by Anita Valle
Willow frowned. “No, I think he loved them both. But he had to choose. Do you think he made the right choice?”
Maelyn nodded. “But I think part of him will always miss the other lady.”
“I think he’d feel that no matter who he chose,” said Willow. “Do you think the black lord is really dead?”
Maelyn couldn’t believe they were doing this. Talking about the book. Her sisters never talked about books, at least not with any thoroughness. But Willow seemed as eager as she to trek over every detail and scrutinize every character. When she criticized a battle she thought ended weakly, he listened with unblinking attention. And when he mimicked the voice of an obnoxious character, she laughed loud enough to wake the hag in the corner.
Willow propped his chin on his knuckles. “What now, then? Will you trade another book?”
“Not The Heartsick Hero,” said Maelyn. “I’ll give you something else. Do you think the miser will say it’s too soon?”
Willow flicked a headshake and grinned. “Don’t give me a thing. I’ll get another book for you.”
“How? Believe me, the miser won’t sell them. ‘Gold has no story’,” he says.”
Willow gave a high-spirited laugh and Maelyn wondered what had given him such exuberance. “I disagree!” he said. “I think gold could tell many stories. But why won’t you trade The Heartsick Hero?”
Maelyn shrugged. “I want to keep it. Perhaps I’ll read it aloud to my sisters. They would enjoy….” She stopped, realizing how little time she had left to spend with her family.
Her eyes fell to her raspberry skirt. Since receiving The Heartsick Hero she had locked Prince Murdel away in the dungeons of her mind, ignoring when he rattled the bars. Now he broke free, ready to clap her wrists in shackles. She shouldn’t speak her fears, not to a mere messenger. But in the end, what difference would it make?
She looked up and spoke without preamble. “My uncle is arranging a marriage for me. To the Prince of Dorf.”
Willow’s face tightened. He offered no remark but simply waited on her words. He had a way of looking at her that differed from other men. Most in the kingdom barely met her eyes, or did so with cautious respect… and sometimes contempt. But Willow regarded her with steady calmness, as though they were equals. Perhaps that should bother her. It didn’t.
Maelyn shook her head. “Something feels wrong about it. Uncle Jarrod juggles a dozen kingdoms, he doesn’t get away easily. Yet he traveled here to fetch a bride for the prince of an obscure kingdom?”
“No,” said Willow. “Something else brought him here. Something he couldn’t delegate to a servant or messenger. Has he acted strange or secretive in any way?”
“Yes!” Maelyn cried. “He insisted on taking Father’s bedchamber. He spoke oddly about someone deserving a royal life more than I. And he made Coralina the Throne Princess!”
Willow shook his head. “I don’t understand it. But I think he wants you out of the way.”
“Ugh,” said Maelyn. “Does he really mean to make Coralina the next queen? She thinks ruling is some kind of festival. She cares nothing for the people, she simply wants to frolic with the knights. I found them dancing yesterday!”
“Then she can’t be crowned.” Willow pushed aside his tankard to cross his arms on the table. “Tell your uncle she is unsuitable. Tell him you won’t marry this prince of Dorf. Tell him you decide what happens in this kingdom, not him.”
Maelyn’s eyes flickered and fell. “He’s powerful, Willow. Father warned me never to cross Uncle Jarrod. He said those who do pay a frightful price… and though he didn’t explain, I knew he spoke from his own history.”
Willow held silent, his head tipped to one side. His pale eyebrows pulled together as though he wrestled a thought before speaking it. “Do you know the peasants of this kingdom love your birth story? They tell it to their children at bedtime. The story of the tiny orphan who won the heart of a king and became our first princess.”
Something jabbed Maelyn’s heart. She never knew the peasants told her story. As though it were something beautiful, not something to hide.
“They say it was one moment, one word, that made you the king’s daughter,” said Willow.
Maelyn blinked away the wetness that washed her eyes. “I spoke the word ‘bread’.”
A smile softened Willow’s face. “My lady, once upon a time, you conquered a king. And I think you can do it again.”
