xxxv.

"YOUR MAJESTY, THEY ARE TURNING AWAY," THE SENIOR general of the Angrian army shouted over the slashing of swords against shields and the booms of the army canons repeatedly going off, masking the comparatively submissive sounds of the minute bullet shots from the soldiers leaning on their rifles for the fight. 

King Alexander Casimir breathed heavily as he stopped, his sword held tight in his right hand as his back throbbed from the slash he had received from one of the beast's sharp tusks, before the very beast had succumbed to The King's sword, it's head cleanly sliced off its body as it rolled away to its macabre freedom amongst the soldiers feet. 

Zander couldn't pinpoint when exactly the fight had started, or how long he had been fighting. The muscles in his body were numb, his and breaths were coming in harsh, but he was master of his body and his anger, and thus nothing was holding him back. Nothing could hold him back once the beasts had suddenly started pouring over the border, baring their tusks and giant tree trunk sized logs to bare as their weapons. Their advance had been haphazard and without any military control, as though the threads holding them in place and in position had finally snapped, making them run free in their anger and restlessness, each creature united in nothing but their power and fury. 

By the way they killed, tearing across every man that came in their way—knocking them away like they were but chess pieces on a board game, it had made Zander feel as though the creatures had bottled fury for everything and everyone, not just the Angrian army or the Kingdoms in particular. These were animals, and one look at them would betray the fact that they were only there because of someone's control. Ferdinand had taken advantage of the beasts' restlessness and anger, and he had molded it to fit his own. 

Zander hadn't had time to dwell more on them, for his every thought had then went into the fight and his men. He had blocked everything else out. He had blocked the twisting and bleeding of his own heart out, for if he listened to it even for a second, it would remind him of his wife, who was probably in the hands of the enemy Ferdinand, alone and hurt. Her safety depended on him overtaking the enemy. Her survival depended on him ridding the lands of the Heraum—wiping away their threat and reducing the sixth fairy to the scum he had previously been without the patronage of his fellow fairies and of any King from all the lands. 

King Alexander Casimir had had to assign two fairies to search for his wife and for Ferdinand's hiding place—or rather, those two fairies had convinced him to let them make the search so that he could focus on fighting the Heraum army at the border. Zander hadn't wanted to do anything without making sure Isa was found safe and sound, he had wanted to search for her himself. But what the fuck would he bring her back to if he did that? A fallen Angrian army without their King to lead them into battle? Angrian lands ravaged by the Heraum, trampled underneath their beastly feet? 

Isadora would hate him if he did that. She would hate him if he let anything happen to his people. She wouldn't forgive him if he gave up on them for search of her, so Zander had decided to do both. He would butcher those two fairies himself if they returned from the search without his wife. He would impale their heads on pikes and mount them on the boundary walls of his palace, he would eviscerate them if anything happened to his wife and Queen. The death he was giving to the Heraum coming under his sharpened blade was merciful compared to what he would do to the fairies he had sent in pursuit of Ferdinand and where the damn sorcerer was keeping Isadora. The King of Angria had hoped to find the sorcerer on the battle field and gorge the information out of him, but alas, the man was a fucking coward. 

"Your majesty!" The senior army general shouted again. "The enemy is retreating! Do we have orders for pursuit?" 

Sure enough, Zander came to his present senses and realized the scarcity of beasts around him. The dead amongst them lay on the ground, but the ones still living and merely injured by either canon, bullets, or swords, had their backs to the Angrian army, their forms growing smaller in vision as their feet pounded against the ground and they started running away, abandoning their dead and spoils.

Zander wiped his forehead with his free hand, blood on his hand smearing on his sweaty forehead, but he couldn't care less at present.

"Take some men," Zander shouted at his senior general, before gesturing to a green cloaked figure in his periphery.

The figure approached at The King's summon in a second, the green cloak covering the older man and fairy's age wizened body, his round head and large eyes fixated upon the King.

