Fairytales Slashed, Volume 2

by Megan Derr

  He reached up, without even truly realizing Levaughn suspected, to touch the ruined portions of his face. He looked so sad for a moment, it almost hurt to look at him. But the expression was gone as quickly as it had come, and Marcum was nothing but his implacable self. "In the case of a Living Doll," he continued, "the sacrifice is the life of a mother. She gives her life to the doll, so that it might literally come to life from the bones and blood and Essence of Night. The babe would have drained the mother while it grew inside of her, and taken the last of her life as it was born. Whether or not the Queen knew the price…" He shrugged. "I suppose it does not really matter."

  "I would wager she knew, given what little I know of her," Goulet said. "I would also wager heavily that the King is ignorant of the origins of his daughter."

  "Very likely," Marcum agreed. "Traditionally, such bargains are struck exclusively between alchemist and mother alone."

  "This is all very interesting, if macabre," Goulet said, "but what does this have to do with the Queen?"

  "She cannot touch the Princess," Marcum replied. "I wonder if she even knows the Princess' true nature. Regardless, her spells will not work. The Princess was made with some of the highest alchemy—one of the Essences and her mother's life. Sorcery would have an extremely hard time touching her, though if the Queen should succeed, the Princess' power will sustain her for a full lifetime."

  "Incredible. Why is the Princess so powerful?"

  "As I said, she is made with one of the Essences and a great sacrifice. Higher magic than someone who feeds off the lives of others will ever achieve, I promise you."

  "Yes," Levaughn said, breaking his long silence. "It makes me fear all the more for Cal and the Princess, and anyone else who stands in the Queen's way. If the Queen has even the slightest inkling as to the Princess' nature and power, she will want her and stop at nothing to get her. Worse, she will require help to manage it."

  "And who better to enlist than the Huntsman she thinks she controls," Goulet finished. "Then we should ride harder, and through the night for as long as we can possibly manage."

  "We can manage the entire night," Levaughn replied. "I will handle the light source."

  Marcum nodded, and put away his book and glasses, pulling out three blue glass bottles after a moment of searching. He passed two of them over to Levaughn and Goulet. "These will keep us awake." He reached into his satchel again, and came out with three bottles made of dark green glass. "These are for the horses."

  Levaughn accepted both bottles, drinking the first and administering the second to the horses as they stopped just long enough to do it. Then they were racing off into the night, wizard lights to guide their ways, and gods above he hoped he would not be too late to save Cal.

  *

  *

  *

  Part Three

  Another girl was missing.

  He knew the Queen was responsible, did not need to see the fresh, flushed look to her skin, the satisfied smirk in her cold smile, to know that. She was responsible. The problem was doing anything about it.

  It made him want to cry—because they were good kids, all of them. Because he kept failing to save them, or anyone else. Because he could do nothing except struggle to survive.

  He wanted Lev, wanted someone to hold him and tell him it would be all right. More and more, with every passing day, he wanted simply to die. Anything, even death, would be better than the kisses that tasted of spoiled food, the feel of her clammy skin beneath his fingers.

  There was not even time now to see out the dwarves and Goulet—the goblins had sealed themselves away and the dwarves kept themselves hidden at his request. Should things reach the breaking point, he needed somewhere to safely hide the Princess.

  It was early morning, too early for anyone but a handful of cooks and the night guard to be awake, and they all of them went about their morning duties more asleep than awake. Mist curled here and there, soon to be burned away by the coming dawn. Birds chirped, as night animals scurried away and those of the day slowly crawled from their burrows.

  Normally, this time of day made him smile. He had always been an early riser…he had loved to wake early, and simply lay watching Lev, before waking up in a way that pleased them both.

  Turning his thoughts away from Lev, he checked on Snow White briefly, then made his way to the Chambers of the Queen. There, he nodded to the bespelled guards then gave his usual three sharp knocks. As she called for him to enter, he repressed a shudder and opened the door.

