by Emma Hamm
Was she talking about the woman who had cleaved the head from the strawman? He couldn’t imagine what she’d want with a woman like that. The warrior was nothing more than mortal. He would have known if she was a dwarf, and she was too tall besides.
His mind stalled out when he realized what she was hinting at. “Did you have me bargain for a Seelie Fae to come here?”
The laughter bubbling out of the Troll Queen’s mouth was almost pretty if he didn’t know what it meant. “Of course, I did! Isn’t that entertaining?”
Oh, gods. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs seized up in horror at what she’d had him do, and his heart started beating so quickly he thought it might rattle out of his chest. A Seelie Fae? She’d had him make a bargain for a Seelie Fae?
He knew what that meant. Faeries weren’t kind, especially those of the royal line. They wouldn’t let something like that go unnoticed. They would hunt him down. Destroy everything he was, his family, his lineage. Donnacha would be wiped from this realm so thoroughly no one would even remember his name.
He looked at the mirror in horror and croaked, “What have you done?”
“I made certain you will never be able to renounce my daughter. The trolls are the only ones who can save you now, dwarf. You might as well accept defeat and come live with us. Otherwise, the faeries will hunt you down.”
“You’ve signed my life away to the courts,” he growled.
“All you have to do is marry my daughter, and you’ll be safe.”
No! He didn’t want to marry her daughter. He wanted nothing to do with the beastly creature who would make his life hell. But the choice had been stripped from his hands now that his family was involved.
The faerie courts didn’t care about him. They didn’t care about his family. They only cared about a deal gone bad, and that meant he was going to need to do something about this.
He had to beg the faerie woman not to seek retribution. He would have to return to the camp on his hands and knees, praying she would see reason when he explained what had happened—the Troll Queen was the one who had made him ask for her. He didn’t care if she came to this ice castle and changed her life to help him.
Donnacha opened his mouth to say this to the Queen, only to be interrupted.
“Dwarf, do you really think I don’t know where you mind will travel? Do you think for even a second I don’t know how that brain of yours works? You aren’t allowed to leave the castle grounds for the next year. That is the deal. You wanted to go and seek something that would help break the curse, didn’t you?”
She’d completely ruined any chance of fixing this. He slumped, sitting on the cold ice his head hanging. “She can’t come here. They will follow her.”
“I doubt a little Seelie Fae will come all the way to Fuar Bheinn just for you. And if she does, then she’ll run very quickly.” The Troll Queen clapped her hands gleefully. “Oh, Donnacha! This was so much fun! You actually thought you could break the curse, didn’t you?”
Her laughter rang in his ears. He stared at the floor, horrified that he’d fallen under her spell yet again.
He had thought the curse could be broken. Hope had bloomed in his chest, and that emotion was more dangerous than rage or wrath could ever be. He’d thought… Gods, he’d thought he could do something more than just be stuck in this body as a bear with a Troll Princess as his intended bride.
His life wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. As a boy, he’d thought mining was his future. That someday he would take his father’s place and create beautiful instruments made of gold and silver ore. He’d thought life would be more than just disgust at himself, at the creatures who had cursed him, at the future barreling toward him with nothing to stop it.
“Come now, Donnacha, you’ll insult me. My daughter is the greatest creature to ever live, and you are the one who is going to marry her. Be a little happier, or I’ll find it an insult.”
He couldn’t be happy. How could he be happy when he knew a troll would await him in the marriage bed? That he’d have to…
Donnacha gagged.
The Troll Queen snapped at him, her mouth opening wider than should be possible and sharpened teeth flashing. “Careful, dwarf. You might anger me.”
A flash of magic filled the room, and then the Troll Queen was gone. The mirror reflected only his own dejected stance.
What was he going to do? The faerie woman wasn’t going to come here, of all places. She didn’t even know why he had summoned her here. And she never would because he couldn’t say a single word about how he’d turned into a bear or why this castle had appeared out of thin air.
He should give up now and go with the trolls. Yet something in him refused to relent so easily. He couldn’t, not yet.
Donnacha had to put his faith in a faerie noble. He huffed out a breath, stood, and made his way to his own room. There wasn’t a single fiber in him that believed she’d come here. Why would she?
Faeries didn’t care about anyone other than themselves.
5
Elva brushed a branch away from her face, snarling as it tangled in her hair. Go to the bear’s home, Scáthach had ordered. Find him, watch him, learn if he’s the dangerous creature they all seem to think he is. And if he was? Kill him.
Right. Just kill the bear.
That was supposed to be the hardest part of this mission. Not journeying through the forest with all the faerie creatures trying to distract her. Not the trees that snarled in her hair and clothes, nor the branches that tried to rip her hair from the root. And it certainly wasn’t supposed to be her own frustration, telling her to get out of the forest now and let the humans deal with their own messes.
She grunted as another branch smacked her in the face. “Fine, that’s it.”
