Wind in the clouds, p.17
Wind in the Clouds, page 17
“Go back to your room, Abby,” Madeline says, removing my arms from around her. “Please.”
Abby shakes her head. “No.”
“Go back to your room. NOW!” Madeline wheels to face Abby, snatches the Fairy’s arm and hauls her into a room. “Don’t come out until our guests leave. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
When Madeline faces me again, I take this fleeting time to assess her—my Mom. Madeline is disheveled, her clothing nothing but rags, and her posture slumped. It's as if Madeline has lived a thousand lives all at once in this desert domain. All of Madeline’s sweetness—the sweetness I felt when she cared for me all those years ago—is burned to cinders when she opens her mouth to yell at me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Madeline gives me a cursory glance before her eyes land on Prince Nigel. “This must be a dream. You need to go. You cannot stay here.”
“So much for pleasantries,” I sass back. Puff-Puff drags the Prince inside the home, then falls over panting. “If you hadn’t noticed,” I start, pointing at the Prince, “we need shelter and—” my stomach grumbles “—sustenance.”
“You’ll find nothing of the sort here,” Madeline snaps. She makes a beeline for the door and gestures to the impossibly sandy Realm outside. “Leave. I’m begging you.”
Prince Nigel coughs, his eyes flutter open. I step around Madeline to check on the red-faced Fairy. The royal gulps dryly and tends a shaky hand to his throat. “Water.” His voice is a rasp, barely audible.
“He needs water.” I stare at Madeline with pleading eyes. “Or he’ll die of dehydration.” My following string of words is expelled, intending to leave a bruise. “But, I’m sure you’re used to seeing death and not doing anything to intervene. Watching all those servants of Namanzi die must’ve been worthwhile.”
Madeline’s lips twitch, annoyance pulling her features into something dark and scary. Gingerly, Madeline walks forward and into an arching entryway at the back of this tiny home. She returns with a glass of water in her trembling hand and offers it to me. I take the glass and tilt the rim to the Prince’s dry lips. Prince Nigel’s lips form a weak smile as he finishes.
“Thank you.” The Prince props himself on a wall.
“Prince Nigel,” I say, my head swiveling from him to Madeline standing near the open door. “This is Madeline. My mother.”
He splutters and lays a cupped hand over his mouth. “My brain hurts.” He rubs his fingers at the center of his head. “Did you... did you just say she is your mother?”
“Yes,” I sigh.
“I have a sister?” Abby races out of her room. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”
“Abby!” Madeline, flustered by the unruly Fairy, takes Abby’s hand. “How much did you hear?”
Abby goes still, her silence the loudest sound in existence. “Everything.” Abby then implores, “Mommy said I was a servant of Namanzi. Am I going to die, too?”
Madeline falls to her knees. “No, Abby, of course not.” She kisses the back of Abby’s hand. “You misheard Windy,” Madeline says, fumbling her words. “You are Namanzi’s new body, Abby Gale. What did Mommy Jordana tell you about ascending? Huh?”
“That Gods cannot die,” Abby says with practiced ease.
“Which also means?”
“I’ll live forever and ever.” Abby twirls in that too-large dress she’s wearing.
Prince Nigel whispers to me: “Is that her? Neven’s daughter?”
I bob my head. “That’s your cousin, Prince.”
Nigel clambers to his feet, wobbles, but doesn’t fall. “Madeline,” Nigel croaks, his voice coming and going. “I formally request that you be our escort out of this desert nightmare and back to Quill. It is urgent that my Uncle, Neven, sees his daughter, Abby.”
Madeline slaps her hands over Abby's ears. The young Fairy cringes in pain. “Don’t you dare speak that name to me again.” Madeline glares at the Prince, nostrils flared. “Jordana and I are doing everything possible to protect our daughter from Neven.”
“Do you honestly believe that, Madeline?” Prince Nigel mirrors my sentiments. “Matriarch Xenobia tried to kill Windy and me...” he pauses and glances at Abby’s puzzled face. The Prince settles for pantomiming a knife cutting a throat with his finger. “Matriarch Xenobia is an unhinged Fairy. And you know this to be true, don’t you.”
