The Heart Between Kingdoms

by Mary Dublin

  "My kind certainly wouldn't agree," she said wryly, then hesitated. "Even I can't completely agree with you."

  Setting aside the grape, she moved around to the other side of the plate to sample the roasted potato. The fluff beneath the skin was even warmer than the one on the floor. It was harder to be dignified while eating the messier food with her hands, but the temptation of a warm meal was too much.

  "To lie is among one of the foulest things a person can do," she went on. "Criminal, in fact. Do humans not agree? I… suppose the subject never came up between us."

  "It's… well, it's wrong, certainly. But not every lie deserves capital punishment. Yours certainly doesn't."

  She swallowed her mouthful, twisting around to gaze way up at him. "Why?" she couldn't help but blurt. Before, he had been so adamant about her leaving.

  For the first time since catching her, Daniel averted his gaze. "When my men returned, denying your claims, I thought you were toying with my affections to earn an easy bit of gold. I see now, I was wrong. After all, what good can gold do for a fairy?"

  "You had no way of knowing," Esmae said. "I know what it must have looked like."

  Her desperate plea for Daniel to kiss her flashed through her mind, and she decidedly stared at her food. He still didn't know the truth of it all, and the thought of explaining it to him was almost as humiliating as the thought of being discovered at her diminished size.

  But even he admitted he'd had affections for her.

  Not that it mattered anymore.

  "A fairy princess is in even less dire need for gold." She made herself look at him, a weak smile playing at her lips. "What I do need is my wings and magic, and I can't quite expect you to provide that for me."

  Daniel raised his eyebrows. After a moment, he folded his arms on the table and rested his head atop.

  "Be that as it may… I'm not without resources."

  Though admittedly, it was nice not to have to crane her neck, Esmae felt smaller than ever to see him hunkered down merely to speak with her.

  "You needn't waste such things on me," she murmured, tucking in a new nibble of potato.

  "Yes, I do. I want to." His eagerness took her aback. But there was no false trace of pity in his face when she drank him in. "There are scrolls upon scrolls of spells documented in the royal archives. We can research what went wrong with yours, and find a way back to this witch—or your kingdom, I suppose, if that's what you want." Blue eyes flicked over her, noting her lack of wings. "I expect you would have done that already if you were able."

  Esmae's shoulders stiffened, and she tried not to feel self-conscious about his eyes on her wingless back. After all, he didn't have any wings either. But he wasn't six inches tall.

  She shook her head. "No, we aren't going to the witch."

  There's power in royal blood, the witch had said. Even a human's.

  "She may have assisted me in becoming human, but I don't know of her temperament with real humans," Esmae went on. "Witches are known to be especially hostile toward those not born into magic. I can't allow you to put yourself in harm's way for my sake. And as for my kingdom… you wouldn't want to go there, either."

  Or rather, she didn't want to go there, wingless and magicless and suffering from a witch's mishap.

  His offer made guilt ring through her heart. She felt undeserving, but the idea of crawling back into the walls felt worse. She tried not to think about if he would even allow her to turn down his offer.

  "Perhaps through research, I can figure out some way to fix it myself." Esmae fixed him with the sternest look she could muster while facing a giant. "If not… I don't know. But you're not going to the witch."

  "Alright, alright… You'll let me help, then?"

  Tentatively, she agreed. She reasoned that, assuming he didn't keep her in a cage, there would be plenty of opportunity for her to escape later on. And for whatever reason… that possibility was looking less likely by the minute. She looked over his face fully—still so handsome and bigger than she ever could have imagined when watching him from afar.

  "Why?" she asked in a voice lowered by true puzzlement. "Why are you so keen on helping me?"

  Daniel's face softened. "You're still you, aren't you, Esmae?" When she nodded tremulously, his smile widened into something warm and wonderful. "That's reason enough."

  Overwhelmed with bashfulness rather than fear, Esmae murmured her thanks and returned her attention to her meal. Still, she could feel his earnest gaze, and the image of his grin was stuck in her mind.

