What sort of monster would do this?
The answer came unfortunately far too easily, and I clenched my fist. I knew exactly which sort of monster would do this.
He answered to the name of Rumpelstiltskin. But one day he would have to answer to more than that. He’d have to answer to me.
I wasn’t sure whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that I saw no sign of the imp here today. Fortunate, I supposed, in that it meant that all of our efforts could go toward rescuing the unicorns. Unfortunate because it meant that, yet again, the imp would not be held accountable for his horrendous crimes against them.
Jay hurried down from Zacarina’s back and held a hand up to me. I took it and scrambled down as well. Zacarina took flight and hovered above us.
“Have faith, my kin. The mortals will help us.”
“Avery, your sword!” I shouted, hitching my skirts up as I ran. The unicorns’ net wasn’t far—just in the shallows of the water. If we could get to it and pull them closer and use Avery’s sword to cut them free, we might yet manage to save them. I plunged into the river’s edge and picked up the net. A frisson of horror went through me the instant that I touched it. No. It wasn’t a simple string net, but a net comprised of wire, twisted and gnarled together.
Avery splashed into the river behind me and lifted his sword, hacking at the net, but it was exactly as I feared—there was no effect at all. His weapon might as well have bounced off of it for all the good it was doing.
“Young one, how is it going?” Zacarina called.
I bit my lip. “The net is strong, but we’re going to figure something out,” I called back, evading the question. Because we had to figure something out, and quickly, too. I didn’t know how much longer the unicorns would be able to keep at it.
Zacarina swooped down and took the net between her teeth. I held my breath, daring to hope as she shook it like a dog with its prey, grinding down on it and trying to break it with her teeth.
But to no avail. The net held strong. The unicorns were just as trapped as ever.
What were we going to do?
A cheery tune reached my ears, and the crunching of leaves and grass underfoot. Branches broke as someone drew closer.
“The game afoot,
“The lass did look,
“For a way to win it all.
“How was she supposed to know
“That she’d lose it by the ball—Oh!” The jaunty singing cut itself short as a man pulled aside a large bushy branch and emerged from the trees. My heart skipped about three beats.
Those eyes. And that stance, at the same height…
For a moment, I’d thought that it was Luka coming through the trees. Coming from the afterlife itself to help me.
But now that the stranger drew closer, I could see the differences too. His skin had a different hue from Luka’s; his face was more narrow and angular.
And the most important difference: there was no warmth filling his gaze when his eyes met mine.
But I knew that I wasn’t the only one who saw the similarities, which, at least, made me feel a little bit better. I could tell from the way that Jay shuffled closer and picked up my hand to give it a light squeeze that he saw it too.
“My apologies,” the stranger said, oblivious to my internal strife. “I don’t usually bother others with my terrible voice, but I didn’t see you there. Oh my.” His eyes grew to the size of saucers as he took in the sight of the unicorns’ plight.
“May I be of some assistance?” Hastily, he crouched to the ground and opened the large satchel at his side, tossing out a screwdriver, a large canteen, and a small napkin that spilled open to reveal a gathering of berries as he tossed it aside in his search to find whatever he was searching for in the bag. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for: a large knife. Its blade was covered by a large leather sheath. He held it toward me, handle first. “I won this in a game of cards years ago. The man I won it off of said it had been blessed by the fairies—and whether that’s true or not, I’ve cut diamonds with it; it’s good and strong.”
This might be our last chance. Breathless with hope, I forged through the river toward my dead husband’s lookalike and put my hand on the knife. “Thank you so much,” I said.
“Not at all,” he said lightly. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to repay me.” This was said with a joking wink.
Knife in hand, I rushed back to the river and tried the knife on the net. It cut true. My heart leapt. This was actually going to work. Tears of joy pricked at my eyes and I called back to the man, who stood on the shore, hands in his pockets as he watched.
“My name is Princess Eliana,” I shouted, still working at the net as I spoke. The wires snapped as the man’s blade cut through them like butter. “Find me at the palace. I promise I’ll be able to repay you with anything you want.”
I glanced back and saw him grin.
As I cut, Jay and Avery worked to move the discarded pieces of the net aside. From above, Zacarina snatched pieces between her teeth and flew them onto the ground, where they would no longer be able to do harm to anyone, spitting them out with great distaste. With all four of us working, it wasn’t long before the first unicorn was freed, stepping foot from the river onto the ground—the unicorn was shuddering, soaking wet, and clearly traumatized. But the most important thing was that she was alive and would stay that way too.
And then the next unicorn was freed. And the next. And the next. Before long, that blasted net was in scraps and pieces and each and every unicorn was accounted for.
One of them stepped forward, recovered enough to speak. She sank to her haunches and bowed her head to me. “We are in your debt, Princess Eliana.”
I recognized this unicorn. She was the one who had flown me to the castle from the meadow the day that I’d gone into labor with Fae. I’d called her Misty then and made Jay promise to get her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—a favorite treat for unicorns. She’d disappeared from the staviary not long after that, choosing to take her leave, and she’d been with the unicorn herd when it had gone missing. I’d worried over all the unicorns, of course, but her a little more than the others. She, after all, was one that I felt I owed a debt to.
