“What?” Claude exclaimed, only to look abashed at his own outburst. Unlike myself, he was usually the perfect servant. Drawing such undue attention to himself in the presence of the prince was uncharacteristically clumsy.
“Eh?” The prince looked at my mistress’s footman, blinking at him.
“I do believe my servant was surprised since he thought Your Highness had planned the ball with the intent of finding a bride.” Ariella kept her eyelashes lowered, but she was unable to conceal the smug gleam twinkling behind them. “Quite a few of your subjects thought the same.”
“My subjects…” The prince lifted his bulbous nose into the air, sniffing it with disgusted annoyance. “As if they know anything of my intentions.”
“Oh? A bride was not the purpose of last night’s ball, then?” my mistress asked with feigned innocence. “Or did Your Highness simply not find a bride to your liking?”
Claude stared at the prince. He kept his expression respectfully guarded, but I could sense the intense alertness quivering through his thin frame.
Poor Claude. He had believed a search for a bride had been the prince’s purpose in attending the ball. This had been his reason for urging our mistress to go.
Ariella’s loyal servant hadn’t given up hope she would become the prince’s bride and our future queen. This was why he’d spiked the punch.
Ariella’s footman struggled to school his face into a submissive blandness.
Too late. I’d already guessed his part in last night's mischief.
Yes, Claude could have done it with his connections at the palace. Especially if he’d thought it would benefit our mistress.
How he must have rejoiced at taking part in a plot of hers to ensnare the prince. Claude would have done all he could to make him susceptible to her charms.
Alas for Claude, Ariella’s intentions had quite different than his. She wasn’t ambitious enough to endure a marriage with a man she hated, even if she had caught this sad excuse of a prince’s eye.
She had been up to something else entirely, and her footman had unwittingly gone along with it.
“I never wanted a bride in the first place.” The prince glared at my mistress. “It was my royal father’s intention for me to select a bride at this ball.”
I’d been mistaken to see his eyes or any part of him as piggish. Our neighbor’s pigs were much handsomer.
“I only agreed to attend so I could meet pretty girls I’d normally not have access to.” The prince waved his hands at the palace and the grounds surrounding it. “I’ve already made the intimate acquaintance of every attractive maiden near the castle. There are no more virgins left here.”
He leered at me with a squinty wink.
Wincing was near impossible. It was a relief to be in male attire. The last thing I wanted was to be a maiden. Not around this man.
My mistress was bestowing a sharp I-told-you-so glance in the direction of her footman. Well, she had told him the ball was an excuse to paw at every woman in the kingdom.
She had been right.
Claude had the grace to look politely abashed. Or at least as politely abashed as he dared.
Perhaps the prince noticed some of the abashment. He schooled his sagging flesh into a prim expression. “Come, come. I am the crown prince, after all.” Once more, he lifted his thick nose. I could see the matted hair and snot within his nostrils. “It’s my duty to be friendly with my subjects.” He let out a wheezing snort at his own words and jabbed one of his elbows out to catch me in the arm.
I swallowed my own gasp of pain. For such a plump prince, his elbows were sharp.
“I may not have time to be friendly once I’m king.” The prince’s smile vanished at the truth of his own words.
“Indeed.” My mistress caught my arm with surprising delicacy and pulled me out of range of the prince’s elbow.
“I wish I could remember the girls from last night.” The prince sucked in his thick lips. “It’s like something out of an old wives’ tale, where someone cast a spell upon me, removing my memories. Although it’s more likely that someone spiked my punch.”
Claude’s gaze flickered for just an instant to my mistress. Ariella’s face was a perfect mask of bland inquiry. The prince noticed none of this. He was busy scratching his head again.
