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Gloria looked up to see where her feet had caught. It turned out that two roses had sprouted in the floor. Wow! How did they manage to take root here? Even in Aluar’s gardens it was difficult to graft some varieties of roses, but in Angus’ castle they could grow in the stones. Miracles, indeed!
The miracles had only just begun. As soon as she closed her eyes, a marvelous fragrance hit her nostrils. Some thin voices squeaked something into her ears in an incomprehensible language. Gloria felt her feet treading on something soft. The floor below was not a floor, but a carpet of roses. Was such a thing possible? Or was she dreaming? Gloria pinched herself just in case.
She remembered exactly that it was night, but dawn was shining all around. The castle walls had disappeared. A meadow of roses stretched all around. She had never seen a whole meadow of roses in her life. The flowers grew so tightly together that they looked like a carpet. There was no grass to be seen at all.
Gloria walked boldly forward. Stepping through the roses was very pleasant. Some rainbow-colored insects were circling near her face.
«Gloria!» Someone called from afar. The voice was beautiful, feminine and sinister. A slender figure crowned with golden horns flashed in the distance.
«The tribes of the goddess Danu await the chosen one,» Gloria heard. «Start a war against your cousin. The Elf Queen must be punished! She’s an impostor!»
This is absurd! The words sounded to Gloria like a ridiculous set of phrases. It must be some kind of riddle. Gloria loved solving riddles. She moved swiftly forward to get closer and closer to the stranger, but the farther she walked, the more the horned silhouette receded.
Gloria must have walked a mile by now. The roses beneath her feet grew thicker and thicker. The stems, like living snakes, clung to her ankles.
«You’re here!» The stranger in the golden mask reappeared in front of her as if from the ground. «The sun has not yet set. Dagda’s cauldron is still cold. You’re too early. Or have you come to fight me?»
The question threw Gloria off balance. Yes, she wanted to learn to fight, but she didn’t want to fight him. Fighting was out of the question for now. Instead of resorting to weapons, his hand gently wrapped around Gloria’s waist.
«You’re in my territory,» Elar whispered. «You wanted to see me so badly that you crossed the border without asking? That’s a dangerous step.»
Gloria didn’t know if she should justify herself by saying that she had been in the meadow of roses by accident. Elar was so gallant and so handsome, and though his face was not visible under the mask, it must be very handsome. She reached out her hand to tear off his mask, and then suddenly she was smelled with heat, as if from the mouth of a dragon. The sunny day over the meadow was instantly darkened by the clouds in the sky.
«Let me out!» An unpleasant voice shrieked as if from the ground, and the clawing of claws could be heard. It was as if something alive and monstrous was buried beneath the meadow.
Gloria didn’t have time to remove the mask from Elar. Though he held her in his arms, he suddenly vanished like a ghost. The carpet of roses beneath her feet was no longer there either. Gloria stood on the floor of the familiar castle.
She squatted down and scrutinized the floorboards. No roses poked through between them. Not one, not two. Not even any rose petals lying anywhere. Had she begun to hallucinate like the mad cousin of the Aluar king? Gloria shuddered at the thought that she, too, would be locked in a prison tower if she claimed to see ghosts that no one else could see but her.
Someone was watching Gloria closely from around the corner. Janet was standing there, tearing an already tattered rag doll with her fingernails. Janet’s fingers were doing the work, and her eyes were watching Gloria.
«Why aren’t you in bed at this hour? Go to bed!» Gloria tried to hide her embarrassment at being caught groping the floor.
But Janet didn’t laugh at her adult relative’s antics.
«Don’t believe them!» She said clearly and disappeared into the dark hallway.
Here we go! Janet sees ghosts, too. Gloria should have been glad she had a witness. Instead, she felt creepy for some reason.
Black fairies
«Danu hates Amaranta,» was a voice through the dream. «There was a time when Danu was a great elves’ goddess, but a mortal girl came from across the sea and took away her first place. Now there was trouble!»
Gloria lifted her head from the pillow on the sofa where she had fallen asleep sitting up. For a moment it seemed to her that the same horned creature was standing near the sofa and making signs to her.
The girl instantly jumped up and grabbed the sword lying next to the sofa, but the strange creature was no longer there. It must have been a vision.
Gloria felt a pain in her back. Her whole body ached. Maybe she should try lying on a bed of roses and hope the thorns wouldn’t sting her.
The same golden lady Gloria had let out of the tower slipped past the boudoir.
«Hey, wait!» Gloria went after her. «Who are you? And why did you come in here without asking me?»
That’s a silly question to ask someone whose door you’ve broken open with a lock pick. Gloria embarrassed, remembering this piquant detail, but the lady had already turned around and looked at her with one-toned golden eyes on an all-golden face. Gloria aghast even the eyelashes and lips on it were gold. But what was more amazing was that this face was copying her. The lady appeared to be her twin.
