Stinking Beauty

by Elizabeth A Reeves

  I sighed. My parents had been campaigning for my return to the family complex. They were throwing a party in my honor that would take place in a few days. They had wanted to make it a ball, but I had pled exhaustion and they had agreed to make it “just a little gathering”.

  I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

  “The storms have quieted since Talia returned home with her prince,” Gloriana commented. “And Magic is back to listening to our wands again.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.” I removed a strand of my hair from my mouth. “I was afraid that the repercussions of that awful king’s actions were going to be far more damaging.”

  “It is a relief,” Gloriana agreed, guiding her horse around a puddle with an expert touch. Gloriana excelled at everything she did. Her very nature would not allow her to make mistakes.

  We rode on in silence for a while. The park was an area of organized pathways, lined with both flowerbeds and wildflowers. Their perfume scented the air. It had rained last night and the air was still damp. Our mouths breathed softly as we walked along and enjoyed the scenery around us.

  “Oh, look,” I said, pointing towards a pond that peeped through the trees. “A rainbow!”

  Gloriana looked and smiled. “Have the twins been visiting you in your new house?”

  I nodded. “A few times. They’ve been busy the past few days.”

  “Are they intending on attending your party?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I doubt it.”

  Gloriana smiled. “It should be a wonderful night. Your parents are really proud, you know.”

  “So it seems.” I slid my feet out of my stirrups and rolled my ankles. This ride was bringing out all my stiff soreness.

  “How are you feeling?” She asked, concern touching her face.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I’m fine. Just a little sore. I’m a little conflicted, actually. I’m glad that Talia is back, but I keep feeling we didn’t do enough. I didn’t do enough.”

  Consternation filled my cousin’s face. “What do you mean? You returned Talia to her family and she and her twins are doing well. What more could you have done?”

  “I feel like I’ve let Brunhild down,” I admitted. “I didn’t find her killer.”

  Gloriana sighed with exasperation. “Everyone is saying that it was the king. He must have taken her by surprise.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense, and you know it. Someone as powerful as Brunhild would have had to be killed by a Magical weapon or a Godparent.”

  Gloriana shrugged. “Then he had a Magical weapon.”

  I shook my head stubbornly. “No, that’s not it. Because we know a Godparent was involved. That spell in the tower, adding that poor girl to my spell… that was advanced Godparents Magic at work.”

  Gloriana sighed. “I know that’s what you think. You know, no one is happy that you are pursuing this wild idea of yours. You need to just let it go.”

  I braided a piece of Agape’s mane and shook my head. “I just… can’t.”

  “Really,” Gloriana said, her voice tight. “You need to leave this alone.”

  Startled by her tone, I glanced across at her face, but she was looking away.

  “Leave it alone,” she said again, then she smiled at me brilliantly. “Let’s gallop!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ferdie’s smug face was repugnant, and I wasn’t allowed to punch it. He loved bringing me the news that Queen Astrid and avoided punishment and had just remarried. I understood that this was best for the kingdom, but she had still murdered a girl in cold blood. It chafed that she would never be punished for that crime.

  Someone once said that humans lacked the capacity to ever be truly evil or truly good, but I didn’t believe that, not for a second.

  King Eberhardt had been evil. He did as he pleased with no consideration for others, and reveled in the pain he gave them. If there had been any true justice in the universe, he would have suffered far more than any of the girls whose lives he had ruined.

  Would the kingdom be better off with a murdering queen instead of a murdering king, or would she find killing someone easier and easier as time went on?

  My uncle grinned at me in that way that everyone adored. It was a bright, brilliant smile. His teeth gleamed. Only I seemed to be able to see the slime oozing from his pores.

  He was enjoying this, I knew. He loved that I felt I had failed. He wanted me to know that he knew I had failed, even now when everyone else believed that I had triumphed. I had brought the princess back to her family, I had restored her true Prince to her, and saved her babies from death.

  To most, I was standing here celebrating my triumph.

  Only Ferdinand could see how badly I felt I had failed. What did it say about him, that he had enough empathy to see the truth, and yet he sought to make my pain that much worse?

  He made me sick.

  They all made me sick. My parents grinning and bragging about my successes, my beautiful cousin playing her part of the perfect daughter, the perfect Godmother.

  The perfect killer.

  Only I knew.

  I’d believed her threats. She was right, it was better for everyone if I let it go. Without evidence, who would believe me? She was golden and loved and adored by all who knew her.

  Adored by me.

  There she stood, radiant and lovely, with her perfect face and her perfect wings.

  What had happened to her? She had everything I always wanted. Her mother adored her without her having to fight for every word of encouragement. She was beautiful and talented, and everyone adored her. She was nearly perfect.

  And that nearly was the problem.

  She had killed Brunhild to hide the fact that she had made a mistake and trusted the wrong person. She could have made everything right, before we spent so many lost hours searching for Talia and Alexander. She had known all along where they were, but she had played the role.

  To protect herself.

  That was not the behavior of a Godmother.

  Fairies weren’t supposed to be selfish. We were supposed to be good. We were supposed to protect the humans in our care. We were responsible for their wellbeing. They trusted us.

  She had trusted the queen. There had been no signs of the hatred and pain that bubbled under the surface there. That mistake would have been forgivable. Seraphina’s death was not on Gloriana’s hands. She could not have known that the queen would behave in that manner. Queen Astrid herself couldn’t have predicted it. It had been a crime of rage and hurt and opportunity.

  But Gloriana had worked so hard to hide the mistake she made. She had killed a good and ancient Godmother that our world needed for balance just so she could hide her shame.

  She glanced in my direction and met my eyes. Her own eyes narrowed slightly in warning.

  She didn’t have to warn me.

  I didn’t have anything to say.

