Princess of Midnight: A Retelling of Cinderella (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 6)

by Lucy Tempest

  Though I’d found enormous peace and completion when I’d been a tree, I doubted someone like her would find anything but torment in that state. Her black soul would remain trapped within wood, unable to connect with other elements, railing against her helplessness, a fitting end for someone who’d gone through life exploiting and objectifying others.

  “I still think we should chop her down, and make her into firewood.”

  Yulian murmured into my ear as he joined me, holding two crystal flutes of a sparkling cider.

  His neatly combed blond hair now shone rich gold, and he wore a navy suit with a fur-lined grey cloak. His eyes were as blue as the brightest, starlit parts of the twilight sky above us. He was so incredibly alive, so vital and beautiful, it sometimes hurt to look at him. A very welcome kind of pain.

  I took an offered glass. “That sounds like something Keenan would say.”

  “The more I thaw back to normal, the more you’ll find he and I got on for a reason.” He wagged his eyebrows at me, taking a sip of his drink. It would never stop delighting me how expressive and carefree he was becoming. “Are you all right? You left the ballroom so suddenly, I was about to check for a runaway pumpkin carriage.”

  I snorted, bumping him with my shoulder. “Just a little overwhelmed. I’m still having a hard time believing this is all real. Every morning this week, I wake up in my beautiful quarters here and have to remember where I am. Until I do, I suffocate with worry that I should have had their breakfast ready, and that Dolora would barge in and drag me from bed by my hair for oversleeping.”

  All lightheartedness seeped from his eyes as he pulled me to his side. I immediately rested my head on his shoulder, breathing a sigh of contentment, listening to his deep voice.

  “I wake up baffled by how easily my heart is beating, how warm my skin is. I still expect my freezing heart to make every contraction feel like thorns are being pushed through it, and still expect not to feel my extremities.”

  I sighed. “I keep forgetting I’m actually a dryad.”

  He echoed my sigh. “I keep forgetting I’m not dying anymore.”

  “Is this a competition for who has it worse?” I joked.

  “Yes, and the judge can be your stepmother,” he joked back, then raised his voice, calling out into the deepening night. “Hey, Dolora, tell us which is worse, death or eternal suffering?”

  Dolora’s tree just stood there, of course, a morbid reminder along with all the other trees around her, of how the Winter fey deal with their irredeemable criminals.

  I sighed again as I nestled deeper into his side. “I guess I’m just not used to good things happening to me.”

  “You will, I’ll make sure of that,” he promised. “But, I can’t blame you. As amazing as our situation is now, I think it’s going to take a while for all this to sink in.”

  “Another thing I’ll have to get used to is your devious fey side. I believe I saw hints of it before, but I still can’t get over that stunt you pulled with Darla.” I giggled, taking a gulp of my drink. “You know, you had me there for a while, almost broke my heart.”

  He dropped a kiss on my nose. “You have to agree it was worth it.”

  I tilted my face so his lips slid to mine. “Mhm, so was everything that came after.”

  Strangely, I didn’t count Darla’s sentence as one of those worthwhile things. Since she was an accessory to some of her mother’s crimes, and an active abuser, but not a slaver or a murderer, Darla’s punishment had been split in two. The first part had been to clean the entire castle by picking every bit of glass off the floors by hand. Yulian said it should teach her a lesson in patience she’ll be needing in her new job, the second part of her punishment.

  She had taken my indebted position with Ludmila the dressmaker, as an indentured servant, if with the potential of one day becoming an apprentice. The horrid brat who’d believed life would lead her to being the spoiled wife of a nobleman now had to work. I think she considered it a fate worse than death. Or worse than becoming a tree.

  Aneira was now free to pursue her plans of a life her mother would, in Isolda’s words, rather kill her than see happen. She was marrying the Minister of Agriculture here in Winter. The pot-bellied, blue-haired, jovial widower called Lord Igor doted on her in whichever form, and she would live on his farm on the outskirts of Midnight, and help raise his daughter, Natasha.

