Chapter Ten
M y eyes pop open. Lady Taliana watches me, anticipation barely masking her anger at me. And I realize that Prince Ruairí also awaits my answer, his no longer mirthful gaze locked on me.
“The queen has asked to speak with you,” I lie, “on a matter of some urgency.”
“Has she?” His brows rise. As if in one movement, he bows to Lady Taliana and turns up the path, already walking away as he says, “Excuse me, my lady. The High King has entrusted me with Her Majesty’s care while we are away, until he might join us himself.”
“Of course, of course!” she calls out to his back, trying to sound gracious to a man she has no hope of delaying. “But what of our picnic?”
“Later,” Ruairí says. “Perhaps tonight.”
Perhaps tonight? Is it as serious as that between them, enjoying a private dinner together instead of dining with the party?
I don’t know what to think of a man who acts as this prince does. It might be that he doesn’t think at all, so strange are his actions.
And why in the sea goddess’s name would High King Tadhg entrust Prince Ruairí with his wife’s care? They’re family, of course. But Ruairí?
Sleeps until one in the afternoon Prince Ruairí. Drains the castle’s supply of ale with his friends Prince Ruairí. Tries to kiss queen’s maids in front of the whole court Prince Ruairí.
Nowhere on that list is “trustworthy protector.”
Yet I just came to fetch him for that very purpose, didn’t I?
Maybe I’m the one who isn’t thinking things through.
A m I relieved the prince has agreed to help me tonight? I find myself uncertain. Of course, I’m not even sure how much help he’ll be. He will not withdraw his invitation to dine privately with Lady Taliana.
“I must keep my word,” he says, crossing his arms as he leans against the stone front of the queen’s rented cottage.
I managed to stop him before he tromped right through the door of the mayor’s house and alerted the queen that I’m wise to her plans, but only just. We still stand around the doorway, our body language completely unnatural. To those strolling along the marginal way or down the village streets, we must look very suspicious indeed.
During a moment like this, it’s hard not to recall Fiadh’s warning. I can’t be seen as having the prince’s favor, or else my royal cousin’s opponents will be positively apoplectic.
“Are you certain this is what the queen plans?” he asks, lowering his voice.
In the process, his head inclines towards mine, narrowing the space between us.
Curses and bargains, it must look like we’re conspiring. Or worse.
We look like lovers planning a tryst.
“She had a look in her eye,” I answer, leaning away.
“And that’s enough to go on?”
“I know her.” I shrug. “Besides, that look runs in the family. My own sister has it from time to time. I know it like I know the queen. She thinks she can do something about the nightfall curse on the sea courts, or that she ought to see it for herself.”
Evidently, the curse isn’t news to the prince. He doesn’t even blink in surprise.
“But why can’t she? She’ll be safe in her púca form.”
“Not even the sea fae themselves are safe from it, let alone my cousin.” I have to look away. “The queen isn’t well, Prince Ruairí. You know that. We all do. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? And even if she were, those currents could still be deadly.”
He lowers his chin to his chest. “Is she strong enough to swim at all?”
A jolt of cold splashes through me, like an unexpected wave. “I don’t know.” I truly don’t.
And that frightens me more than anything. It’s not just the headaches, is it? Queen Fiadh must have some other malady.
“If she’s truly so ill, she shouldn’t have taken such a journey,” Ruairí says, the patronizing tone setting my teeth on edge. “If my brother knew, he wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“That’s not for the likes of y— us to say, is it? Sir .” I cross my arms to match his. “Maybe he did know, and this was the only way he knew how to help. It’s the only decent advice the royal physicians have come up with in months.”
The prince’s body language suddenly loosens, as if until this moment he was as tightly wound as an octopus in a too-small den. He runs a hand back through his dark hair.
“You must be worried for her.”
I incline my head, one brow arched. “I am her maid and cousin.”
“I want you to know you don’t have to fear for her. My brother has made every resource available to her. More physicians and healers are arriving at the castle every week. We’ll get to the bottom of this sickness,” he says, a touch of fierce protectiveness in his voice, “one way or another.”
And for some foolish reason, I actually believe him.
T hat night, I prepare the queen for bed as usual, brushing her hair and loosely plaiting two strands—she cannot tolerate the whole of it being braided—on either side of her head. Like me, though, my cousin detests hair in her face when she tries to sleep.
