She hadn't thought she could feel. She never had before. She had really only ever felt a tingling of concern over her mother. Concern that her mother would interfere one too many times, not concern because of love. No, love was definitely an emotion beyond Princess Rene of Darwin, former heir of the royal throne. Or, as the princess surely thought, it was an emotion that was below her.

Yet today, there was emotion. And how could there not be?! As of today, she was the former heir to the royal throne. Now the coveted position belonged to her long lost sister Princess Elaina of Darwin, or, as she was to be called from this day forward, Princess Elaina of Caraway, wife to Prince Jonathan of Caraway, future King of said kingdom.

Today, all of the kingdoms, far and wide, knew that the eldest daughter of Richard, King of Darwin, still lived, and that it was she, and not the frosty beauty who was four years her sister's junior who was to have future control of their kingdom. With a mouth set even harder than usual, and a spine that could not get any straighter, the Princess checked in on her sleeping mother. Rene had had to keep a strict watch on the woman for half a year, afraid that the revelation of Elaina's existence would prove too much for their overzealous mother who had hated her first born since conception. Queen Tabitha was sleeping a peaceful and unnaturally calm sleep, a sleep induced by herbs that were hand picked by the princess. The Queen would not be awake on her eldest daughter's wedding day, the consequences that might ensue from such a happening would not be pretty, and Rene did not feel up to cleaning up any messes her mother would most assuredly make.

Besides, Rene had made a promise to her elder sister.

The princess closed the door to her lavish bedchamber and slung herself across a golden brocaded couch. Her auburn tinted hair fell gracefully about her shoulders and a scowl marred the perfection of her exquisite face, icy blue eyes stared languidly up at the ceiling. Yet her mind was racing. Her plans had fallen apart. Strange, but the one thing that might have ruined her self made plans had been diverted, and the one thing she had never even considered as being a deterent, a disaster really, had happened, had unremarkably, and unceremoniously happened. To put it quite simply, Princess Rene was a bit upset. However, she never allowed herself to show emotion, to be ill used by the consuming and ruining qualtities of passion. Passion of any kind was abhorrent to her.

But she could not deny feeling, could it be… jealous? Was she jealous of her the woman who was to marry a most handsome man today? A most handsome man who loved her with all his heart. Rene almost laughed at the thought. Of course that was not it! She was simply feeling upset at the demise of her own carefully laid plans. Elaina had had no plans, and her life had simply fallen into place, while Rene's had deteriorated into something she despised. She'd become nothing more than a nurse, than a servant to her demented mother while Elaina was the celebrated and loved ruler of all. No, it did not sit well with Rene. After all, Elaina did not have powers like her younger sister. She did not have the realistic sensibilities! She did not have Rene's beauty, her poise, her desire for power!

Rene flung herself up off the sofa and pushed her way past a fading tapestry to the side of her giant and luscious bed. The tapestry was the only adornment in the room that did not look expensive, new, opulent. It was very simple, woven from earthy colors: beiges, tans, white and blacks. The design was unintelligible, a faded scene of chaos in tattered ruins. Though the looker would never be able to discern it's picture, there was a twisted, wicked feeling to it. It was very old, and almost steeped in the tainted souls of its past owners.

Rene brushed her way past it as if it were no more than a flimsy strip of castaway cloth from the seamstress's shop. The room the tapestry hid was dark, but, with just a flick of her wrist, Rene quickly had the small circular space lit by hundreds of tiny candles. The room was bare, gray stone, and held little furniture. There was a low, wooden table like structure jutting out from the walls and encircled the entire room. Candle sconces held flickering sticks of wax at unpatterned intervals.

Rene walked purposefully to the center of the room and dropped to a sitting position as gracefully as if she were a dancer doing some choreographed move. Her eyes were closed, her face still. She waved one delicate hand in front of her face and the air in front of her started to swirl. The darkness of the hidden room took on color and light, dimension and definition, and the forms of two elegant personages stood out amongst a throng of richly dressed people. Rene knew these people, she knew this scene…

"You are my wife, gypsy," whispered the handsome prince. He was dressed in the stark and contrasting colors of black and white and a simple gold circlet lay upon his neatly combed and slicked mass of dark flattened curls. "Finally."

The new princess laughed softly at the pride and exasperation in her new husband's voice, and also at the way his curls, which did not wish to be straightened and slicked back atop his head, kept curling rebelliously around the nape of his neck and the sides of his temple. She wondered if it would be proper for a wife to smooth one of those wayward curls of his in public. She did not, however, and opted instead, to tease her beloved. "Were you impatient sir? That added 'finally' sounded as if you were ungrateful for the extended period of courtship that allowed us to become better acquainted."