Elva drew her blade and started hacking at everything that stood in her way. The trees were supposed to be honored, sure. Their roots were deep in the ground, and they’d struggled to survive for years. If they wanted to stand on their own, then they shouldn’t have been hitting her. Every strike made her feel better, anyways. The chip on her shoulder had only grown.
She was a damned faerie princess, or had been. Why had she been the one forced to go? There were plenty of other warrior women who could have done this. They were human, besides. They would have been a better choice to save one of their own. Not the faerie woman who didn’t like humans that much.
Elva tolerated them. Humans were foolish creatures through and through, and she thought them rather pitiful. They needed guidance more than they needed help, but that didn’t mean she wanted to save the lot of them. And the bear had to be human. No faerie would have let himself get so foolishly cursed. Faerie royals were cursed by politicians who moved to take thrones with complex rules and years of study required. Shapeshifting curses were far too easy.
Tree limbs snapped in front of her, nearly hiding the sound of laughter on the wind. The last thing she needed was another faerie seeing her struggle. They’d likely run back to the courts to tell them Elva was on the loose again.
Not that anyone would come for her. She’d made it very clear that no one was to disturb her on this journey in finding herself. Even her mother had been afraid the last time they’d gotten into a screaming match. With all the changes that had happened, killing her own mother didn’t seem like such a stretch. She’d told the woman that to her face.
Elva still savored the memory of her mother’s face whitening in fear. After all that had happened, she wasn’t surprised her mother believed her. This was the same woman who had pushed her into perfection. The same woman who had sent her sister away to the human realm to be a changeling because she was a little different. Because the Raven King wanted Aisling for his own. Instead of protecting her own child, their parents had discarded her like dirty laundry.
Enough was enough. She wanted nothing to do with the faerie courts or their back-stabbing ways. Elva was a new person. She would live with the humans if that was what it took, but she was
done making deals with other faeries.
The giggles started up again, and another branch whacked her in the face.
“Let me warn you,” she said, letting the wind carry her words, “I have no interest in speaking with others of our kind. If you try to tempt me off the path, I will not follow. If you try to sway me, I will not listen.”
The giggles continued, almost as if the faerie didn’t believe her.
She twisted her hand on the grip of her blade. Fighting something else would let off a little steam, although she had a feeling it wasn’t something strong out in the forest. If it were a powerful fae, then it would have attacked her already. Instead, it hid.
Elva slanted her eyes to the side when a twig snapped. A dark piece of fabric shifted in the shadows and then seemed to disappear.
“Come out,” she called, “and I’ll let you live.”
Another giggle from her left. “That’s not for you to say, faerie. That’s for the master of the mountain to decide.”
“Where do you think I’m heading?” she asked.
“Not to Fuar Bheinn. No one wants to go there.”
“Maybe I do.” She turned in a slow circle, watching the shadows for anything that looked remotely like a faerie. Hunting in forests was always difficult. Everything looked like a faerie in the right light.
“Why would you want to go there? There’s nothing but ice and snow.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it’s cold.”
“It’s more than cold. It’s a veritable freezing fortress, and no one who goes there comes out quite the same.”
“Is that so?” Elva asked, watching a particular place in the shadows where she was certain the creature was hiding. “Why do you think that? Have you been there before?”
“You’re really set on going there?” Another giggle drifted on the wind. “That’s a shame. You’re very beautiful.”
She hated those words more than anything else. Call her intimidating. Call her something more than just beautiful, more than just something that was pretty to put on a shelf as she’d been so many times in her life. “If you know where it is, then perhaps you’ll show me how to get there.”
“Why would we do that?”
“We?” Elva flashed a grin. “Good to know there’s more than one of you.”
The swift sound of a slap followed her declaration. She heard them whispering together, pinpointing that there had to only be two of them. Small blessing. Dealing with more than one wandering faerie was already going to be a pain in her royal rump, let alone a handful of them.
Finally, one of the faeries spoke up again. “If we show you where to go, what will you give us in return?”
Elva chuckled. “I’m not dealing with you, fae. If you want to help me, then help. I offer nothing in return.”
“Then why would we help?”
They had a point. Faeries weren’t likely to help her at all if she didn’t give them something in return. They were notoriously unhelpful creatures. And wasn’t she just following in their footsteps if she didn’t offer something up?
She was dealing with faeries already, even when she said she would never do that again.
Elva snarled. “Fine, what do you want?”
An ugly face poked out of the brush. Lined with age and so furrowed, it looked like a dog she’d seen once in a human home. The wrinkles sagged down over eyes that were barely visible and a mouth that was puckered. “A kiss perhaps?”
Before she had time to even respond to that ridiculous request, a gnarled hand reached out above its head and smacked it on the crown. “How dare you!”
The head retracted back into the thorns, and it appeared the two creatures began to fight. She could hear them rustling and swearing in the distance.
This wasn’t getting her anywhere. A bodach and cailleach bride? The faeries were hardly more than fools, ancient things who had grown so old and decrepit they didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. She’d heard of them before, but never had the misfortune of meeting one in person. They were notorious for throwing travelers off their path so they wandered.