“She knows,” I grumble, folding my arms. “Madeline knows everything. I had hoped there was good in her. That there was an explanation behind her actions. Mom,” I say hopelessly, cringing at the sound of desperation heavy in my voice, “help us. Matriarch Xenobia can’t be trusted. If she is willing to hurt me—a Fairy, you, and her, secretly adopted—then she’ll hurt you too.”
Prince Nigel puts a hand on my shoulder. “Repeat that last part again?” He regards me questioningly. “Matriarch Xenobia adopted you?”
“Sort of.” I tilt my head left and right. “Yes. It’s complicated.”
“That means you’re a Princess.” Nigel’s face sparkles with admiration. “Which means you can usurp the throne from the crazy Matriarch by having her committed to a life of imprisonment for her crimes—”
“If only it were that simple.”
Matriarch Xenobia’s voice makes Prince Nigel and I both gasp. The Matriarch saunters inside the already crammed home, her presence suffocating. The royal’s black ballgown is pattered with red and signed as if it has danced with Dragon’s fire. Prince Nigel steps ahead and holds his arm before me like a protective shield. His fingers play on the edge of the hilt of his dagger.
“Mommy.” Abby wiggles free of Madeline's hands and bounds for her mother. The Matriarch holds up a hand, stopping the Fairy. Abby’s head falls, shoulders slumped. Poor Fairy.
“Remember when we flipped that coin, Maddy?” Matriarch Xenobia clasps her hands together and glides toward Madeline.
“Don’t.” Madeline shoots to her feet. She raises her hands, asking without words for the Matriarch to cease speaking. “Don’t. Jordana. I love you. Don’t do this.”
Matriarch Xenobia pushes Madeline aside, whose face is so terror-stricken that something inside me breaks. Whatever the Matriarch is about to say, it has something to do with me.
“Come now, Maddy,” Matriarch Xenobia grins. “I’m sure you remember the day we flipped that coin, oh, almost eighteen years ago. Don’t you remember: heads for the baby girl or tails for the baby boy. Whichever baby fate chose, we’d adopt in secret. Whilst the other would be fed to the pack of dogs known to roam the Palace grounds.”
“Enough, Jordana!” Madeline begs on her knees.
“Whatever is the matter, Maddy?” Matriarch Xenobia says assertively, curling her lips like a wicked vulpine. “Are you afraid of reliving that day fate decided that Windy should live and her brother should perish?”
“W-what?” It feels like this tiny home is closing in all around me. Squeezing me inside its sand-packed walls. This is not the time for a panic attack. I can’t breathe. Clutching my chest as my legs give, my body shakes.
“You’re a monster, Matriarch Xenobia,” Prince Nigel spits.
“None worse than your Father, Prince Nigel,” the Matriarch cackles.
“I’m sorry, Windy.” I hear Madeline say over the din of Prince Nigel and the Matriarch exchanging words. My name is tossed about in the tumult, something about the Matriarch needing me this instant. “I’m so sorry.”
The sound of Prince Nigel drawing his dagger exacerbates my panic. The Prince tilts his weapon's sharp edge at the Matriarch. “Should you inch any closer, I will be forced to strike. Matriarch or not.”
Matriarch Xenobia swirls her fingers around. A pink, twinkling mist of some nature pirouettes before her, meandering between her fingers and blossoming with hints of scarlet.
Madeline presses a hand to her mouth. “We swore to one another that we’d never again drink the blood of Humans. It’s a cursed addiction that will be your downfall, Jordana. How could you lie to me? How could you betray my trust?”
“Easily.” Matriarch Xenobia says coolly. “Now, Prince Nigel, though I’d stop at nothing from cutting your pathetic life short, Windy and I must be off.” Turning, she addresses Abby. “It’s time, my sweet Abby Gale—Namanzi’s vessel.”
“She’s not ready, Jordana,” Madeline shrieks.
“Plans change, my dear.” The Matriarch plays with the mist above her hand. “Neven will not sleep until he gets his dirty Ogre hands on Abby. It’s in my best interest to revive Nasturtium anew. Say goodbye to Windy, Prince Nigel. Unfortunately, today is her last day with breath in her body.”
A sheer curtain of the Matriarch’s glittering pink haze washes over me. A deluge of fire and ice overwhelming me, merging me with the miasma. My movements are restricted, fingers, toes, and limbs frozen by this creation of the Matriarch’s doing.
