Before the Dawn (24 page)

"Oh, what does it matter?" he snapped, unable
to bear the pain he saw on her face. "I know I made mistakes, all
right? But I am willing to correct them and help you get your
people back. What more do you want from me?" In his agitation, he
started pacing. "I know that everything has become needlessly
complicated and problematic. Well, not everything is my fault, you
know! How could I have predicted that all this would come to pass
simply because I chose to grant one wish?"

Meran stood very straight as she fixed Raven
with a solemn gaze. "Please, before anything else, I would like you
to tell us the whole truth, everything that you kept from us or
lied to us about. Please—just tell us. You owe us that much."

He let out a breath. "I never deliberately
lied," he said quite feebly to excuse his actions. "I became my
brother's bond servant after he nearly died because I didn't want
him to find out my mother had played a part in almost killing him.
So I pledged my service to him and vowed to help him regain the
love he had lost. I served him for years until we found Rosamund's
reborn soul, and I stole the silver leaf protecting Aline and did
what I could so she would choose to be with him—because I just
wanted him to be happy! I knew, but I hoped I was wrong, that
something within him had been corrupted by the killing curse of
years ago. But he is my brother, the only one I ever cared for, and
I owed him his happiness after it was stolen away from him the
first time, so I ignored the signs. Then when he finally got Aline,
I knew that my mother was still planning something unpleasant for
him because she had hidden another silver leaf within Aline's
heart. And I wanted no part of it, so I left. Now I have to kill
him." He suddenly glared at them. "Do you think it does not torment
me, knowing I will be one of those who will end his life when it
was through a fault of mine that he has become what he is now?"

They were both silent as his eyes flashed
with anger. "Well, are you satisfied already, or do you still wish
me to speak more truth?"

A twisted, little smile appeared on Meran's
lips. "All of this," she said in a low tone while shaking her head
and looking bitter, "it's life and death to us but, to your people,
it's just a squabble for a throne. My friends and I—we're nothing,
just collateral damage. All it's really about is who gets to be
king. God!" She sounded disgusted with him.

"I have never cared for the throne," Raven
protested, actually looking a bit wounded that she would think that
of him. "I would have been perfectly content to bow down before
Benwyr and call him my King. But one little spell cast a long time
ago went awry and caused a lot of grief, and now we all have to
confront the consequences. I certainly never expected things to end
this way."

"Yeah. It was all just fun and games to you
until it became serious," she said. "Then you ran away, and things
got even worse. You could have done something to prevent this from
happening." Her tone wasn't angry or accusing, Meran just sounded
really tired and sad, but her words had enough power to make Raven
step back.

"I admit," he said carefully, "that I may
have done things that exacerbated the situation. But I never meant
anyone harm."

"I don't think you mean anything at all,"
Meran half-whispered. "Why should you care about these things, huh?
You're immortal and powerful. So what if your idea of fun means you
play around with people's lives? Or what if you and your mother
have to manipulate and kill people just to get what you want? No
big deal, right? It's just how you are."

Raven was looking truly pained by this time.
"Why are you saying all of this?" he demanded. "Are you
deliberately trying to wound me?"

"No." They stared at each other like they
were the only two people in the room. "I'm just realizing things
that I should have seen earlier," Meran told him. "You know, I'll
be really glad when this is all over. Then I'd never have to deal
with your kind, or see you, ever again."

Raven was speechless after hearing these
words. Anguish flashed in his eyes for a moment, and then he
abruptly disappeared. Trevor heard Meran release a little sob and
he turned to her in concern.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly when he
saw that she was crying in earnest now.

"Oh, I'm just great," she snapped as she
dabbed at her eyes. "Just really, really great!"

He chewed on his bottom lip nervously for a
moment, trying to think of what to say that would not make her feel
worse. "I'm sorry," was all he could come up with. "This is all
just a mess and we're both—we're both just stumbling around trying
to make sense of things and do what's right. Raven—he's—well, but
is there something between—?" he left the question unfinished.

She sniffed and didn't speak for a minute.
Finally, she answered him. "It's just—Raven and I—" She started
crying harder. "I've been really stupid. He's a Prince, for God's
sake, with magic powers, and he's gonna live forever."

There was a short silence, then, "Are you in
love with him?" Trevor asked. He was fairly sure of the answer, but
he thought that maybe she needed to admit it, especially to
herself.

She didn't say anything right away. Instead,
she dried her eyes and got herself fully under control again before
she spoke. "It doesn't matter." She tried to smile at him. "I used
to avoid guys like him when I was in high school, you know. I was
supposed to be smart about these things. Now I just feel
stupid."

Trevor stared at her intently. "You still
look like you're in high school," he reminded her. "And it's normal
to not be smart about some things. Believe me."

"Yeah," she nodded. "I guess you would know.
You got the chance to grow up while we got stuck in time, more or
less. I don't even wanna think about how we'll manage if we do get
back home. What if our families still don't remember us? What are
we gonna do then?"

Trevor was struck by this question. He
honestly had not considered it before. What would happen to Aline
and Meran and their friends if they were able to go home? He
wouldn't be there to help. And what if no one still remembered
them? They were still technically underage. Showing up mysteriously
in town without any records of them existing would just cause a
whole bunch of problems, and they had already gone through so
much.

"Maybe," he said, thinking fast, "maybe when
the Prince dies, all his spells will be reversed. Maybe your
families would remember you then." He really hoped that would be
the case.

"I hope you're right," she said. "God, this
is all just a mess. Why can't we just get to the happily ever after
part already?" She laughed bitterly. "Oh, yeah, because it doesn't
exist."

Feeling awkward, Trevor twisted in his seat
so he could pat her hand, wishing that he was better at comforting
people. "We'll find a way to fix things," he said, hoping that he
sounded confident. "We know people with magic, remember? There's
gotta be something that they can do." He stood up then and looked
around. "So, we're in Raven's mother's castle, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "He said it was the nearest
place he could get to."

