by Ella Fields
And I was a fucking fool.
Before I could reach the barn or the husk of a farmhouse, I felt it, the warmth of eyes at my back. Twisting my neck, I found the king standing at the fence I’d just left—in the very place I’d watched him murder my father, his face stained with his blood, cloak billowing, and those blue eyes swirling with nothing I wanted to read into.
He didn’t know. There was no way he could possibly know it was me.
All he saw was a large black swan.
And so I turned back and flew for the cover of the woods, hoping they’d shield me, that my wings would carry me the entire way home when my soul felt so heavy.
If he’d known it was me, I had no doubt that he would’ve easily given chase, yet I flew alone.
Days passed like seeds slowly fed to the dirt.
My father’s body was eventually retrieved and given to the soil behind the castle, a giant seed beneath the cherry blossom tree next to my brother. Flowers, white and luminous, had sprouted all around the tree’s base, spreading toward our feet like tiny wishing stars.
My mother wept beside me, though no tears left her eyes.
I knew that type of heartache had to be worse than any other—the type that hurt with an intensity that stole your tears and refused to allow the grief to leave your body. For if it did, there’d be nothing left. Nothing.
To lose someone you love, a mate no less…
And it was my fault.
I hadn’t told her. I wasn’t sure I ever could. That I’d been tricked and so stupid. That I’d spent time with the enemy, never knowing, never thinking he was so much more than that.
He was our ruination.
Look at me, honey bee.
I wouldn’t let myself shed tears. Not for the same reason as my mother, but because I wouldn’t dare mourn him when I did not deserve to.
Our military had been whittled down to scraps, fear spiking through the castle halls as though winter had visited early.
No one remained to rally or strategize how to reinforce our borders and collect more people to train, be they farmers and traders or otherwise. There was only a silence so suffocating, I wondered if it would kill us before King Dade thought to finish us all off.
Elhn had been severely wounded, leaving my father’s two generals scrambling to gather some composure in a city and kingdom inundated with peril. The captain and two other soldiers were all that remained of my father’s destroyed unit.
“Princess.” My mother’s servant and closest friend, Edwan, bowed when I reached the stairs leading to her chambers.
I’d been avoiding her. An easy feat when she refused to leave her rooms, and now, I was trying to work up the courage to go check on her.
His sun-kissed face was pale and drawn, cheeks sunken, arched ears a harsh contrast against his bald head. In his trembling hands was a tray with broth and bread, and I gestured for it. “She still won’t eat?”
“I’m afraid not, my princess,” he murmured, lips whitened with worry. “It’s been four days.”
My eyes shuttered. “Has she drank anything?”
He inclined his head. “Some but not enough, and mostly wine.”
We were a species who’d live for thousands of years, but that did not mean we couldn’t fall prey to starvation like humans. It would take our bodies considerably longer to perish, but perish they would over time if not treated well.
“Thank you, Edwan. I’ll do my best.”
Gratitude wet his violet eyes, and he bowed once more before rounding the corner.
Up the stairs, the door creaked open with a thought, and I walked inside the dark, stale room. My mother’s scent, lemon rose, was fading with her health, leaving the bitter taste of sodden leaves in its wake.
Rounding the half-made bed, where she lay perched against the pillows while gazing at the swaying drapes concealing the windows and balcony, I set the tray upon her nightstand. “Mother, make haste, the food wastes.”
With a harsh swallow, she shifted a little. “I’m not hungry.”
“I know,” I said as I climbed over her legs to lay in my father’s spot, his scent of lime and leather pungent on the pillow. My heart throbbed, guilt roughening my voice. “Me either, so perhaps we can starve together?”
And there she was, Nikaya, queen of Sinshell, her glare harsher than the sun. “You will do no such thing.”
“You know I will if you do not eat.” Clasping her cool hand, I squeezed it. “You must.” Her long lashes fluttered, throat bobbing as I begged, “I cannot lose you too.”
