Aurelie: A Faerie Tale

by Heather Tomlinson

  Aurelie: A Faerie Tale

  Heather Tomlinson

  This book is dedicated to Beverly Taylor and Lillian Fedor, and to the memory of Millicent Schongalla and Louise Stevenson, lovely grandmothers all.

  --H. T.

  Chapter 1 Netta

  We promised, the three of us. No one would discover that we could see the Fae. Too dangerous, Loic had warned, rubbing his nurse's magic ointment on our left eyes. It stung. I remember blinking through the pain, thrilled at a story come to life: his scaled legs and lizard tail, a boy's arms, torso, and handsome face. After that one solemn moment years ago, the little river drac's hyacinth-blue gaze was never so serious again.

  But we believed him. We'd heard Madame Brebisse's tales around the fire of a night, while Princess Aurelie polished her flute and I arranged my mother's needles on a piece of felt. The boy from Skoe, Garin, would even put aside his book to listen. The princess's old nurse said that lesser Fae, lutins and farfadets, were a mixed lot. If a farmwife left honey cakes on her back step, they might repay her by caring for sick animals and fixing broken tools. Or they might tease

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  her rooster into crowing all night. Other Fae, like the skeletal White Ladies, dragon like gargouille, and shape-shifting river drac, preyed on men. Their attention could be fatal.

  Summer after summer, we kept our friend's gift a secret, meeting by the river to play Seek the Princess and Skoeran Pirates. Later, Loic would transform himself into different shapes to amuse us. It was all glorious fun, until one market day in Cantrez, the year 1 turned fifteen. As I left the bakery with a hot braided loaf for Aurelie, I saw a suck-breath stalking a baby.

  It looked like a bundle of sticks wrapped in wrinkled gray skin and topped with a shock of white hair. The suck-breath, not the baby, who slept in a basket under Rosine the flower seller's table.

  A night nuisance, suck-breaths. I'd never seen one abroad in daylight before, and perhaps that's what rattled me. Like a fool, I walked straight over to it. Rosine was busy helping the butcher's wife select roses and greenery for her daughter's wedding party. I crouched to coo at the baby. The suck-breath hissed and twitched away from the bread's yeasty scent. I broke a piece off the braided loaf, took a bite, and chewed, my throat dry. The rest I dropped into the basket.

  Casually, I thought, but Rosine noticed. Suck-breaths were invisible, but in Cantrez, mothers knew what the bread meant. Or else she had smelled the odor of vinegar and old shoes that clung to the ugly Fae. It was nothing like Loic's scent of river reeds and moist earth and musk.

  "Good morning, Netta." The flower vendor greeted me, then bent to smooth her baby's blanket. When she stood up, she set the basket on the table beside her, out of the Fae's reach. The baby gurgled and was quiet again. "How fares the royal household this fine day?"

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  "Well, thank you, Rosine," I answered. We chatted about the weather and the dress my mother had made for Princess Aurelie (raspberry silk, trimmed with creamy white ribbons and lace I'd made myself, a new pattern from the capital) and whether Queen Basia's delicate health was improving in the mountain air.

  Denied the baby's milky breath, the disappointed suck-breath kicked over two tall pails of sunflowers and another of irises, and stamped away.

  "Ah, clumsy!" Rosine said to no one in particular. "Give me a hand, would you, Netta?"

  "Of course." I picked up a pail and fetched more water from the fountain. Gathering the fallen stems, we quickly set the stall to rights. When we'd finished, Rosine gave me a bouquet of irises. She wouldn't accept payment.

  "No, thank you, Netta." She stroked her baby's head, and we both knew what she meant. I hoped she wouldn't tell anyone what had--or hadn't-- happened.

  The irises were the color of Loic's eyes, a deep, rich blue, almost violet. Mountain-born folk, like the queen's family and my own, had dark eyes, brown or black. The foster boy Garin's were a changeable gray-green, and King Raimond's a steely blue. But looking into Loic's eyes was like watching a piece of the night sky just before the stars came out. It made me feel the same way, hushed inside but joyful, too. Like listening to Aurelie and her mother play their flutes or swimming in the river on a summer morning, water sliding cool along my skin.