"Better acquainted! You were my best friend before you became my fiancé, and added to that, dear lady, I felt I knew you from the minute we met. Count your lucky stars that your nasty temper that day did not expose to me your true nature, which I'm quite sure will be revealed on the morrow. As soon as we awake, you will be absolutely horrid to me, and will never be nice again until you want something, as is the way with all women." The Prince had a sparkle in his eye and a teasing quality to his voice that reminded his wife that he was just as good at teasing as she was. Should she declare defeat in this little game?

"Jon," she whispered as she reached her arms up around his neck and pulled her mouth oh so close to his, "do not tease me so. You know it is untrue."

Prince Jon smiled down at his blushing bride, wondering why she was acting so, usually she was fiery, matching his teasing banter word for word, never surrendering. He smiled down at her and pulled her into his embrace, resting his chin on her shoulder. He searched over her back for the three men he suspected had something to do with his bride's unusual behavior, and saw them, conspiring together in a group. The King of Caraway sat upon his throne with his most trusted advisor on his right, and the resident Princess Tutor on his left. Prince Jon frowned and pulled out of his wife's embrace. Frowning still, posed her a question: "Shall I cause a scandalous scene, or shall you?" She dropped a small yet scorching kiss on the corner of her husband's mouth before letting the most mischievous of grins creep onto her face.

Rene banished the scene before her with another wave of her hand. This time, emotion did show on her face. It raged in her eyes and pulled her eyebrows together in a scowl that would put her ancient, decrepit nursemaid Hildy to shame. The furious princess stood up and walked to a large book that lay on the curved table that encircled the room. She was about to force the book open and scream the spell within at the top of her lungs, when her eyes went fearful, the scowl unkitted itself from her eyebrows, and her lips unclenched. She would not let herself lose control. She had almost made a mistake, done something her mother would have done. And Queen Tabitha's actions were certainly not something to aspire to.

The Death Spell. How common, how unimaginative. It would have indeed been a blunder. One perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose slowly higher on the princess's smooth forehead as she thoughtfully thumbed through the pages of the old book. She stopped after five pages had been turned, ten spells discarded, and tapped her finger reflectively on the left hand page. This might be interesting, thought she. It did not scream danger and destruction, that was not what she wanted. No, it was subtle, and simple, and cunning, and would help her gain her own ends. She did not now know why she had not thought of it before! That was the clincher right there. It's attraction simply did not lie in the devestation it would cause, yet in it's utter usefulness to herself.

She did not wish to deny her sister her happiness. It was simply that she had a blindingly strong attraction to getting what she wanted. And if Princess Elaina of Caraway, future queen of that realm and Darwin, wife of the heir to the Darwinian throne, the woman who was simply a storyteller to herself and the gypsy enchantress Elaine to her new husband could provide herself as a tool to the attainment Rene's ultimate goals by unwittingly sacrificing her own happiness… then why not?

Rene stepped to the center of the candlelit room, flickering shadows casting wavering light and dark across her features. Closing her almost glowing blue eyes, she opened her perfectly chiseled mouth and began to chant.

Bodies change and souls expire

Memory fades and beauty dies.

One man honors love and right

Another values naught.

One man always stands to fight

The other's sword is bought.

Steal both from out the night,

Till in my web they're caught.

Place them where there is no light

Leave them to each other's lot.

Bodies change and souls expire

Memory fades and beauty dies.

Elaine fell asleep in the comforting protection of her husband's arms. He had nuzzled her hair and kissed her ear until she had fallen into a peaceful dreamless sleep, that for the first time in ages, had not been plagued by nightmares of tiny flame haired women, cold and damp enchanted chambers behind the stinging drops of a waterfall, and solitary, desolate fields of grass where vibrant green and blue met in an unearthly and unsettling manner, and where the wind whispered her greatest fears and showed her the most threatening of visions.

Instinctively, she knew something was wrong. The arm that should be around her waist was not there; the hand that should have been stroking her side was also gone. She could not feel Jon's presence, she could not hear his heart beat, she could not feel his soft breath on the back of her neck. Of course, she had never before experienced any of this in the morning, for she had never awakened in a husband's bed before, yet she had known that was how it should have been.

And it was not. No, something was wrong.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and rolled off of her stomach and on to her back. Turning her head to the right, she spied her husband's sleeping form all the way on the other side of the bed.

But it was not her husband. Her husband was a tall man, and this man stretched out was not even taller than herself. Her husband had a very nice build, broad shoulders and a muscular back, the man whose back faced her now was broad all right, but in an entirely different manner. The arms at his sides were not lean like her husbands, but two fat sausage rolls. This man's skin was white and pasty where Prince Jon's had been smooth and tanned.

