And I have to do it, don't I?"

Her lips grew tight. "Yes."

"I—"

"If it weren't true, what would you do?" she interrupted, her words tumbling from her mouth as though escaping from prison. "What would you want?"

I blushed but I looked her in the eyes. When I spoke, it was without hesitation. Without shame.

"I'd marry Roarke and I'd leave the island forever."

She laughed faintly, nodding her head. "I would that it were possible."

"But it's not, is it? Father wants me to marry Frederick so that's that."

"Yes, he does, but it's not up to him. It's not up to any of us."

"It's up to the King and Prince Frederick," I agreed.

"No," she said solemnly. "It's not even up to them."

***

In the end I got my way, just as any spoiled child does, regardless the cost to others. In my defense, I did not know what would come. What this night would bring. But life plays out as it will and what happened that night set into motion a myriad of other movements that, in the grand scheme of things, were necessary evils. All I knew then, and what I still know to be true today, is that from the moment I saw him, all roads led to Ro.

On the night of my birthday Roarke's father met me outside the gates after my mother and I left together. She continued on to have dinner with Duke Walburton and, should anyone ever ask, he would say we had both been there all evening.

"Excuse me, milady. I'm waiting for the child, Annabel Lee."

Roarke's father stood tall against the falling shadows. His smile made him radiant against the darkness. He even looked a little beautiful now that I could see Roarke in his features.

I blushed, feeling embarrassed and strange.

"Don't tease me, sir. You know it's me."

"I do. I'm sorry. I haven't seen you in years. I'm afraid I'd forgotten how much you would have grown. You're not a child anymore. You've become a young lady."

"Thank you, sir."

"You don't have to call me 'sir'. We're not so formal where we're going."

"I don't actually know your name."

He grinned. "It's Kian. I imagine you don't know my wife's name either?"

I shook my head, feeling foolish. "I've only ever heard her called 'mum'."

"Well you can call her that if you like, she'll answer you gladly. Or you can call her Bronwyn." He offered his arm to me. "Shall we?"

I adjusted the rough material of the plain black cloak my mother had given me, making sure the hood covered my head of blond hair. Beneath it I wore a simple cotton dress in a dark green color. Mrs. Pomphel had purchased it for me in town, intentionally choosing something ordinary so I would blend in with the Tem Aedha. She was the only person besides my mother who knew where I went on delivery days. Who knew who I had befriended all those years ago. There was no excess of lace or bows on the dress, no rigid corset linings, no billowy skirts. It was the simplest of simplistic things and I loved it dearly.

I heard Kian chuckle softly as I fidgeted with the cloak. I quickly scanned my clothing, wondering what I had done wrong. What custom of theirs I would offend.

He shook his head at me. "No, Anna, you're perfect as you are. I was only thinking how ridiculous this is. Clothing can't hide the light of you. I could see you glowing were it midday on the brightest day of the year."

I smiled, blushing. "You're teasing me again."

"I am not." His voice grew solemn. "I caution you to be careful. The stars in the sky will become jealous."

It was quite a journey from the castle to the woods. We passed through the main city of Kilmarnock where merchants were tidying their store fronts and closing up for the day, ready to head home to their families. We followed the road out of town until it was no longer an intricate mesh of cobblestone but a well-worn dirt path, hard packed into remarkable smoothness. It wove us around the lake where the fisherman lived, those not brave enough to risk the heartier catches in The Shallows. We passed through small clusters of homes that looked like impromptu villages and headed out into the farm lands. They spanned the majority of the island and rested in the only section of land that wasn't solid rock. I had heard it said that the land was nearly impossible to till, that it had been a barren wasteland in the past. All before the Tem Aedha had appeared. Before they changed everything.

The sun began to set, casting the forest in deep, uninviting shadow just as we came upon it. I was nervous as we entered, suddenly less eager for a visit to this foreign world. All my life I had heard ghost stories and rumors about the forest. Strange tales about violent animals or cruel plants that could eat a grown man alive. Most of the stories, however, centered around the Tem Aedha. Around their connections to dark spirits of the forest or savage magical practices. I was smart enough to know that most of it wasn't true, that it couldn't possibly be true, but rumors had to come from somewhere, didn't they? Some kernel of truth must lurk inside them?

"Are you afraid?" Kian asked me quietly.

I found him watching me closely, his eyes intent on my face.

"A little," I admitted. Had it been Roarke asking I never would have admitted it. As it was, I hoped Kian didn't tell him about this moment.

"There's no need to be. You'll be perfectly safe here. I swear it."

Hesitantly I offered my hand, silently asking him to hold it. He smiled as he took my hand firmly in his. It was an affection I wasn't accustomed to from men. The warmth and strength radiating from his skin chased the chills from my spirit, leaving me burning with bravery.

"So?" he asked, one eyebrow raised. "Do we press on?"

I nodded once firmly before squaring my shoulders. "Only cowards would turn back now."

His rumbling chuckle preceded us into the dark woods, lighting our way.

I expected that evening in the woods to be miraculous. To be life-altering. Fantastical. Magical, even if a bit terrifying. I prepared myself for all manner of enchantment. Faeries in the flowers, unicorns by the stream, dragons in the skies. I would have been content with a witch or a long bearded wizard even, but I found none of it. It turns out that the truly exotic nature of the Tem Aedha lies in their pure simplicity.

The village was closer to the mouth of the forest than I anticipated. We walked a short distance, rounded a bend and there we were. While the outskirts of the forest were dark, the interior of the village was a warmly glowing mecca. There were buildings everywhere, telling me instantly that there were far more Tem Aedha than the King had any notion of. Why didn't they come here to see that for themselves? As far as I knew, no one from Kilmarnock had ever been here. No one of the kingdom traveled farther west than the farmlands we worked together. Were they not allowed or were they too proud? Considering the ease with which I entered this village, I was inclined to believe it was pride.

The buildings were beautiful. They were all earthen in material and color, pressing up against the trees for support. The entire village looked to be built _with_ the forest rather than _in_ it. The sight of this bustling town full of beautiful tall, brown skinned people seemed the most natural thing in the world to me. As though they'd always been here. As though they belonged here.

While the main city of Kilmarnock had been closing down as we walked through it, this village was coming alive. Children were playing in the open square, mothers were bringing meals out to long, large tables. It looked as though entire neighborhoods ate together, sharing the meals as a family. And perhaps that's exactly what they were; enormous families.

"Is it what you expected?" Kian asked, leading me through a group of children playing a game I recognized. A game Ro had taught me. I smiled at them as we passed.

"I don't know what I expected, but this was not it."

"Is that good or bad?"

"It's wonderful."

He draped his arm across my shoulders, tugging me into his side. He was so warm, so solid and he smelled of pine and clean linen. It was pure heaven.

I asked a million questions ranging from what people were eating for dinner to what the buildings were made of. Kian chuckled at every fresh inquiry but he answered them all. Many people nodded to him as we passed, wishing him a good evening and eyeing me with curiosity. A few times he stopped briefly and spoke business with a passerby. Each time he surprised me when he introduced me to them, always simply as 'Anna'. They asked him a lot of questions about how to proceed with all types of business affairs, giving me the impression that Ro's father was a man of some importance here.

"What do you do, sir?" I asked, unsure if the question was rude but too curious to suppress it.

"Call me Kian, never sir. And I'm a farmer."

I looked up at him skeptically. "Just a farmer?"

He shrugged, reminding me of Roarke. "Among other things."

"What other things?"

"You are a curious one, aren't you? Ro warned me about that. He suggested we bring you in blindfolded."

I scowled. "He did not."

"He did. He said you'd ask too many questions otherwise and we'd never make it to the house before dawn."

"He thinks he knows everything," I grumbled, remembering the first time I met him and his smug little face.

"That he does. His mother as well." He chuckled to himself. "She just happens to be right."

When we reached the end of a long dirt lane strewn with quaint cottages tucked among the trees, Kian led me into the farthest on the left. It was nearly identical to all of the others accept for a small ornate carving hanging above the door. It was a symbol I had never seen before. I desperately wanted to ask what it was, what it meant, if it was in a different language and, most importantly, if it was magical. But Kian's teasing about my curiosity and Ro's insistence I be blind folded helped me hold my tongue.

"Hullo!" Kian called into the house.

"Did you bring her?" I heard Bronwyn call out just before she appeared. She wiped her hands quickly on a towel before embracing me firmly. "You made it. You're here at last."

"Thank you for having me," I told her, surprised by the embrace she continued to hold me in. "My mother reminded me again and again how dangerous it could be for you."

"Oh pfft," Bronwyn scoffed, stepping back. "Your father and your King, they don't scare us. I worry for you, though. And for your mother. You'll be careful once you're back? You'll never mention it to anyone? For her sake?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be careful."

"Good," she said, cupping my cheek affectionately.

Her hand lingered for a moment as she stared at me, her eyes slipping out of focus. Then a frown tugged at her mouth as her fingers gently began probing my cheek bone. She looked sad suddenly, as though my skin, my very bones, had told her their secrets.

I felt my cheeks flush red with humiliation. I stepped back quickly out of her reach, bumping gracelessly into the closed door behind me. I felt cornered. Trapped.

"Bronwyn," Kian warned gently.

Bronwyn shook herself, her eyes regaining their focus. She stepped away from me quickly.

"Excuse me, Anna. I'm sorry. I'll just finish up in the kitchen. Take off your cloak and give it to Roarke. He can hang it for you. Roarke! She's here, love!"

I was suddenly left alone in the entryway of this warm, cozy home in a forbidden forest with a man who by all accounts could talk to the trees and his wife had, I was fairly certain, just somehow seen into my mind. I was immensely, deeply and truly uncomfortable.

Then Ro came striding into the room looking more natural and at ease than I had ever seen him, and all of my worries washed away. I wasn't thinking of his mother and her gentle, knowing hands or my father and his hard, hurtful ones. All I knew was that he was here, that all that was wrong in my world could someday be made right. It didn't have to be by him, I knew very well that the odds were that it wouldn't be, but he held such promise just in the way he breathed that I couldn't help but look at him and know I would prevail.

"Hello, Anna," he said, grinning.

"A blindfold, Ro? Truly?" I asked him hotly.

He and his father both laughed.

"Don't be angry at me. You know how you are."

"I didn't ask that many questions," I lied, looking to Kian for support.

He put his hands up in supplication.

"But you were dying to, weren't you?" Roarke asked, stepping behind me to remove my cloak. "You still are."

"Is this what you do to people on their birthday in your village?" I asked, shrugging free of the cloak. My dress was so light, it left me so unconstrained I nearly felt naked in it. I turned to face Ro, feeling happy and wild. "You're rude to them? You make jokes at their expense?"

He didn't answer. Instead he stood there staring at me blankly.

"What?" I asked, frowning. "What now? Did I wear the wrong color? Maybe the pattern on my dress is Aedha script for 'I'm a dunce'?"

He shook his head, bunching the cloak in his hands. "No," he said seriously. "I've never seen you dressed like this before."

I looked down at myself, then back up at him. "I didn't know what to wear exactly. Your mother just said simple. Is it alright?"

He nodded, a smile forming on his lips. Then he quickly stepped past me, disappearing without another word.

"He's acting odd," I mumbled.

Kian nodded, looking down the hall after him.

"It's all this growing up business," he told me. "It makes you very odd."

"Kian!" Bronwyn called. "I'm finished. Will you bring her in?"

He gestured for me to step into the kitchen. "I hope you're hungry."

When I walked in, I nearly fainted. The kitchen was so much smaller than I was used to at the castle, but it was infinitely cheerier. There was color everywhere, from the linens to hanging flowers, to fruit in bowels and baskets, to paintings on the walls. This room was eternal springtime in every corner. But what nearly knocked me dead was the large, round table in the center. It was covered entirely in every pastry I could ever have imagined and some I'd never seen or heard of. I felt saliva pool in the corners of my mouth simply looking at it.

"Happy birthday, Anna," Bronwyn said happily.

"You did all of this for me?" I asked in disbelief.

"Oh you must be used to more than this for you at the castle."

"Yes, but..."

I didn't know how to finish that sentence. I didn't know how to tell them that my birthday celebration was more for the Court than it ever was for me. It was a chance to have a ball, to have a feast, to have a drink. This was different. This was for me, all for me. Like when my mother woke me at midnight, sang to me and handed me my present where we sat hidden in the moonlight, just the two of us.

"Well," Bronwyn said, filling the silence I had left hanging, "you might not be too pleased with me but you'll just have to deal with it. I didn't make all wild-berry tarts. I made all of my specialties and you'll have to try each one. You might find something you like even more. Something you didn't know existed."

"Is she giving her the Try New Things speech?" Roarke asked from the doorway behind me.

"She's building up to it," Kian told him.

"Shush. Just because the two of you are lost causes it doesn't mean I should give up on everyone."

That night I ate my weight in pastry. Then I ate Roarke's weight as well. I worried I would be sick by the end of it, but everything tasted so wonderful I couldn't stop myself. This was Bronwyn's magic, I decided.

Too soon it was time for me to return home. I was reluctant to go. I wanted to stay there at that table eating and laughing with Ro and his family, surrounded by Spring. Free and easy. But when the time came I reluctantly let Roarke drape my cloak over my shoulders, shrouding me in shadow once again. We waited outside for his father, watching the fireflies swirl in the trees. I secretly pretended they were pixies.

"It's so lovely here, Ro. I would stay here forever if I could."

"I wish you would."

I snorted. "You'd grow tired of me."

He shrugged. "Probably."

"You're mean! You're supposed to say 'Never! Please stay!'"

He grinned. "I won't say that."

"You're mean," I repeated.

"Only to you."

That made me smile. If you were ever a child and a little boy pulled your hair for no apparent reason, you understand why.

"Do you like your presents?" he asked, gesturing to the two small wooden figures I held in my hands.

They were beautiful carvings, perfect for our games of war. What made them even better was that they were of us. Roarke and I.

"I love them," I assured him, running my fingertips over their smooth surface. Then I looked at him sadly. "I can't keep them, you know. If my father or any of the servants ever found them..."

"I know." He reached out and gently took them from me. My hands felt especially empty without them. "I'll keep them for you and bring them with me whenever I visit."

"Are you ready, Anna?" Kian asked, appearing behind me.

"Yes, thank you." I turned to Roarke and smiled. "Thank you for a wonderful birthday. I'll never forget it."

He smiled as well. "You're welcome."

"Goodbye, Ro."

"Goodbye, Anna."

# Chapter Five

Roarke and I never played again in the orchard. That night, that goodbye, was it for he and I for a long time. It should have been more. I should have told him he was the greatest, purest friend I had ever known. That I thought him painfully good looking and rudely charming. That I loved him as dearly as anyone could love another human being. But I was young and those words would never have come. I was too unsure of myself then, but most importantly we simply did not know. And that's the terrible truth of goodbyes. You never know when it's the last one.

When Kian returned me to the castle, my mother was waiting for me near the gates. They exchanged quick hellos and goodbyes, then we walked casually together into the main courtyard as Roarke's father returned home. It all went off perfectly without a hitch.

What wonderful liars and thieves were we?

My mother and I walked silently through the halls of the castle toward our chambers. They were deserted, which felt odd for this time of evening. Normally there were servants running around, turning down beds and helping ladies out of their dresses and hairpins. But all was eerily silent.

When we entered my chambers I felt my mother stiffen beside me. The room was cast in shadow, the only light a flickering candle on the windowsill. I quickly scanned the room to find my father sat at the end of my bed facing the door. Waiting.

"Charles, what are you doing in here?" she asked, her tone surprisingly even given her rigid posture.

"Where have you ladies been?" he asked softly.

I trembled involuntarily. His tone... it was dangerous.

"Out, as I told you. We had a dinner engagement."

"With whom?"

"With Duke Walburton. Charles, I told you all of this. What is this about?" She stepped closer to him, surreptitiously sniffing the air. "Have you had a drink tonight?"

He looked at her with hard eyes. "You told me no such thing."

"In fact I did. We talked about it. I told you the Duke had asked us to eat with him tonight. You told me, rather bitingly, to have a wonderful time."

"I don't recall any of this."

"It doesn't mean it didn't happen."

My father stood abruptly. His shadow moved violently with him, filling the room, falling over me.

"Mind your tongue, Evelyn."

"Father, please," I begged uselessly, stepping to my mother's side. "We only had dinner with him. We've done it before and you never minded."

He looked down at me, his face dark. "You've asked my permission before."

My mother and I remained silent. There was no use in telling him that we had had his permission. It would only make him angrier.

"What are you wearing?" he asked me, gripping my cloak. He pulled it roughly from my shoulders, grabbing a section of my hair as well. I cried out as he yanked it.

"Charles!" my mother exclaimed, reaching out for me.

He pushed her easily aside. When he saw my simple green dress he sneered. "What is this?"

"It's just a dress," she said quietly.

"This is a peasant's dress. What is she doing in a peasant's dress, Evelyn?"

"She saw one on a girl in the city once and she wanted to try one on. It was her birthday wish. That's all."

He continued to glare at me, his eyes raking me over. "You look like a commoner. Like a whore. Is that what you want to be, Annabel Lee? A common whore?"

Tears began to stream down my face. They flew off my cheeks as I shook my head violently. "No, father. No!"

He brought his face down level to mine. I could see nothing but his eyes, I could smell nothing but his breath. Both were clean and hot.

"Then you shouldn't dress as one. Or I know some men who would love to treat you like one," he growled.

My breath froze in my throat. I couldn't breathe or swallow. I could only nod my understanding.

He straightened then threw my cloak across the room toward the fire.

"Burn it," he told my mother harshly. "And when you have her in her nightdress, burn the dress on her back. There'll be no more of this. No more dinners out, no more playtime, no more dress up. She's thirteen. It's time she starts acting like a woman and fulfilling her duties as such."

When he left the room he took all of the air out with him. I collapsed in a heap on the floor, my face buried in my hands as hot tears scalded my cheeks. I was flushed with shame and embarrassment. I heard my mother take a shuddering breath then she was there beside me on the floor. She wrapped me up in her arms, rocking me as though I were a toddler, not a teenager.

We never spoke a word of it. Hours later we were lying together in my bed, our hands clenched together tightly.

By morning, my simple green joy was nothing but ash on the hearth.

***

I was not allowed back into the kitchens even in passing. Mrs. Pomphel caught me in the halls with my father one afternoon months later and asked me why I hadn't visited her lately. She mentioned, with greater meaning than my father could understand, that I was terribly missed.

"Annabel Lee is a lady now. She has more important matters that require her attention than playtime," my father told her firmly.

When she looked at me her eyes were full of sadness and pity. It made me ache with embarrassment.

The loss of Roarke and the time we spent together sank heavy inside me, like a stone in my belly. For the first few months it pulled me under the surface, suffocating me. I cried every night and every day I imagined myself in the orchard with Ro. I shouldn't have done it, it only made it worse. One day when I was fourteen I foolishly walked past the entrance to the maze. I knew what would happen. I knew what ghosts it would resurrect and send to haunt me, but I wanted it. I wanted the pain. I wanted to remember him. To try to feel again, even just for a moment, how I felt when I was with him. Free, happy, loved.

What I got instead was a terrible heartache that landed me on the cold stone floor of the hall in a dark corner. I cried uncontrollably feeling weak and stupid.

"Are you alright?" a quiet voice asked.

My head jerked up to find a girl my age with blond hair and round, brown eyes looking down at me worriedly. She was small like her voice. Sweet looking.

I shook my head, wiping at my eyes. "No, I don't think so."

"Oh dear." She came to kneel in front of me, surprising me. She locked me in with her earnest stare, something so foreign and unfamiliar at Court. "What's happened?"

"I lost my friend," I wept, wiping my face with the silk sleeve of my dress. Father would love that. "My best friend. My only friend, really."

The girl handed me a crisp handkerchief with a large lavender _E_ embroidered in the corner. I took it gratefully.

"You can't only have the one friend. You're Annabel Lee, for goodness sake."

I looked at her in surprise, wiping my eyes. "You know me?"

"I know of you. Everyone does."

I groaned, burying my face in my hands. I felt a small hand on my shoulder begin to rub slow circles.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. But your mother was very close with the Queen, wasn't she?"

I nodded, my face still hidden. "They were children together."

"As were you and Prince Frederick."

It wasn't a question. I understood how she knew of me, how _everyone_ knew of me, but there's a difference between being known and being known of. I wanted to be known. To be seen, to be heard.

I lifted my head suddenly, desperately catching the girl's eyes. "What is your name?"

"Elaine."

"Elaine, can I tell you something that I've never told anyone?"

She looked uncomfortable. I couldn't say I blamed her. She was already sitting on the dusty floor with an emotional stranger, one who lived and breathed in close proximity to the Royal Family. In the Court, this was a dream come true to a schemer. But to an innocent, to one as sweet and earnest as I believed this girl to be, it held the potential of becoming a nightmare. My secret could pull her into a dark, tangled web from which she might never escape.

"Alright," she said finally, her voice and eyes hesitant.

I took a deep breath. "I don't like lamb."

She blinked. "What?"

"My father told Prince Frederick once that I favored lamb. Frederick was going on at dinner about how delicious the lamb was and my father told him that it was my favorite meal as well. It's not. I don't care for it at all, but I have to pretend that I love it every Tuesday when it's served and Frederick raises his glass to me in a toast to 'our favorite meal' when all I can think about is that this thing in front of me used to be a sweet, white lamb running free through a field. It had a mamma and siblings and a name and now it's sitting here next to green beans waiting for me to choke it down all to please a Prince." I took her hands fervently in mine. "I hate lamb, Elaine. I want roast pig and lots of it!"

Elaine giggled with what sounded like relief. It was infectious. I laughed as well, feeling my sorrow and tension spill out of me and evaporate into the air. It was a small secret, one silly little thing, but it meant the world to be able to tell someone. It was the sort of thing I used to tell Roarke. The kind of thing we would laugh at as I was laughing with Elaine now.

And that was the moment that I knew I would be alright. I would miss him every single day and my heart ached for him as I grew older. As I realized just what he'd meant to me. But he was not the sun, the moon, nor the stars. His company was not the breath in my lungs or the strength in my limbs and eventually I would recover. Though I never forgot.

My father took a much greater interest in my life. While before I had been a child my mother was raising for him, I was now a young woman, the finished product he had been waiting on. I was a fully formed card he could play in this never ending game at Court, and while my father was a hard man, this was the one game that he loved to play. And I must admit, he was exquisite at it.

# Chapter Six

Just after my fifteenth birthday I attended the annual Tournament of Games. It took place in the Spring time beside the lake. The men at court participated in a number of challenges both in the water and on the field while we ladies stood beneath parasols and behind fans, smiling at our champions. I had always attended, it being one of the rare out of castle gate excursions my father allowed, but this year was a different experience for me. Before I had been a child watching excitedly with my mother. Now I was a young woman surrounded by other young women from Court, laughing and batting our eyelashes. My father watched, he was always watching me now, but it was from a distance. It gave me a strange freedom I'd never known. One I found I rather liked.

"Annabel Lee, The Governor is frowning," Suzanne told me, nudging my shoulder with hers.

I groaned. She was right. My governess, or The Governor as we all called her, was standing just outside the circle of ladies I was mingling in. While my father kept his distance with anything but his eyes, my governess stayed physically near at all times. He had brought her into service only a few months ago when my mother began to suffer from violent headaches. My mother and I both resented her presence.

"What have I done wrong now?" I muttered.

"I'd say it's the buttercream smeared on your cheek, but what do I know?" Elaine said.

I quickly swiped at my face but my fingers came back clean.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Very funny."

"I thought it was."

"It could be anything," Suzanne said dismissively. "Maybe her shoes are pinching or her stockings are too tight."

I glared at the Governor's taught face. "Her everything is too tight."

Suzanne laughed, her throaty voice carrying across the field, turning heads. Everything about Suzanne turned heads. Her height, her curves, her chocolate brown curls. She was built to be noticed and she knew it. I had met her at a ball not long after I met Elaine. She had walked straight up to me, met my eyes and asked if I knew who she was.

"An Amazonian?" I had asked, not liking her haughty tone. "Truly, how tall are you?"

"Tall enough to squash you. Can you hear me from down there? I asked a question. Do you know who I am?"

I did.

"I don't," I said.

She'd cast me a feline smile that ran deep in her eyes. "I'm your new best friend."

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me. We're going to be friends."

"I don't believe I want to be friends with you."

"No, you shouldn't. And I don't want to be friends with you either. But here's the thing," she said, leaning in closer, towering over me. It was an intimidation method, one my father used often. I met it head on, never flinching. Never cowering. Not anymore. "You're close with Prince Frederick. Rumor has it that you're the favorite at Court to marry him. But you won't. I will."

"Congratulations," I replied dryly.

"Thank you. Now here's where you come in. I'm going to stick to you like glue so that every time Frederick is with you, he's also with me. You'll never have a moment alone with him again, I promise you that."

I snorted. "Then you really will be my best friend."

Her face shifted for just a split second, only a faint glimmer of uncertainty before she mastered herself.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're going to stick to me no matter what I say or do, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll have to wait and see."

What Suzanne saw was that I had no desires to marry Prince Frederick. She was true to her word and followed me everywhere. From dawn to dusk, if Suzanne could be with me, she was. She was a natural at Court, playing the game with the same skill as people twice her age, a master of conniving and flirtation, and while it made me hate her at first, I grew to love her. I made no secret of my disinterest in becoming Queen. It wasn't long before she dropped her mask and showed me her true colors. They were bright, brilliant and a little scary. But at least they were honest.

"Is your mother ill again today?" Elaine asked. "Is that why The Governor is here?"

"Yes," I said curtly, looking away. I caught movement on the field. They were lining up for the first joust.

"I'm sorry. I hope she feels better soon."

"Thank you. It's strange being here without her."

"Well," Suzanne said happily, linking her arm with mine, her other with Elaine, "you'll just have to make do with us, you poor thing. Now come on, they're almost ready to go and I want to catch the Prince's eye. Get him to carry my favor."

"He'll never do it," Elaine cautioned her.

"She's right," I agreed. "He only ever cares about the woman."

Suzanne frowned at me. "Have you two not noticed? We _are_ women."

"You're right. Let me rephrase that. He only cares about groooown women."

"Oh, you're being lewd!" Elaine protested, scowling as she tried not to laugh.

"Isn't she? And she wonders why The Governor frowns at her," Suzanne said. "Besides, it's not even true."

"Oh no? Have you met the Prince?" I asked.

"Not as much as you have."

"Don't start."

"You spend an awful lot of time with him. Alone."

"No, I do not. And I said don't start."

"It's too late, I've already begun. Maybe you should try to give him your favor, Annabel. I'll bet you anything he would take it.'

"But she's not groooown," Elaine said with a giggle.

"Ah! Who is lewd now?" I asked.

Elaine shrugged. "You're both terrible influences."

"We're the best thing that ever happened to you, little mouse," Suzanne told her.

I wasn't sure that was true, but she was certainly the best thing that ever happened to Suzanne and I. I would have done anything for Elaine. Suzanne as well. Their friendship had helped fill the void left by Roarke, even though I still felt the ghost of it. Like the thin white line on my palm. My mother had said it wouldn't scar, but some things stay with you.

"Go on, Annabel Lee," Elaine insisted, nodding toward the group of men in full armor preparing for the joust. Prince Frederick stood tall in the center. "Signal him, let him know you want him to fight for you."

"But I don't," I protested. "Besides, I always give my favor to the Duke."

Suzanne searched the arena. "Is he fighting today? I haven't seen him."

I searched as well but couldn't find him either. I was shocked. He had never missed a joust, not once in my entire life.

"I guess he's not," I muttered. "Maybe he'll be here tomorrow for the sword fights. It's his specialty."

"Oh no, you'll have to find another champion," Suzanne mused dramatically. "Who could you chose? Who, who, who?"

"I'm not calling out to him."

"Do you have your handkerchief with you?"

"No," I lied.

Elaine smiled at me knowingly. "Yes, you do. You have it because you were going to give it to the Duke." She began to prod at my hands, pulling them open, then feeling around my dress. "Where is it?"

"Someplace I'd rather you did not go searching, thank you so much!" I giggled and shouted at her, swatting her hands away as she began to poke at my ribs, tickling me.

Suzanne took the chance while I was distracted to reach into my dress just at the top of my shoulder and pull out my frilly, silly useless handkerchief. It was green like my eyes. She waved it furiously toward the group of jousters waiting to begin.

"Prince Frederick!" she cried, her voice rising above the chorus of others calling out to him. Suzanne was not one easily ignored. His head turned immediately.

"Suzanne, no!" I hissed, no longer giggling. I grabbed Elaine's hands hard, squeezing them tightly. She frowned at me.

Suzanne looked over her shoulder and grinned at my angry face.

"Don't be so dramatic, he probably won't even take it."

_But what if he does?_ I thought.

"Prince Frederick, will you carry this favor into competition?" Suzanne called out again, her low, throaty voice grabbing the attention of other men as well.

Prince Frederick shielded his eyes, searching until he found me. His brown hair looked almost amber under the sun, his tanned skin healthy and glowing. I watched with faltered breath as a grin formed on his too handsome face.

"Lady Suzanne, I wouldn't dare carry your favor." He began to stride purposefully toward us. The other women calling for his attention fell silent, their annoyance clear on their faces. Every eye of every member of the Court was watching us now, burning me over every inch of my skin with the heat of their stares. "I think Hannaford would have my head."

"I do not ask for myself, milord. I ask for another. One too shy to speak for herself."

He eyed the green handkerchief with interest. We spent hours together every week. He knew it was mine. He looked directly at me, his brown eyes digging into mine, challenging me.

"And who might the timid lamb be?"

Timid lamb?!

I squared my shoulders, releasing Elaine.

"The handkerchief is mine, Frederick," I told him, my address shockingly informal. I curtsied but I did not look away. I did not bow.

His eyebrows lifted. "Really?"

"I don't expect you to carry it."

"Then why do you ask?"

"I don't."

He chuckled, the sound low and strange. "Are you playing hard to get, Annabel Lee?"

I shook my head. "I'm not playing at anything which is why I don't ask."

"Then I'm confused. Why am I here?"

"Because my friends are devils."

He laughed loudly, the rest of the arena following suit in polite chuckles. I watched my father chuckle as well, his eyes sparking like flint.

Prince Frederick returned his gaze to me, his eyes burning. They toured my face then dipped to my body, taking in every inch of me in a quick, practiced move. We sat at the same table at dinner almost every night, I had known him for all of my life, yet he had never looked at me as he did now. This look took me in, took something from me and left me feeling bare.

