The Toad Prince

Chapter Five

Sorin walked Nadaria to another set of large doors and turned to her.

“I am serious. You may want to intervene, but you need to stay up on the second level. I just want you to observe from a distance this time, okay? It is dangerous to interfere.”

“Okay. I’ll just watch.”

He sighed and looked over his shoulder at the doors, and then ran his hand through his hair. His eyes were pools of apprehension, but there was something else, too, like shame or guilt.

She felt bad and grabbed his arm. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I won’t judge you, I promise.”

He smiled sadly. “Don’t promise things you can’t keep, bubblegum witch.”

Sorin pushed open the doors of the ballroom and the entire vibe of the room differed from the rest of the castle. Decorated for a party, it was brightly lit by hundreds of burning candles, and woven chains of flowers and pine boughs covered the walls and hung from the ceiling.

Nicoleta and Aurelian waited at the bottom of a set of stairs that ascended to a second-story balcony area, and Sorin showed she should follow them. She did, and he didn’t give her another glance as he walked to the center of the empty dance floor.

The magic was so thick, and so dark, that Nadaria’s nose itched like she inhaled a handful of pepper. She rubbed it, and looked at Aurelian and Nicoleta, whose faces were drawn.

From the balcony, she could see the entire room. It was beautiful. The exquisite dancefloor opened up and flowed into a back garden area. An enormous pool of water stretched out. It was odd because the pool was so large, but there were only two little water lilies floating close to the edge. They glowed with magic.

Sorin stood in the middle of the dancefloor and removed his shirt and his shoes. He looked over his shoulder at her and then faced forward toward the lily pond. Nadaria gripped the rail of the balcony, and her palms were slick with sweat as the midnight hour chimed its first strike.

She watched Sorin’s back tense with each stroke of the clock, and then his skin started peeling. Shifting and… boiling. He grunted once, even though she was sure it had to be painful. Green and brown skin erupted, piercing through the pale flesh of his back.

When the transformation was complete, he was malformed. Wart ridden, lumpy skin covered his body, and his hands and feet were webbed.

“What is—” she started, but jumped in surprise when she looked at her companions.

Nicoleta and Aurelian were gone, or for a moment, they appeared to be. Their clothes were piled on the floor where they’d been standing. Nicoleta’s dress shuffled, and then a small, rotund toad poked its head out and croaked. Nadaria looked at Aurelian’s suit, and a thin, wiry toad emerged.

“Oh, you poor dears,” she whispered, bending and scooping them both into her hands. The toads eyes Roux apprehensively, and Nadaria promised, "He won't eat you."

Her attention turned back to Sorin, who was walking to the stone fireplace. The piano erupted in a classical tune. Nadaria was well educated and knew it immediately. Libestraum, Love Dream, by Liszt. Composed in the nineteenth century.

Sorin was at the fireplace and used the poker to pull out two iron shoes. They glowed bright red from being in the flames, and she winced when he slipped his webbed feet into them. His flesh sizzled, and she could smell it from here.

While he did that, the water of the lily pond started churning. Slowly, a figure emerged. It was a woman, or the corpse of a woman. Nadaria wrinkled her nose in disgust. Necromancy.

The woman’s long blonde hair was wet and dripping on the clean wooden floor. Her mouth hung open, and her jaw was disjointed, like it had been broken. She looked like she’d been mauled to death by an animal. Someone had cut away her eyelids, so the white milky eyes of death stared forward, and couldn't be shielded.

She walked to him, her movements jerky and unnatural. Her arm was broken, and her neck was flayed open. The white front of her nightgown was the color of rust, like she’d bled tremendously from the wound. Maggots wriggled in the wounds, as well as in her eyes and mouth.

Nadaria had a strong stomach, but her gut churned the dinner she’d just eaten, and she swallowed hard to push away the nausea. She could smell the rot from here.

Sorin closed the gap between himself and the corpse, and Nadaria’s heart pinched when he took the dead woman into his arms with tender care. Tears formed in her eyes and she watched him dance with the blonde-haired woman, supporting all her weight and holding her head to his chest. She could see him whispering things to her, but Nadaria was not close enough to hear.

The piano belted its eerie melody, filling the room alongside the clumping sound of Sorin’s iron shoes. It seemed to last forever—him swaying with the woman in his arms. But finally Aurelian and Nicoleta jumped down and crawled into their clothes again.

The song closed, droning away, and the room fell silent. The woman disintegrated in Sorin’s arms, becoming a pile of maggots and rotten flesh. As she did, his own skin shifted, turning back into the pale white flesh that was his true form.

Nicoleta and Aurelian changed back as well and now stood beside her. They had obviously done this many times, because they stood in a way that allowed them to grow right back into their clothes with only minor adjustments required.

Sorin, now himself again, stared at the pond. Nadaria watched as a lily died, shriveling and sinking beneath the surface of the water, leaving just one. He glanced over his shoulder for a breath, kicked the iron shoes off, and then walked around the pond and out into the darkness of the night.

“What in the flaming river of hell is this?” Nadaria asked, wincing as her voice broke the reverent quiet.

Nicoleta was the one that answered, barely audible as she whispered, "It’s Lord Sorin’s fairytale happily ever after.”

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Would it even be one of my stories without some dark, disturbing content? Hope you guys are excited to find out what in the flaming river of hell has led poor Sorin here.