The Final Days of Springborough

Kyrstin tried to remember the exact words her grandmother, the Ex-Queen of Springborough, had said when describing the misty emerald ring the elder woman would wear on her right hand. Sometimes it would be placed on the Queen’s middle finger, and sometimes, if there was rain coming, the Queen would switch the ring to her pinkie. Either way, it was one of the Queen’s most cherished positions, and she would tell Kyrstin that some day the young princess would receive it. As it stood right now, the Queen was in no position to pass on her ring to her granddaughter, and Kyrstin would have no idea how to ask for it.

It was hard for Kyrstin to remember all of the details. It was similar to when her father would ask her to recall the things she had learned in her lessons that day as the family all supped together that evening, and Kyrstin had to try and think past all of her brilliant daydreams that she had while trying to not entirely focus on what her tutor was saying.

Kyrstin remembered that she and her grandmother were in the Great Hall, the Hall where the ceilings were so high that they sometimes let clouds in. The walls were all dark, cold, grey stones with parchments of paintings of times past on them. Each column, made of stone, which held up the great ceiling, held torches that burned so bright, and so hot, Kyrstin was always too afraid to go near them. Sometimes, burning bits of something would fall from the torch to the floor, which didn’t seem to worry anybody. The Great Hall seemed to hold so much moisture that if the burning pieces hit the cloth runner that ran from the doors of the room to the King and Queen’s chairs, the runner would not catch fire.

Kyrstin, when allowed, would play with her dolls, little crocheted objects that the townspeople showered her crib with when she was first born, at the steps of the Great Hall that led up to the throne chairs. Her grandmother, the Queen, would sit on her throne, looking down on correspondence she got from Heavens knows where. The Queen would read, sometimes “mmm” to herself, or scoff, or simply put a piece of correspondence down in a huff, only picking it back up to re-examine what it was that upset her.

On this day, the sunlight was coming through the glassed windows, creating prism effects on the walls. One sunbeam in particular seemed to come straight in through the glass, its light ignoring everything else in the room except for Queen Grace’s ring. And that is the first time the young Princess remembers seeing it, and asking about it.

“Where’d you get that ring?” Kyrstin asked, pointing to the specific one she was inquiring about. She knew the diamond ring on her grandmother’s left ring finger was from the King. That ring symbolized chosen love. The sun wasn’t hitting that ring, though, it was hitting the other one.

The Queen welcomed the interruption from her reading.

“This ring? This green one? It was given to me be a warlock.”

“What’s a warlock?”

“A man who practices witchcraft. A male witch.”

“Like Leila?” Leila, the female witch in the village, was always around. There was never a time before Leila. She had been alive since Queen Grace was a little girl, and she, for all anybody knew, was the same age when Kyrstin was born. The witch Leila was timeless. Perhaps this warlock was somehow related to her.

“Yes. Leila is a witch. But, even she doesn’t know about this ring, doesn’t know the power it holds.”

“What kind of power?” Kyrstin’s thoughts went to perhaps the ring could move things just by thinking about them, or expel lightening bolts at the flick of the hand.

“A very important power. Something that has kept Springborough safe for generations. It must be worn at all times, and one day, I’ll pass it on to you.”

“Why would you not pass it on to my mother?”

“It needs a longer life than that. I will give it to you when I shall wear it no more, and you shall it give it, not to your daughter, but to your granddaughter when you both are meeting the same age as you and I are now. That way, the ring is passed down every seventy years, and before you know it- Springborough is safe for centuries. As it should be.”

“Safe from what?”

“Oh, nothing a young girl like yourself should bother about. Play with your dolls. I should continue reading.”

But, the dolls no longer held Kyrstin’s attention. She couldn’t quit thinking about the ring, and the way the light hit it, and the power that it had inside. She wanted to feel it in her grasp.

The Queen noticed her granddaughter looking.

“When the Warlock gave me this ring, Kyrstin, he made me promise to never take it off. Not when I bathe, not when I take my walks, not even when I go to sleep. Especially when I go to sleep.”

“But, who is this warlock? Where did you meet him?”

“In the woods. I used to ride my steed around everything that we controlled in our kingdom. I would survey the lands. I would count the animals. I would taste the berries. I knew every tree, and the people they knew me. I didn’t know one man, though, and that intrigued me. A drifter in the woods. The people of Fortis would talk about a man, covered in a shroud, talking with the trees. Nobody could describe him.”

“Was he the warlock?”

“No. At least, the warlock told me he wasn’t talking with the trees, and when I came across the warlock, while looking for this man, the warlock wasn’t in a shroud.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A shirt. Pants. Almost looked like a sailor on dry land. Wore clothes that would catch the wind. When I mentioned the man I was looking for, the warlock seemed nervous. He gave me this ring. And I’ve never seen him again.”

“Is it an emerald?” Kyrstin asked, getting mesmerized by the ring again.

“No… look…”

With the invitation, the princess was immediately to her feet, making her way up the stone stairs to her grandmother’s throne, being very careful not to step on any of the correspondence her grandmother discarded hastily. When Kyrstin was close to the ring, she inspected it thoroughly.

It was a dirty green with specks all about it. It definitely wasn’t the cleanest of any jewelry Kyrstin had seen around the castle. As rather ugly ring if she would say so herself, but she dare not tell the Queen such a thought; especially because of the Queen’s obsession with it. But, just as Kyrstin was about to look away, the ring changed color, going from an emerald green to the color of embers on a fire, with a black slit in the middle. The ring seemed to burn with life, and Kyrstin’s breath caught in her throat for the piece of jewelry now looked like-

“An eye?” Queen Grace said, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “A dragon’s eye. The warlock didn’t tell me how he came to be in possession of it, but it’s locked away inside a very strong, thick glass ball.”

“It blinks?”

The Queen shook her head.

“I think the eye and the eyelid just kind of roll around in there.”

“It sees me?”

“Don’t be silly, Kyrstin. An eye is an eye. Detach it from the head and it doesn’t see anything. That’s like asking if I cut off your finger, would your fingertip still feel the coolness of the floor. If I threw that finger into a fire, would you flinch? Of course not. This is just a dragon’s eye, hopefully a dead one, or we’re going to have a vengeful beast on our hands, but nonetheless an eye with no brain. Just a memento in a glass ball that sits on my finger.”

“Maybe the warlock put a spell on it.”

“There’s a spell all right. Whatever it is that is keeping us, our kingdom, safe just by me wearing this ring.”

And now, with her Grandma, and the ring, nowhere to be found, Kyrstin wondered if the storm overhead had anything to do with the protection they once had, being no more.

She was able to locate the bear’s tracks in the woods, and followed them to the cottage where they pranced around. Kyrstin found specks of blood from where the bear had taken the arrow in his body, and saw that the blood drops and the paw prints mixed together in the rain and carried off toward the direction of Springborough castle. She had no idea if the bear was exactly where she should head, or if she would find out more about the current predicament by taking apart her grandmother’s cottage, but Kyrstin just had a feeling that her grandmother’s ring was in the bear’s stomach .

With her brother’s sword, she knew that she would do anything to get that ring back. If that meant cutting the bear in two…

…so be it.