Chapter Twenty
Augustus
As I saw Rose ride ahead, I already was picking up on a sense of dread from the forest I knew so well. Something was here. Something foreign to this soil and these trees.
I rode hard, trying to catch up, but my horse seemed nervous and I kept running into brush and fallen trees that didn’t seem to be there when Rose rode past them, ahead in my vision.
And then, I saw her walk into a place where the forest light shone strangely. I saw a woman greeting her.
I saw a spindle.
I leapt to the ground and ran, screaming her name as I took out my bow and arrow.
I already knew that this threat was more than an arrow could handle, even my arrows that never missed their mark.
“Rose!”
Brambles sprung up into the path ahead, blocking me from the golden glade where she walked as if enchanted.
“Rose! Let me in, witch!”
I heard laughter. You have lost her, prince. She is mine now. She doesn’t want to bow for you.”
“Rose,” I said. “I have a duty to my people. I have a hundred years of tradition to uphold. I’m going to be king. There is meant to be pleasure in your pain. If there is not; if you truly regret becoming my wife enough that you would rather sleep for a hundred years… Well, I told you on the day we met that I was your only choice, but of course…I am not. There is always another choice. But I love you! I love you, my solace…my companion…”
Through the brambles, I saw her hesitate. She paused, her hand in the air. I didn’t know if I was reaching her.
She started to turn her head toward me, with painful slowness, even as her hand trembled inches from the spindle.
“Dearie, I have plans for you,” the witch said. “I will put you to sleep and while you sleep, I will tear down this corrupted world and offer you something better in its place. Equality, liberty…! We will return to the days of freedom…of warrior queens and starlight dances…”
I bristled. “Witch, I know the history of my own kingdom. I know why these rules exist. There are no warriors without war. Rose, I wish I could promise you that I’ll break all the rules for you, but I won’t. Faeries don’t lie. This is my world. I want you in it.”
“Augustus…” Now her eyes searched the brambles until she spotted me through them.
“You know what you’ll get with him,” the witch said.
“I do…” Her eyes darted away from me, searching for something they couldn’t find.
“I will find every way I can to give you freedom,” I said, gripping the thick vines. I could feel the witch’s magic flowing through them. “I can’t break the rules, but I can test them and see where they will yield. When we rule the kingdom, we’ll see how far we can bend them together.”
“Augustus,” she said. “Why do you defend the rules? You hate them too. You…”
“Sometimes…I want you in different ways than are permitted,” I said softly. “Even if, just once, I wish I could give you everything of myself…and be at the mercy of your whims.”
Her eyes had a wicked gleam.
My desire only seemed to grow. Before she came along, I had not even though much about having a wife, as I was kept so busy with study and hunting and stealing off to my workshop. The courtesans my grandfather sent to my rooms were easy to dominate. They came knowing their part, acting girlish and nervous around me.
Rose was different. She had the air of a princess and she was growing more assured of herself and more defiant by the day.
I wanted to play the game both ways. But the rules had already been established.
“If you come back to me…come willingly. Come knowing what I ask of you. Knowing you must bow to me and that in return I can only offer you my love and my devotion, pleasure and suffering.” I pushed a hand through the thorns. They scratched my skin and caught at my coat.
The way the witch looked at us, I knew we had already said too much.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rose
Augustus did not plead to me. At first I was shocked that he spoke so frankly. If he really wanted me back, he would at least try to promise me a different outcome.
But then I couldn’t help a grudging admiration. He did what my mother always wanted me to do. He put his kingdom above his personal life and his personal wishes, and even the woman he loved.
He does love me.
I knew that in my bones. Where at first I found him hard to read, now I realized he was a deeply complicated man. He was quiet, studious, and calm under any pressure. That was his strength, so different from his grandfather’s loud bluster. There is charm in a selfish man, I thought, but no wisdom. Augustus will be a good king, even if it means he will not break the rules for me.
If I must have a master, I could think of no one better than him.
Of course, I had a choice. And my choice was to trust the witch.
Suddenly I wondered what haze had overtaken me, that I had been so close to ending my days in this world and taking my chances on a future without any of my loved ones in it.
I thrust my hand toward Augustus’ through the brambles. His warm fingers closed on mine.
A strong wind seemed to stir around us, so much that I shut my eyes against its force, and when I opened them again, the witch and the spinning wheel and the brambles were all gone and Augustus and I stood together in the glade.
He pulled me to his chest. No words were needed as I melted into him and my mouth sought his for a passionate kiss that seemed to reverberate through my entire body. We pulled back just enough that our breath mingled in puffs in the cold air, as the guards caught up to us.
“Your Highnesses! Thank the gods! We lost sight of you for a moment!”
“We thought we’d spotted a blue stag and thought we’d get a glimpse of good luck,” Augustus said.
The head guards took off his hat. “Your Highnesses should head back to the palace immediately.”
My stomach leapt.
“What’s happened?” Augustus asked.