“I’m sure there were some very attractive girls at the ball.” The prince puffed out his lower lip, wiggling it. “There was one exceptionally pretty one in a green dress, although she danced with some smirking fellow whose face I can’t recall.” He turned toward my mistress. “Ah, well, if she only had eyes for that sort, she must be too stupid to bother with.” He wrinkled his mouth in distaste. “Come to think of it, didn’t she crawl around on her hands and knees like a servant girl? After which, her servant had to pick her up and carry her out because she fainted. What a little fool!”
I blinked at the prince’s description. A girl in a green dress who’d crawled around on the floor before passing out? He had to be talking about me. Not that I wanted him to remember me. I’d never been interested in catching the prince’s eye, even when he’d been some stranger Ariella hated. Now that I’d met him in person, I was more than eager to avoid his gaze.
“I seem to remember seeing you, though,” the prince said, staring at my mistress. Something like intelligence seemed to flicker in his muddy brown gaze. “Only you disappeared. I’m not sure where you went to.”
Claude tensed up. His unease was palpable, at least to me. I swallowed. The sound was extremely loud in my own ears.
“Not that it matters,” the prince said. The flicker of intelligence vanished. His small, vapid eyes blinked at my mistress. “You’re hardly one of the more attractive ladies I know, which is why it’s strange that I remember you.” He twisted his entire face, sagging wrinkles and all into a sneer. “It’s usually the ugly girls that I forget.”
Shock ran through my entire body. This toad of a prince thought my mistress was ugly? A strange trembling started in my feet and traveled up my legs to my stomach. He dared to accuse Ariella of being ugly? This repulsive lecher of a prince thought he could speak to my lady with such disregard?
Well, all right, as the prince, he was entitled to. The fact that he was prince was ridiculous. He was hardly worthy of his title! The prince I’d danced with was worth ten of him!
A hand touched my shoulder. It was Ariella. Sense returned to me, trickling through her strong fingers.
“Sorry to disappoint Your Highness by being strange.” She struggled against a smile, but couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from twitching. “I’m certain you will regain your memories of prettier faces, given time.”
“Oh, I’m certain I will.” He looked up at the sky, attempting to relax his jowls into something more agreeable. He succeeded a tiny bit. “I’ve got quite the eye for pretty girls—yes, I do.” For the first time, the prince actually smiled, crinkling his wrinkles in a merry fashion. It could have been an agreeable expression, if not an attractive one. “It must have been quite the night to remember, mustn’t it?” He snorted, reaching out his elbow to nudge me once more.
Happily, I was out of range.
“Especially if I can’t remember any of it.” The prince chortled at his own joke.
“Oh, it most certainly was,” my lady said with a mysterious little smile.
It was an effort not to stare at her, but I managed not to.
Claude moved to open the carriage door for our mistress. I regained my presence of mind enough to help her inside. I didn’t dare look at Ariella or the prince.
The prince was an idiot. An idiot with too little enough beauty of his own to call anyone else’s into question. He was nothing next to the one who’d danced with me. How could I have ever believed my mysterious partner was the prince?
“Charming, isn’t he?” my mistress murmured once the door was closed. She allowed her lips to curve ever so slightly. I’d seen that expression before, that sly, satisfied amusement. “
I confess I’m quite relieved he finds me ugly.” She allowed her smile to widen.
Claude leaped into the driver’s seat.
The prince scratched his head, perhaps trying to shake loose his memories of last night. Hopefully, he’d fail if what I’d guessed was true.
There’d been no chance to look for the glass slipper. Would I have found it if I looked for it? No. Not a chance.
The coach moved away from the prince and the palace. I stared at Ariella, her secretive smile, revealing how pleased she was with herself. I opened my mouth, then closed it. Usually, I was too preoccupied with her feet to look up. She was my mistress, after all. I studied her face, fixing my eyes upon her midnight-blue ones. Yes, they were the same beautiful eyes which had captured mine, when I danced for the first time.
“You have more charm than he’ll ever possess, my lady.” I dipped my head in almost mocking reverence. “Or should I call you my prince?”
