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

by J. A. Armitage

  My eyebrows shot up. Well, this was an effective distraction from all of the dating thoughts I was worried about. I had certainly not been expecting that. “But the trauma,” I started. “The toll it must have taken on them mentally and emotionally. Are you sure they’re ready?”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I can actually talk to them, but I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

  He couldn’t talk to them, but I sure could. I made a mental note for myself to speak with the unicorns when I could and see for myself if I really thought that they were ready.

  It was too bad a therapist couldn’t talk to them instead, but I would have to do in their stead.

  “If you think about it,” Jay continued, “it makes sense. After all, they’ve been in captivity for what… a week or more? Makes sense that they would want to just be free after that. If it was me, I know that I would. So they’re all back there now. In the meadows and the woods.”

  His phrasing caught my attention. “Wait, all of them?” That couldn’t mean…

  But yes, Jay was nodding, so apparently it did mean what I was afraid of. “Yeah, Zacarina went back with them. Baby, too.”

  Epiphany, I mentally corrected. But Jay didn’t know that Zacarina’s daughter had revealed her name to me. “But was Epiph—I mean, Baby, she can’t have been healed enough for that, could she?”

  “She is.” Jay gestured to the window where I’d watched him walking with Epiphany a little over a week ago. “I mean, you saw her yourself. They heal quickly, like I said. And she was doing really, really well.”

  “Huh.” I sagged back in the seat, reeling. And feeling a little bit… well, bereft, I guessed. I had come to expect that I could rely on finding Zacarina and Epiphany waiting for me in the stable. I’d come to expect that I’d be able to find someone to talk to who really knew what was going on with me. They knew what no one else did—that I could talk to unicorns now.

  That secret would be mine alone to keep now.

  “On another note,” Jay drawled. A small smile crawled across his cheeks. “The party’s pretty soon,” he said, his voice soft and eyes sparkling. “I’ve got my snazzy duds all ready to go.”

  Gods, my stomach was rollicking. This was exactly what I was afraid of. I couldn’t do this with Jay.

  Luka’s face flew into my mind and my gut clenched.

  I had to tell him.

  “About that…” I drew out the words awkwardly “I’m sorry. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think it may have been a mistake to make that date so quickly.”

  Jay couldn’t have looked more shocked than if I’d slapped him in the face. He blinked rapidly; it was like the flipping pages of a book whose pages were being rifled through. Water shone at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t understand. What changed?” he asked.

  I splayed my fingers over my knees and turned my hands over helplessly. “I’m just not ready.”

  He stood up quickly. “I better go.”

  “Jay, wait.” I stood up fast, not sure what I was going to say.

  He held a hand up. “Save it, Eliana.” He shot me a disappointed look. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.” His voice was choked up, and a hint of bitterness spiked it.

  He opened the door and walked away from me as a pit in my stomach appeared and threatened to swallow me whole.

  Gods above, what had I done?

  5

  9th May

  The next day, I dwelled within a fog of sickness and regret.

  I couldn’t believe what I had done to Jay. I had dreamt of Luka two nights ago, but now I wished that my conversation with Jay had been the dream—or nightmare, more aptly.

  I tried to distract myself, but this wasn’t like my worries about the unicorns and Rumpelstiltskin. I’d been worried and very concerned then. But how could I distract myself when my heart felt as though I had ripped it out of my chest and then tried to mash it back in. It was like… like trying to unpack a new duvet from its packaging—it would never fit back inside the same way again.

  Low on things that could distract me when Fae fell asleep, I put her in her baby carrier and went by my mother’s room to receive the updated report on the search for Rumpelstiltskin. When I entered the room, Mother greedily took Fae from her carrier and gathered her into her arms while she talked to me and gave me the updated report.

  But try as I might have for a solid distraction, it did me no good. The idea had been for her to distract me, but I’d been too distracted even to hear what she said. So this was really nothing more than a gigantic waste of time for everyone.

  With the unicorns safely returned to the meadows, albeit with guards patrolling out there far more frequently than they used to before all of this, a great deal of the urgency I’d felt to find the imp that my mother had dealt with so long ago had vanished. And with the loss of that urgency, came a lack of attention, unfortunately.

  Logically, I knew that he could be and likely still was a danger to us all. My mother seemed certain that he was not the sort to forgive and forget. He felt she’d violated their agreement. He was going to have his revenge. And I felt sure that seizing the unicorns and then them being returned to us did not count as revenge for a second.

  I still wondered about that. I hadn’t had the chance to ask them yesterday. Had they escaped? Or had Rumpelstiltskin let them go?

  Regardless of the answer, with no one in active peril, the impetus to keep moving, keep hunting for the culprit who had kidnapped them, had faded—for me, at least.

  But Mother had been worried he’d return my entire life. She wasn’t going to give up now that he had shown himself once more.

  “So I guess that’s it—we just keep on looking.” Mother’s voice finally penetrated the thick fog in my mind and I shook my head, blinking hard and trying to come back to attention.

  I could have tried to pretend I had listened to everything she’d said, but what was the point? “Huh?” I asked.

