Writing Prompt – Finish the Story Part III

Tuesday, July 22 in The Matticus Kingdom, the gauntlet was thrown. Challenge accepted.

Prompt and Part 1

Part 2

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Part 3: Faerie

Silence hung over the Grove when Rhys arrived. A few more minutes until midnight, but he could hardly wait another second for the reunion he had never even dared hope for. So complete was the break between them, so final was the taking of Gwenlyann’s memories – or so he’d thought. Time was when only the wizard who had cast a spell of Unremembrance would be able to undo it, and that at great cost to the caster. How had Gwenlyann remembered him? Rhys felt overwhelmed, like he was trying to catch up to events he didn’t know how to interpret.

Without sound or ceremony, she appeared in the moonlight at the edge of the Grove. As she stepped into the relative darkness of the trees Rhys saw that her flaming red hair was covered by the hood of a deep purple cloak. He chuckled involuntarily, remembering how many times his wife had implored her not to wear purple. “Gwenlyann, why must you insist on your clothes clashing with your hair? Green or even blue would serve to accent your flames rather than mock them!” Her exasperation was wasted on a girl who proved to be the most charming rebel in all Eldoran.

Her smile seemed to banish the darkness around them, as well as his uncertainty regarding her feelings about the lengths her parents had gone to for her protection. Would she ever be able to forgive him for stealing her childhood from her? By all accounts she had found a way to regain the memories, but how?

Gwenlyann walked slowly towards him, mist swirling around the hem of her cloak. Rhys reached towards her, intending an embrace, when her face shifted. Emerald eyes turned black like coal … purple cloak melted into gray tatters in his hand.

“NOOOOO!” he shouted in despair. Almost too late he realized his mistake. As the gray strips wound their tendrils over his mouth, establishing their grip on wrists and ankles, he had just enough time to whisper the spell of winking, the one that would transport him out of the ever-tightening grasp of Faerie wrappings and into Oblivion. It would be many years before he could return and continue the search, but return he would. Now he knew for a certainty the Faerie had her. They had tipped their hand for once.

One thought occupied his mind before the spell shattered his soul into fragments, “I will find you, Gwenlyann. Hang on, Daddy loves you and I will come for you!” Like mist vanishing before the rising sun, the man Rhys winked out of existence.

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Note: This is the final part of a prologue to a much longer story. Stay tuned for more installments to come.