“A weaver’s apprentice? Did you weave these tapestries?”
She snorted. “Oh, no, dear, these take a lot of work. Come, come on, I'd rather you weren’t seen by too many people before you look more presentable. What happened to your shoe?”
I had lost one of my slippers along the way. Queen Maria didn’t look like a woman who lost things. “I—I—I don’t know.”
She sighed, and I rushed along beside her, one bare foot on the cold stone floors, as she swept toward a side door. It was cooler here than at home, even early in the autumn.
We climbed a curving stair, and she showed me into a room that had delicate chairs upholstered in pale green, and a dressing table with a very large mirror, five times the size of my mirror at home. Tall windows looked out over a garden. I was already turned around and wasn’t sure which side of the palace I was looking out of.
“This is the sitting room of the crown princess,” she said. “This furniture dates back to Queen Doria, wife of King Stanislav the fourth. This dressing table was—” Actually, I didn’t really hear anything else she said. It was a big sea of names of all the people who owned the things and made the things. “Your gowns will be stored here in this wardrobe, once you have some properly fitted to you; we’ll provide something for you for tonight. Has Dorin addressed the subject of cutting your hair?”
“It can’t be cut,” I said. “We tried. It’s enchanted.”
“The stylists will have work to do…”
“I’m sorry I’m not what you expected!” I said, overwhelmed by all of her little sniffs and scrutinizing expressions. “And I’m sorry about Dorin’s eyesight. I’m sorry I don’t know how to look or talk like a proper princess. I never thought I’d be doing any of this and I mean to try, but I’m very nervous.”
Her expression immediately softened, although she had a rather strong nose and always looked a little severe. “The spell has chosen you, Rapunzel, and so I know you will be perfect for my son. We’ll work it all out. Dorin and I want the same thing for you—to protect you until you can protect yourself. If I seem a little harsh, it’s only to that end. I don’t want you to be laughed at.” She clapped her hands together. “You will have a full schedule of tutoring, to bring your education up to standard. Is there anything you would particularly like to focus on, in your studies?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a witch, but the Witch wouldn’t let me. She thought I'd fight back.”
“A witch?”
A maid came in with gowns piled in her arms. “Your majesty.”
“Let’s lay them out on the bed,” the queen said.
Phew. She hadn’t liked that witch idea much. Maybe she would forget I said anything.
We went to the next room, and I saw why Dorin was so surprised at my bed. This bed had a frame with curtains, which were tied open, and thick quilts with an abundance of pillows. It looked nothing like my nest of pelts. I would never tell Queen Maria I slept on a nest of pelts, though. I tried to look like I saw all kinds of beds every day.
The maid spread out four different gowns, all borrowed from Lady So-and-So who was about my size. They had about as much in common with my homemade frock as a sparrow had in common with a great eagle, supposing that eagle was also bright blue or bright pink or deep crimson or gold.
Queen Maria ran her fingers over the fabrics, but she was already looking at the red one. “Soft and striking,” she said. “It’s hard to look nervous in blood red.”
Other ladies started coming in with lacy underthings and bottles and canisters and I hardly knew what was what. Pretty soon there were ten women buzzing around the room, telling me to undress, and I wanted to crawl under the bed.
When I froze, a couple of them pulled my dress off my head for me. The room was cold. One of the young ones snorted when she saw my homemade drawers. Obviously, I didn’t have any lacy underthings. Queen Maria shot her a sharp look.
I had never thought much about getting dressed, but now it easily took half an hour. Silk stockings, frilled white undergarments, a corset that elongated my waist, held my shoulders back, and shoved my breasts upward into the sea of frills like potatoes bobbing on the surface of a stew. (Again, I had few comparisons.) Another undergarment that fitted around the corset and covered it, and a farthingale which was like a little cage around my hips to make my skirt stand out.
“Oh,” I said. “Is this where your tails go? Under the farthingale?”
The ladies giggled. “We don’t talk about tails.”
“Why not?”
They all looked at each other and I wondered, were tails only for sex?
“They’re just manly, that’s all,” one of them said.
“Tails are good for balance. They are only shown by dancers,” Queen Maria said curtly.
It was so easy to say something wrong! I was blushing furiously now for a question I thought was harmless.
The farthingale was covered by an ice blue skirt. We hadn’t even gotten to the gown yet. The whole time I was shivering all over because my arms were bare.
The gown was actually two pieces. Of course it was. One was a sleeveless bodice and the other an overskirt that was split in the front. Finally, someone handed me a shawl for my goose-bumpy arms.
But that wasn’t the end. Necklaces, bracelets, a spritz of perfume here and there, and then my hair. I had to sit still in one of the many chairs crafted by so-and-so, while they spent over an hour unbraiding it and combing it into a long shining curtain.
They all considered it for a moment. I huddled into my shawl and finally closed my eyes. I didn’t like all these people looking at me. I just wanted to be alone with Dorin. I even missed my tower.
“It’s really quite magnificent,” one of the ladies said. “I can’t stop looking at it! It would be a shame to put it in braids and bind it up.”
