Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (11 page)

She was a fighter, he knew well, though She would not believe it of herself. Left to Her stepfamily's impossible demands, She had found the cleverest of
ways to meet them, even learning the language of the birds and turning them to friends. Chased on the ground, She took to high places. Told She could not
attend the festival, She called upon magic She scarcely had cause to believe in. All with Her spirit intact.

Now, the man realized too late, She was a stubborn girl, perhaps too filled with spirit. For, he knew it was She who controlled his ink and, evidently, the
soul of another. He did not want to destroy Her, he did not want Her story to end - not in tragedy - but if it took ending Her story to end Her disruption,
so was his burden.

Ripping the page where the girls rested in serenity from the book, the man shredded it with his hands, anger twisting his face as he put an end to Her
treachery.

Only, the treachery did not end. Before his eyes, the next water-logged page took up the story, words flying over the parchment as if it wrote itself.
Tearing that page free, the dark man ripped it in two, but the story went on as if he had made no interruption, as if he did not have the power to
interrupt.

Oh, She did have spirit, he thought with a low growl, and that spirit was strong, but She was not stronger than him. She would not be stronger than him.

Perhaps, he could not erase Her, nor even change what She had done, but, as long as blank pages remained before him, he could make Her wish She were back
where She belonged.

If Cinderella wanted to change Her story, Her story he would change.

C
inderella could not tell if Naxos was a different world than that which she first believed it to be or if the world entire had changed, but everything
felt more alive. The forest through which she walked, growing in familiarity with each passing day, burst greater color. All she touched felt more real.
The smells and sounds overtook her, and whatever she put into her mouth tasted sweeter than it did upon its last tasting.

Though nothing that grew in the forest carried the sweetness of Rapunzel's lips, nor filled Cinderella with such unquenchable craving, giving some verity
to a subject long held as myth. In childhood, she had heard others talk of an inexplicable feeling that came from nowhere and seized the senses, as if it
was the most wondrous thing one could ever know. They did not wait for it, though, the ladies of town who talked about it, believing it storied, nothing of
the real world, but Cinderella felt quite sure she knew those things of which they had spoken, not as myth, but as each moment spent with Rapunzel. She
knew also that Akasha was right, the touch of another could be good, for each time Rapunzel touched her, it felt as if she meant Cinderella all but harm.

For days, she had been in residence at the tower, departing in the mornings and returning before night fell to evade the visits of Rapunzel's mother. The
suspected sorceress never came in hours of darkness, and when Cinderella asked if she feared the dark as everyone else, Rapunzel said she suspected her
mother did whatever it was she did in the night and slept in daylight, leaving Cinderella to wonder what kind of nefarious business Rapunzel believed her
mother took up.

The first evening, as she crawled back through the tower window, Rapunzel looked at her with such relief, it was as if she did not expect her to come back,
and Cinderella tried to imagine a single place to which she would not return to see Rapunzel smile.

At nights, they would talk and they would not talk. Cinderella liked both, but she was especially fond of the moments when talking turned to not talking,
when Rapunzel's lips would press against hers and she would feel as if there was nothing to say as important as what they did not say.

Before those moments, though, when words remained between them, Cinderella got a sense that, although Rapunzel still feared what existed outside the tower,
she was becoming more and more frustrated by the limits within. She had even asked if they could sell the books and other belongings in the tower for gold,
which they would require only if they went somewhere else, and Cinderella hadn't the heart to tell Rapunzel she did not know where they could go. From what
she had seen of it, Naxos was bigger by measure than Troyale, but it was still too small in which to hide forever. And if Rapunzel's mother truly was a
sorceress, she would be difficult to elude for a lifetime.

Sun slipping lower in the trees, Cinderella plucked extra fruits from the vines overhead, dropping them into her satchel, and smiled at the certainty that
what needed doing, they would find a way to do. Together. For, as inexplicable as it was in the brief time she had known her, there was no place Cinderella
wished to go if Rapunzel would not go with her. She would return to the tower forever if the tower was where Rapunzel would be.