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re all okay.”
And we had this stranger in the woods to thank for it. I slipped the man’s knife back into its sheath and turned to thank him.
But there was no one behind me except Jay and Avery.
The stranger had disappeared.
Avery wasn’t about to leave me alone, and Zacarina and I weren’t about to leave the unicorns. So after a quick, cursory check to make sure that none of them needed urgent medical attention, Jay took Avery’s horse back to the castle with the intent of retrieving more guards and hostlers. We’d need more hands to get them safely back to the palace. And with Rumpelstiltskin still on the loose, I wasn’t taking any more chances with them. I wanted guards around the unicorns at all times, and lots of them.
I knew it wasn’t a permanent solution, of course. The unicorns were creatures that needed to be free. I couldn’t cage them like my mother used to try to do to me. But while they recovered from their captivity and trauma, they’d stay in the staviary and convalesce. And while that happened, they’d have armed bodyguards around the clock.
Rumpelstiltskin wouldn’t lay a hand on them again if I had anything to say about the matter.
I clenched a fist as I thought about the imp who had caused so much misery. I hadn’t even met him and yet he’d turned my life upside down and topsy-turvy. I wasn’t going to lie—I’d very much like to land a punch squarely on his cheek and turn his face topsy-turvy, for starters.
I wasn’t going to tell my mother that, though. After all, princesses don’t start fights.
But we know how to finish them.
And I certainly hadn’t started this fight. Rumpelstiltskin had, so many years ago. It grated on me that he had used my mo
ther’s distress against her and sought personal gain from it. She’d been younger then than I was now, and all she had wanted was just to keep on living. He could have helped her just because he had the ability to. He could even have taken a physical payment from it—it was normal to be paid for your work, after all, and as a new princess and then Queen, Mother could have rewarded him with a more-than-generous sum for saving her life.
But no, he had asked for too much.
Chills danced down my spine. To ask for someone’s child. I could never fathom someone trying to take Fae away from me.
No wonder Mother hadn’t wanted to give birth.
I swiped my hand over my forehead after we escorted the unicorns to the staviary and bid Jay a good night—I was too tired for a long, drawn-out goodbye, so I settled for a quick one of his trademark bear hugs and set off to go home. Avery and I met Williamson at my suite’s door.
“All well, my lady?” he asked in a whisper.
I rubbed my temple and yawned. “Not all, Williamson. But more is well than we started the day with. I can be grateful enough for that.”
His lips quirked up in a smile. “True enough, Your Highness.”
Avery took up his position beside Williamson outside the door, and I said good night to the two of them, going into the room quietly and waking the nursemaid, who was sound asleep in the rocking chair. She left and I peered in on Fae, sound asleep.
Warmth filled my chest as I gazed down at my sleeping daughter. Rumpelstiltskin was a blight upon this world, that was true. But there was still so very much in it that was good. She was so beautiful.
“We did a good job, Luka,” I whispered to the room. Maybe it was just that I’d seen a stranger who looked so much like him today, but somehow, I couldn’t help but feel as though he was with us tonight.
I changed into pajamas and pulled the covers aside to climb into bed, sliding into the cool and comfortable sheets.
When I closed my eyes, for the first time in days, I drifted off to sleep effortlessly.
And in my dreams, Luka greeted me, two champagne flutes in hand. I glided into his arms, taking my glass and toasting him. He smiled, returning the gesture. Music began to play, and he took the glass from my hand and set it aside, crooking an arm around my waist, and taking my hand to lead me around the room in a dance.
My brow crinkled. This tune was familiar. Where had I heard it before?
It clicked—the stranger’s song when he’d stumbled through the woods. That was the melody that the violins played now.
“Remember,” Luka breathed into my ear. His arms were strong around my body and his breath was warm upon my ear. I closed my eyes, aching, even in a dream, knowing that this wouldn’t last.
“A promise,” he said, “is a promise.”
8th May
Luka’s words in my dream echoed in my mind the next morning when I woke up. My eyes fluttered open with a gasp as I stared at the ceiling, heart pounding and unable to catch my breath. It was as though I’d either had a terrible nightmare or as if I’d run for miles. Not as if I’d just had a gentle and comforting dream about my late husband.
The light in my rooms was dim. As I tried to regain a normal breathing rhythm, I peered toward the curtain. It was an hour of the morning where the sky still clung to the night, though the sun slowly rose, doing its best to banish its darkness. It would succeed. But it couldn’t banish the memories of the dream I’d had. And was it terrible that part of me wished that I could sink right back into it? It had felt so real.
“Remember,” Dream Luka had said. “A promise is a promise.”
Awake now, my hand drifted up to my ear, where he’d breathed the words. Gods, I’d been able to feel his breath on my skin last night. I’d forgotten what that felt like. And now, I missed it all over again.
Dreams were confusing, though—and damn my own subconscious for making it so. “A promise is a promise.” Huh? What did that mean? I turned the words over and over again in my mind. Was he referring to our marriage vows?
I searched for another meaning, racking my brain and raking through my memories for anything else that he could have meant—really, that I could have meant. The dream had, after all, come from my own brain. But despite as hard as I tried, I came up empty-handed, drawing a blank over other meanings.
