A flurry of emotions warred within her. Feelings she’d thought she’d dealt with. Stirrings that twisted her heart and her gut in opposing ways. Mouth suddenly dry, she licked her lips and broke eye contact.
“Yes, I’m sure he was most concerned. So much so he has spent the past twelve years without trying to contact me even once.” She drew in a breath through her nose to quell the rising bitterness and anger. “No matter. You may tell James whatever you like. As for me, well, you see me. Acquaintance made, for whatever it is worth. You can continue with your trade agreements, or bride searches, or whatever it is that’s brought you to Eisland.”
“What would you have had him do, Your Highness? Risk capture and his neck?” He moved closer, taking his steps slow and studying her. Cautious. “I could tell him whatever I want, but I would like the truth. Are you well?”
James could have sent a bird or found a sorcerer. She had no doubt that, had someone as clever as him wanted to contact her, he could have done it. He had deserted with two mages aboard his vessel.
Muir continued to move closer, step by slow step. Refusing to cower in his shadow, she drew herself tall and raised her chin. “I am confined to my rooms and suffer from a lack of company, but not madness, if that is what you are asking.”
“Wouldn’t it be criminal to imprison royalty, or does your kingdom operate under laws so different from our own?”
“I am here because my father has decreed it so.” Could she trust this stranger? He had such friendly eyes despite their strange coloring, but she didn’t dare to lower her guard yet. “As he is king, it seems to be allowed. Now, why are you truly here? If you wanted to meet me so badly, I’m certain my father would have paraded me around in the usual manner.”
Muir hesitated. “Each person I have met implies you were driven mad by Hook’s hand, that you babble, froth, and can’t be trusted to do no harm to others. Now I see you prefer your solitude, and it was a mistake to seek your company.” He backed away.
A short, harsh laugh escaped before she could reign it in. “No, the solitude is positively maddening, but I don’t know you or why you’re here. You scaled my tower not to spirit me away but to have a look, and you say it is because James Hook has asked you to.”
She still didn’t know exactly what it was she had seen in the mirror, and she hesitated to mention it and give away her secret. If this really was a trick of her father’s, then she couldn’t let her magic be known.
Muir’s face flushed red all the way to the top of his ears. “Why would I spirit away a mad woman? James is a good man, a good man who would show concern over a woman even after she’d spurned him and written vile, angry letters calling him many words I won’t mention in a lady’s presence.”
Angry and vile letters? She froze, panic beating behind her breast when she puzzled out the truth. Had James written her after all and the notes been intercepted. “I—”
“If you must know why he never returned for you, you need look only in the mirror. I didn’t come to have a look, as I very well said to you moments ago, but to discover why you were confined and to possibly rescue you if I must.”
“I never wrote such things! How could I when I’ve had no idea where he is?” Anger shot through her and pushed her from the wall. She crossed over and stood right before him, tall and proud and quivering with fury. “Don’t you dare tell me to look in a mirror or call me mad. I’m not. And if you’re so blind that you can’t see that for yourself—”
The tumblers clicked below, the sound echoing up the spiraling staircase. The blood drained from her face and took her fury with it.
“Go,” she whispered. “Please go before they catch you in here. I don’t know what my father will do, but if he’s locked his own daughter away, do you really think he’ll care if a diplomat befalls an accident?”
“No one would believe it. It would be war.”
“Would you take that risk? Please go. If not for yourself, then for the sake of your family.”
Something flickered in the strange Oclander’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, only for her father’s voice to carry up the tower.
“Rapunzel?” Footsteps echoed on the stairs.
“Please tell James I never wrote those things, and I know why he truly left. That I admire him for fighting.”
“I’ll let him know.” He paused by the window, then glanced at her over his shoulder. “And I will return.”
After a cursory glance for any guardsmen down below, he dove from the window and shifted midair, soaring away to the blind side of the castle. Her father came around the bend only moments later.
