Miley still wanted it, even after the story. It was beautiful with all the gold and gems.
As Mercy mad
e her way through the rest of the things in the warehouse, she looked around for some of the furniture that they’d wanted for the new house.
“There is a bed over there that is the biggest bed I’ve ever seen.” She followed Joel to where it was broken down and leaning against the wall. “I mean, from the width of the headboard, I’d say it’s about eight feet wide. What the hell kind of mattress would that take?”
“Not a mattress back then. Ticking. And straw. If someone was very wealthy, they’d have wool in it. But that usually would bring out all kinds of critters.” She didn’t know where it had come from, however. “We would take things from the castles that we destroyed to sell, or to be used by someone that needed things. Mostly the wooden things, like this, would have been split up and used for fire. I don’t have any idea why this was saved. But I do know that these marks here? They’re from Esme’s claws when she carried it back to the encampment. If you want it, which I don’t mind at all, we can have a mattress made for it.”
“I do. I don’t know why. It’s very ornate and dark, but I love the dragons on the posts, as well as the one curled up at the top of the headboard. It’ll be like we’re being watched over as we sleep.” Joel grinned at her as he continued. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, were there dragons during your time?”
“There were. Not as many as there used to be before we started wars, but there were enough to darken the skies during the day. Their flames were hot enough to burn down a village as they flew by. And when sheep came up missing, it was said that they’d taken them, when more than likely the few that were gone had been taken by a neighbor or a passing family.” He shivered, and she smiled. “Did you think that there wouldn’t be? I mean, look at the detail on the dragon there. Where do you think that design stemmed from?”
“I was hoping, I guess, that someone had a great imagination. I know you mentioned it before, but I didn’t let my mind wrap around it. I guess I was hoping you were teasing me.” She told him not for that. “Yes, well, I can see that now. What else have you found? I have to admit, I love that table. It’s sort of barbaric looking with the chairs like they are, but it appeals to me on a certain level.”
It was a long thinnish table that would seat fourteen, if the chairs were any indication. She had kept it from one of the last castles that they’d invaded. Like Joel, she had no idea why it appealed to her, or even what she thought she’d do with it as a bird. But it might have been the way the table looked just like what it was—a large middle slice of a grand old tree.
The chairs were barbaric in how they were adorned. Atop each of the ears, the very tip of the back rails, was an animal of the forest. Rabbits and moles. There were birds too, smaller ones like the others might have been. But the head chair, it had a tall falcon on each side, and the arms were carved to look like the wings.
She’d only just realized that she’d never sat in the thing. For all she knew it could be the most uncomfortable dining set she’d ever seen. Joel sat down in it and smiled. She waited for him to tell her that he hated it, but instead, he told her that it was comfortable. Like a man twice or so his size had made it soft and pliable for him to use. Mercy sat down in one of the other chairs and felt the same thing. Like it had been made for them to use.
“There is a great deal of stuff in here.” She told Jude that she’d forgotten how much. “I was at first thinking that we could sell it off—we don’t really have much use for this much furniture—but then I had a better idea. I think I’m going to buy the Darkberry Mansion and turn it into a bed and breakfast. I think that sucker has like fifteen bedrooms.”
“You’d use this stuff in it?” Jude nodded and said that whatever they didn’t want, or she didn’t want to keep, they could put a price tag on it at the B&B. “That’s wonderful, Jude. I mean, with the restructure of the town and businesses coming in, it would be sort of neat to have something like that for people to stay in. Also, Blaze is talking about putting some of the smaller pieces and the pictures that we have into a museum-like setting that people might want to see as well. I think there are some plates and things over in one of the other trunks that you can use. And a lot of stuff in the cave.”
“Cave? I thought this was it. I mean, you said cave before, but this is dark and such. I just assumed this was all there was.” Jude told Joel this wasn’t even a drop in the hat of what they had stored away. “More furniture too?”
