Housebroken
DAPHNE
No. No. No. No. He did not just lock me in here. He DID NOT JUST LOCK ME IN HERE! With magic?!?!?!
“Ash…” I whimper to myself, my gaze locked on the long empty corridor ahead of me.
As he left, I fell to my knees in despair, hoping beyond hope that he would not truly leave me this way. Trapped behind a bespelled gate. Shackled by invisible chains. But… he did.
He… did…
And he did not look back but the one time when he made his false declaration.
Alright, so maybe it wasn’t false per se… but it will not fix this. It is not consolation for what he has just done to me.
He’s taken my free will. Turned me into a prisoner. I don’t give a royal fuck about my safety. Does he not understand? How can I care about my safety while my only remaining sister rots in some winter whore’s palace?
They may be torturing her.
She might be starving!
The dungeon would at least have granted me the measure of misery that I probably deserve. Not that I was planning on staying out.
But now???
Now… I suppose I have to.
Will Klyesque even think to look for me here?
Deposited behind his magic.
Might she even be involved?
Dionie looked so heartbroken. So guilty. Could Klyesque be guilty as well?
And what of Petra?
Horns sound somewhere beyond the walls and the realization that he is leaving right now… at this moment angers me enough to make me want to spit fire.
If I could I would.
Fire… Dragons…
Dragons!
With a short gasp I realize two horribly crippling truths.
The book and the whistle. They are beyond my reach. Left in Klyesque’s care in preparation of our travels. And if she betrayed me…
No. Stop. She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
And suddenly I know that to be the truth. She did not betray me.
She will find out where I am and we will figure a way out of here.
We have to.
“Darling girl,” Felice’s voice flutters toward me from much closer than before and the warmth of her voice almost has my gaze flooded with tears, it is that gentle. “Come with me. Let us have lunch together and talk. Maybe you can tell me what exactly is going on here because it seems I have missed much more than just my husband’s-” she chokes off and I find myself suddenly feeling like a spoiled child “-demise,” she finishes on a whisper.
That’s right. Her husband was murdered and here I sit whimpering about being locked behind the safety of an enchanted castle.
That truth alone sends a haunt of longing trembling through my bones, and I realize I cannot truly fault Ash for wanting to keep me here. Not really. This overprotectiveness, this inflated safeguarding of me stems from his traumatic loss. From his years of being cursed.
I can find forgiveness for this… I must.
But I’ll not be locked within a gilded cage. I’ll not be his pet. He cannot be allowed to contain me. Especially if everything I’ve learned is true and with every passing moment my heart fills with the knowledge that it is.
If I am a queen. I will not be… housebroken.
“Lunch?” I say, my voice much more chipper than I feel. “Sounds perfect,” I lie with a smile on my lips as I push off the floor, her arms lending their assistance.
Warm, gentle hands take hold of me and when I look at her I see recognition in her eyes, much like I did with Celeste and Magda.
She knows me.
A bright, shining grin cracks across her features and her gloriously silver gaze fills. “You look just like her… your mother. And… if I’m not mistaken in my thinking… your father as well.”
“My father?” I chuckle, shaking my head as I follow her toward an archway lined with gold and silver borders. “What do you know of him? All I keep hearing is who he is not. So if you speak to me of the Meadow King, dear lady, I assure you I have been-”
“No,” she whispers, leaning toward me conspiratorially, as we enter a small, extravagant dining space. It is humble and cozy and with none of the long exuberance of Ash’s high table. Queen Felice smiles, whispering still, “No. Not him. Not that one.”
My chest burns as she leads me to a soft velveteen chair to the right of the place of honor at this six man table. Watching her with a question in my eyes, I don’t ask why she whispers, I’ve already gathered that the truth of my parentage seems terribly hush hush, draped in secrets, and I am reminded of what was revealed to me at the fountain.
Of my vision.
Of the words that were spoken.
I flash back…
“My queen, please! I beg of you! Allow me go to the Shadow King and tell him of your plight. He will see justice done!”
“No! He must not know until it is done! You know the laws of the realms. If we are found out before the child is born, I will forfeit my kingdom and I will have nothing to pass on.”
… I hear my very own words as if from far away, “...go to the Shadow King… before the child is born…”
The Shadow King?
Trielle is Shadow Steed.
She chose me.
I gasp, covering my mouth with both hands even as I realize it. A slight gaze to my left shows me Ash’s mother sees this and she shakes her head with sudden alarm.
“Do not speak your thoughts yet, dear one,” she coos, her eyes flitting about the empty space nervously. “Not before you have reclaimed your power. In Faery… you never know whom might be listening and despite that this place is guarded by Ash’s magic, we cannot trust it, because it is not our own.”
“But-” I start.
She silences me with the slash of her hand and a smile just as three gilded faeries erupt from the door along the far wall, each of them carrying their very own tray and each of them with bejeweled blue wings.
Their skin is so golden it practically gleams in the light and their hair matches, sparkling as if spun from true metal.
However their eyes are the true magic, resembling opals bedded behind pebbles of violet onyx stone.
They are different, yet the same.
And they are lovely.
“You are all so beautiful,” I can’t help but confess and each of them twinkles a smile my way, despite that when they look at me, they undoubtedly see a human girl. But that is of course when I see their teeth and I am forced to swallow the scream of fear that lodges like a stone in my throat.
Their teeth are razor sharp. How? Why?
They curtsy in unison after serving us and then disappear the same way that they came.
“What are they?” I ask, as the delicious smell of thick aromatic spice wafts upward from an unveiled silver bowl of what appears to be a pale, chunky white soup. Oddly, the scent does not inspire nausea as much of the food in Hadimere’s court did.
“Pixies,” the queen tells me. “Mountain pixies. Natives of Rekyr Mountain. Carnivorous creatures that would more than take a bite out of you if you let them. So do not flatter the three, for those particular maids of mine are still quite young and although trustworthy-” she coughs as if to disguise her words “-quite cannibalistic.”
“Wh-what?” I exclaim, forgetting myself for the moment. “Surely you jest!”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d have them rotated out for the endurance of your stay if I had anyone I could trust to replace them. Unfortunately I have just learned that I have been asleep for a very, very long time.” She blinks. “And you see, Daphne my dear, you are not the only one being held prisoner within these rooms.”
I glance at her, shocked.
She nods and says, “He has trapped me here as well. The ever loving brat that he is.”
My eyebrows hike up and I lean closer, “Perhaps we should figure out a way to escape.” I was only jesting, but to this, she grins, surprising me.
“Perhaps.” My new accomplice leans forward, lifting a silvered spoon from the soup to her lips when she says to me, “But, he shouldn’t be long. My son mentioned the retrieval of your human sister and I trust after all these years that he knows the mortal realm quite well.”
“Oh-” I say apologetically, taking a sip of the creamy, thick soup and nearly groaning with pleasure, “-she isn’t in the mortal realm.”
“No?” She inquires, making an odd face as she takes yet another mouthful of soup. “Then where did that troublemaker head off to?”
I sigh, “He went to see the Winter Queen.”
In a choking splash of fury, warm liquid shoots from her lips as she leaps to her feet in a rage. The table shakes, sending a flagon of juice pitching over the edge to crash onto the floor and drawing three frightened looking cannibals back into the room.
She glares down at her food. “He - did - what?”