"Lady Suzanne, I will take this favor." He gently plucked my handkerchief from her willing hand. Then he said to me with a crooked, roguish smile, "Whether she likes it or not."

My breathing refused to go even as I watched him walk away.

"I told you he'd take it," Suzanne said smugly.

"You were right," I replied weakly.

Moments later, Robert Hannaford, all dark hair and bright eyes, came to request Suzanne's favor for the joust. Suzanne did in fact play hard to get, telling him she wasn't sure she had even brought a handkerchief with her. He smiled at her lies, called her a heartless villain and eventually she handed over the small square of pink lace.

When the jousting was completed, Frederick stood the victor. After each match he rode slowly along the rim of the arena, waving to the crowd and smiling at the women. Each time he passed me he would remove the handkerchief from the interior of his armor then press it to his nose and mouth, grinning at me. I knew he smelled my perfume and soap on the bit of cloth. That he was breathing the scent that clung to my bare skin, a scent so close, so intimate that only I truly knew it. The very idea gave me goosebumps.

_This is why they love you,_ I thought, glancing at the crowd of angry eyes glaring at me from above swishing fans. They created an undulating sea of hate and envy that wafted tangibly toward me. Feeding me.

I'd never felt more beautiful. More desirable. More powerful.

***

Frederick won the day, taking first place in both jousting and hand to hand combat. Had Duke Walburton been there it would have been another story entirely. I began to suspect I understood his absence. He was the reigning champion of the competitions. He had not been beaten since he was of age to compete. Since he was eighteen.

Prince Frederick had just turned eighteen last winter.

Do you see? As did I. And I suspected others did as well, even Frederick himself because, pompous as he may have been, he was no fool.

That evening I withdrew alone to the refreshment tables, looking for solitude and something sweet. With the competitions for the day finished, everyone milled around chatting, flirting and gossiping. There were musicians nearby playing a soft, simple melody that floated around me on the air, ruffling my hair, tickling my skin. Reminding me of Frederick and his mouth on my lace. How did he do it? How did he burn me through without a single touch? He was skilled, that was for sure. And skilled among the Court meant dangerous. I would have run from him if so many forces had not been adamantly pushing me toward him.

One cannot fight the tides.

There were tables on tables of refreshments, snacks and deserts. I walked them slowly, eyeing everything with interest. As I strolled, I felt someone fall into step beside me.

"Father," I greeted him with disinterest.

"Daughter," he replied in kind. "You did well this afternoon."

"Did I? I thought you looked angry." I glanced up at his hard face. "But then you always look angry, I suppose."

He shook his head, not looking at me. "You get that tongue of yours from your mother. I always thought to cut it out of you someday, but it seems perhaps that would be too rash."

I looked away. His words should have shocked me, but I had lost that ability years ago.

"Have you found a more sensible solution than mutilating me?"

"I would never really hurt you," he replied earnestly.

I snorted in disbelief.

"Your governess is one solution," he explained, ignoring me. "She will be remaining in our service permanently, whether your mother recovers or not."

I flinched. "Of course she'll recover. It's only headaches."

"Yes. The second solution is this; be as you are. I never imagined your personality could work to your advantage. I've always found you to be grating. I hoped that your beauty would be your saving grace. The Prince, however, seems to feel differently. At least for now." He glanced sideways at me, looking me over critically. My own eyes fell upon a mirage. A drop of water for a land in drought. "Or perhaps your beauty has finally grown so much that it overshadows everything else. Either way, we will stay the course."

I wasn't listening anymore. I was frozen in place, my feet becoming entwined with the grass and rooted in the earth.

"In fact," my father continued, coming to stand in front of me. I did not look at him. "That little stunt of yours worked brilliantly. He won, as did Walburton every year before him, each of them carrying your color. You're considered something of a talisman. And the Prince does so love to win. You may have sped up the process considerably. I hope to see you married by next year."

My hands twitched at my sides. My breath was caught in my throat. I reached out slowly with leaden limbs to gently lift a cake from the table in front of me. It was small, round and perfect. But what pulled me, what snared me and gravitated me to it, was its icing.

It was cornflower blue.

The second I touched it, I knew. The texture of it between my fingertips, the weight of it against my skin. Suddenly I was gone from this place. I was transported to another world, another Spring, another table laid heavy with sweet decadence. That cake, that color, they were a message from Bronwyn. From Kian.

From Ro.

I wanted to cry and laugh and devour the whole thing in one bite until its entirety was inside me where no one could take it from me again. Two years had passed and they still remembered. I was not forgotten.

"Put that down, Annabel Lee. You don't need it," my father warned.

He was wrong. In that moment it was all I needed.

"Annabel," he repeated sternly.

"Oh let her have it," Prince Frederick said lightly, coming to stand in front of me. I looked up at him slowly, unwilling to look away from the memory I held in my hand. Frederick smiled. "Maybe eating something sweet will make her sweet."

My father chuckled. "If there were a chance it were true, milord, I would feed her cakes for every meal."

Frederick ignored him. He stared into my eyes, his smile growing.

"On second thought," he said, wrapping his hand around mine, entangling his fingers with my own. My breath hitched at the touch, but my heart remained steady. Unaffected. He slowly pulled the cake from my grasp, dragging his skin against mine. "I like you just as you are. All salt and no sugar."

He took a large bite. The cream from the top smeared across his lips and daubed on the end of his nose.

The color did not suit him.
_Part Two -_ Annabel Lee

_And this was the reason that, long ago,_

_In this kingdom by the sea,_

_A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling_

_My beautiful Annabel Lee;_

_So that her highborn kinsmen came_

_And bore her away from me,_

_To shut her up in a sepulcher_

_In this kingdom by the sea._

_The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,_

_Went envying her and me_

_Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,_

_In this kingdom by the sea)_

_That the wind came out of the cloud by night_

_Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee._

_From_ _"Annabel Lee"_ _by_ _Edgar Allen Poe_

# Chapter Seven

"Annabel," he whispered, his voice just beneath my ear, his breath hot and wet against my neck.

I leaned my head back and to the side, offering the tender flesh of my neck up to him as I pressed my back harder against his chest. My breath came in hiccups as his hands ran down my arms, his fingertips lightly sliding over the inner curves of my elbows, down to the sensitive skin of my wrists.

"Yes?" I asked breathily.

"How is your skin so soft? It's unnatural." His lips brushed against my neck. I shivered. "You're unnatural."

"What a cruel thing to say," I scolded lightly, stepping forward to move out of his reach.

His hands, so languid just a moment before, shot out to grip my hips. He pulled me back to him, wrapping his arms around my waist tightly as he buried his face in my shoulder.

"Well you're a cruel, unnatural being. Too beautiful to be touched, yet I cannot stop myself."

I disentangled myself from his embrace. He let me go unwillingly.

I stood in the shadows of the atrium with Frederick, surrounded by the scent of blooms and the sound of a symphony carrying around the room on a light breeze. It was enchanting and forbidden. Encouraged and expected.

"You'll find a way," I told him, grinning wickedly. It was a smile I never understood as a child. But as a seventeen year old girl at Court, I was a master of it.

"You give me too much credit. I can't stay away," he said, taking my hand in his.

I slipped it deftly away. "Do try."

He chuckled. "You see? Cruel. Are you casting me away, Annabel Lee?"

"Would it matter if I was?"

"No."

I laughed lightly, stepping farther away, making my retreat. This was the key that I had learned. Give a little, never all. Never enough.

"Let me go, Frederick. Get back to your guests like a good host. There are many woman here far less cruel who will easily swoon over you."

"Are you saying I don't make you swoon?"

I was, but I could never tell him. Frederick and I had been doing this dance for two years now. He was skilled at making a girl lose her breath, her mind and her heart, but for reasons I could never explain to anyone, he'd only accomplished the first with me. I could not deny my reaction to his touch, the thrill it sent through me every time he was near, but it never reached my heart and I never let it go to my head. Being the object of the Prince's affections was a dangerous game, one I was determined not to lose, though I had no interest in winning either. My goal was simply to make it through unscathed. What I would have preferred more than anything was obscurity. To be a wallflower existing in the peripheral where I could drink punch, eat cakes and smile at who I liked.

But that had never been and would never be my life.

"I am saying, _Your Majesty_ ," I told him with an exaggerated curtsy as I began to back out of the room, "that we have been away long enough."

"Oh no, no." He pulled me close, pressing me against him and lowering his mouth to within a breath of mine. "No amount of time with you is long enough."

He kissed me then. I let him. It was nice; soft and sweet with just a hint of need, the lightest brushing of his tongue across my lips. But I kept them closed and when the hint became more of a demand, I pulled away.

"Always so careful," he mumbled breathily. "Always so guarded."

"How else is a girl to survive you?"

"You could just give in."

I grinned at him, shaking my head. "Never."

Then I ran, hearing his laughter trail behind me. I should have gone back to the ballroom. I should have finish the night, made an appearance to let the world know I was still chaste and untouched, but I knew Frederick would return. Probably to find himself a more willing companion for the night. That would have to be statement of our innocence enough. For me, the night was finished. I had done my part, made my father proud and now I would gladly take my leave.

I doubled back to the atrium, drawn in by the sweet scent of the room and its pure emptiness. Somewhere high up in a flowering tree above me, a bird chirped and fluttered in the leaves. I smiled, feeling less alone because of it. I could still hear the party in the distance but I felt detached. Like I was watching the world from higher up, far above the expectations and demands of my life. From a distance that left it fuzzy and obscure, stunning in its lack of detail and definition. My life from afar was a gifted and wonderful thing. Beautiful to look at, I'm sure. I'd been told as much.

It was living it that was ugly.

"Are you alone?" Suzanne asked from behind me.

I turned to find her walking slowly into the room, her hand over her eyes.

"Are you decent?"

"More than you are," I replied, eyeing the plunging neckline of her dress.

She dropped her hand, smiling at me slyly. "That's jealousy talking."

"Ha! I promise you it's not. If I were you," I gestured to her curvaceous figure, "I'd have more troubles than I already do."

"Speaking of trouble, where did Frederick go? Why are you in here alone?"

"Because I wanted to be."

"Would you like me to leave?"

"Are you going to try to kiss me?"

She chuckled. "I wouldn't rule it out. What's the matter, Annabel? Tired of being kissed?"

"Maybe."

"I don't think that's it." Suzanne's mouth turned down in an uncharacteristic frown. "I think you're tired of being kissed by the wrong man."

"And who would the right man be?"

"You tell me."

I shook my head, looking away.

"Come on. If you can't tell me then who can you talk to?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Now you're lying to me. Not really what friends are supposed to do."

"You told me years ago that we're not friends. We're nemesis."

"Times have changed."

"They always do and rarely for the better."

"My, aren't you macabre tonight? I don't believe I will kiss you after all. You'd probably taste sour."

I grinned. "Frederick says I'm no sugar, all salt."

"Frederick says a lot of things. Let's not go quoting him or we'll be here all night and we'll be blushing by the end."

"I don't believe you can blush."

"Stop stalling. Who is he?"

"No one," I snapped, growing frustrated. "I can't talk about him. It doesn't matter. I haven't seen him in years. He probably doesn't remember me."

"No one could forget you."

I snorted. "I don't think that's true."

"And yet it is. You're the reason I gave up on Frederick. I met you, liked you, and grew to love you. It was then I realized I didn't stand a chance. No one could forget you. No one could walk away from you."

"I've never tried to win Frederick's heart. I don't want it." The air in the room stirred, fluttering my hair and brushing a cold wind across my face. I shivered. "I don't know what I would do with it."

"It doesn't mean you don't have it."

"He's not in love with me."

"Probably not, no. He's not in love with anyone. But he does love you. And when the time comes, I have no doubt he'll marry you."

I closed my eyes in frustration and pain. I wanted to scream into the night, I wanted to smash the glass walls of this room. I wanted control of my life and my heart and my body. But I had none of it. I belonged to my father and one day he would pass me on to Frederick and I would belong to him. Never to myself. Never to anyone else.

"Annabel."

"I'm going to bed," I told her abruptly, my voice choked with emotion.

"What's his name?"

"I can't. I—Suzanne, I can't."

"Why not? I'll never tell, I swear it."

The breeze stirred again, swirling around our skirts and rustling the fabric. Suzanne scowled as she scanned the windows. None were open.

"It's not that," I told her, pulling my arms around myself against the sudden chill in the air.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of saying his name. Of making him real again, of knowing how much I've lost. It's everything! He is, he _was_ , everything. All that I ever wanted, all that I could ever need, it was all in him. Every dream I ever had was in his eyes and I'll never get it back."

Suzanne stood in front of me watching me rant. I was bursting at the seams with frustration, sadness, longing, hurt and so much residual love and joy just at the thought of him that I could feel myself glowing with it. I was smiling through my tears, because as much as it hurts to miss him, it felt indescribably good to still love him.

"What's his name?" she asked softly, her eyes shining.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

"Roarke."

There was a violent shifting in the tree above me. Petals and leaves cascaded down like rain landing in my hair, on my clothes. The sweet smell of the blooms flooded the air making me smile, reminding me of the Queen's funeral when the Tem Aedha showered the road with flower petals.

Then there was a thump beside me. Suzanne screamed. Startled, I jumped back.

At my feet was a dead bird.

# Chapter Eight

Suzanne and Robert Hannaford become engaged, then unengaged, then engaged again. I was never concerned. They were inevitable, they just didn't know it yet. Frederick continued to spread his charm throughout the Court, across the kingdom, though he always made time for me. Despite the endless parade of woman that walked across the stage of his life, the only recurring character was me. My father expected a proposal any day, even though it was a formality. The betrothal was in place, ordained by the pure omniscience of the church and the Saints, making it a matter of 'when', not 'if'. Maybe Frederick and I were inevitable as well. I simply didn't want it. He was exciting and his touch sent shivers down my spine. When he whispered my name with that hint of agony in his voice, as though my very existence was a torment to him, my breath left me. This was Frederick's magic. But that's all it was with him; a trick. It wasn't real like the love and sugar and warmth of Bronwyn's magic. His were forged moments that made me feel what every other girl felt when offered his smile. When he was gone, I felt nothing. I didn't long for him, I didn't dream of him, I didn't sigh when his name was spoken. He was like a rainbow; rare and enchanting, exciting to stumble on, but when it was gone I didn't waste a moment of thought on it.

Yet every day, every single day as surely as the sun rose in the sky, I thought of Roarke.

"Oh come on, Annabel," Suzanne prodded. "You're not afraid are you?"

"Not of The Shallows, no," I replied.

Her eyes softened, realizing what I wasn't saying. "You're seventeen. You're a grown woman."

"It doesn't mean anything to him. I won't cease to be his until I'm in the grave. Maybe not even then."

Suzanne frowned, her pretty, lively face falling to shadow.

"He's the worst kind of person," she grumbled.

"You have to come with us," Robert insisted. "Frederick will be there. Your father won't protest to anything you do where Frederick is concerned."

"I can think of a few things."

I heard Elaine sigh disapprovingly behind me.

"What was that, little mouse?" I asked her.

She didn't answer.

I cocked an eyebrow at Suzanne. "You've angered her."

"Oh she's always angry at me. Little mouse, should we go to The Shallows? Visit the devil and his cohorts?"

I expected silence again. What I heard shocked me to my core.

"If we're going to go, then let's go. I'd rather be actively dying at the hands of The Saints than standing here talking about how brave we aren't."

I gaped at Elaine, stunned into silence.

"Annabel," Suzanne whispered, clutching at my arm, "we've broken her."

"I never thought I'd see the day. Is it a trick?"

"Maybe... She might be possessed."

"Probably by the spirits of the sea and she challenges us now to lure us to our deaths," I whispered loudly to Suzanne.

We stood side by side holding onto one another, staring at Elaine. She glared back.

"Or maybe she's in love with Frederick and hadn't chosen to follow along on this dangerous adventure until she knew he was going as well."

Suzanne and I pivoted as one, turning to gape at Robert.

"Why would you say that?" I asked him curiously.

He chuckled. "Because it's true. Isn't it, Elaine?"

Suzanne and I pivoted again, turning back to Elaine. She blushed crimson.

"It is true!" Suzanne shouted.

"How did Robert know and we didn't?" I demanded.

"Because I'm far more observant than you are," Robert answered.

I shushed him, keeping my eyes on Elaine and her glowing red cheeks.

"You really are in love with him," I said in awe.

She didn't speak but nodded faintly, avoiding my eyes.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Suzanne asked.

Elaine sighed again, this time sounding tired. She finally met my eyes as she answered Suzanne's question.

"Because you're going marry him."

I winced as though I'd been struck. "I am not," I denied senselessly.

"Are you sure?" Robert asked.

This time Suzanne shushed him.

I shook my head, denying it with each movement but knowing it was useless. My father, the King, the High Priest and the Saints themselves had spoken. I would marry Prince Frederick and that was that.

"My mother says it's not up to him," I protested weakly, my voice and strength fading from me.

"What does that mean?" Suzanne asked.

I shrugged. I still had no idea.

"How is your mother?"

"Not well," I whispered, looking back to the castle where she lay. "She hasn't been out of bed for days. No one seems to be able to help her."

"The doctors don't know what's wrong with her?" Suzanne asked, squeezing my arm that was still linked with hers.

"No, no one knows." I took a deep breath. "They've begun to talk about taking her to The Tombs."

Elaine gasped. I felt Suzanne tense beside me.

The Tombs were the hospital on the island, though that of course was not its real name. I didn't even know its real name at that point. I still don't. All I've ever heard it called is The Tombs. Though it was a supposed place of healing, once a body went in, it didn't come out. Not alive at least. Not that we'd ever heard of.

"Annabel, I'm sorry," Robert says, his deep voice low and earnest.

"Why are you sorry?" Frederick asked happily, bounding into the failing light of the evening. "What have you done to my beautiful Annabel Lee?"

"Nothing," I said as brightly as I could, quickly swiping a tear from my cheek.

I turned to face him, drinking in his ever present life and vitality. I would not be weighed down that night, not by anything. Not by my father and his expectations or my mother and her illness. Not even by the hollow corner of my heart that forever ached for someone long since out of reach. That night, I would be everything I used to be before this world laid heavy on my shoulders. Before I left the gardens and the maze, before I gave up tarts. I would be young, happy and alive. Even if it killed me.

When Frederick met my eyes he must have seen the blaze of emotion there, the determination, because he smiled approvingly.

"To The Shallows?" he asked me, offering his arm.

I glanced hesitantly at Elaine. She looked away quickly, staring out to sea. The movement made me feel so full of knowings that I wish I didn't know that I felt like I'd sink to the center of the Earth if I wasn't careful where I stepped. I yearned to be weightless. Flying.

I grinned devilishly at Frederick, gathering my skirts in my hands and bringing them up nearly to my knees. His eyes grew wide with surprise and interest.

"To The Shallows," I told him.

Then I ran. I sprinted off the paved stones of the courtyard, down the hill, heading straight for the gates. I heard the sound of the others following me; foot beats on the ground behind me, giggling from Suzanne, an excited cry from Robert. But I didn't care. I didn't care if they followed me or caught up to me or passed me. I didn't care if they let me run myself down to nothing. All I knew was that it felt good to escape. To feel my heart careening in my chest for the first time in a long, long time.

We ran through the gates, startling the guards who began to shout at me until they saw the Prince close behind. He was my ticket outside. Then all was silent except for the wind through my ears and my feet on the ground. I felt my hair slip from its confinements and spiral out behind me, a mess of curling, golden tendrils. I'd look a mess when I was through running, though I wondered if I ever would be. Maybe I'd go on forever. Maybe I'd outrun everyone and everything until I was striding on the wind, high over the sea, leaving the island and all of its walls and rules and lies behind me.

As the sun set farther into the sea and clouds formed to shroud its last light, I set my sights on the edge of the cliff overlooking The Shallows. I'd have to stop soon or risk running over the edge and plummeting to my death on the sharp, black rocks below. And I didn't want to die. I simply did not want my life. Though they sound similar, to me, those are two entirely different things.

I was watching the edge come closer and closer, slowing myself to stop, when a cloud shifted. A ray of sunlight pierced my eyes, blinding me entirely. I lost track of the edge and of myself. I should have stopped. I should have dropped to the ground. I should have changed course, veered right, headed back toward solid ground. I should have done a lot of things. What I did instead was step right off the edge of the cliff.

A scream formed in my throat but never manifested. My trailing skirts snagged on something solid and strong, whipping me back over the earth and taking the air from my lungs. I heard a rip, felt the pull on my dress go slack, then I was tumbling forward, my face careening toward the cliff edge again. A strong arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me up. My hair flew across my eyes, blinding me as I was yanked against the chest of a man.

"Annabel!" Suzanne shouted.

"Annabel Lee!" Elaine cried.

"Anna," Roarke murmured.

I felt my name rumble through his chest into mine, feeling it pass between our bodies more than hearing it. That simple sound, that tiny movement, stumbled my racing heart until it stopped. Just as it always had. As it ever will.

I raised my head as the wind whipped my hair aside, clearing my eyes. Blue. Cornflower, perfect, brilliant, blue eyes. They filled my vision until they were all I could see. The breath in my lungs escaped in one swift, surprised movement just as my stomach fluttered violently. And my heart. My heart recovered from its stumble, found its footing and raced away, running across the island, over the lake, through the fields and deep down into the golden forest.

"Ro," I breathed.

"Annabel, are you alright?" Frederick demanded.

He grasped my arm, pulling me from Roarke's embrace. I very nearly fought him. I raised my arm to lash out at him, to slap him, to punch him, anything it took to be released. To be returned to Roarke, to where I belonged. But I checked myself just in time. I glanced quickly over my shoulder only to find Roarke stepping back from me, his bright eyes all I could make out in the rapidly failing light. I had stood so close to him but now I could hardly see him.

Frederick nodded to him briefly, barely noticing my savior. "Well done."

Roarke nodded sharply. Then he turned away. He was gone.

Tears pricked my eyes. Seeing him again, touching him, it had been too much but not enough. I was on fire, burned to the core of me, but shivering with cold. This was the feeling that Frederick could never conjure, no matter how great a magician he may have been. This roiling tension in every fiber of my limbs that made my heart scream in my chest. That joy and sorrow, pleasure and agony, the briefest moment of being fulfilled and then the unbearable hollow left in its wake. I knew that that miniscule moment with Roarke would haunt me in ways that hours with Frederick never could.

"Are you alright, darling?" Frederick asked, his hand smoothing back my wild hair. He had never used a term of endearment like that with me before. I worried at what it meant.

"Yes, I'm fine." I glanced back over my shoulder, searching for Roarke in the shadows. He was truly gone. "He saved my life," I whispered.

"The peasant? Yes, I guess he did."

"You scared me nearly to death, you idiot!" Suzanne exclaimed, pulling me from Frederick's grasp and hugging me tightly. Elaine took hold of me from the other side, pressing me between them like a flower in the pages of a book. I rested my head against Suzanne's shoulder gratefully as I held them to me. I needed their warmth and strength to stop shivering, to calm my heart.

"You're shaking," Elaine mumbled against my back. "We should take you home immediately."

"No," I said forcefully, surprising everyone, including myself. I shook them off of me gently. "I won't go back now. We're seeing The Shallows."

Elaine frowned. "Are you sure? You should really lie down and relax. You're so pale I can see your face through the darkness."

I glanced over my shoulder one last time. I knew he was there somewhere. I could feel him nearby as though touching him had woken something in me, something I couldn't turn off.

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," I whispered.

"That is the perfect mindset for undertaking something dangerous and monumentally stupid," Robert told me sagely.

I turned to him and grinned. "You are the expert so I nominate you as my guide. Lead on, brave fool."

He bowed with a smile then turned to lead us down the long, winding path that wove its way to the shore and The Shallows.

# Chapter Nine

I should have agreed to return home after my mistake on the cliff. We should have seen that near miss for what it was; an omen. We should have stayed away from The Shallows as almost everyone in Kilmarnock wisely did. They were a haunted, dangerous place. The playground of the devils.

"It doesn't look so bad to me," Robert said, scanning the shoreline.

He wasn't wrong. In the faint moonlight, the black stones glowed with a pretty sheen, the lapping of the tide over the rocks sounding rhythmic and inviting. The dark water undulated in the light but I saw no sinister shadows. Nothing to support the stories we'd heard since childhood warning us of the evil lurking beneath the surface. Of easily angered Saints that were to be feared and respected. There were supposed to be demons here hiding in the low waters, keeping us safe from the outside world but also waiting for a chance to nab us and carry us off to be their companions. I knew the stories declaring the dangers of The Shallows had to be true at least in part. We had all heard the very real reports of fisherman dying here as they worked the waters, but not I or anyone I knew had ever seen the creatures.

"Maybe it's worse in the daylight," Elaine suggested. "Right now it's almost romantic, isn't it?"

I glanced at her, a knowing smile on my face. She blushed and looked away.

"It's a disappointment, that's what I think," Frederick said, sounding annoyed.

"What did you expect?" Suzanne asked, tossing a stone into a nearby pool. "Did you think the Saints would rise up to greet you? 'Good evening, Majesty. Fine weather we're having, yes?'"

Frederick smirked. "Something like that."

"Knowing you, you'd demand they curtsied there on the spot."

"I'd ask them for their fealty, of course."

"And what would you do with a legion of gods at your command?" Robert asked.

"What _wouldn't_ I do with a legion of gods?"

"We should go back," Elaine said suddenly, wrapping her arms around herself.

Frederick eyed her. "Are you afraid?"

"No. I'm cold."

"Here, have my jacket."

Elaine shook her head, her eyes wide. "Your Majesty, I couldn't."

"You can and you will. And you shouldn't call me 'your majesty', Elaine. Not at times like this. I've told you that."

"He's right," I said, smiling as he draped his jacket around her petite frame. "Only his demon army needs to be so formal."

"Maybe even more so," Suzanne agreed, tossing another stone in the pool.

The still waters rippled with moonlight then fell still. A sudden movement caught my eye, maybe a shadow, maybe a fish. Maybe nothing. I was still watching it, waiting for another movement, when Frederick spoke.

"They'll be my slaves."

Out of the corner of my eye I caught his movements as he bent to the ground. The clicking of stones sounded in his palm.

"I won't allow them to address me directly."

He tossed a stone into a pool. It went in placidly with a small _plop._

"Lowly bastards won't even be allowed to look me in the eye."

Another _plop._

Then a _boom_.

My eyes shot up just in time to catch a geyser of water explode from the pool beside Frederick. There was a hiss, then a scream that curled my toes and made my ears ache. It was followed by a smell. A rotten, sulfurous scent that was combined with something else, something almost familiar. Something that reminded me of my days waiting in the kitchen. Something like roast on a spit.

"Frederick!" Elaine screamed, her voice cracking.

I couldn't see him. I could only see the water and the steam still rising into the air. Then, as quickly as it had started, it ended. The night fell eerily silent, the only sound was our labored, horrified breathing and the gentle _plop_ s of water droplets returning to the sea.

"Robert?" Suzanne called, her voice trembling. I'd never heard her sound afraid before.

"I'm here," he replied quietly.

"Where's Frederick?" I asked, stepping toward their voices.

They were outlines of black on black. I didn't notice it right away, I actually wouldn't realize it until later, but the moonlight was gone. We had been plunged into total darkness.

"I don't know," Robert said.

I saw a shifting of shadow to my right near the water's edge.

"He's here," Elaine whispered weakly.

Suddenly a lantern appeared from the path leading down to the shore and the low light exploded like canon fire around us, making me jump. Two figures quickly approached us from behind the light.

"Who did they get?" a voice demanded urgently.

"Th-the Prince," Elaine wept.

"Where is he?"

I didn't recognize the voices, but I could hear the faint accent. They were Tem Aedha.

I pointed a shaky finger toward Elaine. "He's there, beside the pool."

The light moved, the figures shifting through the shadows with it. They found Elaine easily and when the lantern light caught on the body she was kneeling beside, I pressed my hand against my mouth to stifle a scream. All I could see was red. Crimson wet.

"Is he alive?" I whimpered, tears already forming in my eyes.

"Barely," the lead Aedha answered. He turned to the other. "We need to move him now. Off this beach, to the meadow beside the gates. We'll need earth for his wounds. A lot of it."

"You're going to put dirt on his wounds?" Robert asked incredulously, taking a step forward as if to intervene.

I pressed my hand to his shoulder, stopping him. "Let them. It will work."

"How do you know?" he replied, then leaned in a hissed, "Annabel, they're savages. They'll kill him."

I pulled my hand back quickly, as though burned by him.

"I know because it's been done to me. I've seen it work. And don't call them savages, Robert. They're about to save your future king. Maybe a little more gratitude, even a bit of respect."

"At the moment we'd be happy with help," the lead Aedha grunted. "He's not a small man. It will take more than Heinrich and I to carry him up the hillside."

"I'll help," Suzanne said, hurrying to their side.

"The three of us can manage, milady," Heinrich told her, his young voice strained.

She glared at him. "Do I look frail to you? Does this seem like a good time for chivalry?"

There was a pause.

"Fair point on both counts. Grab his arm," Heinrich replied.

Suzanne took hold of an arm, Robert the other and the two Aedha lifted Frederick's legs. I hurried to grab the lantern and took up post ahead of them, carrying the light high to keep them as far out of shadow as possible. I tried so very hard not to look at what had become of Frederick, but I saw anyway. The water had burned him, nearly to the bone in places. His face, his ridiculously handsome face, was unrecognizable, a mass of blood and ragged tissue. If he survived this night, he would never be the same. Not even the Tem Aedha had the kind of power or magic it would take to fix what had been done.

Once we reached the meadow we entered a race against time and nature. Suzanne, Robert and I ran back and forth between a distant well, one settled deep in the island near the lake, bringing bucket after bucket of water back to the men working on Frederick. It would have been easier and faster to bring sea water, but the Aedha men insisted the water had to be well water. Sea water simply would not do.

The night drug on and my body began to protest, but I pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion doing whatever I could to save my friend. It sounds noble. Wonderful. But as I did, as I sprinted back and forth in the growing morning light passing peasantry and Aedha, I looked at every face. I examined every man and I watched and waited for a chance to see Roarke again.

It did not come.

# Chapter Ten

Two months later my mother went into The Tombs.

True to tradition, she did not come out alive.

I'll never know exactly what claimed my mother. Despite everything happened afterward, I still believe she died by entirely natural causes. There was a disease in her that gave her blinding headaches, dizziness, vomiting, loss of appetite. The list feels endless. By the time she died, she was nothing but stark white bone wrapped gingerly in thin white skin. She was a ghost as she still breathed. My father, to his credit, looked pained as he carried her frail body from her bed. Once outside, he waved away the carriage waiting to carry us to the hospital. Instead he carried her the entire way. It was not much of a feat since she no longer weighed more than a wet cat but the sentiment, the pure gesture of it, stung my eyes with tears. I walked silently behind him, my eyes fixed on her sleeping face. I almost wish I hadn't. It's not how I wanted to remember her, but if I know anything of life at all it is this; it cares nothing for our wishes. I know now that stars are hot balls of angry fire and gas that are far more likely to drop from the sky and crush you before bestowing wishes upon you. Waste none of your efforts on them.