"Your majesty?" The man of fairy godmother's kin, inquired, a quizzical brow raised in determination.

"Go with the general and the man, take your kin," Zander bore his eyes into the man's, his jaw tight and aching with his fierce resolution as he breathed heavily through his nose.

The Angrian army's senior general approached the King from the side, ready to take more orders.

"Take the fairy godmother too, if you must," The King of Angria addressed the green cloaked fairy—Rothbart—he remembered was the name. "I want those creatures back where they belong. I want them gone, so that they never come out again. My men will do the chasing to where ever you decide to bury them, but bury them where they won't ever rise up again, do you understand me?"

The fairy, Rothbart, nodded gravely, his manner encased with a submission that stemmed from guilt and regret. Zander found the emotions adequate for the fairy—for all the fairies to have—for was it not their kin who had orchestrated the doom? The death of so many? They all should be ashamed, humiliated, ridden with guilt. Zander wouldn't tolerate them any other way, he wouldn't let them roam in his periphery in any other way.

"I shall stay with you, your majesty," A third voice spoke up, and The King of Angria turned to look at the fairy godmother's blue cloaked form.

The old woman had stayed away amidst the battle, not having her own wand to offer help and fight against the enemy like two of her kin—Rothbart and Augusta—had been doing. The fairy godmother had hidden herself away, and now amidst the fallen bodies of Angrian men and those of Heraum, the woman looked frail and delicate, as though she would shatter like vintage porcelain in a travelling antique master's possession.

"Rothbart and Augusta are capable enough of ensuring the Heraum are taken back where they belong and don't return."

Zander didn't say anything, moving his eyes towards his senior general and nodding once, before he shot Rothbart a glance as well. Both the men turned away, the former shouting for some men and the latter in search of the fairy named Augusta.

The King of Angria hadn't focused on the two fairies on the battlefield, but from the glimpses he had had underneath the pitch black night sky, they had both taken down many of the Heraum with their magic. They had more of a body count then ten of Zander's men put together, and considering the unnatural build and strength of the Heraum, Zander was grateful for the help, even if his tortured mind and scared heart wouldn't let him.

"The remaining two fairies," Zander turned to face the fairy godmother. "What news of them? Have they found my wife? Have they found Ferdinand?"

"I do not believe so, your majesty," The fairy godmother hastened, "But I think I have."

Zander's lips parted, his heart stilling in chest.

"Where—where is she?"

The fairy godmother lifted her small eyes to look at The King, doubt and hesitance etching her facial features underneath the night sky, before she exhaled slowly and schooled herself.

"I sense my wand, your majesty," The old woman began. "I sense it's presence back at your palace. It's magic calls me. If I'm correct, the wand was with Isadora and she has now returned to the palace. It must've gone with her when we separated."

Zander startled, desperation flooding him as he forced his exhausted, aching body to move. Augustus had been tied safety with rest of the men's horses, if he set off at once and rode fast enough, he would be at the palace in a few—

"But your majesty," The fairy godmother's higher, shriller voice stopped The King of Angria in his tracks.

"I sense something else beside my wand, in the palace."

Zander's head whipped towards the woman, his chest tightening.

"What do you mean?" He breathed, a heavy pressure in both his ears.

The fairy godmother shook her head, her thick hands gesturing in vague desperation.

"I—I'm not sure but I think it is Ferdinand. My wand couldn't reach me from where ever he had taken Isadora previously and hidden himself. But now it can, and I think I sense Ferdinand. He may have followed her back, or maybe he brought her back himself as part of a scheme—I—I'm not sure."

"At my palace?" Zander let out, "He is at my palace with my wife?"

"Yes, your majesty," The fairy godmother stammered then, shrinking underneath The King of Angria's raised voice. "We must quickly—"

"How dare that fucker show his face there?"

