Reardon
“ Liar!” Reardon kicked the gate leading out to the Mystic Valley.
He had bathed and dressed and carefully removed the bandages protecting wounds that potions had already healed to smooth scar tissue, but every monotonous act only fueled his rage.
“Witch!” he cried, because this was the Fairy Queen’s fault! She cast the curse without following her own rules! “Why are you doing this to him?” He kicked the gate again, and then grabbed its bars and shook them in his fury, nearly upsetting the frozen-over latch.
“ My , you have a temper.”
Reardon reared back with a gasp, instinct bringing his hands to his hilts, as he looked up—upon a radiant figure perched on the castle wall.
Reardon had heard stories of the power and beauty of the queen of elves—beauty that could swindle and corrupt, for the tales painted all elves and anyone with magic as sinister and vile. He hadn’t believed it, but his anger at her now made him wonder if those stories were true.
She certainly was beautiful. Dark skin and eyes, her hair in lovely long waves pinned even more intricately than Shayla’s and twisted into a thick braid over one shoulder. Within her hair were flowers and delicate vines, as well as a crown of golden antlers that could easily have been mistaken for demon horns. Her gown was made of such rich shades of violet, indigo, and blue that the silk flowing from her skirts and sleeves did indeed make her look more like a fairy than an elf.
She had no wings, however, just her pointed ears, adorned in cuffs of glittering gold that matched her crown. She looked as much like a goddess of the wood as a high queen. The only exception was her dainty feet, bare beneath her skirts as she dangled them from her spot on the wall. She was smiling, but Reardon held his guard. He had never believed his angry ranting would actually reach her.
“You mean to mock me?” He clenched his jaw to keep from stuttering, hands still on the hilts of his swords, even if a swipe of steel might mean nothing against her magic .
“I mean to talk to you, Emerald Prince. It hasn’t been often enough that you’ve come this close to my gate.”
“As if you’d need such formality, Majesty .”
She clicked her tongue at him, leaning back on the wall, as if she weren’t an ethereal vision, but a simple peasant girl enjoying a nice day outdoors. “Such venom. No need to call me that, or ‘Fairy Queen.’ Those are just titles. May I call you Reardon? Because please, call me Mavis.”
The tension in Reardon’s stance faltered. It was said that true names could be powerful among those who wielded magic. Had she given him hers?
But then, Reardon had no magic himself, only science, and only his swords and dagger on him now.
“You wish to talk to me? Why?”
“It seemed you wished to talk to me .”
Reardon fidgeted in the snow. “I thought you had long since moved from these lands, but the king implied you were still out there. It all looks empty.” He glanced through the bars of the gate.
A thud drew his attention back to her, where she stood in the snow, having leapt from the wall, her bare feet hidden by her gown. Being so close to a figure he had thought mythical only a few weeks prior reminded him of when he first met the Ice King.
With her glowing smile, she opened her arms, gesturing him to her. He hesitated but figured he had nothing to lose.
Her hands were warm as one curled around his back to lead him forward, the other taking one of his hands to wrap around a single bar of the gate. As soon as his fingers closed, it was like being thrown through the castle wall, hurtling blindingly fast down the hill and into the valley below.
Reardon knew his feet hadn’t left the castle grounds, but he saw it all as if he had, like a soaring eagle. Reaching the edge of the valley that indeed looked abandoned like the Frozen Kingdom’s adjoining city and villages, ripples appeared in front of Reardon. The ripples parted like the sheer drapes of the king’s bedchamber, revealing so much beyond the veil that he could hardly take it all in.
Cities and towns stretched there too, but bustling ones, both outside the forest edges and within. The woods there were lush and magical, far removed from the Shadow Lands on the other side of the king’s hill, with all sorts of dazzling sights in every direction .
There were humans, elves, half-elves. Reardon thought he even saw fairies—real fairies—dancing in the wind. He realized, however, that among all the people he saw, no one ever drew close to the veil. He assumed it was so that they wouldn’t be seen by those outside it, but realization grew within him that they were in fact trapped. Happy with their lot but unable to leave.
