The two guards exchanged glances, communicating silently.
“Williamson,” Avery clasped a hand on the older guard’s shoulder. “I think we should do as the princess asks. She’s right. We’ll have followed orders. Our oath holds true. And we’re not the only guards out here anymore, especially not since all the trouble started with the unicorns and the hunt for Rumpelstiltskin has been on. There are patrols constantly. We can make them aware that they need to be especially vigilant while Her Highness is in there. Nothing will come after the princess.”
My heart leapt, not having expected to find myself an ally in either of the guards. But I would happily accept the help Avery was providing without complaint. My eyes turned back to Williamson. I knew, as the senior guard, the decision was ultimately his. So I held my breath, waiting for his verdict.
Williamson sighed, knowing when he was beaten. Between myself and Avery, his motivation to agree far outweighed his inclination to say no. “Fine,” he grumbled. Just because he’d agreed didn’t necessarily mean he was happy about it.
I squealed and darted forward to give him a hug. This was the happiest I’d felt in two days. Finally, I’d get some open air. Finally, it would just be me, my thoughts, and the sky up above.
I squeezed the disgruntled old guard around the middle, rocking from side to side in my glee. “Oh, thank you, Williamson. Thank you so much.”
He stiffened at my touch, not used to open shows of affection from royalty. Pretty sure he’d always thought of us as untouchable up until now. In response to my embrace, all he could bring himself to do was to give me a few awkward pats on the back in return. “You’re um… You are very welcome, Your Highness.” I pulled back and he coughed, awkward for a moment longer before he regained his composure and he gave me a grim smile. “Please do not make me regret the decision.”
“You won’t,” I said quickly, waving an arm hastily and shaking my head. “I just need a little bit of time to sort out some thoughts. I won’t be long.”
I hoped not, anyway.
Leaving my guards behind with their full knowledge and consent for a change, for the first time in weeks, I set off into the meadows by myself and just walked, allowing my thoughts to wander. But though I walked in a straight line for the most part, my thoughts did not. They went around and around in circles with each step that I took, essentially arguing with myself.
I’d made a mistake with Jay.
Or had the mistake been getting involved with him in the first place?
I needed to apologize.
But had I done the wrong thing?
I hoped that Jay would take me back.
But should he? Would us being together be right?
That was really the question, wasn’t it? My heart clenched. I stopped, closing my eyes and concentrating. Luka was gone and, yesterday’s strange doubts aside, I did believe that he’d want me to be happy. I didn’t believe, as kind of a man as he had been while he’d been alive, that he would change so much in death that he’d wish for me to go the rest of my days unloved by any other man.
And if I was going to be with anyone, I thought he’d approve of my choice in Jay.
Jay had always been very respectful of my choice in marrying Luka and never made things uncomfortable by making Luka feel like he had designs on his wife. When Luka had been alive, the two of them had gotten along well when they’d met.
Luka had liked Jay. And known that he was a good man.
A warm breeze washed over my face, and I tilted my chin up into it, feeling like it was Luka’s blessing.
I was going to be with Jay. And my past love would not be forgotten. I’d make sure that, as loved by Jay and myself as Fae was, that she knew her father. I would tell her stories about him and keep his memory alive.
I stopped, suddenly realizing that I was out of breath. I’d only given birth a couple of weeks ago and my fitness level wasn’t where it had been before I’d had Fae.
When I looked up, at last at peace with my decision, my surroundings had changed. I was no longer in the wide-open air of the meadows. At some point in my wanderings, I’d crossed into the thicker woods. Deeper in the forest than I had ever gone before.
And it was getting darker, too.
I shielded my eyes as I looked up toward the sun. It was far lower in the sky than it had been when I began my trek. And the sky was a burnt orange color that could only mean that the sun was setting. The trees obscured my vision, though, and I wasn’t sure exactly how low it was.
Damn. My insides squirmed with guilt. I had promised Williamson that I wouldn’t be long. It had to have been hours by now and the older guard was probably in a tizzy. I needed to head back.
I turned on my heel. The sun set in the west—the castle was back east in the exact opposite direction. And that was where I needed to go now.
With my head a bit clearer, I started the trek once more. It was amazing how much longer the journey felt now that I wasn’t distracted. I noticed every time my ankle almost turned on a small rock, every little branch that snatched at my clothing.
Another breeze blew past and I shivered, clutching my arms and looking around. As it got darker, the temperatures began to dip. I really needed to get back home.
I kept walking forward, trying to aim for a straight line back, but now the sun was down, and with it had gone any sense of direction that I had.
I took another step and felt something tighten around my ankle. Looking down, I saw the culprit.
My leg was caught in a trap.
Bending down to examine it, for the first time, a spike of fear shot through me. This wasn’t like the traps we’d found Epiphany in a couple of weeks ago. My leg wasn’t maimed from being caught. But that didn’t make me feel that much better. I might not have been harmed physically, but I tugged at the trap experimentally and then a little bit more insistently, and I couldn’t see how I would get out of this either.