"Your majesty," The fairy godmother swallowed thickly, fearful of the King's wrath, "I informed you of his dislike for the Angrian royalty—he must've thought of something—the retreating Heraum, oh, your majesty! Ferdinand must've come up with another way of revenge! Isadora, oh darling Isadora, she is Angrian royalty now too. If she escaped from Ferdinand with the aid of my wand, then must've followed her back! He plans to harm her for his revenge against Angria!" 

"One of my men will escort you to the palace," Zander uttered, his jaw tight, desperate terror engulfing his heart as he fought against it. God, had he ever felt fear like this before? What would he do if the wizard lay his hand on her? What would he do is was hurt? What would he do with himself? 

"Grab a fucking coffin on the way, fairy godmother, I'm afraid you're taking Ferdinand to a resting place in pieces as small as I can make them. As for the possibility of my wife being harmed, I will tear your body apart and make it accompany the villain's. I will have the heads of all of your kin stuffed into that same over crowded coffin, then I will have that coffin sink to the bottom of the ocean, do you understand me?"

With that he turned away, making his way over fallen bodies of the Heraum and past the dead Angrian soldiers, shouting an order for a few men to get the message of victory against the Heraum, across to the neighboring kingdoms. Another order was made then, as The King of Angria untied and mounted his horse Augustus, taking hold of the reigns. The order was to round up all the dead Angrian men, bodies of soldiers were to be sent to their families, for the ones who had families. The bodies of nobles, and soldiers without families, were to be given a proper burial.

The King of Angria reared his horse, his eyes briefly fixed on the dead body on the ground of The Duke of Basingstoke—the man who had had the gall to marry the woman Zander loved, by threatening her with the future of her adopted son. Zander had once promised to kill the man himself, to take the Duke apart by his own bare hands. But he had resisted for Isadora's sake, he had sent the man to fight on the border and protect it, and the Duke had in turn succumbed to his own fate.

Zander turned away, and yanked at the reins of his horse, galloping off with two mounted guards following behind.

—🥀—

King Alexander Casimir's heart was pounding brutally in his chest for the entire duration of the ride back to Angria. He did not know how long he rode, taking shortcuts where necessary. His grip of the reins was tighter each second to the point where his fingers throbbed just as much as every muscle in his body did. Augustus, as though sensing his master's desperation and fear, galloped as fast as he could, equally desperate as though he too was aware of the situation Isadora might be in, and wanted to waste no second in getting Zander to the palace. 

The guards behind The King kept up the pace to match their King's, and as the landscapes whisked by, Zander took desperate solace in the fact that he was almost at the palace. 

The night sky still shone overhead, dotted with perhaps a thousand stars like glitter, the moon too shy to step out from behind the cloud he was hiding underneath. It couldn't have been more then a thin crescent, still it hid itself away, as though unlike the stars, it was too scared to show himself on such a dark night. It was as though it suspected what Zander was too afraid of. It was as though the moon—a thousand miles away—had seen already the terror that The King of Angria was too fearful of. 

As he rode, squinting in the darkness at the path ahead, he glimpsed at the terrified moon up in the sky with a vague fury. There wasn't enough light to guide his way, but his fury at that fact melted away when he glimpsed the glowing cloud behind which the crescent was hiding. 

Once—he couldn't help but remember—when he had first met his wife, he had asked her to accompany him to Reginald's palace observatory. The moon was one of the first things they had ever talked about when he had spun her underneath the glowing night sky that night in at the palace of Valence. The fact that it was Charming's ball was an insignificant highlight, for in that moment, Zander had seen nothing and no one but her. 

When they had become engaged, so much time had been taken up in the preparations of the engagement ball, that Zander had assumed he would have plenty of time to show her every fucking star in the sky from his observatory after the celebrations of their union were over. But then, she had been torn away from him by a man who now lay dead and battered on the battle field at the border as though he had been the most insignificant barrier in between Zander and Isadora. God, he had seemed so significant at the time. Zander had been ready to strangle him, cover him with gasoline and set him on fire. The now battered and dead man had fought Zander's sense of self and existence the moment he had married Isadora and till he had been alive. But Zander had gotten rid of him and taken Isadora back, had he not? 