The day of the funeral, I received a large bouquet of calla lilies from Frederick of all people. He was the last place I expected to receive condolences or comfort but people will unfailingly surprise you. I hadn't seen him since the accident. No one had, though rumor had it he was recovering. The very fact that he was alive was a miracle. When I read his note attached to the flowers, surprisingly written in his own hand, I choked on silent tears.

Your pain is my own.

**-Frederick**

"Are you ready, Annabel Lee?" my father asked from behind me.

I quickly wiped my tears from my eyes. "Of course."

"You look lovely," he said gruffly.

I chuckled dryly. "Sadness suits me, I suppose."

"Don't be morose."

"But it's such a fine day for it."

"Annabel."

"Shall we? I'd hate to keep people waiting."

He paused. "Who are the flowers from?"

"Suzanne and Elaine," I said, turning to face him while crumpling the card in my hand.

He stood in the doorframe blocking the light, casting me in shadow. I shivered, revolted at the sight of him. Despite his tender gesture of carrying my mother, he still took her to The Tombs. I now saw him as nothing more than a hearse. He'd carry me to my own death one day. I knew it in my broken heart.

And what he knew was that I was lying about the flowers. He knew they were from Frederick because he knew every note, petal, perfume or sweet that crossed my path. I don't know why I lied to him other than the fact that my mother was dead and I had nothing left to fear. I didn't care at all for myself or him or his machinations.

"Kind of them," he replied, his eyes watching me. "Very thoughtful."

I strode across the room briskly, brushing past him at the door. I was careful not to touch him.

"Is that your mother's shawl?" he called after me. "It's too thin for this time of year."

I pulled the thin black material close across my chest, over my heart. It still smelled of her. Of Jasmine.

"It's not too thin," I called over my shoulder. "It's exactly what I need."

The service was far too long. Not nearly as long as the service I endured as a child for Queen Elizabeth Anne, but it was close. My mother would have hated it. As the time drug on and the service finally drew to a close, I found myself becoming agitated. I was bouncing on my toes as though bursting to clear an unseen gate. I didn't know what I was anxious for or about. Not until we entered the carriages and began the procession up the hill toward the mausoleum. It was then I remembered the Tem Aedha.

I immediately shot to the window of the carriage, craning my neck to push my head outside and see the road ahead of us. I could barely make out the hill, the one they had stood on for the Queen's funeral, but it looked empty. I thought for sure that at least Roarke and his parents would be there, though maybe they didn't know. Maybe they had forgotten us. I hadn't seen or heard a sign from them in years now and though I'd quite literally bumped into Ro not long ago, it didn't mean they still followed our lives. He had recognized me but he also had said next to nothing. Only my name. Just those two syllables in his now deep timbre had strummed a chord in my heart and lit me alive from inside out to a point where even now, even two months later, even on a Death March for my mother, I was Spring blooming brightly through and through at the thought of seeing him again.

But the hill was empty. Perfectly and desolately still.

"Is something the matter?" my father asked, watching me closely as always.

I pulled myself inside, refusing to look at him. "My mother is dead."

"As is my wife."

I snorted. "She was no wife to you. She was a ploy."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

His voice was taking on that placid calm that could only mean one thing, one painfully dangerous thing. I could not even begin to care. I pressed on.

"Everyone knows what I'm talking about."

"You'll do well to keep quiet."

"I've never been good at that."

"Truer words have never crossed your lips."

I rested my head against the polished wood of the carriage window frame. "Is it true that your father bought her for you?"

"Your mother was happy to marry me."

"Then she must not have known you."

"She did not."

I nodded slowly. "You're a handsome man, father, no one can deny that." I turned my head slightly to look at him. "I have so much of you in me, don't I? My green eyes, my golden hair, the proud face. But I thank the Saints I got her heart."

He looked at me hard, but he was utterly at ease. It infuriated me.

"That's quite enough. I believe you've purged it from your system now."

"Purged what exactly?" I snapped.

"Your sorrow. You can take it out on me all you like, Annabel Lee. Just so long as you don't vent it at the wrong people."

I sneered. "The Prince, you mean?"

"He or the King. Be awful as you like right now, but when we're in their company I want dry eyes and a closed mouth. Is that understood?"

I glared at him, painting my hate plainly on my face as though it were rouge.

"Your instructions are always very easy to understand," I ground out.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Then I wonder at how often you fail to follow them."

I turned away, directing my attention to the outside world, to anywhere but in that carriage with him. We passed the remainder of the trip in tense silence.

At the top of the hill lay the mausoleum. The true tombs of the island. Here lay the remains, or what passed for remains, of the former Kings and Queens of Kilmarnock. My mother was being given the honor of being laid to rest in a smaller mausoleum nearby because of her lifelong friendship with the last Queen. My father and I were to be buried one day beside her.

The wind on the hill howled. I shivered at the sudden coldness of it. My father joined Duke Walburton and two other Lords of the Court as they lifted her black lacquered casket from the carriage and escorted it into the stone building. I remained outside, unable to stand the thought of being in that building with the dead. I felt a pang as though I were abandoning her, but still I didn't move.

"It is a cold day to die."

I jumped at the rasp of a voice beside me. I looked over to find the ancient High Priest standing shrunken inside his heavy robes. He looked up at me with watery gray eyes that sent a shiver down my spine.

"No one died today," I corrected him weakly.

"How are you feeling, my dear?" he asked, ignoring me. "You look well."

"I don't feel especially well."

He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving me. "The Saints will watch over you, child. They will guard you closely. Have faith in them. Give your heart over to them and you'll know joy again."

His raspy voice was grating on my nerves, sending goose flesh across my skin. I could smell his breath as it wafted across my face, cold and bitter. It reminded me briefly of the terrible night of Frederick's accident. The rancid smell that I'd never forget, that I swear I smelled everywhere since.

"Yes, of course," I agreed, desperate to have this decaying troll of a man leave me alone.

He reached out, pressed his hand with surprising firmness to my shoulder and smiled. His thin lips pulled tight across his large teeth, teeth that didn't even look real. His pink gums were exposed, looking raw, nearly red and his faint eyes glimmered with a strange delight. It was the single most horrifying thing I'd ever seen.

"Good girl," he intoned.

Then he mercifully walked away.

I would bathe when I returned home, if not just to rid myself of the bone crushing chill I felt inside my body. Mostly to rid my skin of any memory of his touch, be it by his hand or his breath. I felt marked somehow. Tainted.

But when the time came to return to the castle, I could not bring myself to enter the carriage.

"It's time to leave, Annabel Lee," my father told me, opening the carriage door.

I instinctively stepped away from it. "I can't," I whispered.

He scowled at me. "What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't. I can't leave her yet. I—let me stay for a bit by myself."

"That's ridiculous. You can't stay here alone."

I spread my arms to the wide open space around me. My shawl was caught by the wind, nearly ripped from my shoulders. I grabbed at it desperately.

"What possible harm could come to me here? Just leave me. I'll walk back."

My father glanced at the sky. He shook his head. "The world is most dangerous when it appears benign. You can't stay here alone."

I glanced at the tombs. Not where my mother lay, but farther up the hill where the royals rested.

"I'm not alone," I whispered.

"Stop being childish. Get in."

I took another step back, glaring at him. "I will not get in that carriage. Either stay with me or leave me."

He stared at me, seething. I wondered why I was doing this. I knew better than to make him angry but I also knew, though I didn't know exactly why, that I could not leave this place. Not yet.

"Fine," my father replied calmly. "Do what you want. I'll return for you at sunset and we'll discuss your behavior then. When we've both had a chance to calm down."

I bit the inside of my lip but kept my face carefully blank. I would not let him know how absolutely afraid I was. When the carriage pulled away I found myself stuck to the spot where I stood. I stared at the grass on the hill forever, not thinking of anything. I was comfortably numb and perfectly happy to remain that way. Finally, as the light began to fade, I turned toward the slope leading to the top of the hill and the larger tomb. I knew I'd never enter the building that housed my mother, not willing. I passed it carefully, giving it a wide berth as I crested the hilltop. It was a sheer drop off the side of the hill down into the ocean, just as it was beside The Shallows. The wind whipped harder here in the open. My dress flapped against my legs angrily, my hair flying away from my face and swirling behind me. I felt the way I had the night I'd nearly run off the edge of the cliff. The night he'd saved me.

"I wish you were here," I whispered into the wind.

Suddenly a mad gust rushed around me, changing directions, snagging my clothing. My hair flew in my face. As I lifted my hands to clear it away, my mother's black shawl was torn from my grasp. It spun in the air out over the sea, hung for a moment like a small dark cloud, then plunged into the water below. It happened so quickly I didn't even have time to cry out, to try and recover it. It was simply gone.

"Please don't run after it," a low voice said from behind me. "I don't think I can save you this time."

I spun around in surprise.

Standing there, a wish granted true, stood Ro.

He looked exactly as I remembered him but entirely different as well. He was taller, dressed in a long dark coat and darker pants. Even his skin was darker, making his brilliant blue eyes stand out bold and bright. Roarke had been a beautiful child and a handsome young man, but as an adult he was stunning. He was broad and dark like his father but light and lithe like his mother. He looked like a song; all harmony and grace, brooding and beautiful.

I burst into tears as I hurled myself into his arms.

"Uh oh," he said lightly, pressing his hands to my shoulder blades. "It's because I grew ugly, isn't it? Tell me honestly, I can take it."

I was surprised to hear myself chuckle through my tears, the first honest laugh I'd had in a long time.

"You're positively disgusting," I said tremulously.

He nodded, his chin bobbing against the top of my head.

"I knew it. How bad is it? Troll under the bridge?"

I paused to consider. "Stealing children and grinding their bones to bake your bread."

He whistled long and low. "It's worse than I thought."

His shirt was becoming soaked from my crying. I balled it into my fists, pulling him to me. He took the open flaps of his coat and wrapped them around me as best he could. Though he was there in front of me, even though I could smell, feel, see and hear him, I worried he was a fantasy, one that would disappear at any moment. And so I clung to him tightly and willed his body closer. Closer than decency would allow but not close enough for my singing, running, pounding, weeping heart.

"Why are you here?" I whispered into his chest.

He rested his chin on top of my head, sighing deeply.

"Because your mother is dead."

My eyes clenched tightly as I stifled a sob that lodged in my throat. He must have felt me tense because his arms held me tighter.

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm so glad to see you," I replied inadequately.

His lips brushed the top of my head, his warm breath tickling across my scalp.

I didn't want to say anything else. Not ever. I didn't want to move from that spot. I wanted to stay forever rooted there on the grass in his arms and in his eyes, near my mother and away from the castle and my father, obligations, plans, Saints, priests, kings and fools. Rules and promises made that were never mine. Words given that I never uttered.

But the sun was setting and my time was ending. My father would return for me soon and he could not see me with Roarke. I would rather know he was mine, a secret desire never to be fulfilled, than have my father rip him from me. I couldn't stand our separation to be an absolution. And so with reluctance I have never known the likes of again, I pulled myself free of Roarke's embrace.

"How are you getting home?" he asked.

I looked down the hill, checking that we were still alone.

"My father is coming back for me. He said he would come before nightfall."

Roarke lifted his eyes to the sky, scowling. "It's coming soon."

"Too soon."

His eyes found mine again, but he hesitated. His mouth opened once, closed, then opened silently again.

"Speak your mind, fish."

He chuckled in surprise. "What?"

I grinned wanly. "Something my mother would have said."

"Your mother would have called me a fish?"

I imitated him opening and closing his mouth, making exaggerated popping sounds with my mouth.

"She would be right," he muttered. "You know better than to speak to fish, don't you?"

"Is that another riddle of yours?"

"It's a warning."

I cocked my head at him. "Not only have you grown ugly, old friend, you've somehow managed to grow more mysterious."

Roarke laughed, nodding as he looked out to sea. "The perils of my job, I suppose."

"Are you a farmer like your father?"

He looked at me with amusement. "Who said my father was a farmer?"

"Your father," I replied slowly.

He shrugged. "I guess he is, among other things."

"He said that too. You sound just like him. But what are you?"

"I would be a fisherman."

"Among other things?"

"Yes."

I sighed, unable to hide my smile. "You're insufferable is what you are."

"Now _you_ sound like my mother," he said with a grin.

"How is your—"

I spun at the sound of hooves on the hard packed dirt behind me. A carriage, undoubtedly my father's, was coming swiftly up the hillside. I turned quickly back to Roarke.

"Ro, you have to hide, please. He can't see you. He can't know I know you."

Roarke's face darkened, making me want to weep all over again. "No, of course not. You're right."

I couldn't bear it. He had it all wrong and I had no idea when or if I'd ever see him again. It couldn't end this way.

I grabbed his face between my hands and stood on the tips of my toes, bringing our eyes nearly level. He stood still, stunned by my sudden proximity.

"You are the only thing in my life that he has never touched, never tainted." I spoke urgently, my eyes searching his. "You're all that's left that has ever been mine. Please help me hide you and keep you in any way I can."

His breath pressed evenly in and out against my face, warming and chilling me over and over again. I didn't know if he'd answer me, I didn't even know if he believed me, but then he pulled my hands from his face, kissed each of my palms and stepped back into the shadows of the tomb. I took a ragged breath, closing my eyes against the sight of him leaving again.

"Anna," he called softly.

I barely heard him over the wind and thunder of the approaching carriage. I opened my eyes, found his in the darkness.

"I'll find you again," he said confidently. "They won't keep us apart any longer."

That was the last time I fell in love with him.

# Chapter Eleven

Two nights later found me on yet another cliff overlooking the sea. I see the folly in it now. Then, I was merely looking for peace in all the wrong places.

I couldn't sleep. I spent my days in my room with the tall, dark curtains drawn to block out the light of the world. I longed to see Roarke. I knew he promised to find me, but finding me shut up in my darkened room set deep in the castle was a tall order, even for someone as cunning as him. I didn't want him to see like this, though. I didn't want anyone to see me this way. I took no visitors and attended no meals. Food was brought to my room but I pecked at it reluctantly, only accomplishing that when The Governor stood over me watching. She was a constant companion then. A shadow I could not shake.

That night I waited until she finally fell asleep in her room, her door sitting wide open to watch my comings and goings. Lucky for me she slept like the dead. I was able to creep past without being seen. I didn't know where I was going, only that I was going outside. I needed to get air, to feel the open space of the world free of the castle walls. I waited for nightfall when everyone was asleep, hoping it would grant me the solitude I worked so hard for during the day. Thankfully as I walked the grounds I did not pass a single soul. I went through the gates half expecting the guards to stop me on my father's orders, but either they weren't given any or they weren't awake enough to heed them. I had no plan in mind, no destination, but somehow I still found myself walking toward the cliff's edge. To the outcropping beside the Shallows.

I stood at the edge of the cliff starting down into the abyss. It was a dark cauldron of swirling mist and shifting shadows, but I saw nothing else. Nothing but the sea and the salt on the air. I was disappointed. What a horrible thing to be disappointed for, I realize, but I still felt it. You can't control what you feel, only what you present to the world and standing there alone at the edge of my universe, I let my sorrow show. I wanted to see The Saints. I wanted to know that all of this hiding in the mists, avoiding the outside world, following their rules and judgments and decisions was worth it. I wanted to know that maybe, just maybe, they would offer my mother safe passage into the next world. But as much as I needed that, and I needed her safety more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, I didn't call out to them.

"You do realize how stupid this is, don't you?"

I startled at the sound of Frederick's voice. A small cry escaped my lips as my right foot slipped off the edge, sending pebbles and dirt into the plunge. A strong arm wrapped around my waist, holding me steady.

What it was with men sneaking up on me on cliff edges, I would love to have known. To me, _that_ was what was stupid.

I moved to face him.

"Stop," he commanded. "Don't turn around. I don't have my mask on."

"You wear a mask now?" I whispered, shivering at the feel of his warm breath beside my ear. It was such a contrast with the cold night air. I wished he would pull away.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, ignoring my question.

"I couldn't sleep."

"And this place was your solution to that?"

"Would you be angry at me if I asked how you were?" I asked, ignoring _his_ question.

"Immensely," he replied without hesitation. "And you? Would you be angry if I asked you the same?"

I shook my head, feeling my hair press against his face. "I would tell you I'm fine, thank you for asking."

"So you would lie to me."

I smiled thinly. "Without hesitation."

He chuckled softly. I felt myself relax.

"What brought you here tonight, Annabel Lee?"

I paused, unsure what the answer to that question really was. "I think it was The Shallows."

"Really?" he asked, his voice becoming tight. Worried.

"I couldn't tell you why, but yes. I came to see them."

"You shouldn't have come here," he growled. "No one should ever come here."

"You're here," I pointed out.

He chuckled again, this time without even a hint of joy. "I've paid my passage. Have you come to pay yours?"

I was suddenly afraid of this conversation, though, like my trip to The Shallows, I couldn't say why.

"I don't know what you mean," I breathed tensely.

I felt him nod beside my head. Then, his voice low and grave, he said, "I'll show you."

He lifted me off my feet, hovering me over the ground. Then over air. I gasped as he took a step forward, his own feet barely on solid ground. There was nothing but his strength to keep me from plummeting to the rocks below. I opened my mouth to cry out but shut it quickly. Grasping his arms with white knuckled hands I looked down at the moonlit waters. They were churning softly. Frothing white caps appeared as shadows slithered through the light stung Shallows. There was something in there. The beasts I had always been warned of but never really believed in.

These were the Saints of the Sea.

"How are you doing that?" I whispered breathlessly.

"I'm not," he said, his breath hot against my clammy skin. "You are."

"I am? No, I—how?"

"Because they want you."

My breath hitched in my throat. "For what?"

"Forever."

I shook my head violently. I began clawing at his hands. The waters moved more aggressively beneath me as more shadows appeared.

"Frederick, put me down now. Make it stop. Make them stop. Please!"

"Since you said please."

He brought me back over solid ground. I trembled in cold terror, feeling faint when he released me.

"Go home, Annabel Lee, and don't ever come back here," he said softly. Then he kissed me on the neck. His lips felt mismatched and strange, but they were also warm and dry, soft like silk. "Tell your father you'll die a withered old maid."

I shook my head in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's everything."

His voice was already retreating. I panicked. I had so many questions. Questions that now felt incredibly important.

"Is that what you want for me?" I called after him. "To grow old and die alone?"

"I only hope you'll be so lucky."

I turned to face him, to call out to him, to ask him my million questions, but I only caught a glimpse of his back disappearing into the darkness.

I was alone.

# Chapter Twelve

"Milady!" Mrs. Pomphel called to me from the kitchens.

I stopped, placing myself in the doorframe. The familiar smells of the kitchen wafted warmly toward me. Fresh bread baking, salt, fish, butter. These smells were a precursor to others. To sweet fruit on trees. Sunshine on the warm air. Grass beneath my skin.

"Mrs. Pomphel, how are you?" I asked with a practiced smile.

"I'm well, dear, but shouldn't I be asking you that?"

My smile faded. "I would rather you didn't," I replied blandly.

Mrs. Pomphel nodded knowingly. "As I thought, so I won't. But if you need anything..."

"Thank you. I appreciate it. All of it."

"Especially my silence?"

I grinned. "You know me too well."

I noticed behind her that the tables were covered with pies. She was making all different kinds with all different fruits. Apple, pear, peach, strawberry. I smiled sadly at the sight of the apples.

"Did you pick them yourself?" I asked.

She frowned, looking behind her at the table. "What? The strawberries?"

"No, the apples."

"Heaven's no. What would I be doing picking apples on the other side of the island?"

"I thought maybe they came from the orchard on the grounds."

"What orchard?"

Now I frowned. "The one beside the maze."

She shook her head firmly. "There is no orchard on the grounds and the only thing beside the maze is a wall. On all three sides, the gardens are on the fourth. Wait just a moment!" She hurried away, going to one of her tables to get something. I stared after her, wondering if she was going crazy or if I was. She was back to me in a flash before I could decide who was more insane. "I have something here for you."

"I wish you hadn't," I replied warily, instantly thinking of my room and the dark curtains I longed to pull, to hide behind. I only slept in the day now. The nights felt too haunted by what Frederick had shown me.

"I didn't," Mrs. Pomphel said, bringing me a small bundle. "It was delivered."

I froze when I saw the package. My entire childhood slammed into me in one swift motion, knocking my breath from my lungs. It was artfully wrapped in a thin black, shawl and tied off with a ribbon. A brilliant blue ribbon.

"When? When was it delivered and by who?"

"Just a few moments ago," Mrs. Pomphel replied, watching me with tender eyes.

"Was it—was it him?"

"Yes," she replied softly.

I snatched the bundle as I launched myself across the stone floor of the kitchen, out the open side door and into the sunlight. It blinded me immediately but I ran anyway, knowing the path by heart. My feet carried me wildly across soft grass and rocky path, my soft shoes kicking up gravel and spraying it behind me.

I was a child again then. Seven years old, full of hope, promise and love.

As my vision righted itself, I could see the outline of a man in the distance. Tall, broad shouldered.

"Wait!" I cried, knowing I shouldn't. If my governess saw me sprinting, if my father heard me shouting... there were not words for all that could go wrong. But I couldn't stop. Not now. "Please stop!"

He turned to look back at me, his face surprised. His eyes quickly scanned the open courtyard where we both now stood, just outside the gardens. It was empty except for us.

"Anna," he said in a hushed tone. "Your father—"

"Hang my father!" I cried breathlessly.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was the sunrise I'd been waiting for. I stopped several steps from him, clutching the bundle to my chest. My fingers toyed with the sheer material of the shawl.

"How did you find it? I thought it was lost forever?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't easy. It still smells of the sea. I'm sorry for that. I couldn't clean it enough to get the scent out."

"How did you get it back?" I pressed. "Did you go into the water?"

After my recent experiences with the water surrounding our island, I had a healthier fear of the Saints than I had ever experience before. He may as well have said he walked through the gates of Hell and demanded it back from the Devil himself.

"I did."

"Why on earth would you do that? You could have been killed."

"Not likely, milady," he said with a chuckle.

I scowled at him. "Don't call me that."

"Still railing against the aristocracy? You can't fight it for much longer. Not if you're going to be Queen."

"How do you know about that?"

"I have my sources."

"Really?" I asked, my voice gaining a bite. "Don't tell me, I'll guess. A little bird told you?"

"I never listen to birds," he said seriously, his eyes darkening. "You shouldn't either."

I snorted. "No birds, no fish. Who will I have left to speak to?"

He didn't respond.

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Should I?"

"It's customary, yes."

He shook his head, looking away. "Maybe to your people."

"What does that mean?"

When he looked at me his eyes were smoldering. "Do you want to marry him?"

"It's not a finality yet," I replied automatically. "No dates have been set."

"I didn't ask when you were to be sold off, I asked whether or not you want to do it."

"Sold off?! What am I? Cattle?"

"To your father yes."

"How dare you?!"

"Do you want to marry him, Anna?" he nearly shouted at me, taking a step closer.

"No!" I exclaimed.

I'd never said it out loud before. I realized then that it was because no one had ever asked me. The realization horrified me.

"Then don't," he replied quietly, his tone softening.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh alright. Thanks ever so much, Ro. My problems are solved."

"They could be. It's that easy."

"Nothing is that easy," I said bitterly. "It never has been, it never will be."

"It was easy when we were children."

I sucked in a breath then let it out forcefully, suddenly feeling like I would cry.

"We aren't children anymore."

He looked me up and down, taking in every aspect of me. I felt somehow scandalous with the way he did it, with the brazenness of it. It felt like when Frederick had done it only worse, far worse, because this time I loved it.

"You're still a very pretty piglet," he replied, his voice low.

I shook my head at him, trying to hide my amusement. I failed.

"You've become incorrigible. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"And yet I'm not," he told me with a careless grin. He gestured to the bundle I still clutched in my hands. "You didn't open it. Don't you want to know what's in it?"

"I know what's in it. It's what's always in parcels from you."

"Really? So what's in there?"

"Heaven."

He laughed deeply. I drank the sound in, noting how familiar it was but at the same time how different now that he was a man. The boyish timber had been replaced by a rumble that reverberated through my chest. It left me tingling.

"I'll tell my mother you said so," he told me. "It will make her day."

"How is she? Is she well?"

"She is." He looked down briefly, showing a rare moment of uncertainty. "She would love to see you, Anna. They both would. You're welcome in their home anytime."

"Still? Even after all these years?"

"Always."

"I'd love that," I whispered

"Tonight?"

"No," I said swiftly, taking a step back, shaking my head. "Not yet."

I didn't know if I could handle the warmth and love of his parent's home just yet. Not so soon after losing my mother and the only home I'd ever truly known. But then again I needed answers. Answers to questions no one in the castle would ever give me. But the Tem Aedha, they were a clever people. They knew things no one else knew, things I knew I couldn't understand. And I knew that Roarke's mother most of all held keys to secrets that did not even possess locks.

Something wicked had ripped its claws through Frederick. Something evil had frothed in the sea beneath my feet. And my mother. What had really happened to my mother? Was she at peace? Was she safe? Had The Saints taken her as they wanted to take me? What did that even mean?

These thoughts made me sick to my stomach.

"Anna, I'm sorry," Roarke said quickly, reaching out a hand as though to touch me, then thinking better of it. "You're still in mourning, it was stupid to ask."

"Tomorrow," I said, ignoring his apology. "If it would be alright, I would love to visit with your family tomorrow evening."

He nodded, eyeing me carefully, put on guard by my sudden change of tone. "It's perfect. My parents will be thrilled."

"Should I bring anything with me?"

"A smile if you have it," he told me with a grin. "And we'll see what we can do about finding you one if you don't."

I wanted to smile for him then, but I couldn't. Instead I nodded, hugged my gift to my chest again and waved goodbye.

***

"And where have you been, young lady?"

"Consorting with the Devil," I deadpanned.

"What an atrocious thing to say," Governor exclaimed, putting her hand over her overly exposed bosom. "With the way you're acting lately I have half a mind to believe it's true. It's a mausoleum in this room. We should have someone open the curtains."

"Yes, lets," I said eagerly, reaching for the heavy fabric and hauling it back with a grunt. "Some sunlight will do us both good, I think."

"You should have called one of the servants to do that," Governor said, heavily taking a seat in a worn velvet chair. "What if someone had walked in and seen that?"

"Seen what?" I asked, taking a seat across from her, gesturing flippantly to the curtains. "Me opening curtains? I can't imagine the gossip you'd have on your hands. What a nightmare."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you," Governor said sourly, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Oh, I don't know. I think it suits me fine. I think it suits me up and down and inside out."

"What's happened? Who is it?" she demanded suddenly.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You do, you know very well what I mean." she insisted, sitting forward to glare at me. "Something has changed today."

"Don't be silly. Nothing has changed. Everything is as it was yesterday. The sky is blue, the sea is black and my mother is still lost to me."

"Is that her shawl?" Governor asked suspiciously, eyeing the bundle I had left unopened on my vanity.

"Yes. It is."

"I thought you lost it to the wind."

"I did. It was recovered for me."

"How?" she asked, her voice becoming tight. She kept her gaze locked on the black cloth as though afraid to turn her back on it. "Where was it recovered from?"

I watched her closely.

"From the sea."

She paled visibly. "Are you sure? You're certain it went into the sea?"

"Yes. It still smells of salt water." I cocked her head at her. "Why does that bother you? I think it's a miracle."

"It is," Governor said, standing abruptly. "It is nothing short of miraculous. If you'll excuse me, child, I need rest."

"Are you alright?" I asked, standing to take her arm to steady her.

Governor waved me away as she began to back out of the room. "No, I'm alright. I – I simply need a moment of rest. The sun, it's too bright for me. I've developed a headache. Good evening, miss." She hurried for the door, then paused with her hand on the knob. She didn't turn to look at me, a terrible breach of etiquette that surprised me more than anything. "Who retrieved it?

"Why does it matter?" I asked, pulling Roarke's name deep inside of myself, hiding it carefully.

"I suppose it doesn't," she said, her voice trembling.

# Chapter Thirteen

I felt him before I saw him. A presence, a warmth up ahead as I walked in the dark abandoned gardens. Like an invisible light leading me home. Most of the area was overrun this time of year, left to the mercy of the cold winter months that shriveled every leaf. Froze every blossom. All except for the walls of the maze. The leaves were sparse but even the dark black branches beneath them were still perfectly shaped. I hadn't been here in ages, not since I was thirteen years old and several inches shorter, but the walls still felt as tall as they ever had. Towering and imposing.

Roarke stood at the entrance of the maze, flanked on each side by the hedges with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his lips.

"You didn't have to escort me."

He shrugged. "I wanted to."

"You shrug a lot."

"I what?"

"You shrug a lot," I repeated, casting him a small smile. "You always have. It's not a judgment, only an observation. It's nice. It makes me feel like I still know you somehow."

"You snort."

"What? I do not!"

"Yes, you do," he chuckled. "A lot."

"Lies. If I did snort my father would have brought an end to it a long, long time ago. You're poking fun at me now when I was being sweet and sentimental."

"Is your father still deep in mourning?"

I snorted derisively. My hand shot up to cover my mouth as I stared at him, wide eyed. He was grinning.

"You did that on purpose!" I cried, swatting at his arm.

He laughed, leading me by the elbow into the dark maze. "You're right, it is nice to feel like I still know you."

"You'll always know me, Ro. Better than anyone."

"I like to think so."

"It's very unlady-like, isn't it?"

"What? Snorting?" When I nodded he said, "Who cares? It's honest. I like it. Don't ever stop doing it."

"Only if you never stop shrugging."

"Anything for you, Anna."

We walked in silence, our feet making the familiar crunching sound on the white stones. We were nowhere near the orchard yet. I could still smell the sea.

"You said you're a fisherman," I commented, thinking of The Shallows.

"I did, yes."

"And you found my shawl in the sea."

He only nodded, understanding where I was headed.

"You fish The Shallows, don't you?"

"Someone has to."

"It doesn't have to be you."

"Who should it be, then?"

I glanced at him, roaming my eyes over his features, his shoulders, his being.

"Anyone but you," I whispered.

"Are you asking me to stop?" he asked, his voice low.

"No." I had no right, even if I wanted to.

"Good. Because if you asked me to I would. I'd do anything for you."

