Throne of Sacrifice Read online

  “It was only after I married your father that I regretted my bargain. I was diligent with my contraceptive potions, but both Bennet and I longed for a child. When your father examined the magical contract the imp had left behind, he found a loophole by guessing his name—I’d known him only as a devious imp, you see.

  “The clause was written in as a goodwill gesture, I supposed. He’d written in a cancellation clause, but never expected anyone to actually be able to use it. And he’d been confident that Rumpelstiltskin was a name we’d never, ever guess. He was right, too. Except that he grew cocky and didn’t account for the fact that we’d been combing the kingdom for him. We spied him, heard him gloating to himself that was his name. When he came the next day for our series of guesses, we were freed.

  “But I was still afraid to conceive. Rumpelstiltskin had left us with a terrifying oath. ‘One day, we’ll play another game. And you will have only yourself to blame.’” Her face was white. “I knew we hadn’t seen the last of him.

  “But then, a year later, I received the most wonderful gift.” A trembling hand caressed my cheek. “You, my darling girl. Two strangers—women—knocked on our door one night. You were snuggled up in their arms, cozy in your blankets and fast asleep. They told me you were ours if we wanted you. That we’d be keeping you safe if we took you. And ‘if we wanted you?’” She scoffed. “I’d never wanted anything more. And I thought perhaps that since you were my child, but not the firstborn I gave birth to, and since we had theoretically broken the agreement with Rumpelstiltskin, I said yes. I was still afraid, but based on what they said, there was other danger out there for you as well. Perhaps the protection we could offer you from that outweighed the risk from Rumpelstiltskin. Whatever the risks, you were worth it.”

  She swallowed hard. “But now that you have a child, borne of your body, I worry for you and Fae. I worry that my curse will somehow become yours. And I want nothing else less for you than that. I hoped it was over, but with all these questions… I know now that it’s not. It can’t be.” She rose to her feet and extended a hand, pulling me to mine as well so she could look deeply into my eyes. “So now I’ve told you everything I know, and it’s time for you to tell me: What brings this talk of Rumpelstiltskin to me?”

  I took a deep breath and told her everything I knew of Rumpelstiltskin’s involvement in the unicorns’ disappearance. All the while, through the whole of my story, she grew visibly paler and groped behind her for a chair, sagging into it anew when she found it.

  But she gathered herself, that spine of steel I’d always seen in her reasserting itself.

  “If Rumpelstiltskin is at large, let’s not waste our time here.” She pulled a long rope near the credenza, and Hardy instantly entered the room, weapons drawn.

  When he didn’t see any danger, he lowered his sword, brow furrowed, and expression confused. “Your Majesty, have you a need of me?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I want you to go into the city and villages and root out Rumpelstiltskin.”

  Hardy shuddered. That alone would have made me worry. He was my mother’s most trusted guard. If he knew enough of Rumpelstiltskin to be concerned, we all should be.

  “He’s back?” he asked.

  My mother sighed. “I’m afraid so. Take whomever you need for the investigation and keep me informed. I want a status report at the end of each day. Whether progress has been made or not, I want to know each place you’ve checked, who you spoke to, and what they said.”

  Hardy bowed deeply and stood, thumping his fist against his heart. “It will be done, Your Majesty.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed Hardy’s arm as he moved past me. “Find Jay and bring him with you. He’s begun some initial research already and knows a man, John Little, who bargained with Rumpelstiltskin years ago. If you hear his story yourself, you may be able to glean a clue that we wouldn’t. Or maybe he’ll mention something he hasn’t already.”

  He nodded. “Yes, Your Highness. Thank you. We’ll follow any lead we are lucky enough to find with a creature as elusive as Rumpelstiltskin.”

  I tried to fight back the growing lump in my throat. I had a feeling that I had not yet begun to understand what we were dealing with when it came to Rumpelstiltskin.

  And I hoped that we could catch him before I had the chance to truly grasp it.

  6th May

  I had distracted myself the rest of the day yesterday with motherly duties. Without using the nursemaid at my disposal in the palace, there was certainly plenty to do with a newborn to keep me occupied, even if they weren’t the most thrilling of tasks.

