A Dragon's Curse

by Lucy Fear

  Teague met them at the door of his cottage, which looked simple on the outside but, Idris knew, was truly a warren of rooms, tunnels, and secret passageways going deep into the side of the hill it was sitting on. He certainly needed the room. At last count, the former bard had six children and seventeen grandchildren. “Prince Idris, it’s a pleasure to see you again. And Princess Rhosyn and Fenella. Lady Rowan sent a message saying to expect you, but I didn’t know she meant right away.”

  “I’m sorry if we’re disturbing you, Teague. I’ve heard some troubling rumors about the ice forest, so I came to investigate as quickly as I could.”

  Teague raised his bushy eyebrows, and his tail swished in agitation. “You may as well come in,” he said, opening the door wider to let them pass. Idris had to duck under the doorframe, having inherited his height from his father, but at least his head didn’t touch the ceiling. “I’m not sure what rumors you’re referring to,” Teague said as he closed the door behind them. “Everything has been fairly peaceful of late. Would you like some refreshments?”

  “I don’t need anything, thank you,” Idris replied. He was feeling much too restless to sit down and exchange pleasantries; he wanted to be doing something.

  “Well, I would like something, Teague. And a drink for Fenella as well, if you would,” Rhosyn said. Idris sighed, but he sat down, knowing he’d been overruled.

  “Of course,” Teague said. “I’ll be right back.” The house was as comfortable as Idris remembered. Not like the spacious and elegant surroundings he’d grown up in, but warm and cozy. He could hear children laughing somewhere behind him but they didn’t enter the room. Teague returned a moment later with the promised food: cheese, fruit, and honey cakes. Mercifully, he also had coffee. When they were all situated, Teague turned to Idris, tactfully not mentioning that he had elected to accept both food and drink after claiming not to want anything. “So, what exactly was the rumor that drove you to come all the way here on such short notice?”

  “I’ve heard there’s something new living in the ice forest. Some of my contacts suspect an infiltration from the Court of Bones,” Idris said, bouncing his leg with restless energy.

  Teague laughed. “Something has moved into the ice forest, that’s true. But a few stolen chickens and blankets do not an invasion make. I assumed it was a runaway or an animal. I don’t know where the Court of Bones comes in.”

  Idris pursed his lips. He hated thinking he’d come all this way for nothing. “I’m going to have a look around anyway. Do you know where the last sighting was?”

  **************************

  A few hours later, he crouched in the dim forest as darkness fell, listening. The translucent leaves tinkled on a warm breeze. Idris knew this forest well, both in person and from the stories of his father and mother. Aidan loved to tell his children about how Rowan had nearly burned herself alive trying to fight off ice claws. Things had changed since then; they had consolidated the court into one continuous domain for ease of travel, and Niall’s clouds had been almost completely removed. The ground in the forest was just earth now, covered with short grass, moss, and ephemeral wildflowers. But Lady Rowan thought the crystalline trees were beautiful, so they remained, the leaves fracturing the moonlight into a million rainbows.

  Time passed. His knees felt stiff from crouching, but Idris didn’t dare move for fear he would scare away anything that might be out there. He was considering giving up. Perhaps Teague was right, and it was nothing more than a hungry animal and a few odd coincidences. He sighed, unconsciously, and then there was a flutter of white at the edge of his vision. He cast a binding spell and heard a muffled cry. “I have no intention of harming you, as long as you harbor no ill will,” he said as he called up a small globe of light. Whatever he was expecting to find, it was not the shivering form cowering in the shadow of the trees. It was a girl. A young female fae, in any case, dressed in a tattered gown and looking terrified and half-starved.

  “Where, by the tree, did you come from?” he asked, more confused than upset, but when he took a step toward her, she shuddered, inching away from him as much as she could while confined by his magic. He backed away. “I swear, I’m not going to hurt you. You look like you need some help.” She shook her head, still shaking. This was getting nowhere. With more magic, he called up a small ethereal bird and gave it a message for his sister.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So she is from the Court of Bones?” Idris said, turning to his mother as he watched Rhosyn and Fenella lead the exhausted girl away. With their help, the girl had been persuaded to let them bring her back to the court. Lady Rowan had spoken to her for nearly a half hour. Everyone wanted to help her, but they needed to know what they were getting into. Now that his mother was satisfied that she wasn’t an immediate threat, their new guest could get the food and rest that she so clearly needed.

