Will struggled, and looked at my father. “You can ask him—“ He jabbed his head toward the guard. “I emerged from the other realm accompanying the princess. You can’t deny that I discovered the secret and fulfilled your bargain.”
“We’ll see,” Father said.
“No!” I shouted. “No, ‘we’ll see’! Will is my rightful husband now.”
Father and Mother both looked at me, and Mother said, “Shh. Calm down.”
“I will not calm down. Let him go. He tells the truth and doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.”
Father hesitated, but then he nodded at the guards.
“Let’s get Evaline properly dressed and then we will discuss it,” Mother said.
I relaxed just a little as the guards released Will. Father waved them all out and shut the door on us. Mother didn’t say a word as she opened my wardrobe.
“Take off your nightgown,” she whispered.
I had never realized before how afraid I was of my mother. It was strange, for a woman so quiet and gentle. She had never beaten me. She never yelled. It was her disappointment, her endless judgment. That was all it took to make me cower, because I had never known anything else. I had always wanted to please her, and yet I could never suppress my desires for the very things she told me I could not have.
I pulled off the nightgown, and she took one of my plain gray dresses out of the wardrobe. Each dress was almost like the others, although that one was one of my least favorites, because the neckline was so stiff and high that it touched my cheeks.
She walked behind me and tightened my corset strings. They tended to get a little loose at night, but she was more aggressive than the maids just now. I knew she wasn’t doing it out of vanity to give me a slender waist; of course she didn’t give a damn about that. I could feel her anger in every tug.
“Stop, I can’t breathe!” I snapped.
“It will be good for you, then,” she said. “You must bear a little discipline after what you have done. You are not marrying that peasant. You’re going to the convent.”
“I’m not.”
“You must. I see that now, it is your only hope.”
“I want to talk to Father.”
Our words sounded as strained as my laces. She helped me into my dress, and I stood there stiffly, letting her do all the hooks and buttons. But when she tried to touch my loose hair, I stepped back.
“No,” I said. “I will wear the shawl but I won’t put my hair back.”
She looked at me, and our eyes battled in silent contest. Mother was not one to enjoy verbal fighting. She used her eyes to win fights, her big sad eyes. I always backed down, but this time I held my ground.
I had never held my ground before, and she looked a little flustered.
“Come then,” she said. “You’re right. We’ll talk about this with your father. He must make a judgment.”
I followed her down the long stone hall, the hems of our heavy skirts dragging along the ground.
In the throne room, Father was waiting, and so was Will. His eyes rested on me, and he looked a bit grim. But there was a little humor in his eyes too, strangely enough. Maybe it was what they called “gallows humor”. It had been such a strange day, that there was something a little funny about us meeting again now, with me looking so demure, when just hours before I had been bound naked to a tree.
I wondered if he had been able to talk to his sister yet. Probably not. The throne room was empty of courtiers, just guards, but he still kept looking around like he was hoping to see someone.
“Let me get this story straight,” Father said. “Evaline, you have been going to another realm at night, a realm with leaves made of precious metals and gems, and this man followed you there last night.”
“Yes,” I said. “Just as you asked him to do. His story was true the very first night, and yet you whipped him.”
“You denied it yourself.”
“I did, but…that was because I didn’t want to be forbidden from going back.”
“It is a faery realm?” Father asked.
“Yes…”
“You realize that you have done wrong?”
“No.” Now my inner stubbornness was trying to rise up, although I had to battle against those disappointed gazes bearing down on me from the thrones.
“I don’t think we have much choice,” Mother said, speaking now mostly to Father. “We can’t hand our kingdom to some common man.”
“Then why did you open the test to everyone?” I cried.
“She has to go to the convent,” Mother said. “Look at her. She is not my good sweet Evaline. The faeries have done something to her.”
Father nodded grimly. “Sir, I will reward you for solving the mystery, and you can go home,” he told Will.
I knew I had to say something. I had to tell them the truth, I supposed. You don’t have to worry about rewarding Will or sending me to a convent. We’re going to the faery realm and never coming back.
But this was where my stubbornness began to falter. I was so afraid to tell them. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all! But then they would never know what became of me. Should I have let them wonder? No, Will wanted to return as much as I did, to speak to his sister.
My stomach was in knots over it all.
They were my parents; they should be my responsibility, but Will looked at me, as if saying, Do you want me to try and handle it? Any minute he was going to open his mouth, either way.
“You have grown very disobedient,” Mother said. “Well, we all have to answer to God.”
“Yes—yes.” I bit out the words. “But Father is the one who dragged our country into a war, and sent men off to die.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Father asked.
“Will lost loved ones in that war. It had nothing to do with him and he gained nothing from it but a bit of soldier’s pay and a lifelong injury. And in the end, you gained nothing either. That battle was a stalemate and you just hosted the Dorvanians to a dance! How does that make people feel? How does that fit with our religious ideals? In the realm where I’ve been, there is no war. That place exists to give people a place to escape and be free. All my life, you have told me what is right and what is wrong, but somehow all the things that are wrong are the very things that make me happy! And the things that are right only bring people pain. I would suffer for the good of my people, but I am tired of suffering for no reason at all!”
