Give Me Your Riches: Chapter Five

Cedric leaned heavily against the sturdy tower door. Sofia's departing steps had faded but he stayed with his back pressed against the door for several more minutes, relying on it to hold him upright. He softly banged the back of his against the solid wood, again, and again, and again in an uneven rhythm. He hadn't spoken so condescendingly to Sofia in years. He could not believe a naive crush (that Sofia didn't even seem conscious of) was enough to make him recoil and strike out at her like a cornered snake.

Amber had managed to completely upend that conversation, expertly getting under Cedric's skin and turning him into the bumbling idiot he thought he had left behind years ago. Her words were too well chosen and cutting to have been unintentional. Sofia's work today had been good, exceptional even. She didn't deserve the chastising he had given her because of Amber's manipulative meddling. He had been too reactive to Amber's words, already on edge from his revelation that Sofia held more than platonic feelings towards him.

"Why is it a bad thing?" A tiny voice chimed from his mind. Cedric groaned and resumed his head pounding on the door, this time trying to knock sense into himself. Cedric wasn't old in his thirty second year, but Sofia was just a month away from her nineteenth birthday. She was young enough for him to have had some hand in raising her from girlhood which was immediately enough for him to have cause to slap himself across the face. Beyond their thirteen year gap, Sofia was a bloody Princess. Though she was untraditional. With Amber assuming her right to rule, and James beside her as the First Sword of Enchancia, Sofia would be able to pursue accomplishments beyond marriage. She was proving to be a power in her own right, not just a pawn to be traded across the board for a stronger piece. Regardless, royalty tended to stay with royalty.

Cedric scoffed, "why would a Princess ever choose someone below her station? How could a bird possibly love a fish?"

"You're making excuses. She's not like that." the voice chimed again. If he was being honest, it sounded a bit like Sofia's voice in his head. But at least that statement was more fact than conjecture. Sofia enjoyed the benefits of her rank, but she had never forgotten her humble roots. He quite enjoyed seeing her on days like today: tiara discarded, simply dressed, the only opulence on her found in the Amulet of Avalor and the sparkle of her sky blue eyes. More intoxicating than her appearance was her talent for sorcery woven with her inherent goodness.

"What did I ever do to deserve someone like Sofia in my life?" Cedric thought, a bit ruefully. "I'm made of nothing but spite and impatience and she of benevolence and beauty."

Still, somehow their differences had come to complement each other in a continuously thriving friendship. Sofia was friendly, enthusiastic, and frustratingly independent. Cedric was judgemental, practical, and stubborn as a stone wall. Together, they found a natural balance as Apprentice and Master.

"It wouldn't be the first time a relationship sprung from that bond." Cedric found his own voice addressing the possibility.

He gave his head a good firm shake and then stood up.

"I braved the Basilisk Boneyard, defeated the deadly Dullahan of Dunbrough, and brewed the fiery phoenix philter, for Merlin's sake. How am I wasting my time on this?"

Cedric had a sacred duty to Sofia as her Master. It was his charge to educate her, not distract her with flights of fancy. It was normal to develop affection towards a teacher, particularly when considering the amount of time he and Sofia spent together. Sofia would outgrow this crush just as she had outgrown those frilly, lavender gowns.

"Through with that pathetic display then, are you?" Wormwood cawed critically from his wooden perch beside the window. "That exchange with Sofia seemed….unnecessary."

"Nobody asked you, Wormy." Cedric remained uncertain as to whether understanding his Familiar's speech was a blessing or a curse. The bird was cantankerous.

"No one ever does," Wormword sighed heavily.

Cedric straightened and walked across the room, shrugging off his robe, leaving him in shirt, vest, and pants. He let the robe pool into a puddle of fabric in the middle of the stone floor. The small rebellion against the order Sofia brought to his tower was satisfying. She wouldn't return until the morning, anyway,

"If she returns at all," a dark murmur from the back of his mind added. Cedric shoved the dour thought down and away.

"Are you going to pick that up? Sofia will have your head for leaving it there." Wormword said while lazily preening his feathers.

Cedric, in response, heeled off his shoes. While staring obstinately at Wormwood, he abandoned one shoe a few steps from his robe and kicked the other across the room. Wormword gave a second exacerbated sigh and returned his full focus to his feathers.

In stocking feet, Cedric stood at his work table where he had hastily dumped the contents of Sofia's basket. He had returned her tiara but neglected the pastry. He took a testing bite before deciding to enjoy the rest of it; he had left lunch quite abruptly, after all. Pastry in one hand, he put the potion ingredients away and then loosened his tie while meandering down the steps to his study. It was dim during this time of day; the room only got sunlight in the morning. Pastry finished, Cedric licked crumbs from his fingers and waved his other hand at the fireplace. It ignited with a roar.

