Humming a little, I glanced at the assembled crowd and found the worried, pale faces of my siblings, and beside them, those of my parents. They were beautiful, every single one of them. No man or woman here was anything less than beautiful. And no animal was either, and no house, garden, or even a road. They were all lovely, vibrant with colors, of pleasing forms. Nothing broken, nothing crooked, nothing old.

  “I walk and walk the endless paths, and need no mighty wings to fly,” I spoke each word with theatrical slowness and articulation, snapping back to look at the King. “And whom I challenge into battle always falters, always dies.”

  “Come on, this one is not even hard,” the King gave me a condescending look. “There is only one unbeatable foe in the world, and it is time.”

  I frowned, and reluctantly joined the round of applause the crowd gave him. Perhaps I underestimated him a bit. He seemed to know his way around riddles.

  “Hands that weave fate, and hands that would hold it,” he said. “Voice that can heal, and words which cause hurting. Can you tell what wonder that is, which can humble any man or king?”

  Immediately, I gave a triumphant laugh. “Why, you have lots of that around here… and one is even standing in front of you at this very moment.” In the pause, I looked at the crowd and announced: “‘Tis a woman!”

  The King shrugged as if he admitted for both of us that those riddles were not quite challenging. Either of us was now aware that we needed to do better. At least the people appreciated it, I thought as I watched them cheer on.

  “I breathe and live as I devour,” I stepped to the side, watching the dusty tips of my boots underneath the flowing skirt of my dress, “before me, beasts and men all cower.” Another step, toward the edge where I met the wide eyes of an infant in the arms of a small, masked lady, “Yet fleeting beauty I possess: crimson flowers, robes and vest.” Slowly, I swirled back to look at my challenger.

  The King took a breath and exhaled slowly, his dark eyes straying over the dais and into the distance. With the back of his hand, he brushed his stubbled chin and leaned against the armrest thoughtfully. “Fleeting beauty…”

  The silence expanded, and with it my smile as well. “Giving up, my lord?”

  “Oh, be quiet, you!” he said indignantly. But the cheery tone made me chuckle. “Crimson flowers. Why flowers?” He drummed his fingers on the armrest for a minute, before his eyes suddenly fixed on the torch in the corner of the dais. His face lit up. “Ah.” He smiled at me deviously, and my shoulders dropped. “It’s the fleeting beauty and the crimson… of fire, yes?”

  My gaze lingered on him. With those bright, earhtly colors and that crooked hat, he resembled a wild forest imp more than a king. Perhaps that’s been the intention all along. His eyes sparkled playfully. Nodding my head, this time I initiated the applause myself and the people roared after me. Seemingly, their King’s sharp wit brought them immense joy.

  Alright, he got this one too. His turn.

  “I do not speak yet silence call, in halls of marble and of stone; I am made of blood and dreams that mighty men and women seek.” The cracks of the fire in the torches were the only sound as the crowd quietened. “Bound to me by fate and lofty vow, kingdoms rise and prosper and then fall.”

  The King sprang up from his chair with a gamesome toss of his cape and made several steps absent-mindedly, rubbing his palms together as he observed me contemplate his riddle.

  “That’s quite mysterious,” I murmured to myself, my brows coming together. “What is made of blood and dreams?” He walked back and forth with a light half-dancing step, and enjoyed my deepening frustration. When I looked straight at him again, he was downright delighted. “Doesn’t speak but silence calls… It’s got to be an object of great power if kingdoms obey it. Man knows many an object of power. It could be any of them, and I only have to give one answer…?”

  This last sentence I directed at him, and he nodded, smiling innocently.

  “I am giving my best guess, even though I have three more,” I spread my hands open in a gesture of defeat. It could be a throne… or any symbol of authority. “Is it a crown?”

  The King let out a noise of frustration and stomped his foot, and the crowd erupted joyfully when they saw his reaction. None of them wanted the other to win, I supposed. The suspense was way more entertaining. Good.

  Something inside me stirred when I heard the cheers. It was as if… I belonged here, on a dais.

  On a stage.

  “Give me another,” I said, abruptly, and he shot me a surprised look.

  “You’re getting bored, I see,” he noted. “Very well.” He clicked his tongue, squinting at nobody in particular as if mentally leafing through his catalog of riddles. Then he met my eyes, uncertain, “I’m keeping it shorter now: In the line but not yet there, I feel the sun’s all-burning glare. I wait in silence, lead ahead. My greatest joy arrives with death.”