I grinned sadly at him. "You said that before."

"I'm saying it again because it's true."

"Oh, Ro," I moaned, looking away.

"What?"

I shook my head, unable to look at him. He was too much. Too beautiful, too familiar, too comforting.

"I don't know," I lied quietly.

"How did you manage to get away tonight?" he asked, mercifully changing the subject.

"I walked out the front door."

"It was that easy? How long has it been that way?"

"Since my mother passed. The reins will tighten again, don't be fooled. For now I'm getting a free pass every once in awhile to disappear, just so long as the King, Frederick and anyone else of importance doesn't have to see me crying."

"Your father included?"

"My father especially."

"We should make the most of it while we can."

I grinned as I wove my arm through his, brazenly tugging his body closer to mine. He smiled down at me.

"I was thinking exactly the same thing."

When we reached the orchard, I sighed heavily. I could feel Roarke chuckle beside me as he led me past the place where we used to play. The small corner of grass now hidden in shadow and darkness that used to house the light and heat of the entire sky. It looked different in the dark. Not ugly by any means, but haunting. Or maybe just haunted. Haunted by two little ghosts with loud laughs and eager eyes.

He led me deeper into the orchard than I'd ever gone. Farther than our games of hide and seek had ever dared to take us. We walked until the trees were so thick they nearly blotted out the moonlit sky. The branches mixed and mingled above us to create an intricate canopy that kept us hidden from the world. I felt the weight of absolutely everything lifting from my shoulders. I felt free, light. Dizzy in the sudden joy of such a surreal weightlessness.

"Are you alright?" Ro asked quietly, his eyes on me.

I grinned up at him. "I feel wonderful."

He smiled slightly, squeezed my hand on his arm and led me deeper into the trees.

Eventually it ceased to be an orchard. The trees were taller, thicker, the leaves on them different in shape and fragrance. We were entering into a forest. One I suddenly realized I knew. I had seen it only once but I dreamed of it almost every night. Impossible as it was, as much as logic and geography said it could not be true, we were approaching his home.

When we arrived in his village it was such a sense of déjà vu and homecoming that I very nearly screamed in happiness. I was transported back to the night I turned thirteen, the night when another Tem Aedha man waltzed me, an obvious stranger, into town and no on minded one bit. They were far more open than we were, that was for sure. As we walked, I noticed that Roarke received much of the same treatment that his father had that night years ago; people stopping to tell him good evening and asking questions or giving him information on different things. The only difference was that he introduced me to no one.

When we were alone again and his home was in sight I shook my head silently.

"What?" he asked.

"Fishermen and farmers my eye."

I could feel him laughing beside me as he opened the door.

"Mum!" he called out, ushering me in with a hand on the small of my back.

When he closed the door, he quickly reached out to take my cloak from me. I was dressed all wrong for this place, but any simple dresses were long lost to me. I felt like an ornate piece of porcelain plopped down in the center of a barn. Simply put, I felt ridiculous and nonfunctional.

"Mum!" he called again. "I have a present for you."

"Ro, stop shouting. I'm not deaf. I— Oh."

She appeared from the back of the house. Her mouth was opened in a surprised O and I wondered, with her gift, how often that happened. She hesitated only a moment before closing the distance between us and wrapping her arms firmly around me.

"Oh, dear one, I have missed you," she whispered.

I wept.

I couldn't help it. I didn't want to but I didn't stop myself once it started. I clung to her, wrapping my arms around her and burying my face in her shoulder. I cried into her hair, smelling sugar and vanilla on her skin. It soaked into my senses and I let it take me away, this magic of hers.

"Bronwyn, what's happened?" Kian called from somewhere else in the house. I heard his footsteps approach and then, "Is that Anna?"

"Yes," Roarke replied, his voice rough.

"But that means she's..."

"Early. Yes."

"Roarke, what have you done?"

"I've brought her home."

"You've done more than that and you know it." Kian's voice was becoming taught. "What were you thinking?"

There was a long silence. I realized I'd stopped crying, that I was breathing slowly in time with Bronwyn, both of us listening.

"I was thinking that I missed her."

Bronwyn sighed heavily. I gently pulled myself away from her arms and stood back to face them all. I knew I looked a wreck with wet cheeks and red eyes, but I felt strong being here. It felt right.

"I have about a million questions to ask you. All of you. And I want answers to every last one of them, if you don't mind."

***

We sat at the round dining table, all of us facing each other, but all eyes were on me. Waiting.

"What happened to my mother?"

My voice cracked on the question. The answer scared me but I had to know. This question had to come first.

Bronwyn glanced at Kian, looking a bit confused. "She died."

"I know that, but how? How did she die?"

"I don't know what her illness was."

I shook my head, getting frustrated. "You don't understand. Did _they_ take her? The Saints. Did they kill her? Where is she?"

Kian's eyes went wide. He shook his head quickly. "No, Anna. She's not with them. She's... I don't know where she is, but she's not with them. I promise you."

My shoulders relaxed as I slumped into my chair.

"Oh, thank the stars," I muttered.

"Why would you ask if they'd taken her?" Bronwyn asked slowly.

"Because I have it on good authority that they wish to take me."

The silence in the room was human. It lived and breathed along with us, its life spanning out before me in perfect, full clarity. And when Roarke spoke, it died.

"What authority is that?"

"Don't worry," I smirked at him. "I haven't been speaking to the birds. Or fish."

No one laughed.

"Who told you The Saints want you, Anna?" Kian pressed.

My humor faded as I felt the weight of the situation sink in. "Prince Frederick."

Kian cursed under his breath. Bronwyn swiped a hand over her eyes.

"Have you set a date for your marriage yet?" Roarke asked quietly.

"No," I said, shaking my head at him. "I told you, I don't want to marry him."

"Yes, but what you want has never mattered to your father and it certainly doesn't matter to your Saints."

I continued to shake my head. "Frederick told me to tell my father that I'll die an old maid. I think he's refusing to marry me."

Roarke frowned. "Since when?"

"Since the accident in The Shallows."

Kian met eyes with Roarke. He nodded. "They've told him."

"Will they let him refuse? Could it be so simple?"

Kian shook his head. "I doubt it very much. They'll force him, they'll find a way. Either that or the King will marry her himself."

"What?!" I cried. "I'll be married to King Phillip?"

Kian nodded. "They need you as their Queen."

"They cannot possibly need me that badly. He's old enough to be my father."

"Age doesn't matter. The King doesn't matter."

"Why? Why do they need _me_?"

There was a silence, long and painful. When Bronwyn spoke her voice sounded tired.

"Because they've chosen you. The Saints."

"Chosen me for what?"

"For payment."

We were getting somewhere now. Frederick had mentioned payment as well.

"Payment for..."

"Safety."

I snorted a laugh. "Whose safety? Who on this island is safe? Between The Shallows and the storms and whatever happened to Frederick—"

"Hubris," Roarke muttered.

"Whatever the danger may be, there's plenty of it. What exactly are we being protected from?"

"The unknown."

I looked at all of them in sheer frustration. Kian saw it, saw my mounting annoyance. He raised a hand to slow me.

"I understand we're talking in riddles to you, Anna. I'm sorry. For it to all make sense, we have to start at the beginning."

"I'm going to put on some tea," Bronwyn said, suddenly rising.

The scrape of her chair against the wood floor made me jump.

"Alright then," I said to Kian, steeling my nerves. "Let's have it. What's the beginning?"

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"The beginning is older than time. I don't know when the deal was struck, but I do know it's ancient. That it was done before time was even recorded. Back in the untethered days when man simply _was._ Back then, the kingdom of Kilmarnock was just a tribe of people. One much smaller than what you see today. Probably smaller than our village now. But the outside world was basically the same."

"The fighting?" I guessed.

"Yes. Wars were fought on every continent. Land was destroyed, entire races were wiped out. They were terrible times. Even in our history we hear about them and the devastation they brought to us. Of the lengths we were willing to go to in order to ensure our people survived."

"You're getting off topic," Bronwyn said softly, her back to us at the stove.

"Yes," he replied, lowering his head for a moment. "I guess I am. This island was small and in a strategic location being so close to the large nation of Perth. The wars hit it hard with invaders looking to sack Perth. They used this island as a way station. The people were brutalized. The land was too. People were made slaves, the land was farmed to within an inch of its life to sustain the overpopulation from all of the outsiders. It was too much. The people were sure they would be wiped out eventually, so they made a deal."

"A deal with The Saints?" I asked.

Kian chuckled softly. "A deal with the devil."

I frowned. That's not how I knew the story. Anyone who had ever been to church on Kilmarnock knew how the wars were destroying the world and luckily the people of Kilmarnock, known for their grace and kindness, were approached by The Saints. They offered to hide us away, to save us from the outside world and all of its dangers because they saw such good in us. Such hope and possibility. Something worth saving.

"Why would you say it like that? They saved us."

"At what price?" Roarke challenged.

"I don't know anything about a price. I've never heard anything about a deal."

"Frederick has," Kian said. "They've made him aware, that much is for certain."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Because he knows the terms now."

"And he isn't willing to pay," Bronwyn said, bringing us all tea in brightly colored mugs. "Not with your blood."

"Not with your soul," Roarke said darkly. His parents looked at him sharply, but he shrugged at them. "Maybe he's a better man than I thought."

I swallowed hard, looking at my mug and wanting nothing to do with it. I felt sick all of a sudden.

"The deal is for safety. And the cost... the cost is me? That doesn't make sense."

"The cost is the Queen of the island," Kian told me grimly.

I took a shaky breath, nodding my head. I kept my eyes trained on my mug. It was yellow, like sunshine.

"The Queen's Curse."

"Yes. She's made an offering to The Saints. She's the payment for the continued shelter from the outside world."

"Every Queen is made sacrifice?"

"As far as we know, all but one. A hundred years ago a Queen was spared. Your King genuinely loved her. He wasn't willing to give her up. It angered The Saints. The storm that night was your punishment. A reminder of who your people were dealing with. A reminder of the Saints power."

I looked at Kian then, at his golden skin and foreign, wondrous eyes. I smiled slightly.

"They didn't count on you, did they?"

"No," he replied with a similar smile. "They didn't plan on us."

"Either that or we were part of the punishment," Roarke said, also ignoring his tea.

Kian sighed. "We don't know that for sure."

"It would make sense," Roarke insisted. "They were being punished for not holding up their end of the bargain so The Saints gave them a taste of what the world would be like if _they_ didn't hold up their end either. They brought the outside in."

"I think you're giving them too much credit," Bronwyn told him. "I believe we were an accident."

"I think you're underestimating them."

"Hold on!" I exclaimed, putting my hands up between them all. "Just wait. Let's go back. Back to the part where they take the Queen. That's going to happen to me? I'm supposed to marry Frederick so The Saints can have me?"

"That's the plan, yes."

"But why? Why make me Queen first?"

"It's an honor. It makes you mean more to the people than an anonymous, obscure citizen. If you're Queen, you're known and probably beloved by almost every member of the kingdom. It makes you more sacred. A more worthy sacrifice."

"What if I'm absolutely horrid?" I asked, attempting levity I did not feel. "What if I make them hate me?"

"They chose you when you were born," Roarke told me, not smiling in the slightest. "They've watched you your whole life. They won't be discouraged. Besides, I don't believe there's a soul on earth who has met you and didn't love you."

I chuckled. "Are you forgetting my father? Wait, does he know about this?"

Kian shook his head. "I don't believe so, no. Only your High Priest and the Royal Family."

"Well that's something, isn't it? He's not actively trying to get me killed. Not yet at least."

"Not that it would stop him," Roarke muttered.

"Ro!" Bronwyn scolded.

"No, he's right," I told her calmly. "He wouldn't care. Not as long as it got him what he wanted. Money. Power. Status. It's why he married my mother. She didn't know then, didn't know any better. She was young and he was charming..."

"I met him once," Bronwyn said with distaste. "I didn't find him particularly charming."

"Well, that's because you can _see_ him," I said, looking at her pointedly.

Bronwyn blinked in surprise, but she didn't deny it. I appreciated the candor.

"Your people are magic," I insisted, looking at each of them. "Don't tell me you're not because she's read my bones and I was just walked across the entire island through an orchard no one has ever heard of on a journey that should have taken the better part of an hour. How long did we walk, Ro? Twenty minutes? Twenty five?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't timing it."

"You're all magic."

"It's not magic," Kian said, sounding wary. "Not exactly."

"Well, it's the closest thing I've ever seen and I've watched a man's face melted off by seawater. So don't tell me there isn't something different about you all. Especially you," I said, looking straight at Bronwyn.

She grinned faintly. "It was the night I touched your cheek, wasn't it? I wasn't very careful to hide my reaction."

I nodded. "You knew. I could see it on your face. You knew he had broken that bone."

"What bone?" Roarke asked, catching my eye. "Who broke what bone?"

I took a shaky breath, but I didn't look away. This was my truest friend, my greatest ally and my only love. If I couldn't tell him, who could I tell?

"My father. When I was eleven I made him angry. It wasn't hard to do. He hit me over and over so hard that he fractured a bone in my face. You thought I was sick with a fever." I smiled at him, trying to soften the angry look in his eyes. "You gave Mrs. Pomphel wild flowers to deliver to me. They were beautiful. They made me smile every time I looked at them."

"Did that hurt?" he asked gruffly. "To smile with your face broken?"

My smile disappeared. I nodded minutely, unable to lie to him.

This new silence wasn't silence at all. It was a void. A vortex of Roarke's rage that sucked the life and light from the world and dimmed it to darkness.

# Chapter Fourteen

Roarke stood abruptly, never looking away from me. His hands shook at his sides, the sight of his angry fists a stark reminder of the ones that had done me so much damage. But I refused to flinch from them. He stepped toward me jerkily, not entirely in control of himself. I heard him inhale sharply, release the breath slowly, then he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.

Then he was gone. Out the door and into the night.

"Go after him, Anna," Kian told me, rising as well. "I'll show you where he's gone."

"Won't he want to be alone?" I asked, feeling unsure. I had never seen Roarke so angry before.

"He'll want to see no one but you," Bronwyn assured me. "Go. Talk to him. About everything."

"What do you mean by everything?"

"I think you know," she replied with a grin.

Kian showed me a ladder that led up the length of a tall tree at the back of the house. It was shrouded in darkness, not lit warmly as the rest of the village was. Had he not shown me the way or the ladder, I'd never have found it. Under normal circumstances I wasn't afraid of heights. I was a rather fearless child, in fact, so climbing had never bothered me. However, since my experience on the cliff with Frederick, I had misgivings. I made slow progress and was just beginning to wonder how far up I had to go when I heard his voice from above me.

"Do you want help?"

"No," I answered stubbornly.

He chuckled. "Of course you don't."

Feeling braver now that I was almost there, I gathered my skirts high in one hand and took the remainder of the ladder in quick sure movements. It wasn't dignified, but it was exciting. I'd take that over dignified any day. When I reached the top, I found that the ladder ended on a narrow platform. Roarke was sitting in the branches but he moved to make just enough space for me to join him. When I sat, our hips, legs and shoulders were pressed firmly together. My heart immediately began to pound in its erratic way. The way it always did when he was near.

"Why did you come up here?" I asked him softly.

"For the view."

I hadn't looked up yet. I'd only been looking down, thinking about the return climb to earth. Now I raised my eyes and gasped.

This tree, standing at the edge of the village outside its lights, offered a clear view over the kingdom of Kilmarnock. The fields rolled lazily nearby, the moonlight reflected off the perfect calm surface of the lake and the castle—oh the castle!—looked like a dream of dark stone and warm lights speckled across its surface like stars.

"It's so beautiful," I whispered, amazed.

"From a distance, yes," he agreed, his voice low and so, so near.

"Most things are beautiful at a distance," I agreed. I glanced over my shoulder, peeking behind us at his village. "What about your home? Is it as perfect as it seems."

"Right now? In this moment? Yes."

I snorted. "You are such a talker."

He chuckled beside me, his shoulder shaking mine. "It's a gift."

"I'm sure it's one you've used to your advantage. How many innocent girls in this village have fallen victim to your smile?"

"Not as many as I'd like," he muttered.

I shook my head, smiling. "You're disgusting."

"Yes."

"Aren't you curious how many men have fallen victim to my charms?"

"No," he replied firmly.

"Why not? Not curious? Not jealous in the least?"

"No. Not worried." He grinned at me. "You're not that charming."

I shoved him with my shoulder. "You're such a cad."

We fell into an easy quiet. I can't express the simple joy I felt simply being near him again. I wanted to say so many things, ask so many questions and fill the space that had been left between us for too many years. Instead, I chose to drink in the heat of him beside me. To measure my breaths until they fell in line with his. To enwrap myself in his scent until I knew I'd smell it days, months and years later.

"Were there many?" I asked, the words bursting from me.

"Many what?"

"Many girls. Have there been many?"

He paused, or hesitated, I'm not sure which but they are not the same thing. One is reflective, thoughtful. The other is uncertain and usually precedes a lie, or at the least a half truth. As far as I knew, he'd never lied to me. I prayed he didn't start now.

"A few, yes," he finally answered.

I smirked at him, ignoring the pinch in my chest. "Just a few?"

He shrugged. "I was ruined at a young age."

"You look all right to me."

"I thought I was a bread baking baby snatcher."

"You know what you are," I told him softly, admiring his profile. He was aware I was watching him but the scrutiny didn't bother him in the slightest. Yes, he knew very well what he looked like.

"Maybe. It doesn't matter. They didn't matter."

"Why not?"

He looked at me then, his blue eyes catching the light and my breath.

"Because they weren't you."

I sighed lightly, unable and unwilling to look away from him. This moment, the question building in my chest, had been a long time coming. I'd wondered it, felt like I knew, but wanted it so badly I doubted it. Now I felt relieved that it was finally here. That I'd finally know in my head what I'd always known in my heart.

"Do you love me, Ro?"

He nodded once, no pause. No hesitation. "I do."

I nodded as well. "I love you too. I always have."

"Then why are you crying?" he asked, lifting his hand to gently wipe an errant tear from my cheek.

I wasn't crying, not really. The tears were falling but I felt steady inside. Strong.

"Because I have to marry a prince."

"No you don't."

"Of course I do. People will die if I don't. It'll be the storm that killed hundreds all over again. I couldn't live with myself knowing I'd cost so many lives." I shook my head, frustrated. "I just don't understand. How they can pack us into the churches, put us through the ceremonies and the rituals and the prayers, when all of it is a lie? They aren't benevolent, kind spirits that chose us to be their children and keep us protected. They're angry, vengeful... what? What are they? Devils?"

"Not exactly. They're Elementals."

"What's an Elemental?"

"It's a type of spirit or god. There are four different kinds, each with a specific type of power. The ones you worship are Sylphs and Salamanders. Air and Water Elementals."

"I thought a salamander was a lizard."

"It is, it's just a name. You call some lizards 'dragons' but they aren't actually dragons. They don't fly and breathe fire."

"I suppose so. But if that's what we worship, what type do you worship?"

"We don't worship them," he said firmly, "not like you do. It's dangerous. We have a relationship with the Earth elemental, though. We respect it, it respects us."

"And what do you call that type of elemental? Sparrows? Puppies? Wombats?"

He rolled his eyes at me. "Are you having fun with this?"

"I'm trying not to go insane."

"Some cultures refer to the Water as Undines. Does that make it easier for you?"

"Yes, thank you. Now the Earth, what are they called?"

"Ila."

"Good, alright," I said, trying to remember all of this. I was learning a new religion, a new doctrine and not an ounce of it made sense to me yet. "So the Air elementals are Sylphs, the water are Undines and the Earth are Ilas?"

"Ilai."

I glared at him. "What?"

"The plural of Ila is..." He trailed off, seeing the look on face. My annoyance at having begun to grasp this madness and being corrected. "You know, it doesn't matter. Forget it. Ilas, yes. That's right."

"What about the Fire? What do I call him?"

"You call him nothing, not here. There isn't one."

I frowned. "Are there none anywhere in the world?"

"They're everywhere. Just not here on this island. That's half the problem. It's why this island is so imbalanced and strange. There's only supposed to be one spirit for each element. They're meant to keep one another in check. Fire balances Water, Air balances Earth. Everyone lives in harmony and the world turns as it should."

"But that doesn't happen here."

Roarke laughs without mirth. "No, it does not. Without Fire, which we refer to as Idris, there's a gaping hole here. The absence of Idris is most noticeable in the sea where the Undines live."

"The Shallows," I say darkly, having no trouble solving that riddle.

"Yes. There are literally thousands of them where there's only supposed to be one. With Idris gone and the Sylph here as cunning as it is, it's a playground for the Undines."

"What about Ila? Why doesn't the Earth elemental do something about it?"

"I don't believe it can. It's fiercely outnumbered and when we arrived the land here was nearly destroyed. Your people worship the Sylphs and Undines, a terrible choice by the way, and—"

"Wait, why? Why is it a bad idea?"

"They aren't actually gods. They have powers to be sure, but they aren't the omnipotent, benevolent beings your religion casts them as. They can be incredibly spiteful, selfish, uncaring and generally cruel. Worshipping them has given them strength over you. You're people live under their thumb. That is terrifying to us."

"You're people would never do that?"

He shakes his head emphatically. "No. We have always been careful to maintain a relationship with Ila, but never a religion. When we arrived here we treated the land right, farmed it responsibly with the future well-being of the earth in mind. We brought it back to life. That hadn't been done here in thousands of years so when we showed such care, your island's Ila thanked us. It shelters us with the trees, feeds us with the crops."

"How do you know that's what's happening? How do you know you're not just as imprisoned by it as we are? Do you talk to it?"

He smirked at me. "Do you talk to your Saints?"

"No, only the High Priest does that. They speak through him. Or so he says."

"I've never heard Ila speak, though some say they have, my mother being one of them. With her being clairvoyant, I'm inclined to believe her. But most of us can feel its presence, especially here in the village surrounded by the trees." He glanced at me curiously. "Can you feel it?"

I paused, paying attention to the world around me in a newly intense way.

Eventually I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe. I've always felt different here simply because it's so unlike the castle and The Court. I feel safer here, warmer. More at peace." I smiled at him. "I thought it was because of you."

He smiled as well. "Maybe. But it sounds like you feel it, at least a little bit. And it's aware of you, even if you aren't aware of it."

I sighed, feeling tired. "I don't think I like the sound of that. It seems I have enough attention as it is."

"It's alright, Ila is not malevolent. Not like the Sylphs and Undines here."

"So all of these beings are everywhere in the world? Where your people are from, there were Ila, Sylph, Undine and...?"

"Idris, Fire. Yes, they're everywhere. The Ila here is different than the one my people knew before."

"Before you were forced to leave?"

"Something like that," he muttered.

He took my hand, bringing it to his lap. He wrapped it firmly in both of his. He stared at our skin mingling there, mine alabaster white and his golden honey. We were so different, inside and out. But we belonged together. That much I knew for certain. And when he looked into my eyes, I could see he knew it too.

"Don't marry him, Anna."

I felt my throat clenching, but I swallowed hard. "I have to. They're ancient, Ro. We angered them only a hundred years ago. That's the blink of an eye to something eternal. With two betrayals so recent, I doubt they would be merciful."

"I can't—" He shook his head, looking away for a moment. Then his eyes were with me again, brimming with pain. "The idea of you married to him... And the Undines taking you. I can't stand it."

"I know," I said, my voice cracking. "But I—"

"I've loved you my entire life. You and no one else. Marrying someone else, it doesn't make sense." He pressed his forehead against mine. I felt hot tears slip down my face as I closed my eyes, drinking in the smell of him. Soap, sap and sea salt. "I have been bound to you body and soul since the moment I met you. I have been ever faithful. Ever thine."

"I can't let all of those people die," I whispered brokenly.

"And I can't watch you wither away in that castle." He swallowed hard. "Do you love me?"

"You know I do."

"Do you want to marry me?"

"You and no one else."

He sat back, looking down at me with determination burning in his eyes. "Then we'll do it. We'll marry in secret hidden in the earth, in the Cave of Ila. It's the seat of its power here. The Sylph and Undines won't be able to find us inside. They'll never know."

"But what will it change?"

"Everything. We'll perform the old ceremony, the one my people haven't used since we left our home. It's a binding ritual that ties a person to the Ila. It shares your strengths, making you belong to each other. It's something that was only ever done to royalty to solidify their connection to the island and give them strength, or what you call magic."

"You want to bind me to an elemental? I thought that's what we were trying to avoid?"

"And to me."

"What?"

"I want to bind you to me and myself to you. The important thing is that it's all reciprocal. I give to you, you give to me, the Ila gives to you, you give to the Ila. You won't belong to the Ila, not the way the Undines and Sylph want you to belong to them. They don't want to share their power with you, they only want to take from you. They want to use you up like a toy until you're broken and they can get another."

"And the Ila will share its strength with me? It will keep me safe?"

"All we can do is ask. Even if it refuses, you'll still be bound to me. The Sylph and Undines, they can take you, but they'll have to take me as well."

I pulled my hands away from him, horrified. "You'll die with me? Roarke, no!"

He looked at me with stark determination. No fear, no hesitation. Only promise.

"It's the only way I know to keep you from them."

"But eventually they'll know. Or the Ila won't accept me and you'll be pulled down into hell with me."

I was surprised when he smirked at me. "Who's to say you'll take me with you? Maybe I'll pull you up to heaven with me. Don't be such a pessimist."

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's a little difficult to bright side _this_ situation."

"Not really. I believe I just did it."

"It's a gamble I won't take. Not with you."

"I'm doing it."

I threw up my hands in frustration. "No one ever listens to me!"

"I'll make you a deal. After this, I promise I'll listen to you. We'll do things your way."

"Really?" I asked, eyeing him suspiciously. "If I agree to this ceremony, we'll do things my way from here on out?"

"Yes."

"It's an easy bargain for you to make when this decision, _your_ decision, is most likely our last."

"We're going to survive this, Anna."

"That is highly unlikely."

"We have to do this," he pressed, ignoring my pessimism. "We've been kept apart long enough. Eternity is out of the question."

"It's your soul, Ro," I complained.

"And it belongs with you. Stop seeing it so doom and gloom. Look at the possibilities. We could bind you to the Ila and you could gain some of its power. It could protect you from them. But if it can't or it refuses us, then you're still bound to me. As long as I'm alive," he took my hand in his and pressed my palm flat against his chest, over his heart, "you're bound to this place. They can't take you. Not until I'm dead and gone, then I'm going with you. Wherever that may be."

I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes as temptation tugged at my heart. "It's so dangerous."

"And it's all we have. All other options have been stripped from us. This is our choice, our last choice. Do you want to just let them win? To take everything without asking? Do you want to always wonder? Or do you want to _know_? Know that you fought back, that you gave and took everything you could."

He was right. I'd never tell him, but Roarke was often right. This was my moment. My time to choose the path my life would take and, as I always knew it would, the path I wanted led to Ro.

"Yes."

He blinked in surprise. "Yes to..."

"Yes, I will fight. Yes, I will let you bind me to the Ila. Yes, I will be bound to you." I smiled at him. "Yes, I will marry you."

He smiled as well, his eyes glowing darkly with the brilliance of it. He lied when he told me fire didn't live here. I saw it then, burning bright and strong in his gaze, igniting a fire in me that no wind or water could ever touch. Could ever extinguish.

His fingers brushed my cheek. I shivered. I would remember that touch forever after. Light and lingering. He had touched me a million times in the years we had known each other, but this, this was different. This was touch with intent.

He kissed me.

It was so different from the kiss he stole as a child, different from the kisses I'd allowed Frederick over the years. This was full and warm, firm and soft. It was a dialogue that explained so many things, the first thing I fully understood all evening. It was love. It was light. It was us.

When his lips broke from mine, both of us breathing raggedly, tears on both of our faces, I refused to let him go. At some point my arms had gone around him, pulling him as close to my body as I could sitting there on top of the world with him. I felt his hands, large and hot, on my shoulder and on my back. I didn't wanted them to leave. I was sure I'd fall apart into a million confused and angry pieces if he ever let me go.

"You're going to marry me?" he whispered raggedly. I nodded. "Say it again."

I laughed. "Yes, I'm going to marry you. You and only you."

He nuzzled his nose into my neck, inhaling deeply, breathing out hotly. Goosebumps broke out across my skin.

"Say it again."

I placed his hand over my heart, knowing he could feel the erratic, excited beat of it through my dress.

"Ever faithful. Ever thine," I promised.

# Chapter Fifteen

What we promised one another that night in the tree remained our secret. We didn't tell his parents, we clearly didn't tell mine and we vowed not to speak of it for fear of the elementals hearing us. Roarke explained to me the danger of speaking around fish or birds. The Sylph and Undines could exist inside them for a time. They could enter them on the wind or in the sea and stay inside for a short period. Like holding your breath underwater. The only place that was safe for us, he said, was deep in the forest where the Earth would shroud us, even from the birds.

After I said goodbye to his parents, he walked me home in silence. He took me the long way. The un-enchanted way. Occasionally his fingers would brush against mine as our arms swung in rhythm, but that was all. Otherwise, we kept to ourselves. The world felt far more dubious, much more suspect now that I knew the things I had been told by the Tem Aedha. But it also made more sense. I'd always feared the Saints. Now I knew why.

"Thank you for a lovely... illuminating evening, Ro," I told him when we neared the gate and agreed to part. I was dying to say so much more, but I knew there were ears everywhere.

"My pleasure, Anna." He bowed slightly. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

He waited there as I disappeared inside the castle gates. I could feel his eyes on me as I entered. I could feel the guard's eyes as well.

Once inside, I was fortunate enough to miss running into everyone else in the world. It was late. I imagined most were in bed, though probably not with who they should be. My theory was challenged when I rounded the corner and stared down the hall toward my bedroom. My father's door was cracked, a dull yellow glow emitting weakly from around the edges. I crept silently toward it, intending to rush past unnoticed, until I heard voices. They were all male, low and murmuring.

"You've put it off long enough. It's time," my father insisted.

"You put it off as well. Don't blame me for all of this," Frederick argued, sounding bored.

"You lost your face and her mother died! I couldn't get her to leave her room for two days. I still can't get her to stop wearing black."

"Then how do you propose to get her into a white wedding dress?"

"She'll wear it. Name the day and she'll be ready."

"I won't marry her."

"Frederick!" King Phillip shouted.

"I won't! She'll only do it out of pity."

"And you should be grateful for it," my father growled. I was shocked by the tone he was taking with the Prince. It was so unlike him. "Do you know how many men I could marry her to? She's breathtaking."

"Then marry her to one of them. I'll have nothing to do with it."

"Who are you going to marry then?" My father's voice was growing desperate.

