by Ella Ardent
Had someone else claimed my prize?
Rage surged through me at the possibility. I recalled the way my father had spoken to her the night before and my fists clenched.
There was only one who might have dared to take what was mine.
If he thought I would not challenge him over this, he was mistaken.
I dressed in haste, furious that my father would have cheated me, and strode from my rooms. I ignored the protests of the servants outside of his door and pushed past them to pound upon the heavy wooden portal.
“I demand her return!” I roared and hammered upon the door again. “I demand the surrender of she who is mine!”
The key was turned in the lock from the other side, and the door slowly opened. It was a serving maid who regarded me with impatience in her eyes, her hair hanging loose over her shoulders and her chemise gaping open.
The king lounged upon his massive bed of silver and black. He was watching me with a smile, already holding a chalice of wine. “Disappointed in your choice, my son?” he asked with a smirk.
“She’s gone,” I snapped. “Someone unlocked the cage and it wasn’t me.”
The king blinked, then drained his chalice and cast it aside. “Do you make an accusation or an observation?” he asked, and his low tone didn’t fool me.
He was angry.
I was more so.
“Both,” I said, biting off the word. Our gazes locked, a battle of wills silently declared between us. The maid stood looking between us, her fear clear, until the king flicked a hand in dismissal. She ran from the chamber, her clothing clutched to her chest. The door slammed behind her and I advanced upon the king.
I didn’t care in that moment if he rescinded everything he had given to me. I hadn’t been a king’s son just a week before and it wouldn’t bother me to not be so again. The lady, though, was a prize I was unwilling to surrender.
No matter what the price.
“You lied to me,” I said and his brows rose.
“Indeed?”
“You told me I could do anything so long as I wasn’t late to the board,” I reminded him. “I have yet to be late to a meal, yet my prize, my right, my maiden, has been stolen from me.”
“You think by me.”
“I cannot imagine who else would dare.”
“I am king,” he reminded me with heat.
“And I am heir. And the choosing on the second eve was my right, by your own decree, and that of no other.” I took a step closer. “If you took her, you were wrong. I demand her return.”
His gaze hardened for a moment and I thought I would be dismissed, with nothing to my name at all. “You erred last night,” he told me firmly. “You defied my will and broke a treaty.”
“I will not wed Lascivia.”
“Not even to keep war from our borders?”
“No man of sense welcomes a viper to his bed. The price of denying her can’t be high enough to change my mind.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “And it would have been my right to teach you a lesson by taking your prize.”
I squared my shoulders to argue with him. “Did you?”
“I didn’t. I could have, but I didn’t.”
We glared at each other, because I didn’t truly believe him, but then he looked into his chalice and shrugged, as if bored with the discussion. “You are right,” he said mildly. “She should have been there when you awakened.”
I couldn’t leave the matter be. “I ensured she would be so, but someone interfered. Someone else has a key.”
“I didn’t free her,” the king said, which I realized wasn’t quite the same as saying that he didn’t have a second key. “Yvonne kept me amused last night.” He rose with purpose and snapped his fingers imperiously. That didn’t keep me from noticing that he limped, much less that he winced when he put his weight upon one leg. I had no chance to comment, though, for he raised his voice.
“Fetch me a bath and summon my squires,” he cried and I heard scampering behind me as the servants hastened to see his will done. When the first dared to enter the chamber, bowing low, the king issued orders. “Search the palace for the girl my son chose last night. Rouse every guest and demand to see his or her companions.”
“Surely your guests might take offense, your majesty.”
“Surely they will understand that the theft of my son’s prize is cause for giving offense,” he retorted and I might have been more happy with his reply if my suspicions of his role had been completely dismissed. “If she is not found in the palace, my son and I will ride out to find her. Prepare our steeds immediately. My son’s will has been defied!”
I realized that the king believed she wouldn’t be discovered in the palace at all.
What did he know of the truth of this matter?
He didn’t intend to confide in me, it was clear, for I was dismissed.
“Dress yourself to ride out,” he commanded.
“Of course, sir.” I turned to leave, more than ready to hunt down my maiden, wherever she might be. I’d barely crossed the threshold when one of the footmen came racing along the corridor. In his hands, he cradled a glass slipper of which there were only two in the world.
“It was on the stairs, sir,” he said, surrendering it with a bow.
“Bring it,” the king said. “It is of such a size that she will be the only one who can wear it.”
I glanced back at his conviction. “How can you be sure of such a thing?”
“She wore them for two nights of dancing. No matter how she disguises herself, the shoe will fit on this day, as well.”
“It might fit a dozen women.”
“Do you not recognize sorcery when you see it?” my father asked, amusement in his tone. “I will wager that the shoe you hold fits only one foot in all of Euphoria.”
I turned away, thinking furiously. If the shoe was wrought by sorcery, I would wager that it had been made by the one witch I knew in Euphoria.
My mother.
Did she know my maiden?
Did she know where to find her?
We rode out just before midday. The ceremony of naming me as my father’s official heir was delayed. I couldn’t have cared less, for there was but one deed that needed doing to my thinking. I chafed with impatience in the bailey, waiting on my father.
