Disappointment flooded through me. “Thank you. Do you want help clearing up?”
“I think we have everything in hand. Most of it was done last night. It’s just the decorations that need taking down. It’s such a glorious day, why don’t you take Fae out for a walk around the castle grounds? Avery and Williamson can go with you.”
She waved her hand to dismiss me, so I did as she suggested and took Fae outside. We spent the afternoon in the shade of a tree, resting on the lawn.
As the sun began to lower in the sky, two unicorns soared down and landed on the grass next to us, beating their wings so hard my hair blew across my face. Zacharina and Epiphany.
I scrambled up to my knees. “How are the unicorns doing?” I asked, sitting up. Like last night, I felt a lurch of foreboding.
“We are doing very well.” Zacharina lowered herself, folding her legs beneath her. Epiphany frolicked around Fae in an attempt to make her giggle. “I saw you last night. I hope you don’t mind that we interrupted your romantic evening.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry that I’ve not been out to see you in a while. I’ve been busy with the party and other things.”
“Yes, I saw what other things have kept you away from us. Jay is a wonderful human. Although I cannot speak to him the way I speak to you, I feel that he understands the unicorns too in his own way.”
“I know. I just wish I could have figured it out sooner. I only saw him last night and I miss him already. Does that sound stupid?”
“Not at all, young one. It sounds like the first flush of love.”
I felt the blush rising to my cheeks. “I’ve seen Jay practically every day of my life. I didn’t even know it was possible to miss someone after having them there all the time.”
“You’d be surprised what is possible. You speak to us. Most humans would say that’s impossible, but here we are having a conversation.”
“In our heads,” I pointed out. Everything she said, I heard in my mind, rather than my ears.
“It doesn’t make it any less valid.”
Thinking about talking the way Zacharina and I talked made me think back to the strangers, and the foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach returned. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about them yet.
“I had a visit the other day from a group of strangers. They thought they might be my brothers and sisters.”
Zacharina tilted her head to the side, and I saw a look of interest on her face. “What made them think that?”
I absent-mindedly picked at the blades of grass between my fingers as I thought back to the conversation I’d had with them. “You know I’m adopted. They told me that they were adopted as newborns too. Their story is remarkably like mine. They were all left on the doorstep of a ruler of a kingdom by two women. They all had golden rings around their irises like I have. I always thought that had something to do with the unicorns.”
Zacharina shook her head. “While it’s true that some unicorns have gold-colored coats or golden horns and, yes, golden eyes, I’ve yet to see that in humans. You are the only one I’ve ever met with eyes quite like yours. I cannot deny the link between us, but your eyes are nothing to do with the unicorn world.”
“Do you think they mean I have magic?”
She seemed to contemplate this for a while. “I don’t know much about magic apart from the magic of unicorns. I know it exists. Ask yourself this. Before these people turned up claiming to be your siblings, had you met other people of magic?”
I thought back to the balls my mother and father had held in the past. “I’ve met some. We’ve played host to a number of dignitaries from Enchantia. They are full of magic.”
“And did they have the gold ring around their eyes?”
I shook my head. “Before the other day, I’d not seen anyone with the gold ring. Not even the mages of Enchantia.”
“But you do have magic. You can talk to us.”
I leaned forward and gave her a stroke behind her ear.
On the picnic blanket beside me, Fae waved her fat fists at Epiphany, although she was yet to giggle. She was still so young. Her eyes were just like her father’s. The same shade. There was no golden ring.
“They asked me to go with them,” I said, turning back to Zacharina. “They thought that a great disaster was about to befall The Vale as it had in their kingdoms. They were on a mission to change things. Put them back the way they used to be.”
Zacharina rose to her feet. “And you did not go with them despite sharing your magic and perhaps your blood?”
“There’s nothing I want to change,” I said, following suit. “My life is as perfect as it has ever been. I’ve had sadness in the past, but my future looks wonderful. My future is here in The Vale.”
She rubbed her head against my side. “In that case, I’m very happy for you, child.” In spite of her words, there was an edge to her tone—a hint of worry or doubt.
“Do you know if anything bad is going to happen?” I asked, stroking my fingers through her mane.
“I’m no seer. I only see what you do. If you want my advice, do what makes you happy.”
With that, she took to the sky, Epiphany following close behind.
I folded the picnic blanket, picked Fae up and placed her in her bassinet, and headed back to the house. Williamson and Avery, who had been watching me from a distance and enjoying their afternoon of sun, got up and followed.
“Is Jay not back yet?” I yawned, handing the bassinet to Judith as I entered the dining room.
Judith took Fae for her nighttime bath and to get her ready for bed. I was so tired I’d probably join them both after dinner. Judith was only to stay with Fae until I took over. I’d been lucky to have her in the sitting room of my suite for two nights, but tonight I was back to looking after Fae on my own, and I was already exhausted after last night’s ball.
“Not yet,” my mother answered, passing me a plate. “He sent word about an hour ago that he’d be a while yet. He told me to tell you to go to bed, and he’ll see you in the morning. He wanted to get all the stuff put away in the staviary when he gets back.”