"No one. Not ever."

"You know that's not possible," King Phillip said calmly, trying to reason with Frederick.

"They did this to me!" Frederick shouted. I heard the sound of a chair or table topple to the floor. "What do I owe them? Nothing!"

"We owe them everything. They keep us safe."

"Not all of us."

"Are you still alive?"

"I wish I wasn't."

"Oh, stop sulking and act like a man!" King Phillip roared, losing what small patience he had held. "You're to be King of Kilmarnock and you're betrothed to the most beautiful woman on the island. The fact that you look like a monster is inconsequential."

"As uplifting as that speech was, I still refuse to marry her. Let her marry who she chooses. I won't tie her to me for the rest of her life and I won't condemn her to a fate worse than death."

"We don't know that it's a bad thing," my father argued, making my blood run cold.

_He does know,_ I thought.

I don't know why the realization depressed me like it did, but despite all that he and I had been through, all that he had put me through in my life, he was still my father. I had hoped on some level he meant it when he told me he'd never truly harm me. But this, selling my soul to vicious, angry gods in exchange for his own comfort, was more harm than I ever dreamed he could do.

"Don't," Frederick told him severely. "Don't try to sugar coat it. We all know it's not cherubs and harps."

"We don't know precisely what it is."

"Which means we don't know how awful it really could be. How can we pretend to love these woman and cast them into the unknown this way? I won't do it. Not to anyone, especially not to her."

"You'll do it to someone," King Phillip told him.

"I'll die first."

"We could all die if that's what you choose. Is that what you want? It will be one hundred years ago all over again. The storm, the death."

"The outsiders." My father spat the words out as though they were distasteful on his tongue.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and the storm will take them away this time," Frederick told him sarcastically. "Problem solved."

"If you refuse to marry, we'll most likely all be taken away," King Phillip reminded him.

"And you fear that? Being taken by them? Going the way of the Queens? Interesting. Hypocritical."

"Do not judge me. This is how things are, how they've always been."

"They will be this way no longer."

"You're a foolhardy boy! A child. Where did I go wrong with you?"

"You murdered my mother."

"Your mother did her duty to her land." The raspy, quiet lilt of the High Priest's voice wafted out into the hall, giving me chills. I was startled to know he was there in the room. "And she did it without complaint. How disappointed she would be to hear you protest as you are."

"Don't talk to me about my own mother," Frederick growled.

"Frederick. Your tone," King Phillip warned. He sounded nervous.

"No, father, enough is enough. This is no holy man."

"He's chosen by the Saints. Just as the Queens are," my father insisted. "Show some respect."

"I respect none of this witchcraft."

I heard a sharp intake of breath, though I couldn't tell who had done it.

"You'll be the death of us all," King Phillip said, sounding defeated.

There was a long silence. I grew anxious, afraid they would leave the room at any moment and find me. My heart pounded in my chest, my feet slid across the stone floor. But as I prepared for my flight down the hall, Frederick spoke.

"Get away from me!" he cried.

When the High Priest spoke again, I didn't hear his words coming from the room, yet I understood them perfectly. As though they'd been spoken directly in my ear.

I began to tremble.

"They will have her, one way or another. None can stop them. Not you, not I... not the Outsiders."

"The Outsiders?" Frederick asked. "What do they have—"

"She will be theirs, though you and you alone can delay the inevitable. Refuse to marry her and they will take her here and now. If you marry her as you are meant to, they will let you keep her until you have an heir. Think of the years you could give her. The extension of her life you would grant her."

"What if we never have a child?" Frederick asked, his voice rough and strained.

I could _feel_ the Priest smiling. "She is a lovely girl, Frederick. You will spend years lying in bed beside her night after night after night, her soft, warm flesh pressed against yours. The sweet scent of her in your nose, your lips hungry for her taste—"

"Stop!" Frederick cried.

The Priest's voice grew hard. "An heir will be produced. That much is certain."

"You're a damned devil," Frederick whispered shakily.

"You will marry her," the Priest commanded in reply.

There was silence again. I held my breath, unsure what I was hoping for. Unsure what to dread. When Frederick spoke, I felt myself collapse inside.

"Yes," he answered tiredly. "Yes, I'll marry her."

***

I didn't sleep that night. The Priest's voice swirled inside my mind, giving me gooseflesh and making me cringe in the dark. I had held out hope that Frederick meant it when he said he wouldn't marry me. I thought that would be my loophole, my escape from the guilt of refusing to marry him. If it was his decision then it was him condemning the island to death, not me. It was horrible of me to want to shift that guilt to him, but maybe I was just that; a horrible person.

I planned to marry two men, meaning I would lie to one of them when I said my vows. I knew who I'd be lying to and it made me feel infinitesimally better to know he would be lying to me as well.

That afternoon I was sitting on the large windowsill in my bedroom, looking out over the courtyard and willing the night to come, when a knock sounded at my door.

"Come in."

There was a pause before the door opened slowly. Knowing that hesitance could never belong to my father, I glanced over to find Frederick entering reluctantly. He was dressed immaculately, his tall frame exactly as it had been for years. His face, however, was forever changed. His thick, lovely hair was almost gone, replaced by ragged scar tissue that ran from his scalp down his face, around his neck and disappeared into the collar of his shirt. He was wearing a mask that made no attempt at looking natural or human. It was coverage only. For hiding. It was opaque and black, covering his face entirely accept for two holes that let his unmarred eyes shine through and a thin slit in front of his mouth.

"Did you design it to be frightening?" I asked him, not bothering to stand up or bow.

"Maybe. Is it?"

I shrugged. "It could use some rouge."

I heard him chuckle behind the hard shadow of the mask. He glanced at the door behind him that still stood partially open. Propriety said it stay that way. Actually, propriety said he not be in my room at all, least of all unchaperoned.

"Close it," I told him.

"Are you sure? I think I should because there are things we have to talk about, but—"

"Close it," I repeated, dropping my head back against the wall behind me. "I don't wish the entire world to hear my fate."

He hesitated. "What fate is that?"

"My eternal damnation."

"Are you referring to marrying me?" he asked, his voice low and angry.

"No. I'm referring to the _Saints,_ " I spat sarcastically, "and my marriage to them."

Frederick closed the door quickly. The _click_ echoed through the large room.

"What do you know?" he asked urgently.

"Everything." I rolled my head back and forth against the wall. "Nothing. Too much, too little."

"You know about the Saints and their demands?"

I nodded warily. "They demand me as payment for our continued safety from the outside world. Just as they demanded your mother. And the Queen before her, and the Queen before her, and the Queen—"

"How do you know this? Who told you?"

I sighed, debating. Did I tell him the truth and risk his wrath at the Tem Aedha? Or did I lie, as everyone else in the Court lied every single day, keeping secrets, shrouding the truth as the Saints shrouded the island?

I thought of Bronwyn. Of her strength, her surety.

_Your father and your King, they don't scare us_.

I doubted Frederick, even in his fear mask, would scare her either. Besides, I was beyond tired of lies.

"The Tem Aedha told me. They told me everything."

"How in the hell do they know about it?"

"Because the Saints aren't saints at all. They're something else, something called Elementals. One of the Air and many, many more of the Water. And there's another, one of the Earth. He speaks to the Tem Aedha. He protects them in their forest."

Frederick remained silent, thinking. I could hear his breathing inside the mask. It was slow and even.

"Would they speak with me?"

I frowned at him. "Who? The Saints? They only speak to the High Priest."

"Hang the High Priest. He's Satan himself as far as I'm concerned. I'm asking about the Tem Aedha. Will they meet with me?"

I stared at him in shock. "You hate them. You and your father both."

"Annabel, they saved my life." He took several steps toward me, out of the shadows and into the light of the window. His mask took on a yellow glow from the fading sun, his eyes shining brightly inside, making him appear softer. Kinder. More earnest. "I would have passed through The Tombs were it not for them. I'd have died for sure."

"I thought you'd rather be dead," I whispered sadly.

"Wha—why would you say that?"

"I heard you last night. You told your father you'd rather be dead than be as you are now."

Frederick chuckled hard, shaking his head. "Take nothing I say to my father to heart. Not anymore. What he did to my mother... It's unforgiveable. It's something I won't do to you. Not if I can help it."

"So you won't agree to marry me after all?"

"No, I will. I have," he said, sounding defeated. He fell into a chair across from me. "I had to, otherwise they'd be giving you to the Saints today. I agreed to buy us time. I came here to explain that to you, but it seems you know more than I do."

"Not much. Only what the Tem Aedha have told me."

"Which is why I need to speak to them. Maybe they can help us out of this mess. All of us."

"What do you mean?"

"Annabel, I want to free the island," Frederick said passionately, sitting forward and putting his arms on his knees. "I want to release us from this terrible bond we're trapped in. I want to free us from the Saints."

"Elementals."

"Yes, the Elementals. The Earth that the Tem Aedha speak to, can he help us? Can he overpower the Air and Water?"

"I don't know. I imagine if he could, he would have by now."

"But have they asked him?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"We have to find out. This could be our chance. It could be our solution to saving you. To saving us all."

I didn't feel half the hope I heard in Frederick's voice. I knew it wouldn't work. If there was a chance that the Earth could have freed us, that it could save me from this terrible fate I faced, Roarke and his family would have made that bargain already.

"Will you help me speak to them?" Frederick insisted, feeling my hesitance.

"Of course, yes," I agreed. Then I eyed him hard. "But if you harm them in any way, if you betray their kindness, I will not marry you. I will abandon the entire island and leave you all at the hands of the devil."

I couldn't tell through the small slit in the mask, but I though Frederick smiled.

"You have my word, milady."

***

Frederick and I spoke all afternoon. I told him everything I knew, everything the Tem Aedha had told me, and he told me what he knew as well. Nothing much was different from what I already knew, though I was surprised to find out that my father had known my fate longer than even Frederick had. My father, it seemed, was a very faithful and close follower of the High Priest. Though it didn't surprise me in the least that he was drawn to a man of such power, it did shock me to know that he was brought into the man's confidences.

As the sun finally set and I heard the sounds of people entering the halls heading for dinner, I told Frederick to leave. He was surprised by my forwardness, but he nodded and left without comment. I had promised, a million times at least, that I would arrange for a meeting between him and the Tem Aedha. Now I only had to find out who their leader was, though I had my suspicions. Suspicions I'd harbored since I was thirteen.

With Frederick gone, I leapt into action. My heart was a wild thing in my chest, beating ferociously and crying for freedom. For the first time in weeks I cast off my black dress, black stockings, black gloves – all of it. I stood in my room nearly naked in my white underthings, breathing deep and easy. I let my mind go blank for a brief sweet moment. I didn't think of my father or my mother or the King and Frederick or the dead Queens or the devils in the sky and sea.

Ro. I only thought of Ro.

I didn't have simple dresses anymore, but what I did have was a very ornate, white nightdress. It had appeared last winter just before the final festivals. Just before the dawn everyone in the castle came together, still dressed in their nightwear, to exchange gifts, eat and sing together, celebrating the coming of a new year. My father, I have no doubt, had wanted me to wear it to entice Prince Frederick. I'd worn a gray, shapeless gown beneath my mother's thickest robe instead. The white nightgown still hung unused in my closet.

I put it on now, admiring in the mirror the way that it hugged my body snuggly without the rigidity of corsets. The way it flowed out easily at my feet without the bulk of tulle and skirts. The neckline was shockingly low and I felt a little embarrassed that my father had chosen this gown with me in mind. Too many of my private affairs were made other people's business.

This night would be different. I would finally take something for myself and make it mine. And no one, not birds, fish, angels or devils, could ever take it from me.

# Chapter Sixteen

When I arrived at the edge of the maze, he was there waiting for me in the deepening twilight. The sky was purple, turning blacker by the second, and the temperature dropped swiftly with it, making me acutely aware of the breeze blowing through my hair. I had to make a conscious effort not to run to him. Pulling my dark cloak tightly around my thin dress, I walked slowly toward him.

He silently stepped back, encouraging my entrance into the hedges. We walked casually at first. We took our time as we came to the orchard, then went deep into the trees. When the world changed and the forest rose around us, we followed a different path that led away from the village and toward the mountain rising in the distance. Eventually I felt his large, warm hand take hold of mine. Then he was walking faster, his pace brisker and the hand holding mine pulled me forward. I matched his pace then passed him, pulling him. He did the same, pulling ahead of me. Then we were running. We sprinted through the woods together, running as fast as we could. It felt like the night on the cliff's edge when I nearly died. But with my hand in his I knew I'd never fall. I felt free and wild and too excited to breath.

When we reached the cave I couldn't breathe for another reason. This was happening. It was real. I was marrying Roarke, a feat I never imagined I'd accomplish. The entirety of my childhood flashed before me, every moment we'd ever spent together and the longing I'd lived with since we'd been separated. It was overwhelming.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently.

I breathed deeply, nodding at him. "Yes."

"Are you sure? It's sudden, I know. We don't have to do this if you're not sure. We'll find another way."

"Ro," I laughed incredulously. "Marrying you is the only thing I'm sure about."

"Good, because I was binding you to me whether we were married or not."

I slapped at his chest. "Are you joking?"

"No." He put up a hand to stop me before I shouted at him. "Remember! My decisions now, yours forever after. Just give me this."

"That is such a terrible deal."

He shrugged. "You're the one who agreed to it."

"I don't know that I actually did."

"Well, either way we're here now. Are you ready for this?"

I smiled at him sweetly. Then I pulled back the hood on my cloak, exposing the long yellow tresses of my hair that fell free over my shoulders. I wore it completely untethered, just as I did when I slept. But it was my dress that stopped his breath in his chest. The long flowing white fabric that hugged me gently from my shoulders to my waste before flaring out and cascading around my legs. It was simple, just cotton and lace, but it was all me underneath and I knew from the look in his eyes he was aware of it.

"You look lovely," he said gruffly.

"Thank you." I took a deep breath. "So, what now?"

"Now we get married."

***

"A tattoo?!" I cried, looking in horror at the tools he unwrapped. "You never said anything about a tattoo."

"You didn't ask."

"Ro."

"What did you expect? That we'd say a few words to each other and your eternal soul would become part of me?"

"I'm sure I don't know, but I definitely didn't expect needles. I thought we'd light candles and chant something together, maybe eat dirt or something."

He scowled. "Why would we ever eat dirt?"

"To take in the earth and bond with Ila?"

"That is..." he sighed, sounding defeated. "That's insane. But it's surprisingly not far from the truth."

"So what's the truth?"

"The ink of your tattoo will be infused with my blood and earth."

"You mean dirt."

"No, I mean earth."

"We've had this fight before and I still don't know the difference between the two."

"It's not really an important issue right now," he muttered, arranging his bottles of inks and who knew what else.

"Ro, you can't put dirt in my blood."

"Earth."

"I'll get sick," I insisted, ignoring him.

"No, you won't. It's all part of the ritual, you'll be perfectly safe."

"I liked it better when you called it a ceremony," I mumbled, crossing my arms around myself, examining the dark walls of the cave.

It wasn't a terrible place. The ceilings were high. I could see tree roots crisscrossing wildly above me, holding a roof of soil over my head. It was comforting somehow. Like something solid and ancient holding up the sky.

"The ceremony is safe," he amended, looking up at me. "I'd never do anything that could hurt you."

"You said your people haven't done this since landing here. You don't know what it will do."

"I know what I've read, what I've been told. The only variable in this I can't completely count on is the Ila. The Tem Aedha have built a strong relationship with it over the years, but we're asking a lot. We're asking it, a being that has existed under the thumb of the Sylph and Undines for centuries, to essentially spit in their face. I won't lie to you, it's risky."

"Can it give me away?"

"What do you mean?"

"If it accepts me, can it change its mind and give me to them? You say it's been oppressed for centuries, what if it chooses to ransom me?"

When he met my eyes, I could see the pain in them. He'd thought of this. "It's a possibility. There are no guarantees in this, none but the guarantee that if we do nothing you will be forced to marry Frederick, bring him an heir and be cast to the devil to be his plaything for all eternity. Anything is better than that."

I nodded in agreement, though I knew that the only silver lining to our worst case scenario was that Roarke would go with me, a thought that left me sick to my stomach. But I knew him. I knew if I refused, he'd find a way to perform the binding anyway and my refusal would only have promised us both a place in eternal torment. We wouldn't have even tried for salvation. The weight of his forever rested on my shoulders, pressing me forward.

"Prince Frederick wants to meet with the Tem Aedha," I said suddenly, changing the subject.

Roarke looked up at me in surprise. "Why?"

"He believes you can work together to solve the problems the kingdom faces with the Saints."

"Really? Since when?"

"Since I told him your people knew more about the world than he does."

Roarke laughed. "I'm sure he loved that."

"He took it rather well. I promised him I would try to arrange a meeting with the leader of the Tem Aedha. No one in Kilmarnock seems to know who that is."

"He's a mysterious figure," Roarke said, rising to face me.

"Yes, of course. Any leads on how I could find him?"

"Not a clue."

"Ro."

"Yes?"

I stared at him, waiting. He stared back innocently. Silently.

"Ro," I repeated.

"Yes?"

"Ugh!" I groaned in disgust, turning away.

He sighed. "I don't want to meet with him, Anna."

I spun around, pointing my finger in his face. "I knew it! Fisherman and farmers. Liars is more like it."

He chuckled, taking my hand, lowering my accusing finger. "Among other things."

"You're shameless."

"Yes."

"Why won't you meet with him?"

"I said I didn't want to, I didn't say I wouldn't."

"But why? What if he can help?"

"I seriously doubt that."

"Will you see him anyway?"

"If you're asking, I'll do it."

"I'm asking," I told him, rising up on my toes to kiss him gently. "I'm asking very sweetly."

I could feel him smile against my lips as his arms wound around me, pulling me closer.

"You are so convincing." He kissed me briefly then leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. "When do I have to see him?"

"Tomorrow. That is if—"

"If we're not all dead by tomorrow?"

"It's a big if."

When he looked down at me again, I was surprised to see the warmth in his eyes. The confidence that I didn't feel. "We're going to be together for a long, long time, Anna."

"How can you know that?" I whispered.

"Because you're my best friend. Because I love you too much to lose you. And because my psychic mum told me so."

I pulled back slightly, scowling. "She what? What did she say?"

"Nothing specific, she never does. But she told me a long time ago, when we were first separated and I was miserable missing you, that I didn't have to worry. That there was a difficult road for us but if we stayed together, we would make it. She promised me we'd share an eternity together. That's how I know that one way or another, this will work."

"But she didn't say where that eternity would be, did she?"

"No," he admitted darkly.

I sighed, pulling myself away from him. "But we have to try. Alright, where is this tattoo going?"

"I'm putting mine here," he said, showing me the inside of his left forearm. It was then that I notice there was already a tattoo on the inside of his other arm in the exact same spot. It was a symbol I'd seen before. One carved over the door of his family's home.

"What does that one mean?" I asked, turning his arm so I could see it better.

"It means I'm important."

I looked up at him to find him smiling. "And modest. It's says you're a leader of the Tem Aedha, doesn't it?"

"Essentially."

"Essentially or yes?"

"Essentially. Where do you want yours?"

"Am I getting one like that as well?"

"Not unless you want one."

I shook my head vigorously. "One will suffice. We'll need to hide it. If my father ever sees it I'll be in a world of hurt."

I'd been examining his tattoo, not looking at his face, but when I said the foolish thing I said, I felt his eyes fall on me hard. His muscles beneath my fingers tensed. I wished I could take it back.

"On my back," I blurted out, looking up at him with a warm, reassuring smile. "Put it on my back. No one will ever see it there. No one but you."

"Where on your back? Just beneath your neck?" he asks, running his fingers lightly over the area.

"No, most of my dresses don't cover that high. You'll have to put it beneath my shoulder blades at least."

His eyes, already so bright in color to begin with, looked more electric than usual in this darkened cave.

"You'll have remove your dress from your back," he said, his voice low.

"No," I told him with a smile as my heart hammered in my chest. I turned around, putting my back to him and draping my hair over my shoulder. There were laces there, ones I could undo and do myself, but I didn't tell him that. What would be the fun in that? "You'll have to."

I felt his rough fingers brush over the bare skin just above the back of my dress. They dipped down carefully, pressing between my skin and the fabric, sending a rush of heat through my veins. Then they were gone. When I looked over my shoulder at him, Roarke was several steps away. He ran his hand over his hair, down over his face and coughed roughly.

"I, uh, I think I'll do mine first." he told me.

"Why?"

"It'll be easier."

"Easier how?" I asked innocently.

"Easier in a lot of ways. Do you want to watch? See how it's done?"

"Yes." I eagerly moved to where he'd set up his jars and equipment, sitting down on the hard packed dirt floor.

"No, your dress," he protested, but I'd already sat. "I have a blanket to sit on. I didn't want you to ruin your dress."

"I don't mind getting a little dirty."

He chuckled. "Now who's shameless?"

"I don't know what you mean." I said with a smile.

# Chapter Seventeen

Roarke didn't flinch as he pushed the needle into his skin again and again. I watched in amazement as the point went in, blood rose out and the ink remained inside. It looked torturously painful but I remained silent, my lip bitten between my teeth the only outward sign of my distress.

"You'll get used to it," Roarke murmured, never looking away from his work.

"To the pain?"

"Yes. You'll feel it, but it won't bother you as much as it did at first."

"Does it have to be so big?" I asked, looking at the design that spanned almost his entire forearm.

"It doesn't have to be. But the more ink, the more blood, the more earth and the stronger the bond." He looked up at me briefly, his brow still pinched in concentration. "Do you want me to make yours smaller?"

I shook my head minutely, beginning to feel afraid. "No."

"Anna."

"It's fine. I'm fine. When do you need my blood?"

"Now would be good since I've stopped."

"Are you going to cut me?"

Now he showed pain, flinching slightly. This hurt him. "Yes."

I nodded more firmly this time, hiding my shudder of fear in the movement. Even as an adult, I hated the sight of blood. "Where? My hand?"

"Your hand is fine, though on your arm would probably heal faster and be less painful."

I pushed up the ¾ sleeve of my dress past my elbow and thrust my arm at him. He only looked at it for a moment, his eyes downcast as though something about my thin, pale arm terrified him. Then he produced the knife.

I winced as he pulled it from his boot, the candlelight reflecting off it to shine in my eyes. It wasn't large but it looked sharp. He placed a cloth beneath my arm to cover my dress, then opened an empty bottle. His breathing was shallow when he poised the knife above my skin. I could feel the warmth, his warmth, stored within the blade seeping into me. In my anxiety, it felt as though it were burning me.

Roarke took a deep breath, then another. But when he looked at me, his shoulders sagged.

"I can't. Once I heard about your father I swore I'd never hu—"

I grabbed his hand holding the knife and sliced it across my skin. I gasped at the pain, at the shock of seeing my white flesh parted by a thin river of red. It was so dark in this light it looked almost black. I wondered if I wasn't doomed already.

Roarke cursed loudly, bringing the bottle up under my arm. Blood ran over my skin and dripped freely into the small opening. I'd fill it in no time.

"Too deep, Anna," he growled, examining the wound.

"I'll do better next time," I replied through gritted teeth.

When the bottle was filled, Roarke lifted the rag and pressed it tightly to my arm. Two small drops escaped, landing on my dress. I watched with fascination while the dark liquid turned brilliantly red as it absorbed into the white linen, just as the white stones took in my blood all those years ago.

"I might have to stitch this," Roarke said, his voice low and troubled. "Which means more needles."

"Can't you work your magic on it?"

He chuckled as he shook his head. "We're not magic."

"You are though. You're pure magic. All wonder and brilliance, like stars and moonlight."

He looked at me in surprise. "I thought all of this," he gestured to the cave, the candles, the blood, the needle, "would make you afraid of me."

"I've been afraid of a lot of things in my life, Ro, but you have absolutely never been one of them. I trust you to the ends of the earth and back. If you told me that to escape this curse I had to swallow sea water and eat a live fish, tail first, I'd be choking down fins right now."

His laugh coupled with the relief on his face were dazzling. He leaned forward to kiss me gently.

"I love you, Annabel Lee."

I smiled, surprised to hear him use my whole name. "I love you too, Roarke."

He finished his tattoo after that. I stared at it in amazement when it was done. Gently, I ran my fingers over the raised surface of the design, marveling at how precise the lines are. How clean the design.

"Have you drawn this symbol before?" I asked him, my voice hushed with awe.

"I traced it once out of the book."

"What book?"

"The book my family has. It's one of the few relics that survived the shipwreck. It's how I was taught the old ways and my parents were taught before me."

"Your island before? What was it like?"

He shrugged, looking away to clean his tools. "I don't know. I've never been there."

"I know that, but... Never mind. Is it my turn now?"

He nodded, still not looking at me. His island, the life his people had before this; I knew it was all a very sore subject for him. It was not the time to push it. Not with everything else we were facing.

I stood up, turning my back to him, pulling my hair over my shoulder again. I quickly pulled the tie at the top of my back near my neck, making the entire dress sigh away from my skin. My arms were crossed over my chest to hold the material to me but I shrugged it off my shoulders so my entire back and most of my sides were bare. Only my mother and the moonlight had ever seen me this undressed before. I was worried I'd be terrified or that I'd feel ashamed, but I didn't. Roarke seeing me this way felt like the most natural thing in the world.

I heard him stand behind me. The light faded as his shadow fell around me, ensconced me and my nakedness from the air. I was in him now, encased in his darkness and I felt more adored and cherished by that simple, silly thought than I ever had before. There was so much gentleness just in the way he stood near me that I nearly choked on a sob in my throat.

I shivered when I felt his fingertips trace my spine, starting at my waist where the dress held together and reaching up to the back of my neck. They trailed down again, then stopped just below my shoulder blades.

"Here," he whispered hoarsely. "This is where I'll put it. You're least sensitive here."

I nodded, unable to speak. His hand disappeared. I was about to look back at him, to see what he was doing, when I felt his breath warm against my shoulder. He placed a swift, dry kiss against the skin, then retreated. I listened to the sound of his tools being moved, to the clink of the bottles. One was uncorked, then another. I looked back to see two held in his hand. One empty, one full.

"What's in that one?" I asked quietly.

He glanced at it, then looked up at me with a wry grin. "Dirt."

I chuckled, watching with interest as he poured half of the contents into the empty bottle. He corked it, then reached for his knife. I winced, knowing what was coming. He rolled up the sleeve of his dark gray shirt and folded it above his elbow.

"You don't have to watch this part," he told me.

"Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"Because we're in this together."

He nodded. Then he swiftly sliced the blade across his arm. He was right, I did it too deeply. The knife was sharp. He barely sunk it into his skin before blood began to bead on the surface and roll down his arm. He held his hand in the air, pointing his elbow toward the ground then placing the bottle beneath it. Gravity pulled the blood down smoothly, dripping it neatly off the tip of his elbow. He didn't spill a single drop.

"You've done this before."

He shrugged.

I didn't ask when he'd been called on to draw a person's blood before. What are the odds I'd enjoy the answer?

"Are you ready?" he asked, tying a cloth around his arm.

"As I can be," I replied with a wan smile.

"I'll be quick, I promise."

"Don't be quick. Be thorough."

And for all the poking and painful prodding, he better have been thorough. He was true to his word, he was quick, but he lied about getting used to the pain. I never became accustomed to it. It never retreated to the back of my mind where I could ignore it or think of other things. I felt every puncture, every ounce of ink and blood and earth that entered my body and I wondered if any of it would work.

"You're done," Roarke told me, running a clean cloth over my abused skin.

I didn't shed a tear and of that I was proud. I'd endured a lot of pain in my life and it had always been a point of pride and pure survival for me to never cry because of it. It was important to never let them know they have you. That they've hurt you. And even though that sort of dominance was the farthest thing from Roarke's mind, it's still engrained in me and will be for all of time. It's who I am. It's who they've made me.

"I don't feel any different," I told him, turning to try and catch a glimpse of the drawing. My skin pulled painfully. I gritted my teeth hard. "Except for sore, that is."

"It's going to hurt for awhile. I'm putting a balm on it to help it heal. Hold still."

He rubbed a cold, thick substance over my back. I felt a bit of the angry tension in the area dissipate almost immediately, reminding me of my cut.

"You aren't going to rub it with dirt and spit on it?" I asked with a smile.

"You cannot let anything go, can you? Did you or did you not heal quickly from that cut?"

"I did, but it still left a scar."

"Did it? Let me see."

I lifted my hand to show it to him over my shoulder. He examined it in the light, finding the thin white line that ran across my palm. He traced it with his finger.

"Huh," he muttered. "I didn't think it'd scar. It's probably because you're wicked."

I laughed, pushing him away as I turned to face him. He was smiling. It was the kind of smile that could light the entire cave without any help from the candles.

"What now?" I asked. "Do we say our vows or drink from the same cup? How do we become married?"

"Anna," he said, sounding confused. He turned his arm toward me, the one carrying the symbol I now had on my back. "We already are."

"That's it? That's how we become married? With the tattoos?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me that?!"

"I thought you knew!"

"No! I thought this was all part of the binding with Ila. I didn't realize this was the wedding."

"It wasn't exactly traditional."

"Really?" I replied sarcastically.

"Do you want me to do it again so you can pay attention this time?" he asked grinning.

"Oh, that's very funny."

"Are you honestly angry?"

"No. A little. I don't know. It wasn't very romantic, was it?"

"I don't know about that. I found the part where you took off your dress to be very moving."

I hit him hard in the shoulder. "Say something lovely."

"What?"

"This whole ceremony or ritual or wedding, whatever it is, it's been very macabre. Say something lovely, please, so I'll have something sweet to remember about this."

Roarke grinned again as he stepped toward me. I was reminded by his proximity that I was still holding my dress to my body. That I was standing there with a man while only halfway dressed.

"Anna," he said solemnly, wrapping his arms around my waist. His hands touched the bare skin of my lower back, spanning out, feeling huge and hot. " _Neither the angels in Heaven above or the demons down under the sea will ever dissever my soul from your soul. We belong together, to each other, in this world and the next."_

_I smiled, reaching up and wrapping my arms around his neck. Letting my dress fall to the ground and not caring a bit. I pressed myself against Roarke. Against my husband._

_" Ever faithful," I whispered._

_" Ever thine."_

# Chapter Eighteen

"Annabel Lee," my mother said.

I sat up with a start, my heart in my throat. It couldn't be. But it was. There at the entrance of the cave, cast in long shadows by the evening light, stood my mother. She looked radiant and whole. Beautiful as she was before the sickness shrunk her nearly to nothing. My entire body ached with the desire to run to her, to collapse into her arms one last time. But something was off. It was wrong. It couldn't be real.