His vision zoomed forward again to a glittering castle, then inside, where he saw the Fairy Queen’s throne. She sat upon it, eyes closed, as if to show Reardon that the real her was there, and the one with him was a phantom.
Beside her throne was a smaller one with a human man in equal finery to hers but with a smaller antlered crown. He was handsome, gazing adoringly up at her, blond and blue-eyed, but clean-shaven and far more sweet-faced than Oliver or Liam. If that was her husband, Prince Consort to her kingdom, then Reardon understood why a younger Jack had tried to court him.
“You too, hm?”
All at once, Reardon returned to himself, staring at his hand on the bars.
“I think he’s quite handsome too,” she said, “but he is taken.”
Reardon pulled back, shrinking away from her and turning to look upon her form once more. “You’re not real?”
“I’m real. Think of it as a long-distance conversation with a nicer view.”
“Why can’t you leave the valley?”
“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.” She cringed. “Magic has its rules. But I can tell you to not give up. This kingdom, yours, and mine all have something to gain. King John told you the words of the curse?”
Reardon’s heart was still racing from the rush of all he had seen, and he was skeptical that he could trust the source of all this misery. “Yes. I don’t remember exactly, but… I know he said you told the others that when his heart melts and he is a true king, the spell will be broken.” He felt his anger resurface at the memory and spat back at her, “Is loving me not enough to prove his heart has melted?”
“Toward you?” she said, soft and compassionate. “Toward his people, his family, and friends? Of course. But a true king sees value in himself too. ”
“He… he loves me, and he is a good king, but he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of either. I should have known. The ice that remains is because he has yet to forgive himself.”
“Yes.”
“Then I will continue to prove to him that he is wrong.” Reardon squared his shoulders before the Fairy Queen— Mavis . “But that does not absolve you. This curse is cruel and unfair.”
She tilted her head, a sad smile upon her lips. “You keep looking for a hero in this story. We simply all made choices, and I do not regret mine.”
“Then hero or no hero, you are the villain,” Reardon snarled. “Jack is a good king, but you trapped him in a life he never wanted.”
“He had to accept responsibility. After his father died, as the new king of these lands, he could have changed anything he wanted. He could have taken a prince, if that was his desire, changed the laws to pass his kingdom to his sister, renounced the throne for another leader to take his place. Instead, he chose to be carousing, irresponsible, and apathetic, and he has paid for it.”
“And his sister and friends and far too many others paid for it too!”
Still, she did not rise to Reardon’s challenge, her voice calm. “Are they so miserable, or have they each found their own happiness?”
“That isn’t enough. What of those who died unjustly? The accidents? What of all the years lost? What about my kingdom? All this only perpetuated a fear of magic and the idea that people are disposable.”
“Those choices are the responsibility of those who made them, but not everything is as it seems, Emerald Prince. This was never meant to have gone on for so long.” Again, she looked sad, even though she said she wasn’t regretful. “My magic is not infallible. I cannot explain everything, but I came to tell you that the curse can be lifted. You must do what the Sapphire King could not and trust—”
“Reardon!”
Reardon’s attention snapped away from her toward Oliver, racing from the castle, followed by a dozen of the strongest fighters Reardon knew, all armed, with Barclay trailing behind in a hurry.
They must have seen—
He startled when he turned back to Mavis, because she was gone, and he somehow knew that if he told the others about his audience with the Fairy Queen, none would say they had seen any sign she had been there .
Trust? Trust what?
Trust who ?
“What’s happened?” Reardon asked of the others when they joined him at the west gate.
“Emerald banners,” Oliver said with a hard edge, bow in hand. “There is a platoon approaching the castle.”
“It’s Lombard,” Barclay panted. “He’s leading them. The soldier must have told Lombard the truth, or he didn’t believe him.”
Reardon had known it was only a matter of time, but he hadn’t believed Lombard would bring fifty men to counter the initial two.