Turning to head back there, Cinderella was struck with the same anxiousness with which she always returned, the odd desire that sought only to be near
Rapunzel once more.

Limbs snapping overhead sent her leaping backward as something fell from the tree before her, narrowly missing her on its way to the forest floor, landing
with such weight it dented the ground below. Purple velvet turning dusty as a tuft of dirt rose around the small pouch, Cinderella glanced to the branches,
searching for its origin, the moment oddly familiar.

It was the very way in which she acquired the gown in which she inappropriately traipsed about the woods. Told by her stepmother she could not attend the
festival, and with no dress to wear or lye with which to clean, she stood beneath the tree she had planted as a sapling at her mother's grave, which had
grown to the greatness of a thousand years in only ten year's time, and pleaded that she might be like everyone else, able to attend the festival, to have
the same opportunities afforded all those around her. The dress had floated down to her then, in the beaks of the birds, her only real companions, and, in
an instant, she had been turned clean, the ash from the hearth and scars of the past erased from her body as if they were no more than ink on paper.

So powerful had been the magic that when her family saw her without the marks they inflicted upon her, they did not recognize her. Magic had come when she
longed to attend the festival, and again when Cinderella longed to escape. Now, it was gold for which she longed, for if anywhere in Naxos did exist to
hide, they would be made to pay a high price for it, and selling the contents of the tower without the sorceress noticing would take time and leave them
short.

Retrieving the pouch at her feet, Cinderella's breaths turned shallow as she untied the lightly looped strings and found exactly that which she needed - at
least a hundred gold pieces, fortune enough for a life, if only they could find a safe place to live it.

"Thief!" A voice yanked Cinderella from her far-reaching thoughts. Eyes rising from the weighted pouch, she watched a bevy of guards spill from the trees
where there had been no sign of them a moment before, a terrible ruckus upon the peaceful wood.

"What have we here?" A man dressed in fine clothes, made dirty from time spent outdoors, stepped from behind the guards and jerked the pouch from
Cinderella's hand. "Well, well," he said, peering in the top. "Stolen gold."

"I have stolen nothing." Cinderella watched the man carefully as he admired the pouch's contents, his eyes seeming to shine the same dark yellow of the
metal.

"You were caught with the money in hand," he said.

"I found it," Cinderella returned.

"What? Did it fall from the sky?" the man questioned, throwing a grin to the guards, who laughed on their cue.

"No," Cinderella replied. The same feeling that had often gotten her into trouble with her stepmother rearing up inside of her, she tried to battle it down
to no avail. "From this tree, actually. As this dress once fell from a tree. I do have particularly good luck with flora. Now, would you please let me go?"

"Are you taunting me, Peasant?" The man loomed closer, and Cinderella turned cold, not at his intimidating approach, but at his accurate impression.
Glancing down, she appeared the same, gown extravagant, skin unblemished, but he seemed to see what did not show.

"This is a royal pouch," he went on with renewed interest. "You have stolen from the king?"

"I have stolen from no one," Cinderella stated in a whisper, and the man seemed amused with her answer.

"Shackle her," he ordered.

"No!" Cinderella pulled her arm from the grasp of an overanxious guard, only to have it recaptured in an instant, a cold metal cuff closing around her
wrist. "I have done nothing. You cannot do this. What authority have you?"

Scoff turning to laughter, the man looked to his guards again, and they laughed along with some discomfort.

"What authority have I?" the man countered. "I am the prince."

"The prince?" Cinderella uttered, eyes sweeping his fine, dirty clothes, before returning to his scruffy face. When she looked hard enough, she could see
the pampered skin beneath the stubble. "I was told you were dead."

Smile falling from his lips, the prince looked considerably more dangerous than a moment before. "Where did you hear that?"

"In the palace," Cinderella replied, gratified when the words seemed to sting His Royal Highness.

