Rachel Hawkins - Grim

She told him, “It is done.”

“Good.” Fyren smiled and picked his knife and fork. He cut into the meat of the heart, eyeing it with suspicion, and then asked Dianthus, “This is the heart and tongue of the boy?”

Brenn understood instantly what had happened, and that Fyren—the man who had spent many long years pretending to care for him—had ordered his true love to murder him.

“That is not my heart, old man,” Brenn said as he burst from the pantry, frightening both Fyren and Dianthus. “You have been deceived, the way you have spent all these years deceiving me.”

“I know not what you speak of,” Fyren stammered, and struggled to get to his feet.

“Why would you have her kill me?” Brenn asked. “Why would you eat my heart? After years of playing the part of my father, why?”

“Please.” Fyren fell to his knees, groveling before the prince. “Have pity on me. I was but a poor cook in your father’s kingdom. I would be condemned to death or servitude if not for you.”

“It was for the wishes, then, wasn’t it?” Brenn asked. “You’ve been holding me captive for my powers all this time. Has everything you told me been a lie? Are my parents even dead?”

“I do not know what became of your parents,” Fyren told him.

“Then what good are you to me? You are nothing but a mangy dog, begging for scraps at my feet,” Brenn said. “It’s time you took your true form. I wish you to become what you truly are—a mangy black dog, starving and unable to ever feel full, no matter how much diseased flesh and burning coals you might eat.”

Fyren cried out, but quickly, his cries turned to that of a howling dog, and he changed into a thin dog, with patches of black fur missing all over his protruding ribs.

“This is why you sent me away?” Brenn turned to Dianthus, his gray eyes filled with worry.

“I had to protect you,” she told him.

“Now it is my turn to protect you.” He took her hands in his. “I will take you away from this dark castle to my parents’ kingdom. I was a prince there, and when we return, you will be at my side, as my princess.”

“Your kingdom? That’s so very far away, past the mountains and rivers and forests,” Dianthus said. “We could stay here and make this castle our own.”

“The journey won’t be that long. We can make it,” Brenn promised her. “I must return. My parents might still be alive, and I have to see them and tell them where I’ve been.”

Dianthus knew that Fyren was a faulty storyteller, but not everything he’d told her had been a lie. Many things were, but certainly some of them had to be true. And what reason did Fyren have to kill his wish maker unless he was right? If Brenn left the top of the mountain, all his wishes might come undone—meaning Dianthus would cease to exist as a person, and instead return to the carnation form from which she’d come.

By the look in Brenn’s eyes and the way she felt in her heart, she was certain he would stay if she asked him to. If she refused to leave the castle, then Brenn would refuse to leave her. But in all their years together, she’d heard hundreds of stories about his parents, and he loved them so much. She couldn’t deny him a chance to see them again.

“I’ve never left the grounds before, and I’m afraid I’ll slow you down on the journey back to your rightful kingdom,” Dianthus told Brenn finally. “Why don’t you wish for me to return to my carnation form? Then you can carry me in your pocket, and I’ll always be with you.”

“If that’s as you wish,” Brenn said. “As soon as we get to the safety of my kingdom, I will make you be human again.”

She smiled at him with tears in her eyes. “Of course.”

Before he made his wish, she kissed him and held him tightly to her. So softly that Brenn couldn’t hear, Dianthus told him goodbye.

The prince had arrived at the peak of the Graulumberg Mountains as a frightened young boy, but he left as a strong young man with a flower pressed in his pocket and a mangy dog at his heels.

It had been a very long time since he’d been outside Fyren’s castle grounds, and he’d forgotten how cold and treacherous the mountain was. He managed to make it down, but even darker trouble was lurking for him in the Verzanfrost Woods.

Brenn was careful not to use his powers of wishing, as there were too many people inhabiting the woods. They were all dark, evil folk, and they would do anything to get their hands on a power like his. He had to keep it secret, even when the wild beasts chased after them.

At night, when he would sleep in a thicket made in the roots of the trees, he would pull out the carnation, twirling it in his fingers, and that would give him the strength to make it through another day.

In the cold waters of the Eisenfluss River, Brenn was nearly swept away. But he pulled himself to shore, gasping for breath and ever more determined to finish his quest home.

When Brenn finally arrived at the gates at the edge of his kingdom, it was several months later. His clothes were tattered and worn, he was bruised, scarred and dirty, but he was stronger and better for the journey.

The flags flying high over the gates still bore the emblem of his father. His parents were still in power. The first knight Brenn found, he demanded to take him to see the king.

“A filthy beggar like yourself will not be granted audience with the king,” the knight told him. “Take yourself and your mangy beast and get out of here.”

Instead of listening, Brenn bolted and ran as fast as he could toward the castle, outrunning all of the king’s men. He snuck past the guards outside the palace, and Brenn pushed his way inside, racing right up to the king’s court.

As soon as he saw them—the king and queen seated in their thrones—Brenn knew they were his parents. They’d aged some—his father thinner than he remembered, and his mother much grayer.

A guard ran over to grab him, but Queen Rose was already to her feet, tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Do not touch a hair on that boy’s head!” the queen commanded. “That is your prince, and if you hurt him, I will send you to the dungeon myself.”

She ran over to Brenn, embracing him tightly to her, and King Elrik soon hugged him, too. They asked what had happened to him, and Brenn began to tell the story of Fyren and how he’d held him in the mountains for all those years.

Then he thought of Dianthus, and seeing that it was safe in the kingdom, Brenn pulled the flower from his pocket. The pink petals had browned and wilted. The flower had been crushed over time, and it was so fragile that it felt like it might turn to dust in his fingers.

“Wherever did you get that?” the queen asked as Brenn set the flower on the floor.

“Dianthus, I wish for you to return to your human form,” Brenn commanded.

His heart pounded desperately, and his stomach churned. Throughout his travels, he’d known the flower was growing worn, and every night since he’d left the mountains, Brenn had thought about wishing Dianthus back to life. But it was not as he’d promised her, so he’d waited.

But now that the moment was at hand, he’d begun to fear that perhaps the flower had become too damaged. Perhaps Dianthus would be unable to return, or if she did, she may be injured. He’d tried with all his might to protect the pink, but the journey had been arduous, and it had taken its toll on the precious flower.

In moments that stretched out to eternity, Brenn was certain that his greatest fears had come true. He’d been unable to keep his one true love safe, and she would not return to him. And then finally—blessedly—she appeared.