Chapter One #2
Ellie glanced at Lorelle, who was now sporting a grin as large as a dairy cow, and had to laugh. “Of course I will,” she agreed. The twins shrieked with happiness and danced about the kitchen.
No matter how dreadful her nightmares, Ellie would never have missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the one and only Rain Tairen Soul. He was living history, the Fey who’d once in a fit of grief-induced madness almost destroyed the world.
How many ballads had been written about that terrible day?
How many plays? Celieria’s Museum of Arts held no less than twenty enormous oil paintings that commemorated the entire series of events, masterpieces painted by Celieria’s greatest artists over the past thousand years.
Ellie couldn’t count the number of times she’d stood in front of Fabrizio Chelan’s immortal Death of the Beloved and wept at the unspeakable anguish the great master had depicted on the face of Rain Tairen Soul as he held Lady Sariel in her death swoon and cried out to the heavens.
To see Rain Tairen Soul in the flesh. It was more than she’d ever dreamed possible.
She wagged a finger at the twins. “You two had best plan to go to bed early. We leave at the break of dawn, so we can be sure to find a place with a good view.”
Her mother shook her head. “You and your love of the Fey.” But for once, she didn’t add her usual lecture about the evils of magic and the danger of temptations that wore a pretty face.
Though Ellie shared her mother’s fear of magic, all things Fey had fascinated her since she was a small child.
“That doesn’t mean I’m any less excited about your news, Mama.
” She reached out to grasp her mother’s hands.
“Indeed, I want you to tell me everything. What, exactly, did Lady Zillina say? Don’t leave out a single detail. ”
Lauriana pulled up a stool and related the whole story, including the ultimate pleasure of having Stella Morin, the neighborhood’s biggest gossip, witness the entire event.
She’d come into the shop to tell Lauriana that Donatella Brodson, the butcher’s youngest daughter, was officially contracted to wed the third son of a wealthy silk merchant.
“Oh—” Lauriana snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. Den is coming for dinner tonight.”
“Den?” Ellie repeated with dismay. Den Brodson, the butcher’s son, was a stuffed pork roast of a young man.
And ever since his first wife had died in childbirth six months ago, he’d been following Ellie around like a starving hound on the trail of a juicy steak.
He’d made a habit of catching her in dark corners, standing so close she could smell the reek of onions and bacon on him, and looking too intently down the neckline of her dresses as if he could see straight through the fabric to the soft curves beneath.
His thick fingers were ever clutching at her arm, as if he had some right to her.
She shuddered with revulsion. She’d never liked him much, even as a child. Now he made her skin crawl.
Beside her the twins rolled their eyes and clutched at their throats, making gagging noises. They didn’t like Den either.
“Mmm.” Lauriana paid no notice to the rolling eyes and gagging faces, but she did shoo the twins out of the kitchen. “Go play in your room, girls.” Then, to Ellie, “Wear your green dress, kit. It makes you look rather pretty.”
“Why would I want to look pretty for Den?”
A stern hazel gaze pinned her in place. The laughing, flighty Mama was gone.
Practical, no-nonsense Mama was back. “You’re twenty-four, Ellysetta.
That’s long past time to be making a good match and starting your own family.
Look at your friends. All of them married for years, with at least one child walking and another on the way. ”
“Kelissande’s not wed,” Ellie reminded her mother.
“Yes, but Kelissande’s not lacking for offers.” The stern look in Lauriana’s eyes remained the same, but her voice softened. “She’s got beauty, girl, and wealth. You don’t.”
Ellie ducked her head to hide the glimmer of tears that sprang to her eyes. She knew she was no beauty. She’d seen her reflection often enough to understand that. And Kelissande Minset had always been happy to point out her shortcomings in case she missed them.
“Even though you’ve got a fine, kind heart,” Lauriana continued, “and a strong back to make any man a treasured helpmate, young lads and their parents don’t look for those blessings first. The lads want beauty.
The parents want wealth. The queen’s commission will probably be enough to bring Den’s family up to scratch, but you don’t have the time to wait for Papa to make a fortune so you can take your pick of men.
” Unspoken was the common knowledge that if a girl was not wed by twenty-five, she was obviously defective in some way.
