The
Golden
Apple
MICHELLE DIENER
Copyright © 2014 Michelle Diener
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be copied or distributed in any way without written permission of the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction and all names, people, places and incidents are either used fictitiously or are a product of the author’s imagination.
Acknowledgements
My thanks as always to my critique partners, Edie and Kim, and to all the people who read this and added their comments, you all helped to make it better. Thanks again to Laura Morrigan for the amazing cover, and to AEMS for the technical end.
The Golden Apple is my second fairy tale retelling, in this case very loosely based on the Norwegian fairy tale The Princess on the Glass Hill.
Chapter One
The laughter rising from the festivities below was not at her, although it felt like it was.
Kayla threaded her fingers together on her knees and closed her eyes anyway, trying to block out the sounds of merriment.
She was part of the entertainment, and her father’s subjects were throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the occasion.
Whereas she…if she had been clamped naked into the stocks, she could not have felt more exposed, more vulnerable. More disrespected.
Even knowing today was coming had not prepared her for sitting high above a shouting, laughing crowd—merry with holiday fever—in a gilded chair on top of a glass mountain.
She opened her eyes again and watched the fair-goers move below her, skirting the mountain as they talked, ate and drank. More a mystery than how a glass mountain came to be in the jousting field was their acceptance of the mountain at all. It had appeared in the night a few days ago, and now it glittered and flashed in the early morning sun, blinding the unwary.
Was she the only one who wondered at the power it would take to create something like this?
It stood perhaps three stories high, almost as high as the castle itself, but although its peak did not reach the height of the castle towers, it squatted malevolently beside her family home, dominating it.
But if the mountain made no sense, what made the least sense of all was that her father would do this to her.
Auction her off to the boldest adventurer to try his luck here today.
And yet he had.
He’d stuck her up on this crystal monstrosity like the cherry on top of a cake. Her dress wasn’t red, though. It was virginal white.
And that color was no longer appropriate for her. Not after last night. The breeze blowing the sounds of the fair and the aroma of cooking pies up to her suddenly felt cool against her heated cheeks. As if it could sense her thoughts, the golden apple in her lap throbbed, heating the skin of her thighs through her thin skirts.
She looked down at it with loathing. A distorted image of her face looked back at her through the shine. As distorted as her world had become since her father embarked on this mad course.
She lifted her hand, hovered it over the apple. Her father had worn gloves when he placed it in her lap, just before she was lifted up the glass hill.
“Don’t touch it,” he’d said. Then he’d walked away, her obedience a foregone conclusion.
She wanted—wanted so badly—to toss it. To throw it, as far and as hard as she could, away from her.
She hesitated, just a moment, then closed her hand over it. And cried out. A light leapt from the apple to her palm, the pain hot, intense. She let go, and immediately the light disappeared. The pain lingered, a throbbing reminder, and then faded away.
She stiffened her spine against the tears clogging her throat and pricking her eyes. She had given away her innocence last night, so pride was the only thing she had left.
No, that was wrong.
Her mouth lifted in the corners. She’d given nothing away, only gained something. Some power. Some control. She had exercised a deeply personal right. To choose her first lover. Before one was chosen for her.
Did she regret it?
She pressed her thighs together, the movement causing the apple to wobble, and thought of the gentle caresses, the soft sighs, as natural and calming as the falling night rain.
The sight of her lover, tall, broad-shouldered, filling her vision as he held himself levered above her. The hot, heady smell of his skin. The contrast of her pale hand against the bronze of his hard-muscled arm.
She shivered.
No. She did not regret it.
She looked out over the arena, at the crowds filing into the stalls for a good seat to the spectacle. Above her, a bird cried, the sound haunting, and she shaded her eyes and searched the skies for it. Yearned to leap from the glass peak and fly to join it, leave the crowds and her fate behind her.
As if on cue with her thoughts of fate, one by one the knights arrived. They were a rainbow swirl of blue, green, yellow and red plumes and banners, polished metal shining almost as much at the glass mountain.
They paraded, playing the crowd, racing in a loop down the length of the course and around the mountain. Getting the measure of what they were up against.
She recognized a few of them. Some were her father’s own men—men she’d known since they were boys come as knights-in-training—some were in service to other kings, princes and lords. All were here for one thing.
Power.
They intended to use her, to take this opportunity offered by her father and exploit it, and by dint of taking part in this contest at all, they had her unreserved contempt.
They obviously felt the same way about her, as not one so much as glanced her way. She was but a means to an end, and for her father to put her in this position was unsupportable. Incredible.
As she thought about what he’d done to her, bands of steel tightened across her chest.
Kayla gasped for air, every gulp like breathing the poisonous smoke of a tanner’s fire, burning her throat, all the way down to her lungs.
The trumpet sounded, and Kayla saw her father standing in his box, dressed in rich red robes, his crown in place. He lifted a hand.