  “Ooh,” my brows went up. “More mystery.” Wait in silence, lead ahead? Greatest joy with death? “Paradoxes. Conundrums. But I got the sense this is somehow related to royalty again.”

  Pale shock quickly coursed through him before he got a hold of himself again, and averted from me. It gave him away, and I laughed. That was a good hint. Royalty, it is. This Carnival King was like an open book, whether he knew it or not.

  “This is because I’ve heard thousands of riddles in my life and the sun always stands for the highest authority so…” the words deafened when the vivid memories rushed into my head. I have heard thousands of riddles. And I’ve told tens of thousands. Kingdoms have laughed because of me. Blinking at the King of the Carnival—who was a slightly younger version of the Prince who had insolently trapped me inside his painting with his stupid magic brush—I grumbled. “How dare he! That bastard…” And I stayed here for three whole days, questioning it but never fully sure.

  Both the crowd and the King appeared confused by my sudden change of mood. Renewing my calm, I walked up to the King and thumped him on the chest with a semi-aggressive force. “A prince! The answer to your riddle is a prince! The sun is the king. When he dies, it is the prince’s turn to rule.”

  He watched me for a good moment, the fire in my eyes and the high-raised chin, and I could swear amusement flickered through his eyes. “You guessed my third riddle. Now,” he leaned in closer, “let’s hear yours.”

  “Oh, I shall tell you a riddle right away,” this time I tapped his arm in a faux-friendly gesture, peering into him from up close without blinking. “Good is evil, evil—good, they dance with me, I eat their fruits. Soul immortal, fool and sage, don’t you mock a god encaged.”

  The silence was breathless. He stiffened up. A shade of fear passed over him—at my expression, the closeness. Sudden dismay gripped him, that he had no ready answer in mind. Helplessly, he turned to look at the people. Minutes passed, and he was still quiet. My pose eased a bit as I stepped back and shook off the anger that echoed in my words, lest he took it as a hint.

  My triumph was there: in the growing alarm in his eyes, in the droop of his shoulders, and in the curt motions of his hands, slipping over his nape and dropping to his side. Breaths shaking, he glanced up at me, “Give me a moment.”

  It occurred to me he wouldn’t ever guess it, even if he had eternity. Because he had forgotten about it. This suddenly washed off the bitterness from me. I beheld him with pity and then snickered at him with the previous lightness.

  “I will have my key now, cone-hat man,” I made a beckoning motion, smiling at him with a tight-lipped smile.

  “No, let me think,” he walked away, frustrated, his gaze once more gliding over the faces in the crowd as if he would find the answer there. Then he returned to me, with a wounded look on his face. “I can’t let you take that key.”

  “Well, you bet on it, and I won—”

  “You haven’t!” his voice flared dominantly, eyes turning glassy with a wild stare. There he was. The crowd was more stunned than me at this new dark, vicious vein; but I’ve seen it before. “You haven’t won a thing!”

  “Let us have a private discourse over it,” I offered, half-turned to the crowd. “I am willing to negotiate my prize. Wasn’t that a fair game?”

  At first, only a handful of people clapped. And then the others joined with whistles and shouts of appreciation for the merriment our riddle competition had provided. After that, the murmurs swelled into conversations, and music disrupted the silence once more. The King of the Carnival was staring at me still, when I faced him with a grin.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “If I give you that key,” he said, coming up to me so that only I could hear his words, “you must help him.”

  “The Prince? Why should I?” I scoffed. “He’s buried his entire kingdom and himself with it.”

  My attitude took away the spark from his eyes, and he sighed. It was a heavy, mournful sigh, much like the Prince’s.

  “It wasn’t his fault entirely, I take it?” I put a hand on my waist.

  “Come with me if you want to receive the key,” he said instead of answering my question and nodded at the tent behind him. “The entrance is open at all times, and my men guard me. It’s safe.”

  I didn’t have much choice. This… Eternal Carnival, or whatever they called it, had to end. So I followed him to the tent.

  By the entrance stood a handsome guard in full armor I recognized immediately. Unsure how much exposure I wanted to risk, I didn’t engage in a conversation with him. Something was different about his face. It seemed sharper, meaner in the evening firelight. As we passed by, Darsan only nodded at the King and me and remained alert.

