Eliana: Remembering Rumpelstiltskin (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 5)

by J. A. Armitage

  And, as luck would have it, I was right. Hardy was exiting my parents’ rooms with another guard just as I was arriving. The two men conversed briefly outside their doors and then seemed to come to an agreement, nodding. The other man headed off in one direction, Hardy in the opposite.

  “Hardy!” I called out, not wanting to lose him. I quickened my pace to a light jog, holding Fae’s head gently against my chest so that I didn’t jostle her too much with the bouncing movement.

  The guard stopped when he heard his name and turned, waiting for me to catch up.

  I exhaled a quick breath when I reached him, my heart pounding just from that light exercise. Man, I was out of shape. Pregnancy and labor will do that to a person.

  “What news?” I asked eagerly. Finally, I’d have some answers. “What did you find?”

  He shook his head, expression grim, and pushed his helmet higher on his head as he sighed, disappointed. “I wish the news was better, but we didn’t find much, I’m afraid, Your Highness. I’m off to try to drum up more avenues to search while my men speak with the senior citizens in Shipley—those who were alive and living here during John’s days when he dealt with Rumpelstiltskin. The thought is, we’ll see if anyone else had any encounters with Rumpelstiltskin that they haven’t mentioned up until now. Perhaps knowing that they weren’t alone in their dealings with him will give them the courage to speak up where they never have before.”

  Damn. Disappointment flared in my chest, and I tried not to let the discouragement show on my face. Because truly, it had been foolish for me to hope for more results that quickly, I supposed.

  In a rare gesture of kindness that broke the thin wall of decorum between royalty and subject, Hardy clapped a hand onto my shoulder and inclined his head toward me, meeting my eyes seriously. He gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Fret not, Princess. We’ll get him in the end. I promise you that.”

  Perhaps Hardy was a fool too. But better we should be fools than pessimists. I’d much rather be an optimist.

  I managed a small smile for him as I nodded, accepting his encouragement. I hoped to the gods that we two fools were right. “Thank you, Hardy. I’m sure you’re right.”

  His hand dropped back to his side, then lifted and thumped his heart as he gave me a quick bow. “A pleasure. It’s the honor and privilege of my life to serve the royal family of Vale, Your Highness. Your Mother has the rest of my report, should you require details. For now…” He jerked his head in the direction of the castle’s exit. “I’d best be on my way. Plenty more people to investigate and interrogate. We want to catch the cretin as quickly as possible.”

  Hastily, I stepped to the side, out of his path so he could get past me. “Yes, by all means. Thank you again.”

  I watched him walk away for a moment, then took a deep breath and knocked on my mother’s door for the fourth time in twenty-four hours.

  The door swung open. Unlike yesterday, she was far more put together. Granted, I had come a bit later this time. I hadn’t wanted to be disappointed by the lack of news again. And the circumstances were different this morning than they were yesterday morning as well. I wasn’t as fueled by rage and frustration as I had been yesterday. So it was late enough in the day that rather than Mother greeting me in her dressing gown, she was fully dressed and coiffed for the day, with her hair and makeup done. I supposed she’d made certain to be ready and able to receive her guards when they arrived to deliver their report from the day before.

  She smiled when she saw me, and it wrinkled the corners of her tired eyes. She clearly hadn’t slept much better than I had. “I should have known it would be you, Eliana.”

  I shrugged and grinned guiltily, my hands held in the air. “Sue me and call me predictable then, I guess.”

  She motioned me inside and I stepped in gladly, leaving Avery and Williamson in the hall with her guard. “I just spoke with Hardy in the hall. He told me they hadn’t had much luck.”

  “He’s right. But no one is giving up.”

  “I know.” I nodded and bit my lip. “I was hoping you had a little more elaboration from him though? It’s just, he only had a few minutes to speak with me before he had to run off to continue the investigation. And I know he gave you the full debrief…” I trailed off, letting my wheedling tone do my suggesting for me.