Ariella’s smile disappeared. She nodded back, reaching into the confines of her cloak and withdrew a glass slipper.
“You dropped this, when you ran off.” Ariella didn’t take her eyes off me, not for an instant. “I would have liked to have finished the dance, but you were wise to leave before the spell ended.
“Why?” I started to tremble. “Was it all a big joke, to dress up the cinders girl as a lady?” The words came out choked. “To play the prince to my fool?”
“Of course not. I meant what I said when I came to you as your fairy godmother.” Her lower lip quivered with a sincerity impossible to doubt. “Every woman should dance once in her life. I was simply too jealous to let you dance with anyone else.”
“You made me feel like I was being disloyal,” I whispered. “I thought I was enjoying being with the man you hated.”
“I remember how you refused his advances.” Ariella spread her lips into a beautiful smile. “You were loyal to me while facing a temptation that would have turned many a woman’s head.”
“Temptation?” I asked, sounding stupid even to myself. “What temptation?”
“The temptation of catching a prince’s eye. The promise of wealth and power, things far beyond a cinder girl’s station.” Ariella’s smile disappeared. “A prince can offer you marriage. All I can offer you is a life of servitude.” She looked down at her own hands. “I meant what I said when I danced with you. You are a lady.” She took a deep breath and looked up at me. “I remember who you were before you became the cinders girl. You have as much right to wealth and power as I do.”
“Wealth, power, and a prince are not temptations for me. Not if I have to give you up to have them.” The truth of my own words hung between us like a spell waiting to be released. “I may not be much of a servant, but I’m always at your service.”
“I know that now. I’m sorry I ever doubted you, my Cinders.” Ariella reached out a hand to touch my cheek.
The sensation made me tremble again but for an entirely different reason.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
Part of me desired nothing more than to say yes, but a mischievous impulse stopped me.
“Well, I don’t know.” I reached up to capture her hand. “You’ve treated me in a most ungentlemanly fashion, playing such a trick on me.”
“Well, I’m not exactly a gentleman, as I told you at the ball.” My prince raised one of her eyebrows. “You know this only too well.”
“What nonsense. Every step you took revealed your true self,” I retorted, feeling my own lips twitch. “You’re the only gentleman in my life, as well as the only lady.”
I met her gaze with a sly suggestiveness. “You asked for an opportunity to steal my heart when it already was yours. I don’t think I should forgive you for this deception, unless…” I raised her hand to my lips.
“Unless?” Ariella’s own voice had gotten even huskier.
A strange tingling sensation ran down my thighs at the heated look in her eyes.
“Unless you make it up to me,” I murmured before turning her hand over and pressing my lips to her pulse.
“Indeed,” she whispered.
I could see the prince who’d swept me off my feet in her intense gaze, as well as the mistress I’d adored. “Shall we finish our dance once we reach home?”
“Only after I’ve helped you put on your glass slippers.”
About K.S. Trenten
K.S. Trenten lives in the South Bay Area of California (in the U.S.) with her husband, two cats, and entire universes bursting out of her imagination. These universes are filled with shouting characters, each demanding her attention.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhodrymavelyne
Twitter: @rhodrymavelyne
Website: inspirationcauldron.wordpress.com
Other books by this author
Seven Tricks
Finding Aurora
Rebecca Langham
For my mum. She would have loved this story.
Chapter One
I DOUBT THERE was even one person in Grimvein who hadn’t heard the story of the sleeping princess. There were those who claimed she’d died a century ago and the curse was merely a story to maintain hope of her well-being. Amir and I knew better. Somewhere beneath the layers of magic and goddess-knew-how-many demonic guardians in Oldpass, Princess Aurora Rose slept. The problem was getting to her.
“Looks like the map was accurate.” Amir tucked the frayed parchment inside his leather vest and then stepped closer to the colossal boulder in front of us. “This entry is well concealed. Most people would walk right by without realising.”