Chapter 17
The Art Princess had given the dining hall a wintry theme to encourage the family to savor a warm meal. Murals of white hills and snow-frosted pines drifted across the walls. The morning sun melted through stained glass windows where hedgehogs hibernated beneath a naked forest, and foxes darted desperately after squirrels. Silver lace dripped from the white tablecloth, matching the silver plates that glittered like ice.
Maelyn waited until her sisters had finished breakfast and trickled out of the room.
“Uncle Jarrod, I don’t want to marry Prince Murdel.”
They sat at polar ends of the table, banked by empty chairs, four on either side. Uncle Jarrod ripped a corner off his bread and smiled. “Did I say it would be you?”
Maelyn watched him steadily. “I don’t want to marry Prince Murdel.”
Uncle Jarrod’s jeweled fingers beckoned her forward and Maelyn moved to a chair by his elbow, still warm from Coralina.
“So. You’re ready to give your reason for dismissing the servants,” said Uncle Jarrod.
Maelyn shook her head.
Uncle Jarrod tore another chunk off his bread and chewed it slowly. “Whatever would your father say? His nine little pets living like paupers. How ironic.”
He reached for his wine goblet but Maelyn swung her palm and knocked it over. A murky red puddle shot through the white tablecloth.
Maelyn shoved back her chair and stood up. “Why have you never accepted us?” she shouted. “Whether it pleases you or not, we are the children of your brother. You can’t reverse that!”
Now Uncle Jarrod stood, looming seven disdainful inches over Maelyn’s head. Maelyn returned his glare and refused to look intimidated.
Uncle Jarrod slapped her face.
Maelyn gasped and stumbled backward. Her cheek stung with a prickling flame.
“Don’t tell me what I cannot do,” said Uncle Jarrod in ironclad tones. “Sit down, Princess.”
Maelyn sat, fighting for a defiant expression while tears perched on her eyelids. Uncle Jarrod straightened his goblet and poured the last trickle of wine from a silver pitcher. He sank into his chair and touched his fingertips together. “Does this mean you refuse to go with me tomorrow?”
Maelyn nodded.
“And if I should have you taken by force?”
“You cannot force me to speak the marriage vows,” said Maelyn.
Uncle Jarrod tugged at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Well then, I suppose I must choose one of your more… submissive sisters. What do you call that little one who paints? The one with a gimpy leg?”
Maelyn’s eyes widened. Ivy. Who struggled to walk on a foot twisted since birth, struggled to breathe through feeble lungs, struggled with strange fears that crippled her spirit. Ivy, who painted beauty onto every brick of the castle and loved her home like her own skin….
“No,” said Maelyn. “Not Ivy.”
Uncle Jarrod swallowed the last of his wine. “Very well – you choose.”
Maelyn flinched. “What?”
“One of you must go. And you know your family best. So tell me, Princess… which of your sisters will you send away?”
A lone tear shivered on Maelyn’s sore cheek. She had tried. Tried to defy him, as Willow had suggested. She lowered her face to the table and cried into the backs of her hands.
Uncle Jarrod patted her hair.
Chapter 18
Maelyn turned into the kitchen and left the castle through a side door. She needed to burrow through the Wending Way and cry until she’d drained her he
art like a kettle.
The sky hunkered behind a shield of milky gray clouds, considering rain but never quite mustering the courage. A firm breeze pushed Maelyn’s skirt between her knees. She was halfway across the clearing when she spotted Tofer trudging up the main road from town.
Tofer stopped when he saw her. He wore a heavy black cloak and the wind flung his chin-length hair across his eyes. He glared at Maelyn as though ready for a fight.
“Have you come to see Arialain?” Maelyn asked tersely.
“No,” said Tofer. “You.”
Maelyn passed him and headed for the forest. “I’m busy.” She followed the curling wall of trees until she reached the rift that marked the Wending Way. As she clambered over roots onto the sheltered path, she heard the obstinate clomping of boots behind her.
“Leave, Tofer,” said Maelyn without looking back. “I don’t want to see you.”
“Nor does Ari, apparently,” said Tofer.
“Princess Arialain!” said Maelyn, halting her downward tromp to glare at Tofer.
