Chapter Text
The story begins as many do,
with a hero, a villain, a castle, a king.
There’s a battle, though that comes later.
And an ending—there’s one of those, too.
Like all good stories, this is one destined to end in flames.
But before there can be fire, there must be…
SIMON
“...smoke?” I say, fumbling to an unfortunate state of waking. (The days keep coming, and I keep putting up with them.) (Don't ever call me a quitter.) “Smoke. That's not right. Why’s there smoke in my room?”
I drag myself up, a bleary-eyed mess marooned in a fancy bed, and peer up at a lead-framed window set high into the rough stone wall. It’s not only smoke I see, spiralling up on the far side of stained glass—there are sparks, too. Fireworks.
Fireworks. What are we doing here? Are we celebrating?
Something-something, the day you've been waiting for...
“Oh right,” I mumble, folding over myself and rubbing my eyes. “It’s that day.”
The day, in fact. The one we’ve been waiting for, living for, fighting for through centuries—all that good, noble, world-changing stuff. The one most of the boring old books were written about. The day of fireworks and celebration.
Today's my big day, and I’m late waking up. That’s probably a bad sign. I was supposed to read up on those, you know—signs and omens. I had a scribe and a lecturer and everything, but I sent them away. The Mage gave me one of his books and told me to study it (Ye Grande Olde Compendyum of Perilous Signage, Non-Directional) but I got distracted by the pictures in the back. At least he didn't stay angry for long. (He's far too busy.)
Born for this day. That’s what I’ve been told. That’s what the stories say.
This day was prophesied, and I was destined to meet it.
A childhood spent training, physically and mentally and magickally, in halfheartedly believing that what awaits us at the end of the journey would be worth it. I say halfheartedly, because it’s hard to be a full believer when you can’t see the end of the tunnel. When every day is darkness, toil, effort, and hoping your dreams come true.
Now we’re here. And now they do.
(I’m just trying not to worry about what comes after.)
I pick my sword up from the end of my bed. It’s heavy, but the Mage says that brilliance is supposed to be a burden, not a blessing. He says to let him know if the day comes where I can lift it without a grimace, because he’ll have more counterweight added to the pommel.
No one else can lift my sword, no one else can carry it. It’s my trauma to bear.
I wrap a robe around myself and get moving, looking for the rest of my myth.
There’s a shield propped under the window. Usually it’s strapped across my back, all the better to batter a goblin with, but I won’t need it today. Pulling together proper clothing from the piles scattered around, I strap on my leather pauldron. (It looks fucking cool. That's reason enough.) I push my knotted, curling hair out of my eyes, and lace a tunic up under my chin.
There, I’m ready. As I ever was and ever will be. I look like a slightly overworked prince from a fairy story, and all things considered, that's fair.
A castle guard appears in the doorway after I’ve finished dressing. (Good, because we don’t need another Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Simon Snow, The Chronically Undressed! incident this month.) This anonymous henchman has no doubt got a name, but it’s not my job to learn it, so he can fuck right off. The Mage says I don’t need to worry about things like manners and being personable. I’ve got enough on my plate being the hero.
Focus, Simon. The Day will come before you know it, and you must be ready.
You must be merciless.
“The king will see you now,” the guard says.
Good, I think. I’ve got a living legend to live. Let's get this ball rolling.
Finally, finally, there’s a story to finish.
I walk through hallways I’ve known my whole life. The castle’s nice; the castle’s grand. We made it this way—there are trophies in every room, to mark each mission we've survived. Well, my missions, really—the king gives orders about what to kill next, and I get the job done. Even the creatures I quite like have to die, if he decrees it. (To be completely honest, I've never met a goblin I haven't wanted to knock back a beer with and snog the face off, but apparently that's against castle code.)
I’ve built this for us. Countless corridors and corners, filled with triumph. There's a helmet on the high table from the Knightmare I felled last week. Armour hung on the wall from the Dark Worrier of a week before. I’ve already forgotten their faces, and I never did ask their names.
