Never After

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “May I ask the prince a question?”

  “You may, though whether he will answer is another question.”

  “Your highness, are you worth the risk of my freedom, and maybe my life?”

  The arrogance faltered, and she watched him have a thought. She wasn’t sure what that thought was, but she saw it. “In all these long years no one has asked that. If you win my freedom, then you will be my wife, and queen of all. Isn’t that worth risking your freedom?”

  “Your brother has been king for over twenty years, longer than I have been alive. Do you truly think he will simply give up his throne to you and your queen, just like that?”

  “Of course he will. I am the heir to the throne. I am his older brother.”

  “Prince True, your younger brother is as old as your father was when you vanished. He has two sons and two daughters of his own now.”

  “I am the heir, and our laws will force him to give up the throne to me.”

  Elinore studied the handsome, but oh, so arrogant face. She turned to the sorceress. “What would the challenge be, if I took it?”

  “You would either face the prince in combat, or cook a dinner. Combat is simple: defeat the prince, and you win his hand. The meal is more complicated: you will prepare your best food, and it is my taste you must please. I have yet to taste anyone’s pies that can rival Prince True’s.”

  Elinore knew she would not choose combat, but she was confident of her pies. Cook said she was good enough to cook at the palace, and Cook would not lie.

  “If the prince had pretended to be bested at combat, would you have let him go?”

  “If he had been willing to allow himself to lose, then he would have learned his lesson, and earned his freedom.”

  “But he bested them all?” Elinore asked.

  “He killed them all,” the sorceress said, and she watched Elinore as she said it.

  “They came to save him, and he slew them?”

  “He did.”

  “And if he put salt in the pie instead of sugar, then one of the other women would have won the contest and he could have been free, yes?”

  “Yes, but he still cannot bear to lose, not at anything, and definitely not to a woman.”

  Elinore folded her hands along the soft edge of the cloak she had woven and dyed. “I think I could best him at cooking, because our head cook praises me. Never in front of my parents, for they would not understand that her approval meant more to me than theirs.”

  “Your head cook is a servant,” the prince said, “and she has to tell you that you are good at something.”

  “So you will take the challenge?” the sorceress asked.

  “No, I will not,” Elinore said.

  The prince stared at her. “What?”

  “I have seen and talked to you and I do not think your freedom is worth mine.”

  “But I am Prince True, heir to the kingdom.”

  “You are Prince True, but I think your brother, or his children, would find a way to deny you the throne. They could say your years with the sorceress had driven you mad and lock you up in a tower.”

  “They would not dare!”

  “Sorceress, you said there was a secret way out.”

  “I did, but what will you do, Elinore the Younger, by yourself, in the wide world?”

  “I can sew and cook, and garden. I know my herbs and their uses.”

  “So does every peasant woman,” the prince said.

  “I bake the finest pies in our lands.”

  “I bake a finer pie than you, girl.”

  “I propose a different challenge,” the sorceress said.

  “I propose that the two of you bake me a pie. If Elinore makes the best pie, then I will give her a dowry so she may set herself up in business, or wed a baker, or a weaver. If the prince is best, then Elinore may leave empty-handed, but she may go with my blessing.”

  “And what do I win?” the prince asked.

  “A lesson in humility, I hope.”

  The kitchen was large and airy, and made Elinore wish she could give Cook such a kitchen back home. The moment she thought “home,” her chest tightened, and her throat closed around something hard and hurtful. She would never see home again, unless she won the prince his freedom and went back to be queen. But Elinore had been to court, though only once, with the other fifteen-year-old noble daughters. She had been introduced to the king and his queen. She had danced with their sons, tried to talk to their daughters. She didn’t think they would so easily give up their throne to a long lost brother and uncle.

  She would not miss her father, but would miss her mother, and some of the servants, and she did have a friend or two, that it would matter to her if she never once spoke to them again.

  She thought that she and the prince were the only ones in the kitchen, until something she could not see picked up an apron and offered it to her. She was startled for a moment, but then allowed the invisible hands to help her cover her dress and tie the bow in the back. She had laid her cloak on a bench to the side of the room out of the way of flour and ingredients.

  She asked the air for a ribbon to tie back her hair and one floated to her. Things she could not see bound her hair back from her face.

  Prince True in his own apron busied himself around the kitchen. His hands were strong and sure of themselves. He rolled his dough with sure, hard strokes, but not too hard. If you pressed too hard, you tore the dough.

  Elinore realized she was spending too much time watching the prince, and not enough doing her own cooking. She formed her own dough, and began to roll it out carefully on her section of floured counter. She was not as quick as the prince, but she was careful, and thoughtful. There was no need to rush, because there was no time limit. Best to do it right, if there was no need to hurry.

  Elinore thought about having enough money of her own to start a business, buy her own house. It was a frightening idea. It was an idea so new that her hands began to shake as she rolled out her dough.

  “Why are you afraid, girl?” the prince asked.

  Elinore folded her hands back against the apron. “I am not afraid, your highness; I am excited.”