“The king collapsed while he was making his daily offerings at the Altar of Seasons. He’s been rushed to his bed. The cause is yet unknown.”
We rode back in a panic. I whispered prayers the whole time. I had made my choice—but I was not ready to face the consequences.
The sound of our footsteps on the wooden floor had never seemed so loud, nor so echoing, as we rushed toward the king’s room to hear from the healers.
“It looks like a cursed sickness has befallen him…” The king’s personal healer was solemn. “His face has broken out into blotches and he is very feverish. I would think it was the black fever, but he already had it and recovered, and this came on too suddenly…”
“A cursed sickness,” Augustus repeated. “You mean to say magic is responsible?”
“Yes.”
“I want the palace grounds and Luminé and everywhere in between combed for that woman they call the Cobblestone Witch,” he said. “Can we see him?”
“You had best not, Your Highness. As long as there is any doubt about the nature of his illness, cursed or not, you and the princess should stay away in case of contagion. We will offer him the blessed blood.”
“So it’s that severe?”
“I’m afraid so…”
Augustus looked frustrated, as we were forced to do nothing but wait.
“What is the blessed blood?” I asked.
“They will take blood from him and mix it with the water of the sacred spring, the ash of the sacred fire, and the soil of the sacred ground, then have him drink it down. Vile,” he added. “It’s a powerful healing spell, but that must mean the curse they sense upon him is very strong.”
“But certainly he might recover?” I asked hopefully. “Or they wouldn’t bother to treat it at all.”
“Yes. He might.”
Those were awful days. The entire palace seemed aimless. Madame Bariel tended to the king night and day until his condit
ion took a turn for the worse. The king grew delirious and they said his face had turned black, although Augustus and I were still not allowed to see him. The Lady of Towers forced Madame Bariel out of the sickroom and told her blood should tend to blood.
Out the window, I saw her carriage driving away, and I saw her head peer out the window for one last look at the palace.
I almost felt sorry for her, then. No matter how I hated her, it seemed cruel to force her out before the king died.
It was clear, at this time, that he would not recover.
How strange it was, at dinner, that his chair was empty and there was no Bariel sitting on his lap or putting his coffee cup to his lips. I hated her when she was there, but I suppose one gets used to everything.
We waited.
A candle burned in the king’s window. Whenever I went outside, my eyes were drawn to that window as if magnetized, and it was hard to even take a walk in the gardens. When that candle went out, my Augustus would be the king of Ellurine and the great faery realm.
Mourning gowns and coats came, the boxes unwrapped without any of the joy of new clothing; heavy black fabrics waiting. At night, Augustus held me close like he still felt the moment he almost lost me. I was so happy to wake up with his protective arms around me, cocooned by the feather-stuffed blanket and his warm body on the long cold nights.
But I knew what fate awaited me now.
I have chosen this.
I thought of Louisa’s attempts to explain it all.
“You could raise taxes and buy more diamonds with them; you could send our husbands to war; you could ban the color blue. That’s the power of ruling the country. You can take everything, so you have to give everything in exchange.”
Well, if I can’t escape giving everything, I deserve every other happiness. When I am queen, I will wear diamonds every day and plant my own garden and adopt more dogs.
In the morning, a week into the king’s illness, we were walking together down the hall when we heard a thunderous sound. At first I thought it was some sort of earthquake. Then I heard the wailing.
A crowd poured through the doors at the end of the Hall of Mirrors. I saw Madame Noria, her eyes cast to the heavens. Josef, Master of Delights, still striding lightly on heeled shoes even as he bowed to his older brother. Courtiers already giving us simpering looks. A black cloak swept around the Lady of Towers, hiding her eyes as she dabbed with a handkerchief. Princess Lambala wiping tears from her eyes; hers, I feared, were for me.
“The king is dead! Long live the king!”
“Long live the King of the Sun Palace!”
“Long live the Queen Who Bowed!”
Augustus clutched my hand. I felt him trembling but his outward appearance showed none of his nerves. “Gods protect us,” he said. “We are too young to rule this great nation, but since it is ours, may we rule it well.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Interlude
Soldiers kicked down the witch’s door, but they found a vacant and empty house. Even the garden was dead. It was as if the Cobblestone Witch had never lived there at all.
Outside, from the overcrowded apartments across the street, people of the city watched the soldiers ransack the house. They brought children to the windows.
“How despicable,” they said. “They would kill our witch, but she is too clever for them.”
“Will our witch come back?”
“Of course she will. She always does. She just has to change into someone they won’t recognize. She’ll have to find a new house. What a shameful state of affairs.”
The bells tolled for the death of the king, and all the city dressed in mourning, but many of them secretly rejoiced for the selfish old king, who had never displayed much sympathy for their troubles.
“Maybe things will be better now,” some people said. “We will have a proper queen again. Maybe she will feel our pain as Marianna did.”
“They say she is as beautiful as if magic made her.”