Gazing back at me with gold eyes so similar to my own, I feared she could tell, could read the guilt in my eyes and in my voice.
If she did, she didn’t let on and gave my hand a weak squeeze in return. “Honey bee,” she whispered, a broken nickname for the daughter who’d broken her heart. “One day, you will understand what it is to feel your soul leave your chest, to fight against your heart’s instinct to follow.” Licking her dry lips, she added, barely a sound, “One day, you will know what it is to find and lose your true mate.” Reaching up, she smoothed her cool fingers down my cheek. “I would almost rather death for you, honey bee.”
Unsure what to say, only that I wanted to keep her here, present and talking, I said, “I worry such a thing will likely occur before finding a mate is even a thought in my mind.”
She smiled then, wistful and wretched. “You do not find a mate,” she stated, color to her voice now. It was dark but color all the same. “The stars bring them to you.”
I’d been told endless times before of how she and my father had come to find one another. At fifty years of age, it was past time she separated from her lover and grew up, her father had said, so a marriage was arranged with one of my grandfather’s chosen suitors.
Two nights before her wedding, as townsfolk and villagers from all across Sinshell arrived, she met my father, a farmer’s son who lived outside the woods by the border between Errin and Sinshell. A warrior not by choice but because he and his family had needed to protect their livelihoods of land and livestock. His mother had insisted he attend the wedding, for it was unheard of to miss such an event.
My mother, who’d of course been in love with another and not romantically fond of her betrothed although they were friends, had snuck out of the castle for a pint in the city. Hiding in a dim corner of the tavern, she’d watched faeries of all ilk drink, dance, gamble, and throw darts, lost to sorrow.
He’d sensed her before he’d walked in, he’d said. Unaccustomed to sitting idle, he’d decided to explore the city as night fell. Curious, he’d entered the tavern, drawn to her as a moth was to flame. Within hours, the wedding was canceled, and my father’s family was already making plans to move their farm closer to the heart of Sinshell.
You cannot fight a mating bond and win, he’d told me. And so with a frustration born from wasted coin and our people’s time, my grandfather had welcomed my father but ordered him to clean up the mess he’d caused.
He’d done so gladly and had replaced Elhn to wed my mother instead.
A fairy tale written and spoken of with great awe in the human kingdom.
But, as their many stories suggested, not all fairy tales ended happily.
“A mate you won’t find, not in this realm.” A cough followed her grim words, and I frowned. “The prince wrote us.” She entwined a lock of my hair in her fingers. Staring at it, she said with little care, “He requests for you to stay with him for protection while they consider marrying you into their family.”
“What?” I almost shouted.
Marriage. I hadn’t thought I’d still be expected to… I’d thought I’d ruined any chances of such an alliance when I’d spun gold into the prince’s cloak, and he’d fled home.
Mother didn’t startle, just smiled sadly and sighed. “Oh, the games we’ve been forced to play.”
“Mother, I cannot—”
“You leave the day after tomorrow with the rising sun.” As she scoop
ed my hair behind my ear, her touch began to warm. “You will have their protection, and we need you safe. That is what matters right now.”
I closed my eyes, wanting to protest, wanting to yell at her to get up and help me fix all of this. But she was, and she had, and the prince was our only way out.
She knew that.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, swallowing thickly. “But I will, though the blood king…”
“He will return, so no one knows you are leaving. Just you.” Sharp eyes met mine, a command in them. “And me.”
I was to take myself. I was to shift and fly.
Nodding, I took her hand. “I will do this for you, but you must eat.” Her eyes rolled. “Mother,” I said, softer now. “If I have nothing to live for, what’s to stop me from flying across the sea instead?”
I awaited reprimand, a reminder of my duty. Neither arrived.
After long moments of staring at me with a vacancy to her gaze I’d never seen before, she brought my hand to her lips. “You should, honey bee. You should flee and never return.”
