And so, far away from the eyes and ears of the mortals and in the loamy argot of roots and brambles, the Isle whispered to the foundation of Rathe Castle. It whispered of all the things it held in its soil… of heartache and sly glances, prayers murmured into flowers, the tiny splash of a child’s feet in the tidal pools by the shore. The Isle spoke of magic mislaid and misused, of the way things had been… and the way things could be.
All the while, the Castle listened.
8A Litany of Poor Choices
Sometimes Prince Arris wondered if there was another version of himself that might have been able to make peace with a murderous marriage and a short first life. Perhaps he would have spent his numbered days in an opulent state of debauchery. A devilish rake, so to speak. But he had the misfortune of being a dreamer instead and for this, there was only one entity he could blame:
His parents.
Until Queen Yzara and King Eustis, the betrothal and marriage of Enzo’s heirs followed a centuries-old pattern. When the heir came of age, his parents threw a series of engagement balls. As per custom, the Isle’s aristocracy trotted out their most brilliant daughters and most beautiful sons and the heir danced with whoever took his fancy. On the final night, the heir would announce the name of his betrothed—typically at a safe distance—and then go into hiding until the wedding day.
Depending on the circumstances, the wedding might not be for a month or more, allowing the heir to ready himselffor marriage and choose a nice plot of ground in the Grove of Ancestors for when they were inevitably divested of their heart. It also allowed the ruling family to prepare the heir’s betrothed for the duties of running a kingdom. It was usually only a matter of weeks before the heir became a tree, and after that, they only served the kingdom in an exalted advisory capacity. Their advice was constantly sought after, considering that they could always tap into the collective experiences and wisdom of the Grove of Ancestors. Their other biggest task was the role of child-rearing. Turning into a tree was no excuse for neglecting the duties of parenthood, although the creation of offspring depended on the couple in question. Children might be born or bloomed and were as like to erupt from the ground as they were to emerge from a body. All in all, it was still a very fulfilling existence, though this was not to say that Enzo’s heirs danced merrily to their first deaths.
When Goodrich the Bald married, he hid from his wife for an impressive six weeks before she caught him with a cleverly laid trap involving a pillar, various ropes and an exquisite hairpiece. Yulius jumped into the Famishing Sea after his wedding day, but his betrothed was a siren whose family was only too happy to return Yulius to his sharp-toothed bridegroom. Then there was Nebo, who attempted to set his betrothed on fire, but she was a lady of the Aatos Mountains and more ice than flesh. He couldn’t melt more than her smallest finger before she flung a frost dagger into his chest.
Unlike the Isle’s magical inhabitants, Enzo was aforeigner. While his female descendants possessed magic, the males had no power. One by one—and with varying degrees of resistance—Enzo’s heirs took their place in the Grove of Ancestors. There was no reason to suspect anything would—or could—change.
But then Eustis came of age.
Eustis, son of Argento and Edmund the Handsome, had no expectations of a long first life and no real feelings about this one way or the other. An avid gardener, he was looking forward to becoming a tree. His only real grief was that he wouldn’t be able to hold a book anymore, but he was certain that he and the royal librarian could come to some arrangement. All of this changed when he beheld Yzara of the Glimmers during his very first engagement ball.
On that day, the beauties of the aristocracy gathered at Rathe Castle. There were snow-skinned maidens from the Aatos Mountains, sirens with opalescent eyes from the Famishing Sea, handsome striplings from the Ulva Wylds, richly outfitted youths from the Vale of Sylke and bejeweled maidens from the Glimmers. Every region of the Isle was represented, save for the Silent Lakes district, which was run by the odious wizard whom everyone assumed lived alone in a tower.
Eustis took one look at Yzara and announced his choice to the entire room that same evening. It was a shock to the gentry. Argento, who was an apple tree by then, lost all his leaves overnight from shock.
Until the night of the ball, Yzara had rarely left her home. The Glimmers was at the southernmost tip of the Isle,composed of a tangle of massive caves and underground labyrinths. Daylight never touched the Glimmer’s subterranean palaces, but the radiance of its magical jewels—orange lustreel and scarlet ignix, green ozoralds and blue zafyres—cast more than enough light.
Once polished and arranged, and depending, naturally, on cut, color, clarity and carat, the gemstones could heal any malady… or incite any madness. Glimmerians were healers and lapidaries, poisoners and gemologists, miners and magicians. Their jewelry was coveted not just within the Isle, but also beyond, spirited by the fast sailing ships of the Famishing Sea’s merchants and sirens.
Yzara hailed from a prominent Glimmerian family known for their ozorald mines. Growing up, Yzara never knew her father as anything other than a boulder. His first life had ended rather quickly—and perhaps suspiciously—not long after Yzara was born when he mistook a cup of poison for a cup of tea.
As a boulder, Yzara’s father never said much, but he was a constant and beloved rock in her life. Her mother, on the other hand, was a cold and ambitious woman who saw Yzara’s beauty as an opportunity. The moment Yzara was born, her mother saw a queen in the making. By the time she was ten, Yzara was well-versed in the arts of death and healing. At sixteen, her voice was considered so lovely that Glimmerians compared it to the mythical voice of the veritas swans. And by the age of eighteen, suitors fell over themselves for a single lock of her long, black hair, which fell in waves of ink to her bejeweled ankles.
When Eustis declared that Yzara held his heart (metaphorically) no one was surprised. But when Eustis remained a man day after day and night after night, no one could understand why Yzara had not taken his heart (literally).
Is it true that you have yet to dispense with him?Yzara’s mother demanded in a letter after hearing rumors of a lovestruck Eustis blissfully wandering the halls.
It was true that Eustis was not dead, but it was not for lack of trying.
Hours after Yzara and Eustis were wed, Yzara approached him in the bedroom with a knife behind her back. There, she discovered that Eustis had spelled out her name in flower petals and then fallen asleep on the floor in case she wished to sprawl across the bed in her sleep. Yzara preferred to look him in the eye when she took his heart and so that night she let him live. When she awoke the next day, Eustis was waiting with a breakfast tray, and murder before tea seemed rude. Again, she let him live. When she came down for dinner, she saw that he had constructed her likeness out of meringue, sugared violets, dollops of cream and candied plums.
He fixed her with such a dazzling and hopeful smile that Yzara simply couldn’t bear to cut out his heart right then. Plus such affairs were messy, and it was sure to get all over the cake, which would be a pity.
“You know I am here to take your heart, don’t you?” she asked.
“I know.”
“All of these displays will not move me to mercy.”
Eustis shrugged. “I am not asking for your mercy.”
“Then what can you possibly hope from this display?”
“Do you like it?” asked Eustis.
Yzara frowned. “The cake?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
