Dreaming in the Dark

14

"Ange!" It was Folly, calling from the base of the tower in a stage whisper. "Ange!"

"Folly?" Ange leaned over the window sill. "What are you doing?"

"I'm here to help you." Folly had a rope with him, its end attached to a lead weight. "Stay back, and I'll throw."

Ange retreated, and Folly spun the weighted rope as fast as he could before letting it fly. It was the sort of exercise he'd enjoyed many times before, and the rope flew true on the first attempt. Ange took the weighted end, and she tied it around the leg of a heavy dresser, then went to wake Jo.

"We're escaping." She said, shaking her sister.

Jo bounced to her feet, as fresh as a recently decapitated flower, and said, "Where to?"

"Folly is outside, he brought rope for us to climb down."

Jo stared hard at her sister. "You like him, don't you?"

"WHAT? Shut up!" Ange fled to the window and began her descent. Jo went happily after.

Folly was waiting for them at the bottom. "We've got to go before we're seen."

"Go where?" Ange said. "We don't have anywhere of our own."

"There's a hiding place in the royal forest. It's a place no one goes. I won't let them force you to marry."

"No one's going to force me do anything." Ange said.

"Well," Folly faltered, "in any case, I'd like you to go with me."

Jo looked back and forth between them, grinning wildly. "Lead away." She said. Folly had brought a pair of riding horses, Jo took one, and Ange sat behind him, refusing to meet her sister's knowing looks. Jo found she had a natural affinity for horses, and she rode even more smoothly than the prince. The forest was within sight, several miles away over the rolling hills, and they set off at a steady trot.

"What's wrong with this kingdom?" Ange asked Folly.

He stiffened. "It's not the kingdom, its my father. Ever since our mother passed, he's changed. And when he changed, it seemed the whole world did too."

"What happened to her?"

"There were many knights who served my father once. They were valiant and patient and strong. But one of them betrayed us."

"He killed your mother?"

"He loved her, and she returned his love. I could see how happy she became, and so did her king."

Ange felt a tightening in her chest, and she clenched her jaw until it ached. "How did she die?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Haggard would not be a cuckold." Folly spoke no more until they reached the dark embrace of the wood.

"It's a little ways further," he said, "a ruin we call a Deathhouse."

Jo had been holding a one sided conversation with her horse for the better part of half an hour, but at this she paused. "A Deathhouse? What sort of place is that?"

"An old one," he said, and led them where the light of the star flowers was reduced to an ashy tinge upon the edges of things. The Deathhouse was all of stone, without a single brick, as if the whole had been carved like a sculpture from a block. Its door was an open portal surrounded with carvings depicting acts of life and death. Some of the images were simple, and others possessed of intricacy and depth, faces and arms ready to escape their rocky tombs.

Inside it was utterly dark, but Folly knew where he had left his lamp, and he lifted its shade to reveal an ever burning stone.

"I hid my heart here, after she was gone."