Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall (33 page)

Feet dragging to a stop, the polite invitation rung as just another threat in Cinderella's ears. "A festival," she swallowed. "Is it possible I might
retire to a chamber instead?"

"Why would you want to retire?" Christophe questioned, his eyes radiating excitement.

"It will be all right," Rapunzel assured her, but, as irrational as it was, Cinderella found she feared the threat of the festival more than the ghouls of
the forest, the biting cold, and the possibility she might vanish at any moment combined.

"What is it about attending the festival that gives you pause?" Sawyer asked as he stepped back to them, but Cinderella only shook her head response.

"In the past, Cinderella has had tendency to attract adamant suitors at festival, as you might expect," Rapunzel explained, much to Cinderella's
embarrassment. "But I am sorry to say, at the misfortune of others, not my own, that this maiden... she is taken."

Watching Rapunzel stand before Sawyer, making claim to her as some sort of priceless treasure, Cinderella's embarrassment eased, turning to warmth when
Rapunzel's eyes glanced at her, despite the pressing cold.

"Ah, I see," Sawyer responded, and Cinderella spared him a glance, watching his eyes dance with mirth. "And feel duly warned, My Lady." Considering for a
moment, he took a step toward Rapunzel, lowering his head as if in confidence, though he spoke for everyone to hear. "If Christophe and I stand with you
through the night, we can chase off anyone who might ask for your hand. Would that be improper of us?"

"That would actually be extremely chivalrous of you," Rapunzel responded.

"Good then," Sawyer declared. "I would not want you to miss the festival. It will be wonderful reveling. My sister is a true queen, gracious and lovely.
Besides, there should be many folk from the town, craftsmen and sellers and their sons. It will give you quite a selection, I imagine, should you determine
me too...
haughty
to be suitable for your friend." He winked back at Cinderella. "Shall we be on our way?"

Turning again, Sawyer led them off, and Christophe fell into step beside him.

Watching Norco and Togo fly off after them, Cinderella felt a strange sense of satisfaction at the way Rapunzel held so unrelentingly to her arm.

"You know, you speak like a jealous lover," she murmured.

"I just do not desire any confusion," Rapunzel returned. "That is all."

"Nor do I." Cinderella grinned as a determined hand on her cape yanked her sideways until her lips met Rapunzel's, and, even in the muddled world around
them, for an instant, she knew perfect clarity.

T
he gown she had borrowed from Sawyer's sister, Queen Rhian, was ill-fitted, but the intense sapphire still darkened Rapunzel's eyes as she stepped from
behind the partition, and Cinderella wondered how many admirers she would be forced to ward off before evening's end.

"You look beautiful," she breathed.

"As beautiful as you?" Rapunzel asked, gaze sweeping Cinderella's form, and Cinderella ran her hands across the burgundy fabric at her waist, finding
breathing a difficult task.

"You look far more beautiful than me."

"Now, I know that you lie," Rapunzel replied, grin quirking her lip. "For that is impossible."

Walking into Cinderella without pause, Rapunzel's hands curved around either side of her neck, soft lips capturing Cinderella's in the tenderest, most
honest of kisses.

"Rapunzel..." Cinderella pulled softly away. "In case I do not get another chance..."

"Please, do not," Rapunzel gently requested, fingertips on Cinderella's lips impeding the flow of words. "You will." And to ensure Cinderella's continued
silence she captured her lips once more.

The clearing of a throat broke them apart some moments later, and Cinderella could see the flush across Rapunzel's cheeks as she pulled away.

"Ladies." Sawyer gave a bow, and Christophe followed his lead, looking quite pleased to be a gentleman. "Are you ready? Or do you need another moment?"

"We are ready," Rapunzel replied, taking Cinderella's hand, and, not nearly as ready as she would like to be, Cinderella allowed herself to be pulled
toward the night's festivities.

Down the grand staircase and through the doors of a large hall, the decorous signs of festival - ladies sitting in fine dresses on lounges, men discussing
the strange events in the kingdom - turned into a fray. Clutching tighter to Rapunzel, Cinderella was relieved when Sawyer and Christophe took their arms
and guided them to a relatively subdued corner of the room.