Prince Nigel grasps for me, his fingers gliding through me as if I am becoming a ghost. As if my body is departing this plane. I cry out in heartbreak! My cries are matched with voices clamoring within this pink force, pulling me to my doom.
“Windy!” Prince Nigel swipes his hands through me, desperation eking out of him in anguished grunts.
“N-Nigel...” I manage to belt out as the Prince vanishes into thin air, and I land with a splash in a puddle beneath me.
There’re astonished gasps around me. My name fills the unsettling, watery crypt I’ve found myself in.
“Windy?” someone says, their feet pattering against the floor slick with water and dried blood trails.
When I look up, I find Charm slipping toward me in a panic. The garland eases me to my feet and hugs me tight for some strange reason I can only think of as a hopeless hug. A hug of no noise or warmth. A hug that reveals the truth about our fate: we’re about to die. I’m surrounded by garlands, their faces streaked with tears, their fancy dresses torn, and their hair bedraggled.
“Windy,” Charm sobs, “I don’t want to die here.”
“Where is here?” I ask.
The Matriarch fills in the blank as her form materializes alongside Abby and Madeline. “The Temple of the Water Goddess Namanzi.”
Chapter 26: Nigel
Matriarch Xenobia’s magic not only ripped Windy from this world but also sent me well on my way back to my home: the Kingdom of Quill. I land in a heap of dead bodies on my back in the foyer of the Kingdom. My home is painted red with that of the blood of the citizens of Quill and Ogre. There’re over hundreds of bodies sprawled in mounds, their vessels treated like refuse in the midden, discarded as if these Fairies of my realm had no purpose. These Fairies meant something to someone. Now they are nothing. Their stories have ended abruptly. Their souls will never find rest until I become King.
That day is today.
Despite my fatigue, the rumbling in my stomach, and my escalating anxiety, I will challenge Father for the throne and bring this—all of this—to an end.
I bow my head at the slaughtered Fairies as I pass by the piles of bodies. “I offer you all this promise: I will succeed my Father and bring light to this darkened Realm. Find your rest in the stars.” Before I depart the foyer searching for Father, I disarm a deceased Knight of his sword and shield.
I try to maintain a sense of calm despite my skittering pulse bounding through me like a rabbit. However, preserving calm of any sort is a debilitating task. I’d never expected to see the day my Realm and my Fairies succumbed to such a nasty fate. My hope... my dream was to gift my dying Father with the golden—but deadly—warmth of the sun. To see Father’s eyes alight with the remembrance of a Realm at peace. Of Mom.
All I want to do now is to stop Father’s tyranny at any cost.
By instinct alone, I head for Father’s chambers in this unsettlingly mute Kingdom. I stop myself short, inches from Father’s chamber door. Father wouldn’t be seeking a respite from the carnage he caused. Taking a peaceful nap while the Kingdom falls to ash around us. My father wouldn’t be in the Kingdom. He’d be... I don’t know where.
A rustling comes from behind the door. Father?
I’m kicking the door in next, prepared to swing and end Father’s life. But I halt in my tracks. Neven blinks at me from his spot on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. A servant with their back to me tends to his wounds. Neven’s green skin is slashed in some areas and bruised in others. The chamber door slams behind me. I jerk around to fight, my sword shaky in my sweaty palm.
“Stand down,” the Ogre says. I believe his name is Bur’Vis. He has the power of clairvoyance or something. “I told you the Prince would come, Neven.”
Neven grunts, “But, my dear friend, you were wrong about so many other things. I’m beginning to doubt your abilities.”
Bur’Vis frowns. “My sight is based on probabilities and should be heeded with—”
“I’m joking, my friend,” Neven assures, a feeble smile sweeping the corners of his mouth upward. “Nephew, it is good to see you. Well, good to see you are alive. Bur’Vis had two visions about you: one where the Matriarch ended your life, and the other where you’d find your way back to the Kingdom.”
“I’m fortunate the latter is true,” I say, inching my way to the Ogre. The servant turns to me, a scowl on her face. “You.” My features tighten at the sight of the Fairy, who thinks me a murderer.
The servant's scowl and disdain hasn’t much changed since last we met under unfortunate circumstances. “I have no words for you, Nigel.”