I follow the guard through the next hall, treading patterns into blood red carpet. The Mage won’t keep me long; maybe he just wants to wish me a bit of last-minute luck. Today’s the day we’ve been waiting for, what everything’s been leading up to.
The last day of the Summer Festival. The pinnacle, the grand climax of entertainment. The Day of All Days. I'm providing the spectacle that wraps everything up in a pretty bow.
The Mage will want me out there on the sand as soon as possible. He says we’re making myth today—we’re becoming immortal. There's no time to spare for spare ceremony.
All I have to do to live forever is kill the creature who's made our lives miserable for years, decades, centuries, eons.
And killing... well, that's what I do. It's what I was made for.
Paint your ink across paper, bards—write the stories, compose the poetry.
Here stands Simon Snow, the man who slayed the Beast.
“There you are, Simon.” the Mage says, twirling his moustache. (If that thing was perched on anyone else's lip, I'd say it looked villainous. But he's the proud king of our even prouder kingdom, so how could he be anything but honest?) “Kneel, so I can give you these parting words of wisdom. You must not hesitate today—let nothing come between you and our long-awaited victory.”
I do kneel. Always have, as long as I remember, looking back on my life. He’s got other knights to call upon, but I’m the one the Mage trusts with the biggest, bloodiest missions. He tells me this is what I was born to do, and I’d better do it well. Waste of resources, otherwise.
“This is it,” he says. “The ending of endings. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I say. And I am. I am ready.
I look up at him. He’s a king, but before he became one, he called himself a Mage. The Mage, and the name's stuck through time. There’s magic in the air we breathe, but he’s the only one who can use it right. It’s not safe for the rest of us to cast spells—not while there are dark creatures out there, warping the essence of magic with their wickedness. The Mage casts for us. All of the danger rests on his broad shoulders.
I asked him about it once, if he’d show me how to do magic once the dark creatures had been quelled. He said he’d look after the spells, if I only did my part. If I kept on swinging my sword and killing things, keeping the blood off his doublet.
Don't worry about the magic, Simon. It rests well with me.
Killing. He's right. That’s what I do. I find the evil ones trying to steal from the Mage’s magickal sources, the fountains and springs and wells of power he mines—he says he can sense it, like someone sticking needles in his eyes. Then I go where they go, and make them stop.
“There's going to be a huge celebration afterwards,” he says, black eyes bright. “The greatest you've ever seen. A feast, music, fireworks—everything’s ready. Everything’s in place. Rehearsals have been going on since dawn, but now's time for the performance. You just need to go out there and make it happen.”
Guess that explains the smoke in my room.
He’s tidied his moustache, I notice. The ends are pointed. It really must be a special occasion. And he’s wearing green, like always; I don’t think he likes other colours. Green and moss and the darkness you find, when you're lost in the forest. Bottles dipped in ink.
The Mage hasn’t changed a bit in all the years I’ve been here. He’s always exactly as he is now, quiet and judging and on the brink of impatience.
“Will he be waiting for me?” I ask, thinking of the enemy. “The Beast. The Bloodeater.”
“Yes. He's being prepared for you now. We all want this to be over,” the Mage says quickly, mopping up any last bits of lingering doubt. “The kingdom will be safe. He’ll never bother Princess Agatha again thanks to you, Simon.”
I nod. I look at my sword.
The Beast visits Agatha in her dreams, teasing and taunting her, twisting her mind in knots. If I can ease her suffering as well as the kingdom's, I'll do it. I'll swing fast and strike true.
“Safe. We'll be safe if we finish the story,” I murmur dreamily.
“That's right. Do your duty, Simon,” the Mage replies. Firm and sure. “Do it well. Entertain no doubts—you must kill the Bloodeater. Today, right away, for all eternity.”
“I will, sir,” I tell him, rising slowly. “I will. I'll kill him. I'll cut off his head, if you like.”
“No need to go that far. A plain death will do.”