"Are you all right?" Sawyer asked, looking on them with concern.

"Yes," Rapunzel nervously responded. "It is just so much to take in."

"And you?" Sawyer looked to Cinderella. "You said you had been to a festival."

"I have," Cinderella returned, looking up sharply at a bray from the dance floor, and watching a donkey go to its hind legs to put its hooves into the
hands of a laughing man. "It is just..." Cinderella watched in awe as the man gave the donkey a spin. "The festivals in Troyale are apparently quite...
staid."

"How so?" Sawyer questioned, motioning a palace servant over and plying them each with drink, thanking the man with the effusiveness of a visitor to the
palace.

"Well," Cinderella began carefully. "There were only humans, for starters."

"Oh, them?" Sawyer said, glancing toward the floor, where a monkey leapt from shoulder to shoulder. "They are citizens."

"You are very kind to your animals," Rapunzel declared.

"No," Sawyer laughed lightly. "They are actual citizens. The people of Ceres do have tendency to be transformed. Once they have been, many can change at
will. I, myself, was a fawn for a time."

"I was a bird for a day," Christophe shared, and, with a hearty
Cheers!
, the two clinked glasses and drank.

"Can you change?" Rapunzel asked.

"Not at will," Sawyer replied. "My fright has to be great for my animal instincts to supersede the human. At times," He looked to the wild frenzy. "I do
envy them such freedom."

Looking down into her glass, Cinderella wondered if what Sawyer saw in the citizens of Ceres truly was freedom, or just another form of captivity. For even
those who could change at their will could do so only due to the curse of another.

Rapunzel's shout beside her put Cinderella instantly on edge, and she shrank back as a rat ran across the floor before them.

"Do not worry." Sawyer reached a hand out to them. "That is only Orsen. Chass," he called to the servant who had brought them drink. "Could you please make
sure Orsen does not get trampled?"

"Yes, Sir, of course." The man seemed content to take his orders from Sawyer, and Cinderella would have noted it as a mark in Sawyer's favor if Rapunzel
had not chosen that very instant to shudder beside her and grasp her arm with suddenly icy fingers.

"That feeling..." Rapunzel breathed. "The one from my dream. I have that feeling."

"Like someone is trying to change things back?" Cinderella questioned, and Rapunzel nodded gravely, her face an exhibit in rapidly-changing emotion.

"I also do not feel right," Cinderella admitted, looking at once to the rest of the room.

Seeing through the chaotic happenings was a rather difficult task. Just when Cinderella would get a line of sight across the hall, a sheep would jump
through it, or a man the height of two men would appear before her and give her a start. It was as Sawyer's older sister, Queen Rhian, who shared so many
of Sawyer's physical traits that they were easily recognizable as the same bloodline, walked up to them that Cinderella's gaze alighted on a dark-headed
figure across the room. The man's dark gaze, in turn, meeting her own, Cinderella's heart sped up at the unforgiving look upon his face.

"Are you having a good time?" Queen Rhian asked, Norco and Togo appearing along with her, hovering at her back like her personal pets.

"A most fantastic time," Christophe responded, but his voice shook with nerve, as if Cinderella and Rapunzel's anxiety had rubbed off on him.

"I am delighted," Queen Rhian replied. "We have never had guests from other kingdoms. Of course, we did not know such a thing was possible until recently."

"Queen Rhian," Cinderella interjected, eyes never leaving the man's face. "I greatly apologize, but could you tell me who might be the bearded man across
the room?"

When Queen Rhian looked to him, the man in question spun quickly away, heading to the door that led from the hall.

"I know him not," Queen Rhian replied. "Sawyer?" she questioned, and he too shook his head. "Perhaps he, like you, is from another kingdom."

"No," Cinderella returned, voice weak in her throat, the man strangely familiar. "He is not. Please, excuse me." Prying Rapunzel's hand from her arm,
Cinderella glanced into worried eyes. "Stay here with them," she said firmly, driven to follow the man. Her request quite clear, she was not surprised in
the least when she heard both footsteps and the flap of wings at her back.

