by Lucy Tempest
We soon entered what Agnë said was called the Pumpkin Path, and if it was that spooky with the sun still on the horizon, I wasn’t looking forward to trudging through it in the dead of night.
We were deep within it when Robin suddenly broke the silence. “What did you see?”
I drew in a shaky breath at the thought of Ariane, and how she’d seemed resigned to her terrible fate. “I saw someone I know in one of the Underworld rivers. Then I almost saw Him.”
He didn’t need to ask who I meant, his eyes widening as he looked up at me. “So he really exists?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just I’ve heard the Horned God is nothing more than some pastoral deity that people eventually confused for Death.”
“From the way I felt at his approach, it was definitely Him. And he almost caught me.” A tired huff escaped me. “But how did people imagine a pastoral deity as a half-man, half-beast skeleton? It would be the worst thing to get gardening advice from.”
He looked so relieved at my quip. “I figured the skeletal part was an exaggeration, and it just had horns like satyrs. But regardless of what Death looks like, he won’t catch you, not anytime soon.”
His forced optimism only intensified my hopelessness. I could no longer feel him in any way, my sense of smell was missing, along with my ability to perceive temperature and wind. These were all signs I was losing connection with my body. I didn’t know how long until I became a true ghost, or something much worse.
As if sensing my turmoil, concern gleamed in his brilliant eyes. I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me. The way they all did, with dread and pity. I needed to change the subject before I burst into tears.
“So, why the green theme?” I gestured at his clothes.
He grabbed the end of his cloak, fanning it out dramatically. “When you operate around woods and fields as green as our country’s, you must blend in, so no one sees you when you attack, and loses sight of you when you retreat.”
“Pure strategy, then. And here I thought you were no strategist, and that’s just your favorite color.”
“A color can hardly be called strategy, but it is my favorite. At least, it was.” His gaze locked with mine, and I stupidly hoped he’d say turquoise was his favorite color now. Instead, he asked, “What’s yours?”
Feeling ridiculously let down and embarrassed, I changed the topic again. “Where is Alan?”
“He said he had to run ahead to scope out the border between this court and the next. To avoid any unpleasant run-ins with ‘the residents.’”
Robin didn’t sound entirely convinced. And with the way Alan-or-Keenan had brushed off our encounter with the ghouls, I dreaded to glimpse what he considered unpleasant. Especially now the landscape bordering our path was fast shifting into a nighttime forest, and it was as chilling as I’d feared it would be.
“I believe he isn’t who he claims to be,” I said.
He only shrugged. “Is anyone here who they claimed to be? And then, fairies never reveal their true identities to humans unless they must. My mother didn’t tell my father who she really was until the day she left us. He only told me on his deathbed, and it was then the glamor she’d placed on me to make me appear fully human began to fade.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned her, the source of his pointed ears, superhuman agility, and mischievous streak. It hadn’t occurred to me that she wasn’t in his life anymore. Then again, fairies didn’t seem like the sort that valued the monotony of domestic life.
Any other time, I would have needled him for information, but I didn’t feel like discussing family, and how they wronged us. We weren’t chatting jovially as he spun me around a ballroom, we were crossing a treacherous terrain, somber and stressed, and expecting the worst yet to come.
I was still the one who broke the next stretch of silence. “I don’t understand why it failed. Why everything I attempt fails. I always do whatever is expected of me, and it’s never enough—not for my instructors or courtiers, my family or supposed betrothed, or even this curse.” My lower lip trembled, the only warmth I felt coming from my burning eyes. “What more could I do?”
Robin shot a hand up, looking as if he was aching to touch my arm, before he dropped it with a defeated exhalation. “I think that’s your problem. You need to stop doing what others think is best, and do what’s best for you.”
“I don’t even know what that is! I spent my entire life being bombarded by demands, orders, and instructions from those who ought to know best. And yet, it turns out they might have been wrong about everything, from my education, to my behavior, to my priorities, to what breaks this curse!”
“We don’t know about that last part! We still have Agnë’s king, and he sounds perfect for you!”
Agnë had framed her king as the perfect candidate. But I had become really wary of anyone who could be described as such. The last one had sent me on an exploratory trip to the Underworld. This one might be what made my visit permanent.
I exhaled. “I’m starting to think the Spring Queen let Leander be saved. Maybe she couldn’t take my father’s heir from him. A future king is not expendable, after all. But I am.”
“Don’t ever say that! You’re not expendable!”
I looked down into his stormy eyes, and felt even worse at his affront on my behalf. “Robin, even if I wasn’t cursed, I’d be worth less than a welder or a farmer to my family and kingdom right now. At least, they need those. I serve no purpose if I don’t marry a king.”
“You need a king to live, not to appease your parents! They already got you into this mess, and have no right to judge you. Their opinion of your worth, or that of anyone who doesn’t benefit you, doesn’t matter.”
“It’s easy for you to say that. You’re free of expectations as an outlaw…”
“I wasn’t born an outlaw! You think it was easy for me to throw my old life away and become—this?”
