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Gloria stomped her foot and went into the library, its doors open. Angus didn’t follow her. She’d have a good day on her own. Gloria pulled the first book from the shelf, opened it, and a rose-blossomed meadow appeared instead of pages. Gloria felt the silky petals under her feet. Was she dreaming or was this happening? Where had the library gone? She walks through a meadow overgrown not with daisies but with roses. The variegated meadow resembles a carpet or a tapestry. But in the middle of the meadow, a deep hole appears. Someone is calling from the hole. Someone’s black clawed hands reach up, grabbing grass and roses. Their touch makes the roses wilt.
«Pull me out, mortal!» A voice hissed from the pit.
Gloria held out her hand, and suddenly there was a clatter, like a shovel hitting the lid of a chest buried in the pit. The vision was cut short. The meadow, overgrown with roses, disappeared. Around again was the library. A sharp bird’s beak tapped on the copper binding of a closed window.
Gloria noticed that a beautiful iridescent bird had flown up to the window. It looked more magnificent than a peacock. But it was shattering the shutters like a woodpecker.
No one even told her that in Ilior there are birds with plumage as seven-colored as rainbows. What wonders there are in the world!
Gloria had been afraid of birds ever since her partner had been pecked by a flock of seagulls that had flown right onto the ship. Michaela was gone. Her pecked corpse was buried at sea. Gloria didn’t want to repeat her fate, so she stepped away from the window. The rainbow bird banged its beak on it in vain.
«Fly away!» She said, but the bird didn’t think twice. It was as if it was waiting for something or someone.
The fairies’ child
Gloria arrived in time for dinner. It wasn’t hard to locate the feast hall. Except that no one was preparing for the feast on the occasion of her arrival, but there were voices arguing. There was whispering and the clinking of weapons, as if they were preparing for battle. Gloria cautiously peered inside. A mountain of swords, maces, and sticks were piled on the floor. All weapons made of iron. In Gloria’s mind, iron was somehow associated with something unpleasant.
Could this place be preparing for war? But with whom was it? No one was attacking Ilior. Otherwise, she would have heard news of war while she was still in port. Perhaps there was a conflict between the feudal neighbors and now there was a battle brewing, which could be stopped immediately by sending a message to the king. Only he can stop his vassals.
The aging but mighty knight named Ambrose played his stick as easily as a child’s rattle. He had the strength of a regiment! The more graceful Angus, also fully clad in armor, was going through swords. Could they be preparing for a duel? But they don’t behave like rivals at all. The pantomime is more like preparing for defense.
«Is she really your child?» Ambrose frowned.
«She’s not a monster like the others. She looks human.»
«Then she stays with us?» Ambrose jabbed his wand into the table with a frustration that shattered it. Angus didn’t even flinch. He was used to aggression from his knights.
«Where could she go? She’s the heir to the castle.»
«Wouldn’t you rather marry your charming guest and have new heirs?»
«Stop it!» Angus slammed his fist on the mantelpiece so hard it cracked. Gloria shuddered. If these two argue, they will smash the whole castle.
«The subject of the new wedding is out of the question!» Angus put a stop to it. «I’m still married.»
«It is to a woman who is officially dead.»
«Public opinion is far from the truth. You know that.»
«I also know about changelings. There’s definitely a changeling living in our castle. It is a child of the fairies.»
«She’s my child! You’ve seen the difference between human and elves’ children.»
There was a frightening silence. Gloria could hear her own heart beating a drumbeat.
«Are you leaving her with us because otherwise there will be another war?» Ambrose broke the silence.
«No, it is because she really is my daughter.»
«I think you’re considering that we’ll lose the next war with them. They’re not human.»
«I don’t want a war, but I want Amaranta back. And there’s no way to do that without a war with the forest creatures.»
«Are you sure the creature we saw is Amaranta and not some Elves’ illusion? Girls kidnapped by them usually rot at the crossroads, and the blood rose sprouts in their heart. Yesterday, old Hans found the corpse of an elf victim. Today he has nightmares. He assures me that the elves will come for him. Just knock on his window at night.»
«Keep a sword or a hunting knife on him.»
«He is a peasant. He doesn’t know how to fight.»
«What’s the art of fighting got to do with it? They can’t stand iron and running water. The mere sight of an iron object can scare them away.»
Ambrose sighed heavily.
«Are you telling me to prepare for war?»
