Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms

by Sacchi Green

  Not that the arrow would make me less dead, terrifying or not. Something moved in the shadows at the figure’s feet, but it was too small to be threatening. I hoped. I tried again, “I seek only to pass. Will you let me by?”

  “Give me your horse.” This time, I could hear the desperation in that voice. That, and something more. Something familiar. I wondered how well they could shoot, this person in shadow, who wanted to steal my horse. I wondered what I would do if they succeeded. I pictured my return to my father’s court, my quest at an end, and me the utter failure they thought me already. A boiling rage filled me then. Kicking the horse forward into a full gallop while I drew my sword was a matter of pure impulse.

  The arrow, when it flew, went wide. As did the horse as he dumped me unceremoniously on top of the archer in a sprawling mass of limbs and imprecations. Both bow and sword fell to the side as we wrestled, grappling for each other’s throats, for an imagined weapon, for…the fading light of day fell on the archer’s face. Princess Eliann scowled up at me, “You!”

  A small toad leapt from her mouth and hopped off into the grass and she stopped looking at me and stared after it. Some things never changed. I contemplated rolling off her, then decided to stay where I was. Despite what I thought of Eliann’s personality and…affliction, I could not deny that her personal endowments were unparalleled. Besides, sooner or later she had to notice me if I was sitting on top of her.

  I spoke as coldly as I could manage, “I could say the same thing. How do you come to be playing the highwayman in the Adin Forest? I thought that you were waiting to find out which of my brothers would return to win your hand.”

  “Because naturally you’re the only one who wants something else—” Princess Eliann pinched her full lips tightly closed and glared at me through narrowed gray eyes. In contrast to her olive complexion, they looked silver in the fading light, like small daggers. And if she could have stabbed me with her gaze alone, she would have done it.

  It was probably past time for me to arise and catch my horse. I stood with a sigh, as much for my new bruises as for having to part company with Eliann’s curves. But I remained as chivalrous as any knight and reached out my hand to help her up.

  She accepted my assistance with an ill grace. “As if there was any question which of your brothers would succeed on a quest! Greir is far and away a better warrior than Fenar.” She glanced up and down my armor and her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that Fenar’s armor you’re wearing? I remember it from when he rode out.” Eliann’s voice dropped as a thought occurred to her. “How…? You didn’t kill him, did you?” Toads galore, followed by a small chunk of burnt metal of indefinable composition.

  I burst out laughing and nudged a toad on its way before whistling for my horse the way Fenar had taught me. A moment later, there were hoofbeats on the road. “No. Why would I do that? He’s my favorite. I left him at the monastery at Castlerock, happily reading his way through their library. He has no love for—” It was my turn to fall silent abruptly, remembering the company I now kept. Fenar loathed Eliann, but I could hardly say so to her.

  Apparently, she heard what I didn’t say. Eliann scuffed her foot in the dust of the road and looked down, her expression forlorn. “Me. I know. None of you do. But everyone wants my mother’s domain. And my dowry. Even you are willing to pick up a sword for it.” She tilted her face up to glare at me and spat out some creatures I couldn’t identify in the growing dark, but which I hoped were still toads.

  “Not me. I’m leaving the kingdom,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I could. “I’ve realized that Father will give my hand to some lordling for a trade alliance without a thought to my happiness or lack thereof if I stay. I trained alongside my brothers, whether they knew it or not. Why should I do fewer deeds of valor than Greir?”

  It was Eliann’s turn to laugh. “Deeds of valor? You just fell off your horse on top of me!”

  “I leapt,” I declared coldly. And, lovely curves or no lovely curves, once my horse came back, he and I would be on our way again. I pretended that I no longer cared why Eliann was here, or for anything else about her. I only needed to find a campsite before night fell in earnest. Somewhere far away from toads and the faint scent of a smithy.

  A roar from somewhere nearby shook the forest around us. Eliann’s curves were molded to me, armor and all, an instant later. “Can you really use that sword?” she murmured into my shoulder, turning her face aside to daintily spit out what looked like a damp flower.