“What drama.” Bur’Vis saunters over to assist the servant with tending to Neven. Bur’Vis gathers damp towels and beings to tear them into strips. The yellow-haired Ogre’s head snaps to me, his eyes as black as a starless night. “Serena,” he says to the servant. And then it hits me: Serena Claire, mother to Tara Claire. “If it pleases you, I must say that Prince Nigel has a good heart. His only failure is trying to appease his father. You and I know firsthand what King Nigel is wholly capable of.”
“But that doesn’t excuse what happened to my daughter.” Serena’s hands shake, and her voice goes out. Neven clasps her hands in his huge mitts. “Forgive me, Neven. I cannot breathe the same air as that monster.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can muster. It’s all that can be said about what happened. I could’ve done more, yes. Yet, I stood idle, knowing Mikah was responsible for his crimes.
“Oh, would you look at that,” Serena says, a mocking lilt to her tone, “my three years of pain and suffering over the loss of my daughter have been alleviated. All it took was a simple apology. If you’ll excuse me, I must check on the other survivors.”
“Please be careful.” Neven lays his back against the floor-to-ceiling window and expels a sigh from his bruised lips.
“Serena, if I could please have a moment of your time.” I proffer a hand to the servant, who regards me with poisonous eyes. “I... I was protecting my best friend. I believed him with my whole heart. I trusted he was telling me the truth about what happened—”
“Save it, Nigel.” Serena glides to an alcove in Father’s chamber where there had been a bust of him before it was removed. “I pray you never have a daughter whose innocence is stolen from her by a Fairy she thought cared about her. No is a complete sentence. It doesn’t give any Fairy the right to someone’s body. Tara took her life because of him.... I pray you, and that friend of yours burn for all eternity. Neven, Bur’Vis, please let me know when we shall voyage to the Hraylor mountains. I’ve grown quite ill of being here in this forsaken Kingdom.” With that, Serena opens a door I hadn’t known was in the alcove and disappears behind it.
I am momentarily silent to process the burgeoning memories of Mikah and Tara’s love affair. The unsavory incident that followed was a stain upon the Kingdom when Serena brought the case before Father. Tort law failed to protect Tara. It only protected the wealthy best friend of the Prince of Quill.
“If you’re seeking your father,” Neven begins, wiping a cloth along his brow, “he and his ruthless followers have gone to the Red Rooms.”
I wrinkle my lips. “Why? Father isn’t in any need of protection.”
Neven sighs and shakes his head. “You really are one oblivious Prince. The Red Rooms are the gateway to the Deep—the lair of enslaved Humans. My brother will seek counsel with the royals of Abethia, Luxon, and Crest. Together they will figure out what to do and how to spin this bloodbath as one of Ogre design. My only hope is that I may find my daughter before the royals come up with something heinous. Since you are here with Bur’Vis and me, and Windy is not with you...” my Uncle seeks an answer from Bur’Vis. An answer he may have insight on.
I turn to Bur’Vis, whose powers are at work.
“I’ve tried over a million times in over a million ways,” Bur’Vis says through a frown, “but Jordana has blocked my powers from exposing her whereabouts. And the whereabouts of your daughter.”
“Windy and I found Abby.” Neven’s jaw goes slack at the mention of the name Abby. “She was in the Gnobi desert. Abby looks like you.”
Neven hurriedly wipes at his face, streaked with sweat. Not sweat... tears. “Forgive me of my unmanly display. I’d hate for the Nephew who wished to spill my blood to view me as anything but weak.”
I cross the chamber to sit beside my Uncle, placing my sword and shield at my feet. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Neven. I am not here to squabble with you. Besides, you’re pretty banged up.” Hugging my knees to my chest, I shut my eyes. “Abby and Windy were stolen away from me. I wish there was something I could do, but I failed.” My gaze finds Bur’Vis’s. “Are you able to get a lock on Windy?” When the Ogre shakes his head that he cannot, I lose all hope that Windy is alive.
“I cannot locate any of those Fairies Jordana magicked away,” Bur’Vis says.
Neven’s brows wrinkle. He coughs out, “Jordana must be at the Temple.” He pats my hand and says with finality, “Windy is no more.”