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed a note pad off of the end table, passing it over to me. My eyes scanned the scrawled words eagerly. It really wasn’t much. Just a simple list of names of the places that they had checked and the names of the people they had spoken with. I turned the page and found a more detailed narrative of their conversation with John. But I already knew everything there as well. Jay had told me that story. I turned the page again.

  And there was a list of more names. I looked up at her. The list had no title and also didn’t have any indication of what it was.

  “What’s this?”

  “The people John mentioned in his story. They’re hoping one of them can remember something about Rumpelstiltskin that can turn the tide of the investigation. Sometimes, all it takes is one small detail to crack the entire case wide open.”

  Hardy had been right. There truly wasn’t much more for my mother to tell me about the investigation. And now, I had all the information that they had in hand, but what good would it do me? They wouldn’t deliver another report until tomorrow. Suddenly, that seemed very far away, an endless sea of time just stretching out before me. I couldn’t think how I would manage to fill the hours until then. Yesterday had driven me crazy enough. How was I to do it again today?

  “Hey.” My mother laid a hand over the words on the pages and I looked up at her, feeling not a little despondent. She smiled warmly. “I know better than anyone else what fixating on the problem of Rumpelstiltskin can do to a person’s mind. Why don’t you and Fae—” she nodded at my daughter, asleep against my chest— “do something to take your mind off of it. Something fun, something that will cheer you up.”

  “Not bad advice,” I said. I raised a brow. “So, what will you do today?”

  She laughed, caught off guard. “All right, point taken.” Her eyes drifted again to Fae and her expression softened. She stretched out her arms toward the baby. “Well, if you’ll let me, I certainly wouldn’t mind just being a grandma and getting to babysit for a while…”

  I carefully loosened Fae from the complicated contraption that held her against my chest and I placed her in my mother’s arms, happy to be able to do a small thing that would cheer her up. “Of course. She loves spending time with her Granny.”

  Mother’s nose wrinkled a little. “I never thought I’d love being called something that makes me feel so old. And yet, here we are.” She gathered Fae close and inhaled her sweet baby smell. She looked up at me. “What about you?”

  “Me? I’ve been cooped up in these walls too many days in a row. I’ve got to get myself outside.”

  “Take—”

  I waved a hand. “Take Williamson and Avery, yeah, yeah. Don’t you think I know that by now?” Knowing was well and good of course… it didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to still find ways to escape the guards’ constant presence in my life.

  “I know that you know.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze playfully. “I just want you to actually do it.”

  Mothers… They know us too well.

  She’d get her way for now. I beckoned Avery and Williamson to follow me down to the staviary. My mind hadn’t had to wander far when Mother had suggested I find something besides Rumpelstiltskin to occupy my time and thoughts. My mind was, as was so often the case, with the unicorns.

  It was my plan to find Baby, the infant unicorn who, in a way, had been there at the start of this whole mess with Rumpelstiltskin, though I hadn’t known who had been behind it at the time. She had been caught in a unicorn trap and injured the day that I’d given birth to Fae. At the time, we’d wondered who would dare to go after creatures like unicorns—a protected species;
protected by the gods themselves, it was said. Those who hurt or crossed them were doomed to bad luck—often fatally doomed.

  Now, we had those answers. We knew exactly who would dare. A man—or imp, as my mother called him—with power all his own. A man named Rumpelstiltskin.

  I found Baby’s stall, in with her mother, the unicorn Zacarina. Zacarina’s noble head protruded over the top of the stall door and she fixed her golden gaze, so like my own, upon me.

