Bound to the Prince (35 page)

It was highly unlikely that someone would
rescue her from this place, and probably better to die all alone
than be found by the creatures living in this wood. It was nothing
like the Enchanted Forest, where the elms had seemed to welcome
their prince and his lover, showering them with golden leaves. Evil
penetrated this place, and the trees had something about them that
she could only describe as cold, even cruel maybe. A dry laughter
escaped her lips. Without realizing it, she had already adapted to
the elven way of thinking, even dividing the trees into friendly
and hostile individuals.

Finally, she managed to overcome her fears by
thinking of Elathan. He was probably locked up in the dungeons
under the palace by now, bound by iron chains, maybe even being
tortured. Even here – wherever she was - she could feel his
presence like the light of an ever-burning candle, deep inside her
soul. Although he was far away, she felt his pain, his utter lack
of hope. Maybe he even regretted having met her, now that she had
brought him into this situation. Still, they were bound to each
other, and she knew that his mind was reaching out to her right
now, trying to find her in the darkness.

Completely lost in her thoughts, it took her
a while to notice that she had left the path and entered a huge
clearing. The sky was clear and sprinkled with countless stars.
Pale moonlight illuminated a scene that could only have sprung from
a lunatic’s nightmare.

Without any doubt, this was the city of the
gargoyles, and it looked exactly like a place where those creatures
might be comfortable. It was ridiculously logical. Where else could
they feel at home?

The clearing, enormous as it was, was crowded
with churches, or, more precisely, seven ancient gothic cathedrals,
most of them not much more than ruins. Their weathered facades were
blackened and overgrown with ivy. Some of the towers had collapsed
long ago, their remains not much more than a pile of moss-covered
stones. The churches, their sizes ranging from small parish church
to medieval cathedral, were placed in an exact circle, their
entrances facing an open courtyard in the center. It looked as an
old village square, with a stone well and a single, naked tree that
looked strangely deformed. It reached out to the heavens with its
gnarled, leafless branches like a poor sinner in hell.

Igraine shivered. It took her a while to
discover what disturbed her most about the place. It seemed
completely impossible that such a city could even exist – she
suspected that it had been built with the help of elven magic - but
the absence of a single living soul made her blood run cold. She
wished to do nothing more but turn around and run for her life, but
her resolve made her go forward, step by step, until she stood
right in the middle of the churches. For the first time, she dared
to lift her gaze, and that’s when she saw them.

The grotesque creatures were everywhere above
her, hundreds, maybe thousands. They were guarding their churches,
crouching on ledges over doorways, grinning down from roofs and
towers. Some of them looked almost human, others like eagles,
winged dragons or bats. There were devils and demons in all shapes
and sizes, with horns and sharp claws made to rip out their
victims’ throats. Unmoving, they looked exactly as the gargoyles
she knew from her own world, carved from the same grey stone that
formed the walls of the building. Their empty, lifeless eyes seemed
to watch her closely.

Too quick for the human eye, the gargoyles
came to life and plunged down from the cathedrals, attacking the
human who dared to enter their city. She couldn’t even think or
scream before she felt their hard, razor-sharp beaks and claws,
cutting through skin and flesh, ready to tear her into pieces. The
only sound she heard was the flapping of their wings while they
encircled her, so many at the same time that her vision went dark.
During her walk along the forest path, she had repeated Calatin’s
advice over and over again in her thoughts to stop herself from
panicking, so now she automatically protected her face with her
arms.

Not my eyes
, she thought.
I’ll die,
but please don’t let them pick out my eyes.
When the gargoyles
started to tear out small pieces of flesh from her shoulders and
back, Igraine opened her mouth to scream. She felt a hot liquid
running over her back and realized that it was her own blood. It’s
over. His blood is long gone from mine. She remembered that human
blood renewed itself regularly, but how often? Wouldn’t her immune
system destroy the elven blood at once anyway? She knew that such
thoughts were totally pointless while being killed by gargoyles,
but at least they helped her to separate her mind from the
pain.