The study had become more than just an empty room once Sofia had discovered it. Cedric hadn't been certain what to do with the space, so he left it alone. Sofia filled it with odds and ends that wouldn't be missed around the castle: a tapestry to warm the walls with colors so faded its story had been lost to time, a dark green rug with a large stain in the center that smelled of peppermint, and two patched armchairs with footstools that Sofia had restuffed as one of her first magical tasks for Cedric. It had become the place where Cedric most felt at home. He scooped up the book he had been reading and settled down into his chair. He started to read, intentionally drowning himself in his research.

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"Ha!" Sofia shouted triumphantly. She had finally stunned her mark: the Alabaster Spindle Wing. It was a butterfly she knew Cedric didn't have in his inventory. It was the primary ingredient of the Ghostwalk Potion Cedric had been wanting to brew, inhibited only by the butterfly's absence. The ancient book he drew this potion from had disintegrating pages and several unsavory stains splashed across multiple pages. The potion would supposedly allow the user to walk through walls and she was excited to see it done. Sofia delicately placed the stilled butterfly in her basket. She exhaled, drained from what had been the better part of an hour spent chasing that remarkably elusive insect. Sofia looked around, focusing on the scenery around her for the first time since had caught sight of the butterfly.

This was a part of the gardens so deep into the castle grounds that it was poorly tended and overgrown. Enchancia had a reputation for impeccable presentation, but the gardens had always been just a little neglected. Sofia loved it. The plants were untamed and raw. It allowed the greenery and the flowers to achieve their full potential without intervention. It was just the opposite of the linear greenhouse, which was where she was most often sent to collect potion ingredients.

The sun had begun its descent from noon and pleasantly warmed Sofia's face against the crist September air. She soaked in the wild green around her, taking in a deep breath through the nose. It smelled of wet earth from last night's rain and bloomed roses. She looked up. Here there were roses woven into the overgrown hedge walls, clinging to the last whispers of summer. Sofia leaned into the hedge wall, cautious of thorns, to bury her nose into the silky soft petals of a rose and was surprised to find a solid structure against her shoulder. Rose forgotten, she turned to face the hedge wall. She set her basket on the ground and tentatively reached both hands into its bulk. Her left hand found nothing but thick, impassable growth. Her right hand pressed up against something hard.

Sofia wrapped her hand around the leaves and vines before her. She started to pull the greenery away in her search for the solid something just out of sight. Her curiosity fueled her so immediately that it took several minutes of fighting with the leaves for Sofia to remember that she was a sorceress and there was an easier way to do this. She took out her wand and outlined what she believed to be the shape of the structure before her.

"Cedate plantae, she said in a confident but quiet voice. The growth within the outline she had made from her wand withdrew to the edges of her spell. Sofia was standing before a hastily constructed, stone-and-mortar wall. The stones were mismatched both in size and color. Touching the wall with her hand revealed that the builder had been sloppily concerned with speed over precision as the mortar unevenly dripped over stones, too thick in some places and barely thick enough in others. Tapping it in a few places with her wand confirmed the construction to be mundane and non-magical.

Based on the growth of the hedges and vines, this wall had been built a long time ago. But Sofia was no expert. She couldn't tell for certain how long it had been there. She looked up. The wall might have stood as tall as the hedges once, but they now dwarfed it in size. Her curiosity egging her on, Sofia decided to see for herself what was inside. She took a long look to her left and then her right to ensure she was alone. She looked down at the Amulet of Avalor around her neck and spoke.

"I wish to be big please. Just tall enough to step over this hedge wall." Sofia had found over the years that the Amulet always appreciated manners and specifics. In a warm flash of light, Sofia found herself growing unnaturally tall: twice the size of the hedge wall. She immediately crouched down and peered her eyes over the wall. Her cursory glance showed an overgrown square with a smallish structure in the center. Not feeling threatened, she straightened, stepped over the hedge wall, crouched and spoke a second time.

"I wish to return to my regular size, please." Another warm flash of light and Sofia shrunk back down to her normal height. She looked around, scrutinizing in her surroundings.

Sofia stood in a what once must have been a perfectly manicured square, darkened by the tall hedges around her. Grass creeped up to her shins and tickled the skin under her skirts. It felt a little familiar, but she couldn't place the memory. A broken gate pressed up against the other side of the speedily constructed stone wall. The gate was ornate iron work that looked more like art to be admired than a portal to be trafficked through. It was the sort of gate that protected something special.