“Alright, then. Yeah. One stab. I can do that.”
I'll drive my blade straight through his heart.
The Bloodeater. The beast of beasts. I think about him as I leave the throne room, dragging my fingers along lavish wall hangings.
That’s what—who—this day is about. The Mage’s crowning achievement. It took years, but the darkest practitioner of magic has been captured at last, and his downfall at my hands is set to be the showpiece of the Festival. Fireworks before the fireworks.
I haven’t been told exactly what to do. The Mage usually gives me a bit of creative licence in the butchery department—an expert head-chopping, a gallant stab through a vital organ. You've got to go with what feels right in the moment. Bloodeaters—vampyres, in the old books—usually deserve little more than a crudely whittled stake and a superstitious prayer whispered over an empty grave. But this is the Bloodeater—the strongest one, the leader. The occasion might call for something a bit more elaborate. Maybe a nice—
“Simon!” a voice whispers from a shadowy doorway, interrupting my courageous inner monologue. “Simon Snow, come here!”
I snap out of my murderous daydreams to find Agatha, or the Princess Wellbelove as I should call her, peering out from the dark. I frown—this isn't how our fateful morning-of-The-Great-Day meeting is supposed to go. I’m meant to collect her from her rooms and escort her to the Festival in a flower-strewn carriage.
So what’s she doing down here, lurking in the doorway of a musty old reading room?
“Ags, what’s going on? Aren’t you ready to go?”
If one of the castle guards heard me calling her Ags they’d give me an earful, but the corridor’s the best kind of empty. We don't need to keep up appearances. We've known each other all our lives, through thick and thin and family deaths. That makes the decorum stuff seem sort of meaningless.
Agatha, I notice, definitely isn’t ready to go anywhere. (Except back to bed, which I respect.) She’s wearing a silky dressing gown, her golden hair tied back in a bun, and not the effortlessly styled ones she wears for riding. She looks like she just rolled out of bed, which makes me feel slightly better about my own late rising.
She drags me into the reading room, closes the door, then dashes across the rug to open a pair of shutters on the far wall. Bright morning light slaps us in the face, the courtyards below heaving with action.
I get a good look at her face as the day (The Day) assaults us both. She looks pale and drawn—that must've been a bad night’s sleep. I know all about that. Weird dreams lately, I'm telling you, though it's probably because of the growing anticipation. No Bloodeaters or mythical beasts spiralling through my mind, thank magic. It's knowing that I'm finally fulfilling my purpose, and not knowing what comes next... that's what keeps me staring at the drapes when the dark comes.
“Is everything alright?” I ask her, guessing it's not. She's not in the habit of dragging young men into empty rooms—too risky for the reputation.
She looks at me like I’ve just asked her something impossible. Her eyelashes flutter, a hand clutched to her chest. She's every heroine who ever filled her empty days with romance novels.
“Simon,” she hisses, rather unromantically if I'm honest, grabbing the sleeve of my tunic—extra frilly, because I thought I should probably dress nice for this extra special occasion—and leading me to a chair in the corner. “We can talk in private here. Sit down and stop looking so gormless. If you've any wits left, we're going to need them.”
I do as I’m told, because even though I’ve known her forever she’s still the princess, and it’s polite to follow royal orders.
Though... how royal is she? Her and the Mage aren't related. This was the kingdom of Wellbelove before he came along and saved it from her and her dad. So... the Mage is the unroyal, then. So I should do everything she says. Relieved, I cross my legs and get comfortable.
“Talk about what? Ags, we talk every day. Aren't you excited for my big heroic moment?”
She's concerned about privacy, eyes darting around the chamber. I doubt we’ll be disturbed in here; with all of the elegant princessly swooning and knitting taking up her time, no one expects Agatha to read. It’s technically scandalous for her to be alone in a locked room with an unmarried man and a hundred unsupervised books, but it’s me. I’m the knight of knights, sworn to the Mage’s service. Elope with a royal? Pull the other one!