  And Brennan thought Daniel was a bad choice, she thought smugly, hiding a smile.

  Noises from beyond the walls of the dining hall made her pause, obliterating any ease she had accumulated since being captured. Footsteps and voices approached, far away enough that Daniel didn't even seem to take notice.

  Esmae swallowed her half-chewed bite and was on her feet in an instant, looking about frantically and clutching at her skirts.

  "What is it?" Daniel's voice made her jump and skitter backwards from him.

  "Scullion maids," she hissed. "They're coming. I shouldn't be here… I-I…" She trailed off, dismaying that she was so high off the ground, so out in the open. If it weren't for being caught, she would have long since gone back into hiding.

  As the footsteps drew closer, Daniel caught on to her urgency. "I'll take you," he announced, dropping a hand palm-up on the table. "Quickly, climb on."

  Esmae eyed him nervously. Kind as he was, she was in no hurry to get intimate with hands big enough to imprison her. But as the voices grew more audible, she had little choice but to accept his invitation. She clambered onto his palm with a whimper of apprehension and allowed herself to be scooped up close to his person.

  She was in the middle of murmuring her gratitude when she saw where his hand was heading. Daniel had wrenched open his jacket and was quickly lowering her into a cavernous pocket lining the inside.

  "No, no, not in there!" she squealed.

  Daniel made a noise of exasperation, glancing pointedly at the door. "Where would you suggest?"

  Breathing shortly, she searched anywhere but the dark pocket waiting below. If she didn't give him an alternative soon, she'd be dropped inside whether she wanted to or not.

  The table hadn't been cleared away by any means, hence the maids closing in. A single goblet looked large enough to conceal her if she ducked down. The idea gave her an awful sense of dread, but being trapped in a sea of fabric, pressed up against a giant, was about as dreadful as it could get.

  "Are any of those goblets empty?" she asked, lifting her eyes to him pleadingly.

  Digging his chin to his chest, Daniel threw her a skeptical glare. "You can't be serious."

  But when the doors swung inward, he honored her request after all. Esmae landed hard on her rump as Daniel dropped her into a wide-mouth goblet and slammed his hand over the opening. Not a moment too soon, she realized, as large voices echoed outside the metal walls.

  "Prince Daniel!" a maid squeaked in surprise. "Our apologies for barging in. We thought everyone had retired for the evening."

  "Just forgot my drink," Daniel replied smoothly. Her goblet shifted, and she felt the loss of stability as he pulled it right off the table. "I'll be out of your way now."

  Her breath caught in her throat as the glass lifted, swinging in time with his steps.

  "You wouldn't like a fresh glass, Your Highness?"

  "This will do fine, thank you, Merraine."

  A round of polite farewells echoed closer when Daniel strode past the maids on his way to the door. Esmae huddled down further and covered her ears, rattling along with each of the prince's footsteps. He must have been holding the goblet close, because she could hear the windstorm of his breathing from one side.

  It wasn't long before she began to feel unusually warm. Light peered in from between his fingers overhead, but even so, Esmae began to wonder if her quick breaths were from apprehension or the lack of air. The scent
of mulled wine hung heavily around her, and though the goblet had been drained of its contents, the walls retained a dampness. She could only be glad that her dress was already red.

  Despite the constant sway and shake of her surroundings, she slumped at the bottom of the goblet with exhaustion. Exhaustion from the night, exhaustion from surviving three days in a world too vast for her to navigate.

  Her belly was full and she was closer to fixing herself than she had been over the past three days, but the harrowing experience of being spotted and snatched from the ground left her more shaken than she cared to admit.

  Esmae buried her face in her hands, desperate to gather herself in her dwindling span of privacy.

  Chapter

  Four

  "You're making a mistake!"

  Esmae spared a glance over her shoulder, unsurprised to see that Brennan hadn't abandoned her like he'd threatened to minutes ago. A warm amber glow hung around him—the only way she could see him at all in the overcast night.