Tofer gave a crooked smile. “Can you explain why Princess Arialain won’t speak to me? And runs away crying when she sees me?”
Maelyn resumed her walk. “Leave, Tofer.” She followed the path as it flinched away from a boulder and snuck around a pond crowded with grumbling bullfrogs.
“Don’t forbid Ari to see me,” said Tofer. “You have no right.”
Maelyn cast an outraged glance over her shoulder. “As her eldest sister and ruler of Runa I have every right there is!”
“You can’t rule her heart,” said Tofer.
Maelyn turned around, pressing a hand to her hip. “Tofer, under penalty of imprisonment, I order you to leave my presence at once!”
Tofer smiled and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Make me.”
Maelyn’s eyes widened.
Tofer sauntered forward. “You’re not very clever, are you, my lady? Dismissing your servants, your guards…. And then wandering into the forest with a man who holds a grudge against you. Is that wise, Princess?”
Maelyn’s eyes dropped to a dagger sheathed at his belt. Her heart stumbled. “Do you mean to harm me?”
Tofer smirked. “I just want you to realize… I could.”
Maelyn ground her teeth. “If my father were alive, he would-”
“But he isn’t.” Tofer’s voice rose. “The king is dead. You’re nothing now. Even your uncle knows it!”
Maelyn struggled to breathe through her tightening throat. “Has the kingdom turned against us?”
Tofer rolled the eye that didn’t hide behind his hair. “Not everyone, so don’t start wailing. Mostly the nobility - they’re tired of bowing to women of inferior birth. Many wish you would all go back where you came from.”
“And who would rule the kingdom?” Maelyn asked. “My parents left no natural heir.”
Tofer shrugged. “Not my concern. Just don’t expect me to bow anymore. You’re the daughter of a peasant. I’m the son of a wealthy merchant. By rights, you should be bowing to me.”
Chapter 19
As a child, Maelyn had thought the Lumen trees were long arms carrying the sky. Their marble-smooth trunks rose higher than the castle, unfettered by a single branch until they burst into fat canopies. A century’s growth had swollen them to the widths of twenty men. Too smooth for climbing, too hard for chopping, too dense for burning, they stood like an army of stone giants around the castle. But other than as a sound wall of defense, they were useless for any other purpose.
Finally rid of Tofer, Maelyn turned off the Wending Way and followed a wriggling stream. Within ten minutes she found a Lumen tree that bore a unique feature: it had cracked open. Though Lumen bark grew thick as the castle wall, their centers were hollow, and occasionally, moisture or earth tremors caused the trees to crack. The one ahead bore a jagged, door-sized hole punched open by a boulder that had tumbled from the mountains. Maelyn crept around broken chunks of rock and ducked inside the tree.
The smell of moist earth seeped through the round cavern, wide as Maelyn’s bedchamber. She spread her cloak on the soft dirt and leaned against the inner wall, textured like cork and rising in a tunnel of blackness above. None of her sisters knew about this tree. The only place in the kingdom where no one could find her.
Maelyn shut her eyes and pondered her options. Could she run away? Find a remote kingdom where she wouldn’t be recognized? But even if Uncle Jarrod didn’t hunt her down, he might fall back on Ivy for Prince Murdel’s bride. She wouldn’t do that to Ivy.
Could she face the marriage? Perhaps she would like Prince Murdel. Perhaps he wasn’t unpleasant. Perhaps his kingdom wouldn’t resent her for not being a real princess….
Maelyn thumped the back of her head repeatedly against the tree, squashing her thick coil of hair. She was real. She was real. She was real.
She began to wonder about her sisters. Naturally they’d visit her in Dorf. Occasionally. And probably not all at once. Then they’d trickle away, one by one, married to other princes and carted off to distant lands. Father had gathered them like a bouquet of wild flowers; now Uncle Jarrod would scatter them across the world again.
Her sisters. Her friends. Heidel. Arialain. Briette. Even Coco. She wasn’t ready to leave them.
Chapter 20
When chill and fatigue forced Maelyn back home, she found her bedchamber stripped of everything that made it hers and folded into three menacing trunks at the foot of her bed. “Lace,” said Maelyn, wishing she could smile. The Wardrobe Princess gave her love in silent gestures, sparing Maelyn the painful task of packing her life away.