“If they try to get in, we’ll have to open fire,” Oliver said. “They won’t understand. They expect monsters here, and honestly, we need them to believe that. If they find only a hundred simple people trying to live their lives, and five poor cursed souls, they’ll wipe us all out as easily as they sent us here as sacrifices.”
They would. They would assume everyone here was bewitched, the elves and half-elves worthy of death simply for what they were. Reardon had only been thinking of Barclay when he came here, but he had stayed for selfish reasons, and now, disaster was at the gates.
“I’ll talk to them.”
“You can’t.” Oliver grabbed Reardon’s arm before he could move past them. “I promised the king I would never let anything else happen to you.”
The earnest admission made Reardon smile. He had been lucky; the only reason he hadn’t frozen on the spot the other morning was because the king hadn’t been fully transformed when he pulled away. If it hadn’t been for Oliver and Caitlin, and Zephyr who fetched them, Reardon still might have died from the shock or been far worse off than merely scarred. Then Oliver had saved Reardon again when he carried him from the edge of the wood after being stabbed.
“You won’t fail that promise,” Reardon swore to him, gripping his forearm in kind. “Lombard would never hurt me.”
“Reardon, wait.” Barclay grabbed after him, not gasping at the contact but taking in a deep breath as a new vision appeared to wash through him.
No, not new, Reardon realized. The resignation on Barclay’s face said it was one he had seen before .
“I don’t know what it means, or how to prevent it, but what I saw yesterday, and what I just saw again… was everyone in this castle dead.” Barclay let the weight of that sink in, twisting Reardon’s insides with nausea. “It was carnage, everything completely razed, but you… you had a shadow over you, like the future is not yet set. I saw your father, Lombard, and Master Wells. Wells was making a potion….”
“The counter potion?” Reardon pressed. The High Alchemist was gifted. Perhaps, with his help, Reardon could finally succeed in solving his mother’s death.
Barclay didn’t answer, seeming unsure, but Reardon felt more resolute than ever.
“That’s why I have to go.” He pulled Barclay in tight against him, embracing his friend like he had the last time he saw him in Emerald before the guards took Barclay away. “If I don’t, they’ll storm in and prove that vision true, but I can stop it.”
“Open the gates!” Lombard’s voice rang from the castle entrance. “We know you have our prince! You were given your allotted sacrifice! Now, release the prince at once!”
“You see?” Reardon squeezed Barclay once more before pulling away. “It’ll be all right. Lombard thinks I’ve been kidnapped. He’ll see reason if I go out there. I was always going to have to go home to explain, to change my father’s mind. Please, don’t stop me.” Reardon gazed imploringly at Barclay, and then at Oliver.
Oliver nodded.
“Wait,” Barclay said again, but when Reardon readied a protest, all his friend did was push a piece of parchment into his hands. “Take this. It’s my notes on the last version of the potion. It’s not finished. We know we’re still missing something, but if you don’t come back….”
“I will come back,” Reardon promised but still took the parchment, tucking it into his cloak.
He looked up at the castle. Much as he longed to see a familiar hulking form, he knew it would be foolish for the king to be up on the ramparts. There was the brief blur of movement anyway, but that was others staying hidden while readying bows on Oliver’s orders, no doubt. The king was nowhere to be seen.
Reardon hoped Jack understood .
With his swords, dagger, and cloak, Reardon didn’t need to return to his room, and there wasn’t time if he’d wanted to. He believed, however, as he finally made for the gates, that someday soon, he would return.
Jack
Staying out of sight when strangers were within eyeline of the castle was one of the Frozen Kingdom’s most important tenets. Let all who would look upon their prison from afar think it a mystery too terrifying to breach.
Jack followed that rule now, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching from his throne room, remaining carefully in the shadows, as Reardon marched to the castle entrance.
Jack hadn’t slept at all the other night, just cleaned what he could of his chambers and turned his bed into kindling, so that now he had nothing in that spot anymore where a bed had once been. He didn’t need sleep, after all, and he hoped he never dreamed again.
