Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Book Two: Prisoner of Mirrors
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Book Three: Prisoner of Dreams
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Original Cover Gallery
Sample Chapter of Beauty and the Goblin King!
More Romantic Fantasy from Lidiya!
About the Author
Chapter One
It was the most bitter winter the nation of Ellurine had seen in a century. The Palace of the Sun, with its tall windows and cold floors of parquet and marble, was so miserable inside that we all had chilblains on our feet and hands, and one of my ladies caught her skirt on fire from huddling to the warmth. That was one of the few times I saw magic cast in the palace, as the faery women all desperately staunched the flames.
Outside, of course, it was far worse. Many people froze to death. The price of wood for the fires became very dear. And because the winter had begun so early, food was in shorter supply as well.
Inside my heart was the coldest place of all. As the fall first turned to winter, the letter came telling me that my mother had died.
I knew when I left Osteria years ago that I would never see her again. I had become the Queen of the Sun Palace, caught in my role to submit to the king forever, and home seemed as distant at the stars. But all the while, I took comfort in knowing that it remained the same. My mother, ruling stolidly over the practical, earthly people of Osteria.
In my mind, I realized as I read the letter, a part of me was still there. The child, Marie Rose, dancing and chasing butterflies. Youthful and free.
My king, Augustus, and our lover Axel, tried to comfort me, but what I really wished for was privacy for my grief. They had never met my mother. No one in Osteria knew her. There was no one who could sit in a comforting vigil with me and share memories.
Queens did not have time to miss their mothers. Maybe it had as much to do with my first pregnancy as anything else, because I was thinking of my own child, and how he or she would have to grow up in this place. Their life would never be their own. They would be taken from me, held by their wet nurse instead of me, brought up by the proper tutors for their future role.
The walls of my prison were so cold.
Of course, my sadness was callous in the face of the death and starvation happening miles away in the capital city. I knew I was a selfish creature. So I swallowed it down, and then the court complained that their queen was too sober, that my face was too melancholy.
Dressed in mourning black and mindful of the suffering people, I couldn’t take any comfort in my beloved gowns trimmed with flora and fauna, so instead I enjoyed the preparing of the nursery.
A silver rattle with dangling bells. A layette box painted with scenes of revelry and celebration. All the fine, tiny garments worked with lace and ribbon, some of them lovingly made by the ladies of my court in their spare time.
Augustus was calm in the face of his kingdom’s despair, but distracted by his books, trying to figure out solutions.
“Necker wants to raise the taxes,” he told me.
“Oh, no—I can’t believe he would say that. He’s usually on their side, it seems to me.” Necker had denied me funds for a piano for the Lady’s Treat.
“Taxes on the nobles,” Augustus said. “Heavy taxes.”
“They’ll be furious at us. Remember when I tried to curb my clothing budget, only to be yelled at for putting ribbon-makers out of employment?”
“He is afraid the entire kingdom might collapse. He said we’re too deep in debt and there is no choice. We can’t take this bad harvest and cold.” He cursed. “He has a point. We can’t allow our citizens to die in the streets.”
The situation was so dire that the general faery councils convened to discuss it for the first time in over a century. Nobles and sorcerers, representatives from the entire kingdom assembled. They filed in to the Hall, grim but business-like. Outside, peasants shouted, “Liberty!” “Equality!”
They were unhappy with us. It had been building for a long time now. With the grumbling about a human queen. The defiling of my portrait. The anger at Axel for being appointed the Sword of the King.
I didn’t know what I could do now to cool their anger, but Augustus took to the floor. One would never know he was aware of the dangers. “My friends,” he said. “Are we not the race of faeries? Are we not more connected to nature than any people? Nature giveth, and she taketh, and even a king cannot decide which it will be. I have spent my life in the forest when I am not in the palace, and I have seen years when all the flowers are blooming and all the trees are heavy with fruit, but I have also seen years where the deer starve. They are helpless against their fate. We are less so. But for all our towers and societies, swords and ships, there is one mistress every king must serve, and it is the earth and sky.”
I heard a rumble of conversation as he spoke.
It was true, every word, and I thought my husband looked very handsome and wise. Augustus was a true faery king, I thought. He knew the value of dirt under his fingers. He was humble before forces greater than himself.