“Rapunzel? The guards tell me you shouted. Is all well?” He moved to the window, peered out, then closed the pane shut.
“Everything is fine, Father. I opened the window for some air and was startled by a clump of ice falling off the roof. I stumbled back and fell is all. I didn’t mean to make anyone worry.” And her lie explained away the wetness beneath the window from her attack. She couldn’t allow him to know her powers sometimes crept from beneath the manashackles.
“I see. Well, my dear, I’ve come to tell you that you’ll be going out of your room tomorrow. I need you ready for the occasion to meet our diplomatic envoy. Wear the green dress, would you?"
She gritted her teeth. “That dress is ruined.”
“Yes, it’s perfect. Wear it. I’ll send Sebille in the morning to prepare you.”
“How can you if I won’t drink your tea?”
Her father’s smile didn’t mask the cold, hard gleam in his eyes. “Because, my dear, you know what I'll do to poor Sebille if she fails in her task.”
He had threatened it before, promising to send Sebille abroad to the Ridaeron Dynasty as a pleasure slave. Her stomach twisted, and the rising bile in her throat soured her mouth. “You’re a monster.”
“No. I am a king, and I will do whatever is necessary for this nation. It’s a pity you’re unwilling to do the same.”
* * *
The next morning dawned with a bright sun, but Muir hid away in the guest suite. Were he at home, he would have started the day by stretching his wings with a flight, but he didn’t dare reveal his true form to these strangers yet. The nature of his other half was a secret he’d hold to his heart—and hope the princess would as well.
He read from the book shelves in his private chamber instead of exploring the castle, struggling at times with the language, absorbing it like a sponge at others. The rooms given to him were quite large, a private bedchamber, washing room, and a sitting room with a spacious terrace overlooking the northern courtyard.
Aware of eyes always watching him when he ventured into the palace halls, he put that sitting room to use instead and wrote phony letters home, which he allowed the royal messenger to send in their post. This was the third since his arrival, assuring Queen Anastasia and King Alistair of Eisland’s hospitality and his belief that they were abiding by the compact’s laws. Anastasia had suggested the ruse, citing the disturbing fact that messages were often unsealed and read by court spies. He’d been appalled by the idea.
No one knew about the mirror and his direct lifeline to his royal monarchs. Captain Vandry had one aboard the ship as well, a failsafe if Muir failed to report in or was overcome in a convenient “accident” while serving their wishes. If that happened, she was under strict orders to leave at once with as much canvas as the wind required.
While Muir’s first meeting with the princess hadn’t gone well, he’d at least acquired enough information to set James’s heart at peace. If news of her being a heartbroken old shrew were good news anyway.
When he’d passed that on to James, the man’s face had fallen. Muir hadn’t been sure if James was more disappointed about the intercepted letters, phony responses, or Rapunzel’s reception of him after so many years.
A throat cleared in a polite cough, disrupting Muir’s musings. “Sir?”
Muir jerked and swung around in his seat to find a unifor
med servant standing beside the open terrace doors. “Yes?”
The messenger bowed and extended a blue card. “The king invites you to enjoy a private brunch in the library with himself and the princess.”
Muir’s brows rose. He took the card and examined the flowing, golden script scrawled across the front. He doubted the king had written it out himself, the handwriting too feminine.
“I’d be honored. Please lead the way.”
While he had learned the layout of the castle within his first few days of arrival, he thought it best to keep the knowledge to himself and feigned disorientation with the massive and sprawling palace. Let them think he was a backwater noble who didn’t know how to navigate through mazelike halls.
The library, while impressive, didn’t hold a candle to the one in Castle TalDrach. Even so, Muir looked around with an appropriately awed expression on his face. Tall bookcases lined the left wall and high windows with frosted glass panes let in diffused light. The king sat at a table set with another feast that would go to waste.
“Ah, Muir, so happy you could join me.”
