Goddess of Loss

by Jennifer Ellision

  As the sun faded in the sky, I directed Zacharina to take me back to the hospital. I’d lost my last chance of looking for Fae. My mother would never let me leave her sight ever again after pulling a stunt like this. But as the houses became denser and the hospital building came into view, a thought crossed my mind. Maybe this wasn’t my last chance, after all.

  “Zacharina,” I said, leaning down and speaking into her ear. “Take me to the inn. There’s someone I need to find.”

  18th May

  It turned out that there was more than one inn in Shipley. I’d naively thought I could fly into town, walk into the nearest inn, and find the strangers who had come to see me at the palace. Instead, I walked the streets, trying to keep as inconspicuous as possible, which wasn’t easy with two unicorns in tow. While The Vale was full of unicorns, they usually stuck to the forests and meadows. The streets were practically empty due to the lateness of the hour, but the few people we did see stared at us. I saw the light of recognition in some of them. Others were so taken with Zacharina and Epiphany that they didn’t even notice the princess by their side.

  After a couple of hours, I stumbled into a smaller inn on the edge of town. My feet hurt, and my stomach grumbled as I walked through the front door.

  I’d almost lost hope, not even knowing if the strangers were traveling using their real names or if they were even still in Shipley. The inn on the edge of town was not one of the finer establishments and not anywhere I’d expect princes and princesses to stay, so I was surprised to see Deon in the reception area. His head was buried in a book, or so I thought, until I walked closer and saw that he was actually writing a letter and using the book to rest it on.

  “Deon.”

  He looked up, a smile coming to his lips when he saw who had caught his attention.

  “Eliana! You came to us. We were planning to leave first thing in the morning. I was just writing a letter to my wife to let her know where I am.” His voice warmed a little on the words my wife. “There’s not always a post office where we travel.”

  I nodded, unsure what to say.

  He stood, tucked the writing paper between two pages of the book, and placed the pen in his top pocket.

  “I’ll get the others to come down. I’m sure they’ll open the restaurant if we ask. We seem to pay an inordinate amount of money wherever we go. As a result, people trip over themselves to help us.”

  I nodded sheepishly. I still wasn’t used to these strange people who proclaimed to be my siblings, but were so different from me. “I’d like to talk to you all. I have my unicorns outside. I’ll go and let them know I found you.”

  Deon raised an eyebrow at the mention of unicorns, but made no comment.

  Less than ten minutes later, the restaurant in the inn was open, and our orders were being taken. Both Azia and Blaise only ordered a drink. Deon ordered some weird kind of salad, so I was glad when Castiel requested a large steak. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I ordered a steak too, although more well done than Castiel’s. Nyre, the pretty little dragon, found herself a place to sit on Castiel’s shoulder, no doubt waiting to help him with his meal.

  “I’m glad you decided to speak to us again,” Deon said.

  “We’d given up on you,” Blaise added. Her red-blonde hair flowed around her shoulders, making her look every inch the princess she was.

  “I guess you guys haven’t heard the news,” I said, playing with the edge of the tablecloth.

  I had hoped they’d already heard. They would only have had to look at the cover of a newspaper to see what had happened. Wanted posters were already plastered all over town with a reward for Rumpelstiltskin’s capture. But I got the feeling they didn’t like to be seen.

  “What happened?” Azia asked, sitting forward in her chair. “Fae?”

  She was a perceptive one. The only one to notice I hadn’t walked in with my baby.

  “She’s been kidnapped.” My voice faltered on the word, but I pressed forward. “Rumpelstiltskin took her last night… or the night before. I don’t even know what day it is anymore.”

  Blaise gasped and covered her mouth.

  “I’ve been at the hospital all day with my boyfriend. He tried to stop him, but Rumpelstiltskin has magic and Jay does not. Jay’s legs are broken. He’s pretty messed up. I already told you about my magic. Talking to unicorns isn’t much help when a dangerous imp is stealing your child.”

  I was babbling and couldn’t seem to stop myself until the waiter came to our table with drinks. No one spoke as our drinks were handed out, but Azia held her hand out and placed it on top of mine.

  “We’ll find her,” she said when the waiter had left. “This is what we were talking about the other day when we met you. Something has brought the evil back. Did this Rumpels...”

  “—stiltskin,” I ended for her.

  “Yes, did he ever do anything before like this, or is it out of the blue?”

  “He told my mother that he’d take her firstborn in exchange for helping her. That’s why I think she took a baby from a stranger, no questions asked, when I was brought to the castle as a newborn. She never wanted to give birth in case he came for her child.” A lump formed in my throat, choking me. “He came for mine instead. My father has half the kingdom out looking for Fae. It’s in all the newspapers, posted all over town. I even knocked on doors myself, but there is no trace.”

  “He won’t be here,” Azia said. “This situation is bigger than The Vale. Things like this are happening all over. Admittedly yours is the worst so far. We think it’s something to do with Urbis.”

  “Urbis? You think that’s where he’s taken Fae?”

  “I don’t know for sure. A friend of mine thought it had something to do with the gods.”