"Mother?" I whispered, hoping despite reason.

"No," she said softly.

"Wha—what?"

"I'm not your mother," she repeated.

"Then who are you? _What_ are you?"

"A friend."

"I seriously doubt that." I quickly turned to Roarke, shaking his sleeping form. "Ro! Wake up!"

"He'll not wake."

My blood ran cold. I placed my hand cautiously on Roarke's arm. It was warm and moving, rising and falling with the breath in his chest.

"What have you done?" I asked, my voice gaining strength found only with anger.

"Arranged us a bit of privacy. You and I need to talk."

I glared at my mother's form. "I don't even know who you are. What could we possibly have to talk about? And why are you wearing my mother's flesh?!"

My mother's head shook, her face looking disappointed. "It is not her flesh. It's an illusion. I chose to take a human form to make this easier for you."

"You chose the wrong form. This is horrifying."

"Is it? What about this?"

My mother shifted into Lord Walburton. The swiftness of it sent me scurrying back against Roarke's body, pressing myself between him and the stranger.

"Is this not better?" the stranger asked in Patrick's voice, though not his tone. "Are you still afraid? Honestly, I didn't expect you would be so skittish."

"This is insane," I moaned.

"Do you trust this man?" the stranger asked, gesturing to his new body.

"Yes."

"Good. Then you will trust me."

"That's not how it works."

"It will suffice."

"Who are you?"

"My true name will elude you. There's no need to even try. Your friend calls me an Ila, which if I understand the meaning correctly, is close enough."

My hands trembled. "You're one of them," I whispered accusingly.

"No," he said darkly. "I assure you, I am not."

His reaction surprised me. "You don't care for them?"

"No. Quite the opposite." He sat down casually on a low stone near the entrance. He leveled me in his gaze. "I want them dead."

I snorted despite my fear. "Then we have something in common."

He smiled. "Yes, I know."

"Why do you want them dead? You're all the same, aren't you? I thought you need one another."

"Do you like all humans?"

"Absolutely not, no."

"Then we understand each other."

"But the balance—"

"That's an interesting point. What do you know of the balance?"

I glanced quickly at Roarke, wishing like mad that he was awake for this. I didn't have any answers, only questions. And really, speaking to a spirit was much more his speed than mine. My notorious inability to hold my tongue would more than likely land me smote.

"I know that the Idris, the Fire, is gone and the island is different because of it. It's wrong somehow. I know that the Undines and the Sylph are in control?"

"Is that a question?"

"It depends. Is it correct?"

He watched me impassively for a long moment before nodding sharply. "It is. They are."

"I'm sorry," I said without really knowing why.

"What else do you know?"

"What happened to the Idris?"

He shrugged, looking away, his eyes roaming about the cave. "Who can say?"

"Being eternal, I imagine you can."

"I'm old but I'm not eternal. None of us are. And it doesn't matter where the Idris has gone, what matters is only that it is in fact gone."

"And the Undines are in too strong of numbers because of it."

"Indeed. The Undines are... I'm not sure how to describe to you what the Undines truly are. They are supposed to be patient, tireless. They are meant to be as I am, a perfect counterpart to Idris and Sylph who are impulsive and changeable. But on this island, in the great numbers the Undines have gained, it has changed. They are as a hive now, mindless drones. Impetuous and selfish. And the Sylph is their Queen."

"And you intend to kill them all? There'll be nothing left but you."

"I have no intention of killing them all. The Undine's numbers will be thinned and the Sylph has to die, but that is all."

"That's all? There'll just be you and some Undines. What will happen to the island and the balance then?"

"It will right itself. Eventually," he said casually, completely unconcerned.

"How long has it been since the Idris died out? It hasn't exactly bounced back from that yet, has it?"

He eyed me shrewdly. "You're awfully concerned about things you don't fully understand."

I chuckled darkly. "Maybe if people explained things to me and helped me understand, I wouldn't be so concerned about them."

"You're probably right, but I simply haven't the time."

"You're ancient. You have nothing but time."

"And it's slipping away from us at the moment. You and the boy have set things in motion, a chain of events that will begin moving very, very quickly."

"Does that mean you accept me?"

"You mean the binding?"

"Yes."

He nodded slowly, solemnly. "I do."

I felt my body sag with relief, the air in my lungs rushing out in a quick exhale that left me light headed.

"Thank you," I whispered, scared to meet his eyes.

"Do you understand what this means?"

I glanced uncertainly at Roarke behind me. "I think so."

"I doubt it. If you did, I don't know that you'd be thanking me."

"Does it mean the others can't have me?"

"Yes."

"Will you abuse me as they would?"

"No."

"Then I thank you."

He smiled slightly. It looked almost kind. Affectionate. "Very well."

"What happens now?"

"Now you exit this cave. You leave my sanctuary and you enter into the world to be seen as you are."

I frowned, not sure what that meant exactly. I really did like the sound of it. "You want me to walk out of here and go outside of your protection?"

"Yes."

"And the other Elementals, they'll know I'm bound to you? They'll know they can't have me?"

"Yes."

"I think you're right. I don't understand."

He chuckled darkly. "It's best if you don't."

"Why?"

"Because if you did understand, you wouldn't do it. And it needs doing."

He stood gracefully, coming closer until he loomed above me. He looked down at me with Patrick's face, with his eyes, but inside of them was something else. Something old and knowing. Something cunning.

"This is it, Annabel Lee. The solution I've been waiting on for thousands of years. This is how it ends." He reached out his hand to me. "And it begins with you."
_Part Three –_ Roarke

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulcher there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

_From_ _"Annabel Lee", by_ _Edgar Allen Poe_

# Chapter Nineteen

I wake to the sound of thunder, the blazing white glare of a flash of lightning. Even before my eyes open, I know I'm alone. I know something is wrong. The cave is cold and dark, darker than death after the brief strike of fire from the sky. The world shouldn't be this dark. It shouldn't be this cold.

I run for the mouth of the cave, feeling the air seep into my skin, down to my bones, chilling me to my marrow. But it's not me. It's her.

It's Anna.

I can feel the air burning her lungs with cold, freezing the moisture inside them and hardening the tissue. Her heart is slowing. It beats in my ears, pulses staccato in my own veins and it's not enough. It's not nearly fast enough.

Wherever she is, Anna is dying.

I run for the road, heading toward the castle because I honestly don't know where else she would have gone. I feel the tug of her on my tattoo. A thrumming in my skin that tells me she's out there somewhere. I just don't know where.

"Anna!" I cry, searching through the dark and a rising fog.

The cold is getting stronger. The fog is thickening as lightning strikes again somewhere nearby, illuminating the world, but I see nothing. Nothing but white and wind. The air begins to crystalize and sparkle like diamonds, cutting my skin, sinking the cold deep inside my blood. I'm shaking. Trembling from cold and rage. They're taking her and I'll die tonight if I have to in order to go with her. She won't spend one moment in their company alone.

"Anna!"

Snow begins to fall from the sky, swirling on the wind, beating against my face. I can barely keep my eyes open against the onslaught of freezing air and pelting flakes. I brace my arm against my forehead as I press on, leaning into the wind that pushes back against me. I'm getting closer. The skin around my tattoo is humming harder as the angry sound of the ocean thrashing and crashing against the rocks tells me I'm almost there. I'm almost to her.

Even so, I know I won't save her. I never stood a chance. Not now, not even at the start when we were children and her green eyes glowed brightly in the sunlight. It's hopeless, it always has been. But it won't stop me from trying.

"Anna!"

"Ro."

It's a whisper on the ice in the air. The faintest stirring of music in my ear surrounded by the howling of the wind and the rumbling of the sea, but it's there and it's beautiful. I see her then. Her body lying on the frost whitened ground, her white dress spread out around her, her blond hair dancing in the wind.

I collapse on my knees beside her, gathering her into my arms, willing whatever warmth I have into her body. But she's not even trembling. Not a shiver passes through her and I know then that I've lost her.

I hear hooves thunder in the distance, growing closer. I don't bother looking up. I know who it is, who it will be to come and take her away from me. I've always known this is how it would end, but I had to try. And if that one night of having her as mine, knowing finally and forever that she wanted me for hers, if that's all I ever get in this world then it will be enough.

I pull her to me, pressing my mouth to her ear. I pray she can hear me.

"My darling, my darling," I whisper, my voice breaking and my body aching as I rock her back and forth in my arms. "My life, my bride."

"She's here!" a voice shouts over the thunder in the sky and on the ground.

I feel the earth shake beneath me as horses approach, as they skid to a halt beside us. But I do not look up. I do not let her go.

"Who is that? Who has her?"

"It looks like an Outsider!"

"He's killing her! Get her away from him, now!"

Rough hands grab onto me and I let Anna go willingly. I don't want them to hurt her in their rush to injure me. Even so, even though I put up no fight, I feel the sharp pain of a punch in my side. Another lands on my face and I'm thrown to the ground roughly, then kicked in my stomach. My breath rushes out of me but I don't defend myself. I only watch through one good eye and a rapidly swelling second as they carefully lift Anna from the frozen ground and swiftly move her to a waiting carriage. The door is flung open. I see a man with her features but none of her sweetness take hold of her and pull her inside. They're off before the door is even closed, turning sharply and racing back toward the castle. The men surrounding me pause. I wait for another blow to land, a kick to crack a rib, but they eventually mount their horses and race away into the white.

I'm left alone on the ground where she lay. Where her warmth leached into the earth, where it took and took from her and gave nothing in return. I roll onto my back and watch the blizzard dissipate, pulling away up into the sky, absorbing back into one big, brilliant white cloud that hovers menacingly over me. And I smile.

***

I return to the village. There's nothing else for me to do. They'll never let me see her and even if they did, I can't do anything for her. Not anymore. I've done all I can. Now I have to wait and watch. And hope.

When I return home, Mum is waiting for me. I'm not surprised. I would have been surprised if she hadn't been.

"What have you done?" she asks tremulously. I've never seen her like this. I've never seen her so afraid. "Roarke, what did you do?"

I stop several paces from her. I stand tall, holding my ground and to my conviction.

"I married the woman I love."

Mum shakes her head. "You did more than that. So much more."

"What's happened?" Da calls, appearing in a rush from inside the house.

"Tell him then," Mum says, gesturing to Da. "Tell him what you've done."

"I marr—"

"Not that!" she cries. Da blinks in surprise, but I'm unfazed. I don't blame her for being angry. "You tell him and I what else you did."

I look to the ground, to the earth, and I sigh. "I did what I had to do."

"What is he talking about?" Da asks.

"He's married her."

"Anna? You married her?"

"Yes," I reply, looking up at them again. Da actually looks pleased. Mum looks ready to spit fire.

"Well, that's... that's good, son. I mean, you know that you can't—"

"Tell him what else," Mum demands.

I meet her eyes hard. "I bound myself to her," I say without apology.

"You what?" Da demands, taking a step toward me.

I don't look away from Mum.

"And I bound her to the Earth."

Her hand goes to her mouth. She shakes her head, unbelieving. She knew, of course she already knew, but she still can't believe it.

"Why would you do such a thing?" she whispers brokenly.

"Because I love her."

She chokes on a sob as she closes her eyes, unable to look at me.

"Ro," Da says quietly, stunned, "do you know what this means?"

I nod to him, my hands going clammy. "I do. It means that when they take her, I'll go with her. Wherever that is."

"You shouldn't love someone so much," Mum moans. "It's dangerous. It's foolish. So foolish."

"You'd have done the same for me."

She shakes her head, opening her eyes. They are infinitely sad. "That's different. That's a mother's love for her child."

"You'd have done the same for Da."

She takes in a shaky breath through her nose then lets it burst out from her mouth. She's doing everything she can not to cry. The resolve I see there in her eyes tells me where I got my own.

"Where is she now?" Da asks, wrapping his arm around Mum's shoulders, pulling her to his side.

"With her kinsman. We were married in the cave but she went out without me. The Sylph and the Undines, they knew immediately. I wasn't sure the Ila would accept her, but I believe he did. I think that's why they tried to kill her. Hopefully because they know they can't have her."

"Tried to kill her? What's happened to her?"

"A frozen wind circled her. I found her freezing in the center of the storm, but her people did as well. They took her away from me."

"But she was alive when they took her?"

I look at down at my hands, nodding. "Yes, she's alive. For now. But the Ila... in the spot where she lay, it was warm. I think it pulled her strength from her. Her life. Maybe took it into itself."

"You think it means for her to die?"

I shrug. "I don't know."

"You've made a lot of large decisions not knowing a thing," Mum spits out.

I nod in agreement. "I have, yes."

"Alright," Da says, putting up his hand to stop us before we start. "What do we do? There has to be something we can do."

"It's already done," Mum tells him, but I feel her eyes on me. "Now we wait. We wait and we see."

***

That afternoon a horse rides into the village carrying a tall man with light hair and unflinching eyes. He's one of them, a member of the Court of Kilmarnock, and my temper flares at the sight of him here.

"I believe you're lost," I call out to him, stepping in front of his horse.

He pulls up on the reigns, stopping the large, dark animal. He looks at me appraisingly.

"No," he says slowly, a slight lift to his lips. "I believe I'm exactly where I'm meant to be."

"I doubt that."

"And I thought your people were supposed to be hospitable."

"These are dark times."

"That they are," he agrees heartily.

"Why are you here? Did the King send you? Or the pampered Prince?"

"No one has sent me."

"I didn't hurt her," I say, advancing on him. "If that's what they're saying, they're insane. I'd never hurt, Anna. I tried to save her."

"I'm sure that's exactly what they're saying," he agrees matter of fact. "But I haven't heard it and I wouldn't believe it."

I scowl at him, confused. "Who are you?"

"If I come down from my horse and introduce myself are you going to unsheathe that knife at your boot or will we be civil?"

"Will you be tossing aside that sword?"

"I hadn't planned on it."

"I'd begin to consider it if I were you."

He chuckles, then dismounts his horse gracefully. In one smooth motion he unhooks his belt and holds his sword out to me.

I shake my head, gesturing to a pile of hay nearby. "There."

"How did this become a standoff?"

"I've already had one eye blackened by Kilmarnock nobility today. I'm not keen on getting a second. Call me paranoid or call me cautious, either way throw your sword in the pile or go home."

He watches me for a moment, amusement in his eyes, then tosses his sword into the pile of hay.

"Done." He extends his hand to me. "Patrick Walburton."

"You're the Duke," I say in understanding, feeling my tension ease enough to meet his hand with mine.

I've never met the man but when we were children I heard his name from Anna almost every time we were together. He was a great friend of her mother's and a better father figure to Anna than her own, not that it was a hard feat to accomplish.

He waves his hand dismissively. "Please, no, Patrick will suit me better here. I doubt my title will do me any favors with your people."

"If anything, it will hurt you."

He grins again. "As I thought. So, please, Patrick."

"Alright, Patrick. What are you doing here?"

"Not going to tell me your name?"

"I suspect you already know it."

"I do. You're Roarke, aren't you?" I nod. He looks me over quickly. "I thought so. You're just as Evelyn described you. You know she trusted you with her most precious possession. Put her right into your hands without hesitation. That's a fair compliment from a woman like her."

"Have you come to ask why I failed her?"

"Who? Her or Annabel?"

"Both."

He shakes his head sadly. "No. That's not why I'm here at all. Do you believe that's what happened?"

"Then why?" I insist, ignoring his question, his attempt to dissuade my guilt. "Why are you here?"

"I would think that's obvious. I've come about Annabel."

I swipe my hand over my mouth, feeling tired. "There's nothing we can do. Even if they'd let us see her, we can't heal what's been done to her."

"And what's been done?"

I don't answer. That question is too large to think about let alone talk about. It's also too fresh. I know she's out there somewhere, I can _feel_ her out there, but I can't get to her. And I probably never will again. Not in this world.

"Alright," Patrick says softly. "I understand. Believe me, I do. But let me tell you this – Kilmarnock is in chaos."

"What?"

"The city itself is confused. There was a brief but fierce blizzard and now the seas are boiling."

"They're frothing, you mean?"

"No," he says, shaking his head seriously. "They are boiling. Hot as lava, bubbling and boiling. The people are confused, terrified. They saw the carriage racing back and forth to fetch Annabel and rumors are flying. But the castle is a madhouse. The King, the Prince, The High Priest, Annabel's father; they've forbidden anyone to see her and they've taken up residence in the rooms nearest hers."

"And that's unusual for an illness in the castle?"

Patrick raises his eyebrows. "The King, the Prince and the High Priest all attending to one sick young woman outside the Royal Family? Yes. That is very strange. And I imagine you know why it's happening."

"I do. At least I think I do."

"Care to share with me?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

I consider, wondering not if he can be trusted but if he will believe me.

"Patrick," I say, meeting his eyes and taking a gamble, "how religious are you?"

# Chapter Twenty

It turns out Patrick Walburton is not the religious type. He blames his lack of faith, and the lack of faith of so many others in his generation and all that follow, on us. Being blamed for the plight of the people of Kilmarnock is nothing new to the Tem Aedha. Agreeing with it, however, that's novel. Patrick insists that the worship of the Saints has been on the decline since the appearance of our people. Before us, the citizens of the island had known nothing but their own existence for thousands of years. Then we arrived, blowing in out of nowhere and bringing the new world with us. Our appearance didn't shake people's faith so much as open their eyes and their minds. We made them curious and in every generation since, that curiosity has been growing.

So when we explain to Patrick that the Saints aren't all that they seem, he takes it surprisingly well.

"Do you have alcohol here?" he asks.

"Does Camolin wood taste like cherries?" Mum asks, smiling thinly. It's the most emotion I've seen out of her since she discovered what I'd done. She still isn't speaking to me, even now hours later with the night falling around us.

Patrick looks to my father and I for help. "I... have... no idea."

"It means yes," Da tells him with a grin.

"I'll get you a drink," Mum says, rising from the table, heading toward the house.

"Only if it's not too much trouble," he calls after her.

"It's not. It's helpful really. I need to stay busy. Keep my mind off things."

Daggers shot my way, I'm sure, but I refuse to look up and meet them. I've made my choice. She needs to come to terms with it. I can't take it back now and I wouldn't even if I could. She disappears into the house, leaving Da, Patrick and I outside alone at the long wooden table.

"So," Patrick says, looking from Da to me and back again. "What do we do now? How can we help her?"

"All that can be done has been done. And then some," Da says gravely.

"You're going to start now too?" I ask him sharply.

"It's too much, Ro. You went too far. There's a reason we haven't performed that ceremony since we arrived here."

"It was the only way."

"Only way for what? You've condemned your soul to eternal torment."

"We don't know that. If the Ila has chosen to help us, if it's accepted the bond with her as I believe it has, then she's saved. We both are."

"What's this?" Patrick asks, looking concerned. "You didn't tell me this."

"The boy has tied himself, his soul, to her soul. Wherever she goes, heaven or hell," I look up and meet Da's eyes, wishing I hadn't. They're bright with unshed tears. "Or elsewhere, so goes he."

"I had to. I couldn't leave her to face that alone. And it doesn't have to end that way."

"What else could happen?" Patrick asks.

"The Earth Elemental on the island could save her. It could save us. I bound her soul to him as well, at least I asked him to take her."

"And she agreed to that? To giving her soul up to a... a what? A god?"

"Essentially, yes. She knew it was better than going to the Water or Air."

"How do you know it's better?"

I shrug. "Because it can't be worse."

"So that's what we're waiting for? We're waiting to see who takes her?"

"Yes."

"So we're waiting for..."

I nod, my heart hammering hard, cracking in my chest like ice. "We're waiting for her to die."

Patrick curses forcefully.

When my mum reappears with his ale, we put the topic to rest. The darkness takes over, pushing the edges of the forest in closer around us. The meager flames of candles and lanterns hold it a bay but just barely. There's not much talk. Mum cooks a simple dinner and we all eat in silence. Somewhere farther down in the village people are playing music and singing. I hear children laughing, the familiar sound of their footsteps running over the forest floor. They're playing a game I taught Anna years ago. One she loved and laughed hysterically at, her face dirty with dirt from the ground. She was beautiful even then, even as a child. I loved her from the start, but when I saw her in my home, in my village, wearing that simple green dress like she was born to it, that's when I knew I was _in_ love with her. That I'd do anything for her.

"What's this now?" Da mumbles, standing up slowly.

I stand as well, looking behind me where he's watching the road. I see them. Two figures, one very tall and the other petite. They're in the shadows. I can't make out faces, but when I see the ornate gown and blond hair on the woman, I nearly collapse in relief. But it's short lived. She passes through the light of a nearby lantern and I can see that it's not Anna.

"Can we help you?" Mum calls out.

"I certainly hope so," the tall man replies formally.

He steps into the light and I hear Mum inhale sharply. His face is covered entirely by a formless black mask, the only sign of life the glimmer of eyes set deep behind the darkness. His build is tall and foreboding, but there's a gentleness about him that offsets it entirely. Maybe it's the way the small woman stands so close to him, as though looking to him for safety. Trusting him entirely. Or maybe it's because he's never known a day of hard labor in his life.

"Oh, this is interesting," Patrick mutters behind me.

"I am Crown Prince Frederick of Kilmarnock. I come seeking council with the leaders of the Tem Aedha."

"Well you found them," Da says, sounding exhausted as he plunks back down into his chair. He gestures to the empty seats at the table. "Sit yourselves down."

His Grand Royal High Majesty simply stares, stunned. "I'm sorry, what?"

"He said sit down, Frederick," Patrick calls, taking his seat again as well. "Hello, Elaine."

"Duke Walburton," she replies softly with a curtsy.

"Will you be having a drink?" Mum asks, ever the hostess.

"I—Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you, madam," Frederick replies.

"You too, dear?"

"Oh, no thank you. I don't drink," Elaine says.

Mum is already gone, not waiting for an answer. If Elaine didn't drink before, she starts tonight.

"It's you," His Highness suddenly says, pointing at me. "The one who saved Annabel Lee from the cliff's edge."

I nod slowly in acknowledgement, sinking back into my seat. "And you're the spoiled Prince whose pride nearly got her killed that night."

"If you'll notice," he grinds out, his voice low and tight, "she faired quite a bit better in in the accident than I did."

"Is that what you call this?" I ask, gesturing to my own face in reference to his. "An accident? Was it not always this way?"

"How dare you."

"Roarke," Da warns, sounding shocked.

I'm a little shocked myself. I am not by nature an angry, spiteful person. However, this is the man who was supposed to marry my love, _my wife_ , use her to produce an heir for his gilded throne and then cast her soul to a band of devils as payment for their continued ignorance. What should be shocking us all is that I haven't killed him yet.

"I didn't come here to be insulted. Or to fight," he says bitingly.

"Then you shouldn't have come."

He takes a step closer to me, probably intending to use his height and strange mask as intimidation. I do not, however, intimidate easily. I stand to face him, closing the meager gap between us until we are nearly toe to toe. I can see his eyes blazing behind the shadows of the featureless, black face he wears. Damaged, spoiled or otherwise, he has a backbone, something I am surprised to find. Something I grudgingly respect.

"Sit down, both of you," Mum commands, returning with two new mugs of ale. She slams them down on the table. Foam and amber liquid spill out over the tops and run down onto the table. "How does this help Anna? Tell me that. You two bickering, does that do her any good? Would she be happy to see this?"

Elaine sits down quickly beside Patrick, wrapping her hands around a slick, wet mug. He smiles at her reassuringly. I imagine this is terrifying for her being in a strange place, a place she's been told all her life is full of witchcraft and evil. She was brave to come here and I'm an ass for scaring Anna's friend more than she already is.

I step back from Frederick. I don't invite him to sit at the table, but I don't stop him either. He pauses, then moves slowly around me until he can sit down beside Elaine. I take the space between my parents on the other side of the table. He quietly thanks my mum, lifts the mug and somehow manages to take a drink without spilling it all over his shadow mask.

"This is delicious."

"This is unbelievable," I mutter into my own mug.

His Royal Highness glares at me. "What now?"

I lean back in my seat, shaking my head. "Over a century we've been here and not once has anyone from Kilmarnock set foot in these woods. Suddenly today we can't keep you people out."

"You want us to leave, I take it."

"I didn't say that. I said it was unbelievable."

"Why are you here, Frederick?" Patrick asks calmly. "And why bring Elaine?"

Elaine looks at him with watery eyes. "I wanted to come. For Annabel Lee."

The Prince is watching me closely. "She's also the one who told me about you."

"You mean about Anna and I," I say, my voice low.

"Yes. I realized that you're the reason Annabel knows so much about the Tem Aedha. She promised me she would try to arrange a meeting for me with you to discuss the Saints. But then... well, we all know what happened."

"What do you want to know about the Saints?" Da asks.

"What exactly are they really?"

"Well," Patrick groans, rising from the table. "If you'll excuse me, I've just recently had my education on this topic. I believe I'll take a little walk, if you don't mind, Kian?"

"Of course not. Please, make yourself welcome."

"Would you care for company, Duke Walburton?" Elaine asks, beginning to stand. "I could join you and leave these gentleman to it."

"No," he says firmly, pressing down on her shoulder until she sits in her seat again. "Stay, Elaine. You need to hear this as well."

She looks around uncertainly. "A-are you sure?"

"Stay," I tell her softly. I suspect it's an unheard of idea for a woman in Court to be encouraged to attend a meeting of men on a serious topic. I wonder how Anna and her endless questions ever survived it.

"Alright," Elaine says meekly, looking uncomfortable.

And so Da gives them the rundown of the situation. Elaine sits silently, gripping her mug without ever drinking from it and paling considerably. Her mouth opens and closes a few times as though she would ask a question, but she never does. When Da is finished speaking, Elaine looks to Frederick.

"Do you think the High Priest knows all of this? Frederick, is it true?"

He nods slowly. "I believe it's all true, Elaine. My father and the High Priest both told me what was to become of Annabel. She was chosen as a child."

"Chosen to be a sacrifice?"

"Yes."

"For the safety of the island? But are we sure we're still in danger? All these years later, are the wars still going on?"

Da shakes his head. "There was _a_ war looming when our people fled our homeland. But that was a hundred years ago and it may never have even started."

"So these women may be sacrificed for nothing?"

"I believe so, yes."

"That's heinous!"

"I agree. Your people worship your Saints as saviors and maybe at one point they were. But times have certainly changed and the nature of the bargain struck has altered. They are no longer your saviors. They are your captors."

Elaine grips Frederick's hand tightly. "The High Priest. We have to make him see the truth. He's the only one who can help us."

Patrick chuckles, emerging from the road. "I doubt he'll be of much help to us. He's blindly devout. Besides, there's something off putting about him. I've always found him more than a little strange."

"It's because he doesn't age," Elaine says quietly.

All eyes fall on her.

"What did you say?" I ask.

She sits back, seeming surprised to be the center of attention.

"I said that he doesn't seem to age. It's actually something Annabel Lee said once." She glances at Frederick and relaxes, leaning toward him. "She said that she couldn't remember a time when he had ever looked young. I hadn't thought about it before because he's very old and of course we aren't old enough to have known him when he was young. But nearly twenty nears have gone by and I can't remember him ever looking any different. Can you?"

Frederick shakes his head minutely.

"He's your communication line to your Saints?" I ask, drawing on my limited knowledge of their religion. "The only one?"

"Yes. Only the High Priests have ever been able to speak to them. They dedicate their lives to it."

I frown. "There's more than one High Priest?"

"Not more than one at a time, but there have been others in the past, of course. When one dies a new one is chosen."

"Does he live in the castle with you?"

Elaine's eyes widen. "Oh no. Absolutely not. He lives in seclusion so that they can better commune with the Saints. We rarely see him."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Kian asks.

"Not for years. Not sin—"

"Three days ago," Frederick interrupts. He sounds reluctant, exhausted. "I met with him three days ago. With my father and Annabel's father as well. To discuss the marriage."

I sit back, pulling away from him. "He was in favor, I imagine."

High Majesty looks at me hard. "He was insistent."

"Is he to be King or are you?"

"Just what are you getting at?"

"I'm wondering why you didn't simply tell him 'no'."

"I understand she's your friend, but she's mine as well. I would protect her against anything if I could which is why I finally agreed to the marriage. They told me what will happen to her if I didn't."

"So you marrying her, that's your solution to stopping all of it? Doing exactly as they want?"

"I was going to buy her time. I thought marrying me might not be the worst thing in the world. It would get her away from her father at least."

"You're trading one devil for another."

"Roarke," Mum says quietly, meeting my eyes, "you need to shut up for awhile."

"I what?"

"Shut up," she repeats clearly. "You're nothing but vinegar right now and I understand it, I sympathize with it, but I've also grown tired of it. No more."

"I'm not allowed to speak anymore?" I ask incredulously. I'm a grown man, the future leader of the Tem Aedha, and my mother is commanding me to 'shut up'?

"Not until you can act like the man I raised you to be."

"Why were you so interested in the High Priest?" Elaine asks, her soft voice cutting through the mounting tension.

I look at her, feeling a pang in my chest. Beyond her blond hair she looks nothing like Anna, but apparently that one connection is all I need. One small reminder to threaten to rip me wide open.

"Do you think he can stop all of this?" she pushes hopefully.

"No," I tell her, shaking my head firmly. "No he won't stop it."

"I could have told you that," Frederick mutters.

"No, you're right, of course," Elaine agrees sadly. "He would never displease the Saints. He lives for them."

"No, he doesn't live for them," I tell her. "He _is_ them."

She frowns. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I believe Roarke is right," Da says. "They can occupy a body for periods of time. Your High Priest is likely one of the Elementals."

"But, no. He's a man. He's... how? What happens to the person inside the body? The person born to it?" Elaine stammers.

"He's not a man. Neither is the body. Not anymore. That's why he can stay in it for so long."

Her hand flies to her mouth. "It's dead? They're occupying a... a dead body?"

Da nods and I watch her pale skin fade further. She leans over swiftly and vomits on the ground. I start to stand to go to her but am surprised when Frederick gets to her first. He presses his hand flat against her back, making a light patting motion. He doesn't say a word, only touches her to let her know he's there.

"Are you alright, Elaine?" Da asks, pouring water into a mug and placing it in front of her.

"I—I will be, thank you. I'm sorry," she stutters, her voice surprisingly strong for her condition and, well, for being her.

"It's a disturbing thought. We should have prepared you for it."

"It's not simply the idea of it, it's... it's that I've met him. He's kissed my hand. I've kissed his cheek. I—"

Whatever else she was about to say is lost in the dirt at her feet along with her dinner. We all wait patiently for her to recover herself, none of us making eye contact. When she sits up and takes a sip of water she looks numb.

"So the Priest is one of them? He's a spirit living in a vacant body?" Frederick asks Da.

