The world was rocking from side to side. It was gentle, yet fierce, a force Rapunzel was unable to stop despite how still she lay.
It threw her out of bed.
"Ow!" She groaned, one set of fingers brushing the sore spot on her head and the other the sturdy wood beneath her. What had happened? Where was she? Rapunzel couldn't remember anything from yesterday… Or anything beyond that, now that she thought of it.
Rustling came from somewhere to her left, and then a lantern sputtered to life beside her. It was only bright enough for Rapunzel to see the beautiful, green-eyed girl holding the light. She must've been only ten, give or take a year. "Tilly?" The girl asked. "Are you alright?" The words were spoken in German, which made Rapunzel thankful Mother Gothel had bothered to teach her the language at all. She also noticed that the girls' voice was not at all laced with sleep as Rapunzel would have expected it to be.
"Where am I?" Rapunzel asked, moving to sit on the bed she'd woken up in. There was another directly atop hers. "Who's Tilly?"
But the girl did not seem to hear her questions or see her confusion. Instead, her bright face shifted into one of worry and fear. She wiggled on her bed. "Tilly... I'm scared. I—what you said yesterday, did you mean it? Are they truly taking us for employment? Mother and Father will be there like you said, yeah?"
Rapunzel couldn't tell if 'employment' was a good or bad thing. She decided it was—why wouldn't it be?—and nodded her head. "Yes, of course," she whispered, voice deeper than usual. It startled her slightly, to hear it come out from her lips, but there was a calmness in her that compelled her into acceptance. It was starting to dawn on her now—when she looked down at her hands, they were not hers. They were long, women's fingers, so pale they shone even through the darkness. She did not know this little girl nor this place. She knew this for certain, regardless of her blank mind. At once, she knew:
This was a memory.
But why was she seeing it?
Rapunzel winced at the soft pain that pricked her chest. She pulled her hand up and pressed it against the skin above her heart, massaging it deeply.
When she opened her eyes, the little girl nodded to the top bunk above Rapunzel—Tilly. "I have no idea how Günter is managing to sleep through the night. The ship is making my insides roil. A-and the crew... Tilly they've been acting strange. I know what you say about snooping, but I heard the Neumann's talking about it this afternoon, too, and I'm not the only one who's worried. They are too! Everyone's just as confused."
Rapunzel caught herself worrying at her lip. "Everything's going to be fine, all right?" She promised the little girl. But before she could continue, the ship gave a vicious pull, causing the wood to groan loudly around them. She and the little girl shared quick looks of alarm. "You should rest," Rapunzel decided after a moment.
The girl looked down at her lap. "Sing to me? The song Mother used to sing, with the sheep?"
Olden German lullabies quickly fluttered through Rapunzel's mind for a moment. One stood out to her almost immediately; for reasons she did not yet understand, she was certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the song the girl had meant. She crawled quietly onto the other bed so that the girl could lay her small head upon Rapunzel's lap, and began to sing softly. "Sleep, baby, sleep. Thy father guards the sheep…" She brushed her hand over the girl's long, brown hair until her breaths grew long and heavy.
"Everything will be okay," Rapunzel assured her once more as she finished her song, though she knew she wouldn't be heard. The girl's shoulders were rising and lowering softly. In the spur of the moment, Rapunzel reached down and gently folded the neck of the girls' nightgown down to catch sight of the embroidery. Rapunzel wasn't sure if it would be there, but...
Marta Rettersonne, the flimsy tag read. Before the words could so much as sink into Rapunzel's head, the boat lurched. Hard.
Marta and the boy, Günter, both jerked awake. "What's happening?" Günter demanded from up high, fright evident in his voice. There was another lurch, this one so hard the ship groaned angrily in protest. Rapunzel looked at the children and stood, wobbly in the tiny, rocking room. She could hear screams coming from beyond the door.
"Stay here," she ordered the children. "Please. I'll be right back."