  During Fae’s nap, I used the free time to organize the gifts that had been sent from friends and other kingdoms in celebration of her birth. I shoved a drawer shut, and the sleeve of a onesie peeked out as if it was waving at me. I was running out of places to put things. I could only imagine what I was going to do when I had to organize the gifts from the party my mother was throwing for Fae.

  I put a hand to my head. That was coming up soon. Gods, I hadn’t thought about that in days. Was there still stuff left to do for it? I felt as though the list was never-ending. I wondered if party planning was how my mother was occupying her time in between reports from her guards. After all, she didn’t have a new baby to distract her. And she had many years’ worth of worries about Rumpelstiltskin to obsess over. I was sure that the memories of her days with him were running through her mind over and over again like a play in which you couldn’t leave the theatre and the actors just repeated their scenes over and over again.

  Maybe I’d check on her. I couldn’t take the lack of knowledge about what was going on anyway. When Fae went down for her next nap, I rang for Judith and let Avery follow me to my mother’s rooms while Williamson stayed behind to stand guard over Fae.

  Hardy’s presence at the door had been replaced by another guard, which made sense, of course. Mother wanted her most trusted man leading the expedition to find Rumpelstiltskin.

  The new guard gave me a little nod of respect when he realized who I was and allowed me access to the door to knock. This time, the knock returned to my usual: a few cheery little taps.

  The door swung open—and my mother greeted me with what I could only describe as a sympathetic smile. My hopes plummeted before she even spoke and confirmed my suspicions. “They haven’t come back yet, sweet.”

  Damn.

  I made a disappointed little sound, and my mother tutted, stepping forward to envelope me in a warm embrace. “This is another reason I never told you about him,” she murmured. “Better that you should be angry with me for the methods I used protecting you than having worries prey upon your mind like this. That’s a mother’s job, not yours.”

  She might have been right. I gave her a quick squeeze and stepped back, giving her a close-lipped smile of regret. “Be that as it may, I am a mother now too. And you’re right. It’s my job to worry.”

  She smiled sadly and swept her arm around the room, indicating the large, empty chambers. “Do you want to come in? Misery loves company. We could waste our hours worrying together.”

  “Thank you, but no.” I shook my head. “I’ll only feel worse that way.”

  “I understand. I’ll see you for dinner?” she asked.

  I nodded. “You can count on it.”

  I headed back to my rooms. Fae was probably still sleeping, so I took the long way around and tried to treat the brisk walk around the castle as exercise. Getting my heart pumping would surely take my mind off things. But that was to no avail. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rumpelstiltskin, even after I returned to my rooms and relieved Judith and was back on mom duty.

  When I went to dinner, Mother still had nothing new to report. I tried one last time that day, but when I went by her rooms around ten o’clock at night, it was the same message. The guards hadn’t returned yet.

  I clenched my fists, trying to hide my frustration. I was sure they were combing every nook, cranny, and hidey-hole
that Rumpelstiltskin could be inside. Their lateness was likely only due to their thoroughness; so, doubtless, their status report would be arriving late. But I felt like a petulant child. I wanted it now, gods damn it.

  Gently, my mother took my hands and led me back to the door. “Why don’t you go to bed?” she suggested. “If there is anything to know, we’ll know it in the morning.”

  So, without any other action left to take (gods, I felt useless), I took her suggestion and put both Fae and myself to bed. Between Fae’s cries in the middle of the night and my own thoughts swirling about my head, I didn’t sleep well, but I did at least sleep a little bit, even if it was fitfully. When I woke, I didn’t feel rested, but at least the time had seemed to have gone by a bit faster. That was a small blessing, but one I was thankful for, given how the previous day had seemed to just drag on and on and on.

  In the morning, I fed Fae and dressed her in a hurry, bringing her with me and my guards to my mother’s rooms. My mother had said she wanted daily reports. The guards had to have returned to deliver their first one by now. It was the next day, for goodness’ sake.

