Born to Rule

dears, free him!” she urged.
    “Free him from what? Will he fly away forever?” Alicia asked.
    “No. He will fly to me,” Princess Kyranala replied softly.
    “He is your veeb?” Gundersnap asked.
    “He is my knight.”
    “Your knight? Sir Roland?” Alicia gasped. “The one you wrote to in Love Letters of a Forgotten Princess? The bird is Sir Roland?
    “Yes,” Princess Kyranala said. “Remember, I told you that Guthstab had ordered his death. Berwynna turned him into a bird so he could fly away and escape. She brought him to the Forest of Chimes.”
    “But why didn’t she turn him back into a knight?” Alicia asked.
    “Berwynna’s magic is great, but it is not perfect. He was trapped. Nothing Berwynna did could break the spell. We tried everything to bring him back. But when you arrived that first night, when you opened your favorite book and began to read about the Forgotten Princess and we found that you understood the deep love I had for my knight, the transformation slowly began.”
    “But couldn’t you go to the forest and find him and release him yourself?” Alicia asked.
    “I had tried. And I had tried to stitch the rest of the tapestry, but the ghosts of restless spirits need more. We needed you, a living princess, one who believed in us. When we saw you loved our book, we knew you were the one.
    “And now you can help him complete the journey.” She smiled and held up three needles, one with golden thread and two with turquoise. She handed the two with turquoise threads to Gundersnap and Kristen and the one with golden thread to Alicia.
    “What are we supposed to do?” Kristen asked.
    But Alicia knew exactly. “‘The song is not the end in sight; For this you need to stitch a knight,’” she recited.
    “But you must begin by stitching the bird,” Princess Kyranala said.
    “Yes, the bird. We must free the weeb so it might become a knight,” Alicia said.
    The three princesses stitched until the moon climbed high in the sky and the soft spring air turned to summer and then to autumn. The rustle of crisp leaves could be heard outside the turret window.
    At last Alicia poked her needle in for the very last stitch of the bird. A shimmer seemed to glow from within the tapestry. The bird they had just finished began to lengthen into a human form, and its cage became shining armor. At that moment the shutters flew open, and on the autumn breeze red and golden leaves tumbled into the turret room. They swirled about as if caught in a gale and then, just as Princess Kyranala had stepped from the ashes and flames of the fire, a knight stepped from the leaves. He wore golden armor, and on his shoulders were turquoise flowers.
    He knelt in front of the ghost princess. “I am here, dear one.”
    The princess opened her mouth to speak, but she could not. Tears began to stream down her face, leaving silver paths on her cheeks.
    The knight then turned to the three princesses. “I am forever in your debt, Princesses,” he said. “And my dear Princess Gundersnap?”
    “Ja?” Gundersnap looked slightly alarmed.
    “I even forgive you for shaking me like a saltshaker.”
    Gundersnap put her hands to her face, which was turning quite red. They all began to giggle.
    “No harm done, my dear. No harm done,” Sir Roland said in a deep, kind voice.
    For as thrilled as Alicia was when her songbird had finally sung that evening, this indeed was even more thrilling. It wasn’t the fact that the bird had finally sung and the Purples had won the Color Wars. Those desires of hers all seemed so small and so selfish by comparison to what had just happened—a knight and his lady had been reunited. Now they were two spirits put to rest, inseparable.
    “For eternity,” Sir Roland said as he embraced his princess.
    “For eternity,” Princess Kyranala replied.
    And then, as quickly as each had appeared, they now dissolved into the mist of the early morning.
     
    That was the last the three princesses of the South Turret saw of the Princess Kyranala and her knight, Sir Roland. The princesses went back the following evening to look at the tapestry, hoping that perhaps there might be some hint about where the lovers had gone. But there was none. Alicia touched the stitching lightly. “I guess the tapestry is finished. The story told.” She sighed.
    But Princess Gundersnap was looking at another part of the tapestry. She squinted hard. What was she seeing? Was it a horse? No, not exactly. A unicorn? But