Silence fell, rippling out from the crowd until the only sound was the creak of leather saddles and the huff of horse breath.
“Welcome, gentlemen. The rules are simple. You will each have a chance to ride your horse up the glass mountain, and pluck the golden apple from my daughter’s lap. Whoever succeeds will have my daughter’s hand and become the heir to my kingdom.”
The knights let out a cheer—dogs barking as their master threw them a bone. Kayla wondered how happy they’d be to know the bone had been tasted already. Her lips curved. Oh, she did not regret last night for even a moment.
“Is every competitor present?” the herald called out.
There was a murmur of assent, and then a shuffle of horses near the gates.
A late-comer?
Kayla almost deigned not to look. What did she care how many and who? But the murmurs of the crowd piqued her curiosity, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes and saw him.
A knight all in black, on a black horse.
Her heart gave a traitorous lurch at the figure he cut, his mount dancing through the crowd, moving towards her shimmering perch.
He was the first to approach her. Acknowledge her.
And when he was close enough, he raised his visor.
The breath caught in Kayla’s throat. Her heart stuttered.
Bright blue eyes looked up at her. No longer warm and laughing as they had been last night, but cold with purpose.
He turned with a salute and rode back to the waiting pack, and she clenched her skirts with white-knuckled fists.
Whatever she had
to do, she would make sure he was the one.
* * *
“What in hell is that thing?” Jasper stood with Rane in the knights’ holding pen and eyed the glass monstrosity with dislike. Rane knew it was an unwelcome obstacle to Jasper’s plans.
Usually anything that was a problem to Jasper was cause for celebration in Rane’s view, but in this instance, Jasper’s goal was his own. For the last time, though.
“A glass mountain.”
“I can see that, but where’d the king get it?” Jasper’s plump face was unusually pale.
“Dark magic,” Rane answered shortly. He could feel magic coming off the thing. Crackling the air around it. Snapping at him. And Kayla sat on top of it, her face blank and white. At its mercy.
As she was at yours just last night, his conscience whispered. And did you not take from her her only bargaining chip?
He fisted his reins in the heavy black gloves and his mount moved uneasily beneath him, sensitive to his mood.
Of all the stains on his soul, letting Kayla of Gaynor think she was seducing him while he reeled her in as finely as any master would be the hardest to wash clean.
She’d been determined to give away her virginity last night and oh, she was sweet.
He had no excuse.
He could have walked away, but he did not. Even as she whispered her joy at the taking, moaned his name, knifes of disgust tore through his heart.
Why had he not walked away?
He’d meant only to gain her favor. Become her favorite, even while she thought he was not participating in the contest. So when he did appear, it would seem as if he’d come to save her.
He’d been here days before the others, and he knew full well the task set was impossible. The only way to succeed was with help.
And who could help him more in this than the princess herself?
“Rane? Are you listening?”
He jerked his head down, saw Jasper’s impatience in his stiff bearing. “Yes?”
“You said dark magic. Who would oblige the King so?”
It wasn’t impatience making Jasper so tense, Rane realized—it was fear.
He shrugged. What did he care whose power the king made use of for his strange husband-choosing?
“I’ve heard whispers that a few of the kings in the Middleland have a sorcerer obliging them, these days. Now the King of Gaynor?” Jasper rubbed the side of his face, and Rane noticed his fingers trembled.
“You suspect some plot?” Rane controlled his expression as Jasper flinched at his words. He’d never seen Jasper this rattled.
The sheer size and magnificence of the mountain, the strangeness of it, pointed to someone of immense power. And Jasper was in the business of power. Rane knew Jasper thought he had an edge with a sorcerer for a brother, but if the King of Gaynor had a sorcerer of this caliber on his side, there were few who could stand in his way.
“No…No. I wonder who the sorcerer is, that’s all.”
“The question should rather be, why is the king making the trial so difficult? Why does he want a fighter and a madman for his daughter?”
Jasper’s eyes widened. “You think he wants a bodyguard for her?”
Rane had not, but it was a good point. One to ponder. “I thought he might have a further quest in mind. One that would take more than a spoilt prince to accomplish. A quest he could trust only to his future heir.”
“With this trial he can sidestep the rules of royal marriage, and find the best man for the job, even if he is a commoner.” Jasper nodded his head slowly.
“Only a theory.” Rane’s eyes swung back to the magic hill, back to the woman in her white gown, her dark hair woven with tiny white flowers and flowing over her shoulders. Hair he’d grabbed in fistfuls, felt like silk between his fingers as he exposed her throat to his mouth. Hair that twined round his arms as he’d taken them both to a better place for a while.
Jasper’s gaze turned curious, and Rane regretted his thoughts. Regretted what must have passed across his face.
“Just get me the apple, and you can have your brother back, and all the pleasures that come with marriage to the royal house. Or not.” Jasper shrugged. “Walk away from it all if you choose, if the king has a more dangerous job in mind for you than impregnating his daughter. I don’t care.”