  Fleeing Eliann was no longer my first plan. Instead, I picked up my sword before wrapping a cautious arm around her and pulling her closer. The warm press of her body against mine helped to soothe my otherwise trembling limbs as I stared into the trees over her head. Fenar’s horse was galloping toward us as quickly as he had originally fled for the forest, and beautiful princess in my arms or not, I wanted to be on his back.

  Nothing moved in the trees behind him so I risked another whistle. The horse’s ears pricked and he slowed as he got closer to us. I released Eliann reluctantly and caught his trailing reins. “Perhaps we should go back to my father’s castle?” A second roar, this one much closer, shook the ground around us. The horse broke free and fled, nearly dragging me with it.

  Eliann scrambled around behind me, fumbling with her bow as I waved my sword in the general direction of the trees and tried to look menacing. “Shouldn’t we just run? Maybe it won’t be able to find us if we hide.” She pointed south of the now shifting trees on the road ahead of us. I grabbed her hand and we bolted, slinking down into the tall grass as best we could while we raced for the far edge of the forest.

  Then we went sprawling on outstretched roots, smacked our faces into branches, and occasionally ran headlong into tree trunks in our flight. After the third such mishap, I slowed to rub my bruised face and listen for sounds of pursuit. But once I had waved Eliann into quieter panting, there was nothing except the usual woodsy sounds: sleepy birds, the distant crackling of leaves, and the babble of flowing water.

  Eliann cocked her head to one side. Then she walked around us in a circle, alternately sniffing and listening. I wondered if her…affliction made her hear or smell better than I did. If so, at least the fairy who cursed her gave her that much. Well, that and the occasional gem to build her dowry. That was enough to make me consider my light money pouch; since fortune had thrown us together and Eliann spat out more gems when she was happy, perhaps I might find a way to make her so.

  She pointed off into the trees and started walking. I followed her and hoped with all my heart that we were not walking toward the source of the roaring. But soon I was relieved that she was correct when we stumbled into a clearing with a brook running through it.

  The pool that it emptied into was a few more steps away, as I discovered by nearly falling into it. Eliann caught my arm as I wavered on the edge of a small cliff. “You’re sure about the whole deeds of valor thing? Maybe you should reconsider.” The toad that popped out of her mouth looked perplexed but happy as it vanished into the pool below us.

  I bit back a growl as another thought occurred to me. “Do you have any idea what comes out when?” I said, as casually as I could as we walked down to the edge of the pool. I looked around the clearing to avoid meeting Eliann’s eyes. She never responded well to being asked about her…affliction. But nothing popped out of the trees except the moon, shining down to light our way.

  When we were standing still and the silence had become deafening, I risked a sidelong glance at her. She was frowning, but at the water, not at me. Then at last, she sighed and glanced back at me. “It’s a curse, so yes and no. If I’m really happy, it’s often jewels. But sometimes, it’s just happy toads. It’s like it can’t make up its mind.”

  “Why did the fairy curse you anyway? I thought the fairies usually gave minor blessings to royal infants. I got a blessing for excellent teeth and my brothers got bravery and wisdom and all that sort of thing.” I found my excellent teeth clenching shu
t over a few expletives of my own. Why didn’t I get bravery and wisdom, too? Stupid fairies.

  Eliann gave me a considering look, as if she was wondering the same thing that I was. Then she looked away, her expression suggesting that there was more that she wasn’t ready to say. “My mother offended one of the most powerful fairies. She said that she tried to apologize, but they cursed me anyway.” She shrugged and spat out two small diamonds and what appeared to be a ruby.

  After a moment, she continued, “I don’t know whether or not I believe her. But at least the fairies gave me a way out: all I have to do to break the curse is to convince someone to fall in love with me.” Her face lit up as though there was a candle behind it. A rose, perfect in its redness, dropped from her lips and I caught it before it could fall to the ground.

  The light in Eliann’s face dimmed and she grimaced. Then she handed me the jewels and the flower. I tucked the rose in my cloak and the jewels in my belt pouch. Perhaps we could trade them for food if we got tired of hunting.

