Daughter of the Red Dawn (The Lost Kingdom of Fallada) (8 page)

“I know you have many questions,
P
rincess,”
he said as he paused, one foot up on the rope ladder. “All will be answered for you in time.”

“That ‘princess’ bit is going to take a
while to get used to. Be careful with her!” she added as he began his ascent.

Wil paused and grinned at her over his shoulder. “I don’t think that princess bit is going to be as hard as you think.”

~*~

Chapter
Four

Selena stared over the side of
The Adrah
, the Grimm brothers’ flying ship, her eyes wide as the landscape of Twin Oaks, Texas grew smaller and smaller. The wind whipped her titian hair around her face and neck as she leaned against the ship’s railing. It all seemed like something out of a dream; a flying ship, clouds rolling by at arm’s length, a
Werewolf
trapped in the brig
below
,
and a mystery that was very slowly unfolding. There hadn’t been much time for talking with Jacob and Wilhelm working to get them underway.

Zoe and Selena had watched them in awe, as they rapidly turned and pushed the numerous levers and buttons lining the side of the ship’s engines. After coming on board, the girls were told that the ship was propelled and kept aloft by steam, which came from the massive engine taking up most of the deck. As they’d walked slowly in a circle around the churning machinery, steam billowed from a large chimney-like opening and up into the ship’s pristine white sails.
The hulking thrusters beneath the shift propelled them along at a steady clip through the blue sky and toward the orange, pink, and purple sunset.

“This is
so
Chronicles of Narnia,” Zoe said as she approached Selena. She had been busy watching Jake and Wil direct the crew of ten men and the two hadn’t spoke
n
much since leaving Twin Oaks behind.

“I guess you can just call me little Lucy then,” Selena scoffed, “because no one back home is going to believe this.”

“Who cares? You’ve been waiting your whole life to leave Twin Oaks.” She swept her hand out in front of them, indicating the stretch of blue sky and the burning orange sun beyond.
“Now’s your chance.”

Selena tried to manage a smile, but couldn’t. There were still too many questions unanswered. She turned to find Jacob Grimm striding across the deck with a brown
,
leather-bound
book tucked under one arm. He’d removed is hat to reveal hair that was shorter than his brother’s
,
but equally gray.

“Jake!”

He stopped and adjusted his spectacles. “Princess Eladria,” he said with a bow. “We’ve stowed your grandmother in a cabin below deck and given her a sleeping draught. She’s resting peacefully for now, although I am expecting the fever to begin before the night is over. I’m afraid things will get worse before they get better until we get to Goldun.”

Selena nodded.
“All right.
How long will it take us to get there?”

“We will enter the realm of Fallada by sunrise. We journey to Goldun for two days from there.”

Selena pressed her fingers to her aching temples. “This all seems like so much to take in,” she said. “Is there time for you to start from the beginning now? Can you tell me more about Damu and who I really am? And if you know why Titus was sent to hunt me, I’d be glad to hear
that
,
too.”

Jacob cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses for what had to be the millionth time.
“Certainly
,
Princess.
If you’ll follow me, we’ll go below deck now. Wil is there and the four of us can sit in our cabin comfortably.”

Selena and Zoe followed, dodging the bustling crewmen as they moved busily across the deck. Selena was disarmed by the fact that they kept stopping their work to bow every time she walked by. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to
it
.

Selena paused, staring down through a metal grate that covered the little hold that Wil and the crew had called the brig. It was barely more than a hole in which they’d stashed Titus, who lay on his side, still unconscious. Her heart wrenched at the pitiful sight. She couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he was in his wolf form, stretches of lean and powerful muscle beneath a downy pelt of white and pale gray.

“Come on
,
Selena,” Zoe called from the stairwell leading below deck. She and Jake were already descending.

With one last look into the brig,
Selena trailed Zoe and Jake down the stairs and
into
a dark hallway. They fou
nd Wilhelm in a dimly lit cabin that was barely large enough to contain wall
-
to
-
w
all booksh
e
lves
, two small cots
,
and two desks overflowing with books and stacks of loose paper. Wil sat at one of the desks, a candle flickering beside him as he hunched over a sheet of paper with a quill pen in hand. When they entered, he pulled pen away from paper and laid it beside the open inkwell.

“Well,” he said, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. “Is Her Highness ready to hear the whole of it now?”

“Yes,” Jake said as he shuffled over to the unoccupied desk. He dropped the leather volume he’d been carrying on the table and began to unbutton his brown vest. “I thought you would delight in telling it to her.”

“Wonderful! You do know how I love spin a good yarn.”

Jake mumbled incoherently and lowered his head over the book, flipping it open and taking up his own pen. He quickly lit a candle and seemed to block everyone else in the room out.

“Don’t mind him,” Wil said, waving his hand in dismissal toward Jake. “My brother would rather daydream and scribble in his notebooks than carry on an actual conversation. Please, have a seat
…
if you can find one.”

Selena and Zoe shuffled through what seemed to be mountains of paper before locating two wooden, rolling chairs. They pushed them right up to Wil’s desk and sat, looking across the scratched wood at him expectantly.

He studied Selena closely, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. After a while Selena raised her eyebrows and cleared her throat.

“Well?”