  And, as luck would have it, I was right. Hardy was exiting my parents’ rooms with another guard just as I was arriving. The two men conversed briefly outside their doors and then seemed to come to an agreement, nodding. The other man headed off in one direction, Hardy in the opposite.

  “Hardy!” I called out, not wanting to lose him. I quickened my pace to a light jog, holding Fae’s head gently against my chest so that I didn’t jostle her too much with the bouncing movement.

  The guard stopped when he heard his name and turned, waiting for me to catch up.

  I exhaled a quick breath when I reached him, my heart pounding just from that light exercise. Man, I was out of shape. Pregnancy and labor will do that to a person.

  “What news?” I asked eagerly. Finally, I’d have some answers. “What did you find?”

  He shook his head, expression grim, and pushed his helmet higher on his head as he sighed, disappointed. “I wish the news was better, but we didn’t find much, I’m afraid, Your Highness. I’m off to try to drum up more avenues to search while my men speak with the senior citizens in Shipley—those who were alive and living here during John’s days when he dealt with Rumpelstiltskin. The thought is, we’ll see if anyone else had any encounters with Rumpelstiltskin that they haven’t mentioned up until now. Perhaps knowing that they weren’t alone in their dealings with him will give them the courage to speak up where they never have before.”

  Damn. Disappointment flared in my chest, and I tried not to let the discouragement show on my face. Because truly, it had been foolish for me to hope for more results that quickly, I supposed.

  In a rare gesture of kindness that broke the thin wall of decorum between royalty and subject, Hardy clapped a hand onto my shoulder and inclined his head toward me, meeting my eyes seriously. He gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Fret not, Princess. We’ll get him in the end. I promise you that.”

  Perhaps Hardy was a fool too. But better we should be fools than pessimists. I’d much rather be an optimist.

  I managed a small smile for him as I nodded, accepting his encouragement. I hoped to the gods that we two fools were right. “Thank you, Hardy. I’m sure you’re right.”

  His hand dropped back to his side, then lifted and thumped his heart as he gave me a quick bow. “A pleasure. It’s the honor and privilege of my life to serve the royal family of Vale, Your Highness. Your Mother has the rest of my report, should you require details. For now…” He jerked his head in the direction of the castle’s exit. “I’d best be on my way. Plenty more people to investigate and interrogate. We want to catch the cretin as quickly as possible.”

  Hastily, I stepped to the side, out of his path so he could get past me. “Yes, by all means. Thank you again.”

  I watched him walk away for a moment, then took a deep breath and knocked on my mother’s door for the fourth time in twenty-four hours.

  The door swung open. Unlike yesterday, she was far more put together. Granted, I had come a bit later this time. I hadn’t wanted to be disappointed by the lack of news again. And the circumstances were different this morning than they were yesterday morning as well. I wasn’t as fueled by rage and frustration as I had been yesterday. So it was late enough in the day that rather than Mother greeting me in her dressing gown, she was fully dressed and coiffed for the day, with her hair and makeup done. I supposed she’d made certain to be ready and able to receive her guards when they arrived to deliver their report from the day before.

  She smiled when she saw me, and it wrinkled the corners of her tired eyes. She clearly hadn’t slept much better than I had. “I should have known it would be you, Eliana.”

  I shrugged and grinned guiltily, my hands held in the air. “Sue me and call me predictable then, I guess.”

  She motioned me inside and I stepped in gladly, leaving Avery and Williamson in the hall with her guard. “I just spoke with Hardy in the hall. He told me they hadn’t had much luck.”

  “He’s right. But no one is giving up.”

  “I know.” I nodded and bit my lip. “I was hoping you had a little more elaboration from him though? It’s just, he only had a few minutes to speak with me before he had to run off to continue the investigation. And I know he gave you the full debrief…” I trailed off, letting my wheedling tone do my suggesting for me.

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed a note pad off of the end table, passing it over to me. My eyes scanned the scrawled words eagerly. It really wasn’t much. Just a simple list of names of the places that they had checked and the names of the people they had spoken with. I turned the page and found a more detailed narrative of their conversation with John. But I already knew everything there as well. Jay had told me that story. I turned the page again.