  When I looked back up, Eliann was rubbing at a deep scratch on one shapely arm. “I want a bath,” she said, her voice dreamy, as if her thoughts were somewhere else. She stretched and began removing her tunic. I started and gaped, valor and cleverness tossed aside much like Eliann’s clothes. Her endowments were even more delightful when unfettered by the sort of clothing a disguised princess might wear. And before I was done admiring them, she pulled off her boots and breeches and jumped into the pool.

  The wave she sent up splashed over me and soaked me to the skin. She laughed as she surfaced but her lips remained toad-free. That was enough to make me entertain a long-forgotten fantasy about what might have happened if her mother had not banned me from visiting them.

  A light breeze caressed my wet clothes and brought me back to the present. From the expectant look on Eliann’s face, I was clearly supposed to follow her example and join her in the water. But I hesitated. She already thought me a fool. What if she thought me an ugly one, too?

  The moonlight glistened on her wet flesh as she swam and splashed and I ached to be close to her, to hold her in my arms. I sat down on the wet grass and took off my boots. My other clothes followed more slowly, at least until I considered that Greir would have already dived in.

  There was something different about Eliann tonight, apart from her lack of clothes. Watching her splash merrily in the moonlit pool gave me a dull ache just below my belly that spread in waves of heat down my legs, then upward through the rest of my limbs. It was a strange new sensation that seemed to increase the longer I looked at her.

  When she looked up and beckoned to me again, I did not deny her. Instead, I slid awkwardly out of the bindings that made me look more like a man when I rode alone. Looking down at myself, I could not help but think that I did not strip to advantage, not like Eliann. My body looked more like those of my brothers than it did like hers.

  I eased into the water, nearly jumping back out as it froze my flesh. Eliann grinned at me, then sent a second wave up to drown me for a span of shivering breaths. “Come in, Shalene. It will get no warmer standing there.” Something shining dropped from her lips and vanished into the pool. It did not swim away so I steeled my courage and plunged into the water after it.

  And found myself surfacing in the circle of Eliann’s arms. We were nose to nose, and I fell into her silver eyes. Her breasts pressed against mine and the memory of that long-ago day when I kissed her was all I could think about.

  I hoped that there wasn’t a toad waiting for me.

  I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my lips to hers. She tasted of lavender and rich spices, with only a hint of mines and swamp. And I savored all of it, every scent and flavor I could pull from her mouth with my own.

  She pressed her lovely naked body against mine and my hands caressed her curves instinctively. After a moment, I became aware that one of her full breasts had floated into my hand and I broke off kissing her mouth to plant feverish kisses on it. Eliann sighed, but the sound soon turned to a deep and fierce groan as my mouth and hands explored all of her that I could reach above and below the water.

  Eliann wrapped her legs around my hips and rocked against me as if she were riding a horse. I no longer felt cold; on the contrary, the water warmed as if lit by the sun and I began to give voice to groans of my own. Then she moved her hand between my legs, coaxing new and strange sensations from me, feelings I had never known before. I rode her hand, clasping her fingers inside me until a blinding flash of heat and warmth and lust shook me from head to toe.

  “How did you know how to do this?” I gasped at last. “What tutor teaches such things?”

  She gave me a slow smile that made me want to see her lose control, to give herself up to me. “The castle library is the safest place to hide if I want to avoid talking to anyone. There are some very instructive”—she broke off with a low, growling moan as I imitated her movements and slipped my fingers inside her before continuing—“texts.”

  I fumbled against her, trying to use my mouth and my hand and my hips to drive her to the same sensations she had aroused in me. She moved my hand so that my fingers thrust all the way up inside her. I gasped as her cunny walls closed around my fingers and I wondered if I would ever feel my hand again, whole and uncrushed. Then I looked into her lovely half-closed eyes and found that I no longer cared. Instead, I pushed as deep into her as I dared.

  She was wet and warm and soft, and our flesh and the water flowed together until I never wanted it to end. This was what I had dreamed of doing, if only I had known it. Why had I let fear and a few toads get in my way?