So my thoughts turned then to our marriage vows. Luka and I had written our own vows when we’d wed. We’d foregone the traditional language at our ceremony, dismissing royal tradition. I had to give my mother credit for that; maybe it was because she hadn’t grown up in the tradition of the royals, but she hadn’t really fought me on those decisions. All she’d cared about when I decided to get married was that I was happy. And I most certainly had been.
Luka had made me so happy. We had made each other so happy. The feeling of ecstasy on my wedding day was like my heart had turned into a fluttering bird
When it came time to declare our intention to marry each other, I’d given him a deeply impassioned speech and meant every word that I said. I hadn’t promised to love him until death did us part like the old vows would have had me do. That time wasn’t enough for me.
If only I had known what a small amount of time we would really get together. I would have spirited him away from this place.
But instead of death parting us, I had promised to love Luka forever.
My fists clenched the sheets of my bed, remembering as my heart twisted. And I had meant every word of those vows. I wanted to love him forever. I still did.
But call it what you will—fate or destiny… the hands of the gods—it didn’t really matter what you called it. Because the decision for us to be together had been ripped away when they had taken Luka from this world into the next and left me here.
I could and would love him forever, but except for in dreams, I’d never again feel his touch. Never feel the returned kiss or embrace that was him loving me forever right back.
Fae’s cry tore through the peace of the early morning and I sighed as my daughter’s wails interrupted my reverie. It was a rare occasion, indeed, that I woke up on my own before my little princess woke me up. I supposed I should be thankful I’d had as long alone with my thoughts as I had. But I wouldn’t lie; I welcomed the distraction that tending to my motherly duties would provide. Last night’s dream was taking its toll on me emotionally. My throat was tight and tears kept threatening when I dwelled upon it.
I turned the covers aside, stepping first one foot and then the other onto the warm rug. My feet slipped into the slippers that I’d left at my bedside, and I pulled on a robe that was draped over the chair next to my bed, knotting it around my waist before I shuffled over to Fae’s bassinet.
She was on her back, her little face scrunched up and growing red as she wailed her dissatisfaction to the heavens above. I knew the feeling, but it would be pretty frowned upon for me to scream my dissatisfaction the same way at my age. I’d let her announce our indignation to the world for the both of us.
Her tiny fists were knotted, and from the way her knees bent slightly toward her chest, I was willing to bet that inside the onesie that hid her feet, her little toes were much the same way.
“Shhh, Little One,” I hushed, reaching inside and scooping her up from where she’d slept. Her weight in my arms was a comfort after a morning of sad thoughts of loss. At least I had this precious gift from the gods.
I felt her diaper. Yes, it was as I’d thought it was: wet. It was swollen with liquid and hanging low. No wonder she was so unhappy. Who wouldn’t be?
I kept humming and making little soothing noises as I placed Fae onto the changing table, swiftly removing her soiled diaper and disposing of it. I grabbed a diaper wipe, baby powder, and some cream to prevent a rash and fixed her up in a fresh, clean diaper. Her cries had quieted somewhat with this improved situation, but she hadn’t stopped crying entirely yet. I wasn’t altogether surprised. After being her mother for a few weeks, I was coming to know my daughter. The girl liked
her food. She woke up hungry, so if she was still crying this early it was because she needed breakfast.
I settled down into the rocker, moving my robe to the side and unbuttoning my pajama top so that she could suckle at my breast—which she did eagerly.
Breastfeeding had hurt a bit at first. It was an entirely new and unexpected feeling. But now, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. And with my world falling apart at the seams around me, I was grateful for this constant. For the peace that came with it. I relished these moments bonding with my daughter where I could simply hold her in my arms, her eyes fixed on me.
Luka’s eyes.
Damn it. Just like that, my thoughts circled back around to him. Thoughts swirling, I closed my eyes and inclined my neck, leaning a little closer to Fae so that I could take a deep, comforting whiff of her little baby smell: baby powder, lotion, and something different. Something that was all uniquely Fae.
But just as changing Fae’s diaper hadn’t been enough to stop her cries, this peaceful time with my daughter had helped to soothe me—but not enough. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the thought of Luka today. I didn’t think of him as often as I used to. When he’d first passed, I couldn’t take a breath without it feeling like a painful reminder that I lived while he did not. Breathing had eased as time went by; I no longer felt like my windpipe was in danger of collapsing with each passing heartbeat.
They said grief came in waves. Well they were right, and today, I was drowning. Because today, I couldn’t rid myself of the specter of Luka; he was here with me, like a shadow peeking over my shoulder and watching all that I did.
And some of the things I was doing lately… the thoughts that I was having… they made me feel guilty. The idea that Luka might see them bothered me. What if he was really here? His spirit, anyway. If any form of him still wandered the earth and watched over me, I didn’t like to think of what he’d seen lately when he’d looked in on me. There were times that my thoughts were written clearly upon my face, I was sure. And I didn’t want Luka reading those thoughts. Because they weren’t the thoughts of a married woman.
Throne of Sacrifice Page 4