Lascivia had departed, I learned, and I was disappointed not to have seen Balthazar again. I wondered only then what had happened to Freya and Reyna. I hoped he had taken them with him. I hoped he would ensure their return to Noorlandia.
Before I could enquire, my father appeared in all his splendor. Many of the guests had dressed and come to the bailey to watch us ride out, curiosity bright in their eyes.
We mounted in unison. Our destriers were as black as midnight, their trap shining silver, their manes flowing like dark silk. Our armor shone, our jewels gleamed, the black and silver of my father’s colors looked stark and potent in the morning light.
Two pennant-bearers rode before us, a footman behind carried the glass slipper, a herald rode with his horn tucked under his arm. Two knights in my father’s livery followed to defend the party. The portcullis creaked as it was raised, then my father gave the nod. We charged down the road to the village, a glorious party filled with purpose and power.
It was cold and clear, the sun almost white in its brilliance. Field and forest were dusted with snow and frost glittered on the road. Our cloaks flared behind us. Our destriers galloped with vigor, their breath making white clouds in the winter air. Their hooves pounded on the road, shattering the veneer of ice, and doubtless drawing the attention of the villagers.
There was a cluster of them in the village square by the time we arrived. They were bundled in woolen garb of earthy hues yet their faces were flushed with the cold. Some carried firewood. Others had been fetching water from the well. They eyed us with suspicion.
We halted our steeds, letting them snort and stamp in their impatience to run yet further
. The herald blew a summons upon his horn, then raised his voice.
“Hear ye, hear ye! The crown prince of Euphoria seeks the maiden he chose from your daughters last night. Her name is unknown, as is that of her father.”
I saw my father drop his gaze to his gloves and wondered again what he knew.
The herald gestured to the footman, who held the glass slipper aloft.
“Here is one of her shoes, abandoned at the palace in her flight. The prince seeks his maiden and will bestow honors upon she whose foot fits the shoe.” He blew another volley on his horn. “Prepare your daughters! We shall visit every house this day until she is found!”
The villagers exchanged glances, then hastened home with their burdens. The king turned to me, his expression expectant and his gaze guarded. “And so, my son, where will you begin your hunt?”
My inclination was to go to my mother and ask what she knew, but I was reluctant to lead the king to her door—and even more reluctant to have him learn any truth my mother might confess to me.
I would choose a futile path and hope that the king would become bored. I would wait for him to abandon my quest and return to the comfort of the palace before I sought the truth where I imagined it was hidden. Surely whatever made him limp would drive him to abandon the chase soon? I chafed to find my maiden as quickly as possible, but I wanted her for myself—not to be compelled to share her with my insatiable father.
“We should begin with the sheriff, of course,” I said, indicating that man’s large house. “Though he has no daughters of his own, it would be courteous to meet with him first.”
“And so it would be,” my father agreed. I couldn’t tell whether he was pleased that I thought of protocol or not. We touched our heels to the sides of our steeds, moving in perfect unison, and the destriers stepped forward as one.
The door to Felix’s house was swept open as my father and I strode toward it. It was the seventh house we visited, though certainly, I didn’t expect to find my maiden here. When would my father become bored?
Felix himself bowed in greeting and I assumed he had come home for the Yule. He always traveled, and it seemed he was absent from his home more often than he was present.
Perhaps that was the only way he could tolerate his wife Bella and her daughters.
To be sure, I was dreading their attempts to don the shoe. I knew that neither Blondina nor Maligna was my elusive beauty, surely as well as they knew it, but the masks at the ball meant that every damsel could try the shoe. In theory, they had been disguised and I couldn’t possibly have discerned the identity of any of them.
In reality, neither of these two could have been mistaken for anyone else.
Bella simpered and flattered my father, hustling around us with obvious ambition. Felix stood back, his expression guarded. I had always thought him a hard man, but on this day, he seemed almost fierce.
Did I imagine the furious look that passed between him and my father?
The footman brought the shoe and Bella exclaimed over its delicate beauty. My father stepped back, standing at the perimeter of the room, his expression as grim as that of Felix. There was a curious snap of tension in the air, and I knew it didn’t emanate from me.
Blondina was oldest and first to try the shoe. I had no fear of the delicate marvel fitting upon her monstrous foot. I did fear that she might shatter the shoe, especially when her determination to force her foot into it became clear. I held the shoe and she slammed her foot into it, doing so with such vigor that the glass sliced the side of her foot. She would have sheared off her own toe, I was certain, and her blood ran over my gloves. She seized the shoe herself and braced her ankle upon her knee, scowling as she fought to work the heel of the shoe over her own. I stepped back and wiped my hands, appalled by her ambition and greed.
Would she break the shoe?
How then would I identify my maiden?
I thought of my father’s assertion that it was wrought of sorcery and hoped the spell was stronger than Blondina.
No matter how much the glass cut her foot, Blondina was undaunted. She grunted with her exertions and thumped her heel repeatedly, intent upon getting it into the shoe. I watched with disgust as her blood ran over the glass and dripped to the floor.
“Enough,” I said and stepped forward to reclaim the shoe.