  It was sometimes strange, seeing my own eyes reflected in the gaze of the unicorns. I thought of myself as ordinary most days, but I had never seen my peculiar eye color in another human being. At least, not one in Vale. There had been a time when I wondered if perhaps my birth parents might share it. But I supposed I would never know the answer to that. Instead, I would settle for the strange and unearthly friendship that I shared with the unicorns. Perhaps my new ability to speak with them, mind to mind, and our shared eye color meant that I shared a kinship not with humans, but with the unicorns. They, after all, were said to be the favorites of the gods—and after all that was happening to and around me, I was beginning to suspect that I was gods-touched too. I hope that meant that the deities up above were looking after both my people and Zacarina’s flock. I’d happily take a little divine intervention if it meant getting the unicorns back safe and sound and securing Fae’s safety from any bargains with Rumpelstiltskin that may possibly touch her.

  “Good morning, young one. What preys upon your mind? You look distracted.”

  I smiled as Zacarina’s voice entered my mind and spoke aloud to answer her. She kept insisting that I could mind-speak back, but it was a habit that was hard to break, having known no other way in my entire life. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I am a bit distracted, but I’m well. And a good morning to the both of you in return.” I tilted my head toward Baby, indicating it was her that I meant. “And how is the leg?”

  “Good.”

  I froze. That voice in my mind was not Zacarina’s. It did not have the presence that the great unicorn did. It sounded timid, shy… new. “Was that…?” I looked at Zacarina for confirmation, wide-eyed.

  I didn’t think that I imagined the tinge of pride in Zacarina’s eyes. ”It was. My offspring has begun to mind-speak.”

  I laughed in disbelief. I had never expected to be able to speak with unicorns in the first place, it was true. But once I had started, had I thought about it, I certainly would not have expected to speak with a unicorn—with any being, for that matter—who was under a month old.

  But if I’d learned nothing else other the past few weeks, I had certainly learned that life was full of surprises.

  “Baby,” I breathed. “You’re… You can… wow.”

  Zacarina seemed to stand taller. “Epiphany. We reveal our own names at the time that we begin mind-speaking. She is Baby no longer.”

  “My… name is… Epiphany.” Small pauses of silence pocketed the space between the words, like a speaker of a foreign language trying to wrap their tongue around the strange words.

  I smiled. My mother had been right. It was cheering me up to visit the staviary. I could imagine no greater gift than conversing with the most innocent creature I’d ever met. A baby unicorn, talking to me. I couldn’t stop marveling over it. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance then, Epiphany. And the leg is doing well?”

  “It is.” She had a sweet presence in my mind. It made me think of spun sugar and dandelions.

  “Thank you for looking after her,” Zacarina said. “You may not realize it, but it’s meant a great deal to me. To both of us.”

  “Of course,” I replied aloud, and meaning every word of it. “I’d hope that someone would do the same for Fae if she ever needed it.”

  Zacarina nodded solemnly. “I will.”

  I waved my hands, trying to backtrack. It had sounded like I was hinting at something, hadn’t it? “Oh, I hadn’t meant to imply you somehow owed me.”

  “It’s fine. You didn’t imply anything. But it doesn’t change the fact that I appreciate all that you’ve done. I may not owe you, but I would return the favor in a heartbeat if I could. I will always be there for you and your offspring should you have a need of me.”

  A chill went over me. There was a gravitas to Zacarina’s words. As though they were not spoken idly, but a binding oath. Were the gods watching us even now?

  They could watch all they liked—they would whether I liked it or not. But I hoped to never need to see her words fulfilled.

  “Never mind all that,” I said flippantly, not pausing to allow myself to dwell over it. “I’m just sorry that I haven’t been able to do any more for you. I haven’t stopped looking for your flock, you know. They’re out there and I’m going to find them. We have leads now.”

  The solemnity with which she’d uttered her oath drained from her voice, leaving behind a tone of great sadness. “I appreciate that. Appreciate all that you’re doing and have done for us. I do hope that you manage to succeed. It is—lonely without them. But it helps to have someone to talk to.”

  I smiled. “Likewise. We have men in the villages searching for Rumpelstiltskin. We’ll get him.” I was just like Hardy, making promises when I had no clue how I’d fulfill them. I only knew that I had to do it.