I yawned again and waited for the servant to put food on my plate. I was almost too tired to eat it. However disappointed I was at not seeing Jay, I was craving my bed more.
Fae was already snuggled up in her bassinet when I entered my room after dinner. I thanked Judith, dismissing her for the evening, then took the bassinet into the bedroom where I placed it next to the bed. Picking Fae up, I snuggled us both into bed for her nightly feed. I sang a soft lullaby as her eyes began to droop, and before long, she was completely asleep.
I held her close, inhaling her baby smell, and kissed her head before putting her in her bassinet and covering her with a thin blanket. Closing my eyes, I fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Something woke me with a start. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. I couldn’t see anything, but even in the dark, I knew something was wrong. I strained my ears to hear Fae breathing. When I couldn’t, I felt down to her bassinet, but it was empty. In the turmoil of my mind, I tried to make sense of it. I’d been exhausted when I came to bed. Could I have given Fae to Judith again and not remembered? I scrambled out of bed, but before I got anywhere close to the door to the sitting room, I saw something in the moonlight that sent terror into my soul. There was someone there in my room. This person was much shorter than Judith. It was a small man. In his arms was a baby—my baby.
“Who are you?” I hissed in a panic, my heart rate accelerating.
“You know who I am,” he said in a creaky voice. “Come on now, Eliana. You’re an intelligent girl.”
I took a step closer, but he stepped back and waggled a finger at me.
“Ah, ah, ah, don’t come closer. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to the child, would you?”
Now that my eyes had adjusted to the faint light, I could see him more clearly. In his arms, Fae was beginning to stir.
“Just hand her back,
and I won’t call the guards.” My eyes flickered to the door. How had he managed to get past Avery and Williamson?
“I don’t think your guards will pose a threat to me.” He hopped up and down as if with excitement.
“What do you want?” My heart pounded. “I’ll give you anything. Gold, I have gold. My mother...”
He cut me off. “Your mother cheated me all those years ago, but now I’d say this little beauty is mine. It’s about time she paid off her debt. I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”
I jumped forward with the intention of snatching Fae from his arms, but he held his free arm out toward me. A blast of deep purple light shot out, hitting me and sending me flying back to the bed. When I tried to move, I found I couldn’t. His magic was holding me down.
“This has been fun, but I think I’ll be going now!” He did a little dance and gave an odd laugh that sent tremors up my spine.
“Rumpelstiltskin!” I screamed. “Rumpelstiltskin!” I screamed his name so hard that Williamson or Avery, whichever of them was currently on guard, must have heard me.
Rumpelstiltskin smiled a crooked smile as Fae began screaming in his arms.
“What is owed is owed. A debt is a debt, and a name is a name. It doesn’t matter how loudly you scream it, it will only ever be a name.”
He began to sing to himself or perhaps to soothe Fae, who was having none of it and was screaming louder than ever. I struggled against his magic, but he was too strong.
“You can’t take her!” I shouted. “Your rules. You can only take something of mine if you had given me something in return. You’ve given me nothing, and there is nothing I want from you. You have to give her back. You can’t expect me to settle my mother’s score. She promised you her firstborn. She’s never given birth.”
He looked like he was considering it, and, for a second, I hoped I might have gotten around his warped logic. But then, his grin widened. His body began to change shape, The grotesque, hunched figure shot upward and slimmed down until he was almost six feet tall. Bile rose in my throat as I recognized him. It was the man by the river who’d helped us free the unicorns from the net. He looked so much like Luka I almost cried out, but his face was twisted and mean.
“I gave you a knife, remember? You told me I could have anything in return.”
He swished his coat, and the magical bonds holding me evaporated. I stood up to rush over to him, but he’d gone, disappearing into thin air along with Fae. The room was completely silent.
A glow of purple light hurtled toward the window, smashing right through it and down into the front courtyard of the castle.
“No!” I screamed, falling to the floor.
Fae was gone, and so was Rumpelstiltskin.
4
16th May
“He’s taken Fae!” I screamed, running through the door to my suite. Avery stood to attention as I raced past him.
I didn’t know what I was doing or how to save her, so I ran through the palace to the front doors, screaming Rumpelstiltskin’s name to wake everyone up. The guard on the front door seemed surprised to see me rushing toward him, but he saw the urgency in my face and I didn’t need to yell at him to open the door. He just did it. Behind me, footsteps pounded. Turning, I saw Avery and a number of other guards who’d come to see what was going on.
At the top of the stairs, my mother’s face appeared. “Eliana. What is it?”
“Rumpelstiltskin. He’s got Fae.”
My mother’s face lost all color, but I didn’t have time to explain further. When the thick oak doors had been opened enough for me to slip through the gap, I ran out into the night, my nightdress flapping behind me. Up ahead, the purple light hovered, moving slowly toward the main gates.
“Stop it!” I shouted loudly enough for the guards at the gate to hear as I pelted toward them.
Some of the guards, who had been following behind, ran right past me, their swords aloft, chasing after the purple light. They probably didn’t even know what it was.
“Don’t hurt her,” I screamed. “It’s Fae.”
The guards stopped and turned around as my mother caught up to me. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
“That purple light is Rumpelstiltskin. He has Fae,” I explained between sobs.