  I hadn’t forgiven her for standing by and watching me suffer all these years, but I’d get there eventually, especially now I’d seen her with her new stepdaughter who was delighted with her. I’d initially been worried how someone spawned by Dolora would be as someone’s stepmother, but she was nothing like her mother, and that was probably why Darla had been the favorite.

  As for me, tonight’s event was to celebrate announcing me as the Princess of Midnight, the official future bride of their king. Having to meet and talk to so many people, who were not only paying me their full attention, but were nice to me, was such a foreign experience, it had made me feel like I was going mad.

  Simeon appeared behind us, clearing his throat. “Your Majesty, the other monarchs have arrived. But it’s best to greet them yourself, before introducing them to Ella.”

  “But I’ve already met them all,” I objected.

  “Not as a future queen, you haven’t.” Simeon pulled Yulian away from me and pushed him back into the ballroom.

  I followed them inside as Yulian made the rounds himself, getting an enthusiastic congratulations from the Summer King, Theseus, and an interrogation from Keenan’s parents, Queen Rowena and Prince Ossian. I stood back by a table of hors d’oeuvres, searching for the Spring Queen.

  Keenan sidled up to me, smelling like he’d downed an entire punch bowl, or bathed in it, his long auburn hair unbound and messy.

  He smirked at me. “You’d think with the party being in your honor, you’d be more inclined to actually party.”

  “Maybe after I’ve been to a dozen of these things I’ll be comfortable enough to do that,” I said, sweeping my gaze across the room. “For now I’ll just stand here and absorb my new reality.”

  “It is a funny outcome, isn’t it?” he mused, smirking. “One day you’re a human maid covered in dusty rags and chimney soot, and the next you’re a nymph princess in the sparkliest gown and glass slippers.”

  I looked down on the marvel I was wearing. A dress made for me this time, not magically conjured, it had a bodice that seemed made of starlight, and a flaring skirt with an endless array of ice crystals. I thought it would weigh a ton when I first saw it completed, but somehow it was almost weightless. I should have known, since even though it wasn’t an instantaneous spell, magic was still involved. It was Yulian who’d created those breathtaking crystals.

  I sighed, patting Keenan on the arm, feeling very warm towards him. “I don’t think I ever really thanked you. For everything you’ve done for me, for keeping your word to Bonnie, and for being Yulian’s friend—and mine. I wouldn’t have ended up here if you hadn’t come after me, and thought up a way for me to escape my stepfamily.”

  “For all the good that did you,” he harrumphed. “Etheline didn’t make good on her deal.”

  “It turned out that I didn’t need her stupid help anyway.” I faced him, resting my hips against the table. “Speaking of help, I sent a girl to get help from your family, and your parents acted like they’d never heard of her.”

  “Sent her how?”

  “Uh—told her to go into Autumn?”

  He goggled at me. “By herself?”

  “She was riding this giant, fluffy, white dog …”

  Keenan slapped a hand over his forehead. “Cinders, our borders are full of all that could conceivably go bump in the night. The only person who can go through Autumn without a guide is someone who was born there. My own father could never hope to go for a ride by himself.”

  My heart boomed in dismay. “So you’re telling me I sent that girl to her doom?”

  “W
e usually hear about the slaughterings on our turf, so she might still be wandering around, or be held captive by something—I don’t know.” He let out a long-suffering sigh, massaging his forehead. “Aside from the unusual ride she had, any other descriptors?”

  “She had very black hair, very fair skin, and very red lips, and she was a witch?”

  “You have a gift for detail, you should be a painter,” he snarked.

  I smacked his arm. “I was focused on other things at the time, like being in a dungeon, then escaping and nearly dying of agony when that anklet kicked in. But—Keenan, we have to find her, help her. She’s the one who got me out of the dungeon!”

  “All right, all right, don’t worry, I’ll find your savior witch for you.”

  “You will?”