  I could not prove what had been. I knew in my heart that it was true, that Gloriana had murdered Brunhild in cold blood, but that didn’t make evidence. What grieved me more was that knowing Brunhild better these days through her house and all she had done for me, I was sure the old Fairy Godmother would have offered to help Gloriana.

  Instead, she had died.

  It was such a waste.

  We were gathered in the courtyard of the family complex. My parents had insisted on throwing a party to celebrate my “success”. They hadn’t been able to wait to show off what their daughter had done and accomplished.

  Two centuries ago, it would have meant anything to me. Forbidden Word, even a few years ago it would have felt like something real.

  Now it just felt hollow.

  Ferdie scanned me with a haughty expression. He looked down his nose at me, not a difficult accomplishment when he was so much taller than me. Not as tall as Dallan, of course, but few were.

  I smiled to myself at the thought of the Voice of Mercy. He had declined to attend. Given his
dislike of creatures in general, let alone a crowd of them, I understood. It would have been nice to have him beside me to face my family.

  But I didn’t need him.

  It was the strangest feeling, suddenly not being hungry for approval. It was the oddest sensation not to be searching for applause of some sort. I didn’t need recognition.

  Raised voices drew my attention to the doorway. Two cloaked figures stood there, one in brilliant white, the other in the deepest black. Their cloaks whipped like banners in the breeze that snaked through the courtyard. There was something ominous about the way they stood there, apart, watching but never reaching out.

  Never letting skin touch skin.

  I touched my face with my hand, remembering what it felt like for Dallan to touch me there. It burned like ice, like the perfume of flowers in the dark, overwhelming my senses. My heart thrummed at the thought of him. There was so much hidden there, beneath the cloaks, beneath the shyness, away from prying eyes and judgment.

  My mother quickly skirted the party to meet her newest guests. I could read on her face how delighted she was to have such esteemed guests appear at her little party.

  I watched as they bent towards her, speaking lowly so only she could hear. She went from flattered to raging in a matter of moments. I heard pleading and indignation in her voice, even across the room.

  All eyes were on them now.

  I could feel Dallan staring at me. I looked back at him and somehow I just knew.

  I stood there, as still as stone, as they approached Gloriana, her with her shining eyes and her glorious gold and silver wings, and they took her away. It was so easily done, so simple.

  They stood there, Justice and Mercy; judge, jury, and executioner. They stood there, aspects of death, reapers standing over the ripening fields.

  I stood there and didn’t move as my family walked away from me with scorn in their eyes, when my cousin’s mother spat at my feet. I did not even see her, really.

  I could feel nothing. I could see nothing. My mind was blank. It was as if I’d been turned to stone.

  I was still standing there when Dallan found me later.

  He touched my face. I swallowed at the weight in my chest, but I pulled away from him. Pain flooded his face, but it was nothing to the aching cavern within mine.

  “What is it?” he murmured. Even here, in public, he pushed back his cloak so I could see his face, his beautiful face, and his eyes, always so guarded, but now so gentle.

  I took that look of trust and I crushed it between my fingers.

  “We could never work,” I said, through the rock in my throat. I croaked as if my voice had been broken again. But it hadn’t, just my heart. “I’m too short and you’re too tall, you’re too powerful and I’m a mess...”

  He touched my lips with a gloved finger. “I thought you couldn’t lie to me Grace, so why are you lying? What’s the real reason, Grace? What’s bothering you?”

  “My cousin,” I choked.

  He blinked down at me. “Your cousin.” He stepped back from me, his face still. On this, he could never bend. We both knew it. It was his nature. It was his composition, his identity. It wouldn’t be right, yet it made everything unbearable. He wore the face of Mercy, but there would be none, not for Gloriana.

  “I know,” I whispered. “It’s impossible and it isn’t fair, but…”

  “Your cousin.” He nodded. There might have been sympathy in his eyes, it might have been pain. All I knew is that I couldn’t face it. I never looked up.

  I walked away.

  And I didn’t look back.

  The End

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  Coming Soon in This Series!

  The Little Murder Maid

  Other Books by Elizabeth A. Reeves:

  The Cindy Eller Series (Complete):

  How (Not) to Play with Magic (a FREE short story)

  First Kisses, Near Misses (short stories)

  How (Not) to Kiss a Toad

  How (Not) to Kiss a Prince

  How (Not) to Kiss a Beast

  How (Not) to Kiss a Ghost

  How (Not) to Kiss a Gargoyle

  How (Not) to Kiss a Were Bear

  How (Not) to Love a Hero

  How (Not) to Spook a Spectre

  How (Not) to Soothe a Siren

  How (Not) to Amuse a Muse

  How (Not) to Free a Firebird

  The Goldie Locke and the Were Bears Series:

  Baehrly Beginning (a FREE short story)

  Baehrly Breathing

  Baehrly Bitten

  Baehrly Alive

  How (Not) to Kiss a Were Bear (crossover)

  Baehrly Breaking

  Drawing Breath

  The Unlife Series:

  Deathly Still

  Deathly Quiet

  Midnight at the Salem Cafe

  Karma’s Witches Series:

  Life’s a Witch

  Love’s a Witch (Hope Welsh)

  Karma’s a Witch (Lanie Jordan)

  Haunting Karma

  Healing Karma (Hope Welsh)

  Sharp as Steele (Hope Welsh)

  Hard as Flint

  Karma Steele (Hope Welsh)

  Black as Obsidian (Hope Welsh)

  Flint Lock

  Amber in Ashes

  Pandemonium: Demons of Karma (Hope Welsh)

  Amber Alone

  Payback’s a Witch (Hope Welsh)

  Spark of Life

  The Voice of Bees

  Cost of Found (Witness Protection for Monsters)

  The Dangers of Black Magic