  “Hey,” a soft voice—a human voice—interrupted our conversation and I whirled around to find Jay draped over the stall’s door. He looked tired—haggard, with deep, dark circles under his eyes.

  That was right. He had gone with the soldiers who had been conducting the investigation looking for Rumpelstiltskin last night. From the looks of him, he had to have been out all night.

  “No luck, I hear,” I said, with a sympathetic tilt of my head.

  He shook his head, settling down onto the floor. Hay clung to his pant legs and I tried in vain to clean a spot on the floor to join him there. Whatever. I’d just get dirty.

  “No. They sent me home. I stayed a bit longer than the others hoping maybe some people we spoke with would be more willing to speak with someone who wasn’t an official of the palace, but no dice. Either they really know nothing, or I’d done damage just by being seen with them. But I’m not giving up.”

  “None of us are,” I said, glad that we were having this conversation in front of Zacarina. She’d see that it wasn’t just me pulling for the unicorns, but all of us, working together to find Rumpelstiltskin and bring her brethren home.

  “You going out to search with them again tonight?”

  He nodded.

  I sighed. “Gods, I wish that I could join you. But Mother is in enough of a state about me leaving the palace walls. No way she’d happily let me skip off into the city to ask some questions.”

  “Yeah…” Jay ran a hand through his hair and huffed out an aggrieved breath. “I know that the guards are spreading to the further towns soon to search, but I can’t help but feel Rumpelstiltskin is closer than that. Of course it would make more sense for him to take the unicorns and to run just as far as he possibly could, but I don’t know… I think he’s here in Shipley.” He shrugged helplessly. “Can’t say why.”

  “I thought the same.” It struck me then that I had yet to fill Jay in on the bargain my mother had with the devious imp. I quickly told him the story and when I was done, he puffed out a breath, running a distressed hand through his hair as he took it all in.

  “That’s… a lot.”

  “I know. But it makes sense, like you said, that he would be close. My mother seems to think that he would want revenge upon her. Stealing the unicorns is terrible, and I’m sure he has a sinister plot in mind for them… but it’s not personal. It’s not the way to hurt her. That would be my father, me, her home…”

  He nodded. “All of which he’d need to be close to reach.”

  Groaning like his entire body ached, he pushed to his knees. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Where?”

  His eyebrows ratcheted up into his hairline. “Are you kidding? You just t
old me this guy might be after you specifically. I’m not wasting another second.”

  I tried to ignore the warm fluttering of my heart in response.

  3

  7th May

  I tugged on my boots the next morning, intending to visit Mother once again. We were late enough into the morning that Hardy should have delivered his report by now. I doubted that he and his men had gotten very far in the investigation since yesterday morning, but that didn’t much change the fact that I wanted to know how far they had gotten. Whether it was an inch or a millimeter, I hoped we’d gained at least a little bit of ground. I’d cling onto any shred of hope that I could that we were gaining some ground on Rumpelstiltskin.

  Maybe I’d go see Jay later as well. I’d like to hear it from someone who had boots on the ground.

  And maybe, just maybe, I’d plain old like to see my friend as well.

  My friend who was becoming something a bit… more.

  I paused and exhaled, my hands on my knees as fluttering started in my stomach. I hadn’t thought of my upcoming date with Jay in a few days. Last week, we had decided to go to the party my mother was throwing to celebrate Fae’s birth together. Ordinarily, I might not have thought all that much about it. But the word “date” had been used. And I hadn’t been on one of those since before my husband, Luka, had died.

  There wasn’t much room in my mind for anything beyond Fae, Rumpelstiltskin, and the unicorns these days. But the thought of Jay always seemed to find the little crevices and worm its way in, burrowing through my thoughts and finding its way into my heart.

  When I exited my rooms with my guards in tow and Fae left behind with a nursemaid again, I pulled my sleeves down to cover my wrists and pushed all other thoughts but those of business from my mind. I straightened my posture, squared my shoulders, and knocked on my mother’s door.