  “I promised Bonnie I’d find you and keep an eye on you, and I did, didn’t I? Might as well take up another cause to pass the time. Did you happen to get a name, at least?”

  “Snezhana.”

  “Bless you.”

  I poked him, harder this time. “She’s the Princess of Belograd—I think.”

  Straightening, his chest shook with restrained laughter that made him puff air out his nose. “What kind of a name is Snezhana?”

  I glowered up at him. “You can ask her when you find her.”

  “Will do.” He saluted me with a bow. “It’s been a pleasure, Cinders, but now a different hapless tourist is in need of my help.”

  I curtseyed in return, watching him twirl away between several attendees, picking food and drinks off passing trays as he bypassed his parents and siblings and slipped out of the room, calling for his reindeer.

  He would no doubt return with a handful of strange stories similar to my own. And I couldn’t wait to hear news of my “savior witch,” not to mention seeing him again.

  Odd as it was, Keenan had to be my first real friend, and I would truly miss him.

  “You’ve done quite well for yourself,” a dreamy voice came from behind me.

  I spun around to find the Spring Queen herself in a flowing teal gown, her red hair held up with a dozen green leaves and dotted with fresh flowers.

  She gestured to my feet. “Those shoes have taken you on quite a journey.”

  Mood soured by her arrival, I ground my teeth at her. “I have half a mind to chuck one of them at your head.”

  She shook her head, tutting. “Still haven’t learned to think before you speak, I see.”

  “I’ve had long enough of walking on eggshells because I was afraid of being hit for having feelings, or heaven forbid, opinions. No more.”

  “Any reason you’re so unhappy to see me? Things did turn out better than you could have imagined.”

  “Yes, no thanks to you.”

  “To be fair, you weren’t my cause here, Yulian was. I wanted a way to undo what had been done to him, and putting you in his path was the key to all that.”

  I gaped at her. “You’re telling me you knew about Isolda?”

  “I was always suspicious about her disappearance, and the deaths of Yulian’s parents, but no, I could have never imagined this.”

  “I suppose you’re here to tell me your job here is done? What about Bonnie and her wolfy prince?”

  “Bonnie has already dealt with her prince, who is a lot less hairy than you think now,” she said coyly. “This solves two-thirds of my problem now.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Who’s the last third?”

  “The other child I cursed.”

  Digging through the piles of new facts and memories I’d made since venturing into Faerie, I pulled out a piece from the hill of conversations I’d eavesdropped on.

  “Prince Leander’s sister?”

  She inclined her elegant, flower-adorned head. “Princess Fairuza, yes. She’s wasted her whole life hinging her bets on the wrong man. She now returns home empty-handed and with a limited time to find the right one, before her curse runs its course and she dies.”

  I frowned. “Why do you suddenly care about people whose lives you’ve ruined? Why can’t you just lift their curses? You placed them in the first place!”

  “The same reason not any girl could have proclaimed her love and devotion to King Yulian, and undone all the damage his body and mind had suffered.” Etheline wagged her finger at me, like I had just asked whether one should spoon the tea leaves before or after pouring hot water. “The right person, for the right reason, is the only one who can make an impact on the affected person’s life. Otherwise it all goes wrong.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “That still doesn’t answer what your goal here is.”

  “To right wrongs, give people the chance to prove that they are not their elders while making good on the promises their parents broke.”

  “Are cryptic remarks your limit, or am I going to get an actual explanation?”

  “No, this doesn’t concern you, and I don’t owe you anything beyond a simple sorry for being a bystander to your suffering and a hearty congratulations to your newfound happiness.” Etheline reached out and patted my cheek. “Next time I see you will be at your wedding and coronation, and I hope to have all my loose ends wrapped up by then.”

  Somehow, I doubted she’d have an active role in tying those ends together. She hadn’t in mine.

  Before I told her so, Etheline moved along, disappearing among the crowd of excited courtiers.

  Yulian broke away from a circle that included Simeon, Sorcha and her parents, looking discomfited.