  I was pleasantly surprised to find it messy. The sets of personal belongings were of smaller, travel sizes and scattered over the place. There was a low, narrow bedding and a strikingly beautiful dressing screen next to it, as well as a branched hanger. Most of the chaos inside the tent was primarily from the gifts. Gifts from the villagers, edible and practical. Mountainous heaps of them.

  The King gave a quick glance at the entrance, where I could see the shadow outline of Darsan standing with his back to us, before he abruptly pushed me behind the ornate dressing screen. He put the key in my palm, and peered into me with undiluted fear. “You earned it fairly. But keep it from him.”

  I blinked. “What?” Somehow, I didn’t expect the two fractures of his person would be separated by secrets too.

  He directed my attention to the dressing screen, and there I discerned the shapes and strokes of a familiar image. It looked like a bedroom: there was a soft couch, a canopy bed, velvet curtains, and an easel with a helping table. It was the bedroom of a painter. The chambers of a prince.

  When he beckoned me to touch it, I reached out. My fingers sank into the paint and through the surface. With a gasp, I pulled away. Excellent! A way out of here. I eyed the King from head to toe with pointed suspicion, “What are you? I thought you were him. Only younger… and happier.”

  “Yes. I am… the best of him, I think. It’s complicated.”

  “What happened to him? Why did he paint this ridiculous Carnival?”

  “I cannot tell you now,” he looked over his shoulder as if expecting to be attacked at any moment. “There’s not much time left.”

  “At least give me a clue how to help him,” I hissed in a low voice. I was exhausted by the mysteries. What was wrong with everyone in this kingdom? The Carnival King regarded me with some hesitation.

  “Do what you do best,” he said, in the end. “Try to lift his spirits. Make him laugh. Everything else will fall into place. Hopefully.”

  I had the feeling that it would not be as easy as it sounded.

  “The other eleven so-called sacrifices are trapped here too, aren’t they?” I nodded toward the entrance. “In the other villages?”

  His expression turned hard. “Would you use the word trapped if they’re happier here?”

  It dawned on me… that the life the Prince had painted for me was constructed immaculately. It had been what he imagined I would’ve liked and wanted. A calm, full life, to make me happier. It’s what he had done for the other eleven people he’d taken to his castle. Endless celebrations, free of worry. Was that what he also did for himself?

  I frowned. This Carnival must be the dream he told me about. The dream where he’d been happy. Music, wine, and women. Young and rich. This must be it, I thought as I carefully eyed the King and slid the key underneath my corset.

  “Will he remember any of this, what you and I talk about?”

  The King shook his head. “He dreams of it… and then he forgets when he wakes.”

  Like I suspected, then.

  “What was the answer?” he asked in his turn, desperately searching my face. This shocked me most of all. Why was the riddle so important, of every other thing he could waste time talking about? “You wouldn’t leave without telling anyone, it would be cruel!”

  Not any less cruel than his keeping the Prince’s secrets from me, though I’m sure he had good reasons for it. That aside, the cone-head was definitely eager to steal that one for himself. But since I was a benevolent creature… “The answer you seek,” I whispered with a finger in front of my lips as I stepped through the screen, the motion oddly unpleasant, “is a jester.” The last I heard from the King was how he scoffed into a laugh.

  My stomach tumbled. Nausea caught up with me by the time I rolled out of something like a sticky, cramped cube and onto thick and soft sheets of a bed. Onto someone. A drawled sound of pain fell off my lips, my head spinning as I held it with my hand and heaved up a bit, finding myself face-to-face with the Prince. His chambers were barely lit under the light of a single twinkling candle closeby.

  It was odd being so close to this face when I had just been close to the other. Life had withdrawn much more from this one, with its silver lines and crow’s feet. Still, the heavy-set shadows didn’t erase his charm completely. Now I saw it clearer, or the remnants of it at least. He blinked drowsily at me for the first second and then a bolt of rage washed over him.

  “You! You’re—” He was so angry that the words tripped in his mouth before he could form them.

  “Yes, me,” I winked winningly. “Good evening. Again.”

  “Don’t wink at me, you fiend!” he grabbed my wrist, sitting up abruptly, his shock of my presence only deepening the more I lingered. His rumpled shirt was halfway hanging off his shoulder and I was momentarily distracted by the pale skin, and the strong collarbone. “What sort of abomination are you? How did you appear in my room—and bed?”

  “Just asked for directions,” I said, casually. “Your bed seems awfully nice, though. I demand justice. Mine has been colonized by the enemy.” My skin crawled as I recalled there was an army of furniture beetles in mine. I cast a curious look over his shoulder. “Are those pillowcases a blue velvet?” This man was rich as hell.