I am with her until the very moment she blows out her candle. And even then, I wait outside in the narrow hall, standing in darkness, watching for the candle to be lit again.
After a few minutes of listening to the other servants squeaking their way to their beds upstairs, I quit my post, never sure what is a fire in the hearth and what’s a traveling candle. Since I do not hear any squeaks of the wooden floors any longer, I retire to my own room in the back.
I am trusting Prince Ruairí to do his part. To be more than the layabout prince.
More than once I think to climb out of bed—where I lie fully clothed—and return to my cold, dark post near the queen’s door. But the queen is tired tonight, and if she does not leave soon, I do not think she will do it at all. If she wishes to see the curse, she must go before midnight, when the waters inexplicably calm.
The mayor’s house is so quiet, I can hear the nobles up late in the neighboring cottages, their laughter full of drink. Every crackle of the firewood in the grate makes the room a little warmer, my lids a little heavier. And I can hear the sea, the way every púca should when she rests her head at night.
It lulls me to sleep in mere minutes.
I wake to a yell. “Laoise!”
I’m flying up and out of bed before I know what’s happening, stumbling towards my door, then back to the window. It sounds as though it came from the back of the house!
As I throw open the sash, I’m just in time to see a flash of movement in the night. The soft, flickering candlelight of my room and the firelight in the grate reveals a familiar velvet shine in the garden.
No—Fiadh!
Curses and bargains! I never thought she’d don her unseelie form so close to the nobles. Though the night has swallowed the deep purple of her mane and fetlocks, I know it is her.
And I know where she’s going.
Pushing open the window, I leap out without really checking the ground beneath me, falling into the remains of last summer’s hydrangeas. I’m running then, barely registering the stark slash of a white collar approaching through the darkness.
The prince follows me, his footsteps trailing mine. The patter of four feet hitting marshy ground becomes two as I stride into my púca form, adding the thud of more hooves. I won’t catch Fiadh unless I match her. So I push it out of my mind when I hear the prince stumble.
My long brown hair recedes to reveal the flat, diamond scales of a water horse around my mane, as tough and fine as the best chainmail. Now comes the fetlocks and fins—shaped like a leafy sea plant. My hair and tail brighten into a startling aqua, a blue that stands out even in the water.
There’s no way Prince Ruairí has missed my transformation.
Onward I go without hesitation, my hooves cutting into the sandy soil, slipping between cottages when Fiadh does the same ahead of me. Her purple as the night, the clouds blocking too many of the stars to help me track her.
She’s planned this better than I have; I recognize the path to the little beach we raced the tide on hours earlier, still mostly filled by seawater. All I can think of is those rocks, and those vicious currents my mer friend warned me about.
How long is it until midnight? I wish I knew.
I snort, pounding the ground ever harder, hoping to catch my cousin when I know I cannot.
There’s barely a splash as Fiadh leaps into the crashing waves. Sea goddess help me. I have to go in after her!
By the time I reach the top of the stone steps, I can no longer see her. Panic wells in my chest, driving me to my back hooves as I rear and stamp. Fiadh, where are you?
Here. Her voice is faint.
Get back here this instant!
Can’t.
Can’t, or won’t?
She doesn’t answer.
With a whinny and a roll of my eyes, I leap into the frothing water, the world going dark.
Now a mere body length from the rocks, I can feel it. The wrongness in the water. I’m unskilled with magic, and I cannot feel the pulse of it behind this brutal pull down and into the rocks behind me. Yet I know this goes beyond the normal push of currents and waves. I can tell that this is not natural .
I feel as if some great hand is grasping at me, trying to drag me down to my death. I push my head underwater, the gill slits behind my jaw opening.
This curse is messing with the wrong púca. I won’t let you have our queen.
I swim with all my strength, trying to reach my cousin. I don’t have to go far; she loses her battle with the current, her body colliding with mine. My hooves flail uselessly through the water, clipping her in the flank.
Together, we fly into the rocks, my body shielding hers from the worst of the impact.
Darkness swirls through the water, blotting out the already scant starlight. We are pinned, neither rising nor falling.
Swim, Fiadh!
A panicked whinny laces her reply. I cannot tell which way is up!
Every muscle in my unseelie body tightens in agonizing strain, but it's no use. It's clear as a moon jelly that I'm losing her.