Why then hadn't he had the time to show her every goddamn star in the sky from his palace observatory? There had been paperwork involving the annulment of her marriage with the Duke, and then more paperwork involving the addition of Zander's name on Archie's adoption papers. He had also had to make changes in his Kingdom's royalty laws, changing succession so that Archie would become the Crown Prince upon Zander and Isa's wedding, and then there were the fucking Heraum threats at the borders. The King had assumed he would lay down the whole sky at his wife's feet—observatory or not—after they were finally married. But then she was taken away again. 

Zander had had enough of all the fucking interruptions. He had had enough of everything that has come in between, and he would eviscerate everything that lay in his path to Isadora now. 

The glowing vision of the Angrian palace sauntered on the darkened horizon, and The King of Angria yanked at the reins harder, making Augustus pick up more speed as they thundered towards the palace. 

Zander didn't know where he got off his horse, for his desperation made his body move as he threw the reins away and released Augustus from underneath him, running towards the open palace doors, in the grand foyer of which, he could make out a cluster of figures crowded around something or the other. The sparkling yellow golden lights of the giant chandeliers on the foyer ceiling lit the scene for him as he ran to approach, but offered him no answers as to what was happening inside. 

The doors were fully open, and The King saw no guards positioned outside, making out the uniformed figures of only two guards amongst the other crowded figures. These two guards had abandoned their positions, their attentions engaged by the same that had the crowd's attentions captured. The crowd, he saw—as Zander neared, running—consisted of Reginald, Charming and his wife—the latter girl on her knees beside something on the gleaming floor that Zander couldn't see. He saw the erect figure of Lady Tremaine on the ground beside the girl too, and he saw Isadora's frivolous sister Lucinda, gawking at the subject of all attentions on the ground, before her eyes met Zander's in shock and bewilderment as he arrived. 

The air around him—as he sprinted up the minimal stairs and leapt into the open grand foyer, stopping to breathe heavily as his heart thrummed in his chest—consisted of shocked gasps and the tortured doom of tragedy, the feared emotion catching his heart and constricting it, letting him churn in the realization that what he had feared the most had somehow dawned regardless of his persistence and defiance.

His hair was stuck to his forehead with perspiration, and his chest ached terribly as he tried to breathe, and something on his back burned as though he had been slashed with a sharp end without his knowing, the pain only seeping to his realization now. He pushed it all away, his lips parting as he stood rooted to his spot, trying to regain himself and think of what words to say that would lead him straight to Isadora. 

After Lucinda, it were the guards who noticed their King first, both of them tucking their swords into the scabbards, saluting and dipping into a bow. King Reginald stepped away and approached Zander slowly, an unfathomable pity surging in his eyes as he put a consoling hand on the side of Zander's arm. Charming offered Zander a muted look of sympathy, while Cinderella's sniffles punctuated the atmosphere of the brilliantly gleaming foyer where Zander had crossed moments his entire life, going into and out of the palace. Lucinda Tremaine tugged at her mother's sleeve, but the woman didn't look up from the scene on the ground that she way seated by. The scene that Zander was fully privy to now, for Reginald, the guards, and Charming had moved out of the way. 

The King of Angria took a moment to register, for his heart was attempting to pound his eardrums in. He took a moment to register the image of Isadora lying on the foyer ground, her eyes closed, her emerald dress skirts flared underneath her, and her head resting on the lap of Lady Tremaine, the elder woman hunched over the still form of her daughter as if encased in a blinding trauma that had left her numb.

Slowly, deaf and mute, Zander stumbled forwards, his legs shaking as he dropped onto his knees beside Isadora's body. His mind was working, and his hands shook at his sides as he feared to touch her, afraid that if he felt her than this image of her would become real. 

