Shadows on Snow: A Flipped Fairy Tale (Flipped Fairy Tales) (15 page)

A shadow swooped down from the ceiling, followed by another, and still more. The bats screeched and dove for his head, providing the distraction I needed to run for the exit. Placing a board through the door handles behind me, I sprinted for the cottage, screaming for my sisters to get inside. Six faces appeared at the kitchen window, all shocked as they watched my mad dash across the yard. Rounding the side of the house, I flew through the front door, slamming and bolting it closed.

“Berserker!” I yelled as I set the bar across the frame. “Keep away from the windows and get upstairs!”

“What happened?” Clarice said as I pushed her up the stairs. “What berserker? Where’s Leo?”

“Leo is the berserker!” I hissed at her. “There was an enchanted knife in the shed. I only got away because of the bats.”

“Oh!” Belinda cried. “My sweet friends! So brave!”

“We’ll mourn them later, with my utmost thanks should we survive.” I closed the door on Delphine and Clarice’s bedroom, bolting it as well. “Farah,” I said when I turned. “Can you do anything to keep him out? Maybe trap him somewhere?”

She shook her head. “I can put up a ward on the door, but it won’t last long. All of my physical traps are outside.”

From downstairs, a loud thud sounded through the house as the prince threw himself at the door.

“Then we’ll have to draw him away somehow.” I ran to the window, planning an escape route in my mind. I visually traced a path over the slope of the roof, around to the other side where thick vines grew sturdy enough for climbing. “Or rather, I will.”

“You’re mad,” Erata said, spinning me about. “You can’t do that. He’ll kill you faster than a mosquito at his neck. Let me go. The winds will carry me quickly.”

“She’s right,” Adelaide said. “She can draw him into one of Farah’s traps to hold him until we can counter the enchantment.”

Farah stood motionless in the center of the room, her lips moving in silence. Two more bangs came from downstairs, along with the sickening crack of splintering wood. She opened her eyes. “The vine web in the northeast corner. Under the widow willow.” She closed her eyes again, adding one last thing before she fell back into her spell casting. “Keep ten feet in front of it, then run straight back when you reach the thinnest side of branches. He’ll cut it closer and be caught.”

The front door finally gave way, the wood exploding inwards with such force that pieces of it shattered things in the front room.

“Go now,” I whispered to Erata. “We’ll follow behind you and wait on the roof.”

The window slid open silently, and one by one, we crept outside, the sounds of a bull crashing through the cottage carrying up to us. Though I worried for all our safety, I hoped the prince didn’t cause himself irreparable damage in his rampage.

As we made it to the roof, a gust of wind swirled around us, and Erata lifted into the air, gliding effortlessly to the ground. I crawled to the edge, mindful of any weak spots in the beams and planks that might give away our location.

After giving a high-pitched whistle, Erata’s mission began. The rumble from the house instantly stopped.

“Looking for a fight?” she yelled. “Catch me if you can!”

The moment she took off on a mighty gust, he rounded the side of the house, sweat pouring off of him. I bit my lip to keep from crying out when he released an inhuman howl, then shot off after her, faster still than I thought he’d go. They ran away from where I crouched, watching, and I followed their progress all the way to the northeast corner where the massive widow willow waited. As instructed, Erata skimmed the ten-foot boundary of the curtain of branches, then abruptly cut behind it. The maddened prince followed, instead diving straight into the leaves.

When the howling started up again, continuing without growing fainter with distance, I scrambled for the vines, desperate to see he was unharmed.

“Rae! You mustn’t!” Adelaide called as I descended. “Come back until Erata says it’s safe!”

Her all-clear whistle came as I hit the ground running. The noises he made, desperate and keening, drove me onwards. Tears stung my eyes as I finally reached him.

Erata held back the curtain of willow branches. “He’s all right, Raelynn.” She paused. “Well, for the moment. He can’t break through Adelaide’s vines, but if we can’t calm him, he may strangle himself.”

