Goddess of Loss

by Jennifer Ellision

  Goddess of Loss

  Kingdom of Fairytales Rumpelstiltskin book 4

  J A Armitage

  Contents

  1. 13th May

  2. 14th May

  3. 15th May

  4. 16th May

  5. 17th May

  6. 18th May

  7. 19th May

  After the Happily Ever After…

  A NEW FAIRYTALE ANTHOLOGY

  Join us

  A note from the author

  About Jennifer Ellision

  About J.A. Armitage

  The Kingdom of Fairytales Team

  Copyright © 2019 by J A Armitage

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited By Rose Lipscomb

  Cover by Enchanted Quill Press

  Created with Vellum

  Kingdom of Fairytales

  You all know the fairytales, the stories that always have the happy ending. But what happens after all those storybook characters get what they wanted? Is it really a happily ever after?

  Kingdom of Fairytales is a new way of reading with one chapter a day and one book a week throughout the year beginning January 1st

  Lighting-fast reads you won’t be able to put down

  Read in real time as each chapter follows a day in the life of a character throughout the entire year, with each bite-sized episode representing a week in the life of our hero.

  Each character’s story wrapped up at the end of every season with a brand new character and story featured in each season.

  Fantasy has never been so epic!

  13th May

  Fae chose the most restless night I’d ever had to decide to sleep through for the first time. She was asleep by ten and softly breathing right through until just after six in the morning. Even if those strangers claiming to be related to me hadn’t shown up so unexpectedly, I probably would have woken up, wondering if Fae had stopped breathing or any number of other things that could befall a baby, but as it was, the strangers had me tossing and turning most of the night. It meant I could check on Fae regularly. The sight of her little chest rising and falling, and the movement of her lips suckling in her dreams were the only things that kept me centered the whole night.

  Just like any other only child, I’d dreamed of having brothers and sisters. Of course, with my mother’s stance on having children of her own, that dream of mine had been scuttled when I was very young.

  Never in all my childhood dreams of siblings had I imagined I’d have four. Four! Azia, Blaise, Castiel, and Deon. I mentally checked them off on my fingers, remembering their names. Alphabetical. I was number five, Eliana. Whoever had brought us to our prospective houses just after our birth had obviously given our new guardians our names. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise. My mother had always told me she’d loved the name Eliana, but was that just another secret she was hiding? There’d been no mention of a baby whose name began with F or G, but did that mean they weren’t out there? The strangers didn’t really seem to know any more about their history than I did mine. And yet our stories were so similar. All of us brought to the leaders of a kingdom soon after our birth by an older woman and a younger woman who seemed to have disappeared soon after, never to be seen again. They’d told me that right after dropping the bomb on me that they needed me to accompany them on an adventure to save the world from some magic apocalypse and bring my sweet baby. I still wasn’t sure which part of their story was the most insane.

  If it wasn’t for their eyes and the golden rings around their irises, I wouldn’t have believed them. They probably wouldn’t have gotten a meeting with my parents. The whole thing was very strange and had rattled me more than I liked to admit.

  A small cry took me from my bed and over to Fae. When she saw me, she quieted down immediately.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” I whispered, picking her up from her bassinet. Her onesie was soaking wet due to her not having been changed since ten the previous night.

  “As if I’d take you away from your home,” I whispered soothingly to her as I peeled the onesie from her body. “Your granny would lynch me on the spot if I so much as tried it!”

  A quick change later and she was ready for her morning feed. Less than a month ago, I’d been an only child with my only family being my mother and father, and now, I had so many new family members I was practically fighting them off.

  “How things change,” I whispered to Fae, who was busy suckling at my breast for real this time. As anticipated, she ignored me. The concerns of the mother were not the concerns of the daughter.

  After a quick shower and change for me, I bundled Fae up and headed downstairs, taking the stone steps carefully with her in my arms. Avery and Williamson, who had reappeared this morning, walked, as always, two steps behind. With no particular agenda for the day, I headed to the breakfast room.

  My mother was there, but, surprisingly, so were my father and Jay.

  Jay jumped up when he saw me and gave me a kiss on the cheek before taking Fae from my arms and cooing softly to her. I noticed my father raise his eyebrow at the gesture, but my mother merely had a sly grin on her face. All she’d ever wanted for me was to see me settled, happy and safe, and she saw I could be all of those things with Jay by my side.

  “Toast and jam?” she inquired as I sat down, pushing the toast rack toward me. I took a slice and slathered it in butter, then jam.

  “This is cozy,” I said, taking a bite.

  “Your mother has had quite a bit to say this morning,” My father commented. “I guess she thought it better if jam was involved.”

  “Everything’s better with jam involved,” Jay interjected. A quick look told me he was talking to Fae rather than the rest of the people at the table. Fae was gazing back at him with adoring eyes.

