I land and shake out my blood-spattered wings. Pine needles and dirt stick to my paws, glued to the blood. Corpses dot the clearing in the dense forest where our battle took place. My soldiers pick through them, dragging the Fae who fell in battle away from the Bloodbane bodies. We’ll bring the soldiers back to Desmarais for a proper funeral. And for the Bloodbanes we build a funeral pyre.
We watch their corpses slowly burn to ash as the flames lick at the blue sky. This was only a single battle, there will be more before the curse runs its course. And after that, there will be no one left to protect Desmarais and my kingdom, Alnembra, from Maaz. I will be gone, and so will many of my people. Almost two thousand years of existence, gone in the blink of an eye. Unless Verity returns.
I shake my head, turning away from the pyre. Verity won’t be returning. One of Navi’s lieutenants’ approaches, a Fae man named Rynt. “Your Grace, we’re ready to return with the fallen,” he says, his brown eyes somber.
I peer past him towards the three corpses in golden armor. “Very well.”
Rynt snaps a salute before returning to the soldiers. Wordlessly, they march out of the clearing in perfect form, the bodies of their comrades on stretchers between them. I watch them disappear through the foliage before launching myself into the sky. A sense of gloom has fallen over the palace and Desmarais since Verity’s departure, I’m not immune either.
The rage has faded, but the sorrow remains. I had high hopes that Verity could truly break the curse. We were making progress; she was opening up to me and learning to trust me. Her sudden rejection left me nursing my ego and worse, trying to find another way to break the curse. I’ve had a thousand years to find a solution, and Verity was the only one. My scholars worked tirelessly to find her, but she slipped from my fingers so quickly. No. I let her slip from my fingers.
The palace comes into view ahead of me, but it looks dimmer than before. Somehow, knowing Verity isn’t there makes it seem empty. I drop into the courtyard, a few feet from Navi. She looks me over emotionless. “How many?” She asks, falling into stride beside me.
“Fifty,” I say, stifling a yawn. “They’re growing bolder.”
“I’ll double the patrol units on the border and in the guard towers,” Navi says, and I’m sure she already gave the order before I even arrived. “You have a guest in the gardens.”
“A guest?” I shake out my feathers. “Is it one of my advisers here to berate me for losing the precious Key?”
Navi strides away, towards the barracks. “The gardens.”
I roll my eyes at the commanding tone of her voice but launch myself into the air. I skim over the trees that surround the courtyard towards the gardens in the back of the castle. There are several gardens on the grounds; a rose garden, a water garden, and a wild garden. I scan the gardens as I soar over them, searching for any sign of my advisers or the mysterious guest.
As I skim across the hedged walls of the wild garden, my heart skips a beat. Verity’s light brown hair glimmers in the sun as she stoops over a book. She glances up at the sound of my wings, and blocks the sun from her eyes, searching for me. Relief floods through me at the sight of her as I land nearby. She twists, dressed in the oversized trousers and shirt that she usually wears. She’s lovely.
I head towards her, grateful that she can’t read the expressions on my face when I’m in this form. I’m afraid that would give away how much joy I feel at the sight of her. She closes her book as I approach, placing it on top of a nearby stack.
“You came back,” I say softly.
She smiles tentatively. “Don’t sound so surprised. I told you I would come back before I left.”
“I didn’t believe you.” I sit beside her, cocking my head. “What about your fiancé?”
“I don’t have one anymore,” she says casually. Her eyes lock onto mine, as blue as the sky above us.
“Why not?” I ask. I break her gaze and pretend to take in the wild garden.
The wild garden is an apt name for this place. My mother had it planted when she was Queen. She filled it with every flower or blooming tree that ever took her fancy and the gardeners let them grow with wild abandon. Verity found one of the few grassy lawns in the garden, right beside a small koi pond. In such beautiful surroundings, Verity fits in perfectly.
“I didn’t love him. I never did,” she says, sighing.
I look curiously at her. “Then why were you marrying him?”
“My parents were in debt up to their eye balls and he promised me that he would pay it all for them if I married him,” Verity explains, picking at the blades of grass. “It sounds terrible, but I was just trying to help my parents.”
“I understand,” I say. I stretch out on the grass beside her. “Why did you really come back? You were in your world, in your home. You could have stayed.”
Verity edges closer to me, her eyes drifting over my body. “I’m not sure why I came back. But I do want to help you. I want to break your curse; protect you from Maaz.”
My heart swells in my chest at her words, happiness coursing through me. This is a step. I nod my head, hiding the happiness I feel. “There may be hope yet.”
“I still don’t know what to do,” she says quickly. “But I’m willing to keep trying.”
“My people and I are at your disposal,”