"Give me your riches and I'll grant you three wishes."

Sofia nearly jumped out of her skin as she let out a yelp. In her startelement, she bumped the gate, which creaked and elicited a second yelp. She looked around frantically for the source of the voice. Sofia choked down the need to panic, forcing herself to remain composed. She gripped her wand so tightly she could feel her nails starting to dig into her palm.

"...who said that?" She cautiously.

But there was nothing. There was no one there. Just a dilapidated old well in the center of the square.

"I did," a mechanical, toneless voice replied from the well.

Sofia stood perfectly still for a long moment before hesitantly walking to the source of the voice. She tightened her grip on her wand for the tenth time since hearing the voice and ran through every shielding spell she knew. She got as close to the well as she dared, stretching out her neck to peer into it from a distance. A frown crossed her face. She couldn't see it clearly. There were too many rotted leaves and general overgrowth. Sofia saw a fallen stick on the ground by her feet. Not taking her eyes off the well, she picked up the stick and used it to brush away some of the detritus. Her view finally clear, Sofia wasn't faced with water and depths. Instead she saw the vacant face of a sun staring upwards.

Her mind flooded with images.

Being turned into a cat by Amber. Her father wishing and turning her back into a girl. That same mechanical voice begging her father to make his third, and final, wish. A frustrated Clover who couldn't find his way back to his lifetime supply of radishes, Sofia helping him only to be unable to find the broken gate again no matter how hard they both looked.

Sofia took a careful step backwards. Alarms were going off in her head. Cedric's voice spoke in her head in a stern, warning tone: "Wishing is dangerous, Sofia. What sounds innocent can ruin lives. Your Amulet is the exception, not the rule, and even it has its costs. Wish magic always comes at a high price, even if you aren't the one to pay it."

The little Sofia remembered from her feline experience was that this particular Well was a powerful magical object, and that it deserved to be treated with respect, and reverence, and distance. Whoever built that stone wall put it there for a reason, though she couldn't help but wonder who did it and why.

"Give me your riches, and I'll grant you three wishes," it repeated identical to its first declaration.

"No, thank you." Sofia said politely, continuing to back away. She was about to wish her amulet make her big again before she stopped. She couldn't say the word "wish" here, not where the Well could hear her. Even if she hadn't given it any riches, it was too risky. Instead, Sofia pointed her wand at her shoes.

"Volvate cum pinnae." Little wings appeared on the back of her shoes and, with an enthusiastic jump, she leapt high into the air, assisted by the wings flapping forcefully. She flailed her arms and managed to catch the top of the hedgewall.

"Wait, please. I have so many wishes to grant." That broken, automated voice was strangely haunting.

Sofia didn't respond to the Well as she awkwardly flung herself down the other side of the hedgewall. The only things that saved her from a hard landing were the magic wings on her shoes, helping her to flutter down to land on her feet beside her basket. She picked it up and started to make her way back to the castle, the wings adding a pleasant skip to her step. Every thirty yards or so, Sofia would pause and magic a small yellow ribbon into existence. She nestled them into the hedges so they would be difficult for a passerby to see and accidentally move. Uncertain of how she arrived here, she wanted to be able to find her way back.

This wall and this Well were pieces of a mystery. Maybe this would even be something that would help her win back Cedric's good graces. Someone in the castle was sure to know about this, and who better to ask than the man who knew about everything in the castle: Baileywick. Sofia hastened her winged steps, eager to speak with the castle Steward after supper.

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It felt as though supper had never lasted this long as Sofia anxiously waited for the meal to end. Amber excused herself after the meal to retire early, exhausted from the "trials of the day," as she called them. This left Sofia and her parents alone at the table. Servants cleared the dessert plates and Baileywick appeared with a tray sporting three crystal tumblers, each half filled with cognac brandy.

The honey colored, sweet and smokey liquid was strong and Sofia could only ever stomach a few sips. But sharing the drink with her parents and siblings, when present, had become an after-supper ritual she had come to enjoy.

"Baileywick?" Sofia grabbed the Steward's attention as she took the last glass from his proffered tray.

"Yes, Princess Sofia?" Baileywick moved to hold the tray under his arm, giving the young woman his full attention.

"Do you know anything about a wall in the castle gardens?"

"What sort of wall, Princess Sofia?"

"A stone wall. I came across it today when I was looking for potion supplies. It's deeper in the gardens. The sections that haven't been tended to in some time?"

"Ah," Baileywick shook his head, "Those gardens! I do apologize, Your Majesties, I've done a terrible job with their care. The gardeners swear that the hedgerows move at night and other tasks always seem to take priority. But I do hope to address it at the end of the winter season."