  She sat in her usual place for that time of day; on the lush, overstuffed stool at her massive and impressively cluttered vanity table. Vanity, he thought, had never been so apt a word. Every day, her strange, poisonous beauty seemed to improve, years melting from her face. It terrified him.

  A pale violet robe draped perfectly along her skin, barely hanging from her shoulders. She had not bothered to fasten it, but left it wide open, likely to tempt him with the sight of her healthy-looking body. Her breasts were full, without being overlarge. She was full-bodied, with not a single spare bit of fat. Dark red hair curled at her groin, and she was no doubt the definition of temptation to any man with an appetite for such flesh.

  Once, he would have thought immediately of Lev spread so temptingly in his reading chair, pants unlaced and pushed down enough to display his cock, hard and leaking, all the invitation Calder need to sink to his knees and suck until Lev came with a scream and his hands fisted to the point of pain in Calder's hair.

  Now, he could only feel sick and used and dirty. He wanted to run and hide in his forest, bath himself in its streams until he felt like himself again, until he could no longer feel any trace or memory of her upon him. But if he faltered, there would be no one left to protect the Princess and find a way to save the Kingdom.

  It had been stupid of him, Calder admitted to himself, not to swallow his fear and seek out Lev when he'd had the chance. He should have listened to Goulet. It had been foolish of him to underestimate just how dangerous the Queen could prove to be. Now, six people had paid for his mistakes. How many more would suffer before they finally were rid of her?

  Moving across the room, he knelt before her and accepted the hand she held out, placing a lingering kiss upon on skin that tasted like rancid meat. "My Queen."

  "My Huntsman," she purred, voice making his skin crawl. He hoped she interpreted the shudder he could not completely repress as a shiver of pleasure. "You prove your devotion to me every day, and I adore you for it. My trust in you grows and grows. You would do anything for me, wouldn't you?" She teased his lips with her fingertip, then slowly pushed it into his mouth. After he had obediently sucked on it for a moment, she withdrew it. "Wouldn't you?" she repeated.

  "Anything, my Queen," he said, struggling to sound hopelessly enthralled, drunk on her beauty and touch.

  "Prove it to me, then, and I shall reward you greatly. There, by the bed, draped in the bed sheet. I am too busy to attend to it myself, today, and so I shall place great trust in you, my handsome Huntsman. Take it into the forest and dispose of it, ensure that it shall never be found by anyone. Do this, and your reward…" She took his hand, pressed it to her breasts, slid it down to the thatch of dark red curls as she finished, "will be great."

  "My Queen," Calder breathed, swallowing against the bile in his throat. After a moment, she released him, and turned to ponder her reflection in the great mirror over her vanity. But he knew she watched his every moment, his every reaction.

  Moving toward the bed, he immediately saw on the floor in front of it what he was meant to 'dispose of'. He did not need to lift the sheet to know it was the body of the latest girl to go missing. Fighting tears of despair, an urge to turn and attack the bitch responsible, he managed to remain calm. Suppressing any untoward reaction, keeping his face clear of any expression, he moved as though he were nothing but the love struck puppet for which she took him, gingerly lifting the sheet-draped body.

  Leaving the Queen's Chambers
, he made his way through the back halls of the castle, then out into the forest.

  His forest, for here no outside power could reach. The forest and the King had given its powers to him, and even the rotted Queen could not interfere with that bestowed right, that ancient magic which made him Huntsman.

  He traveled for nearly an hour, going deeper and deeper into the forest, until he at last reached the spot he had sought. It was a small glade, sprinkled with blue and white flowers, taken mostly by a tiny, moss-covered pond. The sun broke through the canopy above, splashing the pond with bits of golden sunlight.

  Tenderly he laid the body down alongside the pond, and finally pulled the linen sheet away—then let out a raw, horrified cry at the sight which met his eyes.

  There was nothing left of her but a featureless husk. It was…it was…he did not even know how to describe it. Like a doll, stripped of all features, nothing more than a plain body. But it was much, much worse than that. The only bit of life left in her at all was the splash of bright red ribbon in her colorless hair.

