by Lucy Tempest
“Have you tried anything here that you liked?”
I shook my head, not wanting to tell him I’d barely eaten anything since my stepfamily had caught me. “I’m not familiar with Winter cuisine.”
“It’s the same as other lands, just with slightly different ingredients, soups, rice, vegetables, meat dishes—uh—can you even eat meat?” He cringed, the furthest his cheek muscles had moved so far. “I can’t remember if dryads eat animals or not. I know there are some carnivorous trees.”
Ignoring the prospect of carnivorous plants, I rushed to end his embarrassment. “And I’m definitely one.”
“Great.” He seemed to deflate in relief as his hand curled over mine, sending a thrill zinging through me as he turned the mirror towards him. “Chef Ignaty.”
A burly man with short auburn hair and a bushy red beard appeared in the reflection, looking down into something. Judging by the sweat beading on Ignaty’s reddening face, Yulian must have appeared to him in a boiling pot.
“Your Majesty.” His voice was as gruff as his appearance.
“Can you have someone deliver a sampler of entrees to my personal quarters?”
“Right away, Sire. Will you not be attending dinner later?”
“I might make it in time for dessert. If you see Simeon, tell him to sit at the head of the table in my place.”
“He won’t like that, but I will.”
“Thank you, Ignaty.”
As the image of the chef faded, I found myself blinking away my bafflement. Not at the display of communicative magic, but at this king thanking his own servant.
I’d already known from his stories about his aunt that he’d been friendly with castle staff, much to Isolda’s dismay, and to his detriment. But it was just too jarring to witness, when I’d lived the exact opposite for over a decade.
That brought me back to Aneira never even considering that I had feelings. Her mother’s dark enchantments silencing my struggle and dulling my sensations had maintained that charade for her daughters, that I was as wooden as my status as a tree nymph implied.
Dolora and Isolda would have been great friends—if Dolora had managed a highborn enough masquerade to fool a queen into socializing with her. They could have been awful and abusive to staff together over tea, then smashing dishes and staining carpets for dessert, just to give some poor, lesser fairies more pointless work.
He settled back on his elbows, looking actually relaxed, facing me. “Continue with your story.”
“Hmm? Oh, right. King Gordias—we’ll call him that—invited the god over for dinner, after hearing stories of the deity giving out favors to those he judged to be good people. The king made sure to give the best impression, so by the end of the visit, the god asked what he desired in return for his hospitality. Gordias said he wanted the power to change all he touched into gold.”
The grimace was back on Yulian’s tight face. The corners of his mouth seemed about to crack like alabaster. “All he touches? Even food?”
“I was getting to that—what’s with the face?”
“Just remembered trying to eat fake fruit when I was a child, and my teeth hurt.”
I goggled at him. “Fake fruit?”
“You know, those ornamental things you have in colorful bowls when hosting guests, like crystal grapes with golden leaves.”
“My unsavory experience was with artisanal soap. Looks and smells very deceptive, far better than the real thing.”
“Better to bite soap than scrape your teeth on a golden apple.”
Another memory of my mother and I beneath our tree one afternoon resurfaced. Her stomach had been flat and her face was ashen in the aftermath of another miscarriage. But despite her weakened state and red-rimmed eyes, she hadn’t put off our weekly time together. Autumn had been coming to a close on that day off from school, where we’d just begun our fractured education of Ericura’s history, stories in the North always contradicting with her tales from the South. I remembered being as invested in her tales as Yulian was in mine now.
I remembered one in particular now. “I know a story about golden apples!”
“Were they made by King Gordias?”
“No, they were from a different land, grown by a goddess. Tossing one into a council of other gods started a war millennia ago.”
His eyes widened. “I’ll remind you to tell me about that one later—after you finish what happened to the gold king.”
“Do I have to? It doesn’t end well.”
“You do, if you want to know about this—” He wiggled his fingers over his face and body. “It’s only fair.”
“Since when is anyone fair?” I said bitterly.
“I’m not ‘anyone,’ and neither are you.” He sat up, set his hand over mine and looked into my eyes. I shivered as I felt myself gravitating towards him. “Besides, that’s how we started talking, and kept talking—offering up equal amounts of information, without reserve and with equal candidness. I’d hate to change anything to our perfect recipe.”
The giddy feeling from earlier was back, because I could now see the impassioned humor on his face and in his voice, as well as feel it.
Someone knocked on the door, then the chef I’d glimpsed in the mirror entered with two trays. “Your food, Your Majesty.”
“Place it in there, please.” Yulian pointed towards the other end of the suite.
The chef walked there at once.
Yulian got up, hand held down for me. “As much as I hate interrupting our cozy tête-à-tête, I’d rather my bed not smell like borscht.”
“Borscht?” I repeated, unsure if I’d heard him correctly.
“You’ll see.”
He led me beyond the fireplace, where a dining table sat on an elevated floor, across from a half-circle, enclosed balcony with high windows displaying the moonlit, cloudy sky and the tops of silver trees in the distance. A piano was tucked into a corner by a harpsichord and a giant music box. Right in the middle of the room, a claw-foot, pale-green sofa sprawled before a low, rectangular table spread with papers and books. And propped up against the wall before it was the full-length mirror he’d talked about.