  She smiled at me sympathetically. “You’re distracted today. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. Liar, my mind accused.

  “Hmmm.” Her mouth twisted, unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Her lips stayed pursed. She still wasn’t buying it. “Jay hasn’t come by the palace today.”

  I stiffened at the sound of his name. It was uncanny, her ability to just zero in on the problem I was having. It could have been the guards reporting on me, but I knew better. This was just my mother. How did mothers always, always know when something was bothering us, no matter how hard we tried to pretend that we were feeling just fine and dandy?

  Maybe it started in infancy. I was probably in training for the same set of motherly skills for Fae right now and didn’t even know it. One day, my ability to decipher her hungry cries from her wet diaper cries would translate into an ability to be able to tell when something was a little off about her, even if she was acting like everything was okay.

  Seeing that she was on the right track, thanks to the betrayal of my body language, my mother continued. “In fact,” she said, emphasizing the T at the end of fact, “word was sent up from the stables. He isn’t working today. They said that he’d made an excuse of being sick and taken the day away from the staviary.”

  “He’s sick?” My brow furrowed in concern, thinking back. He’d looked fine when I’d seen him yesterday. Full color in his cheeks, alert eyes, steady stance. Well, he had looked fine… but that was right up until I had delivered the equivalent of a verbal gut punch and told him I thought it was wrong for the two of us to be together after all. Dismay and shame spiraled through me at the memory.

  Now that the dream of Luka had faded a bit, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a terrible mistake by ending things with Jay.

  “Eliana.” Mother’s voice was sharp and I snapped to attention. “I feel reasonably confident that Jay is in good health. That boy once came to work with a one hundred and t
wo degree fever and tried to still pitch hay into the stalls. So he’s either dying, or he’s got other problems that he’s focusing on.”

  Other problems. She’d hit the nail on the head with that one. Jay did have other problems and I was the cause of all of them.

  This was exactly what my hesitation had been in starting things up with Jay in the first place. I’d been worried that I would hurt him and cause irrevocable damage to our friendship, which had been a constant in my life for as long as I could remember.

  At this point, honestly, I thought Jay was probably better off without me. All I did was cause him pain. Our whole lives, he’d loved me, and I had kept him back at arms’ length, turning my attention to others and then falling in love with Luka. And Jay had never begrudged me that. All he wanted was for me to be happy, and if he wasn’t the source of it, he’d never try to force me or convince me that we should be together.

  And then, finally, just when it seemed as though things had changed, when I’d finally thought that there could be something more between us—when I felt something more for him, something beyond mere friendship—I’d thrown it away like it was nothing. And all for what? A dream? The appearance of a stranger?

  Gods, I’d been a fool. I’d let superstition and guilt take me over and run my life. I hadn’t been strong enough to make the decisions that I really wanted in the face of those suffocating emotions.

  Now, I didn’t know what I could do about it, though. Apologizing didn’t seem like it would be enough. I didn’t know if Jay would ever be able to forgive me. I didn’t know that I would be that kind if I were in his shoes.

  He wasn’t ordinarily one to hold a grudge—but it wasn’t like I had eaten a sandwich of his without asking or something. This was no small and minor infraction we were talking about here. I had broken his heart. I had ripped it from his chest and stomped upon it with high-heeled shoes—stiletto ones. His heart had taken a beating; it was no wonder he had reported that he was sick.

  He was sick. But it wasn’t a physical ailment that he suffered from. There were no germs that he needed to eradicate to make himself better. He was heartsick.

  And gods help me, so was I. But unfortunately, I had no one to blame for that but myself.

  “Eliana?” Mother’s voice came again; gentler, this time. “Did something happen between the two of you?”

  I covered my face and shook my head, unable to look at her. “Yes, but I…” I trailed off, my voice cracking with emotion. I swallowed it back down again, just enough to speak and get the words out around my rapidly tightening throat. Behind my hands, tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t talk about it yet. I’ve been an idiot.” The sentences warbled unsteadily, like a piano out of tune, but I managed to get them out, which was an accomplishment given how I was feeling. It was a miracle that I hadn’t started sobbing in my mother’s arms already.

  “All right,” she said softly. “Well, whenever you’re ready to talk, just know that I’m always here for you.”

  I peeked through my fingers and looked at her. Her smile was as understanding as her voice. “Thank you,” I said. My own voice was tiny in response.

  My hands fell from my cheeks as I looked at Mother sitting there again, cradling Fae. I’d brought my daughter with me for the report this morning, knowing that my mother would have absolutely no protests. She seized upon any chance she could to see her granddaughter. The minute I’d walked into her rooms, she’d greedily gathered Fae from my arms into hers and sat down, holding her against her chest. Fae hadn’t protested once.

  “Do you think…?” I gestured to the two of them. “Would you mind watching her for a little while? I think I need to think.”

  A peal of laughter erupted from my mother’s lips as if what I’d said was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. “Do I mind? Mind being a grandmother? Never. Never, ever.”

  She met my eyes and inclined her head toward me, the diamond tiara that she’d put on to confer with her guards sparkling as it caught the light. “Take all the time to think that you need, darling. I’ll watch over your daughter for you. We’ll be here when you return.

