The Stepsister's Lament

by S R Nulton

  He swallowed before forcing himself to go on. “You were a mess when I got to you and you fainted pretty quickly from the blood loss. I thought you… I thought you’d died. You said…”

  He looked away before continuing, “…anyway, the wolf had shredded your back and nearly taken your leg off. You also had damage to your spine from when he shook you… I won’t lie; it was bad. No one is quite sure how you managed to move, let alone jump in front of me to block that curse. I, um, was able to stabilize you by the time Chris and his party heard the yelling. Then we got you back to the palace and got Cinderella’s Fey godmother to heal you. You’d been poisoned too. We think it was something on the wolf’s claws. It took a while, but we got the Fey woman to fix that too.”

  He grimaced. “I hate that woman. She was always a conniving backstabber, thinking just because she is a Seelie noble she can do whatever she wants. The idiot has caused more trouble that I can remember and she almost refused to help you, but Grandfather spoke with her via mirror and straightened things out.”

  I frowned, “Where did the bolt come from?”

  Cindy squirmed. “Um, well, that was me.” She blushed. “You see, Chris and I went out early to test out a new crossbow he was given. It’s magic and any bolt that is shot from the bow will follow a straight line until it hits the heart of an animal. It wasn’t supposed to be able to hit a human.” Her face paled as she thought about that. I brushed her hair away from her head and hugged her close.

  “Hey, don’t look like that. He was in wolf form when he was hit. I think that’s what saved us, the fact that it killed his animal and allowed him to turn human again. He’d been imprisoned by Grandmother for so long, he’d lost nearly everything that made him a man.” I lifted my eyes and looked at Reese. “That’s what she was trying to cast. It was a spell that would capture part of your soul. It takes away most free will. I was faster though. If you share the blood of the caster, you are immune to any spell like that, the ones that would take away your choices and autonomy. I blocked it and she only had the one chance, really. It takes a long time to set the spell up for a quick cast like that.”

  He nodded. “I thought that might be the case.”

  “Why did she die though?” Christopher asked. “The bolt hit the wolf, not your grandmother.”

  I sighed. “There was another part of the curse she tried on Reese. Once someone is bound by soul, she can also bind their lives. If he had special powers, extended life, extra strength, she would be able to use it. All she’d have to do is eat part of his heart during a special ceremony. There are only two downsides. The first is once it is done, it takes an elaborate ritual to unbind it and leaves you near death. The second is the fact that your lives are tied together. If she’d been hit by that bolt instead, he would have died just the same. It’s hard to kill weres though. That’s actually why she forced the bond – longer life expectancy. The curse is known as the Contract. That’s also why he told her the contract was binding. He had a choice to break it and free her from their mutual death, but he held strong and made sure that she was gone forever.”

  Reese considered that for a moment, but he seemed to be frustrated by something. He kept running his hands through his hair. Finally, he asked me, “What did you mean when you said it was ‘better this way.’ I don’t get it, Joy! You were dying! And I could see it in your eyes! You’d planned to do it! How is that better for anyone?”

  I looked down at the counterpane and ran my fingers over the soft threads. When no one spoke, I sighed. No getting out of it now, I suppose.

  “When I went to stay at Aunt Grace’s cottage, I went there for more than just a way of drawing attention away from my family. I knew that she had left some spell books for me to study. I needed those, for more than just the parts about harvesting herbs. There was a spell I saw when I was very little. It was a revenge curse.” Reese drew in a sharp breath. He knew!

  “What’s a ‘revenge curse’?” Cindy asked hesitantly.

  “It’s a spell you put on yourself. When you are going up against someone who might kill you, it is a sort of… insurance. If you die, then the curse activates and kills the person who killed you. If the wolf had succeeded in killing me, and if you hadn’t shot him and saved me, then they both would have ended up dead just the same.”

  “Why?” It was Christopher asking this time. “Why would you do that?”

  I blinked. “Because she was evil. My grandmother had plans for this country. She had powerful friends, allies, and debtors. She was in the perfect position to attack. If she killed me, the person she believed was her greatest threat, she would have gone after you and Cindy next. I’ve known since I was eight that she was going to try to kill me one day. She’s never failed before, so I found the curse and cast it on myself once every two months for the past year. The day that she attacked was the last day before I would have had to renew it. It was my only chance to take her out of the picture.”

  “So the entire time… the whole time I’ve known you, you were planning on dying?” Cindy asked, incredulous. Christopher and Reese looked just as horrified.

  Biting my lip, I whispered, “Yes. I didn’t really want to, but I thought it was the best option, for everyone. I’d be out of the way and everyone else would be safe.”

  The room was so quiet you could have heard a feather hit the carpet. Or maybe that was just me, because my ears seemed to be picking up all the ambient sounds and amplifying them outrageously.

  “I understand,” Reese replied, still deep in contemplation. “I understand why you did it, but please, don’t ever do something like that again,” he begged. “Despite what you seem to think, no one sees you as a burden or someone worthy of derision. You matter so much more than you could possibly imagine, Joy. Just… never again, do you understand?”