  “I’ve told your father everything,” my mother explained. “He knew most of it, but it was long overdue that he knew the whole story. After the strangers… your, er… possible siblings turned up, I couldn’t keep any more secrets.”

  At the mention of the visitors, Jay finally dragged his eyes from Fae. “Do you really think they’re your siblings?”

  I guessed my father wasn’t the only one who had been party to my mother’s words.

  I shrugged my shoulders and put my unfinished toast back on the plate. I had stayed up most of the night thinking about it. “I don’t know how they can be. Quintuplets are very rare. I mean, have you ever heard of anyone in The Vale having five babies at once?”

  I shuddered at the thought of it. Giving birth to Fae was hard enough; doing it another four times right after was a terrifying thought.

  My father pointed the knife he’d been using at me. A glob of butter dropped onto the tablecloth. “I looked it up after they left. Not once in the history of The Vale has the royal family ever given out a gift to parents of quintuplets. We’ve had a few sets of triplets over the years, which is the lowest multiple birth we recognize to get a gift, and twice we’ve had quadruplets, but never more than four.” He seemed to notice his butter was on the table, and he swiped it back onto his knife and went back to buttering his toast.

  “We give gifts to parents of multiples?” I asked. I’d never heard it before.

  “It’s a gesture. Must be hard to have that many babies at once. I gave one out myself in my first year of being king. They were a family from a poor village in the north. I didn’t visit them myself, but the guards who made the journey told me they were very happy to receive suc
h a gift. We sent them enough diapers and baby clothes to last for two years, along with a substantial monetary donation. There was another one in your great-grandfather’s time. Of course, there could have been others that we were never made aware of.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a sip. It was already cold. “I don’t think my birth parents were from The Vale,” I replied, gesturing to one of the servants and handing him the coffee pot.

  “What makes you think that?” Jay asked.

  At the sound of my mother’s voice, Fae began to cry. My mother reached forward, and Jay handed Fae to her. She cuddled her close and swayed softly, humming so quietly I could barely hear it. It was working on Fae, though. She quieted down quickly. My mother passed her granddaughter back to Jay.

  “The strangers weren’t from The Vale. They were from all over. Azia and her dragon were from Draconis...”

  “Wait up,” Jay interrupted. He leaned forward on his elbows. “There was a dragon here?”

  “Only a little one,” my mother said, shooing him back. “Carry on, Eliana.”

  Jay let out a low whistle. He would have been fascinated to meet a real dragon. I made a mental note to tell him all about the impish Nyre once we were out of earshot of my mother.

  “Blaise was from Atlantice, Castiel was from Elder, and Deon was from...” I tried remembering where he’d told me he was from, but in all the information I’d been given, I’d clean forgot.

  “Floris,” my mother answered for me.

  “Yes, Floris. My birth parents could have been from any of those places, or none of them. They could have been travelers. If they’d delivered five babies while on the road, maybe they thought it was kinder to give them away.”

  Jay looked deep in thought.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Your mother told me she thought you were siblings because you were all brought to your new parents at around the same time.”

  “That’s right. Very late in the year. We all estimated our birthdays to be around the winter festival.”

  Jay sat forward again, and this time my mother didn’t shoo him back. “How did those mystery women manage to get to all the kingdoms at the same time? Elder couldn’t be further away from Floris. Even at the fastest speeds, it would take many weeks to get to all the kingdoms.”

  He was right; it was impossible. How had I not thought of that last night?

  “Maybe they came by train?”

  “Train would take a week or more to get right across the kingdoms, and that’s only if it did a straight run. Trains don’t just go in a straight line from one kingdom to another, and even royal trains can’t just drive around the others on the tracks. I don’t see how it’s possible to deliver five babies to five kingdoms within a week.”

  “Even the Urbis Express has a timetable,” Father said. He munched down on his third helping of toast and looked pensive. “Of course, the airships of the Urbis Express aren’t the only flying vehicles. There are others. Privately owned.”

  This was something I didn’t know. “What vehicles?”

  “I hear that The Forge is making headway with steam-powered flying machines. Nothing like the airships, but smaller vehicles that carry one or two people. I’m not sure they’re completely ready yet, though. When I last talked to Alice Rowntree—she’s the president of The Forge—she was kind enough to give me a tour of the guild there. I must say, the inventions those Forge people come up with are nothing short of extraordinary. Anyway, I did speak to a young man who was working on a flying machine.”

  I sighed. It was all well and good there being an almost flying machine, but that didn’t help me figure out what had happened over eighteen years ago.

  “There are the flying ships of Skyla too,” he added. “Real ships like the ones that travel across the sea, except they fly. I expect it has something to do with the magic that makes their islands float. Of course, the only people I’ve heard of that use flying ships are pirates.”