Rane didn’t clamp down on his hatred fast enough. Some of it must have flashed across his face for Jasper’s eyes to narrow.
“Any hint of a double-cross, Rane, and you’ll never see your good-for-nothing brother again.” Jasper paused and his face hardened. “Except maybe in little pieces.”
Chapter Two
With a scream, the horse slid down the mountain on its side, flailing and bucking as it went. Its rider hung on desperately, staying in the saddle until they hit the ground.
The horse rolled, and with a scream of his own, the rider was crushed beneath it.
When the horse scrambled up and ran for the fence, the knight lay still, and there was a moment of silence from the crowd.
Then, as if released from some dark spell, everyone began to shout and move at once. Two men ran to the fallen knight, far more tried to get the horse under control.
Kayla lifted her stricken gaze from the disaster below and looked across to her father. How many more? She wanted to scream the question. How many more must leave maimed or dead?
He stared back, his face impassive, tight with control. He lifted his hand, gave a wave.
On with the contest.
Kayla blinked against the tears that threatened to spill. She was so weary of tears. She sat stiff and unyielding. Refusing to wilt.
She wondered which victim would be next. There were only four left, but when she turned to the holding pen, she saw three of the final number leaving. Deserting the field.
Leaving only the knight in black.
Rane De’Villier.
Secretary and aide to Jasper of Harness. He sat on his horse well, looked comfortable in his armor, but Kayla knew he was a man of poetry and words, not action. He had not been trained in the ways of a knight.
Her heart thundered in her chest. She could not pretend it didn’t thrill her that he had come today.
His determination to win her set her senses alight, more brilliant and blinding than the midday sun off the glass mountain.
It made last night real. Perfect. Not a hastily snatched tryst, but true love.
The cold truth was, though, he should not attempt it.
She was glad he wanted to win her, but she did not want it to cost him his life.
He came out of the holding pen, horse prancing, and looked up at the mountain, sizing it up, taking its measure. Steeling himself.
His horse danced under him, eager or nervous.
The noise from the stalls was a dull roar. Like an ocean in full storm.
He raised his hand in salute to the crowd, and urged his mount forward, gathering speed, taking the run faster, straighter, than any knight before him.
His horse’s hooves hit the glass with a high pitched ‘ting’, the sound of the most expensive crystal hit with a silver spoon, and it seemed to gain a grip, as if there were studs on its shoes.
His visor was up, and Kayla could see the intense focus in Rane’s eyes, the pure determination.
He was close. Closer than any other had come, perhaps more than halfway up the slope. She looked down at the gleaming apple. Thought back to what it had done to her earlier and braced herself for the pain.
In a single, smooth movement her fingers closed over it, and she threw.
Light arced again from the apple to her palm, a white-hot connection of agony. As she cried out, Rane raised a black-gloved hand and snatched it from the air.
The light strobed from between his fingers, its connection to her stronger than before, the pain flaring to a peak, then winking out. Replaced by a terrible sense of urgency. But Kayla did not know what she must do to still the thundering of her heart.
As if in some s
trange dream, where every action is slowed by half, she watched Rane turn the horse, lifting from the saddle as it plunged down the slope.
As they slid away from her, she felt the pull of the apple, like a hard jerk, trying to yank her out of her chair.
She fought it, her lips a white, clenched line of panic, her hands clinging to the chair arms, her feet scrabbling for purchase.
Rane’s horse hit the ground, galloping and dancing in terror away from the mountain, pulling her with it, the arc of light stretched to its elastic limit.
The force hauled at her, strong as ten men. Kayla teetered on the edge of the precipice. Her gaze clashed with her black knight’s as he turned back to her, apple held high, and then, with a wild cry, she fell.
* * *
There was a thin white chain of light pulling Kayla from her chair. Rane saw too late it was connected to the apple, that it had somehow manacled her hand and dragged her with it as he rode across the field, his prize held up for all to see. To witness.
The mountain throbbed more malevolently than before as she flew over the edge and down.
He urged his horse forward, but it refused to take what it thought was another run at the mountain. It raised its forelegs and tried to dislodge him, and with a curse he leapt from the saddle.
Kayla was sliding down the slope, her skirts fluttering and lifting, her arms spread wide. Her face stricken.
He ran towards her, but she was coming too fast. Her feet hit the ground and she pitched forward, her eyes wide with fear. Her body slammed into the ground with a thud, sliding in the mud churned up by the horses from the spongy, wet earth.
When he reached her, he realized the damned apple was still in his hand, and he dropped it beside her as he knelt.
She opened her eyes, but they were unfocused, her forehead smeared with mud. She struggled to roll onto her side, to curl up in an instinctive movement of self-protection.
Her hands accidentally brushed the apple as she moved, and her body gave a jolt, as if she’d been bitten by a viper.
Golden Apple, The Page 1