Madame Bariel’s carriage tore down the roads toward Luminé. “Faster!” she barked at the coachmen.
“We can go no faster.”
The woman named Jeanne wept as she traveled back to the city that had given her so much suffering, so many memories of hunger and beatings and desperation. The king had saved her from all of that and now the little human with her curse and her charms, she had ruined it all.
The carriage jolted, the wheels jolting against Jeanne’s already frayed emotions as it came to an abrupt stop.
“What is going on now?” Jeanne cried.
“There’s an old woman in the road, Madame.”
Jeanne flung open the door before her servants even had time to help her. “You,” she growled, as the Cobblestone Witch dared to grin at her, ugly and toothless now. “You killed him, didn’t you? You failed to enchant the princess and just to spite me, you made her queen!”
“Ah, no, not at all, although if you keep carrying on like that, I am tempted to tell you otherwise.” The witch held out a wrinkled, spotted hand. “My dear, we are allies now.”
Jeanne looked at it in disgust.
“You should have been a witch, Jeanne. Not a courtesan. Your talents are wasted. You’re right—Augustus and Marie Rose have formed a bond that is not as easy to break as I anticipated. But there is another way to bring them down…one that you excel at. You don’t even need magic, although it certainly won’t hurt.”
“What is that?” Jeanne asked.
“Slander,” the witch said. “And the best of it is, we will bring them down with the truth. He is too soft; she is too willful. And so their names will go down in history.”
The beginnings of a smile twitched at Jeanne’s lips.
**
Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a quick review if you enjoyed the book and you’ve got the time.
This trilogy has been kind of a pet project for me; it is heavily based on the life of Marie Antoinette (with some apologies to her memory, as she was quite Catholic…one reason all the names were changed!). I’ve been fascinated with her for a long time. Many of the details in this book, big and small, come from biographies. The big change, of course, is that nothing about her life was this hot…in history, her husband Louis XVI was not a sexy faery. Quite the opposite, he was awkward, nearsighted, overweight, and shy, and he wouldn’t have sex with poor Marie for years. Biographers are usually rather merciless on him, particularly in his younger years. But he did have some qualities I think are rather identifiable and that history would probably remember as more endearingly eccentric if he had cut a more dashing figure, like wanting to make locks and help out the gardeners and laborers around the castle. Who wouldn’t need a break from the life of a prince?
But I’ve always felt Versailles has this strong whiff of a rather uncomfortable eroticism. Nearly every minute of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI’s lives was observed and attended to, a tradition set by Louis the XIV when he established the palace of Versailles as a way of controlling the court, giving them each some mundane position in the rituals of dress and dinner, etc. The court even watched women give birth. The scandal of the grand corps, for instance, is plucked straight from history, except that in real life the point of the corset wasn’t so your husband could take it off! But what was the point? Merely the fashion of elegant suffering! Antoinette made an attempt to rebel against wearing it and her mother did indeed have to write and tell her to go along with it.
But the greatest scandal of Antoinette’s early life was her snubbing of the king’s Favorite, Madame du Barry, a former prostitute whom she didn’t speak to for months after her arrival, encouraged by her aunts-in-law, who hated the woman.
Some of you will also know that Marie Antoinette had a strong connection and possibly an affair (the letters between them were burned) with a Swedish officer, but she also developed a definite affection for her husband over time. Of course, in this story, things unfold a wee bit differently! Book 2 of this series Pri
soner of Mirrors, will come out 3 weeks after book 1, and things really heat up when Axel enters the picture. While you wait, come say hi at my Facebook group or join my mailing list so you don’t miss an update! I’m also working on my next reverse harem fantasy, The Glass Princess! As always, thank you so much for supporting my stories!
More Romantic Fantasy from Lidiya!
Fairy Tale Heat
Every book is standalone and can be read in any order, although some characters might pop up in later books!
Book One: Beauty and the Goblin King
Book Two: These Wicked Revels (A retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses)
Book Three: Rapunzel and the Dark Prince
Book Four: The Beggar Princess (A retelling of King Thrushbeard)
Book Five: The Goblin Cinderella
Book Six: The Mermaid Bride
Book Seven: Tasting Gretel
Book Eight: Taming Red Riding Hood
Guardians of Sky and Shadow
(A completed reverse harem epic fantasy romance)
Book One: Priestess Awakened
Book Two: Priestess Bound
Book Three: Priestess Unleashed
Brides of the Sinistral Realms
(Reverse harem paranormal romance)
Book One: Tempted by Demons
Book Two: Captured by Dragons
About the Author
Lidiya Foxglove spends most of her time writing, drinking hot cocoa, messing around on the internet, and drinking tea, before reading about 15 pages of any manga with lots of pretty boys in it, and then falling asleep. Sometimes she also does yoga and gardens, but not as often as she claims.
[email protected]
Prisoner of Silk: An Adult Fairy Tale Retelling (Queen of the Sun Palace Book 1) Page 14