The Golden Gate of Gireswen: Chapter 1

The young princess stood perched at the edge of the balcony, her steely gray eyes fixed on the grand figures protruding from the horizon. The Gireswen Mountains. They were mostly hidden that hazy morning, tucked snugly away behind the clouds.

Frozen, barren wasteland, her father had said. Why would you want to go there? She wasn’t quite sure herself. Maybe it was due to the fact that sometimes in the warm season, if she stretched far over the palace railing, squinted her eyes, and looked carefully, patches of green appeared over the ordinarily desolate mountainsides. Or maybe it was the way her father evaded her eyes every time he insisted that there was nothing there to find.

Nobody knew for sure what the mysterious mountainsides held, as the journey there was strictly forbidden by her father, King Roldan. She did, however, have an inkling of what one might find if they were to make the illegal, supposedly treacherous trek there. It was a theory drawn around thirteen years of overheard whispers from the palace servants and hushed chatter followed by nervous, flitting eyes in the village marketplace. It was something nobody ever spoke of unless necessary or as part of a tale to scare young children, and it was something everyone feared. Elves.

“Addie!”

She looked way down and waved to the bouncing figure in the gardens below. It was her friend, the servant boy, Marco. He took off his hat. “Would your highness be free to accompany me on a stroll this fine morning?” he shouted.

Princess Adelaide smiled and cupped her hands around her mouth. “I don’t know, Sir Marco, it looks as if it might rain!” The sky truly did look as if it could break open at any moment. The storms had been fierce the day before, but by the occasional rumble in the sky, it was apparent that they hadn’t yet finished unleashing their rage on the kingdom. The boy pretended to look hurt, though he knew she had only been teasing. He knew her well enough to know that a little weather would never shy her away from a day in the woods. She rolled her eyes and called down to him, “Let me get my coat!”

He grinned stupidly as he watched her disappear into her room at the top floor of the castle. His brother thumped him on the back of the head. “Back to work, lover-boy.”

With a groan he dug his spade into the dirt, starting again at the weeds that had sprouted up around the royal rose bushes. Though the clouds that drooped heavily in the sky shielded him from the sun’s heat, humidity had his shirt plastered to his shoulders. He brought his free hand to his forehead, wiping off sweat and leaving behind a trail of grime.

“You need to watch yourself around the princess,” Ricker scolded his younger brother for the millionth time. “If you get in trouble with the king and queen, we’ll lose our jobs, and then we’ll have no way to take care of Margot.”

Though the thought of losing his sister sobered the boy, he and the princess had been sneaking away for years, and he wasn’t about to put a stop to their escapades now. “We’ll just have to be extra careful then.”

Ricker shook his head, but Marco knew what he was really worried about. He had grown fond of the princess; Marco only pretended not to notice his looks of longing that followed him and Adelaide as they fled the palace walls for adventure. In all honesty, he himself didn’t understand why the princess favored spending time with him over Ricker. Ricker was, well, better looking, and if it wasn’t for him being stuck as a palace servant, he’d be old enough to be a squire.

When Ricker looked away, he snatched a pair of shears and clipped off a single stem for the princess.

A few minutes later, Adelaide materialized behind him, the sharp features of her face concealed behind a cloak. She’d snuck down the stairs, past the guards, and through the palace kitchen in a record time. She’d done it so many times in the past that she could probably do it in her sleep, and it helped that many of the servants had learned to turn her a blind eye. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yes.” He hesitated, and then he handed her the rose. “M’ lady.”

“Aww!” Her soft fingertips brushed against his as she accepted his gift, tying his stomach into a knot. She burrowed her freckled nose in its petals and inhaled the pleasant fragrance. “Thank you.”

Embarrassed by his own chivalry, he rested his hand on the back of his neck. “We should get going,” he said, “before someone sees.”

“Right,” she agreed. She adjusted the long, itchy sleeves of her dress with her empty hand, exchanged a quick nod with Ricker, who was still hunched over his work, and turned tail, the hem of her dress trailing the cobblestone path behind her.