"It would make sense."

"None of this makes sense," Elaine grumbles miserably.

Da looks at me. "It has to be the Sylph. The Air."

I nod in agreement. "The Undines are too chaotic. Too unorganized. They'd never manage it, especially not for centuries."

"How do we kill it?"

Da, Frederick and I all look at Elaine in shock. She's still hunched over, her small hands clutching the brown mug with white knuckled force, but her eyes are fierce.

"We don't quite know how," Da tells her slowly.

She nods quickly. "We'll find a way. There has to be a way. You said the Fire is gone so something happened to it. Somehow it died or left or something. Who do we ask? If you don't know, then who would?"

"The Earth," Patrick suggests.

"It's not as easy as asking a person," Da explains. "It's rare to speak directly to an Elemental. I've never known anyone to do it."

"As your son will tell you," Anna says, stepping out of the shadows of the forest, "all you need to do is ask."

She's radiant. Her long, blond curls spill down over her shoulders, contrasting sharply with the dark green of her flowing dress. It looks identical to the dress she wore on her thirteenth birthday.

"Anna," I breathe, standing, ready to run to her and crush her to me.

"No," she says.

"What? Are you... are you a ghost?"

"Oh no!" Elaine cries, tears springing to her eyes. "Annabel Lee, no."

"I am not a ghost," Anna says.

"Then what are you because you're not her?" I demand, my relief and joy turning to rage that boils in my veins.

"It's the Ila," Mum says reverently.

"She's right," the Earth says. "I chose to appear to you in this form because it was one you all knew and loved."

"It's a poor damn choice," I growl.

It's unfazed by my anger. In fact, to my surprise, it nods in agreement. "I don't appear to be good at this. Your Annabel Lee told me the same thing."

"You appeared to her?"

"Yes. In the cave when I explained to her what her role in this game was."

"Game?" Frederick asks incredulously. "Countless people have died. Annabel is about to die. This is no game."

"Oh, but it is. Just because the stakes are high doesn't make it any less of a game. But fear not." the Ila says with a sly grin. "We're about to win it all."

"What do you mean? Against the others?"

"Yes. The reign of the Wind and Water is about to come to a close. But it all hinges on Annabel Lee doing her part. And you."

I glance around at all of us standing beside the table. "You mean all of us? What part do we play in all of this?"

"Not all of you. Not even you, Roarke. You've done your part already. I only need _you_."

The Ila points directly at Frederick.

"Me?"

"Yes."

"I don't even understand most of this."

"You understand enough. You'll do what must be done."

"You don't know me. How can you know that?"

"Because I do in fact know you. I know you want to not only free your friend but your kingdom as well. You mourn the loss of your mother, especially now that you know what was done to her. And what if I told you that if you play your part, your mother's soul will be freed?"

"Is that true? Can you save her?"

"No. But you can."

"How? I'll do anything."

"Frederick, wait," Patrick cautions, gripping Frederick's arm. "Slow down."

"Why? You heard him, my mother can be freed. We all can."

"But at what cost? What does it want in return?"

All eyes fall on Anna's form, waiting.

"I want what you want," it says serenely. "The end of tyranny on this island."

"And that's all? Nothing else?" I push.

"What else would I want?"

"The others wanted souls so I'm imagining something equally horrific."

The Ila chuckles. "My motives are not so sinister. My desires not nearly so depraved."

"How do we know we can trust you?" Patrick asks.

"You don't. Annabel Lee didn't either, but she took a chance."

"And look how well that's turned out for her," I mutter angrily.

Anna's face smiles at me. "She's exactly where she's meant to be."

"You son of a bitch!" I shout, shaking with the desire to destroy this thing in front of me. But I can't because, real or no, there's no way I could lay a hand on Anna. "You sent her to her death and now you're smiling in my face with her lips!"

"Ro," my mother says, coming to stand beside me. "Stop. Breathe."

"I should kill you right now."

"Roarke!"

"And you would succeed," the Ila replies clearly, the smile washing from Anna's face. It's looking at me pointedly through her eyes.

"Is that..." I glance back at Frederick. I can see it in his eyes. He understands it too. "Is that what it would take to kill an Elemental? Kill it in human form?"

I look back at Anna, at the Earth, but she's gone.

"Where did she go?" Elaine asks tremulously.

"Is that what it meant?" Frederick asks. "Is that how you kill one?"

"I imagine it didn't stick around to answer unless Roarke chose to try the theory out on her," Patrick says wryly.

Elaine touches Frederick's arm where Patrick did moments ago.

"The High Priest," she says.

"That's your part to play," I agree. "None of us can get close to him. Only you can. And if we're right, if you kill him while he's in human form, you'll eliminate the Sylph. Just as the Idris was eliminated."

"But is that something we want?" Da asks.

I look at him, shocked. "Are you being serious?"

"I am. The island has descended into this miserable state with the loss of one Elemental. What will happen when we lose two?"

"He has a point," Patrick agrees. "I don't totally understand it, but I know he has a point."

"He means the balance," I say with a nod. "The island is imbalanced without Fire so without Air as well, who knows what will happen."

"Two is balanced," Elaine suggests.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean just what I said. Put three coins on a scale and one side will sink heavier. Put only two coins on and it's level."

"Could it be that simple?" Patrick asks.

I shrug. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. But then what's Anna's role in all of this? It said she's right where she's meant to be but why does she have to die?"

"Maybe she doesn't," Elaine says eagerly. "Maybe when Frederick kills the Priest, she's freed."

"But even if the Sylph is gone," Mum says. "What about the Water? They're still in high numbers."

"But they're nothing like the Sylph," Da reminds her. "They're mindless drones at this point. I believe if the Sylph were out of the way and not leading them, the Ila could take control."

"And again," Patrick says heavily, "is that what we want?"

"Either way," Frederick says, slamming his palm down hard on the table, startling everyone, "I'm killing that Priest tonight."

# Chapter Twenty-One

Frederick and Elaine leave immediately, Frederick ready and eager to murder a man. Or a god, I suppose. I don't ask how he's going to do it or when. I don't even ask if he needs help or if he's sure he's up for it. The fire in his eyes and the venom in his veins tells me he will succeed or die trying.

As he and Elaine leave, a storm begins to brew. The wind is whipping through the tree branches making them rustle and groan like voices as the stars peek down, a thousand eyes watching. The chill in the air is gone, the pressure dropping like a stone in water. A humid heat is rising as thunder rumbles in the distance out over the ocean.

It sounds like a warning.

My parents round up the village to explain the situation as best they can. The basic message is this; tonight will be dangerous, stay inside. As they deliver their message to the crowd of Tem Aedha, Patrick pulls me aside.

"You made a good point that I'm surprised no one addressed."

"Why does Anna have to die?"

It's nagged at my mind since the Ila disappeared.

Patrick nods. "I understand what you've done, or at least I think I do, and I understand what Frederic is going to attempt to do. But what I don't understand is Anna's part in this."

"They wanted her, the Air and the Water. She was to be the next sacrifice."

"Yes, but she's given herself to the Earth. She's circumvented their plans. She should be useless to them now. So who is she still valuable to?"

"Aside from me?" I ask with a sad smile.

He claps his warm hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. "Aside from all of us."

I sigh, shaking my head. "I don't know. The Ila, I suppose."

"Exactly. Why would it matter to the Earth that she die? And why hasn't it happened yet? What does it still need her for?"

"She's a bargaining chip," I whisper.

"Once she's bound to the Earth, can it be broken? If she's still alive, can the Earth break that bond and hand her over to the others?"

"Anna asked me the same thing and I still don't know. It's old magic, something my people did in our homeland where we'd lived for all of history. We've never used it here before. No one alive today has ever seen it done."

"Why not?"

I rub my hands over my face roughly, groaning and feeling like a fool. "Because we didn't know if we could trust the Ila here."

"And now?"

"Now I wonder if I haven't made a mistake. A horrible, deadly, terrible mistake."

"You did it to try and help her. She knows that."

"No matter what happens, no matter where she goes, I'll be with her," I say, unwilling to accept such a noble mantle for such an awful failing. "At least I know whatever fate I've consigned her to, it's my fate as well."

"Could the Earth be using her to barter with the Air and Water? It's taken something they wanted, something they were desperate to possess and for what purpose? All it's done so far is anger them."

"You think it's looking to make a deal with them for something?"

Patrick nods slowly, thinking. "And Frederick may be the double cross."

"But it changes nothing. I still can't get to Anna, not if she's in the castle. And even if I could, I can't save her. What the Elements have done to her is not something we can undo."

"I think we should go to her anyway. I can get you into the castle. We'll find a way and we'll figure it out from there." He meets my eyes, grimacing slightly. "No matter what happens tonight, your place is with her."

When I tell Mum I'm going, she only nods, her eyes distant and calm. Da holds me tightly for a moment before letting go and telling me to be careful. I promise him I will but I can't look away from Mum. The look in her eyes haunts me. It's the look she gets when she's seen something.

***

When we arrive at the castle, the storm is in full swing. We went the long way because honestly I don't know if I can trust the Ila right now. I'm not taking shortcuts that rely on it only to find myself trapped in a cave somewhere, safely out of its way. Rain begins to fall heavily, pelting down at an angle as the gusting winds toss it sideways. The salty tang of sea water lays thick on your tongue with every breath and frothy white caps can be seen in the distance. I imagine The Shallows, were a soul foolish enough to go near them and witness it, are solid white, interspersed with the dark slithering shadows of the Undines.

"It's happening again!" Patrick shouts over the boom of thunder and the howling of the wind. We left his horse in the village assuming the storm would spook it. The storm is spooking me, so I imagine the horse would have abandoned us long ago.

I nod in agreement, though I doubt he can see me. The sky is turning pitch black. When lightning strikes, the black clouds flash gray, stark white and wrathful.

"They're angry, that's for sure!" I shout back.

Finally we make it into the castle courtyard drenched to the bone and exhausted from walking into the wind.

"We'll enter through the kitchen!" Patrick shouts, pulling at my arm. "It's over here, near the gardens."

"I know," I reply, my voice low.

He pauses, letting go of my arm, then nods.

"I imagine you remember."

"I remember everything."

"Keep hold of that. Sometimes our memories are all we're left with in this world."

I imagine he means Anna's mother. I always wondered from the way Anna talked about the two of them if there wasn't something more there, something that she never wanted or bothered to see.

"Who's there?!" a woman calls from the kitchen door.

"Duke Walburton!" Patrick calls back, then glances at me, looking unsure. "And...uh..."

"Roarke!" she exclaims, her hand going to her heart. "Is that you?!"

"Yes, Mrs. Pomphel."

"What is the news on Annabel Lee?" Patrick shouts.

The old woman's eyes tighten as she pulls her cloak tighter against the wind and rain. "She's not here."

He freezes. "Where is she?"

Her eyes flicker to me. I feel my stomach clench.

"The Tombs."

I double over, my mouth open and watering as though I'll be sick. I have to brace my hands on my thighs to keep from toppling to the ground. Breathing deeply through my nose and out through my mouth, I wait until it passes. When I come to my senses I can feel a hand on the back of my head, smoothing my hair gently.

"You need to go now," Mrs. Pomphel says sharply, her voice a harsh contrast to her touch. "There's no time for this."

I nod my head, take two more breathes and stand. The world flares out bright like lightning. I wobble for a moment as it dims too darkly then rights itself. I head for the gates, running behind Patrick.

The sky is low. I can feel the electricity in the air as though it were humming through my veins and igniting my blood. We clear the gate and follow the road that bends out toward The Shallows before banking to the east end of the island. I'm wary of being so close to the cliff's edge as the wind shifts directions wildly, pushing first at my face then my back. It's taunting us. Willing us to fall.

"Keep a sure footing!" I call to Patrick.

As I speak, lightning crashes across the sky. In its illumination I can see a wall of water rushing toward the island, curling, coiling and black.

"Get down! Lie flat!" I scream.

Patrick doesn't hesitate. He hits the ground as I do, just as the wave crushes against the wall of the cliff. It rolls over the top, making a run across the land as though it grew legs. Patrick and I are hit hard, tumbled across the muddy earth back toward the castle. It dissipates slowly as it spreads over the level ground, lingering and clinging to us. I can feel the pull of it tugging against my clothing as it tries to pull me with it back to the sea.

When I open my eyes to search for Patrick, I find him wrapped around a small tree looking at me with wide eyes.

"We can't go that way," he breathes. He coughs harshly and water spews from his mouth. It might be the lighting or the lack of it, but it looks black.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"Good. And you're right," I say, standing on trembling legs. "We can't go that way. We'll have to cut inland, up the hill toward the mausoleum."

"It'll take longer," he warns, standing slowly.

"But at least we'll arrive alive."

"I'm not so sure," he mumbles.

We run for all we're worth up the mud slicked hillside, fighting against the wind and rain. It's exhausting. It feels utterly futile but it's the only way. If we tried to keep on the path along the cliff we'd be dead already. Rushed out to sea and swallowed by the demons waiting below. Water and mud cascade down the hill toward us giving us no traction whatsoever. I briefly wonder why the Ila doesn't help us. Just a little.

When we're finally standing at the base of the mausoleum, I'm not sure I can take another step. The wind and rain are getting worse. At this point I can't keep my eyes open long enough against it to get my bearings. Patrick and I feel our way forward toward the smaller crypt farther down the hill. When we find it, we burst inside, tumbling to the ground and lying in wet heaps on the hard, cold floor.

"Well, that was fun," he wheezes.

I flop over on my back feeling dazed. "Are you tired? I could do this all day."

"Ah, to be young again."

"You're not that old."

"The very saying of which implies that I am to some degree old."

"You implied it first, lamenting your lost youth."

"Eh. To be honest, if I could have it back I'd decline. Age comes with its own problems but I'll tell you something, they're far simpler than the problems of my youth."

I roll my head toward him. "Like being in love with another man's wife?"

He raises his eyebrows, surprised by my boldness. "You're hitting rather close to home. Very intuitive. But if I ask what you think it is you know, I promise you that you'll be wrong."

"You were in love with Anna's mother, Evelyn."

He chuckles and stares up at the ceiling. "You're wrong."

It's only then that I realize we're in the crypt where she was laid to rest. It's where Anna will be buried one day as well. One day very soon.

"Then who?" I ask.

"Who what?"

"Who were you in love with? Whose wife did you covet?"

"I didn't covet anyone. She was mine always. Even when she wasn't." He clears his throat. "It was Ellie. Ellie with the beautiful brown eyes."

I'm about to open my mouth to tell him I don't know who Ellie is when it hits me. He grew up with Anna's mother. Anna's mother was lifelong friends with Queen Elizabeth Anne. Queen Elizabeth Anne gave birth to a son with fierce brown eyes.

"You were in love with the Queen."

"No, I am in love with Ellie."

"Even now?"

He looks at me with sharp eyes. "In ten years, if Anna is dead and gone, will you still love her?"

I nod, feeling like an ass for asking the question.

"Speaking of which," he groans, sitting up slowly. It looks painful. "We need to press on."

"Wait," I say, frowning into the darkness. "Do you hear that?"

"No."

"Me either. The thunder has stopped."

Patrick pauses to listen. "I don't hear the wind anymore either."

We look at each other for a long time, listening to the world. Eventually I shrug at him and head for the door. The outside has changed entirely. The wind has all but stopped, barely a drop of rain is falling and the sound of the sea has hushed to a whisper.

"Something's happened," Patrick says darkly.

I nod, scanning the horizon. There in the distance is the shadow of a man walking up the hill toward us, coming from the direction of The Tombs. He's carrying something. Someone.

"Or it's about to," I whisper.

# Chapter Twenty-Two

The tattoo on my arm begins to warm my skin. It's a different sensation than before. That was a buzzing in my blood, in my flesh. A humming, like a song being sung too quietly to understand. This is warmth spreading out from the dark swirls of the ink, slipping over the skin of my arm and down toward the earth. It rolls like a fog on a breeze across the grass where I can feel it seeping into the ground. It's Anna, it has to be, but it's coming from everywhere at once. It's branching out of my skin and looping through the soil. The one place I can't feel her is with the man walking up the hill.

"It's Charles. It's her father."

I nod in agreement, knowing he's right. I take a step forward, ready to confront the bastard and pull Anna from his arms, but Patrick stops me.

"Wait. He's not alone."

Another figure appears behind him, becoming visible as he steps from the shadows. A cold wind rolls up the hill toward us. I know who it is without asking.

The High Priest.

"Where's Frederick when you need him?" I mutter.

"Do you think he's the only one who can kill him?"

"I think he might have had his chance and failed."

Patrick frowns. "You really think he's dead?"

"I don't know. But he's had plenty of time and he should have had the opportunity. So why is this thing still standing?"

"I suppose we'll have to kill him ourselves."

"You're an expert swordsman, aren't you?" I ask with a lightness I don't feel. "Should be no problem."

"Grand Champion fifteen years in a row. It's a record. But here's the rub – I'm terrible at it without an actual sword."

"Oh," I look at him as he fans his cloak out, showing his sword-less hips. "Right."

"Do you still have that knife?"

"Yeah, it's here."

"Leave the Priest to me," Frederick whispers beside my ear.

I spin around, bringing the knife up and out of my boot. I mean to put it to his throat, but he blocks me by pressing his forearm against my own and pulling me close, pinning our arms together between us. I'm up close and personal with his mask and I have to admit, in the darkness after the day I've had, it's slightly horrifying.

I meet his eyes and nod, silently agreeing not to try to kill him again. He releases me, giving me a shove as he does.

"Where have you been?" I ask.

"I went to the castle to take Elaine home and find Annabel, as I'm sure you did. When my father told me the Priest and her father had taken her to The Tombs, I went as quickly as I could. But even arriving there I was too late. I was told she was gone."

"She was gone from The Tombs but is she dead?"

"I don't know," Frederick replies gently. "They said she hadn't spoken or opened her eyes since arriving."

"Gentleman!" The Priest calls out, startling us all. His voice is strange. It's brittle as chipped porcelain, fragile but somehow boisterous and strong. It rings out all around me. "Join us, won't you? I believe this is something you should all feel a part of."

"What exactly is it we'll be participating in?" Frederick demands.

"Recompense."

"Annabel is going to make the ultimate sacrifice for the people," her father says reverently. He looks down at her pale, vacant face with a smile of admiration and pride.

"You can't," I demand. "She's not the Queen of the island. She never married Frederick."

"No," the Priest agrees, looking at me with hard, black eyes. "But she married you, didn't she? And I see by your arm that you've tied yourself to her. Excellent. The requirements have been fulfilled and then some."

"What is he talking about?" Patrick asks.

The Priest looks to him. "Your young friend is a descendant of royalty. His great, great, great grandmother was a Princess of the Tem Aedha, one who survived the crash of their ship on this island."

"Roarke, you're a Prince?"

"No, I'm not. We don't use that term," I protest uselessly, my stomach knotting. "Not anymore. Not here."

"Blood doesn't lie," The Priest says. "You're of royal descent. Your marriage to Annabel Lee made her a Princess. Not quite a Queen, not as beloved as many have been in the past, but you also tied yourself to her which means when we take her, you'll belong to us as well. And your people absolutely _love_ you, don't they?" He smiles with gaping, sharp teeth. "Two birds, one stone."

"No," I growl. "No, it wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to save her!"

"You can't save her. She is a debt owed. One I wish I could have made an example of considering the increasing lack of attention being shown by the people of this island in recent years. You're not holding up your end of our bargain, which makes one wonder why I bother holding up mine."

"Then stop," Frederick tells him harshly. "Leave Annabel to us and leave this island. We'll end the agreement today."

The Priest chuckles. "She is payment for services already rendered. And I assure you, child, I have no intention of ever going anywhere. Now, Charles, show your faith and service. Make the payment." The Priest looks at me with another wicked grin. "Cast the girl to the sea."

Charles nods then moves toward the top of the hill.

"No!" I cry, running after him. My feet begin to slip in the mud again. I'm thrown to the ground. Charles walks up the hillside carrying Anna with perfect ease and I have the brief, agonizing realization that the Ila has betrayed us. He's helping Charles while holding me back. He wants Anna to die.

I feel pure rage boil in my stomach. There's a warming in my tattoo again. I can feel heat in the ground beneath me as well and I watch as it faintly shimmers and roils across the muddy earth. It's advancing on Anna's father.

I try to breathe, to stay calm and think this through. To find a solution to the hopeless situation I've brought us all into. But there's nothing. Nothing but the sight of the only woman I've ever loved in the arms of a monster. And I'm helpless. Hopeless.

I cry out in rage and agony, digging my hands into the earth. The rain has turned it to a thick mud, a perfect paste for healing. But I'm all out of goodwill tonight. I bury everything I've been taught my entire life deep down in the muck, in the mud, and I pull my hands away holding something else. Something burning. I speak the words I feel like I've always known. I sing the song of my people; a song of healing and help, the words infusing into the earth I clench in my fist. I can feel it filling with energy, the familiar feel of restoration in bloom.

Then I change the song. I sing it in a way I've never done before, in a way I've never known and I feel the energy change. I feel it morph into something new, something dangerous. Something hot and wicked. It's everything we're never meant to be but I feel it in my gut rising inside of me and I have to get it out. I have to try this one last thing, no matter how ugly it is or how damned I'll forever be. I have to try it because I have to save her. And so I do.

I sing the song backwards.

She's dangling in his arms, lifeless. Dead. Despite all I've been taught, all of the healing I and my people can do, I cannot bring her back from this. It leaves me feeling so impotent, so much like I failed her when she put all of her faith in me, that I don't blink. I don't hesitate. Instead, I take the ugly darkness building inside my hand and I lash out. I throw it.

It looks like black tar when it lands on her father's leg. At first he doesn't even seem to notice it's there. He carries on, continues his walk up the hill as if it were just any other day. As though he were not carrying the weight of my world in his arms. But then the smoke begins. The tar dissolves through his pant leg, reaches his skin, greedily grabbing onto it and devouring the flesh beneath. He howls in pain, nearly dropping Anna in his desperation to get away from something he can never escape. It's eating through his skin, his tissue, his blood, his muscle like acid and it will not stop, not even when it reaches the bone. I've told it to never stop.

He stumbles as his leg becomes useless. As the muscles disappear into thin air. I struggle to free myself from the mud when he stumbles to his knees. This is my chance. I can reach her now if only the Ila would let me go. But when I put my hands to the earth to push myself up, it takes hold of me. It has me now; feet, knees and hands. I'll never reach her and I watch in horror as her father's leg is soaked in healthy, brown earth. His writhing stops as the pain subsides and my work is destroyed.

"Why?!" I cry, struggling to be free. The Ila is not having it and he's certainly not answering.

"Finish it, Charles!" The Priest cries.

I hear a scuffle behind me, grunts and angry shouts. The howl of the wind picks up again and I watch helplessly as Anna's father stands shakily, limping on only one leg. Anna's long, blond hair wisps gently in the wind. It reminds me of when she was a child and she'd laugh when her hair fell out of its pins. Of the day when she lay on the ground in front of me, when I stole her first kiss and gave her mine.

The heat in the ground is back, glistening at Charles' feet. He pauses for one brief, agonizing moment.

Then he throws Anna over the edge.

"Anna!" I shout, unable to stand.

Her lithe body flies into the air. It hovers for a moment. Her long white dress, her wedding dress, billows in the wind, fluttering around her. The flicker of the coiling heat leaps from the ground to encircle her as she hangs there and my heart nearly bursts with hope.

Then she plummets, dropping from view, and the night falls eerily silent.

The silence, the night; they creep inside of me, dark and deep, until I'm blackness itself. I am the absence of all things. Of color, light and life.

A scream rends the air, cutting the world in two. I cover my ears, see Charles do the same. He leans over the edge of the cliff to look down at what's happened. It's a foolish move on any day of the week.

A burst of steam hurtles up into the air, reaching high above the cliff's edge. It engulfs Charles instantly. I hear a new scream. A human scream. I imagine Frederick, assuming he's still alive, can sympathize.

"Unhand me, you traitorous bastard!" the Priest cries.

"What's holding him?" Patrick shouts.

"I don't know, but pray it doesn't stop," Frederick replies.

The steam continues to rise into the air, taking shape.

"Flank him on the left, I'll take him on the right!" Patrick calls.

"Don't you kill him. You heard the Ila," Frederick replies darkly. "He's mine."

"You've made a deal with Ila?" the Priest laughs. "He'll betray you as he betrayed me."

The steam is becoming solid now. A swirling yellow mass of sparks and embers.

"Probably," Frederick admits grimly, "but at least you'll be dead."

I hear several cries, the clang of metal against metal and the wind roars to ferocious life. But I don't look away from the figure forming in front me. I know that shade of yellow.

"He's down! Frederick, stop, he's down!" Patrick exclaims.

I can't help but look behind me to see if they've done it. If the Priest is dead. He lies on the ground on his back, his feet firmly planted on the ground and his shin bones visibly cracked and broken from the weight of his fall. The Ila, I imagine, held his feet to the ground to stop his escape. Just as it held me to keep me from saving Anna.

The Priest has to be dead. Frederick has stabbed his body countless times in the chest and neck. But there's no blood. I wonder why I'm surprised. I knew it was a corpse to begin with. It's still unnerving, though.

"Is it over?" Patrick pants, his hand resting reassuringly on Frederick's shoulder. "Is he dead?"

The wind is back in full force, stronger than before. I hear the trees nearby creek and groan under the stress of the gusts. One nearby cracks down the middle and the trunk flies toward us. Frederick and Patrick hit the ground immediately, just as the trunk flies overhead. Were they standing, it would have taken their heads off. I feel heat in the air rising and I look to the yellow figure to find it no longer coming into human form. It's a large, angry swirling vortex of orange sparks and yellow flame. At the center where it burns hottest I see a deep blue core building and expanding.

The wind blows toward it, moving around its edges. The flames sputter and die. But the blue core grows. There's a pressure in the air that builds and builds, the heat emanating from the core growing hotter and hotter until I wonder if I'll be able to breathe much longer.

Then I'm sinking. I hear exclamations from Patrick and Frederick behind me and I know they're sinking as well. I'm being enveloped in the cold wet mud of the earth like sinking in quicksand. I can't fight it, I can't escape and eventually it covers me entirely.

I'm in total darkness.

I'm in a grave.

The world explodes.

I can hear it when the sky implodes above me, but I can't feel it. Not anymore, not entrenched here in the thick mud several feet below the surface. I can breathe but just barely. I don't know how long my small pocket of oxygen will last but I hope it's long enough for the Ila to let me go. If it does intend to let me go.

Time passes endlessly in the dark and silence that follows. I don't know how much time. It can only be measured in my lack of air and the fading of my consciousness. Finally, I begin to rise. The mud moves past me in sickening sounds that drip in my ear, in my starving mouth, over my blinded eyes. When I break the surface, I gag, spitting up earth, water and ale.

"Roarke," I hear Patrick call weakly. "Are you alive?"

I emerge entirely from the muck to find myself on my hands and knees, gulping in large breaths of air. I have to run my forearm over my eyes to clear them, but even then I don't see right. I can't be seeing right. The grass, trees, leaves – everything is gone. Burned away to nothing but black stains. Even the outside of the crypt is marred with black and smoldering in the cooling air. It's then that I notice how calm the world is. How silent. How still. No wind, no waves crashing. Only peace.

"I think so," I groan, sitting up. "You?"

"One can never be sure."

"What about the Priest?"

"Dead."

"His Majesty?"

"Still alive," Frederick moans. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Can't have everything," I mutter.

"The Sylph?" Patrick asks. "What happened to him?"

"I did."

We all scramble to face the voice. It's coming from the base of the hill, down near the smaller crypt. There's no one there, no one human. The blue light that made up the core of the fireball glows steadily, making its way toward us. I can feel the heat and power rolling relentlessly off of it. As it draws closer, we all cringe against the heat. Thankfully it stops.

"Roarke, what is that?" Patrick asks, slowly falling back toward me. Frederick follows his lead.

I stare in amazement at the pulsing light, glowing and fading. Growing and shimmering.

"Idris," I whisper.

"Yes," a voice says from beside me.

I turn quickly to find Anna's father, Charles, standing beside me. I want to kill him the second I see him. I want to wind my hands around his neck and squeeze until the life leaks out of him and neither heaven nor hell wants him. But I stop myself. I slow my ready hands. I remind myself it can't be him.

"Ila," I say as evenly as I can manage.

He nods to me with a faint grin. "It is better this time, no?"

"Your choice of costume? A little. I would recommend not choosing dead people in the future."

He shakes his head in annoyance. "I appeared to Anna as this man," he points at Patrick who freezes, unsure how to respond to that, "and she didn't care for that either. Is he not alive?"

"I am," Patrick says cautiously, "and I'd like to stay that way, thank you."

"Perhaps I should wear a mask, like the boy," he says, eyeing Frederick.

"No," I tell him. "That's the last thing you should do."

"So that's the Fire?" Patrick asks, coming to stand beside me looking down the hill at the blue light. It's moving across the ground, seeming lost. "It's lovely. Mesmerizing."

"As it was in life," the Ila muses.

"What?" I ask, turning sharply toward him. "What do you mean by that?"

He cocks his head at me quizzically. "Do you not know? How could you not? How would you not recognize her?"

I look down at the light, watching it hover over the ground, growing and fading. The core is blue, but the edges are a burning flame. Shimmers of red, orange and yellow. Golden.

"Anna," I breathe.

"Indeed."

"That's Annabel?" Patrick asks incredulously. "Our Annabel?"

"Yes," the Ila answers patiently. "She was bound to me, gifted with my strength. My power. She had only to die to possess it. But I needed something from her in return. I needed her to draw the Sylph out for me. He needed to be destroyed, as did his minions in the sea. I couldn't do it alone. Even if I'd made her the Idris immediately, we could not have defeated him. He had grown too powerful."

"You needed us to kill him in his human form to weaken him," I surmise, "and you needed Anna to draw him out in that form."

The Ila nodded sagely. "He did not take the form of the Priest often. Even when he did, he rarely left your castle. Hardly ever did he set foot on my soil. He'd only done it once recently, I believe to taunt me. It was at the girl's mother's funeral. He stood directly beside her, whispering in her ear, hovering over his newest desire. But I did not have her yet. She was not bound to me, so I could not use her to help me defeat him."

"But I thought when he was in human form he could be killed. Didn't Frederick kill him?"

"He destroyed the seat of his power; the body he possessed. That left him weakened, disoriented, but it did not kill him. I needed her help for that. I could not defeat him and all of the Undines alone. She made quick work of those below."

"The black ghosts in the sea?" Frederick asks.

The Ila nods.