“Help,” I croaked. My throat was dry from hours of disuse and not speaking to anyone. I cleared it and tried again, shouting this time. “Help!” I said loudly, calling into the darkness. “I’m trapped!”
But there was no one nearby. I kept on shouting—I knew Williamson and his vigilance. A search party would be coming soon, and I needed them to find me. They’d have dogs involved in the search, but shouting was sure to be a help to them in locating their missing princess.
I heard a rustling and turned. They’d found me already. That was nothing short of a miracle.
But the moon’s light caught on golden eyes and a golden horn protruding through the bushes.
Zacarina.
“We heard your cries of distress and came.” She walked closer, Epiphany trailing behind her.
“Wait!” I cried. I threw my hand out. Her hooves paused in their steps. My eyes flicked uneasily over the forest floor.
“Be careful,” I warned. “I don’t know if there are other traps here. I’d hate for either of you to get stuck the way that I am.”
Zacarina nodded, inspecting the ground beneath her with each step carefully. “Follow exactly where I step, young one,” she instructed her daughter.
I held my breath, and at last they reached me.
The great equine creature leaned forward to take a look at the trap that I’d gotten myself caught in.
She looked up at me, somber. “I do not think we can free you. But you will not be alone tonight.”
Somehow sensing her call, unicorns began to descend from the heavens, landing beside me. Zacarina and Epiphany stood behind me and the others came up along my sides. They were so warm. My muscles, tense from the cold, began to relax.
“It’s all right, young one. I told you I would be there when you had need of me. We will watch over you tonight.”
6
10th May
“Eliana? Eliana!”
I snapped awake, hearing voices shouting my name. I rubbed at my eyes. It was still dark outside.
I listened closer, strain
ing my ears. But maybe I had only imagined that I’d heard those voices. Maybe they had been a dream that lingered into my waking. Because now all I heard were the sounds of the forest around me. The rustling leaves, the wind through the trees, and crickets chirping in the distance. The heartbeat of the unicorn at my back.
I could barely see my hand in front of my face. But I could still feel the warmth of the unicorns’ bodies surrounding mine. They were warm against me, keeping the cold from me, but it didn’t change that the way I’d been sleeping was hardly ideal. My muscles were cramped and my foot was…
Experimentally, I twisted and turned my ankle and sighed. Yep. My foot was still caught in the trap that I knew, instinctively, had been meant for the unicorns, and not for human prey.
I was lucky, if you could call it that. Lucky that I hadn’t been injured seriously. The only injury I was likely to have sustained was, at most, a turned ankle. Lucky that the unicorns had come to answer my cries for help—even if I hadn’t realized that I’d been calling them. I’d continued calling for help aloud for a while, but eventually, exhausted, I’d drifted off.
It had to be after midnight at this point.
Poor Williamson. I rubbed my tired eyes and leaned my head back against the unicorn, sighing, looking up toward the sky. I really had meant to keep my promise to him. But someone—and I suspected one monstrous imp in particular—had intervened in those well-laid plans that I had made with the best of intentions and purest of will.
And Williamson was nothing—nothing—compared with my mother. I was sure that Fae was safe with her, but knowing that I was missing, just out in the wilds somewhere, and hadn’t returned home? It had to be driving her mad, especially knowing that I wasn’t just missing. I was missing while Rumpelstiltskin was at large. While Rumpelstiltskin was not only at large, but acting in the kingdom with malicious intent.
I sighed again and looked down at my captive ankle. And here was the evidence of that malicious intent right before my very eyes, with the moonlight shining down upon it.
“Eliana!”
My head turned toward the cry. All right, that was not the sounds of the forest and it definitely wasn’t a dream. I’d know that voice anywhere, no matter how much distance I had ever tried and failed to put between us. That voice was Jay.
“Your Highness! Are you near?”
“Are you out there?”
And that was Williamson and Avery. Bless those unrelenting guards’ hearts.
“I’m here!” I shouted.
The unicorn at my back started at the cry and scrambled to its feet. Not Zacarina. Nor was it Epiphany. A steady number of unicorns had been rotating in and out throughout the night as it seemed like they’d decided, through a conversation I was not privy to, that they would take turns keeping me warm and then taking to the skies for… well, whatever it was unicorns did when they flew around. Who was I to keep them from that?
It was interesting, the way that they communicated, though. It seemed different from human speech. For humans to have privacy, we had to sequester ourselves behind closed doors and make sure that there was no one within hearing distance in order to have that privacy. Unicorns, it seemed, could communicate mind to mind with only those of their choosing, or they could broadcast a wider net—say, to cry for help the way that the unicorns trapped in the river had done.
I eased onto the side of my hip and winced, hissing through my teeth. It had gone numb from the weight being on it throughout the night, but I stood anyway. It hurt as feeling assaulted the previously numb limb and blood began flowing throughout my extremities again.
“Eliana?”
I turned to the left. His voice was more distant than it had been the last time, but I was sure that was where it was coming from. “Jay?” I called back, voice hopeful.
I didn’t think my voice was loud enough for Jay to hear me. It was as though the forest was a carpet-coated room. It seemed to swallow up the sound of my voice like spilled water soaking into cloth.