"Have you been anywhere else other than this
room? Do you know what time it is? When are the Princes going to
attack Benwyr's Court?"

"The last time I looked it was around noon."
She shrugged. "But time is weird here. Do you wanna go exploring?
Let's try to find Raven and learn what he’s planning to do. I know
he's most probably brooding somewhere in this place."

"You sure you're okay with seeing him right
now?" he wanted to know. "Can you promise not to rip the guy's guts
out before we can get him to help?"

"Yes," she sighed. "Look, I know it wasn't
exactly the best time to get all emotional on him, but I couldn't
help it, okay? Just finding out that I could have not spent the
past seven years trapped in this place, if only he'd helped Aline
instead of his brother—it's all a bit much to take in, especially
with what the King wants his sons to do to my friends."

"We'll find a way to save them," he promised
quietly. "He may have worked for the other team before, but I'm
sure Raven will help us now. He has to."

While Trevor had been recovering in the room
deep within the castle, Meran had had time to explore the place for
a bit. So she was quite confident in leading him out of the dining
room and into other parts of the grand building in search of Raven.
It turned out to be quite a strange journey.

The architecture, in Trevor's admittedly
non-expert opinion, seemed to have been designed by a demented
romantic with a passion for non-Euclidean geometry. The curves and
edges of things were always just slightly off, stairs winded
everywhere, doors opened to nothing, lights brightened and dimmed
at random, plants and flowers grew from stone, water flowed from
ceilings to the floor then vice versa—it was all quite overwhelming
and amazing and terrifying and strangely gorgeous at the same time.
Trevor quickly became dizzy while trying to make sense out of what
he was seeing, so he stopped trying and just looked at everything
with a wonder-struck expression.

Meran, though, was more blasé about the whole
thing. When they at last climbed up a steep flight of stone steps
that suddenly inverted itself at the top and they found themselves
in the middle of a raised platform in a pool of green water that
had a door in the ground, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally!"
she exclaimed and got on her knees to open the door. It swung
widely upwards and their position abruptly shifted again when they
walked through and came out into a large balcony that overlooked
the biggest room that Trevor could ever imagine. The whole place
was so huge the four gigantic columns supporting the glass roof
soared thousands of feet into the air. Frames of silver held the
glass in place, and it took a moment before he realized that they
actually made an elaborate pattern that he thought looked vaguely
Celtic in design.

"Impressive, huh?" Meran said beside him
while he just gaped up at the roof.

Trevor finally managed to tear his eyes away
from the awesome sight and looked at her. "Did you really know
where we were going the whole time?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Things change around a lot,
but as long as you fix it in your head where you want to go, you'll
get there. You get a feeling, like there's an invisible compass
moving your feet. And there are always little markers that remind
you you're going the right way. Of course, that's only if the
castle and its owners want you to make your way around the place,
or don't really care where you go. If they suddenly become hostile,
the castle will kill you."

"Huh. That's not very comforting to know," he
commented, still glancing up at the roof from time to time. It was
a thing of beauty. "Especially if we're gonna try sneaking into the
Prince's castle again."

"Yeah," she agreed. "He wasn't ready for us
before, and I think Raven may have shielded us and the leaves
helped, but Benwyr can be really nasty when he sets his mind to it.
So we'd have to be more careful than ever." She walked over to the
balcony's edge then and gave a little gasp at the sight she beheld
below. "Trevor, look at this." She beckoned to him.

Curious, Trevor joined her and took a peek at
what had caught her attention.

They had found Raven. He was walking across
the magnificent hall, looking quite small from the great height
where they were standing. The light from the roof, which Trevor now
saw had the golden glow of afternoon, shone down on him and then
was swallowed up by the black clothes he was wearing. At the end of
the room was a massive pair of golden doors where his mother, also
attired in black, waited. Once Raven reached her side, they had a
brief conversation, and then he nodded quite sharply and she took a
few steps back until she was standing just slightly to his right. A
few seconds later, at what must have been an invisible signal from
one of them, the heavy doors slowly opened outwards.

A sound like the roar of a huge angry wave as
it crashes against the shore assaulted their ears once the doors
were fully open. Trevor looked at the sight revealed beyond the
doors and he realized that the roar was made up of the voices of
thousands of soldiers arrayed outside. His eyes also picked out the
tall figures of six warriors wearing armor who were walking towards
Raven with arrogance in their strides.

"Brother!" the tallest and the burliest one
exclaimed in a booming voice that was loud enough for even Trevor
and Meran to hear.

The two humans then looked at each other
worriedly. The other Princes had arrived. They were soon to attack
Benwyr and his Court.

***

Chapter 25

"Damn," Trevor muttered. "They're too far
away. I wanna know what they're talking about." His eyes were
completely focused on the distant figures of Raven and his brothers
as they discussed something with an intense air. Meran, too, was
looking frustrated that her curiosity wasn't being satisfied.
Finally, after several minutes, the other Princes nodded at
something Raven said and inclined their heads in a little bow
towards his mother, and then they walked back out. The great doors
slowly closed after them and complete silence reigned in the hall
once more.

Raven turned and unerringly met Meran's gaze
across the room. It was like he knew she had been in the balcony
with Trevor the whole time. Then, his voice magically amplified, he
said, "If you would please join us?"

The stone beneath their feet suddenly shifted
and melted away, making them back away from it in a panic. As they
watched, the stone continued to transform, eventually creating
narrow steps that led down to the hall. Tentatively, Meran tried
putting her weight on the first step. When it held firm, she
proceeded with caution and walked down to where Raven waited for
them. After a few seconds of hesitation, Trevor followed after
her.