But a bigger surprise lay on her bed – The Devious Damsel. “Thank you, Willow,” Maelyn said sadly. He must have brought it while she was out. At least she could read through the sleepless night ahead of her. One last book. One last night.
She wondered if she’d ever see Willow again.
Chapter 21
“You tricked me!” shrieked the wicked pixie as she tore out clumps of her emerald-green hair. “That potion should have killed you. I mixed it myself!”
A sly smile spread across the devious damsel’s face. “I would indeed have perished – but you neglected to add the crushed dragon tooth to your potion.”
“I did add the crushed dragon tooth!” wailed the wicked pixie. But the devious damsel shook her fair head. “I switched it with a jar of powdered unicorn horn.”
The pixie paled with dread. “You drank powdered unicorn horn? That means your curse is… is….”
“Broken,” finished the devious damsel. “My powers are restored.” With that, a ball of white light shot forth from her palm and engulfed the wicked pixie. The pixie screamed and thrashed as the magical light transformed her small body into-
“Maelyn?” Heidel thumped on the door of her bedchamber. “Are you awake?”
“No,” said Maelyn, eyes fastened to the page. But the door swept open and she heard a pattering of multiple feet. Before she could look up, a storm of sisters in nightgowns crashed on her bed and she found herself smothering in a tangle of arms. “Maelyn, you can’t leave us!” her sisters wailed.
Maelyn clung to them, laughing and crying at once. “I don’t want to!”
“Then don’t,” said Heidel. “Tell Uncle Jarrod you refuse to go with him.”
Maelyn shook her head. “It won’t work.” She extracted herself from her sisters’ embrace and sat against the headboard. “Uncle Jarrod didn’t become a High King by accident. He knows how to crush defiance.”
Heidel propped her elbow on Maelyn’s pillow. “The Royal Reading Hour will perish without you.”
Maelyn shrugged. “None of you liked it much anyway.”
“I liked it,” said Heidel. “But I can’t force the others. They listened to you.”
“What about those stuffy monarchs and ambassadors from other kingdoms?” said Coralina, her unbrushed hair looking like a ravaged bird’s nest. “Will I have to listen to their droning now
? And discuss… taxes and trade and war?”
Maelyn smiled. “You’ll be the queen, Coco.”
Coralina scowled.
A few sisters tried a brightening tone. Lace offered to make a stunning wedding gown. Jaedis promised to visit often and keep Maelyn abreast of news from home. Ivy agreed to paint a mural in Maelyn’s new bedchamber. Only Arialain, scrunched at the foot of the bed, seemed aloof.
“When are you leaving?” she finally asked.
“Noon,” said Maelyn, having no doubt Arialain would fly back to Tofer before her carriage had covered the first mile.
“Ugh.” Heidel rolled her eyes. “Uncle Jarrod wants a cask of mulberry wine for the journey. It’s my last one!”
“What else do we have?” said Maelyn.
Heidel shrugged. “Some mead, hagberry wine which he hates, and ale, of course.” She bit her lip. “And a small barrel of Lumen wine.”
Maelyn’s eyes widened. “We have Lumen wine?”
Heidel grinned. “From a traveling merchant. I nearly gave the crown off my head for it.”
Maelyn was amazed. Lumen fruit grew in the canopies of the trees, several hundred feet above the ground. Smooth, dark fruit, like a cherry, but growing to the size of peach. But since the Lumens could not be climbed, their fruit could not be picked, and when it fell it smashed into worthless pulp. A piece of unbroken fruit was extremely rare and wine was nearly unheard of. Only once, in her childhood, did she remember her parents drinking it….
Maelyn’s fingers stroked the cover of The Devious Damsel resting against her thigh. For a long moment she sat quietly. “Give Uncle Jarrod the Lumen wine.”
Heidel’s cheeks flared red as her hair. “I’d rather die from… flesh-eating insects!”
“Even so, I want him to have it.”
“Maelyn, you’re mad!” said Coralina. “We’ve never even tasted it! We should keep if for a special event – like your wedding!”