The Treacherous Secret Read online

  “But,” Prince Virgil says. “But where is he?”

  “Banished,” King Willis says, and for a moment his eyes look just the tiniest bit sad. Could he have loved his brother, reader? Could he have adored him in the way younger brothers often adore older brothers? Could he have grieved when his brother left?

  “For kindness,” Queen Clarion says, her voice almost a whisper.

  But the words, unfortunately, are not lost on her husband. He tries to stand again, but this time he has slumped too far and cannot rise without taking the golden chair with him. And, alas, its weight is greater even than his own, and it pulls him back down. “For treason,” he says, and the sadness is gone. There is only anger now.

  “What was his name?” Prince Virgil says.

  “Wendell,” King Willis says.

  Prince Virgil shakes his head. “But you told me he was younger,” he says.

  “To protect you,” King Willis says. “To protect the whole kingdom.”

  Prince Virgil tries not to think what this may mean. “What did he do?” he says instead.

  “That matters not,” King Willis says. “What matters is that the throne passed to me. And I had no magic.” He lets out a great, long breath. Prince Virgil is close enough to smell the rye bread and garlic. Prince Virgil loves rye bread, especially when dipped in Cook’s best chicken soup. King Willis, for his part, prefers sweet rolls. But regardless of what he prefers, it has been hours now since the king has had something to eat. In fact, his stomach is rumbling at this very moment, reminding him that it is long past his normal dining hour, because he has been waiting on someone. Waiting on someone who, every minute, is another minute late to the agreed-upon meeting at the agreed-upon time. King Willis does not like when people are late. King Willis is a punctual man himself, particularly when it comes to food.

  Minute by minute, he is growing hungrier. And more peevish.

  “Where is my uncle now?” Prince Virgil says.

  “No one knows,” Queen Clarion says, at the same time King Willis says, “Dead.” The king and queen stare at one another, neither one willing to back down from their answers.

  “Your uncle,” Queen Clarion begins. Now that she knows her husband will not be rising from his chair without help, she would tell her son the truth. “Had a kind heart. He could not bear to see people go hungry or sleep cold. So he used his magic to give them bread and blankets and houses that kept them dry in the spring rains.”

  “A king is not a wish-giver!” King Willis roars. “That is not the point of magic! A king is a ruler!” And, dear reader, should we be able to go back in time, we would see just how much our king sounds like his father before him, the day his brother, Wendell, was banished from the kingdom. They really are two of a kind.

  King Willis lets out another breath. Prince Virgil turns away this time, afraid he will be sick. “We had beggars, lined up for miles. My brother wanted to help them all.” The king’s face is red and splotchy. “It was just like the days of that weak King Brendon. We could not have that kind of kingdom again, you see? My father cleaned it up. We could not be wish givers or we would never be permitted to rule. The people would run wild, as they did in those days. It would be uncivilized. They would take liberties and sleep on the steps of the castle and break into our halls and dirty up our floors. They would expect handouts when they were fully capable of working for themselves.”

  “A king should help his people,” says Queen Clarion. She has risen from her seat. Her face is red, too, but it is her heart that has our attention. Her heart, you see, is so tender. So sad. So broken.

  What no one in the room has said is that Queen Clarion was chosen to rule the kingdom alongside Prince Wendell, when he became king. She was brought to Fairendale castle as a child of six, as the promised bride of Prince Wendell upon reaching the age of sixteen. But when Prince Wendell was sent away in disgrace, she was forced to marry his brother, Prince Willis, instead.

  Her misery is great, as I am sure you can imagine. We must not let her beauty and kind countenance fool us. Queen Clarion loved her betrothed desperately, and when he disappeared, he took a large part of her heart with him. She tried her best to love King Willis, but he was the opposite of her beloved in every way.

  It is not easy to love a man so disappointing.

  “A king should rule his people,” King Willis says. “A king should make them work. A king should be a leader, not a magician who grants all their wishes and makes their lives easy. Workers get lazy when they have no work.”

  Prince Virgil does not argue with King Willis, but if he were a different boy, a braver boy, perhaps, he would side with his mother. He has seen the poor in their homes, after all. He has seen the way they work, the way they play, the way their stomachs are almost never full because there is almost never enough. He once tried to give his friends scraps from his own rich feasts, but as soon as he opened his pack and took out the first chunk of bread, his nurse slapped his hand hard enough to make it bleed and looked around the village, as if fearing for her life. Then she poured the contents of the sack down the well where the villagers drew their water. He watched the villagers watching his nurse, stricken. And then Arthur climbed down inside the well and picked out all the soggy food so it would not contaminate their water supply. He never tried to bring food to the villagers again.

  Prince Virgil decides to steer the discussion in a safer direction, so his father does not guess what he is thinking. King Willis is staring at him, and he does not want to be the disappointing son. So he says, “But you had magic.” And this time he looks at his mother.

  Her eyes glisten. “Yes,” she says. “I did have magic.”

  “Your mother had the most powerful magic in the kingdom of Fairendale when she was young,” King Willis says, the first good word he has spoken of his wife in a very long time. “That is why she was chosen as a queen.” He looks at his son again, stroking his chin. “We thought her power would be strong enough to pass along to you, even without my contribution.”