They looked at me with stunned expressions. I don’t think I had ever strung so many words together in their presence in my entire life, much less said them with such force.
“I’m going to marry Will,” I said. “And I’m going back with him to his realm. Will is not a mere peasant at all. He is already a king. The King of the Revels.”
“Eva!” Mother got to her feet. She looked lost. “If you think for one moment that we will let you return to that place— We must do what’s best for you.” She looked at Father. “But what can we do? The magic…it hunts her, doesn’t it?”
“We will shackle her in iron and send her to the convent.”
This was precisely what I had feared. I was not sure the faery magic of the revels would reach me.
“And as for him…” Father looked at Will.
“Your majesty,” Will said. “You know that all I have done is to be your loyal and obedient subject. When I was called to serve in your army, I laid down my tools and took up your sword and shield. When you called for men to find the answer to your daughter’s disappearance, I risked my life to follow her. In the faery realm, the King of the Revels was about to claim your daughter as his own, and I drove a knife into his back. That was when they named me the king in his stead. Now, I have a duty to return there. You don’t need to offer me any reward. Just let me go.”
He had certainly phrased that story well.
But was he leaving without me?
No, that could not be. I knew he was a clever man, my Will—he had alrea
dy tricked the faery king.
“Very well,” Father said. “But you had better never bring the revels to my kingdom again.”
“Don’t worry about that. You have no more daughters,” Will said.
They let him go, but not before he gave me a brief, reassuring look.
One of the guards brought two heavy iron shackles. When he moved to locked them around my ankles, I screamed. The iron burned me, my flesh marked red where it had touched.
“What has happened to her?” Mother cried.
“The faery magic has bound me,” I said. “I didn’t know, but…it makes sense. I—I made a sort of pact, while I was there. Please, you must see that I belong there now, not here.”
“Oh, no, dear, this is…this is beyond the pale,” Mother said. “Can we put cloth around the shackles so they won’t burn her?”
The guards brought scraps of thick cloth, and tied them around my ankles, then tried the shackles again. This worked, and I knew this meant Will could not touch the shackles either. No one would see them under my dress, but my steps were heavier than ever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Evaline
The guards watched my every move. I tried to be patient. Luckily, since it was already evening, my parents soon retired to their bed and I went to bed as well. I knew Will would come for me as soon as he could.
But he didn’t, and it was a torturous night. I could feel the call to the revels; I missed the music, and lust boiled within me.
In the morning, I searched for his sister.
“She was here,” said the nurse in the infirmary, “but she left last night with her brother.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know, dear.”
I started to feel apprehensive. I knew Will would not fail me on purpose, but perhaps there was nothing he could do.
I sent a message to Will’s house in town, just in case, but before I could even hope to receive a reply, Mother said I was going to the convent this very day.
“Any delay is a risk,” she said. She tried to touch my cheeks, and I pulled away.
“Someday you will realize it’s for your own good,” she said, beginning to weep.
“Someday, maybe you will realize that you have ruined our relationship and done nothing for the good,” I said grimly.
“Eva…all I have ever wanted to do was shield you from harm.”
I knew my mother truly believed this. She had grown up the same way. But we had reached an impasse.
A part of me thought my life was now over. Another part of me held out hope. The revels could travel. The revels would find me. Will would find me; he would feel the call to find me the same way I yearned for him, every moment.
I sat in the back of a carriage, which traveled for eight hours, rattling my bones over roads that were a mixture of rough stone paving and dirt. The convent was perched up a rocky hillside path. It was lonely here. The grass and trees were a deep summer green, and warm wind blew on my face. I think I might have liked it, in some ways…if circumstances were different.
The sisters gave me an austere, gentle welcome. I think they were used to naughty nobles being packed off to their convent, because the young woman named Sara who gave me the tour kept comparing everything to royal life: “We don’t have any balls here, of course, but we do have quite a good time with the cheese making”, and “I’m sure you’re used to a very grand church with an organ, but there is something nice about our small chapel, I’ve found.”
“Are you a princess too?” I finally asked her.
“I was of the noble class,” she said, in a rather vague tone that made me think I should not ask questions about her life before.
I had a tiny room, but it was all my own, and a black dress that was actually less confining than the ones I was used to. The convent was very quiet, and the sisters were sweet and welcoming, but of course I was missing Will and the dances dreadfully. Was he there without me? What if I never saw him again? What if I was never touched like that again?
At night, I had a terrible time sleeping. I was always looking for a clock that wasn’t there. I was always peering under my bed, or listening for something. The iron shackles were still locked around my ankles, and I had to be careful when I moved, not to touch them, or my skin would burn with sharp pain that took days to fade.