All at once, it was over. She hardly realized
that they had stopped attacking her when she felt a fire burning
her skin, digging itself deeper into her wounded flesh.
Poison,
she thought. Their fangs were poisoned. Face down,
she fell to the forest floor and turned onto her side, rolling into
a ball like a hurt child. "Elathan," she whispered. His name was
like a fiery inscription in the ever-growing darkness while she
drowned in it, holding to the one word with all her strength.

Then, nothing mattered anymore as she drifted
off into eternal night.

“Don’t blame yourself, Calatin. Lady Igraine
knew the dangers when she agreed to your plan. She is bound to the
prince for all time, in heart, body and soul. It was a noble death
for a human, giving her life in attempt to save her mate and the
elven kingdoms. Besides, we are all destined to share her fate very
soon, considering our chances. We should leave for the castle at
once. Elathan’s execution …”

“Sundown. I told her we would wait until
sundown, and wait we shall.” Calatin nodded to Kalan, thankful for
the younger elf’s words although they didn’t make him feel less
guilty. He had knowingly sent Igraine to her death and betrayed
Elathan’s trust in him. But he had been so sure that the prince’s
blood flowed strongly in his slave’s veins, so that the gargoyles
would have desisted from attacking her before they killed her.

He would lead the warriors to the circle of
stones in the gardens behind the outer wall surrounding the castle,
a holy place where nobles who had violated the law were put on
trial, be it traitors or unfaithful royal concubines. But only
accusations against a member of the royal family would summon a
gathering of the Oldest Ones. Since Elathan had sworn to declare
his guilt – and Calatin knew that he’d never break an oath - it
would be a farce, a simple formality required to execute the
prince. No elder would demand proof if the prince confessed to
being his father’s murderer, even if they knew the truth. After
Ruadan’s coronation had been disturbed by Elathan and his guard,
the king’s oldest son was the closest to the throne now. His word
was law, and when he condemned himself, it was impossible to
contradict him.

Cloaked in silence, the elven warriors looked
up to the
Sliabh an Óir
. The castle reflected the warm light
of the dying sun soon to vanish behind the mountains, yet its
beauty was overshadowed by a foreboding of death today. A few
moments later, the last beams of light were gone. Calatin presently
closed his eyes.

Forgive me, Igraine.

Then he raised his hand, giving the sign for
the guard’s departure. Just when he started to move, a shiver ran
through his body, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Before even
hearing the sickening sound of a thousand leathery wings, he felt
magic filling the air, a very old and dark magic. But he wasn’t
prepared for the sight that awaited him when he finally turned
around.

Innumerable gargoyles plunged down from the
sky, darkening the full moon before the night set in. The warriors
raised their swords and drew their longbows, but the beasts didn’t
attack, just landed on the surrounding trees without uttering a
sound. They looked like ugly birds watching their prey, deadly
claws tightened around the branches. Then, a last gargoyle flew
down, spanning his gigantic black wings.

He was the largest of them all, almost twice
as large as a grown man, with a heavy, muscular body that looked
part human, part dragon. He had long, crooked horns, one of the
tips broken off during a fight with his peers long ago. His dark,
purplish-grey skin looked almost withered, betraying his age. There
was no doubt about his leadership, being the oldest and strongest
of his race. Calatin knew that gargoyles kept their names secret,
only known to their own kind. The demons bowed their heads
respectfully as their chieftain arrived.

But all this wasn’t what caused the elven
knights to gasp in horror. It was the sight of Igraine, whom the
ancient gargoyle carried and slowly let down to the ground. He held
her solely with his claws, piercing the soft flesh of her
shoulders. Small trickles of blood ran over her skin, but she did
not seem to feel the pain. Her light elven clothes were gone,
doubtless shredded into rags by the creatures’ attack when she
tried to enter their city. They had given her a new dress, made of
precious soft velvet. It cut tightly around the arms and waist, but
with a long skirt that gave her enough freedom to move her legs,
and black as a raven’s wing. Tiny glittering onyx stones were
stitched to the bodice, glowing in the moonlight. Her hair was
parted, partly braided as a warrior’s. She looked like a dark
queen, so beautiful that Calatin’s heart missed a beat. But she was
very pale and still, so he thought her to be dead for a short
moment. Then, to the magician’s relief, she opened her eyes as the
gargoyle chieftain set her down, her bare feet softly touching the
forest floor.

