Rahim had been little more than a boy, the first time he laid eyes upon a fairy. He’d been sitting beneath his favorite tree, an elm with ample shade not far from the home where his parents raised him. From early childhood to later youth, he had sat beneath it to read and write, until the day a deer with leaves and blossoms growing from its antlers stepped out from behind it, gazed at him for a moment, and began to walk deeper into the woods
Rahim had followed it, fool that he was, until a chorus of chittering laughter reached his ears. A crowd of fairies had crawled and slithered from the carpet of loam, grasped his clothes, and pulled him deeper into the darkness. A mortal! they had laughed. Come, come with us and serve, our lady has use for your long legs and strong back. Then one unlucky fairy had reached his hand, and found the cold iron rings on his fingers. Rahim had stumbled back onto the road in a daze, to find that night had fallen and he was very hungry.
He was not that foolish boy anymore. Against his own will, he was both a warrior and a king, with hundreds of subjects turning out to celebrate the birth of his first child. But as he watched Lady Eisendusk step into the town square like a shadow to join them, he felt suddenly very small and cold and hungry again.
Little Azalea, lying in her cradle on a place of honor at the center of the celebration, wore no iron rings on her tiny fingers. With fairies coming as guests of honor, they could not risk such an insult.
Rahim was not the only one to notice. A hush fell over the festivities, and those at the crowd’s scattered edges parted to let her through. Baba, who was playing the part of unofficial herald, braced himself and stepped forward, only for a smaller, brighter shape to dart in and head off the fairy before she could reach him.
A second fairy stood before Baba, beaming brightly as she curtsied. She was small, barely reaching Baba’s elbow with the top of her head. Her skin was the color of lichen, shot through with threads of daisy-yellow. What looked at first to be a thickly-woven crown of flowers was not a crown at all; green leaves and blossoms of every shape and color grew from her head in place of hair.
Lady Eisendusk wore the face of someone who had just bitten into a lemon.
“My lady the Stained-Glass Queen sends her compliments and her apologies,” she declared, her voice pealing like a bell to reach every ear in attendance. “She sends this one in her place, so as not to give insult to such a generous invitation. You may call me Thimbleweed.”
Baba shot a baffled look at Rahim for a split second before obliging. “Lady Thimbleweed, representing the Stained-Glass Queen,” he called out.
Lady Eisendusk stepped forward. She was as gnarled and bent as any of the skeletal snags of her deadwood forest, her gray-brown skin lined and patterned like old wood. Her gown was dark gray and edged with lace so fine it could have been spun by spiders. When she turned toward Rahim, his throat seized; what he’d thought was a patch of jet-black over her clavicle and chest was in fact a hollow, empty space. For a moment he was half-sure he saw eyes glowing within, but he blinked and they were gone. Baba finished announcing the great lady, and she glided among the other guests with smooth, unnatural grace.
“So like a Seelie queen,” Rahim heard her murmur. Her soft voice carried as if buoyed on the wind. “Far too good for the rest of the world.”
Thimbleweed’s head whipped around like an owl’s, leaves and flowers flaring outward from the speed. “So like an Unseelie, to think herself the end-all and be-all of the world. Can anyone blame my queen for being busy, when you and yours linger so close to her woods that her creations crumble long before their time?”
“All things return to me,” Lady Eisendusk retorted, eyes flashing with ire. “Perhaps if your queen put more care into her labors, they would not do so as quickly.”
The smile froze on Thimbleweed’s face. “I do not bandy words with thiev—”
“Good ladies!” Asha’s voice rang out, and Rahim tried not to gasp over the breath he’d accidentally been holding. “We are honored to receive you, and humbled that you would deign to answer our invitations.” She had been on bed rest in the days following their daughter’s birth, but to see her striding through the gathering to stand between the quarreling fairies, you would never guess. Rahim’s heart swelled at the sight, and he moved to stand at his wife’s side.
For a split second the fairies leaned away from each other and averted their gazes, like children caught quarreling by a stern parent. In the next moment they were the picture of ethereal poise once more.
“The honor is mine,” said Lady Eisendusk, inclining her head.
“Ours, of course,” Thimbleweed added with a deep curtsy.
“I have heard tales of the legendary hospitality of fairies,” Asha went on, meeting the eyes of both of them. “We, of course, have great admiration for your ancient and sacred rules, and we hope you find our behavior as hosts equal to yours as our honored guests.”
Rahim pursed his lips to keep from grinning when Thimbleweed shuffled further away from Lady Eisendusk. Nearby, someone was bold enough to laugh. For a split second Rahim thought the voice was Mama’s, but he spotted her in the corner of his vision, looking on with a tight and distinctly unamused expression.
“Please,” Rahim added, heart fortified by Asha’s frosty smile. “Enjoy the festivities.”
Garlands and colorful banners decorated the town square. Every cook and baker in town had come together to fill several long tables with food—cakes, pies, fruit and nuts crystallized in honey, soups and stews and cured meat and several types of cheese. A roasting fire had been lit at the center of the square, carefully arranged to keep the flames contained. Children played through the square, fingers sticky from treats. Skillful hands dyed pictures and patterns on revelers’ faces. Flowers were woven and braided into bracelets and crowns.
Afra, as promised, had brought out the fattest lamb in her flock. Mama had the steadiest hands, and so took on the task of slaughtering it. The town had not had a butcher before, but one had followed Larkin from his lands, and skillfully divided it into cuts. Old Isa the midwife stood goggle-eyed as Rahim presented her with a quarter of the meat.
“We’ll salt and cure it for you,” he assured her under his breath. “You brought my daughter into the world—I’m not about to thank you with more work.”