“Your big what? Listen, Simon, I had another strange dream last night,” she says, pulling her hair from its bun, plaiting it loosely over one shoulder. “Did you?”
“No,” I say. I mean, maybe I did, but I never remember my dreams. The candles go out and I go with them.
“It was so peculiar…” she sighs, dragging a second chair across the rug to sit facing me. It’s a good job she isn’t dressed yet; a cloud of dust erupts from the cushion as she perches delicately on its edge. Guess the Mage isn't a big reader, either. This room's half moth. “You were there, and so was I, and a strange man with anger issues who I think was the Mage, but he was dressed differently. Even more strangely than usual—you know how he likes his green brocade. We were in a forest, and you were wearing some sort of uniform. There was an old book, lying open in the grass. The wand was his pen, and he was... he was hurting...”
I shrug. That doesn’t sound too strange to me, as far as dreams in an enchanted fairy tale land go. Anyway, isn’t armour a kind of uniform? I'm uniformly well-dressed, every day that ends with a Y.
“It was just a dream,” I tell her. “Stress, probably. At least it wasn't the Bloodeater this time, stirring things up. Can't be fun being you, Ags, let's be honest. But don't worry—it wasn’t real. It can’t hurt you.”
She looks at me funny. (She usually does.) Crinkled nose, lips pressed together. She's too pretty for all that thinking, or so the Mage says, but it doesn't seem to stop her. I don't know if I've ever seen her look truly happy.
My eyes trail down to her mouth. I kissed those lips once, when we were younger. The squires were playing a game of dares, and I pulled the shortest straw in history.
I kissed her, light and sweet, and she punched me in the nose.
“No, you’re not listening,” she says, hugging her dressing gown around her middle. “Colour me unsurprised. It wasn’t me who was being hurt. There was a boy.”
“A boy?” I hesitate. Only for a second, though. I can't resist. “Would you say he was your dream boy?”
She takes a long moment to reply, a disappointed look on her face. She lifts a hand to move a strand of hair out of her eyes, and I flinch reflexively. (One punch was enough for a lifetime.)
“Sorry. The boy who was hurting... tell me about him.”
I should remind her that we don’t have many moments to spare—it’s not exactly going to look good, being late to my own glorious day of gory glory. But she’s beginning to shake in her seat, and anything that can rattle Agatha like this is worth worrying about. She's tough, as far as princesses go. Anyone else would've run screaming after the Mage arrived to steal their kingdom, murder their family, and fill their throne room with gaudy trophies, but she'd stayed, defiant. She's an anchor to the old times—before magic was taken from all but the Mage, she's rumoured to have been a fearsome practitioner. Maybe that's why she suffered such disturbing dreams; the untouched magic still moves through her, stubborn as she sleeps.
“He had... dark hair, I think. A long face, with the same sort of scowl you wear.” She frowns as she closes her eyes, as if to conjure him again. A dream of lost dreams. “Greyest eyes... I didn’t quite know him, and I know that now I'm awake, but—”
She looks at me, and it’s like the dream-forest she saw is right there, reflected in her eyes.
“—he knew you, Simon. He called your name. Shouted it, over and over again, between screams. He was telling me to wake you up.”
I shrug, even though it is a bit weird, Agatha dreaming about me. Should I be flattered or afraid?
“Ags, everyone knows who I am. I'm the most famous knight in the Mage's circle, and even your dream-villains are running scared. That's all it was.” I yawn into my hands, glad she doesn't give much of a shit for court decorum. I'd never be out of the stocks, otherwise. “Your bloke must've sensed I was running late. Barely got out of bed this morning, as it is.”
She’s not convinced by my flippancy. Whatever this dream-being said to her as he screamed in pain has got her shaken up, and I don't like it.
“There was something else,”she says, frowning. “Something else that was strange. In the trees, it... how can I explain? Something was watching. It was watching us, and it looked like the forest.”
Wait, what? Even by the whimsical standards of our wished-upon world, that makes no sense.