  "A mistake and a risk are two different things. You, of all people, should understand that," she said, slipping between a pair of scraggly branches. "This is worth the risk."

  The hum of Brennan's wings caught up, and he fell into flight beside her, trying in vain to make eye contact. "You could have anyone you want. Why him? Someone you don't even know!"

  "I know enough," she snapped. "Besides, if I stay here, it doesn't matter who or what I want."

  He was quiet for a moment. "Listen to yourself. You're overreacting. As usual. If you'd only talk to your father—"

  Esmae picked up speed and swerved around to face him. The harshening light of her peach glow made Brennan blink hard as he pulled to a stop to avoid colliding with her. The two of them hovered beneath a cluster of dying leaves.

  "My father didn't care enough to bring it up to me," she said, her hurt feelings seeping into her tone. "I waited weeks after overhearing him and his advisors. You should have heard him, so sure that he would make me understand that an arranged marriage is necessary. He left me out of his plans. I'm only returning the favor."

  With that, she moved on. Before long, Brennan was alongside her again, silent aside from his wings. She peered his way, spotting unusual trepidation on his familiar face, normally roguish or filled with laughter.

  "You don't have to come," Esmae said stiffly. "Aren't you afraid?"

  He snorted. "One of us has to be, Princess."

  "Did you find anything?"

  Esmae stiffened when Daniel spoke. It had been hours since he'd found her in the dining room and she still wasn't used to how his voice now rumbled the air like a roll of thunder. She turned to look over her shoulder timidly, finding his face hanging over her, scruffy chin planted in his hand.

  "Not yet," she informed him with a sigh. She looked back over at the yellowing parchment under her feet. "There are so many encounters documented in these books. It's a wonder your kind has survived this long, with things like this going on." She scuffed her shoe at a rather brutal illustration of a man on his knees, picking up his own head off the ground.

  Daniel smirked halfheartedly. "We're not known to be the wisest species."

  She snorted and stepped off the edge of the book, onto the table. "Don't be so hard on yourself. The encounters do seem to happen less frequently over time." She slid her fingers beneath the bottom edge of the page and lifted it over her head to turn it.

  A shadow shifted in the candlelight, and the shape of a massive hand approached. The thick paper crinkled as her fingers dug in as she tried to keep a calm tone of voice.

  "I can turn a page, Daniel." The tension in her shoulders eased when the shadow retreated, though not without hesitation. It was such a thoughtless motion for him, turning the page of a book. She guided the page with as much grace as she could manage, having no choice but to climb back onto the book and push it the rest of the way.

  By the time the next passage was set to read, a low groan came from behind, and she readily took the excuse to tear her eyes away from the page's ink portrayal of a young maiden being devoured by a pack of mad, enchanted hounds. Daniel was yawning into his hand and stretching himself back in his seat.

  "We don't have to stay if you're tired," she said, tugged by guilt. She was tired as well, but having new information at her disposal energized her more than enough to keep her awake.

  "It's just that honey wine," Daniel assured. "Goes right to my head."

  Making a noticeable effort to stay alert, he leaned to the left to pull a thick, leather bound book off the teetering stack. He made quick work of unraveling the twine that held it shut and let the delicate tome open down the middle.

  She watched him for a time, making sure he wasn't losing interest. It strange to realize he was anything but bored. His eyebrows were pinched together, his gaze steely and focused. Daniel worked with diligence that rivaled her own, scanning over every page carefully before moving onto the next.

  "Linstone curses, ether charms…" The prince shook his head. "I don't suppose your witch mentioned what sort of magic spell she used on you?"

  He glanced up at her, and Esmae fumbled to pretend she had instead been studying the words at her feet instead of his face.

  She pursed her lips and ran her fingers over her palm, recalling the blade-like pain of the witch cutting into her. The wound had vanished by the time she woke up in the Mirrel woods as a human, but the pain echoed through her skin at the memory of it.