  Castiel rolled his eyes at this, but remained silent. I could see that it was a bone of contention between the group.

  “The gods?” I was a believer, but I had always figured they were too powerful to actually come to our world.

  “I know it sounds odd. I didn’t believe in the gods at all, but my friend thought that at least one of them had something to do with it. She believed that the Fae and the mages of Enchantia and other magical beings weren’t powerful enough for what is going on. The only beings with this kind of power are the gods.”

  I noticed Castiel wasn’t looking at her as she spoke.

  “What do you think, Castiel?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t believe in gods. Where I come from, nature is god. The earth, the trees, the animals. We are all enmeshed together. I don’t believe that magical beings sit on the clouds above us playing harps.”

  “I know at least one that frequents the night clubs of Urbis,” Azia interjected.

  A knot of embarrassment ran through me. I’d pondered this exact thing on the day in the meadow before Fae was born.

  “I believe in the gods, but I believe them to be powerful in a good way. I saw Rumpelstiltskin. He looked more like an imp than a god, though he could shapeshift, and I think he might have been able to read minds, but I’m not sure. He turned into a weird facsimile of my dead husband. He could have seen his picture in the paper, though. I don’t know.”

  At this, Blaise burst into tears. Azia passed her a tissue.

  “You’ve gone through so much,” Blaise said. “I’m so sorry for all this. This is awful.”

  “But this is what we are here for,” Azia reminded her. “This is what we are doing. We’re going to put an end to this, whatever this is.” She turned to me. “You told us the other day that you didn’t want to come with us. Am I correct in thinking you’ve changed your mind?”

  “If you think you can help me find Fae, yes.”

  Everyone around the table nodded. “Of course. We’re heading to Urbis, but the plan is to stop in Aboria along the way. We’ll visit the royal palace there and see if they’ve experienced anything strange lately. I haven’t seen anything yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.”

  “
I’m scared if I leave The Vale, and someone brings Fae back, I’ll miss it.”

  “We are not asking you to abscond,” Azia said gently. “Tell your parents you’re coming with us. We try to travel incognito, most of the time going by foot or renting a carriage when we can do that without arousing suspicion, but we’re going to cities. We’re all keeping in contact with our families as best we can by mail. Tell your family our next destination is Mosa in Aboria and then on to Urbis. They can send letters to the main post offices there. Deon has been writing ten letters a week to his wife.”

  “Seven,” Deon corrected. “We’re newlyweds. I got married, and then this lot showed up.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. So are you coming?”

  “I have no choice. I need to find my daughter.”

  “We will find her,” Azia said.

  It was strange to see how four people—people I’d only met once—cared about what was happening to me and my daughter. There was a bond between us that I couldn’t explain. They said they thought we were siblings. I wasn’t so sure, but I could feel some kind of connection. I’d felt it the other day when they’d come to the castle to speak with me. It was more than their willingness to help me; there was a thread of energy that ran through us. I’d felt something building within me since the night I first heard Zacharina speak, but I’d been so caught up in everything else going on that hadn’t really paid attention to it. These people had told me it was magic.

  Well, magic sure beat crazy, but it scared me all the same.

  I associated magic with people from far off lands like Enchantia and people like Rumpelstiltskin, who used it to hurt people. Now I had some kind of magic, and I didn’t know how to turn it to good.

  The waiter appeared with our food, and my stomach grumbled again. Nyre hopped excitedly up and down on Castiel’s shoulder as his steak was placed in front of him.

  “Can you control your dragon?” Castiel grumbled, pulling his plate to him and trying to shoo the small purple dragon from his shoulder.

  “Nyre, come here. I’ll order you something if you like, but you’ve eaten already this evening.”

  Evidently, Nyre didn’t care that she’d already eaten; she was still hungry. Azia asked the waiter to bring her a plate of whatever they had left in the kitchen. The waiter plastered on a fake smile and headed back to the kitchen.

  I devoured my food quickly, grateful for the full feeling in my stomach and for the people around me. I’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to people that didn’t live or work in the castle. My life had been so insular and secluded. Beneath the agony of losing my daughter, I felt a spark of something else—excitement and crippling nervousness. I was going to not only leave the castle where I’d spent most of my days, but also the Kingdom of the Vale. I’d never left the kingdom once in all my years. I had never wanted to before now, but as I thought about the trip ahead, I realized I was looking forward to seeing something new. Above all that, I’d be actively looking for my daughter rather than doing what I always did, passively sitting my tower letting everyone else do the work. This was my time.

