Chapter three

"Zea."

Softer this time and the sprite turned her head, sombrely and regarded Danica with one ghoulish green eye; the other eye, or at least the socket where it should have been looked despondently at the room in general.

Danica closed her eyes quickly, suppressing a shudder and then hurriedly opened them again.

"Your face." she said softly and Zea cast her reflection a passing look and shuddered, shaking her head to indicate she didn't wish to talk about it and turned her face back towards Danica.

"Your majesty." She inclined her head and Danica thought she saw for a second red, blistering skin peeking from beneath the brown leafy gown covering her body but only for a second because she'd suddenly realised what would have brought Zea to the castle.

"Flowers," Dorothea whispered in a hoarse, horrified voice. "Who has brought flowers here? Where is Rosalia? Where is my daughter?"

Zea raised her hand, stopping Dorothea's flow of words.

"She is already gone."

"How can you know?" Danica asked disbelievingly. She reached out for the bell rope to call the guard and organize a search but Zea stood up and strode across the room, throwing open the drapes and pointing.

"That is how I know!"

Danica fallowed the path of her pointing finger and looked out onto a forest of briers ten feet high, woven tightly together and a horrible rotted brown colour.

"He has built that wall," Zea said, dropping her hand to her side and glaring out at the forest of thorns encasing them. "So we cannot fallow him and take her back."

…..

Micah elbowed past the kitchen boy, trod determinedly upon a scullery maid's foot and squeezed past two gossiping ladies to claim himself a place in front of the large crowd of servants and courtiers that had gathered at the king's request in the grand hall.

The king was slumped in his thrown, head buried in his hands and the queen looking flushed and angry was speaking to a creature that appeared to be neither adult nor child.

Micah wondered if there was to be some type of entertainment but at that moment the captain of the guard came pushing through the throng, panting, and knelt at the dais of the kings thrown.

"It knots together." he said breathily and Micah furrowed his brow unsure what that could mean. "Four of my men are still trapped within it and cannot cut themselves out."

"What are you're swords made of?" the creature asked hurriedly and the captain looked puzzled.

"Iron." he said at last perplexed.

The creature scoffed "Fool! Trying to cut magic with iron."

"Magic?" Bernard, the castle alchemist and Micah's teacher, questioned. He was a fat man in a black cap and with a silver sickle on the belt on his waist and he waved his arms as he talked, growing angrier and angrier "Your highnesses what is this talk of magic? If you have any questions about magic you should have informed me and not this hay-penny trickster."

"I am not a trickster as you assume, my name is Zea and I am a sprite." The creature said with quiet fury, its one eye fixed maliciously upon his teacher who was suddenly frightened and unsure of himself. 

"You can't be!" Micah said suddenly and then was aware of all the eyes of the room locked upon him.

"I mean," he continued embarrassed by his rashness "you can't be a sprite because they have wings and they are beautiful."

The creature, Zea, laughed humourlessly and smiled at him.

"And I am non of those things, am I," she said cheerlessly and then held out her hand, beckoning him forward and Micah slowly, carefully walked towards her until he was close enough for to grab his arm "How would you like to be a frog?"

"I wouldn't." Micah said truthfully and she let go of him, smiling and then turned back to look at the congregation of worried faces.

"The Princess Rosalia had been kidnapped," She said, ignoring the gasps that fallowed her announcement "by a magic user who has created the forest of briers around the castle to keep you from finding her again."

Micah shook his head, refusing to believe what he was hearing and hugged himself tightly, staring at the floor.  

"Can't we send the army?" one worried man asked.

"The thorns will attack any human who goes into the briers; a great number of men would only enrage it."

"Then how do we rescue my daughter?" the king asked, razing his head and looking at her despairingly.

"You don't" Zea said "I do, the thorns will not attack me because I am fae."

"But what of the magic user?" Dorothea asked. "Will he attack you?"

"He has already tried." Zea said and her hand touched briefly upon her face and scarred eye socket before she shook her head and dropped her hand back down to her side.

"Then I will go with you to protect you." a man who had been standing with his arms folded, surveying the proceedings with a interested air stepped forward and bowed to Zea "It would be my honour."

"And who are you?" she asked.

"I am Prince Adriel of Nixlia and Princess Rosalia's betrothed, I consider it my duty to help you rescue her."

"Betrothed!" Micah struggled with the word. "Rosalia doesn't have a betrothed; she's too young to be married."

"Child." the queen whispered, reaching out to him but Micah drew back horrified.

"But…" he stammered unsure what to say, knowing his out burst would already have cost him and the other things he wanted to say that were on the tip of his tongue could have him whipped. "Please I..."

"Your majesties" Adriel interjected. "I would not let this rude and uncouth boy speak to you in such a way."

"Your majesties I would not let your daughter marry this man." Micah said venomously, glaring at Adriel.

"And what right do you have to say whom Rosalia should marry?"

"I…I'm her friend" Micah said quietly and winced at Adreil's harsh barking laughter that fallowed that and the tittering giggles of the court. "She trusts me!"

"Stop laughing." Zea commanded softly, her tone leaving no room for argument; one by one the laughter died away till the room was left in chilly silence.

"Rosalia does trust me." Micah said miserably and Zea nodded.

"I believe you and I would be honoured if you would come with me to find her."

"My Lady," Adriel said horrified. "I do not think that would be wise,"

"I think it would be." Zea said and after that there was no argument from anyone.