Agatha’s gone faraway. She's beyond tired, swaying in her seat. It must be hard work, running an entire kingdom by herself—the Mage is the king, but that’s just a title, really. He agreed to step in and help the old King Wellbelove when his land was overrun with dark creatures, trying to siphon off the natural magic sources. After her father's “mysterious death” (mysterious only to those who don't know what the Mage can do with a wand and a book of bad ideas) Agatha took over the daily kingdom management stuff. She keeps the ship on course, and the Mage takes care of the nasty background business. He didn’t even ask for much in exchange—just our blind obedience, and a comfy throne to lounge in. Seemed fair at the time, the history books said.
Now, years later, with welts on my hands and a never-ending pain in my shoulder, I have doubts. But doubts are all they can be. Things'll get better once the Beast is dead, he told me. Life'll get easier, once all that stolen magic comes back. And in the grand scheme of things, what's one more head, lopped off in my lap?
“What did it look like?” I ask, hoping for something a little less vague from the princess. What was its name? And don't say Theresa Green. Maybe helping Agatha to talk through this latest unsettling dream is the key to her getting over it emotionally, and ready for the Festival. There's a long road between her nightwear and whichever complicated corset she's meant to be strapped into by now.
“It’s funny,” Agatha says, even though it obviously isn’t. This is dead, dead serious, her eyes say. Serious and sombre. “I read a book when I was little. The thing I saw in the trees looked just like one of the illustrations, a fairy or another creature like it. Lithe and beautiful.”
I snort, standing and stretching my arms over my head. “Fairies went extinct centuries ago, Ags. There's your proof. It really was just a dream.”
Fairies were eaten out of existence by the Bloodeaters. Everybody knows that. Agatha was probably dreaming up some sort of tangled connection, with everything that's going on in the waking world. Her mind messing with her, even after her eyes have closed.
“I'm glad this is so easy for you to dismiss. I've decided I feel quite unwell,” she says, folding her arms and looking up at me unhappily. “I’m not going to the Festival.”
Wait. Wait. No!
“But, hang on—Agatha, you have to go!” I splutter. “It’s our big day! The day. The end of the magickal drought.”
She glares at me, all that royal lineage put to good use. “It’s not the end of anything, Simon. The Mage will just find another creature-sort to hate and persecute, once the Bloodeater is dead.”
I frown. She might be right, but we should grasp these small victories when they’re placed in front of us; you never know when you'll see another one.
“Please, Ags. Everything's planned out. Do it for me?”
It’s rich, begging a favour from a princess. But the more the build-up washes over me, the more I’m feeling nervous about facing the Beast, the Bloodeater. Agatha’s always been a friendly face; when I thought about this day, it was with her by my side.
She relents, yawning, even though she’s still visibly unsure. “Fine, I’ll get dressed. But don’t expect me to be charming or anything twee—bog-standard bored princess duty is all you're getting.”
“That's the best kind of Agatha,” I say eagerly, standing and holding out my hand to help her to her feet. She's covered in dust and flakes from old books. “Thank you. Owe you one, don't I?”
She grunts, then crosses to one of the disused bookcases. She pulls on a rope hanging from the ceiling, and disappears from the room along a secret passage. I see a startled face peering out from the dark, turning relieved as their eyes settle on the missing princess—an out-of-breath maid, glad to not be losing her job.
“Wait here,” she says over her shoulder, stepping into the passageway. “I'll be back as quick as I can, then we'll depart.”
“Of course,” I say, already pacing and impatient. I prop my sword against the empty fireplace. “Can't exactly leave without you.”
She grimaces, still not happy, then disappears.
I walk rings around the reading room, paying the spines no mind, dwelling on fairies and fairer victories.
A dream shouldn't leave her so shaken. Why's it snaking inside my head, too?
A boy. A forest. A figure in the shadows, like a drawing in a book. Distractions I don't need.
The day, the day, The Day is here,
and I think I'm ready for it.