“Hurry back,” Ricker called after them in vain.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As they feared it would be, their secret fort was in shambles. Marco kicked the fallen sticks in frustration, causing the structure to cave in even further. Adelaide stood with her hands on her hips, uncertain what to make of the mess.

“I say we start over from scratch,” she finally suggested. They had been small children when they built it for the first time, and it had been in desperate need of repair for years before the previous night’s storm had decided to finish it off.

“Nah,” he responded. He spat in the dirt. “We’re getting too old for secret forts anyways.”

His words clawed at her heart. Speak for yourself.

“Say,” he said, pointing upwards, “do you think I can make it to the top of that tree?”

With her hands on her hips, she surveyed at the grand giant before them and snorted. “Nope.”

His muddy brown eyes twinkling with the challenge, he secured the laces of his shoes and started to climb.

“Get down from there,” yelled Adelaide. “You’re going to get hurt!”

Ignoring her completely, he scurried up the tree as agile as a squirrel. He was thirty feet in the air before he stopped; a grin was stretched across his face. “Wow!” he yelled. “The view up here is amazing.” His voice echoed through the forest. Standing there up in the sky, his messy mop of dirty blond hair flapping in the wind, he looked somewhat heroic. And incredibly stupid. It reminded the princess of why she adored him.

Not about to be showed up by a boy, she reached on her tip-toes for a chunk of bark, grabbed hold, and began to climb. About three feet up the tree she realized that this was going to be much harder to do in a dress. Slowly and steadily she ascended until she finally came upon the first large branch and stopped to rest. Gasping for breath and with arms as weak as strings of pasta, she brushed the bark off her dress and looked down; the ground was much farther away than she thought it’d be.

“Tired already?” Marco teased. “I knew you couldn’t make it all the way up. Don’t worry; I’ll meet you down there.” He situated himself for the climb back down.

“No!” The princess used the trunk as a brace to pull herself to her feet. “I can make it!”

He tried to rearrange himself back into a sitting position on the branch, but with a sharp gasp, his feet slipped out from beneath him. At the last second he caught a grip on the branch, and bark burrowed deep into his palms. “Aargh!” His feet dangled wildly in the air. “Help!”

The princess’s thundering heart skipped a beat and her stomach lodged itself in her throat. There was no way she could reach him in time. One of his hands slipped; his life was now suspended only by the diminishing strength of his left hand. She began to hyperventilate. A fall that far would surely kill him. In a split second, Adelaide made a brash decision to do the one thing she’d sworn she would never do. She fell.

Somewhere in the back of her mind through the buzzing of the wind she thought she heard Marco scream. A million thoughts surged through her brain. He’s going to hate me for never telling him. What if he never wants to talk to me again? And he can’t keep his mouth shut. What if he tells someone like Ricker and word gets out in the kingdom? They’ll banish me. It was too late to change her mind then.

Mere milliseconds from the ground, her heartbeat increased ten-fold and she rose. She hovered above the damp forest ground, and with her small, humming wings, she zipped to where Marco dangled dangerously from the sky. As soon as she was safely over the branch, she morphed back to her usual self and clasped hold of Marco’s wrist. “I’m going to try to pull you up, so I need you to let go and walk yourself up the side of the tree.”

His eyes bulged out of his head. “Hell Addie! Don’t act like you didn’t just turn into a bird! How did you do that?!”

Her stomach lurched with dread. “Never mind that. Now, on the count of three…”

She hoisted him up with all the might she could muster; he grunted as he collapsed over the branch. Tears stained his face, but she pretended not to notice. He rearranged himself and then winced, wiping the blood from his hands off onto his pants. “Mum is going to kill me,” he muttered. Then he remembered. He looked at Adelaide with something like awe in his eyes. Then it turned to confusion, shock, and then a piercing mixture of fear and disgust. His statement came out more like a question, like he knew it was true but he didn’t want it to be. “You’re an elf.”

He looked confused once again. “But…you’re the princess!”

A/N This title is uncertain, and this is my first attempt at writing fantasy, so I would definitely appreciate feedback or advice from someone who knows more than I do about the genre. Thank you for reading!