What Muir would have given to punch the arrogant prick in his nose. He smiled instead and bowed to the king. “I was most honored by your invitation, and, I admit, fascinated by the prospect of meeting your daughter. I hadn’t expected to be given the pleasure, considering her current condition.”
“Yes, well, I like to tempt her out now and again. It’s not healthy for her to keep herself secluded.”
“So, she remains in her rooms by choice?”
“Oh yes.”
Muir took a seat but refrained from taking any food. “Forgive me again, but why then are there guards at her door during the day?”
“Ah, you’ve seen that have you?”
“I fear I have found your castle a little dizzying. I wandered past a few days ago when I lost my way to the dining hall. The guards were kind enough to direct me.”
“My daughter keeps to her rooms. The guards are there for her protection, so she doesn’t harm herself.”
“I had no idea, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, it’s a sad state of affairs. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. Maybe by seeing her yourself you’ll understand what Hook has done to her. Ah, and here she is now. Rapunzel, my darling, how lovely you look today.”
Muir rose from his seat to greet her, but what he saw was nothing like the woman he’d met the previous night. Instead of a tall, proud woman, a frail creature in a green dress ruined by stains and small tears leaned against a guard.
“My dear, we have a special guest. This is Lord Muir from Cairn Ocland. Won’t you say hello?”
The princess made an inelegant sound. Between the stench of sour vomit wafting off Rapunzel and the king’s cabbage odor, the library was almost uninhabitable. He’d seen people inebriated before by mushrooms, pipe weeds, and even drink, but something more dire was influencing Rapunzel.
Muir steeled his features and bowed to the princess, betraying nothing of his anger. “I bring greetings from afar, Princess Rapunzel,” he said in an even, soft-spoken voice.
The king led her to a seat and helped her into it, settling her with every appearance of being a doting father. “It’s a terrible mess, all of this. She was my heir, you know. The crown jewel of my legacy. But, as you can see, past tragedies have rendered her quite... inconsolable. I apologize for not allowing you to meet her sooner, my lord Muir, and for the deception regarding that wing of the castle. I assure you it isn’t out of shame, but my desire to protect her from ridicule and pity.”
The hairs on the back of Muir’s neck rose. King Harold was a very good liar, and the sorrow on his face almost appeared genuine. Almost.
This creature in front of him was indeed pitiable, but it wasn’t the Rapunzel he had met. And now that he’d witnessed the farce behind the gentry’s amusement, he loathed them even more. They were animals. No. Beneath animals, for even woodland creatures had compassion for one another.
“Is there no cure?”
“We’ve had our finest physicians see to her and even brought in a healer from Arthras to look at her. They all say the same, that she must come to terms herself, in her own time. It could be days or years. Or never.”
The king put berries and small finger sandwiches on a plate then set them on a small table for his daughter. Rapunzel only sat there without any interest in the food. She stared into nothingness.
“For a while, she lost all will to live, and it became necessary for physicians to force her to eat,” the king continued, voice brimming with sorrow. “It appeared so barbaric, so awful a thing to watch my dearest daughter endure, but I entrusted them with her care. Now we merely pray for her safe return from whatever darkness has taken her.”
Harold stroked the back of Rapunzel’s hand. She jerked away and fell against the couch cushions where she remained until the king set her upright again. Her disdain for her father had been the first voluntary movement Muir witnessed since her arrival.
She can’t even bear her father’s touch. Something is wrong here. Something is incredibly wrong. This isn’t the woman I saw last night. She has no spirit. No life in her. This may as well be a magical simulacrum. Muir’s hand tightened on his teacup.
The impulse to help swept over him in a rush before he could bite his tongue and reel it in. “Perhaps some fresh air beyond this tower would help fix whatever ails her, Your Majesty. Even sunlight. Such natural remedies do wonders in my kingdom when a little one takes ill.”
