hat my father had doomed to death with his errant action. Even though they didn’t necessarily feel that I was the one direction responsible, I couldn’t help the guilt. If it hadn’t been for me asking him for a rose, he would have left the castle and come home to me. I thought it was a gift that wouldn’t really require any effort and it was nothing compared to what my sisters asked for. It was my gift that created our damnation—and as much as I wanted to forget it, I couldn’t help but feel like my predicament was my own fault in a twisted way.
I FEEL ASLEEP WHEN the clouds turned to darkness and there was no more light in my room. In my dreams, I was confronted by a handsome man who stood in front of what appeared to be a legion of beasts. The faces in front were ones I recognized, but the ones that were in the shadows belonged to strangers. The handsome man was dressed in golden armor and held a sword in his hand that glowed with a faint indigo hue. He extended his hand to me and when I took it, all of the beasts snarled. They started to circle me and while I felt safe when the man in the golden armor took my hand, the beasts still incited fear.
I woke up to the harsh reality of the cell and groaned when I tried to lift myself up. It was colder at night and my clothes did little to protect me from the elements. I rubbed my eyes and shifted until I was in a seated position. A second later, there was a flash of light and I saw a small fire directly in front of me. The fire moved and then got brighter. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a beast sitting in a chair near my cage lit up by a candle. He narrowed his eyes at me and leaned forward. I recognized him as the beast who was with Alexander and Gill, but I didn’t know his name. His hair was curly like Alexander’s, but darker and tangled into his beard.
“Tell me that you’re a witch and this can all be over.” He lifted his hand and I saw a long knife flickering in the candlelight.
“I’m not a witch!” I moved closer to the front of the cage. “I swear that I’m not.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” He twisted the knife in his hand and let his finger drift across the sharp edge of the blade.
“I have nothing to offer but the truth.” I let out a sigh. “There’s no way I can prove it.”
“When Alexander passes, I will become the leader of our group. It will be up to me to decide what happens to you after that.” His lips turned to a snarl. “I don’t want that responsibility—I just want Alexander to live.”
“I wish I could undo what my father did.” My eyes closed and I felt a tear forming in the corner of each one. “I would never do anything to hurt a living soul.”
“You think we have souls?” The beast chuckled. “I think our souls left us long ago.”
“Tell me your name.” I put both hands on the cage.
“Boone.” His words came out in a growl.
“If you have a name, then you have a soul.” I pushed my face against the iron bars. “Surely you remember who you were before you came to this place.”
“Of course I remember—but even the witch had a name.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Many names based on what I’ve heard from the others.”
“I only have one name.” I blinked away a tear. “I am not the one responsible for what happened to you. I’m just the daughter of a man who made a terrible mistake.”
“Perhaps...” He leaned forward and stood. “But it isn’t up to me to decide your fate—not yet.”
“I wish I could undo what happened.” I closed my eyes and felt the tears building up to the point I couldn’t control them.
“So do we all...” He sighed and then I heard a loud thump. I opened my eyes to see a book next to my cage with dust circling the spot where it landed.
“Thank you!” I reached through the cage and wrapped my fingers around the spine, pulling it between the bars.
“Don’t thank me yet...” He narrowed his eyes again. “I still haven’t decided what to do with you.”
“How—how many of you are there? How many lives has the witch destroyed?” I pulled the book close and looked up at the hulking figure.
“Six...” He nodded. “Six victims of the witch—six beasts in torment for eternity—as long as our rose remains in bloom. Of course now there are seven of us. Six beasts and one unfortunate young woman.”
He left the room and the door slammed behind him, but he left the candle burning. It didn’t provide much warmth, but it did provide some light. I opened the book and heard the spine cracking. It was a very old book, written in a version of English that was difficult to read. I got through the first page and started to put the structure together in my head. It was a story about a knight that fell in love with the wife of a king, told from the king’s perspective. The pages were almost haunting as I turned them and found myself engrossed in the story. There was sorrow and heartbreak in every chapter with paragraphs of grief spelled out on the pages in vivid detail. The candle burned out before I finished the story, but I felt the time pass a little easier knowing that I had something to entertain myself with. It was certainly better than just spending time alone in the cell.
Chapter 6: Boone
1875
My gun kept me alive—it was a part of me. The Dakota Territory was supposed to be the land of opportunity, but it was nothing more than a shit hole in the middle of nowhere. I had built up a reputation in my time there and while I mostly spent my days drinking away the daylight, there were times when I had to grab the big iron on my hip and send another asshole to hell. I didn’t like killing, but when liquor mixed with egos, people forgot that they only had one life to live.
Rumors of the James-Younger gang and their exploits filled the saloons. It was all people talked about. If any of them ventured into my area of the world, I wouldn’t need a badge to send them to the undertaker. They would rot in hell while I counted the reward money. I didn’t care about much more than having enough money to drink, but the well was running dry after I cashed in my reward on Roger Haddock—formerly the most feared gunslinger in the territory—until he decided that he should prove he was a man by putting a bullet in my chest.
“That’s Boone Carmichael.” I heard a voice behind me say in a whisper. “He’s the one who put Roger Haddock in the ground.”
“I could take him.” The second voice was younger, but it was filled with cockiness.
“You don’t want to mess with him, son. You won’t make your wedding if you try to outdraw that son of a bitch.” The first voice spoke again and I turned to see who was talking about me.