But despite that, as though disturbed by my voice, the unicorns all suddenly jolted to their feet, joining the one that I’d been leaning against in standing. I eyed them all carefully and spoke aloud, taking no chances that any of them would not be able to hear me if I didn’t project my mind speech in exactly the right way.
“Are all of you… all right?” I asked cautiously.
That was it. That was all I said. “Are all of you all right?” But as though I’d mortally offended them, every single, solitary unicorn took flight toward the trees, raining leaves down upon me and lighting a path toward the sky and the moon that hung in it without ever looking back at me.
And leaving me alone, trapped and with no clue as to what I had done wrong.
I sank back down to my knees, overwhelmed. The unicorns had left me. My guards were close, but couldn’t hear my cries for help. And Jay was with them. Jay. Whom I had pushed away. Maybe I was destined to be alone. Maybe I deserved to be trapped in this forest. I’d just sink into the ground and over time I’d dissolve into the earth. At least, I’d make myself useful that way. I would make myself into fertilizer and give something back to someone.
Aaaaand that was probably enough self-pity for the night. Yup, I’d filled my quota up, all right.
I shivered and rubbed my arms, trying to create some friction. Without the unicorns surrounding me, it was awfully cold out here.
There had to be a way out of this. I just wasn’t seeing it yet.
I stood back up. Okay, the first and easiest option was that help was near. I’d heard the voices, and even if they did seem to be getting further away rather than closer, they were out there. That was the plan. And if I couldn’t make enough noise to guide them to me, well, I would cross that bridge when I got to it and make a new plan after that.
So I started shouting. And shouting and shouting and shouting. Sometimes I thought that I heard their voices shouting in reply. Sometimes I thought that only silence answered me. But I kept on yelling. I kept on trying.
But I wasn’t inhuman. My voice was hoarse from the stressful night and the more I used it, the more I shouted, the softer it seemed to get.
Just when I thought my voice was gone—it was no more than a whisper by now—just when I was about to give up hope, I saw what I thought was the most glorious sight that I’d ever seen in my entire life:
It was Zacarina, gliding through the air between the trees.
And on her back, with his face as white as a sheet, gripping fistfuls of her mane between his hands… was Jay.
My heart leaped.
In their wake was the rest of the unicorn flock. Most did not have riders on their backs, but I spotted two men on the backs of one of them: Williamson and Avery. There had to be a larger search party out there, but this was all I needed. The men who guarded me so fiercely and the unicorns that I connected with on such a deep level.
I closed my eyes and offered a prayer up to the heavens, thanking whatever gods were listening. I didn’t know if I deserved to be rescued. But regardless of that, I was thankful that they’d decided to do it.
I wanted to go home. Home to my mother and father. Home to my daughter.
And if I hadn’t already made up my mind about where I stood on the Jay situation, this would have been the most telling detail of all: I ached to be in his arms. I wanted to be home, and I wanted his arms around me. That was where I wanted to be.
“Eliana,” Jay called.
Zacarina landed gracefully and Jay scrambled off of her back and over to me. Williamson and Avery followed suit, but they kept their distance while Jay checked me over with anxious hands, searching for any injury.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“A little banged up, but no worse for wear,” I said, smiling tremulously. There was a suspicious little lump of emotion clogging my throat. “Jay, are you—”
Jay interrupted my question when he caught sight of the trap around my ankle. “Damn. No wonder you were late.”
He crouched to get a better look at it, then looked up at me. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I mean, I’m not comfortable, but… you’re here now,” I said, dazed with relief. Overjoyed that he was here—it was like a dream. Who needed knights in shining armor or battle-ready princes when there was Jay coming to the rescue? Jay, who would never let me down. “I’m great.” That was the gods’-honest truth, too.
He blinked, then shook his head as if he was trying to shake water out of his ear because he couldn’t believe, based on the last time we’d spoken, that he’d actually heard me correctly. So I guessed that was why he chose not to respond to it.
“We’re gonna get you out of this, Lia. I just… thank the gods that you’re all right.”
He walked away for a moment to confer with Avery and Williamson. The elder guard slipped a satchel over his shoulder and they all headed my way. Jay hovered awkwardly in the background, watching as the guards got to work. It was tough to tear my eyes away from him, but I tore them, nonetheless, and focused my attention on the guards who planned to free me.
“I never thought I’d be so glad to see you,” I told the guards.
“The feeling is mutual, Your Highness,” Avery responded.
Williamson was tightlipped as he bent to my ankle and opened the satchel to reveal the tools that were inside and set to work. The tools made little clinking sounds as he set at them.
Clink. Clink.
“Williamson?”
A pause. Then, his work resumed, but he kept a stubborn silence, not saying anything. Clink. Clink.
“I am sorry, Williamson. I really wanted to be on time, I promise you.”
He sighed. “I know you did, Your Highness. And I promise you that I forgive you. But I’m not sure that the queen will forgive me and Avery.”
Eliana: Remembering Rumpelstiltskin (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 5) Page 21