As she reached the stone porch of the castle, the winter upon her skin felt so exaggerated in its cold blast, Cinderella stopped for a moment to right
herself, certain she had lost the man when she saw him nowhere before her.

"Hello, Cinderella." He stepped leisurely from the shadow of an angel's statue, and, turning as Rapunzel and the others came to a stop, Cinderella stepped
between them and the man, feeling her body go both hot and cold at the same time, insides suddenly erupting as her skin broke out in gooseflesh.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"You know who I am," he returned, and Cinderella felt Rapunzel's conviction move through her.

"You are the storyteller?" she husked.

"Yes." The man looked pleased with the title. "I am the storyteller."

"You are the one who has made people disappear," Cinderella accused, and he smiled again.

"I am."

"Why?" she questioned, swallowing the fear that threatened to close her throat. Wishing she knew exactly where Rapunzel stood behind her, she was grateful
at the same time that, for once, Rapunzel was not at her side. "Where are you sending them?"

"Nowhere," he replied. "I created them. I can remove them. They simply exist no more."

"But why?" she asked again.

"Because they are my stories," the man returned. "Those who are gone had completed their purpose. They reached their happily-ever-afters. They were of no
more use to me, and they could be too easily persuaded to join you. Your numbers have grown great enough, I think." He trailed off, and something that
moved at her back made the storyteller nervous. "The fewer people you have the better. When I send death for you, I want it to take."

"I do not know who you are," Queen Rhian stepped forward suddenly, and Cinderella's skin crawled in concern as the man turned his steady gaze toward her,
"But you will leave this instant. You do not come to my home and threaten my guests."

Hand dashing into his breast pocket, the man pulled something from within. No more than a quill, Cinderella knew it was the most dangerous weapon he could
hold, and was relieved when Sawyer grabbed his sister and pulled her away.

"Why are you doing this?" Cinderella questioned, blinking back the tears that formed as rage pressed suddenly upon her shoulders. "Why can you not just let
us live?"

"Because..." The man stepped swiftly forward, coming too close, but he felt cold, distant. "I am the one who created you. I gave you life. I gave you
purpose. And the idea that you could do as you pleased, that you could destroy the world I created, I did not give you that. So tell me, Cinderella, what
made you think you could abandon my design?"

"I did not care for your design," she declared, fear tightening her throat even as her arms crossed obstinately before her.

"You did not need to care for it," the man hissed in her face. "You needed only to obey."

"Obey?" Cinderella echoed the word with the disgust it deserved. "Do you have a god complex?"

"I am God!" the man shouted with unconcealed glee.

"Are you?" she asked, and he faltered before her.

"What?"

"Are you a god?" she questioned, and his hesitation as he glanced over her shoulder once more was all the answer she needed. "You are not. You are human.
You are mortal. Your time is as limited as ours, yet you squander it trying to control how we live? Have you nothing?"

The dark man lunging unexpectedly, Cinderella had no time to get out of his way. She heard Rapunzel scream her name, and the world slowed around them, but
where she anticipated the feel of the man's arms grabbing hold, the certain tumble they would take together down the stone steps, there came nothing but
the chill.

Passing right through her, the man fell upon the stone steps, letting out a pained groan as he caught himself on their sharp edges. Slow to recover, his
breath wheezed from his chest as he stood up on the lower step to face them, real blood dripping from his hands.

"You cannot touch us," Cinderella whispered in awe, and, trembling, the man stared up at her, his eyes darting away as Rapunzel rushed up to clasp her
hand.

"Maybe not," he snarled, eyes threatening upon Rapunzel. "But I can make you go away."

"All right." Cinderella succeeded in drawing the man's attention back to her. "Make me go away."

The sharp intake of Rapunzel's breath stole the air beside her, but the storyteller did nothing. Fury flaring in his eyes, there was nothing he could do.

"If you could make us go away," Cinderella declared, "we would be gone by now."

Face set into an angry line, the storyteller stepped back up the stone steps, but Cinderella had no cause to waver, for he had already proven they could do
nothing to each other.

"You should have followed your story," he said, his quill shaking up at her like a scolding finger. Broken in half, Cinderella trusted it could still hold
ink. "You should be with Prince Charming."