  I gulped as I placed a worried hand on his arm. “What?”

  He exhaled. “Some concerned subjects wanted to know if my aunt had been in all the mirrors in the land, if any secrets she might have seen have also died with her.”

  I huffed in relief. I’d thought it was something worse than that, always ready to expect the worst. “Don’t you have mirrors that show you whatever you want to see?”

  “Yes, but I hardly want to know who’s running naked in the woods on full moons, or who likes chewing their own toenails.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Is that the worst that comes to your mind?”

  “Absolutely not, but we agreed we won’t entertain any upsetting thoughts from now on.”

  “Never?” I needled him, grinning up at him. “Never ever?”

  “Fine, fine. Once a month, we can schedule a session. We can alternate between rantings and morbid humor.”

  I tapped the rim of my glass to my chin, humming thoughtfully. “Only once a month? Is that realistic?”

  He rolled his eyes up to one side in feigned innocent contemplation. “I’m afraid I’m not the authority on realistic. My father trapped my aunt in a mirror as a preventative measure to a realm-wide war.”

  “Good thing breaking those mirrors broke your curse. I don’t know what I would have done if my unrealistic hopes had been dashed along with them.”

  Yulian did a double-take, frowning at me confusedly. “But that’s not what did it.”

  “Yes, it did? I know you got better around me, but it was only partial and temporary, and I didn’t know how I would actually break your curse. I didn’t realize how I would, until you got really better, immediately after my heroic vandalism of that first mirror. And you got back to normal once you shattered the rest.”

  He shook his head. “The mirrors, and Isolda, had nothing to do with my curse.”

  “I know that, but who can tell how curses work? Your curse, though caused by the breaking of the engagement bond, punished each of you differently, each according to their nature and circumstances. It made Belaina wither and die away from her homeland. Maybe in your case, it drew on Isolda’s lifelong malice towards you, messing with the powers she begrudged you. They’re so much like hers, and she hated you for having them, for being forced on her as her heir because of them, when she knew you’d never use them to her own ends. And that’s why the curse turned them against you. I think that’s why breaking the mirrors where she resided ended her vindictive effect on
your powers and broke your curse.”

  He looked at me in something akin to awe. “That’s actually a brilliant explanation—but a totally wrong one. So let me tell you the right one.” He cupped my face in reverent palms, for once actually warm. “You did for me what no one ever did. You saw me, bonded with me, made me feel, and that began to thaw me. But then you risked your freedom and your life to come back and ensure mine. It was your intentions, in that moment when you broke that mirror, when they proved pure and selfless, and only for me, that melted the curse off my heart.”

  Though I had more arguments, they all fled me, leaving only the deep flush and heavy lump of being moved to tears. “Oh—I didn’t know curses were about intent rather than action.”

  His fingers tenderly wiped away my tears as love flared in his eyes, the only blaze I’d ever welcome. “They’re tricky that way.”

  “They always sounded simpler in stories, where one simple action does the trick.”

  “Like most difficult things, they appear simple if the people telling you about them don’t know how they work.” He looked up, narrowing his eyes at the darkening sky. I couldn’t get over how blue they were now, like the crystal waters of a mountain lake. “The weather is warming up, and the northern lights will soon be gone.”

  I sighed in regret as I rolled my glass, watching the effervescent liquid sparkle like the stars I saw when we’d flown in the sky. “That’s one downside to breaking your curse, I guess. I would have liked to see them before the next winter.”

  “I still feel them, so we can go see them now if you like,” he suggested. “Unless you want to stay and continue mingling with our guests?”

  “No!” I blurted out, making him laugh, a sound that gave life to a dozen fuzzy moths in my gut, and the best thing I’d ever heard.

  “That settles it then.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and ripped out a sharp whistle.

  The flying sleigh announced its arrival with a loud whoosh before coming to a hover by the balcony. I reached over, rubbing the fuzzy heads of all the floating reindeer.