My mother pulled herself to her full height and walked toward her guards with the swords.
“Put your weapons down. Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of that ball of magic.” She spoke with authority, and the guards did exactly as she asked. “It is imperative that no one harms it. That is my granddaughter. Do not let her be taken.”
The men sheathed their swords and began to walk slowly toward Rumpelstiltskin. Ahead in the distance, the two guards at the gates readied themselves for when the ball moved again. The line of guards increased as more ran out of the castle and began to edge their way around Rumpelstiltskin and Fae, circling around the purple light.
“What’s happening?” Jay said, appearing at my side. He had bits of straw in his hair which told me he’d fallen asleep in the staviary where he sometimes slept.
I pointed to the magic light.
“It’s Rumpelstiltskin. He says I owe him.” I heaved a breath and tried to tell him everything, but all I could think of was Fae. I couldn’t even see her, but I knew she was in that light somewhere. I could hear the faint squeals of her cries, even from this distance.
“I’ll kill him!” Jay muttered, striding forward and pulling a sword from one of the guard’s sheaths. Before I could stop him or explain that the light held Fae, he raced forward, the sword aloft and a war cry on his lips.
I screamed his name, but he didn’t hear me, so intent he was on hurting Rumpelstiltskin. Over the sound of Fae’s cries and Jay’s screams, I heard the sick laugh and the little tune of Rumpelstiltskin singing his own name to himself.
I could only watch in horror as the ball of light transformed back into Rumpelstiltskin. With relief, I saw Fae, unhurt but wailing, in his arms. The pair of them glowed with purple light, almost like ghosts of themselves. He danced down the driveway, twirling and taking dainty steps. He was dancing so slowly, and Jay was running at top speed, but they never seemed to get closer to each other. Rumpelstiltskin waved his free arm in the general direction of Jay, who was having a hard time pushing against the Rumpelstiltskin’s magic. The whole scene seemed odd, as if time itself was somehow warped, and above everything else, all I could hear were the cries of my daughter.
The pain in my heart reached a crescendo, and I pushed past the wall of guards and ran after Jay. I had to get to Fae before the unimaginable happened. Rumpelstiltskin was only holding her loosely with one hand as he danced in circles to his disgusting song with only one word.
Light still surrounded the pair of them, though as Rumpelstiltskin twirled, it peeled off him, floating into nothing. He was completely surrounded on all sides now. The guards formed a complete circle around us. On the outside of the circle, I could hear my mother shouting. No longer was she the voice of authority, but the voice of a grandmother about to lose her granddaughter. I was vaguely aware of my father’s voice joining the chorus of noise.
Inside the circle stood me, Jay, and Rumpelstiltskin with Fae. I ran forward, managing to catch up with Jay, but then I felt the force that was driving him back. It was invisible, but it was there. While I couldn’t push past it, Jay kept trying, his legs running swiftly but not moving him an inch.
I grabbed his hands. “Stop running. You can’t get closer.”
“I’m not running,” he wheezed. “He’s got control of my legs. He’s doing this.”
As the circle around us closed in, Rumpelstiltskin twirls got faster and faster, and along with them, Jay’s legs were moving so quickly they were nothing more than a blur. Sweat poured down his face, but his look of determination never faltered. As the guards closed in, there was a flash of light. The bonds holding Jay and me were broken, catapulting him forward so quickly that he went flying, t
ripped over the cobbles, and rolled right into the guards opposite, knocking some of them over. Rumpelstiltskin turned back into the purple ball of light and drifted upwards slowly before disappearing with a faint pop.
I stood stock-still in shock, unable to move, barely able to breathe. The night was now dark and eerily silent. Then, just like that, everyone began to shout at once. The guards were in chaos, though one of them was shouting orders to grab the palace horses and unicorns to start scouring the nearby countryside.
Behind me, my mother’s wails filled the air, but all I could think about was the silence between the noise. The silence that should have been filled with Fae’s cries.
She was gone. Completely gone. I already knew there was no point in scouring the nearby countryside. If Rumpelstiltskin had run away, then maybe we would have had hope, but he had evaporated using magic. We’d already spent so much time looking for him and found no trace. What chance did we have of finding him now?
The only other person silent in all of this was Jay. I looked to where he’d fallen to see him lying on the ground. Blood poured through one of his trouser legs, and the other leg was bent at an unnatural angle. It was all I needed to bring me out of my stupor.
“Call a medic!” I yelled, rushing toward Jay. His skin was ashen, and tears fell down his cheeks.
“I couldn’t stop him, Lia. I couldn’t stop him. I tried.”
“I know you did,” I soothed, wiping his forehead with my sleeve. It came away soaked. “You did your best.”
My parents were at my side in seconds. “Go get the court physician,” my mother barked at one of the guards. “Quick. He’s going into shock.” She turned to another. “Get blankets and supplies... and you—” she spoke to yet another “—get one of the horses and go into town as quickly as you can. The court physician won’t be enough. We need a team of doctors. Bring the best. Wake them up if you have to. Tell them they will be paid handsomely.”
Eliana: Remembering Rumpelstiltskin (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 5) Page 26