“Hmm, yes, the story.
My apologies, it is just that you are a remarkable image of your
mother
. I cannot believe I didn’t see it before. It is clear to me that you are one of them.”

“Them?” Zoe questioned.
“As in princesses?
There’s more than one?”

Wil nodded. “Yes, but we’re getting ahead of
ourselves
,
aren’t we? Allow me to go back to the beginning, to
a time when the world of men existed in harmony with Fallada. I know that the notion of a
Werewolf
o
r a
Faerie
might seem like fairy
tale balderdash to you, but that is because the times I speak of have been forgotten. They are recorded only by the tales written
in books by men like Jake and I
.”

“What happened?” Selena asked. She wasn’t even going to question his claims. After everything she’d seen today, she had no reason not to believe him.

“Men, in their usual fashion, ruined everything. There was a time when we were allowed to move freely from our realm to theirs, back and forth at our leisure. We were welcomed by Fallada and her people and we marveled at the world that existed just beyond our own borders.
T
he violence and greed of man overruled good sense
,
and in time they began to covet Fallada’s riches and power.
Armies rose up against Fallada
and invasions were planned. In his infinite
wisdom, the
High King Endroth, called his council together and proposed a solution:  erect a wall between Fallada and Earth, erase the memory of the land from the history books to ensure the safety of Fallada’s people. After much deliberation, and disagreement from some parties, the decision was made and the
Fae
began using their magic to create the wall.”

“The same sort of magic you used on my house,” said Selena, remembering how Jake and Wil had walked the perimeter of her house chanting before boarding the ship for departure. They had worn odd-looki
ng talismans around their necks
and seemed to lose
themselves
in the task as they circled the yard, speaking in a language Selena didn’t recognize.

Wil nodded. “Yes, only much more powerful. Adrah, the Queen of the
Fae
,
led the effort
,
and soon the world of Fallada was closed away forever, safe from all intruders.”

“Aren’t you and Jake considered intruders?” Zoe interrupted. “Aren’t you humans?”

Wil smiled. “Yes, but we were allowed to stay. Jacob and I could not imagine a world in which Fallada did not exist. We had already reached our twilight years and knew that we wanted to spend our last moments in the kingdom we thought of as home.
We staged our deaths a few years apart—it took several years for the wall to be complete—and crossed over with the help of the
Fae
. It was our intention to live out our last years in the
Fae
kingdom, Goldun. Things did not go according to plan.”

“Is this when the war started?” At Wil’s raised eyebrows Selena shrugged. “Before Titus went all Teen Wolf on me, he said something about losing his parents to a war.”

“It wasn’t until the
wall was completed that we realized that a terribly evil deed had been committed. You see, Fallada is governed by a High King and Queen and below them are the rulers of the four regions. There is Goldun, the realm of the immortal
Fae
, Damu, the desert region, Zenun, the underwater kingdom, and Mollac, the icy region. The queen of Mollac, Eranna, was against King Endroth’s plans from the beginning. She is a vain and selfish woman who could think of nothing other than having humans worship her. Eranna hoped to enslave the human race and rule them with King Endroth at her side. It was her anger and jealousy that moved her to commit the great evil.”

“We had no way of knowing that Eranna had taken
Sorcerers
and
Witches
into her counsel. By the time we discovered just how powerful she had become, it was too late. She had already done away with the seven princesses.”

“Seven princesses,” Zoe murmured with a shake of her head. “Somehow that makes the fact that you are one feel less special, doesn’t it
,
Selena
…
or Eladria?”

Selena rolled her eyes at Zoe. “Just call me Selena, Zo. What happened to them, to us?” she asked Wil.

“Banished.
Sent away, over the wall and into the world of men and scattered about. Two came
from
Mollac, two from Damu, two from Zenun
, and the seventh is the daughter of King Endroth and heir to the throne of Fallada.
Since you and the six other girls were taken, Fallada has fallen
in
to darkness and Eranna has been gearing up for a takeover. Her dark army grows by the day and she has taken many lives and prisoners in her quest for dominance.”

Wil’s eyes clouded with sadness and he lowered them, leaning back in his
c
hair and hooking his thumbs into his suspenders with a sigh.

“Even King Endroth has fallen to her evil. She holds him captive in her iron fortress.”

“Why iron?” Selena asked.

“The only beings strong enough to go against Eranna are the
Fae
and they are harmed by iron. Large quantities of it will suck the life from a
Fae
rie faster than you can blink. She
plans
to use her iron fortress to shield herself from Adrah until she can gather enough power to rule.”

“I don’t get it,” Selena said, running a hand through her hair. “What does all of this have to do with me? I’m guessing Eranna is the one who sent Titus after me?”

Wil
nodded,
his expression grim. “Yes. The
Werewolves
were the first to fall into slavery under Eranna’s cruel hand. Those who dared to go
against her had no choice but to go into hiding. Eranna
is
using them against each other, pack against pack. Those loyal to her are her hunters and those who are not are slain. It is clear that this boy, Titus, is one of those loyal to her.”

Selena shook her head. “No. I can’t believe that.”

“Do not be fooled by his pretty face girl,” Wil warned, leaning forward to rest his hands on the desk. “A
Werewolf
’s eyes are the same color whether he’s in human form or animal form. What color eyes did the wolf have that attacked you, I ask?”