  “But it was not,” Prince Virgil says.

  “We suspect it is because it takes two magical parents to make a magical child,” Queen Clarion says. “Though we do not know for sure.”

  “So I must keep this a secret,” Prince Virgil says.

  “Yes,” King Willis says.

  “But how did the people not know about my uncle?” Prince Virgil says.

  “The kingdom believes we are twins,” King Willis says. “My father had the foresight to spread this story early enough. No one thought to question it. As far as the people are concerned, I had the gift of magic before it passed along to you.”

  “But someone will surely find out, Father. Will they not?” Prince Virgil says.

  His father’s eyes grow dark, a muddy pit in a candlelit room. King Willis leans forward, as much as he can manage with his bulging belly. “No,” he says. His voice is not loud this time, which makes it all the worse. “No. They will never find out. The throne will never pass from our hands.”

  “But they will surely know,” Prince Virgil says. “When I cannot perform magic.”

  “We will make the necessary arrangements. There may yet be another way. A magic way,” King Willis says, and Prince Virgil is wondering what that might possibly mean when another knock echoes into the great room.

  “Ah,” King Willis says. “Ah, yes. Forty minutes late. It is about time.” He settles back into his seat.

  Plans

  SEBASTIEN was born a very poor boy in the kingdom of Lincastle. A nothing. A no one. Except that he had magic.

  And this would mean everything.

  Every night before bed, his father told him stories of the great kingdom of Fairendale, the most beautiful of all the kingdoms, ruled by a family with magic. They were only stories to him, until one day the town prophet, a man called Iddo, told him another story, about men who had stolen thrones in the most beautiful land because of their magic.

  “But only royal blo
od sits on a throne,” Sebastien said. Even at eight, he was a sharp boy. He knew the rules of the lands.

  “Oh, no,” Iddo said. His eyes flashed. “Only a magic boy sits the throne of Fairendale.”

  “But princes are always born with magic,” Sebastien said.

  “No,” the prophet said. “Not always. Some are not. Some are not princes but princesses. Some thrones are stolen.” And then he looked at Sebastien as if he knew what was to come.

  Perhaps he did. He was a prophet, after all.

  Sebastien walked home that night with shaking legs. He had magic. His father also had magic once, before he passed the gift to Sebastien. He had heard about his father’s magic, how he was revered as one of the most skilled in all of Lincastle. Why had his father not tried to steal a kingdom with his great power? His father could have been a ruler. Sebastien could have been born a prince. They could have lived in a large palace with gleaming stone walls and beds that were not lumpy and fires that never went out, instead of the cold cottage that never had enough space to promise restful sleep the nights his mother cried out in pain.

  So he asked his father one night, sitting by the fire that would not burn through dawn, wiping the sweat from his mother’s brow as she tossed and turned on a pallet of sticky straw. Why had he never stolen a throne? Why had he not tried to better their lives? Why had he stayed here, poor, dismissed, suffering?

  “There are more important things than ruling a kingdom,” his father said.

  That was the first time Sebastien realized that they did not believe the same things, he and his father. For you see, there was nothing more important than ruling a throne.

  Then his mother died on a starless night, and Sebastien wept silently in a great chasm of grief while he watched his father bury her body. That night a new question began to take shape: Would his mother have died if she had been a queen, with access to medicine and food and warmth?

  Without his mother to care for, Sebastien’s father began to teach him magic. Sebastien admired his father for his great knowledge, but he soon exceeded even his father’s skill. “You will do great good with your gift,” his father said, after every lesson.

  And Sebastien would nod and close himself in his room, where the question he had asked his father would haunt him even after he closed his eyes. Waking or sleeping, he could not escape it. Why had his father never stolen a throne?

  It did not take long before the question became a questioning of himself. Why did he not steal a throne?

  His father began to suspect what hid in Sebastien’s heart. One day he pulled his son aside and said, “A man should not go where he is not welcome. You cannot do this, my son. You cannot steal a kingdom. Your mother and I are peaceful people.” His eyes held depths of sadness that even Sebastien could not bear.

  Still, Sebastien merely shook him off. His mother would be alive if it were not for his father’s peace. And he was nothing like his father. Oh, no. In Sebastien the need for power and wealth and vengeance grew and grew and grew until it had nearly taken over the entirety of his heart like a black ink blot subjected to water. He began to study the dark magic, beneath the eyes of Iddo. There was nothing his father could do to stop it.

  “Never use your magic for ill,” Sebastien’s father told him another day. “Dark magic demands too much.”

  His father was a coward. Sebastien could see that more clearly each time he marked another year’s passing on the wall post outside his room. His father did not take a throne because he was frightened of the price magic required. Of course magic demanded something in return. But a wise man could still win at the game, and that is precisely what Sebastien aimed to do.

  After one particular lesson with Iddo, Sebastien asked the prophet, “How long must I wait?”

  Iddo did not need any more explanation. “A boy of sixteen can rule a throne,” he said, his eyes red around their edges.

  So Sebastien waited for his sixteenth birthday with great anticipation.