  “And if you need to speak with anyone while you’re out… well, you can take that time too.”

  Leaving my mother’s rooms, my walk through the palace was not altogether that different from the one that I’d taken only a few days ago, when I’d determinedly ripped through the halls on a course to find my mother. My fists then had been clenched with coiled tension, with anger that I had been trying desperately to keep a tight hold on, lest I inadvertently release it on some innocent bystander. This time, it was my heart that was coiled tightly, shrinking with shame over how I’d treated Jay. I knew I needed to make amends somehow. I just didn’t know what that “somehow” method was.

  And I might not have been scowling this time when I tore through the castle’s hallways and corridors at an unusual pace, but I sure wasn’t smiling. I made no effort to paste a false one on for the people who might see me. I didn’t really care.

  But the results weren’t all that different. Nobles and courtiers started to greet me, but then quickly stopped talking, withdrawing and not attempting to hold me there for a conversation. I didn’t think that my expression looked as forbidding as it had a few days ago, but maybe they simply couldn’t stand to look at someone in the eyes who looked as despondent as I did. Maybe my dismay was as plain to see as my anger had been.

  I might have been grateful for the quick reprieve, for the bit of distraction—I could maybe convince strangers that I was paying attention if I tried—but to be honest, I didn’t even have the energy or focus to feign that amount of attention.

  Mother had seen it in an instant, and I’d actually been trying to listen to her. What she was saying was important. What these people, however well-meaning, would have amounted to nothing more than chitchat. The weather was lovely today. They’d seen me in the gardens with Princess Fae. She must be the cutest baby they’d ever seen. Had I heard that the kitchens were making lemon cakes for dessert this evening? They knew they were my favorites.

  Not even compliments about my daughter or the news that my favorite sweet treats were on the menu tonight would cheer me up today, though. In response to whatever the conversationalist was saying to me, all I could bring myself to do was to nod politely, distantly, and at the first pause, the first silence in the conversation—even if the speaker had only stopped for long enough to take a breath, I excused myself and continued on.

  Avery and Williamson, as they always did, followed behind me. They were silent, but even their presence distracted me. It was like the humming of their thoughts, indecipherable though they were, followed behind me like a swam of buzzing bees. I was no mindreader, but I could imagine what they were thinking. Wondering what was going on with me. And I didn’t have space in my head for their thoughts. I needed the extra room to sort out my own thoughts and wonderings.

  I needed the peace that came with being alone to sort out my own thoughts without feeling like theirs were with me.

  It didn’t seem like very long before we were outside the castle and at the edge of the meadow, but it must have been. The castle was not a tiny building and it took a fair amount of time for one to make their way through it and its grounds, especially with the multiple interruptions we’d encountered.

  All the while, Avery and Williamson said not a word, just following behind me like shadows stitched to the back of my feet. At the meadow’s edge, finally, I could take it no longer. I whirled around and put my hands out toward them, signaling for them to stop. I’d caught them by surprise with the movement, and they came up short, startled.

  “Please,” I begged. “Can you stop here? I need to be alone.”

  They exchanged a glance. “Your Highness knows that Her Majesty the Queen has given her express orders that the princess should not be left alone, except with guards posted outside. Perhaps if that is Your Highness’s wish, then we should return to the castle and you m
ay be alone in your rooms.”

  Williamson’s tone was not unsympathetic, but also firm. So was the resolve in his eyes. After all, this request was not as simple as it seemed. I was asking him to violate orders he’d been given from his lieges. Orders he had sworn an oath to uphold. And he wasn’t the type to flout that sort of thing.

  But without realizing it, he’d given me a loophole. And one that I fully intended to exploit.

  “Those were your orders?” I confirmed. “That was how my mother worded it, right? Those exact words? ‘With guards posted outside?’”

  His brows knitted, not sure where I was going with this. “Ye-essss?” he drew out the word into a question. But his tone said that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to receive the answer.

  “Great, then!” I clapped my hands together and threw my arms open wide, indicating the great outdoors around us. “The two of you are guards. We are outside. Ergo, there are guards posted outside and you will not have violated an order at all if you let me have a little time to myself to think.” I rocked back on my heels and crossed my arms, a little smug and pleased with myself.

  “Your Highness, please,” Williamson protested, shaking his head and frowning. “We both know that that wasn’t… I feel very sure that that was not the spirit of what the queen intended.”

  “Please,” I begged. I clasped my hands together like I was praying. In a way, I was. If the gods were so hell-bent on making me gods-touched as I suspected, I thought it was only fair that they do me this teeny, tiny favor and intervene so that I could have a little bit of time alone.

  “Williamson, you’re right, I know. And I know that what I am asking of you is a very big favor.” I pointed emphatically back toward the castle. “But I can’t think in there. It’s like a cage.” I huffed out an aggrieved breath. “Just… put yourself in my shoes for a minute. Imagine never having a minute to yourself. You guys, at least, get to trade shifts with other guards at night and go back to your own room in the barracks. I am always watched. Always. Can you imagine how that makes me feel?”