  The others bickered good-naturedly as we ate our fill, and I tried to get a good take on them. In some ways, they were remarkably alike. They all had spirit and energy, although that might have had something to do with the magic running through all of them. In other ways, they differed immensely. For a start, they looked nothing alike. The two girls both had blonde hair, although where Azia’s was dark and curly, Blaise’s strawberry-blonde hair flowed in waves around her shoulders. If someone had told me they were sisters, I wouldn’t have thought anything about it. Castiel, however, had jet-black hair and dark eyes, which contrasted with the golden ring around the iris. Deon looked like someone’s good-natured big brother. He was taller and built thicker than the wiry Castiel, with thick arms and a smile perpetually on his face. Of all of them, he was the one I trusted the most. There was something about him that made me feel comfortable. He seemed easygoing compared to the others, but he wasn’t stupid; he just let the others have their say before jumping in with his own observations. Blaise talked the most, chattering about her life in Atlantice. I had a feeling that after a few hours in her company, I’d need a rest. Azia was obviously the leader of the group. I noticed that she kept the others motivated, while Castiel sulked a lot.

  By the time I’d finished, I felt more energized than ever. Azia had made it very clear to me that they’d put looking for Fae at the top of their priority list.

  “I have to go pack,” I said, standing up from the table.

  Azia stood too. “I’ll walk you out.”

  I bade farewell to the others and walked back through the inn to the main entrance with Azia by my side. She slipped her arm in mine, and for the first time, I felt that maybe I did have a sister. I couldn’t express how nice it felt.

  “I just wanted to say how sorry I am about Fae,” she said. “I know I said it in there, but I understand how painful this is for you. I almost lost my brother thanks to this… whatever it is. It was the worst feeling of my life. I can’t even imagine what you are going through right now, but you know something? I can feel her.”

  “You can feel her?”

  She looked to the side as we stood in the entranceway. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others because I didn’t want to upset you in case you thought I was being… weird… but there’s an energy between us. Our magic binds us. I’ve felt it strengthen with each one of us I’ve met, but when I met you, I felt it doubly. I felt Fae’s energy too. Don’t you feel it?”

  I thought about what she was saying. I had felt an energy, a connection between Fae and me, but I’d put it down to being her mother. I hadn’t associated it with the energy I felt from the strangers.

  The strangers… I was going to have to think of a different term for them. They would be strangers no more.

  “You think she’s magic?”

  “Maybe not yet, but I think she has the potential to be. Whatever it is that marks us as different, she has it too.”

  “But her eyes. They don’t have a gold ring like ours. They look like her father’s more than mine.”

  “My mother once told me that the gold ring only appeared around my irises when I was two or three. Perhaps she’ll get hers when she’s older.”

  She pushed the inn door open, and we stepped outside. Zacharina immediately trotted over to us.

  “You said you feel her. Do you...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the final words.

  “Yes. I think she’s still alive. I know she is. Do me a favor. Close your eyes.”

  Normally, I would have thought it a strange request from someone I didn’t really know, but Azia was different. I closed my eyes and Azia took both of my hands in hers. The energy ran through us like electricity through a closed circuit.

  “You can feel my energy, right?”

  I nodded. I could barely feel anything else.

  “It’s different from yours. Can you feel the difference?”

  I paid close attention to the new feelings rushing through me. At first, it was just one massive, overwhelming rush running through my body, but as I concentrated, the energy became strands. Two different strands of the same energy.

  “Keep going. You’ll soon be able to feel Blaise, Castiel, and Deon. Their energy will be much weaker because they aren’t touching us and they’re inside, but they are there.”

  The magic pulsed through me, and the strands separated again. Three small strands peeled off, and then another—smaller, much faster, familiar.

  “I feel Fae!” I said excitedly. “Does that mean she’s close?”

  I dropped my hands and opened my eyes. The energy dropped away.

  “I wish I could say it does,” Azia said. “I feel lots of strands. I feel them stronger when I’m close, but I also feel them stronger when their emotions are running high. It could be that you feel Fae’s energy more than mine because you’re her mothe
r. I can still feel her, though. I feel that she is well, but I don’t feel her close by. I told you before that I think this will end in Urbis. We are pretty sure it started there with our births. I’d bet the whole kingdom of Draconis on her being there.”

  My excitement faded. Urbis was a long, long way away.

  19th May

  My stomach squeezed tightly as I stood at the front of the hospital, not quite daring to step up through the large front doors.

  I’d committed the ultimate sin in my mother’s eyes. I’d left without taking my guards, without telling her I was going. I was in no doubt that Avery and Williamson had told her that I’d gone looking for Fae with Zacharina, but when I’d set off, even I didn’t really know where I was going to look or how long I’d be gone. I certainly hadn’t expected to take all day. The clock had long since struck midnight, which brought me into day three without my daughter. Three days I’d gone without seeing her face, without feeling her little body next to mine.

  Did Rumpelstiltskin know how to keep an infant as young as Fae alive? Was that even a concern of his? It was all well and good Azia telling me she could still feel Fae, but what did that mean?

  When Azia had left me outside the inn, I had tried feeling Fae’s energy again. Without Azia’s help, it was lost to me. That was another reason I was prepared to fight with my mother to be allowed to go with the strangers… my siblings. I needed their magic. I needed to feel Fae, to know she was alive.

  It was going to be the fight of my life. My mother had never intentionally let me out of her sight before, not without guards, at least, and even then I’d been permitted no further than Shipley or the meadows surrounding the castle. She was already going to be angry with me for leaving her today… yesterday.