  His father could not see the dark splinters lodged in the blue eyes of his son, for love, alas, is often blind to evil. Love wants to see the person we know lives within, but those we love do not always act like who they really are. And Sebastien had been pulled too deeply into the dark to remember who he was born to be.

  So it is that Sebastien’s father continued to teach his son all the good magic he knew, continued to drill him on the dark arts Iddo taught, continued to speak words that Sebastien could no longer hear. And Sebastien continued to plan.

  And then, on the eve of his sixteenth birthday, after his father had prepared a loaf of spice bread to celebrate and then hung a protective talisman, shaped like a blackbird, around Sebastien’s neck, Sebastien stole from the house into the darkest night the land had ever seen.

  “For you, mother,” he said, and he ran without a single goodbye.

  Change

  ON the other side of the door stands a bent woman in a red hooded cloak. She carries a basket full of berries that have turned her teeth blue. It is all she has had to eat on her journey of ninety-three days.

  She has come from the northern kingdom of White Wind, where a prophecy flew in on the north wind and told her of this journey. A prophetess can only go where she is told, and so she left on her journey immediately, just after sending word to King Willis that she was on her way with a Word. She knows all the lands quite intimately. The lands between Fairendale are lands of plenty, so she left with only a basket, sure that she would find sustenance along her way—berries, plants, mushrooms. She has done well with the berries, though nothing else. The lands, it seems, are not quite as plentiful as they once were.

  The kingdom of White Wind is very unlike the kingdom of Fairendale. Though Aleen arrived here when the land had already grown dark, she could see that Fairendale was much more beautiful than the land from which she had come. It was much more colorful, much brighter, much warmer. She did not need to shiver when she crossed into the bounds of Fairendale.

  She has not come with the Word King Willis wants to hear. But a prophetess can only deliver the message she has been given, and that is precisely what she will do, for she is a good prophetess, just as she was once a good magician.

  She has her own hopes, too. She hopes that she will find a place in this beautiful kingdom so unlike her own, with a king who will be loved by his people.

  Oh, yes. She has seen change coming.

  Will she find a place among the change?

  Perhaps. Perhaps not.

  DOWN below the throne room, in the secret dungeon below the dungeons of the castle, a place so dark one could not see a finger held right in front of one’s face, sit one hundred forty-two prophets who have come before this one. There is no light here. There is no warmth here. There is no hope here.

  This is a dungeon that needs no guards, only iron bars and walls and a floor made of stone. This far underground, magic is lost, though the prophets do not have magic to begin with, you see. They gave up their magic long ago, when they chose children and then the way of prophecy.

  In a dark such as this one, there is no reason for the one hundred forty-two prophets to keep their eyes open. So they mostly sleep. Except for one.

  Only one stays awake.

  Only one holds to hope.

  Only one sees the vision of deliverance stepping across darkness.

  “Soon,” he whispers to all his sleeping brothers. “Soon we shall all be together. Soon we shall escape.”

  IN the village, Arthur steps into the room Theo and Hazel share. He has come to tell them a story and kiss them good night. Come to smooth their hair and settle their worries and turn down the torches.

  But tonight he lingers. Perhaps he senses something. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps his son is not so clever at lying as he supposes.

  Theo watches his father linger. He wonders if his father waits for something. Perhaps he should share what happened in the village today. He does not know what his father will say. He merely knows that this sec
ret is burning his mouth, and he cannot play calm for much longer.

  “Father?” Hazel says. Arthur startles, just the tiniest bit, in a way one would not notice if one were not already looking. But Theo and Hazel are observant children, always watching. “Is something wrong?”

  Their father shakes his head. “No,” he says, and then: “Only a strange feeling.”

  Hazel sits up, her hands clasped in her lap. “A feeling?” she says.

  Hazel is familiar with her father’s feelings. He had a feeling when the first prophet came to town. The prophet disappeared and no one ever knew what was exchanged between him and the king.

  Arthur had a feeling when all the other prophets came, too. Perhaps there is yet another.

  Hazel looks at Theo. He looks at his hands, rubbing his knees. Her brother made a mistake that could cost his life, if this prophet shares a truth the others did not know. A magical boy who does not yet sit the throne has no hope in a kingdom like Fairendale.

  “Father,” Theo says. Will he tell his father? Will he share his mistake? Will he let his father carry this worry for him?

  “Yes, son,” Arthur says. He stares out their window, which looks out toward the castle. It is open, inviting the cool breeze inside. The white curtains shift and curl.

  Theo tries to keep his voice steady, tries to speak in a way that sounds natural and calm and not terrified as his eyes suggest. “I did something today,” he says. He looks at Hazel, who nods. Go on, her eyes say. Tell him.

  Arthur looks at his son, drawn out of his thoughts. He moves to Theo’s bedside.

  “It was an accident,” Theo says. Now he looks at his father. Arthur does not show the slightest bit of worry. He has always been good at hiding these things. It is what one does when one is a parent.

  “What did you do, son?” Arthur says, his voice steady and gentle. He takes his son’s hand. He does not assume, does not propose his own ending to his son’s beginning, does not worry. Yet.