I had to agree. We were deep within the forest to the east of Oldpass. The path we’d been following for over a week had disappeared hours earlier, replaced by mossy undergrowth and grasses. If not for Amir’s orienteering skill and the importance of our quest, I’d have turned back.
“Does it open the old-fashioned way, Highness?” I indicated the door with my chin. Embedded in the rock and camouflaged, it was almost unnoticeable, but we could just make out the bevelled edges. I sensed no magic surrounding the rock formation, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. I might have been one of the strongest casters in the five kingdoms, but I was still mortal. There’s only so much one person confined by flesh can know. Or see. Or do.
Amir ran his hand through his shoulder-length black hair. His rather wonderful, lustrous, shoulder-length black hair.
“Let’s see.” He pressed both his palms against the smooth surface, bracing his feet against the leaf-covered ground. Something whirred deep inside the boulder and clicked as though a latch had been released. He stepped back as the rectangular slab skulked off to the side, like a sword disappearing into its sheath. “It appears the answer would be yes, it does open the old-fashioned way. Sort of.”
“I must admit, I had my doubts.”
“As did I,” he replied, scratching at the stubble on his chin. In all the years I’d been acquainted with the prince, he’d always been clean-shaven, and the rugged growth on his face, as charming as it looked, seemed to irritate him more and more. “It seems too convenient that there could be an underground passage that would take us beneath the outer walls.” His hands held on to the rock as he leaned forward, peering inside. His soft leather boots gripped his defined calves as he did. “It’s quite dark in here. Do you have that magnificent bauble of yours?” He withdrew from the opening and turned to face me.
I gaped at him. “Prince Amir, the moonbeam stone is no mere bauble. And yes, of course I do. I’ll let the honour of first entry be yours.”
He bowed slightly, his hand over his heart. “Why, thank you, caster.” He returned his attention to the opening. “In we go.”
I followed him closely as we left the fresh air and crunching leaves of the forest behind. Inside, the darkness was thick and the air acrid. I slipped my moonbeam stone out of a pouch clipped to my belt. With a thought, I willed it to life. A soft yellow light emanated from the stone.
“Oh no,” I said. A
s though the enclosed room had heard me, the door behind us slid outward from its cavity, closing fast and hard.
“It seems we’re trapped.” Typical Amir. Always so calm. He walked around the room. “But surely there is a way from here into the tunnel. This must be a kind of annex.” I admired the fact that no matter how hopeless or scared Amir might have felt, he was always able to focus on the task at hand, putting his feelings aside until a more appropriate time presented itself.
“Mmmhmm.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing away the tension that had taken up residence there. I grabbed the small flask attached to my belt, just above my left hip. The water soothed my throat and afforded a distraction from the momentary sense of panic.
“Talia, I need your help over here,” Amir said. His voice was calm, but the shade of his cheeks betrayed bubbling anxiety.
“Yes, Highness.” I took one more sip of water from my flask, clipped it onto my leather belt, and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. By the goddess, that place was hot. I wondered if we might have found the first level of the underworld rather than the subterranean passageway into Oldpass.
“That’s twice in as many minutes,” Amir said, gently elbowing me as I joined him. “I keep telling you to stop calling me that. We’ve been travelling together for over two weeks. The formalities are unnecessary by now, wouldn’t you agree?” He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. As the Leading Caster of Grimvein, I’d been assigned to help Amir on a journey that the public needed to believe he’d taken on his own. So far, my magical services had been of little use, aside from starting a few campfires when we were especially impatient to eat our evening meal.
“Yes, Highness.” I bit my lower lip. “Amir. Sorry, it’s a force of habit.”
“It’s all right. We have bigger things to worry about right now anyway.” Turning on the spot, Amir reexamined the challenging situation we were in, what with the apparent lack of an exit. He kicked at a stone. It hit the wall, the thud reverberating through the enclosed space.
Once Upon the Rainbow, Volume Two Page 15