"W—what happened?" His voice cracked, as he wiped his forehead with the back of his blood encased and muddied hand.

"Please," He spoke, his eyes meeting Lady Tremaine's ghostly blank ones. "Is she—please, is she—"

He couldn't say it, he couldn't ask if she was dead. His eyes blurred as hot tears rolled down his face, scalding the dried mud and splashes of Heraum blood on his face away. 

Lady Tremaine didn't speak, and the absolute horror of it made his fear real. He didn't have to touch Isadora to make it real that she was gone, he only had to look at Lady Tremaine's face, for the woman had never looked like this. For all the woman's schemes and discreet sly demeanor, for all of her spite and ambition, this was a mother who looked as though her soul had been sucked out of her body while she still stood alive. 

Zander turned away from her and reached a shaking, muddied hand out towards his wife body, reaching for her delicate, beautiful, precious face, but he wavered, and retreated his hand sharply back to cover his face with it. 

Somewhere, having rolled over at the back of the grand staircase, was a crimson apple with a space where The Queen of Angria had taken a fateful bite from, except, that apple now lay in the shadows, oblivious from the spectators' peripheries. 

Alexander Casimir of Angria covered his face, his chest feeling as though it had been speared through. Had he died by being speared through by one of the Heraum's tusks, it would have hurt less than this. 

He got up then, forcing himself onto his feet, his pain translating into blinding hot fury as it wired every muscle and bone in his body. 

"Where is he?" Zander grabbed the nearest guard's collar, yanking the man close viciously as he shouted in the man's face. 

"Where is that fucking wizard?"

"W—wizard?" The guard stammered fearfully as his uniform hat went askew on his head, "But your majesty, it—it was an old woman. She—she gave an apple to the Queen." 

Zander blinked, his grip loosening on the man before he tightened it again. "You watched someone poison my wife? Your Queen?" 

"No, your majesty!" The man cried, "The old woman, she was magic. She told the Queen that the war had been lost, and that you were dead! The Queen saw it in a—in a crystal ball. The old hag she—" 

"Damn you," Zander's jaw tightened as he dragged the man and swung him hard towards the nearest wall. 

The guard crashed against it, falling to the ground, but before he could let out even a groan and assemble himself, Zander was on him again, grabbing the man's neck and raising him to his height pinning him by the neck against the wall. 

"You fucking useless coward," The King spat.

"Your majesty!" A cry diverted his attention, and Zander's head spun towards the fairy godmother, who was breathing heavily, and displayed her lost wand, raised, in her thick hand. 

Behind the blue cloaked woman, stood the two forms of the fairies that were appointed to search for The Queen of Angria, and the hiding place of the sixth fairy. 

Zander saw red at the sight of the trio, and he let go of the guard, striding towards the fairy godmother. 

"He has taken her from me," He shouted, his face dangerously close to the fairy godmother's as his voice cracked and tears blurred his vision again. His jaw was so tight, he was sure his own face would crack in half. 

"Look at her!" Zander yelled again as the fairy godmother's sorrowful eyes ventured onto Isadora's frame on the ground, the woman shrinking back underneath the King's torturous fury. 

"He has taken her from me!" He shouted again, his vehement eyes finding the two fairies behind the fairy godmother's form. "Where is he? You were sent to track him down! Where the fuck is he?"  

"Your majesty!" The second guard in the foyer spoke up, his voice shaking with fear as The King's eyes whipped towards him, "The old hag who poisoned the Queen, the creature ran after it! I sent a few guards in pursuit of the two of them." 

The King blinked, his hands fisting at his sides. The sixth fairy had disguised himself to hurt Isadora, but who the fuck was the creature? 

"Bring her back," Zander's eyes met the fairy godmother's, as he wiped at his hot tears furiously with the back of his hand, angry at himself for falling apart, cursing himself for losing the one person he had cared for the most in the entirety of his damned life. 