“Zephyr,” Jack said low beneath his breath, “carry their words to me.”
Without turning to see Zephyr appear or obey, Jack felt the rush of a bitter breeze, and with it came the distant voices of those at the gates.
Reardon was a smart prince, ensuring the entrance closed behind him quickly so that none of the soldiers outside could catch too much of a glimpse of the castle grounds—though the ice sculptures were difficult to miss.
Jack saw many of the men shift uneasily on their horses.
“General Lombard!” Reardon called to the armored man at the front, who wore a full helmet that obscured his face.
Lombard.
“There’s no need to go any farther. I am not a prisoner, and I will return with you. We shall retreat now, for I have much to discuss with my father.”
The soldiers shifted once more, only Lombard holding firm as he looked down on Reardon from his horse.
“This place is known for dark magic,” Lombard said, “and you have been gone for weeks. Prove you are our prince.”
Not a fool , Jack thought, and Reardon wisely nodded, understanding Lombard’s cynicism.
At first raising his hands to show he held no weapons, Reardon slowly reached down to retrieve his dagger and held it aloft. “When you gave me this on my eighteenth birthday, you told me to keep it close, always. I may have misplaced it a time or two, Bardy, but I did not fail you.”
There was a long pause, yet Lombard must have deemed the dagger and Reardon’s words enough, for he dismounted, removed his helmet to set it on his saddle, and approached Reardon.
He was handsome, about Reardon’s same height, like Jack, and built similarly too. He was older, a few years older than Jack had been before the curse, but proud and dashing.
As Lombard neared Reardon, Jack was ready to leap from the window and launch an icy attack if this was a trick, but all the man did was loose his hands from the hilts of his weapons and embrace Reardon boldly.
“I have missed you, my prince.”
Reardon hugged him back just as tightly. “I missed you too. Let’s go home.”
A stinging chill pierced Jack’s chest like the first rays of dawn.
Lombard led Reardon to his horse, replaced his helmet, and helped Reardon into the saddle behind him. Reardon was leaving without a fuss—without saying goodbye.
“Majesty!”
Jack turned slowly to the entrance of his throne room. It was Oliver, and Jack expected to see Zephyr, but Josie and the rest of the court had arrived too.
“Barclay had a vision,” Oliver said. “The prince believes he must return to the Emerald Kingdom to prevent a war. I have my men on the ramparts, awaiting orders. What should we do?”
War? Maybe that was true, but Reardon would have had to go eventually anyway. “There is no need to fire on them or pursue. The prince is going of his own accord. Now leave me.” Jack turned back to the window to watch the retreating horses.
Not once did Reardon turn back, but held onto Lombard’s waist.
Jack could no longer hear them, and the eerie silence dug the ice in his chest deeper.
“It’s a ruse,” Zephyr said. “To bide time and speak with his father.”
“We didn’t finish the potion,” Liam announced. “He has to come back.”
“Of course he’s coming back,” Branwen growled.
Jack didn’t say anything.
“Jack?” Josie spoke more softly than the others .
Still Jack said nothing, staring after the emerald banners until they were but specks in the distance. He heard the others start to leave and finally turned his head again.
“Oliver,” Jack called, halting the fletcher’s leave. “Accompany me to the library to replace the book on the pedestal.” He nodded to Pillars of Virtue lying closed but with its page marked with ribbon on the steps leading up to his throne. “I would like to read today.”
“Of course, Majesty,” Oliver said. “Zephyr….”
“I’ll let the archers know to stand down.” Zephyr nodded and vanished with a frown.
Josie, Liam, and Branwen were all without words as Oliver came forward to do as Jack had asked. Slowly, Jack trudged into the tunnels with Oliver following. There was no point in waiting for Reardon to finish the book, and besides, Jack knew how the story went. It was not a happily ever after between star-crossed lovers but came to a practical end.
Like everything in the real world.