Just Another Red-Headed Chosen One

Chapter 5 The Heart

I kissed Wicker again. His features stayed the same, and he didn't need to transform into anything but keep being the man I loved. He was beautiful and mine. Better magic happened. Wicker's eyes opened, and he kissed me back.

Nor did I gain powers or even want them.

We kissed again, and I touched his hand.

He finally broke away. "I love you, but we need to leave or find another camp."

"No, we need to hide in front of them." I made an impromptu cane out of a branch and created a leg brace from leftover wood in my backpack. "Sorry, I'd have brought your things if I knew you survived."

I changed my disguise again into a raven-haired woman, and I brought out makeup and made him appear as an older man instead of the thirty-year-old disabled prince. My wonderful prince. I sprayed him with perfume and placed it into the pocket of my pants.

"What is that?" Wicker asked.

"It is a potion that temporarily removes magic. It's how I saved my sister."

"Why would you want to remove my magic?" Wicker asked me.

We walked a mile, and the magic hunters couldn't smell any birth magic on us and let us pass.

Finally, we reached the cliff.

But a hidden cave full of women surrounded us with homemade spears. I used water to remove his cosmetics.

"Glory that the true prince lives!" My mother wrapped a leg brace around Wicker's ankle.

"Glory to His Highness." My sister offered him water.

I examined his wrists for the first time. "My Highness, I'll get you ointment for your wrists." I run toward the back to find a first aid kit.

"Rose-Red, please just call me Wicker. What con are you pulling?" he asked. "And I love you."

I rub the ointment into his wrists. "Sorry, protecting you isn't a con."

"You know, I didn't mean it like that. But my entire security team is dead, yet you rescued me."

I sat next to him and gave him a little hug. "They sent me to retrieve your body, and I couldn't leave it with the carnival. You don't know how joyful I'm to see you."

"You showed me." He rested his head on my shoulder.

I spoke. "My plans. I guess it's up to us to take The Beating Heart Carnival and the magic hunters down. We're burning this carnival down once we figure out why they needed Hanna and your hearts."

"So only those without magic can fight the horde. Wow, that is interesting. Maybe I have been looking at this wrong." Wicker stood up. "Where is the prime minister?"

"Murdered for possessing birth magic, and my sister barely escaped." I took him through a lit tunnel. "Our new home is protected by the mountains."

In the small valley, men and women fished at a stream, and a unicorn lay near a campfire while children fed him apples, roasted marshmallows, and hay.

Groups of settlers pitched yurts which were stronger than camping tents.

"This is what they want to destroy," I said to Wicker. "They want to destroy God's creations."

"And they want to kill me." He hugged me.

I squeezed back. "You're what is right in the world." My mouth found his.

"But I defied my family, even to talk to you, because the youngest prince is not supposed to fall in love."

"Well, right now you're the only true royal the kingdom has. And your parents can't suddenly decide to arrange a marriage for you because you're mine." My eyes opened. "What if it's not a real heart?" I located the misshapen crystal heart. "Do we say an incantation?"

"No, I think you destroy it," he said.

I crushed it with the heels of my heavy boots.

A black orb rose into the sky, shaped not like a heart but like the fallen queen's face.

Soon, spirits entered it. Each monster's beautiful face screamed in pain. Their queen was ruling over them in a carnival in purgatory.

She appeared to us with raven hair and ruby lips frozen in a smile. The Queen was the mirror image of her daughter, Snow White. "Don't worry, they were already dead and didn't know." She disappeared with them.

I kissed My Sweet Wicker. We don't realize the steep price paid for their happy endings. Beautiful monsters, all gone, for they sold their soul to the queen.