  And there was a list of more names. I looked up at her. The list had no title and also didn’t have any indication of what it was.

  “What’s this?”

  “The people John mentioned in his story. They’re hoping one of them can remember something about Rumpelstiltskin that can turn the tide of the investigation. Sometimes, all it takes is one small detail to crack the entire case wide open.”

  Hardy had been right. There truly wasn’t much more for my mother to tell me about the investigation. And now, I had all the information that they had in hand, but what good would it do me? They wouldn’t deliver another report until tomorrow. Suddenly, that seemed very far away, an endless sea of time just stretching out before me. I couldn’t think how I would manage to fill the hours until then. Yesterday had driven me crazy enough. How was I to do it again today?

  “Hey.” My mother laid a hand over the words on the pages and I looked up at her, feeling not a little despondent. She smiled warmly. “I know better than anyone else what fixating on the problem of Rumpelstiltskin can do to a person’s mind. Why don’t you and Fae—” she nodded at my daughter, asleep against my chest— “do something to take your mind off of it. Something fun, something that will cheer you up.”

  “Not bad advice,” I said. I raised a brow. “So, what will you do today?”

  She laughed, caught off guard. “All right, point taken.” Her eyes drifted again to Fae and her expression softened. She stretched out her arms toward the baby. “Well, if you’ll let me, I certainly wouldn’t mind just being a grandma and getting to babysit for a while…”

  I carefully loosened Fae from the complicated contraption that held her against my chest and I placed her in my mother’s arms, happy to be able to do a small thing that would cheer her up. “Of course. She loves spending time with her Granny.”

  Mother’s nose wrinkled a little. “I never thought I’d love being called something that makes me feel so old. And yet, here we are.” She gathered Fae close and inhaled her sweet baby smell. She looked up at me. “What about you?”

  “Me? I’ve been cooped up in these walls too many days in
a row. I’ve got to get myself outside.”

  “Take—”

  I waved a hand. “Take Williamson and Avery, yeah, yeah. Don’t you think I know that by now?” Knowing was well and good of course… it didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to still find ways to escape the guards’ constant presence in my life.

  “I know that you know.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze playfully. “I just want you to actually do it.”

  Mothers… They know us too well.

  She’d get her way for now. I beckoned Avery and Williamson to follow me down to the staviary. My mind hadn’t had to wander far when Mother had suggested I find something besides Rumpelstiltskin to occupy my time and thoughts. My mind was, as was so often the case, with the unicorns.

  It was my plan to find Baby, the infant unicorn who, in a way, had been there at the start of this whole mess with Rumpelstiltskin, though I hadn’t known who had been behind it at the time. She had been caught in a unicorn trap and injured the day that I’d given birth to Fae. At the time, we’d wondered who would dare to go after creatures like unicorns—a protected species; protected by the gods themselves, it was said. Those who hurt or crossed them were doomed to bad luck—often fatally doomed.

  Now, we had those answers. We knew exactly who would dare. A man—or imp, as my mother called him—with power all his own. A man named Rumpelstiltskin.

  I found Baby’s stall, in with her mother, the unicorn Zacarina. Zacarina’s noble head protruded over the top of the stall door and she fixed her golden gaze, so like my own, upon me.

  It was sometimes strange, seeing my own eyes reflected in the gaze of the unicorns. I thought of myself as ordinary most days, but I had never seen my peculiar eye color in another human being. At least, not one in Vale. There had been a time when I wondered if perhaps my birth parents might share it. But I supposed I would never know the answer to that. Instead, I would settle for the strange and unearthly friendship that I shared with the unicorns. Perhaps my new ability to speak with them, mind to mind, and our shared eye color meant that I shared a kinship not with humans, but with the unicorns. They, after all, were said to be the favorites of the gods—and after all that was happening to and around me, I was beginning to suspect that I was gods-touched too. I hope that meant that the deities up above were looking after both my people and Zacarina’s flock. I’d happily take a little divine intervention if it meant getting the unicorns back safe and sound and securing Fae’s safety from any bargains with Rumpelstiltskin that may possibly touch her.