He glanced at the fairy godmother's wand, before meeting the woman's eyes again. "Bring Isadora back to me." 

The old woman's brows furrowed in pain, before her lips parted in reluctance and she shook her head. "Your majesty—" 

"Bring her back to me!" Zander shouted, gesturing with his hand as the two guards in the room—one a little worse for wear, but functional—instantly appeared at the woman's side, grabbing her arms and overpowering her as she struggled.

"Your majesty, please, I can't," The fairy godmother cried out, being forced to her knees in front of the King by the guards. 

The King of Angria shook his head, his hands grabbing the back of his neck as he tried to school his fury and desperation. 

"I'll butcher you if you don't." 

"Your majesty!" One of the other two fairies blurted out then, the woman as old as the fairy godmother, but more frail and thin underneath her purple cloak.

"You must try to understand, we can't help the Queen because only the fairy who has put her under her life knows how to revive her."  

Under her life. Zander shut his eyes tight, his fists shaking at his sides. 

Just then, before he could do or say anything else, shouts were heard as footfalls escalated and before The King of Angria's eyes, a creature of the Heraum—though much shorter, stouter and domestic looking than any he had seen on the battle field—stumbled in carrying what looked to be a glowing green wand in his stubby thick hands. The creature was followed by the form of a stumbling, shrieking, hideously old woman, who was in turn followed by five guards who stopped haphazardly at the sight of their King and dropped in bows in sync. 

"You bloody leech!" The old hag shrieked at the creature, as the latter scurried over to the Queen of Angria's form on the ground, crouching beside her body as though he was seeking refuge in Isadora's presence—regardless of the fact that she was not breathing. The creature's thick legs sported viciously bleeding scratch marks, and Zander connected them to the bony, sharp nailed hands of the old hag. 

"Give it back! Give it back!" The old hag's shrill voice echoed, but before she could leap towards the creature, Zander had her caught in the grips of three of his men as the hag struggled to be let free. 

The dark and dirty hood of the hag's cloak fell off her head, revealing her gaunt, blood drained and angry wrinkled face, warts on her neck like a cluster of mushrooms. She looked around, taking in the faces around her, desperate dismay etching into her features. 

"No, no," The hag screamed. "This was not how it was supposed to go! You roach, you ruined me!" The hag struggled to be free of the guards in order to attack the creature, who shrunk further beside Isadora's frame. 

"It's over, Ferdinand," The fairy godmother's voice croaked as she up righted herself when the guards at her side let her go upon a gesture from The King. 

"You!" The magician screamed, eyes filled with hatred as they bore at the fairy godmother. "You kept saving her, time and time again!" 

"She wasn't supposed to be alive!" The wizard thrashed, "I killed her as soon as I knew of your stupid prophecy. I killed her in Toulouse—I stabbed her multiple times! I killed her but still she lived because of you!" 

Zander startled, his head reeling. He thought of everything Isadora had told him of her life, he thought of the murder of her best friend and Archie's biological mother. God, was it Isa who was supposed to die? This fucker had tried to kill Isadora even before Zander had met her. The realization made his blood boil, it made him want to disembowel the magician where he stood. The King of Angria glanced at the fairy godmother, had she saved Isadora? Was this fairy the reason he had the privilege of meeting Isa—the purpose of his whole goddamned life—and had had the chance to fall in love with her?  

"The King of Angria was supposed to collapse," The hag shouted again, her beady eyes bearing into Zander's. "He was supposed to give in to the fucking war. He was supposed to lose! He was supposed to fall! He wasn't supposed to have fallen in love! Wretched, damned love!" 

Then the hag looked at Isadora's unmoving form on the ground, and suddenly, the fury wiped itself clean off her ugly, demented face. 