Swallowing my fear, I stepped inside the overhanging limbs. There, bound to the wide trunk, was Prince Leopold, his eyes glowing red in a break between the thick vines that held his head against the bark of the tree. What little I could see of his clothing was ripped and dirty, smudges of blood scattered on his exposed clothing and coloring some of the vines. I held his gaze as I approached, anger at the person who caused this overtaking my fear. Somewhere, buried under this horrible magic, beat the heart of the man I’d come to know. He struggled and jerked more violently with every step I took towards him. The knife quivered in his grasp and he strained against his bonds. Less than an arms’ length away, I stopped.

“You must try to reclaim yourself,” I said to him, willing my voice not to betray me. “You must come back to us.”

I lifted a hand, my fingers trembling. Gently, I touched the line of his jaw. “Come back to me,” I whispered. “I cannot stand to see you this way.”

The barest hint of warmth crept into me where our skin met, and a small spark of hope jumped to life.

Closer still, I leaned against him, not taking my eyes from his as a tear slipped free. “Please,” I said. “I would rather die than know you breathed your last as someone else’s monster.”

I reached down, wrapping my hand around his fist that clung to the knife. “Please, Leo. Let it go. Come back to me.”

As I stared at him, the warmth between us grew, his body relaxing. My breath caught as I watched the crimson light fade from his eyes.

The knife dropped with a soft thud.

“Rae…” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I…”

His eyelids drooped, his weight sagging against the vines. I closed my eyes, tears of relief spilling down my cheeks. Resting my forehead against his bound chest, a choked sob worked itself free.

Someday, King Alder would pay for all of this. And, spirits willing, I would be the one to collect what was due.

It took three of us to get him back into the cottage after Adelaide freed him from the vines. Through sheer force of will, I didn’t cry when they fell away, revealing scratches and abrasions on his skin at every angle. His clothes were soaked through with sweat, turning the grime to a muddy red brown where it mixed with both his blood and the blood of the bats who sacrificed themselves for my sake. I kept my focus on my silent prayers of thanks to them, rather than the unconscious form of Prince Leopold.

Belinda and Farah helped me carry him home while the others cleaned up enough of the wreckage inside the house to lay him on the floor before the fire. As gently as we could, we placed him on a pallet of blankets to save him the discomfort of the hard boards. With trembling hands, I helped Adelaide and Delphine strip away much of his damaged clothing, and they took it away to mend it as best as they could. With the others attending to that, Delphine returned with a pail of warm water from the hot spring, a crisp scent accompanying the herbs she’d added in to help cleanse and heal his wounds.

Silently, I wrung a rag over the pail, rinsing the blood and grime from the fabric before gently wiping his face again.

“He’ll be out at least until tomorrow,” Delphine said as she brushed his hair from his forehead. “His body expended too much energy under the berserker enchantment. It will take him a good long time to recover.”

Not taking my eyes from him, I nodded.

“Clarice agrees with me that there’s a chance for a fever as well,” she said. “Someone will have to watch over him.”

Dabbing at a cut above his eyebrow, I nodded again.

She knelt beside me and laid a hand on my arm. “The burden is not yours alone to bear, Rae.”

I paused, pinching my eyes closed. “Every time I look away from him or drop my guard, he comes close to death. I won’t look away again,” I whispered.

“You’ll need to sleep, dearest one,” she said. “We can help you keep him safe.”

“I must—“

She interrupted my protests. “I know what he is to you, Raelynn. Not one of us would let him come to harm.”

When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Everything about this terrifies me,” I said softly. “To be near him sends me into a panic, but the mere idea of being without him…” I swallowed. “I cannot reconcile them.”

Setting a hand against my hair, she smoothed back the strands escaped from my loose braid. “You will in time. Be patient. Have you spoken with him about it?”

I gave a noncommittal shrug, not wishing to relive the moment he learned how broken I was. And why.

“I see,” she said. “So he knows a bit about it, then.”

I dunked the rag back into the water. “He drew some of his own conclusions,” I said as I squeezed out some of the moisture.

“And what do you think he’ll do?”

Continuing to wipe the dirt from his skin, I didn’t answer. I couldn’t imagine he saw me the same any longer. I was not a princess, pure or mild in any way. If he kept his distance, perhaps that was for the best.