I avoided looking in it as we headed for the dining table.
The dishes were laid out around the table, reminding me of the one that used to be in my parents’ room, back when they shared a bed, before my mother grew too ill.
This must have been for Winter monarchs and their spouses, and sometimes children and grandchildren, to have an intimate breakfast together. I tried to imagine the man in the painting we’d passed, having a meal with a young Yulian, his parents and his aunt, the pale, silvery morning light pouring through the balcony windows. An intimate setting I’d longed for, and what I thought I’d be getting when my father remarried and told me I would be getting two new sisters, and possibly more siblings with his new wife.
All I’d gotten had been a nightmare that wouldn’t end.
With a flick of his wrist, a brief gust of cold wind pushed a chair out for me. I sat at once, surveying the bowls and plates before me, before letting out a surprised squeak when another gust pushed my chair in.
“Is that all you can do?” I teased as he sat across from me.
“I can cause an indoor blizzard, if you would like a more impressive demonstration. But while borscht can be served cold, I’d rather you try it hot first.” He picked up a gold soup spoon and wiggled it in my direction. “Now, talk with your mouth full and tell me how the Gold King ate.”
“A king telling me to have bad table manners.” I giggled. “I’ve seen it all now.”
His lips tugged, the smile seeming to be coming easier every time he tried it. “I would hope not. There’s still so much I’d like to show you and hear your sardonic opinion on.”
My face grew very warm and the twisty feeling in my gut returned, another sensation that used to be reserved for discomfort, now fueled by bashfulness and excitement.
To silence the butterflies in my
stomach, I shoved a spoonful of the red soup into my mouth, letting its warmth overtake my senses. I moaned in pleasure as a dozen flavors—so many vegetables, hearty beef stock, and the tang of lemon and vinegar—exploded on my tongue.
The hunger that suddenly gnawed at me made me slurp more noisily, and I continued my story with my mouth full as ordered. “So—anything the king touched turned to gold—even food, water, and wine.”
“I can’t decide which would be worse, solid-gold food, or liquid gold.” He nudged a plate with pie slices towards me. Their cross-section was layered with stuffing, salmon, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, onions and rice, a combination I’d never seen within a pie crust.
“Can we digest gold?” I asked, since I really didn’t know what fairies were capable of.
Not waiting for his answer, I dug into the pie, already beginning to feel full, but somehow still ravenous. After years of eating leftovers after long hours of hard work, my worn-out body was not going to let this chance slip by.
“Unless you are a satyr, doubtful.” He stopped chewing, side-eyeing me with another grimace. “I shouldn’t have brought up satyrs. I know them to be a bane to many nymphs.”
“In my personal experience, the only satyr I knew was a very nice man. My bane is trolls.”
He pouted thoughtfully. “Trolls. Yet another story for another meal.”
“How long do you plan to keep me talking?” I mumbled around another mouthful.
“A very, very long time.”
I could have sworn my heart pirouetted in my chest. “You either really like the sound of my voice, or you want an excuse for me to visit a lot.”
“Visiting a lot sounds tiring. Staying here would be easier.”
Feeling a blush creep up to the tips of my ears, and finding nothing to answer his suggestion, I took refuge in surveying the selection of food.
There were dumplings, more colorful soups, samplers of different meat dishes, and a bowl of a layered ‘salad’ with potatoes, carrots, and beets, topped with what appeared to be salted herring.
“You sure love your root vegetables here, and your fish. I can’t remember the last time I had fish. What are those?” I pointed to a plate with what appeared to be fried, flat dough.
He held my gaze, making me acknowledge that I was avoiding commenting on his invitation for me to stay. Then he drawled, “Pancakes.”
They smelled so good as I put a couple on my plate, along with one of everything, taking bites of each, sometimes simultaneously. No matter how inappropriate this was, he just smirked around his spoonful of soup.
It seemed that one of the things that made him “feel” was my impropriety, compared to every other person around him. Even improperness incarnate, like Keenan and my stepfamily must put on a civilized front with him. Everyone else didn’t discuss some things, or dare to put a toe beyond certain lines in the sand. This was what he wanted to do, loosen the noose of decorum to breathe a little. While I wanted to cut all the reins around my own neck.
“Anyway …” I sprayed food from my too-full mouth, and almost choked on embarrassment. His smile only widened as he waved for me to keep going. Forcing the mouthful down, I went on, “After the king’s whole world had been plated with gold, from the roses in his gardens to his furniture to his food, Gordias still felt his Golden Touch was a gift fit for a king. Then his daughter came to him complaining about how cold, hard, and lifeless everything around them had become, and he told her that what she considered a curse, would provide a dowry that would make her an empress. But she was inconsolable, and as he tried to comfort her …”
Yulian stiffened, staring at me expectantly. “Did he…?”
I winced as I nodded. “He turned her into a gold statue.”
He let out a long exhalation as if he’d been holding his breath. “Then what happened?”