  He stood a little taller. “Are you having second thoughts about trying to rescue me?”

  “I was thinking that your rescue was the only way I could ever see my family and friends again.”

  He smiled, and it was such an arrogant look that Elinore knew there was no going back. There would be no living with this man, even if his brother didn’t execute them both.

  “You will not best me at cooking, girl. I have mastered it as I have mastered everything I have ever tried to do in my life.”

  She nodded. “As you say, Prince True, you are master of many things, but you are not mistress.”

  He frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means cook your pie, and I will cook mine, and we will see.” It was high summer, so there were berries on the table, in glazed bowls of many colors. Elinore tasted the berries to make certain they were as ripe as they appeared, because she had learned when making pies and jellies that a pretty fruit was not always the sweetest.

  The prince was done long before Elinore. But she let nothing rush her, not even his taunts. For he did taunt, like all bullies. She ignored him, and as she shaped her top crust so that the edges formed that perfect waved edge that Cook had been teaching her since she was old enough to reach the counter on a stool, she was pleased. She knew she had done her best. She cut out a design of the crescent moon in the center, for it represented the maiden form of the Goddess, and Elinore was still a maiden in every sense. She prayed as she baked, for the other meaning for maiden, virgin, was a woman whole and of herself. A woman who depended on no one. She wished to be such a woman.

  They carried their pies to a banquet hall, as rich and marbled as the throne room had been. The king himself had no room so fine. The sorceress was at the table, but so were the giant, and the ogre, and the sphinx. Elinore coul
d not hide her surprise.

  The giant said, “You did not expect to see the monsters sitting down to the table, did you, Elinore the Brave?”

  “I did not, kind giant, and I am still Elinore the Younger.”

  “No,” said the ogre. “Elinore the Brave, we name you, and a name given by the monsters you defeat is a telling name.”

  “Yes,” said the sphinx, who crouched closest to the sorceress, “I approve of such a name.”

  “As do I,” said the sorceress.

  “You have not given me such a name,” the prince said.

  “No,” she said, “we have not.”

  He scowled, and put his pie before her with a little more force than needed. The edge of the crust broke, and fell upon the table.

  Elinore placed her perfectly browned and unbroken pie before the sorceress.

  “Elinore the Brave is the winner,” she said.

  “But you have not tasted the pies,” the prince said.

  “But hers is the prettiest, and appearances count.”

  “Taste them,” he ordered.

  She sighed. “It has been over fifty years, and though a good cook you have become, you have learned little else.” Everyone took a fork and tasted the pies. The vote was unanimous; Elinore’s pie was the sweetest.

  “No,” said the prince. “I did not lose.”

  “You did, but you lost to someone who was not bidding for your freedom.”

  “Will you give me enough money to set up a shop of my own?” Elinore asked.

  “A fine shop, but what shall you sell?”

  “I think I will bake.”

  The sorceress conjured a bag from thin air and the weight of it almost made Elinore drop the bag. “Our aunt the sphinx will show you the way out, Elinore the Brave.”

  “But she has beaten me. She will be my queen, and I will be free.”

  “She does not wish to be your queen,” the sorceress said.

  He looked at Elinore, and he was finally perplexed. “How can you not want to be my queen?”

  “You are not kind enough to marry.”

  “Kind? A man is not kind. A man is strong.”

  “It was gentleness that made the crust of that pie. It was too much strength that broke its crust. I want a husband who can bake a pie without breaking it in anger.”

  “That makes no sense, girl.”

  “My name is Elinore the Younger, named Elinore the Brave by a giant, and an ogre, and a sphinx.”

  “Free me, Elinore.” A look passed his face, a look of pain at last. “Please, let me go.”

  She looked at him, studied his fine blue eyes. She looked at the sorceress. “I have won the contest fairly, have I not?”

  “You have; do you want him to husband now?”

  “No, but could he be freed, and tell the story of how I died bravely in the attempt?”

  “Why would you free him, Elinore the Brave?”

  “Because he said ‘please.’ ”

  The sorceress seemed to think about that, and then nodded. “Very well, it will be done.”

  And it was; the prince rode free, and told a heart-wrenching story of how Elinore was madly in love with him, but died tragically before he could bring her out as his queen. He made himself save her from the giant, the ogre, and the sphinx, but even in his version, she was Elinore the Brave.

  A few months after his triumphant return, when the balls and banquets that his brother threw were done, the prince fell ill. He died soon after, of a stomach complaint. On his deathbed he kept repeating, “It was in the pie. It was in the pie.” Funny, the things people rave about when they know they’ve been poisoned.

  Elinore passed herself off as the bastard daughter of a noble. He had given her enough money to set herself up in business, but wanted no more of her. She bought into a family business of bakers where the elderly couple, though having raised a large brood, had none who wanted to be bakers. Elinore learned the business from them, and they found a child who loved their business as much as they did. In the years to come Elinore would meet and marry a baker. Her pies were the talk of the kingdom, but if anyone ever thought she looked like the dead Elinore, well, she was the bastard daughter of a noble. People winked and nodded, and believed.