  Eliann gave herself up to me then, her back arching and thrusting her breasts upward to my eager lips. Her legs flailed in the water as I tried to keep her afloat, grateful that the pool was shallow. A series of cries poured from her lips, but not a toad or a gem appeared until she murmured my name, and collapsed, shuddering against me.

  Her kisses were hot on my own fevered lips and her hands were everywhere on me until I shivered and shuddered with longings of my own. She bent me over the rocks on the pool’s edge and knelt between my thighs, her mouth urgent against the curls where my thighs met. Her fingers were hard, rigid inside me, and I cried out first from the shock of their thrusts, then from pleasure as they coaxed and caressed me, inside and out.

  Eliann’s tongue drew a circle of fire on my flesh until I howled like one of my father’s hounds. With my last bit of will, I dug my fingers into the rocks underneath me to hold myself steady as I bucked and rode her mouth. I surrendered to her touch until I could bear it no longer, and slid off the rocks into the pool, still shivering.

  When at last I could speak again, when we had kissed and kissed each other until we drank the air in gulps each time we paused, I looked deep into her silver eyes. “Truly, how did you learn to do such things, Eliann?” I planted a series of little kisses on the bare flesh of her shoulder, trying to warm it with my mouth.

  She turned her face aside before she spoke and I realized that she feared to spit out a toad. I vowed then and there that toads would be amongst my favorite creatures if we might know each other like this again. But she spoke before I could tell her so. “I haven’t…told you the truth. At least not all of it.”

  The sound of a discrete cough above our heads made both of us jump. The woman who stood watching us from the bank glowed like the moon and stars. From this alone, I would have known that she was a fairy. But her lovely iridescent wings certainly helped to banish any remaining doubts.

  We cringed away from her, such was our surprise and the anger in her coldly beautiful face. I wondered if we had trespassed in her woods, her pool, when I caught a glint of something else, a jealous fury perhaps, in her bright green eyes and her frown. At that moment, her steed shifted forward to drink from the pool and I forgot that thought in my terror.

  It raised its great scaled and horned head and uttered a soft growl at us, and Eliann shivered in my arms. But only fo
r a moment before she seemed to draw steel from somewhere deep inside her. She climbed out of the pool and stood on the bank next to our visitor. She had to look up to meet the fairy’s eyes, but I saw no terror in her face now. “Hullo, Irista. I wondered when you’d find me.” Her tone was curiously calm, resigned, and only a few shining pebbles fell from her lips with her words.

  “Well, I certainly didn’t expect to find you like this.” Irista gestured at me contemptuously and I made a shamefaced effort to cover myself with my hands. Until I realized that Eliann wasn’t doing the same and I lowered mine with an effort.

  Eliann placed her hands on her shapely and still unclothed hips and said, “Was not your curse enough? Once I was foolish enough to believe that you loved me. I even believed that if I fell in love with you, the curse would be broken. But I did that and nothing changed. Now I believe in neither your lies nor your illusions.”

  My spirits sank like lead to the bottom of the pool. She loved the fairy who cursed her? Why? She could have anyone, except perhaps Greir or Fenar. She could have me. I would never make her spit up toads.

  I watched as Irista trailed a glowing finger down her cheek and Eliann’s face seemed to melt. “I had to make sure that you were mine. Only I can break the spell, Eliann. And you know you still love me.” Irista’s voice came out in a purr and Eliann’s shoulders slumped. “Just tell me so and we’ll go home. We’ll be together always, just as we should be.”

  She seemed to remember that I was there and glared down at me. “You’ll have no need of the likes of her. But then, that’s easily fixed now.” Her eyes glowed and she gestured to her steed.

  Eliann looked startled, her mouth open as if she were frozen in place. I lunged for the bank and my sword as the great beast swung its head around. I rolled forward and grabbed the hilt, just as our old armsmaster had taught. Then I jumped to my feet and confronted the creature, wishing with all my heart that I had time to don my armor.