  "Not a curse. I think it was a blood contract of sorts," Esmae answered.

  Daniel balked. "What do you mean you think?"

  "Well, she didn't say exactly what sort of magic it was." She turned her eyes back down to the page, preferring not to think of that awful hut under the earth. "I know it was a contract, and that she took my blood. Therefore, a blood contract."

  "You let her take your blood?" Somehow even a human like him had an inkling of how grim that was.

  "I didn't know she would! It happened so fast." Esmae flushed, staring at the words without really reading them. The last thing she wanted was to make it even more clear to Daniel how foolishly she had handled such a monumental decision. "Look for entries about contracts. That should narrow the search. Perhaps we can find some clue of how to reverse negative effects."

  The sound of papers rustling picked up after a moment, but the weight of his gaze didn't leave her.

  "Can I ask you something?" Daniel's voice was soft as the page he turned.

  "Hm?"

  "Why'd you do it?"

  Esmae swallowed hard. The chill running along her skin was more than the approach of winter seeping through the stone walls of the castle. She had feared that Daniel would be curious, and finally he had asked the inevitable.

  "You understand how fairies value truth?" she said, tracing her fingertip along the inked letters as she knelt upon the page, unable to look back at the prince. "I overhead my father a few weeks ago, planning with his advisors. They were making preparations for me to be married off and sent away to another kingdom."

  The memory left a bad taste in her mouth. The only other one she had confided in was Brennan, who had been as shocked as she was.

  "I waited and waited for him to tell me of these plans," she went on. "He, a king of fae, withheld truth from his own daughter. He knew that I wouldn't have wanted it. I expect he would have told me by the time it was too late for me to say no." She hesitated, fully aware that she was withholding truth herself from Daniel. It felt awful, but she could hardly bring herself to look his way, let alone confess all of it to him. "So I fled. I couldn't seek shelter from another fae settlement—I would have been found. But fairies avoid humans. I knew would never be found here."

  "And… you're still going to go back?"

  Esmae wilted, looking down at herself. Evidence of her failure.

  "What choice do I have?" She sniffed, pacing higher on the page. "Fairies don't thrive well on their own. We're not big enough for that."

  Dan
iel fell quiet, and she got the feeling that he was waiting for her to turn and face him. When she didn't, he sank lower in his seat and dropped his head in his hand again.

  "I'm sorry," he murmured. "You deserve better than that."

  Esmae chuckled dryly. "You don't have to say that. I made a blood contract with a witch and spent three days lying about who I am. I'm lucky to be faring better than these poor souls." She gestured at the book beneath her. "All I can do now is try to make things right."

  With that, she moved over to the next page and fell quiet for a time. Not so much as a mention of a contract in the passages yet, she noted with frustration. The material left to search was plentiful, though, thanks to Daniel. Even as she scanned the words, she thought about the prince's kind assurance.

  "But I did meet you," she said with sudden burst of boldness. "So I can't call this a complete disaster."

  The answering silence resounded in her ears. Her heart sank, wondering if she had jumped to conclusions. Perhaps he was still a little angry at her, after all. She had given him plenty of reason to be.

  Unable to bear his indifference any longer, Esmae started back towards him. "Please don't be upset. I didn't mean anything by it… I just meant—"

  She stopped herself short when she turned around fully and found Daniel slumped over an open book. Unruly dark curls lay across his forehead, his eyes completely shut to the world. His breathing was soft and even.

  "Daniel?" Her voice was hushed, and he didn't stir.

  Esmae wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel terrible. She considered waking him and insisting that he go to his bed, but since he hadn't bothered to do that himself despite being sleepy, he might continue researching instead if awoken. It was for the best that she leave him be.

  Even with her resolve, her eyes lingered upon him. There was something far less intimidating about him when his expression was so peaceful, though his slumped position couldn't conceal his towering size. With any luck, she could focus better without his eyes at her back. Already the steady sound of his breathing was calming her.