«Oh, the horror is it!» Gloria covered her mouth with her hand, remembering that twins appear to doomed people shortly before death. That’s the popular belief.
Taking advantage of her confusion, the lady quickly disappeared. Now she could not be found in the labyrinth of castle passages.
«Maybe I was imagining things,» Gloria tried to comfort herself. «I’m too young to die.»
The sword in her hand vibrated strangely, as if it were a steel bird trying to break free and fly away.
There was something viscous and slippery beneath her feet. Gloria glanced at the floor. There were flowers growing on it again. So the carpet of roses was definitely not a dream. There it was under her feet again. Only the roses were suddenly black.
Are there black roses? Gloria accidentally struck one of them with the tip of her sword. A red juice oozed from the severed petal, very much like blood.
«Medea Shai is here,» someone whispered in her ear. «Leave while you’re still in one piece.»
The voice was clearly male and familiar.
«Fior?» Gloria looked around for the elf. «It’s your jokes again!»
One of the black roses suddenly began to grow in size until it stretched to the ceiling. And now it was no longer a rose, but a fairy in a black dress and with black wings. She indifferently flew past Gloria, hitting her with her scarf. Gloria gasped. Her skin burned as if it had been struck with a hot iron. If even fairy scarves burn like fire, what would happen if a fairy scratched you or attacked you?
Gloria followed the fairy, even though it was reckless. Roses tangled under her feet, keeping her from walking. There were already several black fairies hovering around the castle. They were probably midnight fairies. Gloria had heard of them as a child, but didn’t think she’d ever see one.
There was a whole pack of black fairies. Where did they come from? It seemed like there wasn’t a single one. Now it’s night, and there are at least a hundred of them in the castle. How did they get through the narrow windows? Or did they come through some other way?
Gloria watched with her mouth ajar in amazement as the fairies hovered above the floor, climbing over cabinets and cupboards, going through some papers in the castle master’s study. It finally dawned on her. They were looking for something!
What they’re looking for is probably very valuable to them. The fairies looked nervous.
«The queen won’t forgive us if we don’t find the treaty,» one of the fairies whispered to the others. The black wings rustled so noisily that Gloria could barely make out the words.
The fairies obviously hadn’t found what they needed and became aggressive. Silver goblets and heavy seals flew down from the shelves. Sentries came running to the noise. The fairies dealt with them instantly. As soon as the black-winged beauties touched the bodies in chain mail, the sentries began to rot before their eyes. Their skin turned black, shriveled, dried to the bone. And now they are no longer sentries, but pathetic rotten relics lying on the floor, with black roses blooming over them.
«An invasion of fairies is a disaster,» whispered Fiore’s voice from somewhere above. «Hide from them in a niche. They don’t look in the niches because they are afraid they will come across the statues of saints Angus brought from Roshen. The sight of St. Queen Rhiannon frightens them very much. If you need to scare the fairies away, tell them that you are under the protection of Rhiannon and Madeel.»
«But that would be a lie,» Gloria whispered back.
«They wouldn’t be able to check anyway. Rhiannon and Madeel had long ago and forever descended into the underworld.»
Fior was out of sight, but a golden web had grown densely under the ceiling where his voice had come from.
Gloria didn’t like his advice. She would not hide. She walked belligerently past the swarming fairies. They paid her no attention. It was a shame. They’d killed the sentries, but they wouldn’t even yell at her. It was zero attention, a lot of contempt.
«Why are they rummaging around like thieves?» Gloria gritted her teeth. «It’s like a pack of black magpies, not fairies.»
«Did you expect them to dance around the castle like forest nymphs?»
Fior was hovering nearby, but he remained invisible. Probably didn’t want the fairies to see him. Can’t fairies even see the invisible? They’re all fairies.
«The Queen of the Fairies is flying here!» Fior whispered and then stopped talking for good.
Gloria did notice a black fairy in a crown. She came straight out of a large mirror as if it were a portal. She was so beautiful that Gloria gasped with envy, but she acted like a hooligan. The first thing she did was to break a floor vase by deliberately whipping it with her wing, and the second she dropped a splinter of black sparks on the tapestry, and it became moldy as if it were the surface of a swamp. Threads of black cobwebs grew from the black fairy’s fingernails, which she directed at the walls. The black web crawled across the castle like a net. The last living sentry became entangled in it and turned to rotting relics in just a fraction of a second. It was as if the web had sucked all the life out of him.
There was no one else to protect the castle from the invasion of the black fairies but a young squire who came running at the noise. Gloria had seen this young man before, but didn’t know his name.
«You are here again! How dare you come back? You brought us so much trouble!» The squire shouted at the fairy.
Did he think that the black fairy came with the intention of making war? And what was this raid if not a fairy attack?
The black-winged fairy began to release a web of nails that quickly coiled around the neck of the screaming young man. Breaking the silence meant he would suffocate from the black nub.