“No, the cave would have been damp after all these years, so at some point in all this time we commissioned to have this place built. Mostly it was used for crops and such, but that soon died out. But this stuff, it’s been in here for centuries. We had fans put in some time ago, then later there was a dehumidifier installed. It’s why everything is so dry and without mold. We’re going there today. You should see what you can have there too.”
The trip was planned, but Miley wasn’t going this time. They were headed there as birds, and she wasn’t able to fly just yet. She could be a bird, they’d found out, but she was still having balance issues, and so she had to wait before taking to the air.
It didn’t take long to get there, but the flight was made longer by all of them playing in the sky. It had been a long time since they’d all had been together like this. And having Joel there to see his enjoyment through fresh eyes made them all happy. The trees were just turning too, their colors so bright in the evening sun that Mercy wanted to linger longer, just to be free of the stress of life right now. Landing near the opening, she put her hand on the large stone and said the words that would open it. Nothing so fancy as the names of their birds. It was simply “Lady Dante, Queen of Castle Duncan, give me entrance.”
The large stone groaned as it moved out of its resting place. There had been weeds and trees growing around the area, and instead of killing them with the stone moving, they simply moved out of the way. Dante wanted nothing or no one to suffer unnecessarily.
The entrance was bright with sunlight. Mercy knew that the deeper they went into the belly of the mountain it would grow darker. As soon as they reached the cave where they had stored things—the queen had saved all this for them—the way would be bright again. The mountain, knowing who they were, would open an opening wide and deep so that the sunlight would be surrounding them in the place of treasures.
“Oh my. Oh my, oh my. There is much more than I could even imagine here.” Joel walked around the trunks and piles of coins and gold. Silver too was stashed in here, as well as gems the size of his head. “You could put the national banks out of business with all this.”
He never touched anything, Mercy noticed, but kept his hands at his back while he peeked into whatever he saw that interested him. Leaving him to look around, she went to the walls to find what she’d wanted since falling in love with the man.
The rings were just where she’d seen them last—wedding bands made of the purest silver and adorned with a single diamond on the woman’s band. The diamond was pink, a lovely shade of the palest color she’d ever seen. She knew, too, where she’d gotten it from. Joel joined her when she called for him.
“The ship that was bringing the king to Dante’s castle had these on his ship when he was coming across the sea. There were many more pieces he brought—not for Dante, but for the new bride that was being held in the lower chambers of the ship.” Joel took both pieces and asked her what happened to the woman. “She was nearly dead when we got to the boat. They had forgotten about her, I guess, and she starved, too weak to try and move. It wouldn’t have mattered to him, I don’t suppose—it had not mattered to him that she didn’t want to come with him. She had a husband of her own, four sons too. I guess that is why he took her—she was ripe to bear him a son.”
“You killed him.” She nodded, then shook her head. “I’m assuming that you all did. Went out to sea to kill the man who took your queen’s life, so to speak?”
“No, it was only I that sunk the ship. I was angry, you see. Not because Dante had died, but that she had given us the abili
ty to shift into humans. The others were happy, in a way, I guess. I blamed it all on him. It was, I guess, his fault really. But to me, he was the sole reason that she had died. So, I took the biggest boulder I could find and dropped it from a great height to sink his ship. But I promise you, Joel, I saved anyone that was there against their will. And there were quite a few of them.”
“And these rings? You found them while searching the ship?” She told him that she’d found them when she’d found the bride. They were hers and her husband’s. The king had killed her family so that she’d be free to go. “Such a sad story to go with a set of wedding rings. Don’t you think?”
“Perhaps. But you see, she begged me to take them with me before she died. To give them love and life again. That the sorrow that was attached to them should be erased by a true love, one that could make the wrong right for her. She told me to marry someday, have many children, and give the rings to my first-born son, that he too could find happiness in such a beautiful beginning.”
“That’s very lovely.” He slipped her ring on her finger and she did the same to his. The rings fit them as if they’d been made only for them. “I will give you as much happiness and safety as you have given me and mine. I will only love you, Mercy Oliver, for the rest of my days.”
They kissed, and it felt like they were married for the first time.