  Lady Rowan nodded. “Her name is Maeve. She wouldn’t say much else about her family or circumstances, only that she didn’t want to go back there, but I suspect she’s from a noble family. Maybe even one of the Lord’s children. Your father will know, if she relaxes enough to let him near.”

  “At least my informants were right about one thing,” Idris said, crossing his arms over his chest. He supposed no one would be stealing chickens in the ice forest anymore, but he felt like he’d discovered a much bigger problem.

  “It does make me wonder,” Rowan said, pursing her lips. “How would anyone have known she was from that court? It’s not as if her looks are particularly indicative of anything, and I doubt she spoke to anyone. The only people who could have known she came from the Court of Bones are others from there.”

  Idris cursed under his breath. “Whoever she's fleeing from tipped us off in hopes that we would drive her out.” It made a horrible sort of sense, and implied something even more troubling. “At least one of my informants is a plant. Thank you, Mother. I have some things to look into.”

  “Good luck,” she said as he walked away, but Idris didn't believe luck had anything to do with it.

  *********************

  Maeve sat in the tub, knees curled to her chest, the warm water lapping softly around her. The past few hours had been overwhelming. When that man… Prince Idris, she corrected herself. When Prince Idris had come upon her in the forest, she thought all was lost. She’d been caught, and they were going to kill her. It had taken nearly a half hour of coaxing by Princess Rhosyn and Fenella to convince Maeve to go with them. Prince Idris cast a gate; for some reason, this was considered abnormal, and now they were in the Court of the Heavens. Maeve knew it by reputation only, and very little at that. Her father didn’t particularly approve of anyone talking about the other courts, especially in a positive way.

  It was bright, that was her first impression, full of wide windows and balconies and archways open to the air. The sky was clear, almost painfully blue, and she could see snowy mountain peaks marching out to the horizon. Even so, it was comfortably warm, and the garden where she had met Lady Rowan was full of flowers and fruit trees in bloom. It was so much more colorful than anything she’d ever experienced. Everything in the Court of Bones was black, gray, or, rarely, white. Nobles wore red if they wanted to be daring.

  The people here were as warm as they were vibrant. Maeve had expected to be interrogated and imprisoned. Princess Rhosyn had asked her a few gentle questions, and Lady Rowan even more, but they had been very general, and they never pressed when they sensed she was becoming uncomfortable. Even Prince Idris, who seemed cool and severe compared to the women in his family, had not been unkind. And she did need the bath, as well as the food and clean clothes that were awaiting her.

  Leaving home had seemed like a good idea, but in hindsight, it was obvious how unprepared she had been. Not just because she hadn’t packed enough food, water, or warm clothing. Maeve had realized, as she’d nearly frozen every night in the forest, that she didn’t know how to do anything. She could read and write. She could als
o play an instrument, and do some magic. The kind that you use to impress people at parties. Nothing that would help her survive in the world on her own.

  Still, no matter how nice it was to be treated kindly, she knew she would soon have to leave. In less than three weeks, the new moon would be upon them, and she would, once again, be in danger of turning into a monster if she did not have mortal blood. It was possible that the Court of the Heavens could help her defeat the curse. But could she trust them enough to divulge it? What if she told them the problem and they were not sympathetic? They might cage her like a monster, or worse, return her to her father.

  A noise in the room beyond startled her, and she nearly fell trying to both cover herself and see who it was. “I’m sorry, Maeve,” Rhosyn called from the doorway. “I just wanted to check and see if you were all right.”

  “Oh,” she squeaked. “I’m fine. I’ll be out of the bath in a moment.” She had been sitting in the water thinking for a while; it was only lukewarm now.