"Oh don't, Baileywick! At least, not too pristinely. I love it the way it is!" Sofia said with an imploring smile. Her mother laughed lightly. Sofia turned to share a smile with her and caught a tense expression on her father's face but Baileywick's words pulled her gaze away.

"I'll do my best, Princess. Now what about this wall?"

"From what I can remember," she said, choosing her words carefully. As far as Sofia knew, her mother still didn't know about the wishing-well-cat-incident. "This wall stands in front of a broken iron gate that I remember seeing when I was a little girl. Do you have any idea why someone would have walled it up?"

Baileywick opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the harsh sound of crystal slamming down onto the table.

"That's enough, Sofia," Roland shouted at her. Sofia drew her free hand to press against her chest in alarm. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of her suddenly enraged father. She had seen her father angry in a regal sort of way, but never like this. His crystal tumbler had cracked and brandy was slowly leaking onto the table. His entire body was tense as though he was working hard to hold himself in his seat. His mouth was a pressed, thin line that held back the curl of a snarl. His eyes were narrowed and glaring at Sofia. Anger was an emotion that Sofia never associated with her father, but in this moment, it overtook him. The air was sucked from the room, Roland's sudden flame of rage consuming all the surrounding breath.

Baileywick looked completely stunned, unable to do anything but stare at the King. Miranda placed a gentle, albeit timid hand on his forearm.

"Sofia was only asking after something in the hedge gardens, Rolly." Her voice was cautious as she attempted to defuse her husband. "She didn't mean anything by asking after what she found today."

Sofia managed a small nod of agreement.

Roland stood abruptly, shrugging away Miranda's touch. Sofia had never noticed just how tall her father was until this moment as he loomed over her from where he stood. She suddenly felt very, very small.

"There is nothing in those gardens that warrants any further discussion, Sofia." His words were even and measured, but his posture spoke to the fury within him. "You are not return to that portion of the gardens again. Ever."

But Sofia wouldn't be dissuaded so easily. Not, at least, without a good reason. Mild indignation found her voice. "Father, I don't understand -"

Miranda spoke at the same time, their voices overlapping. "Roland, what is-"

Roland cut them both off with the sheer intensity of his tone, eyes boring down into Sofia as he ignored his wife. "I am your Father and your King and my decisions do not require explanation."

Sofia looked dumbly across the table at her mother, who returned a similar expression.

"Sofia, you are excused." Roland's curt tone left no room for argument. Obeying seemed the only option. Sofia gingerly set down her glass on the table. Baileywick helped with her chair and Sofia woodenly walked out of the room, Baileywick following close behind. He closed the doors to the Great Hall soundlessly and silently escorted Sofia to her room as she tried to process what had just happened.

Once alone with Miranda, Roland collapsed back into his chair. He set his elbows on the table, one in a puddle of brandy, and leaned his head into his hands, deflated.

Miranda sat staring at him for several long minutes, struggling to come up with something to say.

"What….what was that, Rolly?" Disappointment, confusion, and concern all wrapped up into her slowly spoken words. "I've never heard you speak to anyone...I've never seen you so...What was that?"

Roland started to massage his forehead. "I don't have to explain myself, Miranda." He muttered.

Miranda bit back what she wanted to say in response to that. She was his wife, after all, and if anyone deserved a glimpse into the reasoning behind his behaviors, it was her. But a brute force approach was clearly not what he needed from her and it certainly wouldn't get her the answers she wanted. She laid a tender hand on his arm, tracing her fingers up to his hand and slowly taking his hand in her own. She tilted her head to try and make contact with his eyes. "I wish you would." Her voice quietly invited him to open up to her.

The expression that looked up at her was nearly as unrecognizable as the fury Roland had shown minutes earlier. He was agony personified. His eyes were glassy, fighting to bury unspoken pain. His face contorted as he tried to maintain control over his emotions. His hand clung to his wife's as though it was the rope keeping him from falling into a deep pit. "I cannot," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. "It would break me. Break us! All that we've worked for. Gone."

Sympathy welled up to replace the confusion in Miranda. She was on her feet and standing beside him before she knew it. Her other hand reached forward to lovingly caress his cheek. "It's okay, Rolly. I love you. You can tell me anything."

Roland gave his head one succinct shake. "I will not tell you this," he said sounding regretful but resigned. Desperately leaning into her touch, he quietly added "I am a good king."

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A/N:

Fun Fact - The Dullahan is the Irish equivalent of the Headless Horseman and he's afraid of gold.

Updated: 7/20/17