Gloria didn’t listen to the end of the dialog, because the knight’s heavy armor clattered toward the door. She run before they caught her. Instead of dinner, she snuck into the armory. Not the best place to hide if the knights are on their way to prepare for war. The castle wasn’t under siege yet, though, and she could use a sword, too. Gloria picked up the first sword she could find, with a beautiful gilded hilt in the shape of a zigzag dragon. It was worth the effort to pick it up. She doesn’t know how to fight like that at all. She’s a lady, but the sword suddenly jerked in her hands like a living thing and soared into the air as if it had been snatched up by someone invisible. The blade of the sword wrapped around her own throat. There was no way to even scream. It was about to slash her, but instead of the sharpness of the blade, Gloria felt the prickly leaves. The sword suddenly grew stems and roses.
«Careful, mortal!» Someone said and chuckled softly. «Or you’ll hurt yourself going to war with the elves.»
Gloria was furious. That voice was mocking her. But where was the speaker? All she could see were piles of weapons. The sword whose blade was wrapped in roses was certainly a beautiful sight. Gloria’s heart softened for a moment. She loved flowers more than weapons. But if a war had to be fought to save her cousin, she was willing to be a knight.
However, the sword twisted again and tried to hurt her. Though it was no longer sharp because of the roses, but it could hit hard. Its handle is heavy. The iron dragon hit Gloria in the temple and almost killed her. It felt like the dragon handle was biting her.
«Stop it, Fior!» A childish voice shouted.
The sword immediately hovered motionless in the air.
«Or else your father won’t forgive me?» Someone asked who seemed to be suspended in the sky, because the voice came from the ceiling.
«Yes!»
«Well, I don’t care! I’m already in disgrace.»
The tip of the sword dodged and severed one strand from Gloria’s head. The strand disappeared instantly, as if someone invisible had clutched it in his hand. A large red rose bloomed on the tip of the sword.
«He won’t hurt anyone now!» A beautiful little girl, dressed luxuriously like a princess, came out of the alcove of the armory.
«So you’ve been hiding here all the time!» Gloria was surprised. «I didn’t even notice you when I came in. You must be Janet.»
The girl had a cute little heart face, big almond-shaped eyes, and bowed lips. The dress, with its tight corset and standing collar, would have been more appropriate for a grown-up lady. Janet was uncomfortable walking because of the puffy brocade skirts. It was curious where they wove such brocade that literally shines. The crests embroidered on the border were definitely not of Ilior.
«You’re Janet, right?» Gloria didn’t like the girl’s long silence.
«Take the sword,» ignoring the question, the girl advised. «Otherwise he’d go back to his battle dance.»
The sword still hung in the air. It was dangerously close to Gloria’s face. If it hadn’t had roses on it, it might have disfigured her now. Gloria hesitantly reached out and gripped the hilt. The sword no longer resisted her.
«It’ll have to peel the roses off before it can fight,» Gloria reasoned.
«It fights on its own!»
«You talk about it as if it were alive!»
The girl didn’t answer.
«Are you Janet,» Gloria asked her. «Or are you not Janet?»
There’s no telling how many children the local knights might have. But why dress a child like a queen? A girl is uncomfortable in such a heavy dress.
«Humanly speaking, my name sounds like Janet,» she said at last. Her manners, like her attire, were like a queen.
«And I’m your aunt. My name is Gloria.»
«I know!» Janet stunned her.
«Did your mother tell you about me? I was a teenager when Amaranta came to live here in Ilior. Our homeland was Aluar, the country across the sea.»
Gloria squatted down to equal Janet’s height and placed the sword on the carpet. Roses from it stretched across the carpet. Yes, it’s like nature’s kingdom in here! Gloria felt not the carpet but the soft meadow beneath her fingers. How like the fairies’ jokes! Janet, too, looked like a dwarf fairy, not a child. Though her face is childlike, her eyes are too wise, too mysterious.
«I see you’re one of ours,» Janet touched Gloria’s cheek with her palm.
«I mean your family,» Gloria said. The child must have meant it.
«It is of us-" Janet shook her head negatively. «It’s rare for one of us to go into the castle. It’s full of iron.»
What kind of fairy tale games does she play? She listened to her father’s tales of evil and decided to play along.
«Why don’t we play charades, or fantasy, or maybe ball?» Gloria suggested, but Janet was already backing away.
Overhead, someone chuckled softly. Gloria looked up. It was no one on the ceiling. The invisible man’s laughter came straight from the void. Could it be imaginary? But the rose-trimmed sword didn’t seem to her. Gloria picked it up, struggling to pull it from the roses that had sprouted on the carpet. If war was coming, the sword was best kept.
