21) Knife

The rolling earthquake of Bronwyn's steed woke her from the nightmare, and she was riding past the city gates and into the deep forest, passing merchants and countrymen, lesser nobles and then more important ones as they traveled to the royal hunting lodge for the proclamation. The morning of the third day, as the sun rose above the mountains on the spring equinox, she blasted through the gates, scattering commoners and courtiers alike as she galloped towards the tableau on the granite steps. The Mare trumpeted and pawed at the air over Magda's still form as her head struck the stair, and Bronwyn fell to the flagstones beside her, cloak darkening from crimson to coal as she spread it over the girl. She touched the fire-etched face, watched as the light left the morning glory eyes and the breath stilled. As sure as if she watched them in the mirror herself, she knew that Grahme and Rue bore witness to the death as well, and that Grahme collapsed back onto the bed, his massive heart faltering and then falling as silent as the girl on the ground beneath her on the steps. An eerie wail of loss rose from her, a shriek that rose in pitch and volume as the clouds gathered around her, lightning striking around them over and over again until the granite stairs melted and then shattered from the heat of it.

When at last Bronwyn stood, her eyes had bleached to the color of ice as she raised her hand to point at the prince, the healer's blood on her fingers. "Not pretty enough for you, boy?" she demanded, advancing on the petrified youth and his stunned retinue. By some miracle, they were all still alive to see the prince fall to his knees.

"Never again, my Prince, will one of your blood-line strike a woman in arrogance." She advanced on him, drawing the woodsman's hunting knife with her bloodied hand and yanking his head back by the hair, forcing him to look up at her as she spoke. "Your father, your father's father, and back until the founding of your line, all have taken their subjects as property, as a right and not a responsibility. It is laughable that you have lived as long as you have. But there will be no more. It ends here." She lifted the knife high. With a swift slice, she opened the right side of his face to the bone, only barely sparing the eye. "You are a beast, not a man, and soulless in your selfishness and cruelty.

Without releasing him, she looked around at the courtiers. They cast their eyes down, looking anywhere but the bloodied prince or the body of the woman on the stairs. A dreadful force came to a crashing halt in the witch's heart. "Can't look at her, my lords and ladies? Can't look at what your princeling has done?" She spun, not losing her grip on the crown prince. Suddenly her simple dark dress flowed down her arms and body like another dress had, formal silks in the same fashion worn eighteen years ago. Her white hair shone in the eerie phosphorescence of witchlight, and the gathered crowd recoiled as they recognized the old King's last Queen. "Can't bear to see what your king wrought, over and over again?" The wind began to rise again, but her voice rang against the stones of the hunting lodge and courtyard, and there was no escaping her words. "Six wives before me threw themselves from their crystal cage to their deaths because not one person stood against him before me." A distant roaring like a forest fire echoed from the distant mountains. “Even now the maids and the manservants begin to cringe before your princeling, and not one person has spoken out. Surely, tend their wounds, but this boy-king and his people must have Justice, must learn the compassion that acts to protect the wounded, not cower before the predator."

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She looked back down at her son once more, and saw the flash of wolfen yellow in his eyes as he drew breath to speak. "Will you kill me, then, witch?" he sneered, a measure of fear shading the arrogance..

She dropped his head and slapped him sharply across his flayed cheek, smearing his blood with Magda's. "Death is not good enough for you. You know everything of privilege, everything of pride and beautiful things. Now you will know what it is to be feared, to be hated, not for your power but for the ugliness in your soul." He doubled over in agony. "A curse upon you, boy, and all your house. You act like a ravening beast, you shall live like one, look like one, breaking everything you love with strength beyond your control.” His body twisted as her words fell down around him like hailstones. “A curse upon you, boy, until you learn to see another's heart as your own, that you may act in kindness and without gain." His fine clothing shredded around him and fell to the flagstones. "A curse upon you boy, that until someone can love you for your heart, despite your face, and chooses to marry you anyway in joy and not in fear, you shall remain a beast." He fell to the ground as his bones shattered and reformed, something more bear-like or boar-like, with far less the wolf in its gaze, and it reached up to her in supplication.

She turned away, surveying the gathering. "And for you, as you have been ghostlike and impotent to help any of his victims or his father's victims, or his grandfather's victims before them, so you shall become as ghosts, impotent to help him or serve him until the curse is broken except by the greatest effort of will. As you whispered of his crimes in life, so you shall only be able to whisper from this day forward until the curse is broken." A hush fell over the courtyard, spilling into the lodge through the doors and windows, spreading through the houses and shops within the walls of the small town, as if every hearth fire in the kingdom gathered itself up and simply left, each salamander chasing the last sparks up the chimney, flitting towards the courtyard. No breath rustled except for the Mare's as she snuffled over the fallen healer and the agonized gasps of the beast-like creature cowering before the witch. The people, nobles, servants, commoners and merchants, simply disappeared, invisible but still present as the faintest of whispers in the empty buildings.

Bronwyn knelt and lifted Magda into her arms, cradling the girl's head against her cheek and shoulder so she would not have to feel the loose way that dark head moved on the neck. The collected salamanders of an entire kingdom came upon them, witch, healer and Mare, and bore them away in a pillar of silent fire.

Magda and the giant who loved her as a father were burned on the same funeral pyre that very night, wrapped in the love of the sister who yet lived. The witch stood in the darkness beyond the firelight on the hill, drowning in fury and despair.

Finally, wordlessly, Bronwyn mounted the Mare and left the mountain.