  As I retraced my steps to the bakery for a new loaf, I spotted the rare, magical color again. This time it was on the coat of a gentleman

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  in plumed hat and buckled shoes who was inspecting the pistols displayed in a gunsmith's window.

  At least, that's what my right eye told me. My left insisted on a lizard's tail under the coat, the sheen of scales, and a wispy blue fin that sprouted from the drac's back to drift in an unseen current. Watching him with both eyes made me dizzy, as if the two shapes, Fae and human, didn't belong in the same space. Though smaller, Loic shimmered like that whenever our games took him far from the river.

  I realized that I was gawking at the father of my secret friend. Fear fluttered in my throat; my cheeks burned. I stared at my shoes and hoped he wouldn't notice me. Prayed the suck-breath hadn't tattled. It was too late to turn around; the bakery was on the other side of the gunsmith. If I'd been clever, like Garin, or brave, like the princess, it might have been all right. But I wasn't.

  "Good day, mademoiselle," he said. "What lovely flowers."

  His voice made me think of vanilla custard sliding off a golden spoon. Madame Brebisse said the drac used that voice to lure his victims into the river. People who amused him and his wife would be released after a night of feasting in their underground palace. Dull guests paid for the privilege with their purse. I'd never asked Loic what happened to those both poor and stupid, but I assumed I was about to find out. Aurelie would have given the drac a polite smile and forged on; Garin would have eased away with a witty remark. I wasn't as strong.

  As lazily as a toad catches a fly, the drac's voice snagged the disastrous truth from my lips. "You're kind to say so, monsieur le drac," I stammered.

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  Immediately, I wished I had bitten my tongue. Idiot! 1 knew better than to acknowledge one of the Fae when he wore a human shape. 1 curtsied, hoping the drac would overlook the slip and let me pass.

  Instead he seized my elbow and twisted, jerking me upright. "I beg your pardon, mademoiselle?"

  "That is," 1 flailed, as if we were still discussing flowers, "The irises are much prettier growing wild along the river, aren't they? A bolder blue, and yellow--" Even to my own ears, my voice sounded guilty.

  "You recognize me?" Each word hard as diamond.

  "No," I said, my face hot. "I'm sure we've never been introduced, monsieur."

  The drac's voice was almost gentle. "Alas, mademoiselle. It grieves me, but I cannot permit a mortal, even one as charming as yourself, such familiarity with my affairs."

  "P-please, monsieur," I stuttered.

  "How did you come by your so-acute perception, I wonder?" the drac inquired.

  At least I could protect my friends. I locked my chattering teeth on the answer and stared hard at the irises. I'm not sorry; their celestial blue flags were the last thing I saw before the drac's claws stabbed out and blinded me.

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  Chapter 2 Aurelie

  "What is hidden, shall be revealed." Exultant, the woman's low voice wound around the notes.

  As if revealing things was a good idea. Standing behind a screen in the cathedral, Aurelie clutched her flute, hands sweating on the polished wood. She decided that the requiem's composer had never met the Fae, or paid the price for betraying their secrets.

  The singer hadn't either. She sang as if she offered a precious gift to the cathedral full of mourners. The choir's massed voices joined in. "And nothing remain unavenged."

&n
bsp; Another lie. What about Netta? Who had avenged Aurelie's poor, blind friend?

  Nobody. Because nobody knew the truth about what had happened two years ago, except Netta herself and Garin and Aurelie. They hadn't even told Loic, before the war began and everything changed.

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  The next time Aurelie had visited Cantrez she'd found the Fae's river-bank home abandoned. Dracs didn't fear human vengeance, so they must have had their own reasons for leaving it.

  Though sung with conviction, such words were empty promises. And yet the beauty of the music pulled Aurelie's attention upward, along tall stone columns to an enormous many-petaled window set under the vaulted roof. Slivers of red glass pulsed against the pale stone like embers blazing in a bed of ashes. The colors swam before Aurelie's eyes. She blinked, bracing her shoes against the stone floor. She wouldn't faint at the service commemorating the first anniversary of her mother's death. At least not before it was her turn to play.