The squire wanted to strike the beauty with his sword, but the blade only slid across the fairy’s skin without wounding her, and immediately turned its point against the young man himself. He howled in pain as his own sword sliced through his shoulder.
«Get out of the castle! Do not disturb my lord!»
«I have a treaty with the Count, by the way.»
The fairy squinted unkindly, noticing that the sword had cut through the web she had woven, but quickly found a way out. She pulled out of her hair a dainty hairpin, which extended its tip into a blade and became a dagger before her eyes. The dagger the fairy aptly threw right into the squire’s throat. He fell down, bleeding.
«Well, there are no more obstacles,» the fairy sighed with relief. A black mist floated in the air from her black sigh. The dagger became a stiletto again and returned to the fairy’s outstretched hand. The squire’s corpse rotted instantly. «The last awake warrior was out of the game. There was no one else to defend the castle.»
The black fairy clapped her hands in triumph over the mold-covered corpse.
«You left me out!» Gloria stepped out of the shadows.
«Is it the girl with the sword?» The fairy’s graceful eyebrows arrogantly arched over squinting eyes. «Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart. It’s hard and dangerous for a girl to wield a sword. Better learn some needlework.»
Now that’s an insult. Gloria lunged forward and struck the black fairy with her sword. The sword stabbed lightly into her wrist, preventing her from creating a new web. Black blood flowed from the wound.
The fairy gasped in amazement and froze, hovering in the air. The red carbuncle, which Gloria had at first mistaken for a crown pendant, shone in her forehead like a third eye. The entire flock of fairies scattered throughout the castle smelled the blood of their queen and became alarmed.
«You’ll be sorry!» The black fairy threatened Gloria with the finger of her healthy hand and hurriedly flew away from the sword as far as possible.
The sword absorbed the black fairy blood like it was a sponge. Gloria turned around and threatened the sword at the flying fairies, but it was no longer needed. Apparently, the queen was the strongest of them all. If she was hurt, the others didn’t dare to get in the way.
The fairies were gone in a split second. Some of them flew out the windows, others disappeared into the mirrors. Gloria was left alone amidst the black mummies of the sentries’ dried up bodies.
«You have made yourself a powerful enemy,» – whispered Fior’s voice.
«Just a fairy…»
«It was a fairy queen!»
«Suddenly I was just dreaming.»
Gloria examined the sword. There’s no blood on it. It doesn’t clot that fast. There should have been stains, not brown, but at least black. And there were none. But the ubiquitous Janet watched the fight from the corner and seemed to applaud.
«This isn’t a theater,» Gloria said angrily, and Janet nodded scholarly to her surprise.
«I know, it’s a wrestling match!»
«Go to bed and shut the windows.»
Gloria herself decided to take over the duties of the dead sentries and went around the castle with a watch. The knights were asleep, as if enchanted. The fairies must have spread a sleeping spell around the castle, which somehow didn’t affect everyone. So the fairies have their faults, too. Or they were waiting for someone to meet them. The crowned fairy said she had some business with the castle owner. Gloria thinks Angus is a monk and he’s messing around with fairies. The hermit count is full of surprises.
In Gloria’s bedroom all the windows were closed, but two winged figures were fighting by the bed. Fairies again! Gloria grasped her sword more comfortably, but these fairies were only figuring things out with each other. One of them was red, the other white. They fought, hovering a meter above the floor.
«This bed is not yours,» hissed the white fairy, clawing at the hair of the red fairy. «Why aren’t the roses on it half white?»
«It’s not Amaranta’s bed anymore,» the red fairy defended, scratching the white fairy’s elbows. «Someone else is here.»
Seeing Gloria, both fairies froze in flight.
«And who are you?» The red fairy opened her eyes in amazement under scarlet lashes.
«I live here now!» Gloria confessed and felt awkward, as if she had invaded someone else’s bedroom and not the other way around.
«You’re a guest? Are you a guest? Are you Angus’s second wife?» The scarlet fairy opened her eyes under her purple eyebrows.
«She is Fior’s girlfriend,» the white fairy explained.
Both fairies suddenly stopped fighting and straightened their dresses covered with fragrant petals. Strangely, they began to act like allies.
«This is no place for white roses,» whispered the white fairy.
«It’s no place for red roses either,» the red fairy frowned.
Gloria looked at them like a miracle.
«I hope you haven’t mistaken my bedroom for your own,» she said.
The fairies looked at each other.
«This is not love!» The white fairy said.
«And definitely this is not passion!» The red fairy said.
«Then what is it?» The fairies looked at each other again.
«Who can tell?» The white fairy stomped her foot in a dainty sandal and turned into a white pillar of radiance. The red one followed suit, only the vortex she turned into was purple.
«Roses are not for her!» She could hear the fairies whispering even after they were gone.
«Well, don’t!» Gloria took offense. «I don’t really like roses. I prefer fragrant jasmine.»