Days passed. Much of our time was spent in the chapel. I was always quick to volunteer my hands for work, because the only thing that kept me from going mad was keeping my hands busy. I learned to make bread, and helped pick the summer harvest. I helped spread tomatoes in the sun to dry. I was allowed to write letters to my sisters, but I hardly knew what to say. No one ever saw a tear in my eye, no one ever heard my sobs, but I poured them into my pillow at night.
And then I started getting sick in the mornings, and worry flooded through me every day that it went on. Weeks had passed, and Will had not come. Now it seemed that something was wrong with me. I might die here, and Will would never know…
After heaving into my chamber pot, I went to sneak it out to dump in the outdoor privy (we all had to take care of ourselves here, no servants to be found), and opened the door to find Sara standing there.
“You might as well tell Sister Maria before it gets worse,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
“Pregnant?”
“Weren’t you heaving with morning sickness?”
“Is that why?” I whispered.
“I’d expect so, if you’ve had any dalliances before you came here.”
My mouth gaped open before I said, “I’m having a baby? I thought I was dying!” I stumbled back into my room and sat down. And then I did cry. I didn’t know if I was happy or sad. I was carrying a piece of Will inside me, but I might never see him again. And… “Will they take my baby away?” I asked.
“They’ll probably find it a family,” she said. “I’m sorry, Eva. I know what it’s like.”
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I pleaded to her. “I’m…I need to think about it first.”
At night, I made plans to escape. Maybe I could find someone who could remove my shackles…but who? We were miles from anything.
At the convent, we always gave food to beggars, and shelter to women on the run—often women who had been beaten. One full moon night, an old woman came to the door, clad in a ragged cloak. The sisters welcomed her in the door and immediately offered her a bowl of soup. She shared our meal with us, eating and drinking in silence, and I know everyone was wondering why she had taken the long lonely walk up the hill at her age.
“What do you need?” Sister Maria asked her.
“You don’t make this place easy to reach for an old woman, do you?” she croaked. “Just a bed for the night and I’ll be on my way.” She glanced at me. I glanced back. I had not mistaken it—she wanted to talk to me, I could tell.
Oh please, I prayed. Let her be a messenger from Will.
That night, instead of turning in, I crept to the hall where we put up guests for the night. The old woman was waiting for me there, where the moonlight poured in the tall windows.
She held up a key.
A beam of hope spread through me, as if the moonlight had brought me an angel. “Did Will send you?”
“Will,” she muttered, in a tone that was not quite what I hoped. “I daresay he took credit for my spell. I gave him an enchanted cloak so he could get to the faery realm. I gave him that cloak because he sang for my son Michael and gave him a peaceful death, because he had an honorable heart. Because I wanted him to be the king of Torina. Torina!” she repeated, shaking the key. “Not the Wicked Revels!”
“It was somewhat of an accident,” I said. “And besides, my father is still in good health…and his father lived to be eighty. He might rule for another twenty years, and if Will tried to argue with his policies, it would only make Father mad and he would cling even tighter to his original plans… It would be a mess.�
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“Yes, well, I’ve considered that,” the old woman said. “And so has Will. He did send me, and he has been trying desperately to save you, but the iron you wear bars him from reaching you. He has been searching for help, and I said I would help. But I still want what I asked him for. I still want an heir for Torina, and revenge for my son’s death. And so, I will unlock your shackles. You will go home tonight. But I ask one thing.”
I was getting rather nervous now. “What…is it?”
“I want the son you bear.”
“My child? I— Surely you must know; if you lost your own son. I can’t give you that. Anything but that!”
She waved her hand. “Shh, shh, not now, dear. Not now. I want you to raise him to be a good and fair king. And then, when he has grown, I want you to give him back to the human world, so he can claim the throne of Torina when your father is gone.”
When he has grown… That was a long way away. A time when children leave their parents, one way or another.
I put my hand to my stomach, although I was only six or seven weeks along. “Yes,” I said. “I will give Torina a king.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Evaline
That night, my ankles were free. That night, the passage opened for me. I traipsed down the stairs, so light I barely felt the grass beneath my toes—for I immediately took off my slippers this time.
My first handmaiden was waiting for me, and she beamed upon seeing me. “Princess! You’ve finally come home.”
“Yes.” I shoved my nightgown off. “How is the king?”
She laughed. “You’ve changed a lot since the first day I met you. The king is…well, he’s fine, but he will be happy beyond words to see you. I have a new gown for you, befitting a queen.” She dressed me in a gown made with layers of blue-gray fabric as thin and ethereal as cobwebs. Just like my last dress, it was just slightly sheer, but it had sleeves—loose and bell-shaped. It still plunged low in the front and back, and it fastened at the back of my neck as the last one did, but also wrapped around my waist with another fastener there. Will would have no trouble sliding it off of me if he so wished. It fell a little longer and softer than my first dress, however, and felt more regal. It had a belt made of leaves, much like the mask, which clasped around my slender waist.
These Wicked Revels (Fairy Tale Heat Book 2) Page 11