  Yearning, the melody climbed. The men's deep voices fell away, and then the women's, as if the music traveled to a place where only the most innocent could go. Aurelie walked out to stand by the choir. As reverently as she could, to honor the mother who had taught her how to play, she lifted her flute and joined in.

  One voice accompanied her, a child's clear treble. "Eternal light shine on them."

  Aurelie's neck prickled with heat; her face felt flushed under the strip of veil. She couldn't have prevented the fever that killed her mother, but if she had acted differently two years earlier, if she hadn't sent her friend to the market square where she met the river drac, or had accompanied her, at least...how different life might be. For Netta, most of all, but for Aurelie, too, and poor little Loic. How abandoned he must have felt when his mortal friends stopped visiting so abruptly.

  She couldn't let tears choke her breath. Not here, not now. Aurelie

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  emptied her mind and played. When her part ended, she lowered her flute and bowed her head, the knot of red-brown hair heavy against her collar. That was the only movement in a crowd that filled the wooden benches to overflowing. Lumielle's townsfolk and merchants, courtiers and farmers, artisans and servants alike seemed transfixed. Not one stirred, holding tight to the delicate thread of sound.

  "Because thou art merciful." Alone, the child's voice soared toward the heavens.

  Aurelie wished she could believe in truth being revealed and errors forgiven. But she had seen injustice at close quarters, enough to strip her of childish illusions. Ten years, not two, might have separated her from the girl who had played with a drac child. As Heir, the responsibility for a kingdom rested squarely on Aurelie's shoulders, reminding her to measure every word. And yet, while she listened to that angelic voice, she could imagine freedom. If only her mind could lift from her body, from her roiling stomach and the sweat that slicked her skin. The pure notes hung in the air, beckoning. She reached for the comfort the music offered; she almost had it....

  The child's voice faded. The rest of the choir returned with a roar, finishing in a ringing chorus. The cleric stood to bless them. The service had ended.

  Aurelie smoothed disappointment into a gracious court mask. She still had to get out of the cathedral gracefully. And to the gravesite, and through her afternoon's appearances, and onto the ship. If she told her father of the fears that troubled her, the diplomatic mission to Dorisen would be delayed again, which her country could ill afford. She had to go and hope for a calm sea crossing to the Skoeran capital.

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  If the weather didn't oblige, at least she'd have vomited herself clean of all emotion but the desire to touch dry land again.

  With a soundless sigh, Aurelie took her place in the procession down the aisle. When she passed Elise, she handed her flute to the maid and accepted a silk shawl in return. Count Sicard, her father's chief counselor, whispered to her, "How dear Queen Basia would have enjoyed hearing you play. Magnificent, Your Highness."

  Aurelie nodded her thanks. A shaft of pain lanced through her chest, stealing her voice. She wanted to run, and keep running. Out of the cathedral, out of the city, and into the mountains, where people called her "cousin," not "Highness." Into the past, where her mother still laughed and sang, where Aurelie played in the woods with her friends, where a boy treated her as his best friend, not the Heir. Where delight, not duty, ruled her life.

  It cost her, to maintain the Heir's correct two paces behind her father, down the long aisle and through the press of sorrowful, sympathetic faces. Pushing past clouds of incense, Aurelie reached the doorway at last. King Raimond started down the wide steps, but Aurelie paused to wrap her shawl around her shoulders.

  A hush had settled over Lumielle, as if the cathedral's great carved doors had opened onto dawn rather than midday. Dividing the city like a knife cuts a pie, the River Sicaun flowed to the sea in a gray-green ribbon fringed with trees. The capital's usually busy bridges and streets, spiraling outward from the two islands at its heart, were deserted. In the distance, golden stubble shone in harvested fields. Touches of crimson and rust splashed the trees at the festival grounds outside Lumielle's walls. Although too far away to see them, Aurelie

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  fancied that the forest lutins painting their autumnal colors had set down their brushes for a moment, like respectful workmen, to honor the queen's memory. Or perhaps the Fae were avoiding the sound of the bells that tolled from the cathedral tower, deafeningly loud. The vibration thrummed through Aurelie's body as she sucked in deep breaths of cool air, trying to refresh her weary brain.