  Elinore’s husband was as gentle and firm as he needed to be with his dough, and his family. He could never equal Elinore’s pies, but she could never quite get the bread to crust as he could. But they didn’t see that as a bad thing, for they understood that life wasn’t about being the best; it was about being happy. And at that Elinore, her husband, and their children were very good, indeed.

  The Shadow of Mist

  An Otherworld Novella

  YASMINE GALENORN

  An áit a bhuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú.

  Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.

  — CELTIC SAYING

  The sea gives and the sea takes away.

  —GRANDFATHERTO FIONA CONNEELY

  FROM

  THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH

  1

  I stared out over the water as the call of the waves sang to me. They raced in my blood, enticing me to shed my humanity and dive deep, to return to the Mother’s core. The Ocean Mother’s presence was strong here, and she was a part of me now, a part of my life like she’d never been on the distant shores of my old home. I’d lived long enough on the western coast of Washington State to realize that my old life was slowly receding into the past for good.

  Oh, I was a lot older than the one hundred and one years that had passed since I first set foot on Ellis Island, claiming the United States as my new home, but my past was retreating, and I wasn’t sorry to see the memories fade, like aging photographs. Over the intervening years, life had shifted and changed drastically, and so had I. But now… now I felt ready to settle in as my true self. To fully adopt this land as my home, this life as my fate.

  And even more, I was ready to step out of the closet and tell my neighbors, my employer, and the world who I really was. For the first time in my life since I fled under the cover of night to the waiting boat, I was ready to step out and say, I’m Siobhan Morgan, and I’m a selkie, a wereseal if you will. I’m part of the Supe Community and I’m not going to hide anymore.

  Life in this country had treated me well. Oh, there had been setbacks and downfalls, but now… I patted the rounded curve of my belly, which up until the last few months had always been flat and toned. Now there was life within me, and I had everything I ever wanted.

  “Little daughter,” I whispered to the presence within. “I’ve waited a long, long time for you. I just wish I could bring you into a world that wasn’t so hostile and angry.”

  As if in reply, a faint kick from a tiny foot answered back. Or was it a flipper? Mitch and I would have to talk to the midwife before long to get clear on everything that would happen to me—and the child—during the birthing. I knew I would have her in the water, with the mothers of the Pod surrounding me. But beyond that, I wasn’t sure. Mitch and I had tried for so long to get pregnant, our hopes dashed time and again. And now, it was really happening, thanks to the elfin med ics that my friends—the D’Artigo sisters—had hooked me up with.

  As I blinked against the gray clouds that were threatening a downpour during the autumn afternoon, my cell phone rang. I flipped it open, expecting to hear Mitch’s voice—he was the only one who knew where I was right now—but to my surprise, a deeper voice answered.

  “Siobhan? Siobhan Morgan?”

  Crap. I let out a cry and dropped the phone, staring at the glowing screen. Should I pick it up again? Could I be wrong? Could it be someone else? Praying I’d made a mistake, I cautiously retrieved the phone from the ground and slowly raised it to my ear.

  “Who’s speaking, please?”

  “You know damned well who I am. Don’t play dumb.” His accent had faded, as had my own, but it was the same rough tone I’d run away from all those years ago.

  “Terry? Is th
at you?”

  “Yeah, it’s Terrance. And before you hang up—because I know you’re thinking about it—let me leave you with this thought: I’ve been tracking you down, girl. For a hundred years, I’ve searched for you. And now that I’ve found you, I’m going to make sure you live up to your end of the bargain.”

  I caught my breath. It couldn’t be him. Not after a hundred years. I’d crossed the ocean to get away from him, and then crossed the continent. I’d run so far, so fast, leaving everything behind, that I could barely remember the days before I landed in New York.

  What the hell was I going to do?>

  “It wasn’t my bargain, Terry. I didn’t make the arrangements, and I didn’t agree to them. In fact, if you’ll recall, I wanted you prosecuted by the Tribunal. But so much for justice. I claim my freedom. I claim injury by what you did to me that night. So you might as well turn around and go back home to Cobh, because I’ll never set foot on her shores again.”

  “Babe, I left Ireland to find you, and I swore I’d make it happen, no matter how long it took. I’ve been home a few times, but I’ve spent most of the years combing this land. And now I know where you are. You can dance around the issue all you like, but the facts are simple. Even though you ran away and signed up with another Pod, your parents struck a contract with my parents, and you’re honor bound to fulfill it. Siobhan Morgan, you’re going to marry me. You belong to me, and I’m coming to get you. So resign yourself to your fate, because you’ll not get away from me this time. I’ll track you down no matter where you go.”

  With that, the line went dead. I pressed my knuckles to my lips. I’d spent the past century moving from place to place, lying about who I was, darting glances over my shoulder to make sure Terry hadn’t followed me.

  After twenty-five years, I felt a glimmer of hope.