We both knew I wouldn’t, so she sat up while I fed her broth-dipped pieces of bread.
The Polinphe Mountains rose alongside me, silent watchers of my lone journey east.
Their peaks stretched toward the clouds, blocking the perilous cliffs beyond them above the Night Sea.
The only way for ships to venture to our war-ruined half of Nodoya was via the Royal Cove, which was too often ambushed by waiting crimson bandits sent by their king.
I’ve never done this.
Hard to believe, and undoubtedly a lie, that the beast of the west, the king of wolves, had never dared to kiss another before. Rumor stated he was thirty-four years, had been brandishing a sword and upheaval for more than twenty-five, and could tear someone in half with his claws alone.
The tyrannical king had likely taken hundreds of lovers to his bed.
I squashed the intruding thought of it, the unexpected and unwelcome fury that accompanied it, and any imaginings of those too-soft lips on my own.
He would pay. One way or another, he had to—even if I died trying.
For I surely would.
Keeping to the trees, the foothills, and the quiet trail of farmland only broken by the Salt Creek and the nest of greenery surrounding it, I pushed thoughts of vengeance and guilt aside.
Mother had mercifully risen from her bed and left her chambers yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was for my comfort or because the kingdom needed her. I was merely thankful that she had. Now, crossing the border, the woods that stretched for miles and miles from the mountains at my left toward the ravine turned river to the right, I needed to fabricate an excuse to feed the human royals.
To explain my lonely arrival.
Perhaps, merely the fact that I was Fae would be enough to mollify them, though I knew most, especially the king and queen, knew better than to accept that.
I’d yet to discover if I contained such a gift, but there were those of us who could warp from place to place. Typically, they were either gold and crimson nobility—and powerful ones at that. As if the beasts needed more of an upper hand.
I was beginning to truly empathize with my grandfather, who had led the charge in ridding Nodoya of King Dade’s parents. The threat they’d likely posed to our continent was now abundantly obvious for all to see.
A threat that had now unraveled with their son into a deadly promise.
Drying fields and sandy dunes that rippled toward the Royal Cove soon replaced the lush and rolling green as it faded behind me. Castle Errin sat in the southeast corner of Nodoya, stone and wood and mortar that shone in bronze and browns beneath the peaking sun. The city of Errin sprawled and climbed between it and the Royal Cove, a vast array of cream and color, buildings shaped from sandstone and brick squashed together with little thought for clear thoroughfare.
A kingdom easy to hide within.
I tucked that thought away, keeping it in the safe space of my mind beside the darker things I couldn’t and didn’t have time to release. Later. Perhaps years from now, there’d be time to give to those aching thoughts that matched the changed tempo of my heartbeat. A time when we could afford to reflect and vow to do better.
I couldn’t see such a time for that existing. All I could see, even with the sand-crusted beauty below me, the waves rolling against the cliffsides and into the bay, was gore and blood and endings.
Village roads, little more than packed dust skirted by shrubbery and cacti, crawled to the glittering city, and I veered left away from them, toward the castle hidden beyond a giant stone wall.
A few guards looked up, most looked away, and I waited until there were no eyes on me at all before quietly drifting down to the fountains in a sprawling courtyard. A swan, black and peering around with slow arcs of its neck, was all anyone would see if they happened to spy me standing upon the stone ledge, water misting my feathers.
Looking up, I met the marble eyes of a statue, one of the gods the humans bowed to, his manhood exposed and a spear in hand.
“A black swan,” said someone from behind. “Look, Georgette, do you see?”
Shit.
“Oh, my,” said who I guessed was Georgette. “I do believe it’s been years since I’ve seen a swan at all, let alone a black one.”
“An evil omen, do you think?” asked her companion.
At that, I couldn’t help but swing my head their way, causing both women, carrying baskets of bread and fruit, to squeak. They then hurried away from the fountain and into the adjoining city street.