Dragon’s tree
There was a war manual in the castle library. Gloria quietly snuck it away. It would probably tell you how to wield a sword. But it was hard to get the roses off the sword. It was like they were stuck to it. And as soon as she pulled them off, they grew back.
«I guess it’s not our destiny to fight! We’ll have to be friends!» A voice sang in the heights.
Gloria looked around. No one was in sight.
No one noticed her stealing the book from the library. She doubted any of the knights would approve of her swordsmanship lessons. In Ilior, there was no question of a girl knowing how to wield a weapon. At home, in Aluar, Gloria had been trained to shoot, but even there fencing was forbidden for women. And she dreamed of learning to swordfight. Of course, it was foolish to worry about self-defense in a castle full of knights, but they didn’t keep Amaranta safe. If someone kidnapped her, all the knights of Angus were powerless to protect her. But if Amaranta had known how to wield a sword, she could have fought back on her own.
Her cousin was a sissy and a dreamer. Gloria grew up more practical. She realized that being able to stand up for her was the most important thing in life.
A lush scarlet rose bloomed again at the tip of the sword. Gloria struggled to tear it off.
«What is the hell?»
«It’s not devilry. It’s magic,» the invisible man’s teasing voice whispered in her ear.
«They are the same thing!» She snapped back, not knowing who she was talking to.
The sword didn’t turn against her anymore, but it didn’t want to obey her. The dragon handle kept slipping out of her fingers. Perhaps it was best to read the martial arts manual carefully before training. Gloria opened the dilapidated book. She wondered if the castle has a magic manual. After all, the sword seemed to be enchanted.
Someone chuckled briefly behind her shoulder, as if catching her thoughts. What a seductive voice! Gloria looked back. Behind her back was the familiar emptiness, but someone’s presence was felt nearby.
«Come to me!» The same voice called out.
– Where are you?»
No answer.
«Well, where to go?» She couldn’t take it anymore.
«It is inside the tapestry!»
What tapestry? She’d only seen trellises and lambrequins. There was a large tapestry with a hunting scene in the hall, and a couple of other tapestries with pastoral scenes in the corridor. So which tapestry is the invisible man hiding behind? Gloria didn’t believe that someone could be lurking inside the tapestry. But behind the tapestry is very convenient to hide, especially if there is a niche in the wall under it.
Gloria went out into the corridor to look at the tapestries. There were at least a dozen of them. One could get confused as to which one to look for.
Voices came from the feast hall again. Angus was arguing with someone again. And that someone was very scandalous. He was smashing dishes, jingling cutlery, clawing at the table. Maybe there’s an animal in there. But the voices were only human, no growling.
«I thought you agreed to let Amaranta go, and now you want her back. That’s insensitive,» said someone sly and arrogant.
«I was under a spell. Now I’m awake.»
«Are you awake?»
Gloria listened. The second voice was unfamiliar to her. It certainly didn’t belong to any of the knights. Curious, who was Angus talking to? Gloria peered into the hall. Angus was standing there alone near a large tapestry.
How strange! Could there be someone hiding behind the tapestry? But the second voice had gone as if it hadn’t even been there.
«Do you need something?» Angus saw her and became alert, as if he’d caught a spy in the act.
«I’m looking for Janet,» Gloria said.
She strode defiantly into the room and looked in every corner, even under the table, before pulling back the edge of the huge, luxurious tapestry with a trembling hand. The tapestry was very beautiful, colorful and covered with intricate designs. It resembled both a map and a painting with many characters. And besides people, it depicted fairies and elves. But behind the tapestry was a void. Gloria gasped in disappointment. She had thought that behind it was a niche where Angus’s mysterious interlocutor was hiding.
«This tapestry was a gift for my wedding to Amaranta!» Angus explained, and laughed as if he had said something very witty.
Gloria felt a chill run down her spine at his sinister laugh. It was the laugh of those who summoned demons into their dwellings.
The tapestry was indeed embroidered with a wedding scene, but not a human one, but an elves’ one.
«Whose gift was it?»
Angus didn’t answer. Maybe he’d lost his mind. How could he forget the name of the person who had given him such an expensive gift for his wedding? The tapestry was probably given by King of Ilior himself. Amaranta loved to flirt with and charm kings. She was a coquette. Her husband, on the other hand, was a grim character. Angus is a tough warrior. What could he be?
On the pretext of looking for Janet, Gloria managed to search the place. The hall was definitely empty. Unless there was a secret passage somewhere. Then we’d have to come back here and look for a sliding panel in the walls. Gloria was familiar with the secret passage system. She herself had spent her entire childhood in the old castle.