  “Take your time. I only thought you might like to eat your meal out in the garden.” Maeve hurriedly rinsed her hair and turned over this offer in her mind. She felt strange being social with the princess. Not just because she was worried about the future and knew she shouldn’t get too friendly, but also because she’d never really had a friend besides her brother, and she could hardly remember the last time they’d interacted in a meaningful way. But being alone in this unfamiliar place sounded more awful the longer she thought about it.

  “All right. I think… I’d like that,” she said finally, stepping out of the bath and drying herself with one of the thick, fluffy towels stacked on a nearby shelf. There was a lovely comb and brush, made of tooled silver and carved bone, and she worked the tangles out of her thick hair as quickly as she could. The face she saw in the mirror was undoubtedly her own, the blood red hair she’d inherited from her father falling down her back in loose waves, her leaf green eyes, not inherited from her father, wide and slightly upturned. But something about it was different. Perhaps it was only that she’d lost a little weight, or the fact that she’d spent hours out in the sun for the first time ever. But Maeve thought it was something more. The loss of some of her naiveté. Even considering some of the horrors she'd witnessed as a function of life in her father’s castle, she now knew that she’d been sheltered from the worst of it.

  She shook her head to clear these maudlin thoughts and pulled on the shift that had been left for her before turning her attention to the dress. It was cut simply, with belled sleeves and delicately embroidered ivy, but the green silk was the same color as her eyes. Someone had chosen it with care. Maeve felt a lump in her throat as she pulled it over her head, smoothing it over her hips before stepping into the matching slippers. She took a deep breath before stepping into the bedroom. Rhosyn was sitting in a chair beside the bed, and she smiled when she looked up. “The dress looks lovely on you. Fenella chose perfectly, as usual.”

  “Fenella picked this out?” Maeve said, a little surprised. She wasn’t entirely sure what Fenella’s status was in the household. She was a lesser fae, so she obviously wasn’t family, but she wasn’t treated like a normal servant either.

  Rhosyn grinned. “Fenella loves fashion. She would pick out everyone’s clothes if we gave her the chance. She used to treat my mother like a dress-up doll. Maybe she still does.”

  “I’m sorry if this is rude,” Maeve said, unable to bear her confusion. “But who is she exactly? I mean, I met her, but I don’t really understand how she fits into things here?”

  “I suppose we are fairly untraditional,” Rhosyn said agreeably. “Technically, Fenella is in charge of the royal nursery, but not even my brother, Oisin, is young enough to need her. So she’s sort of an information broker. But she’s also my mother’s best friend, and half the reason my parents are together at all, so she’s basically family.”

  Maeve raised her eyebrows, impressed despite herself. “Now I have to hear that story.”

  Rhosyn laughed, a bright, cheerful sound. Maeve couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard someone really laugh. It made her heart feel somewhat lighter. “Then come on out to the garden. Since Teague isn’t here to tell it, it’s best if Fenella does, since she was there.”

  ***************************

  The story Fenella told was almost as unbelievable as it was interesting. Only, now that Maeve thought about it, she had a vague memory of her brother mentioning that the Court of the Heavens was a strange place because its Lady was a mortal. And Lady Rowan had seemed different. Not in a visible way, but speaking with her had revealed that her mind worked a little bit differently than anyone Maeve had met before. Plus, the love story between Lady Rowan and Lord Aidan was actually charming. There was a part of Maeve, perhaps the part that still believed in the stories her nursemaids used to tell her, that wondered if anyone would ever feel so strongly about her, but it seemed silly to think about something like that when the future felt so hopeless. She cast around for a change of subject.

  “Do you take after your father, Rhosyn?” she found herself asking. She hadn’t yet met the Lord of the Heavens, something for which she was grateful. Speaking to the Lady was overwhelming enough, but even her brother had acknowledged that Lord Aidan was one of the most powerful magic users in the Otherworld. It made her as curious about him as she was wary.