“Let me help,” Bella said at the same moment.
My father raised his brows and I stepped back with a sigh. Mother and daughter worked vigorously, so vigorously that both became flushed in the face. Still, they didn’t admit defeat, but tried again and again. My father sighed with forbearance.
“It appears that the shoe does not fit,” Felix said finally, some authority in his voice that made his wife abandon the quest. Bella stood and straightened her dress, smiled at me, then beckoned to Maligna. Blondina abandoned her seat in poor temper, leaving a trail of blood upon the carpet.
It was Maligna’s attempt I feared, for she was tiny. I suspected her foot might fit the shoe and indeed, she pushed her foot into it with ease. Her smile was triumphant, if chilling, and Bella clapped her hands with pleasure. I could see that the shoe was too big, though. I offered my hand and Maligna stood, then took a step toward me. The shoe wobbled, and I was reminded of a horse determined to unseat its rider. Maligna lost her balance and then she fell, sprawling on the carpet as her face turned an angry red. She seized the shoe again and tried to put it on her foot, but it was so large that her foot appeared to fill only half of it. She might have been a child, playing with her mother’s shoes.
“And once again, the shoe does not fit,” Felix said. Once again, I watched the women still, for his word, it appeared, was law in his home. What did that say of Ellie’s situation? Surely he didn’t condone it?
He turned to me with a smile that was thin and cold. “I wish you luck in your hunt, sir,” he said, and bowed again.
And that was the moment I saw the truth.
Black Ellie.
I thought of the feel of her tiny waist beneath my hands when I lifted her to the cart that day, the ebony river of hair her mother had braided when she was a child, her heart-shaped face, almost forgotten beneath the mire, and the blue eyes that had once sparkled with laughter. I recognized the girl I had once known in the maiden who had seduced me utterly, and I knew where I should find my lost prize.
“But you have another daughter,” I said to Felix, noting how he stiffened. “Where is Ellie?”
“She lives here no longer,” he said, his voice tight. I saw how Bella’s gaze flew to his in alarm. “Her disobedience could be tolerated no longer.”
“But where has she gone?”
“I cannot say,” Felix said, then shrugged. “I do not care.”
Bella smiled, better pleased with his words than I was.
“What an interesting way of honoring your wife’s memory,” I said. “By spurning the child she bore you. If Ellie has been disobedient, I cannot be surprised, given the travesty that her life became after her mother’s death.”
A dull red rose on Felix’s neck and fury lit his eyes. “How dare you comment upon matters within my own house,” he began, but I interrupted him firmly.
“I dare to note injustice. Were I king now, you would be charged for your neglect and abuse of your own blood daughter.”
“But you are not king,” Felix said through his teeth. “And you might never be so. Has your naming as crown prince not been delayed?”
I turned then, intending to appeal to my father, only to see that he was no longer in the room.
When had he left?
Where had he gone?
Had he become bored with the hunt? As much as I had wished him to be gone, I his absence troubled me.
Felix smirked. “Surely, Royce, you didn’t imagine that you could decline a diplomatic alliance without consequences,” he said quietly.
I could only satisfy myself with a glare.
I wouldn’t abandon the opportunity. The king’s absence
meant that I could seek my mother’s counsel without his witnessing the conversation. I claimed the bloody shoe, took my leave of Felix and his brood of vipers, and strode to my mother’s hut.
My mother was on her knees, wiping spilled ale from the floor of her hut. There was a crockery cup shattered against the wall and I recognized it as the one she always offered to the king. She put her hand on her back when she straightened at the sound of the opening door, and granted me a wary look.
“And now the son,” she said, pushing to her feet. She ran a hand over her hair and curtseyed to me. “My lord.” If there was mockery in her manner, I ignored it.
The fire was blazing, which was odd at this time of the morning. Even though the snow had come and the day was cold, my mother was always frugal with her wood. I would expect her to be more so, now that I wasn’t home to chop it for her. The blaze should have been burned down to coals by now, and the embers would be stirred when the darkness fell.
What had she done?
I’d left the servants outside, waiting on the road with my horse. I had imagined my mother might speak more bluntly to me, but I saw that she was not inclined to reveal anything on this day. Perhaps the king had taken all of her truth, along with a measure of her ale.
I took a deep breath and smelled the burning of something other than wood. Had she singed a chicken of its feathers? There wasn’t a bird in the kitchen. No, it wasn’t the scent of feathers. I inhaled again, seeking to identify the distant memory of the scent.
Hair. It was hair. I remembered the nights she had cut the hair of me or Argenta and burned the trimmings.
Whose hair?
Her own hair looked as long as ever, threaded with silver and iron.
I doubted she had groomed the king.
“Where is Ellie?” I demanded, suspecting that Ellie no longer had her long dark tresses.
“Why should I know the location of Felix’s daughter?” she asked, which was a reply but not an answer.
“Because he says he has cast her out, and she would come to you.”
“You are so certain of her choices as this?”
“I know something of Ellie’s choices.” I put the glass shoe on the table between us. The firelight toyed with it, making it look as if it, too, were made of flames.
