The Proud Princess & the Very Bad Winding Back of Time

“How can you grouse at me now, Cat?”
“There is always time for grousing, my lady!” The dragon wheeled backward again. “Cease and desist!”
“I don’t know magic!”
“Very obviously you do.” Forward the dragon flew as Damarishka fell and Whisker groused onward. “It’s not my magic misbehaving right now.”

Continuing the fairy tale which I started in Czech, which veers like a mad scientist between cozy, gothic, adventure, and romance. A dastardly masked mage kidnaps a spoiled princess from her birthday ball and spirits her away in his flying carriage to his black castle to marry her. But there is more to this than she knows…

For all the previous parts, click here: The Proud Princess and the Masked Mage. For bite-sized bits, start with the first and then continue. Or jump right in –>

IN THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT –>

“The murderers—the bastards.” His black gaze terrifying, his manner almost violent, Darian sprinted for the corridor.

Whisker arched into the air, his scarlet cloak aflutter, his valiant bravado a-billow. “I will join you, Master!”

“No,” Darian flung over his shoulder, halfway to the door. “Protect Damarishka. And you—” Abruptly, vehemently, he halted in the doorframe and slewed his look over her.

His intensity staked her in place.

“Live.” Then he bolted out the door.

The continuation:

Upon the advent of Darian’s dramatic departure, Damarishka desperately debated: should she follow him to help?

Doing so could burden him with danger, if he had to expend magic to protect her instead of fighting the foe, but her doing nothing didn’t even enter the equation.

And then: inspiration.

She imperiously snatched the strawberry scone from Whisker’s paw just as he sank his sharpest kitty teeth into it. “Aren’t strawberries poison for cats? Tell me how to help him.”

Upon having his fruit thus atrociously confiscated, insouciant Whisker declined affront. Instead, he smoothed down his whiskers with fastidious paws. “You have chosen wisely, my lady. The strawberries are excellent.” He availed himself of another scone off the platter, this time blueberry. “I am, alas, not allowed to convey to you certain things.”

“Now is not the time to be cryptic, Cat.”

“Being cryptic is timeless.”

“These people killed his parents! They could kill him, too!”

“Interesting choice of words, my lady. Darian, however, has sworn me to protect you from the truth at all cost.”

“From what truth?”

“From the truth I must protect you from, naturally.” The blueberry scone had vanished into kitty belly area and also turned Whisker’s teeth blue, a fact clearly visible as he cat-smiled at her.

“You are maddening, Cat.”

“And you are mad. I understand. It is a thing all creatures feel.”

“Are you not worried about him?”

“Worry is unhelpful.”

This was getting her nowhere.

She swished grandly toward the door.

“Oh,” Claw theatrically whispered sidewise to Whisker, “you’ve pricked her hackles now!”

“She has hackles?” Darian’s cat squinted at her as she pompously glided out the door.

The only thing she could think of to do was head up to the roof of the castle’s highest tower.

Not that she would be able to see Darian, but surely magic battles involved dramatic components such as eruptions, paroxysms of the earth, plumes, fire? Something visible, at least. Some piddly sparks?

It was her only hope.

She ventured up and up and up, as far as the stairs would let her go, then she climbed a ladder and through a trapdoor onto a tower roof.

The wind rushed around out here like an incensed witch, a veritable fury punishing Damarishka for having hair—or at least castigating her for leaving it unbound, but Damarishka ignored it in favor of scouring the horizon for any hint of magical conflict.

Nothing!

Nothing in any direction!

Where was he? How could she help him if no obliging fireworks were accommodatingly exploding so she could locate him?

“What am I supposed to do now?” she muttered.

“Die,” growled a voice behind her, very clearly, and then someone hefted her up and catapulted her over the parapet.

She couldn’t even scream, only squeak feebly in protest, and then air currents were blasting past her as she somersaulted in tempestuous flips, her skirts flapping against her arms, her hair its own blustery storm, the strands striking her face and arms like undomesticated snaps of lightning.

Her belly had been left behind somewhere far overhead, but what did it matter? She was about to be smashed to bloody flinders of muscle and carnage on the flagstone courtyard twelve floors below; it was hurtling toward her far too fast—

No, she was hurtling toward it.

She must do something!

At the thought, something ruptured from her core (something probably as bad as that phrase sounded), and suddenly she was somersaulting back upward.

Startled, shrieking, she flung out her arms—and was somersaulting downward again—then again her entire body seized up, and there she was cartwheeling back up.

“What is this?” She tried to grab the tower wall—too far—and now she was toppling down again. “Help me!”

“My lady!” A massive beast of iridescent green scales was sweeping out of nowhere, beating its vast and barbed wings against the turbulent wind.

Where had a dragon come from?

No, that was Whisker’s voice!

Damarishka whirled back upward again like a child’s toy. “Whisker! Did the dragon eat you?”

The dragon, in odd synchronization with her own jerking up and down, flew backward as she flipped upward, and then thrust forward again as she fell. “My lady,” cried Whisker from the dragon, “stop using your magic!”

Mercy help her. Her stomach was revolting now at this pell-mell abuse—up and down; soon her breakfast was going to be up and then down, too. The contents of her belly were already about to—“What magic?” she gasped out.

Whisker’s voice grumped again from the going-forward-and-back dragon. “You’re winding back time, Lady! Very badly, I might add!”

“How can you grouse at me now, Cat?”

“There is always time for grousing, my lady!” The dragon wheeled backward again. “Cease and desist!”

“I don’t know magic!”

“Very obviously you do.” Forward the dragon flew as Damarishka fell and Whisker groused onward. “It’s not my magic misbehaving right now.”

Not that she believed him, but: “How do I stop it? Without being eaten by the dragon that got you?”

“If I knew your magic, I’d tell you. Alas—” Whisker-dragon pinwheeled backward again.

Abruptly, a hand of bare, stripped bone encircled her wrist and yanked her to a halt.

Her frantic fall stalled with her swinging crazily a floor above the flagstones, her arm almost pulled from its socket, clutched by—

She twisted her head upward to find a man with a half-fleshed skull—

DUN DUN DUN! I was obviously in a lighter mood this week. I hope you liked it! The next part is here.

Thrice the Shadow. Nope, I still have not decided what that means. Be kind this week, y’all!

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