  “Oh no,” Rhosyn said, chuckling. “I look like my grandfather, actually, the former Lord, Kennet. It’s Idris that looks the most like Father, though he has Mother’s eyes.” Maeve remembered them suddenly, as if in a dream. Even in the dark ice forest, his clear blue eyes had almost glowed with their own light. “That’s why he keeps his hair so short,” Rhosyn continued. “The last thing he wants is to be mistaken for Lord Aidan.”

  “Do they not get along?” Maeve realized belatedly that it was exactly the sort of question that a spy might ask. “I mean, not that it’s any of my business. I was just curious.”

  Rhosyn shrugged. “It’s not exactly a state secret. Actually, I’d say they have a fairly good relationship, but they’re different people with different interests and priorities. Besides, I think Idris just wants to make his own mark, you know. It’s a lot of pressure, being the first-born son. Everyone expects that he’ll inherit, but they also look down on him because he’s the only one of us who’s truly half-blooded.” That had been part of the story too, how the Lords of all the courts had gifted Lady Rowan with immortality after the birth of her son had secured the line of succession.

  “I didn’t know it mattered that much,” Maeve said, frowning. She supposed it made a sort of sense. Even in her court, everyone was obsessed with bloodlines.

  “It doesn’t really,” Rhosyn said with pursed lips. “Idris can expect nearly the same lifespan, and since Mother has always been a magic-user, his power didn’t suffer. But the nobles have to have something to complain about.” That was something Maeve was familiar with. Even though the garden felt worlds away from her former home, she supposed some things were the same everywhere.

  “Anyway,” Rhosyn continued, “we were wondering if you’d like to come to dinner tonight?”

  “Dinner?” Maeve squeaked, imagining the formal suppers back at home, with everyone in the court staring, waiting for her to slip up. She’d tried to avoid it whenever possible.

  “You don’t have to, of course,” Fenella chimed in gently. “We can have your meal delivered to your room easily enough. But it’s not a grand event. The Lord and Lady only dine with the court at the end of the week. This is strictly a family affair.”

  “But surely… I don’t belong at a family meal,” Maeve sputtered. It was somehow both better and worse than the thought of being in front of the whole court. There would be no hiding from the Lord and Lady at such an intimate gathering.

  “You are our guest. We want you to feel welcome here,” Rhosyn said. “And eating alone is depressing.” That was true, but Maeve still hesitated. It was difficult for her
to imagine anyone was really this kind. They didn’t know her. How could they just invite her in like this? It had to be some sort of trap.

  And yet… if they wanted to hurt her, wouldn’t they have imprisoned her immediately? What benefit was there for them in treating her kindly? But it was still an overwhelming proposition.

  “Would you mind if I waited until tomorrow?” she asked in a timid voice. Rhosyn and Fenella looked at each other and shrugged.

  “I don’t see why not,” Rhosyn said.

  ******************************

  In the interim, Maeve was given the freedom to wander around all of the public areas of the estate. This was not, as it turned out, the formal palace of the Court of the Heavens but a separate family dwelling, a holdover from when Aidan had been merely one of the princes. It was a strange idea to her, family. As in, something that went beyond the obligations due to one’s blood relatives and was based on genuine care and shared affection. Even when she and her brother had been close, Maeve felt it had been something he saw as a duty rather than something he did for pleasure. So she awaited her attendance at the family dinner with as much curiosity as fear. To keep herself distracted, she explored.

  There were several gardens around the estate, some only ornamental and others full of plants with utilitarian uses, both edible and medicinal. This, too, was new to Maeve. There were a few gardens in her father’s fortress, but they were only for show. To call them decorative would miss the mark. For the most part, they were twisted and poisonous, holding the sort of beauty that serves only to mask the danger underneath. Or embellish it. As far as food or healing went, that was all provided by magic. She asked Rhosyn about it when she found the princess in the expansive library.

  “Ever since my father became the Lord, he’s been trying to lead us away from using magic for mundane tasks whenever possible. We do use it to help us cook the food and things like that, but most of the material for the food is grown, just like in the mortal world. We also have started using artisans in the city to make our clothes out of real fabric,” she said, her eyes bright. It was clearly a subject she was passionate about.