Once upon a dreadful time

Slowly she sipped until she had downed the last of her drink, and, renewed, again Hradian stepped to her ebon mirror.

“One more. One more. I have seen the Summerwood, the Winterwood, the Autumnwood, and the Springwood. . all of the spawn of Valeray and Saissa. Now to look in on those two.” She uttered dark words, and in the bowl as if in the distance there appeared an image of the Palace of Seasons, and toward this place Hradian willed herself to go. She seemed to fly o’er the wooded hills of this small demesne, the kingdom inaccessible except through the four forests ruled over by the children of King Valeray and Queen Saissa, though unlike those individual domains, this realm, central to the others, underwent the change of seasons, and now summertime lay on the land. Over the palace grounds she soared, and below in a grassy field stood tents and stands and a jousting list, and pennons flew in the starlight; it was as if all was ready for a tournament. And from tall poles flew the banners of each of the Forests of the Seasons-

the green-leafed oak of the Summerwood; the silver snowflake of the Winterwood; the scarlet maple leaf of the Autumnwood, and the full-blossomed cherry tree of the Springwood. “Ah, are they preparing for a visit from their brood?” Into the palace she swooped, where servants bustled thither and yon, making ready for guests. “Ha! Yes, I do believe here is where the children come. ’Tis not far across the twilight borders from each of their separate manors. If so, then soon they will all be gathered together in this one place. Mayhap there is something I can do.”

Given the seepage of power from her casting, and not daring to risk a confrontation with Queen Saissa that would perhaps whisper warning, Hradian dispelled the image and leaned back and pondered. “What to do? What to do?”

Once more she stepped to the window. The distant sound of the crunching of bones yet drifted on the air. “How to gain my revenge? For the children murdered Rhensibe, Nefasi, and Iniqui, and the sire and dam are responsible for imprisoning my master Orbane in the Castle of Shadows beyond the Black Wall of the World, a castle from which even he cannot escape, and I have not the power to loose him. And Valeray and his get seem aided by the Fates themselves, and only my master can stand up to those three. What to do? What to do?” Yet mulling over what seemed an insoluble problem, Hradian, weary, threw off her clothes and took to her bed. And with all she had seen whirling about in her thoughts and her mind searching for some resolution, she fell into a restless sleep.

. .

It was in the hours just ere dawn that Hradian bolted upright.

“So that’s what Iniqui was after!” Hradian jumped up and in her nakedness danced a whirling jig, her gleeful laughter ringing throughout the cottage, for now she knew how to get her revenge for absolutely everything.

Awareness

“Oh,” exclaimed Celeste, looking over her shoulder, a frisson running up her spine.

“What is it, cherie?”

The princess turned toward Roel. “As before, I felt as if someone or something dreadful were in the room.” Roel stepped to his racked armor and took up Coeur d’Acier, the sword gleaming silver in the lamplight.

“It’s gone, Roel,” said Celeste. “Vanished as quick as it came.”

“Nevertheless. .” said the black-haired knight, and, with blade in hand, he moved to the door and jerked it open and looked up and down the empty hallway beyond. Then he strode back across the room to a window and threw wide the drapes and peered out into the glittering starlight to see nought but the lawn of Springwood Manor and the trees of the forest in the distance beyond, the green gone dark in the nighttime. He turned from the window and, as would a tiger unleashed, he prowled about the chamber, opening the curtains shrouding the bed and then the doors to the tall armoire, and then to the garderobe beyond.

He flung wide the door and disappeared within, and then stalked back out and entered the bathing room and privy adjacent.

“Nothing,” he said upon returning once more to the bed chamber.

“Perhaps this time it was just a whim,” said Celeste.

Roel reracked his sword and then stepped to the princess and took her in his arms. “Non, Celeste, I do not believe so.

These feelings of yours have sporadically occurred throughout what, two or three summers? Love, you are sensing someone or something with malice in its heart.”

She looked up into his eyes of dark grey. “As have Liaze and Camille. . and Michelle, too, but only when she is with Borel.”

“A deadly intent aimed at him, do you think?” Celeste shrugged but said nought.

Roel stroked her pale yellow hair. “When all the family gathers at your sire and dam’s palace, we will call a conference and discuss this enmity.”

“Oh, Roel, I would not press gloom upon such a gala.”

“Cherie, ’tis something that must be dealt with.”

“How can one deal with such?”

“That I do not know, Celeste, but to ignore it is to perhaps court disaster.” Roel smiled down at her. “We must not hide our heads under our wings, my little towheaded chickadee, else the snake will strike, the cat will pounce, and we will be nought but a flurry of bloody feathers.”

Celeste burst into laughter, her green eyes sparkling. “Chickadee? Chickadee?”

“Oui, my love, now give me a peck.”

. .

In a bedchamber in Autumnwood Manor, Luc turned to Liaze.

“Another one?”

The princess took a deep breath and let it out. “Oui, cheri. It lingered a moment, then was gone. Yesternight Camille sensed maleficence, too.” Liaze replaced the long gown back in the garderobe and stepped to an escritoire. She opened a drawer and fished among tissue-thin tiny rolls of paper. “Here,” she said, handing the message to Luc. “This came by Summerwood falcon in the mark of noon.”

Moving to the lamp the better to see the tiny writing, the dark-haired prince read the raptor-borne missive: My dear Liaze, it happened again, that feeling as if someone or something wicked were in my chamber. But then it vanished, just as before. We must speak of this at the gathering. Duran is well. Alain sends his regards.- Camille

Luc looked up from the message. “She is right. We must hold council at the gathering. Yet were I to hazard a guess, I would say that the fourth acolyte is somehow involved.”

“Fourth? Ah, oui. Hradian. But she is the only acolyte now.”

Luc nodded and handed the missive back to Liaze, then turned and closed the portmanteau.

. .

“I believe that is all,” said Camille, hanging the last of the gowns in the tall, hinged trunk.

Duran looked up from amid a scatter of toys. “Non, Maman.” He took up a white horse from among his playthings, the tiny bells on the caparisoned steed jingling. “Asphodel will go, too.”

“Ah, the swift Fairy horse,” said Camille. “You are right.

We must not leave him behind. After all, his namesake helped Oncle Borel save Tante Chelle.”

“Fast,” said Duran, clip-clopping the toy across the floor to Camille and then into the portmanteau.

“Oui, fleet,” replied Camille. Then she scooped three-summers-old Duran up in her arms. “Oh, my big boy, you are halfway to four, and every day you grow to look more like your father. You have his grey eyes, though your fair hair is more like mine.”

“Will I be a Bear, too?”

“ ’Tis unlikely.”

Disappointment shone in Duran’s face. “I would like to be a Bear, Maman.”