  Soldiers dressed in blue and gold lined the steps down to a broad paved area in front of the cathedral. More of them stood along the wide boulevard and fortified bridge that connected the cathedral's He-Dieu to the palace's lie-Fort. Vaguely, Aurelie noticed how dashing the honor guard looked, their coats decorated with gilt braid and the royal white eagle insignia. There had been little cause for gaiety while Jocondagne's two-year-old disagreement with the island nation of Skoe worsened from hard words and trade blockades to actual skirmishes. When neighboring Alsinha threatened to enter the conflict as well, Jocondagne's nobility had deserted the capital for the relative safety of country estates. Parades and balls, their usual diversions, had fallen out of favor.

  With a truce in place and a treaty waiting to be drafted in Skoe's capital, these soldiers must have been glad to pull their parade uniforms out of cedar chests and dusty wardrobes. Of course, Skoeran or Alsinhalese spies might still lurk behind one of the windows overlooking the cathedral. Showing weakness of any kind would hurt her side's position in the upcoming negotiations. Aurelie needed to be strong or, failing that, to appear strong. She tried for a resolute expression.

  The soft cough at Aurelie's shoulder startled her. She might have pitched forward, down the wide stairs, if the cleric hadn't grasped her elbow. "Your pardon, Princess Aurelie."

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  "Yes?" she said.

  "The people are waiting for you to precede them."

  "Of course." Aurelie's face flamed. How long had she been blocking the way? She picked up her heavy skirts and hurried after her father. When she rounded the side of the cathedral, he was waiting, a wreath of purple flowers in his hand. Silver glinted in the king's light hair. Slate-blue eyes studied her from under the sandy brows. He frowned. "You look unwell, Aurelie. This trip to Dorisen--"

  "I'm fine, Papa." She brushed away his concern and nodded at the flowers. "May I?"

  "As you wish."

  Aurelie took the wreath and stepped into the woodland that covered the southern tip of the Ile-Dieu. As always, the park's ancient trees welcomed her. Feathery branches of evergreens muffled the clamor of the bells; gnarled oak and majestic chestnuts invited her to press her face to their bark and share their deep-rooted strength. Abandoning the path, Aurelie wove between the trees, stripping off her gloves to stroke the sturdy trunks. The wreath's petals tickled her skin. As lightly, a forest lutine reached twiggy fingers out of
a copper beech to touch the princess's hair. Aurelie pretended not to notice. After the drac had blinded Netta, ignoring the Fae had become second nature.

  To Aurelie, at least. She didn't know about Garin, who'd left Jocondagne shortly afterward with the rest of the Skoerans. Once, that would have been the first of a thousand questions she'd stored up to ask him after the hostilities had eased. Now she wasn't as sure that they could ever recapture their old closeness. Since her mother's

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  death the previous year, Aurelie felt as though her heart had been removed from her body, and, like in one of Madame Brebisse's tales, hidden in an egg, inside a pigeon, in an iron box banded with chains and cast to the bottom of the sea, so deep she could never recover it.

  And maybe she didn't even wish to. It was easier to forget one's heart and go along under duty's lash, like her father. After his wife's death, King Raimond had withdrawn into himself, emerging only to conduct the Skoeran war with a sternness unlike his previous patient good humor. It was as if he welcomed having an enemy to distract him from grief. He didn't seem to understand how Aurelie felt as those she cared for had been taken from her, one after the other.

  Driven by her unhappy thoughts, Aurelie found herself at the stone slab. She set the wreath above the words carved into the granite top. "Basia of Jocondagne, beloved wife, mother, and queen." The dates followed, and then two mismatched beasts.

  The sea eagle made sense. At the center of the royal family's crest, the symbol of House Pygargue spread its broad wings in a gesture of protection. White eagles could be found throughout the palace. Their image ornamented everything from leather book bindings and chair backs to banners, linens, and maidservants' aprons.