Necker announced the tax upon the nobles, and now this was greeted with cheers from certain parts of the chamber as well as outside, while the nobles quivered with fury.
I didn’t sense any easing of tensions. Quite the opposite.
We left the assembly to jeers and shouting.
“Take their heads!” “Have you no children of your own, to let ours starve?”
My friend Julia had worn a feather in her hair. This was seized upon instantly. A hand ripped it from her hairstyle and more hands reached for it, the feather torn to shreds. Guards rushed forward. Axel drew his sword, urging us to our carriage.
“They’re attacking Julia! Axel…go help her!” I cried.
“The other guards will help her, my queen. My duty is to you.”
I felt the building anger of the crowds as they saw us rush by. This was not the first time we had rotten food lobbed toward us. The edge had grown sharper.
Axel yanked open the carriage door. The wheels were already turning as he leapt in beside us.
The windows were firmly shut. Augustus stared at them anyway. “Was there something more I could have said?” Before we could answer, he shook his head. “No.”
We rushed back to the palace, with peasants jeering at the royal carriage all along the way. We had to keep the windows shut, so I never saw how many people had brought their anger out into the cold. It made me nervous how bold they were around our guard. “I hope Julia is all right…”
By the time we reached the palace, it was quiet dusk. The gates shut behind us, and Axel slid open the window. I saw the gardens dusted with snow.
He took both our hands, surprising us. Even after all we had done to Axel and had him do to us, he had never been so bold as to take our hands in comfort. “Whatever happens from here,” he said. “I will protect you both. We’re home safe now. You are with child…please try not to let your mind be troubled, or the baby will grow up to be a fearful adult.”
“Is that what the elves believe?”
“It’s true,” he said. “So…” He kissed my brow. “Smooth that out.”
I did relax a little. Whatever mistakes we might have made as king and queen, Axel loved us anyway.
As the servants took off my wraps inside, Julia came running up to me. She had a terrible scratch and bruise on her forehead, as if she’d been hit by a rock.
“Oh, Julia, you’re all right!” I broke away from the maids to hug her.
“I’m quite fine! What a situation that all was. I can’t wait for spring.” She shook herself. She thought it would all pass in the spring, and maybe it would.
Days later, this incident appeared in a slanderous pamphlet: Julia getting struck by a rock marked ‘Justice’ and me tending to her with a bandage labeled ‘Favoritism’.
By now, I was used to such things.
The assembly, once the royals had left the city, had gone out to speak to the mob.
“We shall not separate until the constitution of the kingdom is established on a firm foundation.”
This speech was not to calm the people, but to take their side. Their anger led them to storm the prison where enemies of the nobility were kept, and my old enemy sprung her trap.
Chapter Two
Interlude
The Cobblestone Witch had remained in the shadow of the city, eluding capture, for decades. They knew her as a friend to the people and the healer of children, and they protected her. They never guessed that she had cursed their land with this long, bitter winter and taken hundreds of their children to the grave.
But as the witch saw it, the kings and queens had robbed them for so long, it was time for drastic measures. It was time to poke the stirring beast, and if it ate a few people along the way, so be it.
The Cobblestone Witch stepped up above the mob, taking on her most beautiful and youthful aspect. Magic stirred around her, and hundreds of voices went silent at the sight of her, wild haired in a plain dress and gray cloak that sat lopsided on her shoulders.
“Faeries,” she said. “You are my wildflowers. Just common things that grow in fields and on roadsides, trampled upon by every gilded carriage and hunting party. But beautiful. And necessary. I am your witch.”
“The Cobblestone Witch…?” Voices murmured. Many of them recognized her.
She nodded. “As most of you surely know, I cursed Queen Marie-Rose at her christening. I intended her to marry the future king. I did this because—“
The guards were moving toward her. They had been managing the mob carefully, as they were vastly outnumbered. Some had been killed by the crowds as the prison was stormed and the prisoners set free. But there were now thousands of people gathered in the Court of Hours, many of them armed, many more with magical tricks up their sleeves.
“It is my dream to see the country of faeries restored to its old glories,” she said. “Freedom. Equality. Liberty. Most of you are too young to remember our wild days, but there was a time when we would rather die than be tamed. Now we are tamed, and we die anyway. We die without dignity. We die freezing and overworked. No more!”