She looked at her surroundings like a child
that had just awoken from a dream, then she directed her gaze at
the magician. Calatin couldn’t suppress a harsh outcry of shock
when he saw her eyes. They weren’t green anymore, but a bright
silver that gleamed in the night.

Calatin cursed under his breath and looked at
the gargoyle chieftain. “What have you done to her?” he hissed.
“Don’t you know who she is?”

The chieftain’s razor-sharp fangs showed
while he smiled brightly. “Why, your prince’s slave of pleasure, of
course,” he answered, his voice deep and melodic. “Her blood is
delicious. I couldn’t help but taste the human while I healed her
from the wounds my people regrettably inflicted on her. I fear the
change of color in her eyes is an inevitable side effect of the
poison. But it becomes her, don’t you think?”

Calatin’s body went rigid as he understood
the demon’s words. Gargoyle’s claws were poisonous, dangerous for
Fae but deadly for humans. But the bat-winged creatures were also
said to have great healing abilities, on which he had counted when
he sent Igraine to those creatures to ask for their help. “If you
have harmed her in any way …,” he began, drawing his sword.

“Calatin, it’s me,” Igraine said. When she
reached out and touched the elf’s arm, he relaxed and sheathed his
weapon. Hugging her briefly, he murmured, “Sweet Goddess, it’s good
to see you alive, Igraine. We thought we had lost you.”

“But I’m here, Calatin. Actually, I haven’t
ever felt this strong before. It appears to me that I’m just back
in time. You boys can’t have all the fun alone, so let’s go and
cause Ruadan some real trouble.”

She could have sworn that Calatin’s perfect
white teeth sparkled when he flashed her a very elfish grin. “I see
that you have brought some friends to join the party.”

* * * * *

"I, Elathan, Prince of the Elven Realms and
heir to the throne, confess that I stabbed my father’s heart with
Saighneán
.” The prince’s voice sounded as hard and cold as
the silver dagger presented to him by a goblin servant on a dark
blue cushion. Now more than ever, no one but he dared to touch the
dagger. When the goblin raised the exquisitely shaped blade for all
to see, a ray of moonlight broke on it, and it shimmered with an
otherworldly glow.

Elathan’s face betrayed no sign of emotion
while he stood in the middle of the stone circle where the council
of twelve elders had spoken justice since the dawn of time, when
even they had been young and subjects to the first elven king.
There were nine seats of black basalt inside the circle. The old
elves, eight of them male, four females, had taken their places to
hold court there, not to rise again until a sentence was uttered.
They were dressed in long, midnight blue robes, their faces of a
pale perfection that belied their true age. Only their eyes were
deep seas of wisdom, and not even the boldest warriors could stand
to hold their gaze too long.

Elathan had listened to Ruadan’s false
accusations without much interest, and his face had shown no sign
of emotion while his half-brother called forth his witnesses,
mostly palace servants who had either been bribed or intimidated by
the troll guards. Ruadan had undoubtedly threatened to kill their
families if they didn’t claim to have seen the throne heir
wandering the darkened corridors of the castle on the night of the
king’s death, blood staining his armor and a silver dagger in his
hand. He was willing to accept his fate as long as Igraine was safe
from Ruadan’s thirst for revenge. So he simply nodded when the
elders finally declared him guilty of high treason, although it
obviously grieved them deeply to condemn him to death. They knew
that the whole trial was a farce, still they were powerless to
intercede as long as he publicly confessed. No one could doubt the
word of the throne heir, by law the present king, even if he was
not yet crowned.

Ruadan had demanded that Elathan should be
beheaded with an axe, but the elders wouldn’t allow a member of the
royal family to die as a common traitor. According to the law, he
would die by his own sword. But as the throne heir refused to kneel
down before the executioner, who wasn’t tall enough to behead the
towering prince while standing up, Ruadan had to send for the
tallest troll in his guard.