This man had yellow hair. Jon did not have yellow hair!

It took no time at all for Elaine to make these observations, and when, instantaneously, she had, she shot straight out of the bed, pulling the covers with her, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Almost immediately, two things happened. The first was that the man who had been sharing Elaine's bed shot up and gave her and then his surroundings a confused and sweeping look, and secondly, a flustered servant ran into the room.

"My lady! Princess! What is the matter?" cried the chambermaid.

All Elaine could do was to point at the man in her bed and scream at the top of her lungs. The man in her bed looked utterly bewildered. "Him," she finally uttered, pointing accusingly toward the bed. "Him!"

"What about him Princess Elaina?"

"Where is my husband?! And who is this! As you can see, there is a strange man in my bed! I would think it obvious what the matter is! Call the guard! We must find Prince Jon! We must have this bastard arrested this instant!" Elaine clutched the sheet to her chest and yelled wildly at the maid. The man in the bed looked worriedly from one woman to the other, trying to decide who posed the most threat to him. He was pretty sure it was the beautiful woman wrapped in the sheet who was staring lethally at him, as if he had killed the person she most loved in the world. Had he? He really couldn't remember anything that well. His deduction about Elaine posing the most threat proved true.

"My Princess," spoke the maid calmingly, with a touch of pity in her eyes, "the man in your bed is your husband. No one need find him. He is not lost. That," she said, pointing toward the man in the bed, "is Prince Jon."

As the confusion in the eyes of the man lifted and knowledge replaced it, Elaine's bewildered eyes sparked for only an instant before turning cloudy. Her face drained of all color and slowly, and as gracefully as her sister had sunk to the stony floor of her hidden chamber, Elaine sunk to the ground, fragile eyelids fluttering down over haunted dark orbs.

We should have known, thought the chambermaid, her mother was mad too.

The room had grown cold. Remembering, he reached over to grab the only source of warmth he wished to have. His outstretched fingers rammed right into a very cold, very hard wall.

Prince Jon's eyes flew open. His wife was nowhere to be found. Indeed, he was not even in his own bed. The protection he had known all his life of the gleaming white castle walls of his home were gone as well. In their place, was a musty, cold, dank room. A quick survey illuminated that he was in a large dinning room of some sort. The high walls were covered in armor and weaponry and where the walls met the ceiling, cobwebs hung in abundance.

Though his wife was nowhere to be found, Prince Jon was not alone. Hardly. For littering the great dinning hall were twenty or so pallets, each with a man atop them. To the Prince's disgust, some of the makeshift beds were not only occupied by what the prince knew to be the soldiers for some duke or king, but a disgraced lady. Yet from the low sounds emanating from these pallets, Jon was quite sure that the women found no shame in being disgraced.

Wherever he was, he sent a prayer of thanks to God that his Elaine was not here, that she was safe in bed, untouched by whatever evil magic was at work this night.

A man to the Prince's right interrupted his thoughts. "Cassius, would you lay back down and go to sleep? If it's a woman your lookin' for, they're all hired for the night and you know that." The owner of the rough voice shoved a rough palm into Prince Jon's chest, pushing him back down onto the cold stone floor and into the rank stench of the blanket covering him.

The Prince shot right back up, almost leaping to his feet, but thinking better of causing a stir in a room full of soldiers, no matter how indisposed they might very well be. "I am not this Cassius! You sir, will tell me where I am this very instant!" His voice was sharp and commanding, but the old man to his right only laughed.

"Don't kid young Cass. After the beating we got tonight no one's in the mood for it, least of all me. Ya hear? Be still and sleep."

Cass. He was not this Cassius. He knew he was not. He was Prince Jon, and he needed to leave, to find his way back home. But… he did feel tired, and his muscles were sore. Somehow he knew if he looked, there would be a deep cut over his right shoulder and his left eye felt swollen shut. It hurt to breath. Were his ribs broken then? He could almost remember the beating he had received that afternoon. Two men, both large and carrying weapons.

No! He screamed in his mind. He had been married that afternoon; he had been kissed, not pounded, whispered to lovingly, not beaten as bad verbally as he felt his body told him he had been physically. He had spent his wedding night in the arms of a woman who loved him, and whom he loved desperately back, not all alone in the folds of this rotten blanket.

He forced everything from his mind but the memory of her face, her smile, her eyes, and hands and lips and… and her, as she had been when she had given herself to him. With these images, he dropped heavily into sleep.