Demelza watched her sisters vanish down the steps. She felt a strange lump in her throat. Her palms felt hot.
“Now, now, Demelza, do not weep,” said Prava, gathering her to him. Her father smelled like hot metal and bog smoke. Anyone else would think the wizard reeked of death. But the daughter of a monster knows only that the monster sits beside her each night to sing her to sleep. She does not concern herself with how he occupies the rest of his hours.
“I want to be…” Demelza hesitated, searching for the word her father had used. “I want to be vital too, father! I want to fly.”
“Dry your tears, my child,” said Prava. “We all have different gifts in life. You may envy your sisters, but I am certain they will envy you, for while their days will be filled with rigorous instruction, you shall have free range of the Manor and the Lakes. I have instructed the library wyvern to compose a curriculum of independent study as well. Won’t that be nice?”
Demelza sniffed. Running outdoors and reading in thelibrary sounded very nice indeed. Perhaps it would not be so bad. She hugged her father and Prava kissed the top of her head.
“Do not fear, my strange little bird,” he said. The bottom of his fangs grazed her scalp. “I will find use for you yet.”
4The Tale of Enzo the Fool
Demelza and her sisters loved Hush Manor and Hush Manor loved them back. It had always been a restless and roving place, but when the chirping sounds of Araminta’s brood echoed over its stones, the Manor discovered a new purpose. For the first time, the Manor did not shuffle through the moors, but swayed, for it noticed that a certain movement lulled the girls to sleep. It tried to shush them the way Araminta did, but its stones made an awful groaning sound and so it quickly abandoned all thoughts of lullabies. For the girls, the Manor sprouted ballrooms spangled with snowflakes and banisters made for sliding and animated the dim and dusty armories where the bones of ancient knights genuflected and leapt to play.
Prava liked to say that Hush Manor was the only domicile of its kind… but this was not entirely true. On the other side of the impenetrable mists surrounding the Silent Lakes loomed Hush Manor’s twin: Rathe Castle.
Rathe Castle was the ancestral seat of the royal family descended from the line of Enzo the Fool. Prava himselfhad built Rathe Castle for the royals, although he had done so under significant duress and therefore liked to pretend it didn’t exist at all.
Prava could spy into time itself and soar into the clouds with a snap of his fingers. But he could never—ever—step foot onto or spy into Rathe Castle without an invitation. And since he had—more than once—expressed a desire to wipe out the monarchy and install himself as ruler, he was never invited. Banishment from the court had been a fair price to operate the Silent Lakes district independent of royal meddling.
“I could rule this entire place and do it far better than those fools,” Prava would mutter darkly.
“Then why don’t you, Papa?” Demelza had asked.
“Alas, my love… no one but the royal family may sit on the throne, and it’s all thanks to Enzo the Fool,” Prava would say, practically spitting the name.
Centuries had scrubbed the truth down to a tale, but for all the twists and flourishes the poets had added over the years, only one piece was never disputed.
When Enzo found the Isle of Malys, he was greeted by the Isle’s reigning witch queen. Or perhaps she was a goddess. Such differentiation depended on who did the telling of the tale. Whoever she was, she fell in love with Enzo, and in return for his hand in marriage, Enzo extracted a boon.
As the Isle’s magic was tied to the throne, Enzo asked that only the male descendants of his line could sit upon it. The boon demanded so much magic that the witch wasforced to give up her own name, but she was in love and no sacrifice was too great. Such a magic, however, could not take place without a contingency.
Enzo was powerful, but he was only mortal, and if one of his line died without an heir then the Isle would be ruined. Perhaps Enzo could have expanded the conditions of his boon, allowing only those of his line and their consorts to sit upon the throne, but Enzo was a heartless man. He sweetened his words and clarified his boon thusly:
“Only my male descendants or whomever possesses their hand and heart in marriage.”
The sea witch, still besotted, granted his boon. Time passed and Enzo waited until she had borne him a few children before attempting to divorce her and banish her from the Isle. The sea witch was, understandably, enraged.
“It was I who gave you your power,” she said. “Repent and perhaps there will be hope for you yet.”
“All the power is mine,” Enzo laughed.
“That is not so,” pointed out the sea witch. “The power also resides in whoever possesses your hand and heart in marriage.”
“My hand you have, but my heart has never been yours.”
“Is that so, husband?” The sea witch then promptly cut out his heart. “Well, now I have both.”
Thus the magic was hers.
From that point on, marriage became a matter of life and death for the royal family. The gentry of the Isle often fought for the hand of Enzo’s descendants, but once someone had it, they rarely wasted any time going straight for their heart.Everyone possessed two lives, but the first lives of the male descendants of Enzo the Fool were famously short.
Nothing would have delighted Prava more than being able to send one of his own daughters as a potential bride, but it was impossible. Only the sons and daughters of the gentry were considered eligible partners for the descendants of Enzo. Prava found the whole thing very offensive.
“Our daughters are beyond aristocracy! They are magic! It is insulting!” he would say. “The stones of Rathe Castle and Hush Manor taunt me terribly… They whisper, you know, for siblings talk and such. They say that the latest royal sapling is gentle as a petal and searching for true love! Arris, I think he is called. Ha. Our daughters could have slurped out his trembling heart before the royal crown could even warm the boy’s head!”
The only thing greater than Prava’s anger with the royal family was the pride he felt for his daughters. Seventeen years had passed since the girls had hatched and they had all but conquered many of the Isle’s neighboring kingdoms from across the seas, seizing treasure and magics and sending these riches back to Hush Manor along with bags of candied local insects for Araminta and coins for Prava, who fancied himself an amateur numismatist.