Spinsters were to be pitied—and watched carefully lest the hand of evil that had blackened their futures laid its shadow over those around them.
Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was obvious her mother had already decided whom Ellie would marry. “But I don’t love Den, Mama.” To her horror, her voice wobbled.
“Ellysetta.” There was a rustle of skirts and then the unexpected warmth of her mother’s arms wrapping around her thin shoulders and drawing her close.
“Ah, girl. This is my fault.” Lauriana sighed.
“I should have done my duty by you long ago. But you were such an . . . awkward . . . creature, and we were poor. I thought you’d never be wed, so where was the harm in letting you keep your dreams? ”
Awkward. Such a mild euphemism for the fearful truth Mama never voiced. Ellie knew her parents loved her, as did Lillis and Lorelle. But that had not stopped her from hearing the talk of others—or seeing the fear that Mama could never quite hide whenever . . . things . . . happened around Ellie.
“But you’ve changed, Ellie, and so have our circumstances.
You’ve grown rather pretty in your own way, and this royal commission puts a few coins in our coffers, with the promise of more to come.
Look at me, child.” Obedient to the command and the accompanying hand raising her chin, Ellie met her mother’s solemn gaze.
“Life is never certain, Ellie. This is your chance to wed, and you must take it.”
“But, Mama—”
Lauriana held up a silencing finger. “Despite everything that happened when you were young, I’ve never curbed your love of Feytales or your dreams of truemates and happy endings, but that’s for Fey, not mortal folk like us. We don’t have centuries to wait for true love.”
“I know that, Mama.”
“Love will come in time, Ellie.”
“But not with Den, Mama!” How could it, when the very thought of his touch revolted her?
“Hush! You’ve not even given him a chance, Ellysetta.
Den’s not a bad sort, and he’s certainly shown interest in you these last few months.
His family’s well enough, both in manner and position, and your children would never lack for food.
Believe me when I tell you there’s nothing worse for parents than hearing a child cry for food they cannot provide.
Even if that child is not of their own blood. ”
Ellie dropped her gaze as the reminder that she was not the Baristanis’ natural child knifed through her.
Almost twenty-four years ago, on a journey from Kreppes to Hartslea in the north, Sol and Lauriana had found an abandoned baby in the woods near Norban.
A girl baby with a shock of orange hair and startling green eyes.
Despite the fact that they were grindingly poor—Sol’s hands stiff and nearly crippled by an accident that had left him unable to work as a journeyman woodcarver—they had taken in the baby rather than leaving it to die.
And they had kept her, even while Sol barely eked out a living on a few coppers a week as an apprentice carpenter, his broken hands managing to hold hammer, nail, rasp, and lathe, though they could no longer do the intricate detail work he loved.
They kept her even when mysterious, violent seizures afflicted her and the priests declared her demon-cursed. They’d even left their home in Hartslea rather than cast her out or give her into the Church’s keeping as the exorcists and the parish priest advised them to do.
After that, thankfully, the family fortunes changed.
Sol’s hands had miraculously healed, and he’d been able to return to his first love, woodcarving.
Ellie’s ghastly seizures had dwindled, then stopped almost completely—a fact that Mama attributed to Ellie swearing her soul into service of the Light at her first Concordia in the Church of Light.
Still, Ellie had never forgotten all they’d sacrificed on her behalf. Now there was a chance for her to wed, if not well, at least well enough. It would ensure that Lillis and Lorelle would have the opportunity to make a truly fine match.
“You must trust your parents to do what’s best, Ellysetta. For you and the family.”
“Yes, Mama,” she whispered. She owed them that much and more.
“I know he’s not the man you’ve dreamed of, but give Den a chance. And if another young man of good family asks to court you, we will consider his suit as well.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And wear your green dress tonight.”
Ellie’s shoulders drooped. “Yes, Mama.”
That evening, Ellie donned her green dress and tried not to feel like a lamb being led to slaughter.
At her mother’s insistence, she wore Lauriana’s bridal chemise beneath the green gown, and aged ivory lace fell over the backs of her hands, looking beautiful and feminine and delicate.
Ellie wished she were wearing her own plain cuffs instead.