“He prayed to the god that gave him the gift, told him that what had brought him so much joy had now become a horror, that he wanted his daughter back and this power gone. The god refused to undo the results of the king’s choices, and the king was consumed with grief until he died of thirst and hunger.”
“So—that’s the tragic end you were reluctant to reach.” His brows drew together thoughtfully as he cocked his head at me. “But usually stories have other endings, depending on who tells them. Does this one have another version?”
I nodded. “My mother said so—when I wouldn’t stop crying. She said that in another account, the god told the king to take his daughter to the shore, bathe himself in the seawater, let its salt cleanse him, then do the same to his daughter. The water stripped Gordias of his Golden Touch and his daughter of her golden prison, and the gold that left them is what turned the sands of all beaches yellow.”
“But you believe the first version.”
I gave an uncomfortable shrug. “In my experience, there are no happy endings.”
His gaze captured mine for a long moment before he said, “Just yesterday, I would have agreed with you.”
My heart again rattled me, at the way he was looking at me. At knowing that meeting me had changed his mind about the possibility of happy endings.
As I wondered if I’d ever breathe normally again, he went on, his words phrased like a joke, but sounding completely serious, “Any idea where that beach is so I can take a swim in that sea and wash away my curse? Or would I only freeze those waters?”
“Freeze a whole sea?”
Keeping eye contact with me, he removed one glove and reached out to tap his etched glass goblet with a fingertip. Frost covered the cup with rapid, crackling noises growing louder as he froze it and its contents. Then, a loud crack made me jerk, a fracture tearing through the goblet, showing me the frozen solid wine inside.
He sighed. “This is with a mere tap. I’d hate to think what would happen if my whole body was involved.”
I swallowed my half-chewed dumpling, remembering my dip into the frozen lake last night. “Did the lake freeze further when you were in it?”
“It was already an unlivable temperature, so there wasn’t much left for me to do. But your story seems to be from a culture like the Summer Court, with golden sand and warm beaches.”
I wanted to reach out and take his bare hand, uncaring how cold it actually was. I wanted to lift his distress, couldn’t bear for it to freeze over his emerging warmth and cheer again.
Unable to think beyond the need to comfort him, I did just that, laying my palm over his knuckles. It was like pressing my numb, calloused skin over hard, burning ice. He snatched his hand from underneath mine and left his seat, going over to the giant mirror.
Twisting his glove, his posture back to its earlier stiffness, he sounded closed off and serious as he said, “The Gold King—what was the moral of his story? Be careful what you wish for?”
I followed him, concern ratcheting. “Does there have to be a moral?”
“In most cases, there is.”
“Even here, in Faerie?”
“You talk as if you were rooted in the Folkshore.”
“That’s because I was. I just moved here,” I said, taking baby steps towards the truth as I joined him.
“That explains a couple of things.” He stopped playing with his glove and tucked it in the breast pocket of his coat, removing the other one with a heavy sigh.
I peered at the mirror as he frosted it over. “Is this all you wanted to show me, then?”
“Within the castle, yes.”
My brows rose with intrigue. “Is there something outside?”
“There is plenty. I could show you the whole realm.”
“I’d love that!”
His face suddenly opened up again at my eager jump, his lips lifting at one corner in a fond smile. “That would take days, though. Some tours would require overnight visits.”
He was again prodding me to say I’d stay. And while that delighted me, it ratcheted my cold-sweat anxiety. That he might actually want to turn a few days’ stay into a permanen
t one was grave enough. I might find myself committing to go from Dolora’s house to his castle.
But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t make any decisions until Etheline freed me. And until his enemies were caught.
As it stood, I had just one more night with him.
If I failed, and his life ended, mine would just as well end, too.
“We can see about that tomorrow night,” I finally murmured, the most neutral answer I could muster, tears threatening to escape my suddenly burning eyes. “Anything that could take less than two hours, though? A real tour of this castle, perhaps?”
His face closed off again, my only indication to his disappointment as he said, “As it will always be there, I can do that later. There are some things that aren’t as constant, though.”
“Such as?”
With something like excitement sparking in his pale gaze, he gestured for me to follow as he walked to the windowed balcony, and touched one ceiling-high pane with his bare hand.
Its clarity fogged up before it dissipated into a thick mist, letting the dry, biting chill in. Yulian then stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled a piercing note that made me wince.
A loud whoosh announced the arrival of his sleigh, which came to a hovering halt before us, tied to six levitating reindeer.
Putting on his glove again, he held out his hand to me, head bowing courteously.
At my hesitation he looked amused, but also almost hurt. “You’re safe with me.”
“I know that!” I objected instantly, heatedly. “I only never imagined flying in any way before …” Then I rushed to add, “… and I have to be home before midnight!”
“That’s why you ran in such a panic last night?” At my nod, he exhaled as if something that had been weighing him down lifted. Then still holding out his hand, he said, “We’ll be back long before then. I promise.”
Fascinated as I was by the flying sleigh, and though I did trust him with my life, my urge to turn tail and run, to seek safety, almost overwhelmed me.
But if we got out of here until I was due back at the house, I would also be keeping him out of harm’s way. Whoever was lurking about couldn’t attack him if he wasn’t here.