Wishing I could reach down and soothe him, smooth his tousled hair, I sighed. “Is that what you’ll do after this is over? Hang up your bow, and go back to your old life?”
He seemed stunned by that question, like he hadn’t considered it before. “I can’t go back to being who I was before.”
“Which was?”
He gave me a bitter smirk. “The Earl of Sherwood’s son.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By now, I should have been used to surprises. Especially where Robin was concerned. He was like a rose, where I’d peel one layer and find another and another, each revealing some new facet to him.
“You’re noble-born?” My whisper was as ghostly as I was becoming.
He exhaled. “I was. Your dear Uncle Jon stripped my father of his lands and title when he opposed his actions. Which begs the question, is one still noble without a title and a place in the hierarchy?”
This explained his hatred of my uncle. It had been personal as I’d first suspected, augmented by a healthy dose of righteous chivalry.
“What happened to your father?”
“After being disgraced by the regent himself, all my father’s friends and relatives abandoned him,” he muttered, his voice seething with remembered anger and pain. “His heart couldn’t take it, and he died just as I was being sent off to war.”
“I’m…” I didn’t know what to say to him. An apology, coming from the niece of the man who’d ruined his life might be insensitive, and the last thing he’d want to hear.
Empty words of regret meant nothing, anyway. I had to do something about this.
“If I survive, I will help you make this right!” I said urgently. “If I don’t, you said you know Leander well. He hates our uncle, too, and would want to rectify his crimes against the people. He would surely offer to reinstate your land and wealth!”
He waved. “He suggested it, but I didn’t have time to think about how I can govern my father’s estates, or restore his honor, in my current state. Anyway, everything had to wait until I broug
ht Marian back.”
And once he did, would he give up this life for one with her?
He looked ahead with unseeing eyes. “So to answer your question, I don’t know what I’d do afterwards. I have been at this for so long, fighting all manner of enemies, on behalf of others, trying to do what I can to right any wrongs I come across. I don’t think that’s something I can just stop doing.”
“Why not?”
“Because, while leaving my old life was hard, I no longer remember how I lived it. I only have experience with the war and the corruption it spawned, but now it’s over and things are going back to how they used to be, I’m not who I used to be…” He trailed off, looking pained. “I think that’s why I didn’t take Leander up on his offer immediately, not only because my ears are pointed now, or just out of duty to Marian, but because I don’t know what to do. I’ve been Robin Hood for so long, I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Do you want to stop being Robin Hood?”
“Do you want to stop being a princess?”
Even though he’d suggested it before, now he’d made it a question, it hit me like the uprooting gusts of a windstorm.
My whole life, my identity was intertwined with my status as the firstborn princess of Arbore in centuries. But for a while now, even without the curse, I could see nothing positive about that title. Everything about growing up in the supposed safety and luxury of a castle, being afforded the best in food and clothes and education, all for the purpose of impressing Cyrus and the people at his court, it all felt so—pointless.
I was supposed to secure alliances and birth heirs. I wasn’t expected to fend for myself, or have a job, let alone to rule, or even get involved in true diplomacy. I was supposed to replicate my mother’s life, as my mother herself insisted, despite her perpetual displeasure with everything in that life.
But why would I take her advice when she was so bitter and hollow? When had she or any advisors, tutors, or courtiers ever steered me in a fruitful direction? Why had everything I learned served a useless purpose, just to keep up appearances, and impress people who wouldn’t blink if I died?
All I could feel now was regret at the waste. At being hindered by imposed limitations, at having my enthusiasm smothered, and my view of anything that didn’t serve my predetermined goal blocked.
If I had been born a few steps down the hierarchy as Robin once said, the daughter of a duke or an earl like him, I might have been afforded the freedom to be someone. To be myself.
I could have pursued music as a career, sung on stages across countries, published my own poetry, and penned my own compositions. I could have gotten to see the evolving world, and bring the art form Robin had mentioned to a grander audience. I could have also been involved at court, and with the people. Plenty of ladies helmed charities, and had helped during the wartime, while I’d been cooped up in my gilded cage, endlessly practicing to impress the man who wanted nothing to do with me.
And just like that, his question no longer unsettled me. For now I knew its answer. Unequivocally.
“Yes,” I gritted. “I would stop being a princess if I possibly could.”
He quirked an eyebrow at my intensity. “Even if it upset your parents?”
“Like you said, I owe them no further appeasement. They can go boil their heads.”
He cracked up, his laugh a free, joyous sound. “That’s the spirit! You need to stop doing what others want from you.”
“Take your own advice, hobgoblin,” I tossed back at him. “You’re no better than I am, compromising your life to appease strangers.”
“That is not comparable! Appeasing your parents made you live an ornamental life of no use to anyone, starting with yourself. I help people.”
“You are one man, robbing hoodlum. You can’t singlehandedly fix everyone’s problems. That’s what legislation and law enforcement are for. Your piecemeal solutions are simply inefficient.”