The ship was a mess of surprise and fear. A relentless storm swarmed the skies, the ocean waves rising so high they tipped mercilessly over the deck, taking everything it could with it. Barely-audible orders were being yelled to and fro either ends of the long ship by rushing crewmen. Curious families were huddled together everywhere, holding on for their lives, ignoring the men in dark coats barking for them to return bellow-deck. Even from here it sounded less like the men truly worried for the passengers' wellbeing, and more like they wanted to protect precious merchandise. It disgusted Rapunzel down to her core, even through the nightmare storm.
"We're going to die!" Rapunzel heard a woman cry out just as two pairs of hands wrapped themselves inside each of her own. Rapunzel startled, only to see that it was Marta and Günter. They had followed her out into the storm.
The ship tipped once more to the side. Dangerously so. In fact, it surprised Rapunzel that no passenger had fallen off board yet…
Another lurch of warm wind struck them. Suddenly, Rapunzel's stomach soared to her throat as the ship swung on its side and—
Rapunzel was floating in a sea of light, so bright it should've blinded her. Pure quietness surrounded her, so comforting despite the desperate pleas of German passengers still ringing in her ears. Something was missing, a strange emptiness Rapunzel couldn't place. The pinpricks of pain that had lingered within her throughout the ships' journey were no longer present.
She looked down at her hands. They were small and flimsy, kissed by the sun. They were hers. Not Tilly's. When she looked down at herself, she saw that she wore a white, cotton nightgown that hemmed at her mid-calf. It felt familiar, awfully so.
Rapunzel twisted carefully to gaze at the comforting emptiness around her, certain that this now-golden world would not be able to hold her feet. But it was. It did.
Her mind flashed to Marta and Günter. To Tilly. What had happened to them once she'd been pulled from their memory? What had been happening to them prior to it? Marta had mentioned missing her parents and not feeling safe aboard the vessel. What cruel person would subject innocent children to such worry?
"They were kind, were they not?"
Rapunzel spun at the sound of the voice, male, and sweet as honey on the tongue. There was a man standing before her. His eyes were what struck her first, coloured a shade so bright and golden surely they couldn't be real. By the looks of it, he must've been just a bit older than Rapunzel. Perhaps his mid-twenties, at most. His hair was wavy and brown, only about an inch or so long, and his skin just as sun-kissed as Rapunzel's was.
He was beautiful.
Rapunzel shifted on her feet, trying to recall his question. "They were kind," she agreed after a beat. Was he the one who drew her into the memory?
The man pursed his lips, a soft glimmer shining in his eye. "You understand, then, why I could not leave them to their fates?"
His familiarity dawned on her suddenly, like a wave crashing onto warm sand. She'd seen images of a face like his somewhere. Of a large ship tipping in the folds of a raging, magic storm. How had she not seen it before? "You're him," she said matter of factly. "The Man in the Sun."
The man smiled softly in answer, offering the tiniest of nods. "I am Cassian Castellanos," he agreed, "lover of Mim, cursed witch of the sun. You have read my book well."
"You saved a ship. Dozens of people still alive, even though you didn't have to bat an eye," Rapunzel breathed. She swore red bloomed against Cassian's cheeks. She thought again of the memory. "That family you showed me… They were Rettersonne's."
Cassian's sun-kissed hands interlaced at his front. He approached Rapunzel slowly. "Indeed. Marta was the grandmother of Zacharia Rettersonne. Your great-grandmother, and your birth name before the Gothel witch renamed you hers." A pause, just long enough for his words to register. Somehow, the truth Cassian told felt already known. "They were forced to board the Fernweh," he continued, "to be separated from their loved ones. Where they escaped poverty in Cologne, they would meet slavery in America. All part of an unjust bargain, an unnecessary sacrifice of good souls, with hearts made purely of light."