A great pounding in the yard interrupted our conversation as one of my sisters set in to crafting a door to replace the destroyed one. Delphine stood. “I’ll be back to check on him soon. I believe Adelaide will come with salve and bandages as well.”

“And what of the knife?” I asked.

“Clarice is tending to that matter. We can neither leave it for someone to find, nor take it with us in its current state of volatility. She’s searching for a way to dull the spell if she cannot destroy it.”

“Perhaps Farah can ward it if nothing else,” I said, “until a permanent solution is found. Do we know yet how it came to be in the shed?”

“We imagine it’s the same as the flax. That man leaves a taint on all he touches. He’s found a spell of some kind, the magic of displacement. By placing an object in stasis, coupled with cloaking it, he can make items travel by not moving at all. When the stasis runs its course, the object reappears in another place, almost as though the world moved as it remained still.” She rubbed at her face. “We’re still working out the particulars. His powers are far more advanced than our own, likely as his resources are greater. What I wouldn’t give to find a library such as he must have.”

“But this means something else entirely, sister,” I said, my hands shaking when I came to my conclusion.

“And what’s that?”

I looked up at her, my forehead drawn in worry. “It means he knows where we live. He may have already sent soldiers to find us if his tricks fail him.”

Delphine paled. “Then…” She set her shoulders and nodded. “The moment Leo is able to travel, we set out to find his army.”

Turning on her heel, she hurried away, likely to warn the others of our impending departure. If I could, I’d help hasten this, but other things came first.

I had a job to do, and I would see him through this.

“Help me hold him!” I said to my sisters as they rushed down the stairs.

The prince thrashed beneath my weight, his feverish rantings making less and less sense the more upset he became. Belinda and Farah were on Clarice’s heels as she cleared the last step. The former two hurried to assist me as the latter ran to the kitchen. She returned a minute later with a handful of herbs, crushing them with a mortar and pestle.

“I knew I should’ve made this earlier,” Clarice said as she worked. “I wasn’t certain the fever would come, but I should have prepared for it.”

“Well, could you—” I grunted as his arm slipped away from me, knocking me in the back of the head. “If you could hurry it up, that’d be great.”

“Save her!” Prince Leopold hollered as he bucked, flinging Farah to one side.

Clarice grimaced and ran back to the kitchen. His arm slipped away from me again, this time wrapping around my waist and pulling me tightly against him. I fell forward and braced myself against the floor, surprised that he had any strength left in him after the events of the day.

As close as I was to him now, I heard every murmur that escaped him. When my name whispered over his lips, I froze, staring down at him.

“Rae… I won’t let him… I won’t…”

My breath caught as he hugged me tighter, his desperate embrace nearly painful, but heart-achingly beautiful at the same time. Sinking to my elbows, I rested my forehead on the floor, my cheek against his heated one, whispering to him. “I’m here. I’m safe. Please sleep now. You cause me so much worry, you difficult man. Why must you fight me? Rest and let your body heal.”

His arms shifted, one hand sliding up into my hair, and he sighed. It wasn’t exactly what I’d been going for, but at least he’d stopped thrashing. Rather than spook him, I remained where I was until Clarice’s feet came into view.

“Comfortable?” she asked.

I tried to shift to answer her, but he held me fast.

“Have him open his mouth, if you can,” she said from the other side of him. “This will put him out and lessen his fever.”

Turning my head, my lips brushed his ear. “Leo,” I said softly. “I need you to swallow something. It will help with the sickness.”

He sucked in a breath, clamping his jaw shut.

“I need you to do this for me. Will you trust me, Leo?”

His muscles relaxed with a grunt, but he still resisted.

“Please, Leo,” I said softly. “I will always keep you safe. I swear on my life. Please trust me now. The medicine will make you better.”

His iron grip on me finally eased, and he opened his mouth. As he drank, the tea my sister prepared for him sloshed over the edge of his lips, wetting my hair.

Within a few minutes his hands dropped away, and he drew slow, deep breaths, already in sound slumber. I lifted up, at last free to move away. My back and arms ached from exertion, my body exhausted from fighting to keep him still for the last half hour. Standing, I stretched and yawned, then turned to the three who’d come to my rescue.