He made a dismissive noise. “I would argue it’s more efficient when I’m free to act without jumping through the hoops of lawmen, who…” He stopped, then sighed. “But you’re right. It would be more efficient to be within the system, than to continue punching rural criminals and robbing corrupt nobles. It’s where I would be able to fix it.”
I couldn’t help being in awe of how dedicated he was to his cause. My admiration was all the more intense after seeing him cast as a chaotic opportunist for so long.
“All the more reason to get your father’s title back,” I said, “so you can hold a position of power more easily.”
“I was only speaking hypothetically. I don’t foresee holding any kind of position with these.” He touched the tip of one ear, and I remembered I’d thought just that a while ago. “Maybe I should get another glamor while I’m here.”
My heart twisted at the thought. “It isn’t right. That you’d hide who you are so you wouldn’t be persecuted, so you could do what you want to do—what you are the best at!”
“It would be unavoidable, if I decide it’s what I’ll do after this. But if I do it, I warn you, I’ll exploit all the connections I can get.” A hint of his earlier mischief returned as he grinned up at me. “I’ll use them as a shield if I’m ever exposed, and certainly when I step on gluttonous toes within the system. What happened to my father isn’t going to happen to me.”
“If I return to Arbore in one piece, I’ll support all your endeavors to take down corrupt councilors and bumbling ministers.”
“Would you really help me usurp those in charge, Your Highness?”
I shrugged. “I’m living—excuse me, half-living proof that long-established ideals and systems don’t work as they once did, and that relying on those who are out of touch can cause more harm than any good they maintain. In short, my father needs new blood in his government.”
Robin petted Amabel’s head in lieu of my hand, his grin holding both pride and embarrassment. “I never thought you’d grasp or at least care about such issues, but here you are, proving me wrong.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Quite the opposite! I’ve had such a grey view of the world for so long, I kept hoping someone could come and paint over it for me. Any color would have done, really. But with your opinions, and the hope they give me, you’re painting it every bright color I’ve forgotten exists.”
If it were possible, my face would have turned as red as Will’s cloak. But I was sure it still betrayed my reaction to his praise, so I pretended to check our surroundings.
Night seemed to get darker the deeper we traveled down the Pumpkin Path. Its cloak surrounded us along with the thickening mist obscuring any indication where the Path would end. Would Alan—or rather Keenan…
The sound of galloping echoed around us, followed by a scream.
The man I’d just been thinking of burst into view, riding his huge reindeer in a mad gallop out of a billowing cloud, holding a lantern that bathed him in its violently swinging green glow.
It had been his bellow that had ruptured my line of thought.
“Turn back!”
Sinister laughter boomed from behind him, followed by the crack of a whip. It wrapped around his neck, snatching him off his mount, and sending the lantern crashing to the earth, setting the grass aflame.
Fear spiked within me as the men drew their weapons, and my godmothers raised sparking hands. Next second, a figure emerged from the rising fire and smoke.
Stomping over Keenan’s body on a skeletal horse, and clutching a crackling whip made of human vertebrae, the body of a man came into full, horrifying view. A body without a head.
It was the headless horseman!
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I stared at the nightmarish figure before us, a mixture of paralysis and morbid fascination gripping me.
The space above its shoulders offered a peek into the path behind it, and its sourceless laughter seemed to shake the woods. But it was its sinister emanations that drenched my ethereal form in
a horror akin to the one I’d felt in the Underworld.
With a roar, Jon charged it with his spear. Keenan sprang up, slamming him back and away from the green flames that ate at the grass.
“I said run!”
The horseman cracked the whip, and its tail-end snapped around Keenan’s neck again, stopping him dead in his tracks. Strangled noises flowed from his gasping mouth as he struggled for air.
An arrow flew past Keenan and pierced the horseman’s shoulder, eliciting a shout that echoed from an unfathomable direction through the trees, and a demonic neigh from its red-eyed, skeletal horse.
Keenan clawed at the whip and tugged, unbalancing the horseman enough to loosen its grip on his throat. The moment he ducked out of the way, Will tossed a knife at the horseman with a frustrated growl.
The horseman caught the knife as if it was standing still, and flung it back. If Meira hadn’t pushed Will out of the way, and stopped its trajectory with her glowing magic, it would have lodged in his head.
Not heeding Keenan’s orders, Jon charged it with his spear again. It stopped him dead, gripping the spearhead, its palm oozing congealed blood without a sign of pain.
Beside me, Robin readied another arrow in his crossbow, but Keenan threw himself at him. “Stop shooting at it. And get her out of here.”
“It’s just one monster, we can handle it,” Will argued.
“The dullahan is a harbinger of death,” Keenan rumbled, stormy eyes urgent. “If it spots Fairuza, she’s done for.”
This was why it struck such dread within me. “But if we turn back, I’ll miss my last chance to break my curse. I’m already starting to disappear.”
“We need to keep going,” Robin agreed, agitated. “We must get it out of the way.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. But it stopped being interested in me when it sensed your party riding down the Path.” Keenan jabbed his thumb behind him. “It wants to get to Fairuza so badly, it didn’t even go after its head when I dropped it in the Open Eyes.”