  I felt my head nod as I took in the shock and horror in his eyes. I had shaken him enough to show his true emotions and he was terrified of me trying that again. Of losing me. They all were. No one besides my sisters had ever cared before… I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.

  That left us all silent as we contemplated everything that had happened. It was painful and horrific. Each of us was bound to have a difficult time dealing with the aftermath; Cindy of killing two people, Christopher of letting his wife fire the weapon, Reese of watching me nearly die, and me of nearly dying.

  Finally I broke the quiet with a question that had been nagging at me since I woke up. “Cindy, why am I in a pink room?”

  She started giggling. And then she brought out the big guns, something that had won her more than a few arguments over the years: innocent eyes and a statement phrased like a question. “Because I knew that you would get better faster if you were in a room you hated?” The boys started laughing. I just shook my head. Cindy will do whatever Cindy wants to do.

  “You’re lucky you’re so pretty, Cindy. It lets people underestimate you. If only the kingdom knew how devious and cruel their beloved princess was!” I declared, laying the back of my hand against my brow as if I were feeling faint. My stepsister dissolved into giggles once more.

  “So you got my letter in plenty of time?” she asked.

  I smiled softly at her and smoothed her dress down over her barely rounded belly. “I did. Congratulations, little sister! Though, I’m fairly sure that polite society demands that no one know about your ‘delicate condition’ until three months after the child is born.”

  She laughed. “Of course not, but I’ve never claimed to be either polite or social. I definitely won’t change to suit a bunch of snobs who find it acceptable to talk about breeding dogs and horses but the idea of humans giving birth makes them break out in hives.

  “Always the rebel,” I sighed before turning to Christopher. “As for you, mister, I have a bone to pick with you.” Reese froze, but my brother-in-law just looked confused.

  “What did I do?”

  Cindy cut in before another word could be spoken. “Enough! Joy, you can b
arely keep your eyes open as it is! This is no time to pick a fight with your brother-in-law. You can wait at least until tomorrow.” She stood and helped me settle the pillows once more before kissing my forehead and wishing me pleasant dreams. Then she bustled them out of the room without another word. My eyes were closed before the door even closed.

  ~

  I had just finished lunch when the royal couple and my strangely reluctant looking husband entered the room. Naturally I jumped back in where I had left off the day before. If I didn’t, I knew Cindy would distract me again.

  “Christopher, what makes you think it is okay to marry someone in absentia, specially without their knowledge? I can’t believe that you would do that!”

  “Neither can I. What are you talking about?” Then Christopher stopped moving. He turned slowly to look at a very pale Reese. “What did you do to my sister-in-law?”

  “What do you mean?” Christopher glared in a way that must have truly scared Reese, because he dropped the innocent act pretty quickly after that. “I, um, may have led her to believe that she was my wife.” His voice squeaked a bit at the end. If I wasn’t so angry, I would have laughed. I had seen many sides of Reese while we traveled, but nervous wasn’t one of them.

  “Why would you do that?” Christopher’s voice was very calm. It was a bit terrifying, really.

  Reese cleared his throat. “Well, she was scared and she wasn’t letting me help her. I knew she needed help, so I sort of led her to believe that I had the right to come with her. I figured that you would be happy about my protecting her.”

  “Not when you lied to her and made her believe that you were married! What were you thinking! You know I repealed that law! That’s what you came to help me with!” His voice was thunderous in the room. Then he stopped again and turned to me. “He didn’t… he didn’t try and…”

  If it weren’t for the flushed face, I would never have understood what he meant. “What?! No! We’ve never even kissed. He was a complete gentleman, except for the lying about being married thing.” I thought back to a few conversations and began to get confused. “Actually, he never specifically said we were married. He just sort of suggested it. And he asked if I wanted to make it official one day, so I’m really not sure what to think about this right now.”

  “That’s because he can’t lie,” Christopher declared, still glaring at my… the man I had thought was my husband. “It is physically impossible for him to do so, at least not directly. He is quite skilled at misdirection, however.”

  Reese ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, little gem. I’m so sorry I let you believe we were married. I just… I knew you were in trouble and I needed to help.” He paced back and forth for a moment before coming to sit on the other side of my bed. “Could we talk? Alone?” He looked at the royal couple as he asked.

  Cindy shook her head at the same time her husband did. They were staying. Reese just sighed.

  “I saw you at the ball. The one where Chris met Cinderella. I was there for moral support. And there you were, dressed up in a gown that was at least five years out of style and still managed to look beautiful.” I snorted, but he continued.

  “When your stepsister bolted, I saw you studying her and then move to block Chris. It didn’t make sense, though, because as soon as he was gone, you shook your head and walked away. Your other sister was staring after him like every other person at the ball.” He paused. “Well, not exactly like everyone else. She was giggling at something or other. I never could figure out what. But you couldn’t seem to care less about any of it! Then it clicked. You were helping the mystery girl escape, not trying to steal the attention of a prince.”

  Christopher looked at me strangely, almost like he was remembering that night and trying to look at it from a new perspective. Meanwhile, Reese continued.

