Aaron walked along the shimmer. Something was clearly wrong here, but no one had said anything to the public, other than to stay away from the shimmer. Soldiers had ridden to all the little towns and villages to tell the people to stay away from the shimmer. A lot of good that would do.

In a square of fence posts that had been roped off, Hailey’s portal appeared. He was glad to see her until he caught sight of her face. She looked even more ragged than the last time he had seen her. He jogged up to her. He was starting to feel a fool for being her loyal friend, but he would be there for her. She had gotten him out of the spell fifteen years before he would have been freed. He didn’t wake to see a dragon smashing into the castle, but got to grow up with his brother. He had a normal life because of her, at least until she got him this current job.

And so he smiled at her, trying not to cringe at the dark circles under her eyes. She’s got to be so tired that she’s seeing things, he thought to himself. He wished he could wrap his arms around her and make her go to sleep and then eat something. She was looking too thin. Her dress was starting to hang on her, as if it was tailored for a much larger woman.

She glanced at him and smiled a weary smile. At least she didn’t seem to be snapping at him today.

“How are you, Hailey?”

“I’m fine.” She didn’t hug him, nothing but that tired smile. He had been in love with her for so long. It just seemed that she wasn’t interested in him or anything other than her magic.

“How are things here?” He shouldn’t care that she didn’t ask him how he was doing, how he was holding up with his fellow soldiers dying. She just wanted to know how much work she had ahead of her and he was afraid that he didn’t have good news.

“Not good. Everyday there are more people wandering into the shimmer. Derrick says he thinks that the people are being lured in by fairies and attacked by something else.”

She sighed. “That would make sense. Anyone have any idea what exactly is attacking them, though?”

“George thinks it might be wargs.” George was one of the oldest and most experienced soldiers. Derrick seemed to put a lot of stock into whatever he said, and so the men agreed.

She nodded as if people had ever seen wargs. They lived in the forest and were one more reason not to enter. “But no one has been attacked outside the shimmer, other than that one merchant?”

“Right. People say the shimmer might be shrinking, though.”

She eyed him with bloodshot eyes. “Are people walking into it to check?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. There’s a lot of rumors.”

“I will have to check that, if I have time. It might be something to keep an eye on.”

He wanted to ask her what she knew, why there were so many things going wrong in the kingdom recently, how it was that people were being attacked, but just then Gillian called to him.

She jogged up to them. “Aaron, I’m glad you brought your mage friend today. We have some people who need healing.” Then she held out a hand to Hailey. Hailey frowned at her for a moment, then looked at him before taking it.

“I’m Hailey,” she said simply.

“Yes, I know. Anyway, if you could see to some of the men, they’ve been hurt, and there’s some people not to far from here who have been slashed at as well.”

Hailey knelt before Edward, who was moaning. His leg had been wrapped tightly. Hailey didn’t say anything to the soldier that lay there in massive amounts of pain, she just grabbed his leg, just below the wound. His pant leg had been torn and blood was seeping through. She closed her eyes and said something he didn’t understand. She was getting better at this. The wound closed before his eyes. Sometimes, he forgot how amazing she was, and sometimes he thought that she idd the same.

Edward gasped and then fell asleep. Hailey frowned. “I forgot to tell him that the healing would make him sleep. “Has the healing drought I made up for you done any good?”

She didn’t seem to be directing her questions to anyone in particular.

“Yes, but anything as bad as what Edward had, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

She nodded, and pulled some stale bread out of her satchel. Then she began eating until they got to the next person. It was a man, a farmer, probably from the way he was dressed. His arm had been sliced to the bone and there was a cut across his chest, as if it was one long swipe. She stuffed her bread back into her satchel.

“Tell me what happened,” Hailey said. Despite her weariness, she seemed focused on this man.

“I don’t know how I got here. I was out with the goats, seeing if there was anything left for them to munch on. Mostly the freeze killed all the grasses. Anyhow, I thought I saw my daughter running off into the shimmer and I went to catch her, only when I got there, she wasn’t there. There was this big thing, all claws and teeth, and it swiped at me I turned and ran back out. The soldiers found me and said I was lucky to survive.”

“I am going to heal you and I’m sorry for asking you questions before I do. It will make you want to sleep, so I can’t heal you first. Did it look like a wolf?”