Face pinched, he glanced away, finally letting forth an irritated sigh. "My father does have tendency to exaggerate a situation. He likes his authority,
and, apparently, does not forgive mutiny, especially within his own bloodline. He does, however, have his areas of weakness. His money, and..." His hand
raising beside her, Cinderella felt it stroke down her hair and fought the urge to raise her free hand in response. "Other things. I suspect the return of
this..." He hefted the pouch before her. "And the gift of you, and all will be forgiven. Put her in the cart."

Whisked backward, Cinderella dug her heels into the ground, desperately trying to find a foothold on the flat surface. When the guards lifted her from the
forest floor, her legs flailed wildly for something to kick.

"Let me go," she demanded. "I am innocent."

"That may well be," the prince replied, finding something distracting on his fingernail as he spoke. "But you are still to my father's liking."

Angry cry bursting from her, Cinderella finally delivered a well-placed kick that bowed a guard for a moment, impeding the walk to her captivity. Pressure
on her arm increasing to pain as the guard righted himself again, Cinderella went limp at the start of the song, the one Rapunzel sang to let her know it
was safe to make her return.

Far less melancholy than that which Cinderella first heard Rapunzel sing, Prince Salimen turned toward the song with far too much intrigue.

"What is that?" he uttered, and all concern Cinderella had for her own position transferred at once to Rapunzel.

"I hear nothing," she declared.

"Then you have been rendered deaf," the prince returned. "It is the most beautiful sound."

Shuffling several steps through tall grass, Prince Salimen tilted his head to listen, and Cinderella knew then he would seek the sound. He would follow
it, as she had, and he would find Rapunzel alone and vulnerable in the tower.

"Leave her alone," she uttered, though she did not know if it was what she should wish, for Rapunzel truly was alone, Cinderella was in chains, and what
would Rapunzel be left to think when she did not return?

"Ah," the prince said, stepping back to Cinderella. "So you do hear. Another lovely maiden, I assume. Perhaps, less a common criminal than you. Where might
I find her?"

Staring into his pleased expression, Cinderella tried to see his intent, to see if there was anything noble in it, but she was too clouded by her own pain
to see beyond it.

"I will find her whether you tell me or not," the prince went on. "But if you do tell me, it could earn you favor."

In the face of his royal arrogance, Cinderella maintained her silence.

"Perhaps, I will have her for myself." A snarling grin lifting one side of his mouth, Prince Salimen's intent was suddenly most clear. "I have yet to wed,
and I imagine that would be a sign of growth in the eyes of my father. When I am back in his graces, I may even make her queen."

The prince seemed to goad her on purpose, and Cinderella wondered how he could know such prods would be effective.

"She will never be your queen," she declared, but could not find the certainty in it and her eyes filled with not knowing.

"She will be whatever I make of her," the prince declared, and Cinderella knew there was truth in the declaration, for he was a prince and princes had
power, deserved or not. "You are a stubborn one," he laughed. "I shall have to warn my father of you. Believe me when I say this, though." He moved so
close, his breath was sour on Cinderella's lips. "He will break you. Take her to the palace. I shall be along in due time."

Heaved once again into the air, Cinderella's fight was weak as she watched the prince head off to seek Rapunzel.

"Night is falling, My Prince," a guard advised him. "These woods are a danger at night."

"You three, then." The prince stopped to point. "You come with me. Jinns and Bosh can more than handle one girl."

His company assembled at his back, Prince Salimen disappeared amidst the trees, and Cinderella was tossed with no gentleness into the wooden cart, shackle
finally closed around her second wrist, and more around her ankles.

Jerked to sitting, she was bent nearly to the cart floor as a guard wound rope between the shackles at her hands and those at her feet, making it near
impossible for her to move.

"Keep pulling, if you want to lose a hand." The guard grinned as Cinderella fought to prevent her incapacitation, until, realizing it would take more than
the loss of a single hand to free herself, she finally ceased to struggle.