Elva stooped down and pulled the brush aside. The two faeries were tangled around each other, both the size of a small dog. Moldy fabric covered their bodies, ugly green and black mold puffed into the air as they tore at each other.
“You said you loved me!”
“I do!”
“But you wanted her to kiss you? I ought to take off your eyebrows!”
“Not my eyebrows!” the one who had to be male said. “I just got ’em to stick on!”
They rolled close enough to Elva for her to snatch the back of their jackets and pull them apart. Holding each at arm’s length, she waited until they stopped twisting in her arms.
The female kicked her feet. “Let me down!” she shrieked.
Elva sighed heavily and told herself to remain calm. If she had believed the gods were anything more than grandparents, she would have prayed to them for some kind of patience. As it was, it took her to a count of ten before her temper calmed down.
The bodach was still trying to reach her hand where she held him. “Faerie woman, put me down,” he shouted.
“Not a chance.”
“We had a deal!”
Elva leaned closer to him, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. “We didn’t make any kind of deal. Let’s make that very clear. Now, it seems like I have a deal to make with you. I’ll put you down, unharmed, if you tell me which way the castle is.”
He pointed behind them. “That way.”
She was seventy percent sure he was lying to her. Or perhaps not lying, but that path would take her months to reach the castle. Technically, any way he pointed was the right way. If she had to walk around the entire Earth to get to the castle, which could take a lifetime, it was still a path that would take her there.
Elva looked to the cailleach in her other hand. “And you? Which way is the castle?”
The female faerie pointed in the opposite direction.
Oh, she was going to destroy them. Elva took a deep breath and looked up at the heavens as if they might help. She didn’t want to hurt another faerie. It felt wrong. But she also didn’t know how to make them talk.
Without looking at either faerie—if she looked then she was going to really hurt them—she said, “I’m going to give you one more chance. Both of you tell me where the castle is, where it really is, and I won’t throw you so far you learn what bird’s feel like before you hit the ground.”
“I don’t think you’d do that,” the bodach replied.
Elva let all her rage seep into her eyes. She squared her jaw and squeezed the fabric in both hands, twisting until the faeries grasped at their throats. She waited until their faces turned red before she snarled, “Please, try me.”
Releasing her hold enough so they could breathe, she watched as they tried to get their bearings. They had no idea who they were dealing with.
And that wasn’t kind of her, now was it? She tilted her head to the side when they didn’t speak immediately. “Do you know who I am?”
“A faerie witch,” the cailleach grunted. “Put us down, now!”
“Oh no no. I’m not a faerie witch. I’m the wife of the first Seelie King. Fionn the Magnificent, I believe he made everyone call him. I was there when he was dethroned. I was there when he was banished. And yes, I did help the King of Underhill take back his throne, find his wife, and kill Carmen, the mother of all witches.” She brought them both closer to her face. “Do you really want to see what I can do with two little faeries in a forest so far away from anyone? No one will hear you scream.”
The bodach swallowed audibly. “The castle is that way.” He pointed the way his wife had originally pointed. “Follow the path.”
“I don’t think I trust either of you.”
“I wouldn’t lead you wrong, mistress.”
Elva arched a brow.
He swallowed again. “Highness.”
“I want to clarify, b
odach”— she nodded at the woman in her other hand—“cailleach. If you have pointed me in the wrong direction, I will come back here. Don’t think you can run from me. I’ve hunted things larger than you and far smarter than you. I will come back. I will find you. And when I do, I am going to rip every single hair from your body, pull out all your fingernails, and feed you to my wolves. Understood?”
The bodach nodded. “Yes, highness.”
She looked at the cailleach. “And you?”
The woman eyed her and frowned. “We’re here to watch the forest. We make sure no one gets to the castle, even the ones who want to get there. That’s our job, miss.”
“Is it? And who employs you?”
Shaking her head, the cailleach replied, “Can’t tell you, miss.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
Which meant it was a particularly powerful faerie who had employed them. This place had just gotten significantly more interesting. Elva shook the cailleach a little. “Why don’t you make my journey a little faster then?”
The sullen look on the cailleach’s face made it clear she wanted to deny Elva’s request. The faerie didn’t want to help Elva at all. Although, she really couldn’t blame the tiny faerie. Elva was holding her by the shirt collar.
Raising a hand, the cailleach snapped her fingers. A great swirl of movement made the entire forest shift under Elva’s feet. It appeared as though she was moving at a great speed, or perhaps the forest was moving on its own, but she was standing still.
Senses whirling, she held onto the faeries for dear life until the movement stopped. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she looked at her new surroundings.
A castle towered above her. Ice pillars gleamed in the sunlight. Stained glass windows cast rainbows across at least ten towers that were both beautiful and wickedly dangerous.
She swallowed. “So this is Fuar Bheinn then?”
The bodach snorted. “You’ve been walking in Fuar Bheinn for hours. That is the ice palace.”