“No more!” The crowd took up the chant eagerly. “No more!”
“It is time for the queen to fall into her century-long sleep,” the witch said. “And it is time for the faery king to perish. In a hundred years, the queen will bear her child. The sacred bloodline will be preserved, but the morals—the ways of the court—will be rewritten entirely.”
The Cobblestone Witch had planned her moment carefully. She knew that the blood of Queen Marianna and King Enri was still sacred in the faery realm. If she had not found some way to preserve it, a rebellion would surely brew.
But now the queen was pregnant.
Couldn’t it be Count Farren’s? wondered the Cobblestone Witch’s assistant Jeanne du Bariel, watching the speech. Or does she assume that the king would never allow another man to claim his queen in that way? A half-elf child would be their ruin, it is true. I bet the little princess only takes Count Farren up the arse.
“It is time,” the witch repeated. “We must take back the Palace of the Sun. We have stormed the prison—now it is time to storm the palace itself!”
The crowd roared for blood.
“It is time to strip the gilt from the fireplaces, tear down the curtains and make them into coats! It is time to dance upon the floors! It is time to end the rule of greedy nobles who dared to complain about their taxes while your children are dying!”
Now the sea of people roiled with their anger. They stamped and shouted. It was a cold night and they no longer felt it.
Jeanne had seen all of the suffering firsthand. Both in her youth, and now. A piece of Jeanne still hesitated. A memory flashed into her mind of her first day in the Palace of the Sun. The king, proudly showing off the chambers he would give to her. Tall windows. Delicate paintings. Jeanne had felt awe and delight that such a place existed. The old king was still quite healthy, then. Handsome, playful, tender. Yes, he could also be crude and temperamental, and why should he deserve everything when others had nothing?
But if we were all equal, such a beautiful place would never have existed at all, Jeanne thought.
Maybe that is for the best.
But I’m glad that for one brief moment, it was mine.
One of the guards couldn’t bear another word of treason. He moved forward. “How dare you! How dare you speak of killing our king! Cursing our queen? Who created this trouble—them or you, witch?”
The crowd turned to him, a target for their anger. Jeanne had to turn away before she saw it happen. They attacked the soldier, pulling him from his horse and beating him to death. His screams were blessedly brief.
Jeanne’s stomach churned. A necessary casualty, for our freedom…yes. I suppose…but it does seem as if the price is climbing high.
The other guards knew they were outnumbered, and they all tried to flee, to warn the king and queen what was coming for them.
Only two made it to the Palace of the Sun.
Chapter Three
A banquet had already been arranged for our return from the assembly. Louisa urged me to take a hot bath to calm my nerves. The water was scented with dried flowers and herbs, and the tension in my muscles started to melt. It had come out all right in the end, I thought. Julia was fine, and once the spring came and I grew closer to giving the people an heir, everything would get easier. I put a comforting hand over my belly. I didn’t show at all yet.
My ladies dressed me in one of the somber gowns I wore to mourn my mother; black ribbons and rosettes criss-crossed with hothouse lilies, and a tiny gold-edged mourning portrait of my mother pinned in my hair in a frill of black lace. That was the most ostentatious I dared to be.
Everything at home was so normal. O
ur inner circle joined us at the banquet table; my dearest friends, Augustus’ brothers, and their wives. The angry crowd seemed very far away now. I sat beside my husband, as always, and he gave me a reassuring smile.
“It’s over and done with, anyway,” he said. “Everyone will survive the taxes. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes…I had a bath.”
“Good, because I can’t spare you on a night like this. In fact, the more distractions…the better.” He poured me a full glass of wine.
As I sipped, the king’s vine danced over my sex, stirring my senses a little before one tendril tightened around my bud of pleasure, enough to heat my loins. It remained there, pinching me as I burned, my desire building slowly but steadily. The table was talking about the assembly, of course, trying to brush off the tension.
I couldn’t join in the conversation. I was too busy battling with the sensation produced by the king’s vine. I was the Queen Who Bowed; I must always remain composed and come whenever my husband commanded it, but not any sooner.
The Surrender of Sleeping Beauty Page 30