"But she is dead now," The hag grinned, her teeth missing in places and pitch black in some, as she slumped against the guards' hold. "Whatever love that kept him going—won him this war against me, is of no matter now, is it? At least I had my revenge against the loathsome Angrian royalty." 

Zander leapt towards Ferdinand, grabbing his hag's body by the neck and lifting it up as his fingers tightened around the frail neck, tightening and tightening as the hag choked and scratched at his hands to free herself, eyes gaping wide in horror. 

"No, your majesty, don't!" The fairy godmother cried out, "You mustn't kill him before he tells us how to revive Isadora." 

"No," The purple cloaked fairy uttered then, as Zander met the old fairy's eyes. "He has already told us."

She looked at Ferdinand, and he met her eyes with a fear and a dismay as realization of his slip dawned on him. 

"The love is of no matter now," The purple cloaked fairy repeated Ferdinand's earlier spoken words slowly, before she turned to look at Zander. 

"He tried a faulty hand at diversion," She spoke, "It's true love's kiss, your majesty. You must kiss the Queen to revive her." 

Just at that moment, the creature of the Heraum broke the magician's wand with a sickening snap, and Ferdinand screamed shrilly in the horror of it and slumped in The King's grip. Zander threw the hag's weak form towards his guards, who caught the body and forced it into submission, gripping the arms and pinning her down to the ground roughly. 

With his heart pounding in his chest, Zander sprinted towards Isadora and dropped to his knees in front of her. Lady Tremaine looked at him blankly, the woman having gone mute in her terror, before she gently lifted her daughter's head, adjusting it slowly on her lap. She nodded a faint, wisp of a nod towards The King, and with hope frothing inside Zander's chest, he bent down and placed his lips on his wife's soft, ruby ones.

Lucinda Tremaine watched the scene unfold, tears still wet and hot as they ran down her face. Fear had sickened her. From the multiple scenes exchanging in front of her, she hadn't known what to do, what to believe. But as she watched The King of Angria kiss her elder sister in throes of death, her heart leapt in her chest as Isadora's form stirred, her delicate, fair hands reaching upwards to caress her husband's face as she kissed him back. 

Gasps of relief ensued around the foyer of the Angrian palace, and Lucinda was sure hers—the gasp of delight as much as relief—was louder than the gasps of everyone else. 

The King and Queen of Angria broke away softly from the kiss, their foreheads touching as The King let out a strangled groan and sobbed, his face scrunching up in anguish and pain, his desperate arms holding his wife form to him, pressing her nearer to him—as though she was the most precious thing in the world. The Queen of Angria—Lucinda's often cold and detached sister—whispered something to her husband, a slow smile on her face and her ebony eyes half closed. The King nodded fast—desperately—in return, as though he was promising her something, as though he was agreeing to bringing down the moon for her because she had just asked him to. 

Lucinda Tremaine was oblivious to the relief and happiness on everyone's faces, for her own eyes were pinned onto her elder sister and her husband. She watched as though struck—moved with the magic and passion of the enamor they had for each other. She wondered then, if little Archie was aware of all that had transpired. She wondered if the little boy knew of the poison his mother had taken because she had been brought to believe that it would save The King's—his father's—life. She wondered if the boy would be awed if he knew the amount of anger and desperation his father had succumbed to upon watching Isadora's lifeless form on the ground when he had found her.

Perhaps, Lucinda thought, perhaps she could tell the little boy a tale sometime. A story. Little boys liked stories, didn't they? Perhaps, Archie would let her tell him a story sometime.

Lucinda's eyes found Lady Tremaine, and Lucinda let out another gasp then, this one devoid of delight or relief, only encased with a surprise. For the Lady Tremaine had efficiently whisked away a tear from the edge of her eye on her little finger, the woman's eyes fixed on her elder daughter and Zander. The King and Queen of Angria. 

***

A/N:
one more chapter to go, you guys, and then this story is officially finished<3 meanwhile, i'm also working on an "aladdin AU" story, if you'd like to give that a try<3