  “You think I came from pirates?” I asked, amused by the thought of it. My mother, however, was not.

  “Of course he doesn’t mean that,” she cut in, giving him a heap of side eye. “You aren’t descended from pirates. The women that brought you looked very respectable. Besides, if there had been any sightings of flying ships over the Vale, we would have heard about it.”

  My father shrugged his shoulders. “They did come in the dark, my love, and Skyla is only a short distance over the sea.”

  “She’s not a pirate, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it,” my mother said, standing up and wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation, I just can’t think what it is right now.”

  I caught a smirk on my father’s face, though he remained silent. He loved winding my mother up. I expect he loved the idea of having a pirate as a daughter too.

  “What are you two doing today, anyway?” my mother asked, looking to Jay and me.

  “The ball is tomorrow. I was thinking of helping you get all the last-minute bits ready for it.”

  “Actually, I was hoping you’d come out with me today.” Jay interjected, looking at me. “I was planning on going into town, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me? I need to buy supplies for the staviary.”

  “The party is in hand,” my mother said, to my surprise, scooping Fae up from Jay’s arms. “I think it would do the both of you a world of good to get out for a change. I’ll look after my darling Fae.” She rubbed noses with Fae, who let out a rather large burp. “Judith can help me.”

  I looked to Jay, who gazed back at me with expectation in his eyes. “Okay, I guess we’re going into town.”

  After wolfing down breakfast, my mother practically shooed me out of the castle. Avery and Williamson ran on ahead to get their horses ready as Jay and I ambled slowly through the courtyard.

  “You planned this, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Maybe... but your mother was happy to let you go. Come on, how often does that happen?”

  “Not for a long time,” I conceded. I almost never ventured into the nearby town of Shipley. The last time I had spent any decent amount of time there was before I was married, when Luka and I were courting. Since he’d died, I hadn’t had any reason to go back.

  My stomach knotted into nerves as we jumped up onto our horses. No matter how much I loved the unicorns and had an affinity for them, I much preferred riding an animal that kept its feet on the ground. Avery took the lead with Williamson following up in the rear.

  Blue skies with fluffy white clouds and a slight breeze made the morning as perfect as it could be. With anyone else, this journey would have filled me with dread, knowing the memories of the many times I had made the exact journey with Luka would come rushing back, but I found with Jay, it wasn’t happening.

  I waited for a stabbing pain of loss to fill me like it had done a hundred times before, but as we trotted down the well-worn road to Shipley, that never came. Instead, I felt a sense of freedom that I was barely used to and an overriding feeling of wellbeing and happiness.

  “What are you grinning at?” Jay asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Nothing. It’s just a lovely day. The weather is perfect.”

  “It is,” Jay agreed. He slowed down so we could ride side by side. For the first time, I didn’t feel the shadow of Luka looking over my shoulder. He was there, all right, but safely in my heart where he belonged. A whisper of a breeze whistled past my ear, and I swear I could almost hear Luka giving me his blessing to be with Jay.

  I could speak to unicorns, but I was under no illusion I’d really heard Luka’s voice in the wind. Even so, I felt it. It was time to let him go. It was time to move on.

  “Are we really going to buy supplies?” I asked once we were on the periphery of the town. I had a feeling my mother wouldn’t let me out for something so inane as buying straw.

  “Of course,” Jay replied. “What else?” He trotted off ahead, almost passing Ave
ry. I couldn’t see it, but I knew there was a grin on his face. This wasn’t merely a shopping trip. We were heading into town for another reason. A reason my mother had agreed to.

  The mud road soon gave way to cobbled streets as we left behind the farmhouses that dotted the land around the castle. They were replaced by houses and, as we rode closer to the center of town, shops.

  Luka’s shop was still there, though it was now a grocery shop. Fresh fruits and vegetables had been meticulously piled up out front, a riot of color in the early morning sun. The sign Luka had carved himself had been covered over by a new sign, reading Mr. Robinson’s Fresh Produce. Again, I waited for the pang of pain to hit. It came, but not as hard as I expected. Jay slowed down again and caught the shop I was looking at.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded my head. I was okay. I was better than okay.

  “Luka would have liked that his shop was used for something,” I said. “He’d have hated if it remained empty.”

  “I wasn’t talking about what Luka would have wanted or not wanted. I was asking about you.”

  I looked him square in the eye. “I’m good. Very good... I’m happy, Jay, and that’s the truth.”

  He reached forward and gave my hand a squeeze.

  “Where to now?” I didn’t know the town at all. I’d only ever come as far as Luka’s shop and had never had any need or desire to venture further into the hustle and bustle.

  “I told you. We’re buying supplies.” He cantered on ahead again, and this time, I kept up with him. Some of the people of the town recognized me and waved and bowed as we rode past. I waved back, enjoying the simple pleasure of smiling faces happy to see me.