  She looked…as bland and featureless as a pudding, as dry and rough as a dried cornhusk. All that had made her who she had been, all the life and vitality and beauty, was gone. But even without it, he knew her to be Carol, the latest girl to go missing. As he had known, it was obviously the Queen responsible.

  His vision blurred, and Calder realized he had surrendered to tears. There had to be a way to stop this, a way to kill the Queen. In the meantime…the body must be kept, to serve as proof should he ever manage to find help. Perhaps he could send one of the dwarves…

  But, no, he dare not endanger anyone for such a thing until he knew where to send them, what they should do. He was helpless right now. Except here in his forest. This one small thing, he could still do.

  Reaching out, he took the ribbon from her hair, to have something to offer the girl's parents, tucking it away in one of his many pouches. Moving into a more formal kneeling position, he sank one hand into the grass, the earth, and bowed his head as he beseeched, "Forest, the Huntsman beseeches you, preserve this body, let it never change as the days go by. Keep it safe, keep it secret, until I come to reclaim it. By my blood, let my will be done."

  He felt the soft brush of the forest in his mind, the sting as they extracted a small bit of his blood to seal the spell. Then, as he watched, vines began to sprout from the ground—dark green, twisting and thorny things, blooming here and there with small purple-black flowers. They grew and twined and twisted until the corpse was hidden from all sight, and the whole thing looked to be nothing more than an old, rotted log overtaken by Thorn Ivy.

  Standing, wiping away the last traces of tears, the blood on his hand, Calder turned to make his way back to the castle.

  Leaving the forest reluctantly, he waited with dread for the too-familiar tug that was the Queen summoning him. He felt nothing, however, and let out a sigh of quiet relief that he would be left alone for a little while.

  Using the rare moment of freedom, he made his way to the Princess' Chambers once more. She was still asleep when he got there, curled up on her side, face half buried in a deep pillow, black hair tumbling everywhere, further obscuring her features. He could not bear to wake her, not when she seemed to be sleeping soundly for once. For all he suffered, he knew she suffered more, worried about all the deaths, terrified with every passing day she did not see her father.

  Calder feared the King was dead, or near enough to it. Whatever curse the Queen had cast, he did not think the King would live long after being free from it, assuming he survived it at all. He suspected the Princess knew this, though he had tried to convince her to have hope.

  Instead of waking her, he simply sat on the edge of her bed and watched her sleep, allowing it to calm him a bit. He knew the rumors that the late Queen had cheated on her husband in order to bear a child, knew how much the rumors upset the King, upset the Princess. Though Snow White looked like neither of her parents, he could not imagine the tales of infidelity were true.

  Sometimes, looking at her, he almost thought there must have been magic in her making. But that was only whimsy, stray moments of fancy. He had never heard, from Lev or anyone else, of magic that could make a person.

  Magic or not, she was beautiful. Soon, too soon, men would begin to fight for her hand. He thought that in the end, that she was to be Queen would almost be superfluous. Princess or peasant, Snow White was a woman any man would fight to the death to claim as his own. Her beauty was the least of her appeal, or so he always thought—and he would only ever let her hand go to a man who agreed.

  He reached out to brush back a strand of her ebony-dark hair, amazed as always by the how dark his sun-browned skin looked next to the perfect white of hers. Women across the country—the world—would cheerfully kill to possess such perfect skin, such flawless beauty.

  He realized with a sickening wrench to his stomach that one woman was doing precisely that. Gods, how was he going to stop her from killing Snow White, if she chose to? He was powerless outside his forest, and his power was limited to his forest.

  But, he forced himself to remember, because of Lev he was alive and free of the curse. No matter how despairing his situation seemed, that had to be worth something.