  “You’re not supposed to come back,” he marveled, his pupils wide. “Nobody comes back.”

  “You got me,” I sighed. “Nobody is my maiden name.” Before he could bluster more, I added, “Your paintings are godly.”

  This killed off all his rage in an instant. When I turned to look at him, he seemed at a complete loss for words, after my untimely compliment.

  The single lit-up candle sat on a cabinet by the large window, and its weak glimmers cast shadowy, diluted outlines over all furniture in the fragrant room. After squinting intensely in the dark, I found a painting was hanging over the bedframe, over the pillows. One I hadn’t seen a few days ago when the Prince tied me up to paint me. The painting depicted a lush autumnal carnival: people dancing and laughing, bonfires blazing high and torchlight illuminating the falling dusk. Only, the image of celebration was still and cold; frozen in time.

  “Outworldly beautiful,” I said. “Where did you get that strange brush? It’s not a human thing, I reckon.”

  “Enough questions, jester,” he snapped. “Get off me.”

  “Where is the greenery in this kingdom? It is unnatural to have endless autumn.” I didn’t move, still full of a great many questions to ask. If not now, when would I get more answers? By the looks of him, he was evidently about to lock me up in some dusty cellar yet again.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Something is wrong with your crops, are you having fertility problems?” I glanced down between us.

  “I do not!” he fumed, and then he thought for a moment, his anger dissipating when he quickly looked me over. “Why, do you want to find out?”

  Before I could laugh, he jerked away from me as if his body went through a sudden jolt of pain. His expression soured with regret. I tipped my head at him curiously. The reflection of the other one… it was there. It had been there before, only I distinguished it now after I met both.

  “Get off me right now,” he said in a low voice, now averted from me as if my presence was disgusting to him.

  “Or what, you’ll kill me with a paintbrush? Give me a little slap with the palette knife?”

  “I could do much worse to you,” he promised, in a calm and quiet voice. It gave the odd impression that he was giving a soliloquy to a hidden audience rather than addressing me. “I could trap you into oblivion forever. Somewhere you will never laugh again. And then no amount of smart remarks or witty questions would save you.”

  Gripped by the sudden unease that he really was capable of doing that to me, I complied and shifted from my straddling position, slipping away from him and onto my feet beside the bed. To my surprise, he left the sheets and dutifully put on a wrapper. He grabbed his keys and unlocked the door for me, and just as I thought he would let me go, his fingers sank into my elbow and dragged me down the unlit, chilly corridor.

  “I’m not ready for oblivion just yet, you know,” I protested, semi-worried that he actually might have something up his sleeve that I was not fully prepared for.

  My eyes failed to adjust to the pitch darkness while he swished from one hallway to another. Shortly, we began climbing circular stairs, and it shocked me that some of the stone blocks in this tower were missing. At places, there was only a single hole in the bending wall, and at others whole patches were missing; as if someone had removed pieces of it at random. The cold nightly air crept over my skin and sent small shivers down my spine.

  The Prince unlocked the door on top and pushed me inside… or perhaps I should say outside. My heart fell into a thrumming rhythm when I discovered half the room had crumbled down. Only the door with some of the surrounding wall and a jutting part of the spire over my head had remained intact.

  Winds lashed into the black night around us as I turned to frown at the Prince. He said nothing; just gave me a last punishing look and slammed the door, locking it up before I stepped up and tried to yank it open.

  After my fruitless attempts, I hit the door with my palm and laughed, fury simmering in my chest. “You can’t be serious. A spire. Locking me up in a spire!” I yelled. “Boring and unoriginal.”

  “Quiet!” came his muffled, angry voice from behind the wooden frame.

  I shook my head in disappointment. “Even using the same phrases all the time. There’s no future for you on the stage, my lord!”

  “I need no stage, I have a throne,” he shouted back, his steps already descending.

  “A hopeless ruin of one,” I added under my breath.

  Great.

  After looking around, I found a spot behind some of the debris that I could scoop behind, to avoid the cruelty of the wind so far up high. Pulling my skirts about me, I sat down on the cool stone floor, knees to my chest to preserve as much warmth as possible.

  Inconspiciously, I slipped a hand down my bosom and extracted the Carnival King’s small golden key with its strap. Even in the impenetrable darkness, I caught the glint of its coating.

  Now, what lock would that key open?