“I’ve tried to take her to the gardens, but she has violent fits. Hurts herself. Hurts others too.” Harold sighed and dabbed drool from Rapunzel’s lips with a linen cloth. “Her tower is her comfort. Her home. She claimed it as her own long ago, when she still wore pigtails. I do what I can to make her content.”
Something about the king reminded Muir of oil and darkness. He was a slimy man, and his ingenuine concern raised Muir’s ire. Still, he bit back the truth on the tip of his tongue. Maybe Anastasia had been right to send him instead of Ramsay, despite the bear also volunteering to lead the mission. Father Bear would have long ago crushed Harold’s face.
Muir suppressed his own temptation and put on a smile. “Sometimes what’s best for us hurts the most. I would be most willing, Your Majesty, if you would like to gift your daughter with an afternoon in the sunlight. I certainly wouldn’t be as easy to harm as one of your guards.” His smile widened. He towered above even the largest royal guards by a full head.
“Oh, well, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to burden you or risk your health.” He stirred some sugar into tea and helped Rapunzel sip the brew.
“It would be an honor, Your Majesty. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than with a beautiful woman. Perhaps the company in previous visits wasn’t to her liking.”
“I suppose a brief jaunt will cause no harm.” Harold smiled, too wide and cheery. At last, Muir dealt a blow to the king’s composure. “I will send guards to escort you, as a precaution. Please bring her back within the hour, I beg you.”
He ensured Rapunzel drank all of the tea before helping her up and putting her slack hand on Muir’s arm. The princess’s head lolled, and her body wobbled, but she stayed on her feet. “Do enjoy the walk, my dear. She likes the roses, of course.”
Muir’s gaze darted to the tea. She’d become less coherent by the second, and there was a rank, offensive scent coming from the cup, masked behind a heavy floral fragrance. In fact, hadn’t the king poured it from a different kettle from theirs? Were he in his animal guise, his feathers would have ruffled and the fur over his feline spine would have raised. So that was it, wasn’t it?
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The royal arse was probably lying about the damned roses too.
The guards maintained a respectful distance, but they were still too close for Muir’s liking. He patted her hand and paced his stride, for she moved with the awkward baby steps of a child learning to walk for the first time.
“
Your homeland is quite lovely, Princess.” He spoke of inconsequential things to break the silence and give the guards something to report on. Let them tell the king he chattered on aimlessly with the addled woman. Perhaps, if they saw no threat, they would back off farther.
Outside, the sun was mostly hidden behind wispy gray clouds, but the air was unseasonably warm, and a rosy perfume hung heavy on the light breeze. When the princess stumbled, her hand tightened on his arm.
“It’s all right. I have you.” Gods, how long had it been since she’d been out in the fresh air and felt the warmth from the sun? It was a brisk day, but when the sun did emerge from behind the dreary clouds, there was warmth on his skin that made him want to shift forms and bask beneath it while preening his feathers. It must have been like magic for her, even addled by drugs as she was. “I won’t allow you to fall.”
He paid no mind to the guards, determined to ignore them. When Rapunzel stumbled again, he swore under his breath—to hell with decorum—and slid one arm around her waist instead to keep her upright. This placed the princess against his side, steadying and balancing her. It also introduced him to the softness of her body and the svelte curves beneath the ill-fitting dress. That was a torture he endured for the five-minute stroll to the garden where he’d met the snow waif.
“Here we are.” He brushed a light dusting of snow from the nearest bench before he helped her to sit down. While adjusting the fur around her shoulders, he wiped a bit of drool from her lips with a gentle touch.
What kind of man did this to his only daughter? Muir had dozens of questions and no answers. Or perhaps he did. A madman drunk with power and influence would do anything to keep it. He suppressed his anger and tried to remain cool, aware that the wrong move would tip off his host.
“I can’t make promises to say when, but I will come back to see you again, Princess.” He hoped to the stars above that she retained her comprehension and understanding, even if she appeared to be a groaning vegetable to everyone around her.
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