“It’s unusual,” one of the other ladies said. To be honest, I had a hard time telling some of them apart.
“I think you might be onto something, Lina,” Queen Maria said. “There is no use hiding something so obvious and striking. We will do two smaller braids at the side to manage the volume, and the rest we will leave loose like a train.”
When they were done with me, Queen Maria said she would check on Dorin and fetch me soon for the dinner planned in my honor. A couple of the ladies lingered. “Do you need anything, Princess?”
“To be alone for a minute?” I ventured, hoping they didn’t take offense at that too.
They nodded. The doors shut behind me, leaving me in the room. I rose and walked to the window, feeling like I had been forced into the form of an entirely different person. I was not in one of the towers, but the palace was so large that I was probably just as high up as my tower home. Instead of brambles and forest to look at, I had a beautiful garden with a few people strolling down its paths. It was like something I had dreamed of, while reading my story books, a thousand times, and I was scared out of my mind.
Chapter Thirteen
Prince Dorin
“Your majesty, I—I don’t think there is anything I can do.”
My brows furrowed. This was not what I expected to hear. “It’s not curable?”
“I never said it wasn’t curable,” Jarvin said hastily. “But I am not sure how to cure it. The witch who cast the spell must—”
“But I killed her! You need to keep looking and trying and not just tell your prince ‘no’ after an hour of tinkering around.”
“I understand your ire. It is very normal for wounded soldiers to be angry.”
I think the color must have drained out of my face.
“But I know what I’m doing,” he said. “This is not the kind of magic we practice in this kingdom. Certainly, I can try sending off a round of correspondence to other kingdoms, and maybe a witch from another court could help. But what I must tell you is that there is no guarantee, and any cure will come slowly.”
“One flash of a mirror and that’s it?” I stalked a tight circle ar
ound the part of the room I knew was open, and still my tail managed to knock into a shelf and rattle the bottles, sending Jarvin running to rescue them.
“It is too bad, that it had to be a human girl,” Jarvin said.
Hearing this made me furious in a different way. It was slanderous to my Rapunzel. “It had nothing to do with that, Jarvin.” I straightened, falling back on a lifetime of mastering my emotions. “I do thank you for your efforts. Good day.”
“Take some time,” Jarvin said. “Speak to Viktor. He’ll help you learn to manage.”
I couldn’t think straight. One stupid spell, one stupid encounter with a witch, and I had lost everything. At least, I had lost my ability to fight, to lead an army and a hunt, to look into my beautiful Rapunzel’s eyes. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and tear paintings off walls.
“Dorin?” My mother called to me from the other end of the hall.
I stopped, bringing my feet together to bow to her. In part, out of respect because I hadn’t given her a proper hello, but mostly so she didn’t have to watch me grope my way down the hall. “Mother.”
“What did Jarvin say?”
I swallowed. “He knows of no way to reverse the spell, unfortunately. It will take time, or it may never be reversed.”
She approached, her skirts brushing the floor, and kissed my cheek. “Is that so… You should tell the king. But then again, maybe that should wait… Your father is out in the garden; you won’t be able to find him. Rapunzel is also waiting for you. I suppose you were proven right. The bond spell is an antiquated and dangerous custom.”
I flinched. “It wasn’t her fault.”
“No, of course not. But it was dangerous, sending you into the human lands to claim a bride!” She paused. “Maintaining respect in the eyes of the people will now be more important than ever. You must never show that this bothers you, not even to your brother or your cousins or friends. I know you still have the strength to rule, but one should never leave that in question.”
“I don’t want to hear this right now.” I moved past her, putting my hand against the wall when I knew I was close to the doorway. Thank the gods she had the sense not to follow me.
It took longer than usual to make my way through the halls of my own palace. I tried not to show that it bothered me, but it damn well did, and I was forced to fumble and stumble despite my best efforts. A few friends tried to speak to me, and servants asked me if I needed anything. I ignored all of them, growing increasingly agitated. No one pressed through my stone-faced silence until I threw open the door of my bedroom and Rapunzel sprung off the bed and ran into my arms.
“Dorin!” She sounded like she was trying not to cry. “What’s wrong?”
It was all because of her, because I had the bad luck to be bonded to this most unusual human girl. I wanted to be alone. And yet, my body was already screaming to take her again.
“What do you think is wrong? The palace mage can’t do anything for my eyes.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’ll never shoot an arrow again, at least definitely not if I want to hit anything. And all because I had to be bonded to a girl that my entire court will find a curiosity, a girl I’ll have to mold into a queen. And despite all this—gods, all I want to do is fuck you.” I shoved her up against the wall and threw up her skirts—or tried to. She was wearing all manner of frothy petticoats and a farthingale. The cage of wire and canvas didn’t want to fold up at first, and when I shoved it upward it jutted into my stomach.
“What is this?” I snapped. “I told my mother to dress you in something simple.”
She was breathing hard. “I—I—” Then she started crying in a loud, unbridled way.