An omen. I would’ve scoffed. Instead, I made sure I was alone before shifting and shaking out my stiff and tingling limbs. Well, given my parents’ fear of my curse, only time would tell if they were all correct, and I hadn’t the time to care.
Stepping out from behind the giant statue spilling water from his mouth into the algae-infested depths below, I crossed to the shade of some nearby maple trees while righting the emerald and olive skirts of my gown.
I’d kept it as simple as possible, knowing that was how the humans preferred it, the gown lacing up my back in tiny bows and covering my breasts and upper arms. The bodice seemed to squeeze my chest, or maybe that was my chest tightening, the closer I came to the wall of the castle.
My neck strained back after a horse-drawn wagon ambled past from around the side, soldiers seated in the back with empty baskets, to take in the height of that wall.
I’d been told about it, this wall and castle, many times, but too distracted by my own whims, the innocence I’d once harbored with too much grit, I hadn’t listened. Guards were stationed at every corner in lookout towers that would grant them a view for miles in any direction, their bronze and silver armor gleaming in the sun.
“Halt,” a female voice cried when I stepped out from the shelter of the trees and headed toward the courtyard. “What is your business here?”
Here goes everything. “Opal,” I said, my name sounding strange. Foreign almost. “I am Princess Opal of Gracewood, here at the royal family’s request.”
A heavy silence ratcheted up my heartbeat, and then the silver metal gate across from me, not the larger one fit for horses and carriages but for single-file entry, opened.
Five guards, wearing armor and helmets, walked out and stopped before me, inspecting me from head to toe, then looked at one another. “That is her,” one of them said, words muffled behind the metal encasing his face. “I’ve seen her before.”
I surveyed the man, wondering if he even spoke true, before ultimately deciding it didn’t matter as long as I was taken where I needed to be.
“Alert the family,” the female said, then gestured for me to follow as two guards rushed ahead of us inside the gate.
We waited in another courtyard, more of those fountains gurgling, interrupting the tense silence, as the soldiers shifted and eyed me. Roses of every shade mingled in thick bushes lining the walkways leading to the curved castle doors
and around the sides, thinning alongside hedge-lined pathways.
“Come,” the guard said gruffly and flicked his hand toward the arched wooden doors that remained open as though I were a stray animal he did not want to sully himself with.
A shadow crossed the red-dressed floor. The prince, his smile and hands spread wide, stepped into the doorway, immediately taking the three circular steps down to greet me with a kiss upon each cheek that did not touch the skin. “Welcome, Princess.” Standing back, he looked around, and his smile drooped a little. “Your entourage?”
“They already return,” I said, surprised at the smooth lie.
After a nod and a glance at the guards behind me, he led me inside. Shocked, I hurried after him, more confused than comforted at how easily my lone arrival had been overlooked.
“I am sorry,” he said as we crossed the entry chamber. Portraits of his ancestors hung on the walls on either side of the soft red carpet. “About your father. He was a good… man.” He was no man at all, but a male of both great heart and power.
The doors shut with an echoing boom that made me flinch and forget about correcting him. The lit sconces guttered and then flared high over the stone walls. “Thank you.”
“Would you care for any refreshments?” he asked, seeming so small now, his rich eyes dull in this place of after. After he’d left without a goodbye and made me think the worst. After my father had escorted he and his men home safely.
After they’d been killed while returning home.
All I could manage was a shake of my head and to entwine my trembling fingers.
Clearing his throat, Bron tucked his hands into the pockets of his dark brown pants. “My mother and father have been sent for. They might already be awaiting us in the great hall.”
“They are aware then,” I said, cautious as we walked down a long hall, deeper into this dark, foreign castle. “That we plan to wed?”
His slight cough and the falter in his next step drew my eyes away from the stairs that zigzagged, their wood clothed in that red carpet, up through the ceiling into the floors beyond. “We shall explain in due time.”