Cassian's eyes were glued to Rapunzel, burning with a mixture of warmth, grief, and something that looked like desperation. He looked like a God shaped into human form. Except Rapunzel was positive that if he truly were a God, he would be wearing something much more extravagant than a loose white shirt and sand-brown trousers. He took a step closer to her. "Thank you for passing my message along to Mim's child. I could not have achieved this without his aid, and the witches forbade me any contact with either him or his creations."
Rapunzel felt her eyebrows furrow as her back straightened. She never recalled speaking to Cassian before, never mind delivering a message for him. "What do you mean? What message?"
Cassian's eyes flickered. "You have passed on in the mortal world, Rapunzel Rettersonne."
It was the strangest of feelings, knowing her heart was still beyond this light. She did not remember the pain of any blade, nor the presence of the dark emptiness she'd assume she'd experience with death. All she knew was the steady rocking of the Fernweh, and… A face. Pale and blue-eyed, with a smile pulled higher on one side than the other. One she wanted to get back to.
The heaviness of a warm hand appeared on her shoulder. Rapunzel lifted her head to meet Cassian's gaze.
"A greater war approaches, Rapunzel, one unlike that of which you've just won. I've known that it was coming for many centuries now. It has finally begun, and you will be needed. Many will be needed. But you… You would not have…" Cassian shook his head, redirecting his thoughts before beginning again. "Mim has created many Guardians in his time, stretching his remaining magic thin, whereas I used mine to form Corona and, with it, the flower that gave you power. Not much is left of it, but I would like to use my remaining power to raise you again, if you accept. To make you my first, and only, Guardian."
Rapunzel was struggling to keep up. "I—what? Why me?"
"Because I like you. Your heart. It's good." Cassian paused. "And I believe you will be able to accomplish a task for me that no one else could have done."
"What is this... Task?"
Cassian did not speak immediately. Rapunzel could tell how much what he was going to say meant to him. "I would like to be set free of my prison so I can aid you in this war." A wavering breath. "I would like to finally be reunited with Mim."
"You want me to break your curse?" Rapunzel repeated. It couldn't be such a difficult task, could it?
Cassian nodded "Yes, if you've the time. I will leave you with all of the information I can to help you on your journey. I will do my best to guide you along, but know that, after this, I will be quite weak for some time. Mim will most likely be of more help than I, especially after he realizes your intentions."
Simultaneously, their gazes flinched to their surrounding as the light around them flickered. When Cassian looked at her again, his eyes were rounded, more alert now than before.
"Our window of time together grows thin. I healed your body while you journeyed on the Fernweh. All that is left now is Guardianhood, if you desire to re-enter the world with it. You will be stronger, immortal. You will retain the magic my flower gave you."
For the first time since she'd been brought here, Rapunzel felt the echo of worry knot her stomach. "Will I lose the power if I return mortal?"
"Yes."
The light flickered again. Was it dimmer than it had been before? That pale face came to her mind again.
"Okay," Rapunzel breathed fast, hoping she would not regret her choice. "I accept. I'll be your Guardian. I'll help you go back to Mim."
Cassian smiled through the light. His hand left her shoulder as he took a step back into the fog. "Very well. Until we meet again, my dearest Rapunzel." The words were a whisper in Rapunzel's ear.
A blinding pain suddenly crippled her, just as something jerked inside her chest. A heartbeat. When she looked down at herself, she noticed that a small circle of dark blood now tainted her nightgown. It grew with each second, each slow beat of her heart. Spreading like a watery disease—until her heart suddenly jerked into stillness again. Fear filled Rapunzel. Did it not work? Were Cassian's powers weaker than he'd expected? Was she doomed for death after all?
Rapunzel sunk to her knees and the world turned suddenly white, brighter, yellower than it had been when she'd first come. Movement came to her heart again, but it was not a beat. This movement was lighter, filled with tingling pinpricks of sparks. It felt the same as her skin did whenever it healed itself of of her wounds.
It felt like magic. A new life in her heart.
When Rapunzel opened her eyes to the dawn of the world, she was met with her father's three, astonished words.
"Marta. You've returned."
END OF BOOK ONE