  Lev. This time, the painful wrenching was in his chest. He had never missed Lev as badly as he did now. It was not even that Lev's magic would make all the difference in the world right now. He wanted Lev's arms around him, holding him tight. He wanted the smell of Lev, earth and herbs and magic, surrounding him, calming him. He wanted to run his hands through Lev's soft hair and drag him close for a soothing kiss. He wanted Lev's smile, his laughter, his warm voice telling him that things would be all right again someday soon. He wanted, needed, Lev there to bolster his strength.

  Why, he thought miserably, had he been so stupid ten years ago? At least if he had thrown caution to the wind, been willing to risk the pain and humiliation of rejection, he would know for certain that Lev did not return his love. He might have truly moved on, instead of clinging to a talisman and a wish ten years old. And maybe, just maybe, Lev might have felt the same. Too bad he had been too young and stupid to take that chance when he should have, and now it was too late.

  If he lived…yes, if he lived through this, he would go see Lev. He did not know yet what he would say, beyond I missed you, but he would go, and that was a start.

  He had the sinking feeling, though, that he would not survive.

  He shifted slightly on the bed, preparing to rise and depart, see what he could accomplish before the Queen called for him, when Snow White's eyes opened. She stared blankly at him for a moment, then broke into a smile. "Cal! Good morning!" She sat up and hugged him, smelling like honeysuckle. It made him smile briefly, the scent she had preferred since she was a little girl. She would always be that little girl, in some part of his mind, the closest to a daughter he would ever come.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked, but as she spoke, her bright smile faded and she shoved back messy, tangled strands of hair to better see him. "Something is wrong." She laughed briefly, sadly, almost bitterly. "More wrong than has become usual."

  He thought about keeping it from her, not troubling or upsetting her further—but the reality was that the King was dead, or would be eventually simply because of the curse, and she would be Queen sooner rather than later. "The Queen forced me to take a body into the woods to hide it this morning," Calder said quietly. "It was Carol's body. I've asked the forest to preserve it, until we can hopefully bring it as evidence against the Queen." If he did not simply manage to kill her outright, which he definitely preferred.

  Snow White fisted her hands in the soft linen sheets of her bed, and stared down at them for several minutes. Calder saw tears fall upon the back of her hands, but she never made a sound. When she finally looked up again, her eyes were clear. "What are we going to do, Cal? We need help."

  "Yes," Calder agreed. "We need a wizard, or an alchemist—anyo
ne of high magic caliber. I should have gone for help while I still had the chance."

  "I could go for help," Snow White said.

  Calder shook his head and said, "No. Definitely not. You have never travelled alone before Princess, and the roads are dangerous. I cannot trust anyone in the castle to go with you, and I cannot go myself. That aside, the Queen will know the very moment you slip away. She will know something is amiss. It is one thing for you to hide in your room and such, quite another for you to flee the castle."

  "I’m not certain she would notice," Snow White replied. "Not immediately. She…something about me angers her. No…something about me confuses her, and she cannot figure it out."

  "What do you mean?

  Snow White replied, "I see her watching me, whenever I am forced to be in the same room. She watches and frowns and I can see she is confused and angry, like I am something she cannot quite put her thumb upon. I am a riddle she cannot solve, and she hates me for it. I know it sounds foolish—"

  "No," Calder interrupted, voice firm. "You sound astute. But if she is puzzled by you, perhaps that means she'll not hurt you—not until she figure it out, at least. In the mean time, stay out of her way."

  "I cannot simply continue to hide and do nothing!" Snow White said.

  "If she kills you," Calder said quietly, "there will be no one left to rule the Kingdom."

  Snow White looked as though she had been struck. Tears fell down her cheeks—but she nodded. "Yes, Calder. I know that. Only—there must be something I can do."

  "Keep your eyes and ears open," Calder said. "You obviously are extremely observant. If you see anything untoward or helpful, find a way to tell me. We need all the help we can possibly get. What we really need is a magic user. I do not know, sometimes, if it is better or worse that your father never chose to higher one. If he had, perhaps none of these terrible things would have happened. But…"