  “When Chris finally found his love, he told me about your family’s antics and how you seemed to be telling him where your sister was. He was confused, but I thought it made sense. You wanted to protect her when she was unsure and frightened, but you were also trying to help her get her happy ending. Weren’t you?”

  I nodded, but didn’t speak. It felt strange to have anyone actually try and get me. Even stranger still to realized that he really did. He not only saw, he understood.

  “It was the same when I saw you at their wedding. I was walking over to say hello when I heard you talking to Chris. Every word you said was meant to help your sister and protect her. You didn’t even care that people were spreading awful rumors about you. You just let it roll off your back. I was very interested in getting to know you, but I also knew that you needed to leave. If you’d stayed, you would never have learned to live for yourself. So I didn’t speak with you. I let you go. It killed me to do it, but I did.”

  He smiled suddenly. “Then, when Cindy managed to change things, to change what people thought about you, I decided it was time to try my luck. Since I was heading home, I asked if she wanted me to give you anything. You did live in the same direction as me, after all.”

  Cindy hugged Christopher tighter. “I always wondered,” she told me quietly. “I always wondered why he wanted to deliver it personally instead of letting me send a messenger but was too upset to really think about it. Now it makes more sense.”

  He nodded. “When you opened the door, I was in awe. You stood there, looking completely different from what I remembered. You were practically glowing. You didn’t look like you were starving anymore and your hair was down. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I acted like I didn’t know who you were.” He smirked and shook his head. “I was so excited to see you. To try and get to know you. But then you read the letter and it was like seeing you, the new you, die. The light was gone. In its place was this unimaginable fear. So I scrambled for a way to keep you with me. To protect you.

  “I remembered one of the laws that Chris asked me to help rewrite and knew that it wouldn’t take much to make you believe it was still in effect. I just…” He growled and took my hand. “I just wanted to make you safe. To make the light come back.”

  I stared into his dark green eyes, looking for any hint of lie. But it wasn’t there. For once, his eyes were open, letting me see everything. “That’s why you shied away from my questions about the wedding. You couldn’t lie outright. I thought…”

  “What? What did you think?”

  I swallowed. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it because you wished that it hadn’t happened. I thought that you were forced into being with me just like everyone else. That you were trying to make the best of it, like Cindy did.”

  My stepsister gasped, but didn’t interrupt as Reese spoke again. “No, little gem,” he said, cupping my cheek. “If anything, I forced my presence onto you, not the other way around. I would have told you sooner, but we were always in danger. I couldn’t protect you if you made me leave. So I let you believe a lie until I could be sure you were safe.”

  Nodding, I turned away and sighed. “But you still lied, Reese. You still lied, even if it was just letting me come to the wrong conclusions. It might take a while for me to trust you again.”

  He hung his head and sighed. “I know, little gem. But I’m okay with that. I want your trust, and someday, I want your love. I want to give you everything, because you deserve that. You deserve to feel wanted.”

  Christopher walked over, put his hand on Reese and shook his head. “Only you would try to win a woman over by pretending that you were already married to her. God, Reese! You can be such an idiot.” And then he smacked Reese upside the head.

  “Yeah, yeah. Shut up. We can’t all be as perfect as Prince Charming!” Reese jeered.

  Christopher scoffed. “So says the prince of a place no one believes exists.”

  My head snapped up. “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” My eyes narrowed as I turned to my traveling companion. “Reese, what is he talking about? What else are you hiding?”

  Christopher s
tarted laughing, his deep guffaws making a nice counterpoint to Cindy’s bell like giggles.

  Reese ran his hand through his hair. “Remember when you said you’d make people believe I thought you were the princess of Brenlew? Skies, that was a horribly confusing sentence,” he muttered. Then he took a deep breath and continued. Which was good, because at least one of us needed to be breathing. “Well, when we actually get married, you would be.”

  “I’d be what?” I asked, ignoring the implications that we would be getting married. He was not my favorite person at that moment, but there was no point in deviating from the topic.

  “Princess of Brenlew. Actually, you would be the Princess Consort. We are really big into contracts and bartering.”

  I stared at him in shock. “If you’re the…” I couldn’t even say it, it sounded so absurd.

  “… Prince of Brenlew…” he helped.

  “Yeah, that… then what exactly are you? Because, if the rumors are true, the royals all have different areas that they rule over, different powers they control.”

  He nodded and ducked his head. “Well, I guess you would consider me a forest lord.”

  Christopher scoffed. “Please. You are Garrán Rí, The Forest Lord! Or you will be when that ugly piece of…” he glanced at Cindy, clearing his throat, “humanity that you call a grandfather finally unlocks your powers and gives you that king’s ransom he and your grandmother have been spinning for you all these years.”

  I pondered his words and it finally hit me. “Rumplestiltskin. Your grandfather, he’s Rumplestiltskin. That’s why people kept calling you ‘Spinner’s grandson’ and you had to let me guess your name! And that spell you used on Grandmother. I’ve never seen anything that powerful before!” I paused before musing, “That also explains the moose.”