“I don’t rightly know, miss. It all happened so fast and the soldiers said I might have been seeing things. The fairies play tricks…” He gasped in pain.

“It’s ok. You’ll feel better in just a minute. She placed a hand on his arm and one near his neck, where the slash began and said that word again. It was fascinating watching her work. There were several more people that she healed and by the time she was done, she looked even more tired than she had. She swayed and he caught her. For a moment she seemed to melt into him, to find relief from being in his arms. Over the top of her head, Gillian raised an eyebrow.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. I probably should get back to the castle.”

“Hailey, please take care of yourself. Get an extra hour of sleep for me, ok?”

“I will try. I just don’t know how I’m going to keep up with everything. I’m it, the only one and those men would have died if I hadn’t come. Well, some of them would have. I just have to find a way to take care of everything. She pushed away from him, walked back to her portal spot and was gone.

Delilah was getting tired of bad news. She seemed hungry all the time and so she sat and ate a succulent lamb chop in the study while Mathias filled her in on everything that was going wrong.

He was an attractive young man, too young for her, but she could see why Lillith had eyed him the way she had. His red brown hair curled around his face. He had broad shoulders and a nice smile. She realized she hadn’t been paying attention.

“The enemy is relentless. We take out some of their soldiers and they send more. It’s as if they have an unlimited supply of men to throw at the situation. I fear our lines are beginning to falter.”

She bit into her lamb chop. It was warm and juicy and tender. She would have to remember to tell the cook to make that particular dish again.

She glanced up at Mathias. “What does the captain propose that we do? We are already committed to this battle. I don’t see what else we can do to bolster the lines.”

She didn’t hear Mathias’s answer. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, as if someone was watching her. She glanced around, expecting to see someone in the shadows. All around her, the lights began to fade. Color drained from the walls. One of her favorite paintings disappeared entirely.

She stood on wobbly legs. What was happening to her? Or her castle? She couldn’t tell which. Cobwebs grew in the corners. Dust covered the table and the food that she had been eating wasn’t food at all. Instead of a lamb chop, a rat lay on her plate, bleeding and obviously dead. Her stomach tightened and threatened to spill itself. She ran out of the room, not wanting to look at what she had been eating.

The walls were faded. Piles of leaves were in the corners. A rat scurried out from underneath a pile of leaves. She screamed and jumped back. What was wrong with her? She didn’t live in the dusty ruins of a castle. She hurried to her bedroom, all the while telling herself not to go, not to see where she had been sleeping. Her threadbare gown brushing against her legs.

Even her dress was a lie? Maybe this was a dream. That had to be it. Wake up, she told herself, wake up, wake up, wake up! It didn’t seem to work and it felt to real to be a dream. She pinched her arm and she felt it. This wasn’t a dream then, the other castle, the beautiful one had been the dream, right? Her heart raced as she opened the door, afraid of what she would find.

Her bed was covered in dust. One side of it seemed to have the dust brushed away, but the other side was caked in it. A spider had built a web in one corner and was busy lengthening the strands of its web. She wanted to scream, wanted to vomit. This wasn’t her life. It couldn’t be. She would have to talk to the servants, but no. This much dust would have taken months to accumulate. Did she even have servants and if she did, what were they doing?

She hurried to the mirror, wanting to see the extent of the damage done to her dress, to herself. The mirror had been tilted at an angle, and so the dust wasn’t as thick, as it was on the dresser nearby. She tore off a strip of her dress that seemed about ready to break free of the garment and used the cloth to wipe the mirror clean.

But she did not see what she expected to. She glanced in the mirror, seeing an overly thin woman looking back at her. “Isabella,” she said.

No, that wasn’t right. She was Delilah, and she was a queen.

Behind her, the room began to change, her gown began to change. Everything was as it should be, clean and bright. Her bed wasn’t dusty. There was no spiders living in her room. That had all been her imagination. She collapsed on the floor a puddle of silver skirts surrounding her. What had just happened? A scrap of black fabric was in her hand. She let it fall. Where had that come from? She didn’t remember having a black handkerchief.

Then she remembered what Mathias had said to her. Her kingdom needed her, and she needed to do something. She would have to find him and make sure that whatever her people needed was taken care of. Maybe they would not all notice that she was mad.