"Thank you, Annabel," Frederick says heartily.

"Can she hear us?" I ask, staring down at her.

"Yes. She can speak to you as well," the Ila tells me. "You heard her voice."

"She only said one word."

"It's all she could manage at the moment. Taking human form, it takes practice. Centuries to perfect it. Even then, apparently one fails sometimes."

I step forward, toward the terrible heat. Toward the heart of the flames.

"Anna, can you hear me?"

The blue core pulls into itself, a hushing sound emitting from its edges. Eventually it rises, standing just under my height. The core goes from blue to teal to green. The perfect emerald green of her eyes. It takes time and imagination on my part, but eventually I see her standing in front of me. She's a roiling heat, quivering with color like oil in the sunshine, but her eyes are there. Her hair yellow and golden, full of flames.

"Do I look right?" she asks hesitantly.

I can't help but laugh. It's crazy and chaotic, sounding insane as it bursts from me, but it's real. It's relief.

The voice – it's all Anna.

"You look beautiful," I tell her shakily. "Are you alright?"

"I feel alright," she says softly. She flares out for a second, her eyes turning a brilliant blue and her hair exploding in snaps and crackles of sparks. Then she rights herself, seeming to breathe deep and even. "If not a little wild."

"I image that's normal."

"I can't control it. That's worrisome." As if to prove her point, flames drip from her fingertips, singing the already charred earth at her feet. She looks down at it with dismay. "He's going to love that."

"Are you afraid of him?" I ask quietly, knowing it's useless. The Ila could hear us even if he weren't standing ten feet away.

She looks at me and snorts.

And just like that, my world isn't ending.

"Ro, for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid of anyone."

"You shouldn't be. You're a force, Anna." I step closer, feeling the heat increase as the distance shrinks.

She smiles sadly, seeing my pained expression. Watching me reach my limits and knowing I'm still so far away. She looks so unreal. It's different than the Ila. He's calm and menacing in a way. Anna is churning energy. She's power personified.

"I don't frighten you?" she asks quietly.

I shrug, smiling. "You're a little terrifying."

When she laughs, she glows. The heat intensifies until I have to take a step back to keep from being burned.

She quiets, sighing sadly. "I told you, I can't control it. I'm dangerous like this."

"But you're still you."

"Yes. But I can't do this for much longer," she whispers. "It's not easy. Not yet."

"That's alright. Take a rest. You've, uh," I look around at the scorched earth surrounding me, "you've been busy."

"I have. And I'm not done yet."

"Anna, you killed the Sylph and all of the Undines. What more is there for you to do?"

"Not all of the Undines. Some are hiding from me." Her edges crackle, sparks flicking every direction. "They won't be for long."

I smile at her fierceness. "Be careful."

She chuckles lightly, glowing golden. "You too."

"Will I ever see you again?"

She frowns, her entire demeanor changing. The heat dulls, the flames receding fast.

"Would you want to?"

"Anna," I say, coming toward her. She stares at me with her strange burning eyes. "You're my wife."

"Still?" she whispers. "Even like this?"

"Forever. Remember, I'm bound to you."

"Have you thought about that?"

"About being with you forever? That was always the plan."

"No, I mean have you thought about the binding you did. You're bound to me, an Elemental, just as I was bound to the Ila."

"And when you died he took you into himself. He gave you his strength. Then he released you."

"I could do the same for you, if that's what you wanted." She smiles wickedly. "We've recently had a vacancy."

"Will you do it now?"

"No," she says firmly, her smile disappearing. "Not now. Years from now, when you're old and gray."

I shake my head. "What am I supposed to do without you until then?"

She grins. "I'll be around. Always."

"Promise me."

Her form disappears, snatching my heart from my chest, pulling the breath from my lungs. But then I hear her voice in my ear as though she were standing beside me.

"The tomb is the seat of my power. You can always find me there. You need only call my name."

"Anna," I whisper.

But she's gone.

# Epilogue

There are ships on the horizon. Three of them. Tall, proud masts waving in the wind as they course through the ocean toward us. I've never seen a ship before. My people were once known for their skill in making them, famous the world over for the speed and agility of the vessels we created, and here I stand, a member of the Royal bloodline and I've never even seen a boat before. It's the curse of this island.

A curse that appears to be lifting.

Frederick has taken command of the kingdom. His father's council has been disbanded, replaced with Duke Walburton, three members of the Tem Aedha and several other's from within the city surrounding the kingdom. I heard there's a blacksmith in there. A lowly worker brought up to join the King's Council and be a voice for the people. They loved that. But not nearly as much as they love their new Queen.

I was as shocked as anyone else when His Royal High Majesty announced he would marry Elaine. Personally, I think she could do better. But if I know anything, it's that you don't choose who you love. Love chooses you and you're a fool if you ignore it. You can't outsmart your heart. Don't even try. The marriage was a good move for Frederick (because he could not have done better, not a chance), good for Elaine, good for the people because they adore her, but most of all, it was good for the church.

Frederick talked about tearing the entire thing to the ground – structure, ideology and all. He wanted nothing of it to remain, but Elaine was the voice of reason, warning him that the people could never know. They would never be able to accept what had happened. Who the High Priest truly was, or _what_ he was, and that their entire lives filled with devotion had been based on lies. So instead, they took it from the hands of The High Priest and gave the religion back to the people. The huge cathedral built in the center of the city was demolished, it's bricks used to build smaller churches throughout the city and out into the farmlands. There was to be no High Priest ever again. This edict was given by the High Priest himself, straight from his lips to the people. His passing would end the chain of succession.

He died the next day.

The Ila had never been so pleased with a form taken.

The Shallows are still a dangerous place, though not nearly what they once were. From what I understand, there is only one Undine left to this island and I have it on good authority that he is an angry little thing. Angry, but kept well in check. The shroud that lay around the island has been lifted. The outside world is now once again a threat or a promise, depending on how you look at it. Once the waters were cleared and we were able to build docks on the shore, my people began talking about building boats. About leaving. About going home.

I would love to see our island. To find the homeland we fled from a hundred years ago. It was on the brink of war, our people at the cusp of total inhalation, so we left. A group of our people, a Princess of the isle included, boarded a ship and sailed away in the hopes of saving our race from extinction. But we landed here where we were trapped and hidden. Who knows what happened back home? Maybe those aboard these three approaching ships know. Maybe they're the ones who wiped us out.

But no matter what comes, no matter how much I want to see my homeland, I won't ever go. I'm bound to this island. Not by shackles, curses or devils, but by choice. By love. By the beat of my heart and the hum in my arm. The song being sung in the ink in my skin. I hear it every moment of every day. And every night as the burning lights of the stars fill the sky, I see her. The moon brings me dreams of her where we walk through the maze, never seeking and never finding, never wanting beyond the feel of each other's skin, the sound of our voices, the music in our bond. And so I wait. I wait for the gray hairs to come, for the wrinkles to form, for my body to slow. I live and I laugh, but inside I'm always waiting. Always singing. Always humming her name.

Thank you for reading _Dissever_! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please consider leaving a review.

Keep reading for a peek at the first two chapters from Tracey Ward's highly rated paranormal romance, _Sleepless._

# Prologue

# Nick

The first time I saw her, I was dead.

I was rolling down the river with two coins for the Ferryman, heading out onto the infinite, black sea. Worst of all, I was going without a fight.

How she found me is still a mystery or a miracle, depending on your perspective. Any way you slice it, I'm lucky she was there, though showing gratitude for it wouldn't come easy for a long time after. How she put up with me for as long as she did is pure miracle, no mystery about it. She's as close to an angel as I'll ever get. Whenever I think of her, I always remember the way she looked there by the river; long auburn hair, glistening hazel eyes and a T-shirt that read _Zombies Hate Fast Food._

When she reached out and took my hand, it shattered my world. Her eyes and the warm press of her skin against mine changed everything. Suddenly I was gasping for breath, fighting for life, and as she lowered her face to within inches of mine, I felt my heart slam painfully in my chest. She parted her lips, making me believe she would kiss me goodbye. If that had been the last sensation I experienced in this world I would have died a lucky man. Instead, she whispered one word against my mouth. One word that would press air into my lungs and pull me back from the void.

"Breathe."

Then she was gone.

# Chapter One

# Alex

I wake with a start. My eyes immediately find the black sparrow decals flying across the white paint of the wall beside my bed, calming my racing heart. I trace one with my fingers, smiling at the familiar feel of its edges. This is what I always do. This is how they tell me that I'm home.

I actually hate birds. They're too quick and erratic with their sharp claws and beaks. They're like flying, disease carrying knives. But more than anything I hate them because they remind me of the Dragon.

"Are you here?" Cara calls.

"Present and accounted for." I drop my hand from the bird just as my bedroom door swings open. My sister stands in the doorway. Watching.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"I'm glad you're home."

I chuckle quietly. It could go without saying but she says it every time. "Me too."

"Where'd you go? Do I want to know?"

"Transylvania." I lie.

"Okay, so I don't want to know."

I shake my head. No. She doesn't want to know.

"I had the Dragon Dream." I tell her, changing the subject. "It brought me home."

"The Jabberwocky." she corrects me quickly.

I roll my eyes. "It's not the Jabberwocky."

"I have shown you the pictures. It looks exactly as you described."

"I know, but—"

"Is it or is it not the spitting image of the Jabberwocky?"

"It is." I concede, before quickly adding, "But how would I have started dreaming of the Jabberwocky when I was four years old? We never had the book."

"You saw the movie."

"We've talked about this." I groan. "The Disney _Alice_ doesn't have the Jabberwocky in it. There's no way. It's not him, it's just a dragon."

"It'd be cool if you could dream about _Pete's Dragon_."

"Jesus, don't put the idea in my head!"

"What? He's friendly! And it's not like you can Slip to Passamaquody."

Slip is our word for what I do. For my tendency to fall asleep, dream of New York City and wake up in Times Square in my underwear. My parents called it sleep walking though it's not at all accurate. It just made it sound normal, made it easier for them. I don't stand up and walk out the door. When I Slip, I dream of a place then there I am. The base of the Eiffel Tower. The shore on the coast of Ireland. The third baseline at Wrigley Field. While it can take my mind a millisecond to raise familiar images of the Las Vegas strip, it will take me days to return my body home from it. I don't understand how it happens. No one does. It's mind over matter to the nth degree. It is unpredictable, terrifying, and most of all, annoying.

"He kicked my ass." I tell her glumly, thinking of the Dragon. I rub my leg even though there's no wound on it. Not anymore. Not now that I'm awake.

"Jabberwocky's are the worst."

"It's not the Jabberwocky!"

"Sure. Hey, what are we doing tonight? Did you decide?"

I throw my arm across my face. "Nothing, we are doing nothing."

"No," she insists, pulling my arm away. "We were going to do nothing if you Slipped away to Antarctica. But you didn't. You're here and we need to celebrate."

"It's not a big one. Can't we just let it slide?"

"Every birthday until your twenty-second is a big one. Your twenty-second is a bust. From there on out you receive no new liberties, other than the right to grow old."

"That's depressing."

"It is, so enjoy the good ones while you can. You're turning twenty! This is a big deal." She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it affectionately. "Plus, you got shafted pretty hard on your last few birthdays. They should have been special and I know they really weren't. Let's use this year to make up for it."

For my Sweet Sixteen my parents gave me an eviction notice and a new car. Worst Showcase Showdown ever. Since then birthdays have held little appeal to me seeing as I now associate them with abandonment and hush money.

My sister is eight years older than I am and was already an established, responsible adult when I got the boot. She's a Certified Public Accountant making good money and was more than happy to take me in. She knew what was wrong with me, knew she'd have to support me because I can't hold down a job, but she didn't care. When I showed up at her door, a lost, crying mess, she promised that she'd always watch out for me. Then she went to our parent's house, took my things, gave them a piece of her mind and never looked back. She's fiercely protective of me and I want to say it bothers me and that I can take care of myself, but after growing up with a mother who kept me at a distance, knowing someone has my back is indescribable.

"Can we egg their house?" I ask, referring to our parents.

"No. But I will buy a big ass Margarita and let you take hits off it."

"Deal."

***

I'm standing on the bank of the Missouri River in Omaha, wondering why I work so hard to stay here. I should embrace the escape and let my mind Slip me far, far away to a place that is warm. My hands are freezing and my toes would ache if they could remember what it was like to feel.

Cara brought me here to try and use her old driver's license to get me into the casinos, but I'm having doubts. Doubts I like to call Mango Margarita: The Devil's Drink. Or El Bebir Del Diablo? I don't know, I didn't do well in high school Spanish. I Slipped to Mexico once and it was a complete disaster. Turns out _hambre_ and _hombre_ are easily confused and when you adamantly insist in broken Spanglish that you be in possession of one, it doesn't always get you a burrito. Sometimes it gets you a male prostitute. Who knew brothels had a lunch menu?

Cara is up at the car waiting for her work friends to join us while I and my dubious stomach have taken a walk to the river in case of emergency. I'm not fond of the idea of barfing in the parking lot in plain view of everyone. At the moment, I am not fond of anything.

I'm surveying the frozen beach, looking for somewhere to sit and wait out my troubles, when I spot the body. It's a man, ghostly white and lying in the shallow waters of the freezing river. Before my brain knows what's happening, I'm rushing down the shore, tripping over mounds of snow and ice slicked rocks until I collapse on my knees beside him.

He looks to be about my age, his pale skin contrasting sharply with his buzzed black hair. He's naked except for a black Speedo-esque swimsuit. Even to my drunk mind, that seems like weird attire for December in Nebraska. I quickly strip off my heavy coat and throw it over his chest, shivering immediately in just my T-shirt. I don't see his chest rising or falling so I grab for his hand to take his pulse. Relief floods through me when I find his skin is relatively warm and pliant. I'm hoping this means he's not dead yet.

The second I touch him, he lurches forward as though I shocked him. His arms and legs spasm wildly before he leans over to cough. He ends up puking almost directly into my lap. It's all liquid but I smell something chemical in it, something vaguely familiar. I wonder if it's some kind of alcohol. He drops back down hard onto the rocks, but they don't make a sound with the impact. I watch as he stares unblinking at the sky, lying so still I think he must be dead now. I may have just witnessed death throws.

I rub his hand between both of mine and lean close, so close our noses are almost touching and my hair falls around us. His eyes latch onto mine and I gasp at how bright they are. How brilliantly green. How utterly alive. I whisper one word to him, the only thing I can think to say.

"Breathe."

He vanishes. My coat is lying on wet stones, my hand is holding cold air.

My heart stops beating. My breath freezes in my lungs. I clench my hands tightly, feeling them tingle and itch where my skin met his. He was real. I held his hand and I'm awake. I know that I'm awake. There's no way that was a dream.

"What the hell?" I whisper, my voice quivering.

This is it. This is insanity taking hold. I'm breaking from reality. I'm losing my mind, though it never fully felt like mine to begin with.

Trembling from the cold, shock and a growing fear, I grab my jacket to pull it on. I can't get my hands to work right. The zipper feels painfully cold between my fingertips and I abandon any hope of closing it. Standing quickly, I run back across the rocks and up the bank to my sister's car. By the time I get there I'm nearly hyperventilating.

Her friends have arrived and they're standing in a halo of streetlight, clouds of warm breath rising around them in the cold air. Cara sees me and my anxiety must be on my face because she rushes over.

"What's wrong? Were you sick?" she asks, touching my arm. She frowns and pulls her hand back. "Your coat is wet."

"Yeah."

"Did you puke on your coat?" she asks, her face disgusted.

I think of the guy leaning over and throwing up river water.

"Yeah." I mumble.

"Gross. I think you're done for the night."

"Me too." I say eagerly. I nod but it's more of a convulsion and I practically run for the car.

Cara says a hasty goodbye to her friends who laugh in understanding. Once inside, she cranks the heat and eyes me, watching me shake.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I just want to go to sleep."

"That's a first." she says, but leaves it at that.

Over the years Cara has learned that I don't like to talk about half the stuff that goes on when I'm asleep. I've seen things and been places that I don't like to revisit, waking or otherwise.

"What's that smell?" she asks suddenly.

"My dinner's second coming."

"No, you smell like a swimming pool." She scrunches up her nose and glances sideways at me. "Like chlorine."

This night is getting weirder by the second. I vow to never drink again.

# Chapter Two

# Nick

It is my duty as a Pararescueman to save life and to aid the injured.

I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently,

placing these duties before personal desires and comforts.

These things I do, that others may live.

- **United States Air Force Pararescueman Creed**

It's called Superman School for a reason. It's also The Pipeline, PJ or Pararescue Training. No matter what you call it, it's hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and I've only just now gotten my foot in the door. I prepped for it before I even enlisted in the Air Force and it's still killing me. Basic Training was a cake walk compared to this. A vacation. I went into it with my eyes wide open, though. I know what this job is. I watched my dad do it for eleven years before it killed him. He went in behind enemy lines to help an injured pilot. The pilot came out. My dad didn't.

These things I do, that others my live.

This program takes seventeen months on top of eight weeks of Air Force Basic Training. I started prepping for it my freshman year of high school. My grades, to me, were all about this. About getting accepted into this program. I passed on having a car and worked an after school job purely to pay for diving lessons. I skipped parties and girlfriends. Swim team and track, that was all prep work. My letterman jacket doesn't mean anything compared to this. Compared to that maroon beret.

This course will bounce me around Texas, Florida, Georgia, Washington, Arizona and New Mexico to attend a series of prep schools. Then it's forty-two weeks of special ops combat medic training and a course specifically on Pararescue recovery, at the end of which I will be a certified EMT and an unofficial bad ass. Every destination is a new test of how far I can push myself. A chance to find out how far I'm willing to go.

As far as it takes, that's my answer.

Every time.

The Indoctrination course is the first stop and it's long and brutal. It's only after finishing this that I'll even be considered eligible for the rest of the training. This is where they thin the heard. Eighty three of us were here on the first day. They threw us into three hours of physical and mental evaluation that lets you know in one afternoon whether or not you're prepared for this. I watched twenty two guys discover they were not.

We're entering the last week of Indoc and another thirty six hopefuls have walked away. The runs and swims have gotten progressively longer, the mental abuse more intense, and guys who could handle the pain couldn't handle the pressure. This isn't just about being fit, not by a long shot. It's the trainer's job to find your weakness and break you down because if you can't handle it here, you'll never handle it out there under fire with lives on the line. Wash out rate is high. Higher than the Army Rangers, the Green Berets or the Navy Seals. I'm training to be part of a team that isn't called upon until those heroes have fallen. When a Ranger, Beret or Seal needs saving, I want to be that savior, and I will be.

If I can keep from drowning again.

It happened on Black Thursday, the most feared day of Indoc. You're in the water for hours in full combat dress, a weight belt and a buoyancy vest. I was trading a snorkel back and forth doing buddy breathing with another trainee, both of us just waiting for the 'harassment'. They try and steal your snorkel, separate you from your buddy and hold you under without air. They want you to keep from panicking when the real thing goes down. This shouldn't have been a problem for me.

I can't feel fear.

It's a rare condition, one some doctors don't even believe in. Those who do believe call it Wiethe Disease and attribute it to a hardening of the tissue in the brain. There's a part of your brain called the amygdala that's supposed to process emotional memories and fear. It appears mine is broken, irreparably so. Some people think it could make me a monster. An unfeeling sociopath. Some days, I'm inclined to think they might be right.

What gets me through is the nightmare. I've had it since I was about five and it's always the same. Scares the hell out of me every time. Even now. It's the only time I ever know fear. I told a psychiatrist about it, completely off the record. Nowhere in my medical history can it or does it say I've been to a shrink. If it did I'd never get anywhere near the Pipeline. We talked at a park with my mom waiting nearby. He was concerned about my condition, about a possible lack of empathy. He wanted to see me regularly until I told him about the nightmare. I explained waking up in a cold sweat and hot tears every time.

This, oddly enough, made him happy.

End of the story is that I passed out. They had to drag me out of the pool and resuscitate me, which I'm told wasn't easy. Luckily I made it through without any damage other than to my ego. I was pulled poolside for a medical eval which I passed, and as soon as they'd let me, I was back in that water and back to business. If I washed out now I'd have to wait a year to start all over. You only get two tries at the Pipeline and that's it forever.

My dad did it in two. I'm doing it in one.

"You look alright for a dead man." Walters, another trainee, tells me as he takes a seat beside me at dinner that night.

I groan. "I wasn't dead."

"Yes, you were." Campbell says from across the table, his head down, focused on his food.

I'm surprised he's eating. He vomited in the pool from exhaustion. I wouldn't be able to look food in the eye for a while. Then again, you are required to eat every meal presented to you here. That explains the focus. This is an effort for him.

"What happened, man?" Walters asks as he digs into his dinner. "Why'd you try and drink the pool?"

I shake my head at him, choosing not to answer.

"Come on. Was your buddy hoggin' the snorkel?"

"No, it was all me. Can we drop it? It's not a big deal."

"Fine. But just so you know, the rest of us appreciate it."

"What? Why?"

"The Golden Boy made a mistake." Walters tells me with a satisfied grin. "We're all thrilled."

"Thanks for that."

Campbell looks at me and shrugs. "Your perfection was a little unnerving. We're happy you're a human, not that you died."

"I didn't die." I protest again.

"Your heart stopped. You were gone."

"Well, now I'm back."

"You're like a zombie." Walters says.

Something about the word 'zombie' stops me cold. I stare at my food, waiting for my brain to tell me why. It never does.

"I don't want to have to have this conversation with you again." Campbell warns him.

"What conversation?" Walters asks.

"The one where I have to explain that just because someone rises from the dead, it doesn't make them a zombie."

"What else would it make them?"

"Only about a million things."

I sigh. "I thought you said we weren't talking about this again."

"I'm trying not to!"

"You're not trying very hard."

"What million things could it make them?" Walters demands.

"Seriously, dude." I groan.

"What?"

"A vampire, for one." Campbell tells him, getting wound up. "Or a resurrected, superior version of themselves."

I point at Campbell, giving Walters a severe look. "This is on you, asshole."

"How is this my fault?"

"Think Jean Grey turned Phoenix of the X-Men or Gandalf the Grey turned Gandalf the White in Lord of the Rings." Campbell continues. "It's interesting, isn't it, that they both started out as Grey and then rose to greater power after their deaths, changing their names and casting aside the weakness or ordinary qualities implied by the word 'grey' to reflect their new identities."

"Last warning!" someone calls. "Finish up! Hit the sack!"

"Thank Christ." I mutter as I leap away from the table and the topic, heading straight for bed.

Walters is an idiot. Not a real idiot who can't manage 2+2 even with a calculator. No one who gets anywhere near The Pipeline is a true idiot. More like the socially inept kind of idiot. He's oblivious to social cues. He's also oblivious to the fact that he's oblivious which is why I think he's an idiot. By now, at this age, you should know your short comings and adjust to them. Like knowing you don't feel fear and not letting yourself drown. I am also an idiot. I'm friends with him because he won't go away. That's honestly the reason. He won't pick up on the cues I'm putting down. I'm not enough of a jerk to say "get lost" so it looks like he's here to stay. There are worse people I could be stuck with. That's what I tell myself.

Campbell is off the charts genius smart. I'm pretty intelligent. I made great grades in school. Graduated with a 4.0. Not too shabby. Talking to Campbell makes me feel like a drunken monkey. The guy is annoyingly smart. Knows everything about everything because he reads constantly and remembers every word. I want to punch him, but I like him too much. He's also a colossal nerd. Read every comic and graphic novel known to man. He's made me a nerd by association because I actually listen to his ramblings about super heroes, villains and Death Stars. I absorb all of it and I fear I know too much. Will his ramblings become mine? Will I develop unstoppable opinions about stupid shit? I'm worried I'll never know the touch of a woman again.

It's been a long day and I don't want to admit it to anyone but my brush with death has left me weak. Everything feels harder than it should. No one forgets Black Thursday and though I'm not afraid of the water because I simply can't be, I know I'll think of this day every time I jump in. A mistake like I made could not only land me dead again, it could get someone else killed. Even though I don't trust others I want them to trust me.

***

I open my eyes, surprised to find them closed. I don't remember going to sleep. When they adjust to the light I find that I'm definitely not where I should be. Every morning for weeks I've woken up in a stuffy room crowded with bunks and Airmen. Now, however, I'm sitting at the end of a long, narrow dock with my feet hanging over a mirror calm lake. In front of me are a series of low rolling hills illuminated by the glow of a setting sun. A cool, refreshing breeze passes by and I frown. No, this is definitely not where I'm supposed to be.

"What is it with you and water?"

The voice comes from behind me. I immediately turn, going on the defensive. I raise my arm to shield my eyes. I have to squint into a brilliant light shining directly at me like a second sun. There's a silhouette of a girl strolling down the dock toward me. She's tall, probably only a few inches under my six feet, and proportionate to her height. I see curves in places I've missed during the last couple of months surrounded by only men. Her long auburn hair looks brilliantly red where the sun is illuminating it and mysteriously dark in the shadows where it's not. I know that hair. Before she's close enough to block the light and let me see her face, I know who she is.

It all comes crashing back to me in an instant; the lazy black river, the desire to let it take me away, and the warm hand holding me back.

"It's you." I say accusingly.

"You recognize me?" She sounds surprised.

"Yeah. You were on the river. You brought me back."

"I don't know if that's true. Can I sit?"

I nod. Watching her closely I slide over to give her space. She takes another step toward me and as she does the light behind her goes out. Pausing mid-crouch, she follows my eyes to where the light had been. Nothing but hills now. Shaking her head, she sits.

"Don't worry about it." she tells me flippantly. "Rule one of dreaming: don't try and make sense of anything. Nobody has that kind of time."

"Is that what this is? This is a dream?"

"Yep." she confirms with a sharp bob of her head.

"When I saw you before, when you—"

"I didn't save you."

I pause, frowning. "I wasn't going to say you did."

She frowns as well. "Oh."

"When you took my hand," I say distinctly. "That wasn't a dream was it?"

"To be honest with you, I don't know what that was."

"You're a hallucination." I say, thinking of the extended time I spent without oxygen.

"No." she says, looking a little offended. "I'm as real as you are."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know. I told you, I don't know what happened. I've never experienced something like tonight or last night before." She shrugs nonchalantly. "Plus, I was drunk."

"What?"

"You heard me." I don't respond. I simply stare at her. I must be scowling too because she scowls back. "Don't judge. It was my birthday. You naked crashed my birthday."

"I wasn't naked."

Was I?

"Not entirely, but a Speedo doesn't leave much to the imagination. Half-naked, half-dead right smack in the middle of my night. First buzz of my life and you killed it."

She has to be a figment of my imagination. Something my brain made up. Maybe to help me cope with what happened, though I don't feel especially traumatized. In fact, I'd like nothing more than to forget about the whole thing. It'd be great if everyone else would too.

"Mind if I ask _you_ what happened?" she asks, turning the tables on me and sounding suspiciously like a therapist.

"Sure." I say curtly, then I fall silent. I never give anything away for free.

As the silence drags out she smiles knowingly. "What happened?"

"I drowned."

"No shit."

"Look at the mouth on you."

"You don't want to talk about this, do you?"

"No."

"Then we won't." she replies amiably.

I glower at her, skeptical. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

I dislike her a little less.

"Why are we here?" I ask, gesturing to the lake.

She wrinkles her brow briefly. "I don't know. You brought us here. I think I know it, though. Not as a place, but as a picture."

"Like a painting?"

"No, like a photograph. It's on inspirational posters. You know the ones you see at the dentist or the doctor or a guidance counselor. Find inner peace. Believe in yourself and center your chi _._ All that motivational hippy granola crap."

She's right. My recruiter had this poster in his office when I was joining the Air Force. I had completely forgotten until now. I sat and stared at it, tuning him out while he rambled about different career fields I could go into. He should have saved his breath. I knew exactly where I was going. I have for the last ten years.

"'Tranquility of mind is found in a steady purpose.'" I say, quoting the poster.

"Bleh."

"That was my thought."

She steals a quick glance at me and I notice her eyes are hazel. Did I know that before? I can't remember them from the last time, the first time, that I saw her. Either way, they're soft and beautiful. She, in fact, is beautiful. Young and fresh looking, dressed casual in jeans and a T-shirt. I didn't realize until this moment that I had a "type" but there she sits. Made to order.

"What's your name?" she asks.

"Nick." I tell her grudgingly.

She grins. "Not going to ask mine, are you?"

"No."

"Any particular reason?"

"Why do I need to know it? Is this going to become a regular thing?"

I hope not. I didn't like talking to the therapist that day in the park, I definitely don't need to be bothered self-diagnosing in my sleep.

"I don't think that's entirely up to me." she says.

Spoken like a true shrink.

"Well if it's up to me, it ends here." She chuckles and I bristle. "What?"

"We'll see. And my name's Alex, by the way."

"Great."

She doesn't respond. I look down at our feet hovering above the water and marvel at its stillness. It looks like glass and I think I'd be able to walk on it. I don't realize I've scooted forward until she speaks again.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." she says in a sing song tone.

She doesn't sound worried. It sounds like she's telling a kid not to gulp down a Slurpee because she knows about brain freeze and they don't. It makes me wonder what she knows that I'm missing.

"What will happen?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. This is your dream so that's up to you. But considering whatever happened to you the other night, I wouldn't tangle with water for a while."

I don't move from my now perilous perch on the edge of the dock. Obviously I don't feel any fear, but there's not any weight to her warning either. What happened to me, it isn't still with me. I'm not carrying it around like a ticking time bomb of emotions waiting to explode.

"Why?" I ask, pushing an explanation.

She sighs, sounding tired. "A dream can turn into a nightmare in a heartbeat. Whatever happened to you, I'm guessing it was pretty major. The not breathing kind of major. Water might seem innocuous to you right now but if you jump in you could trigger something. Tap into a fear you don't know you have and things can get dark real fast."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

"Everyone is afraid of something." she answers softly. It makes my heart skip a beat because it's hitting so close to home. Or so far from it, I suppose. "Rule two of dreaming; don't bring in your fears if you can help it."

"Have any more deep insights you want—"

***

It's wake up call. 4:30 a.m. The image of the sunset and the lake are burned into my vision. My unfinished question still sits on my tongue and in the back of my throat. That dream was too real. The girl was too real. I can see her eyes, hear her voice. I think I'm going insane. Maybe I have latent brain damage from oxygen deprivation.

Dying may have been more serious than I first presumed.

# About the Author

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) It was there that I discovered why Latin is a dead language and that being an English teacher was not actually what I wanted to do with my life.

My husband, my son and my 80lbs pitbull who thinks he's a lapdog are my world.

Visit my website for more information on upcoming releases, Tracey Ward