I smacked her face—not hard, but—
She retaliated instantly, scratching her nails across my cheek—not hard either, but once again she was the girl holding the poker at me when we first met. “What was that for? I didn’t come with you for you to treat me like the Witch, telling me what to do and striking me. Dorin—!”
I snapped to my senses. “I’m sorry, Rapunzel…” The thought of treating her like the Witch was completely abhorrent. “I’m—”
“Scared?”
I glowered.
“I’m scared too,” she said. “But not sorry. Are you sorry?”
“No.”
She leaned into me. “That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”
“But I’m afraid I do have to tell you what to do, or else—in the most dire scenario, we might be ousted from the royal line. You can’t cry here.”
“I can’t cry here? Not even to you? You ought to have a good cry yourself. It would do you good.”
“Babies cry. Not us, not ever. Even now, a servant might overhear and whisper about it. We are the heirs to the throne, Rapunzel, you must understand.”
“I—I understand.”
Her skirts were still hitched up awkwardly where I had thrown them. My hands drifted to the bare skin above her stockings.
“I’m sorry about the clothes, Dorin, I didn’t know what to say. They decided everything for me, and everything I tried to say, they frowned or smiled. Which, now that I think of it, are very opposite expressions, but in this case they almost meant the same thing.”
I stroked her cheek. “I told you I’d be by your side for all of it. I truly am sorry for failing you for that moment.” I kissed her. I wanted to see her face so badly that it was almost a physical pain. I might have to hold the brief sight of her face in my mind forever.
I took a step back, so her skirts dropped, and ran my hands over her shoulders. Her arms were bare. A necklace circled her throat, and just below this, her round breasts were fuller than ever within the confines of her gown. Only a delicate froth of ruffles covered her nipples, which was quite easy to slip my hand beneath. I teased her nipples, feeling them harden immediately. Her readiness stirred my own desire, and if it wasn’t that I needed to make a good show before the court, I might have put off the entire affair.
“Perhaps the outfit isn’t as bad as I thought,” I said. “When we’re done with this dinner, I am going to make you mine.”
“I’m already yours!”
“You haven’t experienced anything yet.”
“What is there left to do?” she asked, in that voice that always sounded so innocent.
“Plenty. But first, dinner. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready if you are,” she said, with resolve. She took my hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Rapunzel
When I heard the word “dinner” and “court”, I imagined we were going to go sit at a long table and eat and the court would be there eating too, and that was pretty much it.
It all got out of hand before it started.
The queen was waiting for us, with a tall, handsome man who must be the king. He had Dorin’s nose, and more than that, Dorin’s presence, with distinguished veins of silver in his hair.
“His majesty, King Alexander,” the queen said. “This is our new princess, Rapunzel.”
“Lovely to meet you, Rapunzel,” the king said, taking my hand and bowing to kiss it. His tail curved upward when he bowed, and I started blushing again just thinking about how everyone reacted when I asked about tails. “She may not be a darkling, but as a human beauty, she is perfection. She is going to knock the boots off our foreign visitors. I definitely want her to have training in diplomacy.”
I barely even knew what ‘diplomacy’ meant but it sounded just awful.
“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, Father,” Dorin said. “She has a lot to learn just about daily interactions.”
“She has a bright eye,” the king said. “I bet she’ll be a quick study.” He winked at me and Queen Maria gave him a sideways look. He put a hand around her waist and she gave him the tiniest shake of her head, with an amused twist of her mouth. Even in a matter of moments, I could tell Dorin’s parents were still as wild about each other as Dorin and I were for each other. It made the q
ueen seem a little less scary.
“I hope so,” the queen said. “Because there is a lot to learn right now. Let me tell you what will happen. We will proceed into the reception hall. The court will be lined up to receive you. The king and I will come first, you and Dorin next, and then Dorin’s brother, Prince Adrian, and then the king’s sister, Princess Luiza, and her husband. You must not look at anyone as you pass by, for risk of singling anyone out for favor, but they will bow to you. Next, we will proceed into the dining room and you must step onto the dais and turn, and at this point you must give the court a fairy bow and you may look at them.”
“Why can’t I look at them in the hall but I can look at them on the…dais?” I didn’t know this word either.
“Because the hall procession is where we show favor. Once we enter the dining hall, that is no longer protocol.”
“How often do we do this?” I asked.
“Every day,” Dorin said.
“Every day?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. It only takes about ten minutes.”
“What's a fairy bow?”
Oh, I had so much to learn. The fairy bow was one leg straight, toe forward, and the other knee bent, one hand to the waist and the other back, lower your head but not your waist—of course, I couldn’t bend my waist anyway with the corset on. I could barely do the bow without losing my balance.
And was that all? Of course it wasn’t! I also had to accept a knife from the Duchess of Imenia and then sit down in a certain order and then there was a prayer, but at least everyone said I could skip the prayer if I just kept my head down and listened. Then, they were not sure how to handle Dorin, because no one wanted him to stumble in front of the court, so I was supposed to take his hand and lead him onto the dais and then to his chair and try to make sure it wasn’t noticeable.
Rapunzel and the Dark Prince Page 7