A Tale Before Two Alphas Series

My lips turned up slowly as night began to fall.

It had been three long, agonizing months since I had managed to sneak out successfully.

My mother didn’t think it was safe outside the castle walls. We apparently couldn’t spare enough guards for a walk outside the gilded cage for even a moment. Letting me so much as glimpse the outside world in the last twenty-three years had been nearly impossible. The only place I felt at home within these walls was the library, where I could escape within books.

Old and ancient, full of mystery, the library was a place between life and death that could pull someone right out of their reality. It was a place of survival where you could learn to heal others or what items you could eat. There were even books on faeries and elves with detailed sketches to let your imagination run wild.

My vivid imagination nourished by these books was the only thing that made this place a little more bearable for a time.

It’s not that I didn’t love my home or Tatiana—it’s that I felt smothered. Gray. Managed.

Everything had to be immaculate and up to her expectations, at all times, including me. I was another pretty thing to collect in this house, never removed from it except at her orders. Which made my hope for escape through marriage diminish by the day as I grew older with the passing seasons.

None of them had been good enough for me in her eyes—not that I had met any of them. Whoever they happened to be. What limited correspondence I had received or sent in my younger years had also been monitored, and typically, we only exchanged two or three letters at most before I would only receive silence.

I suspected Tatiana had run them off in one way or another. From what I could tell, the conversations had been going quite well. Though my penmanship could have used a little work.

Two years ago had been the last straw. I had waited six months for a reply from a man named Silas, a letter I knew now would likely never come. My heart was racing as I looked out at the field beyond the east tower, the ache in my heart fading and becoming replaced with an idea. Watching the grass sway and the trees move, I was dying to walk among them.

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized leaving…wasn’t actually that difficult.

The first time, my feet carried me as if I had done it a thousand times, already knowing where everyone would be at this moment if they were on schedule.

I had made many trips since then. Daring to go further and for longer periods, breathing in freedom as if it were my only source of life left. Wondering if one day I might finally never return each time I slipped outside the castle into the wild unknown beyond.

Early this particular year, when it was dark more often and the frost was still hard, I had discovered special tiny sprouts under a frozen stream beyond where I could see my home. It was the last time I had been free in months, sprouts I had planned to return to for a very special reason.

When I returned home, I told myself that this particular plant I had been planning for. That maybe after I saw it bloom, I would finally leave and never return since it was a plant that only came up every twenty-five years. I certainly didn’t want to be around to see it appear again.

That thought alone was what caused the idea of my grand escape.

It was the first time I would ever be out fully after dark for a long period of time, my adventures usually saved for early in the morning before everyone was awake. Which means it would be harder to find me and easier to gather supplies.

The thought of finally leaving made my heart race and my palms sweat as I sat on a rock, tying together a flower crown from the little blue and white forget-me-nots I had picked on my way to the stream. My bag full of items was hanging on a low limb nearby, its contents far from forgotten as I tried to enjoy the moment.

What will the blooms look like? I thought, trying to distract myself from my nerves of what would lie beyond all I knew.

Some images went through my mind. These flowers were supposed to glow in the moonlight like little pink lanterns lit by faeries—trailing up and down a shallow stream that made it look like a tiny faerie village from what I could imagine. There was speculation about the color; some said yellow, others orange. There were notes of it being a blue or purple in other regions, but the climate had to be just right to cause such an occurrence. The author didn’t seem to know for certain.

Of course, faeries in reality could be quite small to quite large. The word faerie was even a broad term—what a human might consider a faerie, the others of their same kind may not. Faeries mostly left humans alone from what I read—except to make deals. Which of course never went well for a human. Avoid at all costs.

I had never met a faerie of any kind nor did I really want to, but to find some touch of magic outside of my home?

Where plants were concerned, I was more than happy to make the adventure and take a moment before my life changed forever. It was its own sort of magic I didn’t experience. Magic of the unknown.

If I leave, I’ll never have my looks scrutinized again. I can feel just as beautiful as these flowers.

My thoughts turned to midday inspections, or what Tatiana called our “little chats,” or better yet, a “constructive conversation.” These conversations were where she would break me down and tell me what an unfit daughter I was. What her expectations were. How I wasn’t measuring up to them.

I had learned several years ago, after enough tears, that disappointing Tatiana wasn’t worth the repercussions. Speaking up and actually trying to give an opinion wasn’t what she wanted. If I disobeyed, what little freedoms I had dissipated quickly. Anything she saw as a “rebellion” that upset her would result in things I enjoyed being permanently revoked.

It was the exact reason I had never picked up a paintbrush ever again a little after my ninth birthday. It’s why…I didn’t do a lot of things I once enjoyed, including singing.

It hurt her ears.

With a heavy heart, after months of depression and desperation, I found the library when I turned twelve. It was a hidden haven where Tatiana would leave me unattended for hours since it was a place of knowledge, and she knew quick wit was the best weapon against the world.

Since then, I had done everything to keep the library, just in case she ever changed her mind.

Never a hair out of place, too much eaten, a word spoken about leaving, no complaint about a new lesson, teacher, or wanting a different dress. Nothing that would upset her perfectly ordered world.

Despite how much I was dying inside.

I learned about every stone, guard rotation, and secret tunnel with twenty-three years to explore it all. How to lock pick, and walk like a cat where no one could hear me.

Escaping wasn’t something my mother’s perfect daughter would ever do at any age.

Leaving was my top priority, I had years to plan things. At least that’s what I kept telling myself, knowing I would be plunging into the unknown.

Tonight, was the night I could have a little bit of magic enter my life. Little white butterflies danced from the tip of one closed flower to the next, setting a comforting tone in this tiny patch of land.

Some were on the tall golden grass that swayed in the breeze, the orange-golden rays lighting up the green and yellow hues of the leaves. As if waiting for the same thing I was.

I stretched out on my prized little rock where I could watch the entire small stream unfurl. My hair was splayed above my head, warm in the sun as I felt the rays slowly disappearing on my skin, kissing it with the cool breeze of the coming night. My eyes began to drift as my body relaxed. I felt drowsiness overcome me with the freedom and peace of the sounds of birds calling to one another like a relaxing melody. The stream, a tiny trickling sound that complemented the trees as they swayed.

Everything about it was therapeutic and magical. A moment in time I would hold close to me for the darker days ahead.

Suddenly, at the bleak thought of after—it was as if death’s hand had manifested to stretch, blocking the sun with its inky mist and silencing the forest.

My eyes flew open in alarm at the sudden change, expecting to feel my mother towering over me, her image blocking out the sun and any freedom I had left. The chill climbed down my spine as I lifted my head in confusion. Because Tatiana was nowhere to be seen.

This wasn’t my mother.

Perhaps it was my eyes focusing or true magic simmering around him—there was no other explanation as the male figure seemed to step from the manifested shadows. His very presence blotted out all sense of color all around us, making the world seem to be shades of gray. I knew this was real only because I could feel a small white butterfly landing briefly on my nose as well as my sharp intake of breath as my eyes met his.

As our eyes met, he seemed to solidify, color slowly seeping back into the scenery around us, but not him.

His skin was dark and almost corpse-like in its unfamiliar color to my own, gray and blue at the same time, devoid of color, and yet somehow it was handsome against the sharp angular planes of his face. The thin striking brows only served to make his face seem harsher in its sharp inhuman shape, his hair moving as if it were smoke or underwater swirling about him.

The only bright thing about him was his eyes.

Fire. Rage. Passion. Something cardinal seemed to fill him and speak through his eyes, sending yet another chill down my spine. They were like hellfire.

Not human, yet so beautiful in a way I couldn’t begin to explain to even myself.