Isa was a widow, and Freda her only child. With the threat of war and lean days ahead, a gift of meat was no small thing. Rahim brushed aside her thanks, but much later, when Isa sought him out with a freshly-woven wreath of flowers, he smiled and stooped to let her place it on his head.
He was keeping an eye on his guests, like any good host should, which was why he noticed the woman at all. Greymare was a small fiefdom, and in spite of the influx of new arrivals, Rahim had always had a good memory for faces. The woman sitting off to the side with a gnarled elderwood walking stick resting between her knees was not one he had ever seen before. Her face was one on which age had settled with gentle elegance; her wrinkles betrayed frequent smiles, and her silver-streaked hair hung gracefully over one shawl-wrapped shoulder. She was not joining in on the celebration, only sitting and watching with keen, smiling eyes.
Asha was minding the fairies’ manners at the moment. Trusting her to handle herself, Rahim approached the stranger.
“Good lady,” he said. “Are you enjoying the festivities?”
“Not as well as I might.” The woman did not rise, but inclined her head at him. “A thousand pardons, sir. I’m afraid I was not invited. But when I heard, I had to come and see it for myself.”
She shifted in her seat to face him, and Rahim caught the briefest glimpse of her back before it vanished from view. Below her shoulder blades, the fabric of her shawl—clumsily knitted, a novice’s first attempt in colors a child would pick—did not curve with the bones of a relaxed spine, but fell oddly flat, like a handkerchief over a bowl. As if, in the middle of her back, there simply weren’t any bones, or anything at all.
Movement drew his eyes lower, and he glanced down just in time to see the tail of a fox flick out of view.
“Forgive me,” Rahim said faintly. “That was our oversight—we didn’t know there were three of you good ladies to invite.”
The woman laughed. It was the same laugh that had rung out when Asha scolded the other fairies. “Oh, sweet boy, don’t fret. Only those two rule and squabble over these woods. You owe me nothing. But it’s been many an age since the girls have stood within sight of each other without going for the eyes, and I had to see the party that brought them a moment’s peace. Well done, you. Give my compliments to your fierce queen.” She paused. “I’ll take my leave, if I’ve worn out my welcome.”
Rahim hesitated. Two fairies were trouble enough without a third, who he knew nothing about.
But stories were full of old women knocking on doors asking for hospitality, and cursing those who turned them away. Rahim would rather risk polite chaos than a wrathful curse. She was fae, and bound to the same rules as the rest.
“There is plenty to go around, for now,” he said. “Enjoy the festivities. I hope you find my conduct as host equal to yours as a guest.”
The woman gripped his hand with a smile, then swung herself up on her elderwood stick and strode in to join the party, in the direction opposite to her fellow fairies. Rahim turned away before he could be tempted to look for her tail, and went to find Asha again.
Before he could reach her, Lady Eisendusk’s dry whisper curled around his ears. “I must know,” she said. “You look different from most of the kings I’ve encountered, and you mortals are such insular folk. How came you to be one?”
“I am not a king, by the customs of these lands,” Rahim replied. “Only the Patron has the authority to make me one, and no high priest has come forward to crown me yet.”
“You have lands, a castle, and no one to command you,” Lady Eisendusk said with a dismissive flick of her hand. ‘Fine, then. How came you to be a lord?”
“It is… not so heroic a story,” Rahim admitted. “I did not slay any terrible monster or save any princess. I was simply lucky—or unlucky.”
“I am fond of stories,” said Lady Eisendusk. “I would hear it, if you would tell it.”
“Telling tales?” Thimbleweed’s cheery voice rang out. “Let’s hear one! It isn’t a party without a good story!”
The fairy’s shout gathered an audience, and Rahim nearly balked—but a warm look from Asha fortified him.
Someone very old and very powerful had asked him for a story. He could not falter now.
“My grandfather was foolish,” he began. “He crossed the sea to make his fortune, but the wars destroyed all he built, and left him with so little that he could not even return to the lands of his birth. His children learned humbler trades, and I had my heart set upon being a scribe and scholar before the pressgangs came for me.
“I was never supposed to survive. The warlord Etien valued strength above all else, and impressed the same upon his generals. They saved the strongest fighters for battles they considered important. The rest of us were thrown into hopeless fights to keep the more valuable warriors fresh. This served him well enough against scattered towns and villages, weaker rulers without numbers, without resources. But when he began to batter us against kingdoms and strongholds, the brute strength of his favored troops failed.
“I don’t remember the name of the man who commanded me. I don’t feel guilty for this because I doubt he ever learned mine. He commanded us to attack the forces of an enemy warlord, and the counterattack was so ferocious that it reached his tent. We were shattered, cut off from the rest of Etien’s army, all our commanders dead, fleeing from forces that had no interest in taking prisoners.
“But I had spent my youth with my nose buried in books, and some of those books were histories, war cycles, writings on military tactics. It was all very complicated and fantastical when I first read it, but once I’d seen war myself, I realized how simple a lot of it was.
“Fight from the high ground. Defend positions until you can advance. Change plans that don’t work. Gather information. Keep your soldiers fed.
“I was lucky enough to make a friend—Larkin had been a favored soldier, but he’d insulted one commander too many. The others—the survivors—liked him. He was the first to listen to me, and the rest followed. Weaker, quicker soldiers who would have been thrown against enemy spears to shield the strong, became spies and scouts. We discovered which roads were used to move supplies, and rather than waste our strength against soldiers, we took their wagons and destroyed whatever we did not eat or use ourselves. We worried at them from the shadows, until the other warlord was forced to withdraw, and leave his stronghold empty. By the time Etien swept in with his proud, prized warriors, the war was won and there was nothing for them to do.”
Rahim paused with a wry smile. “Such a travesty, that a soft-handed foreigner’s brat had made himself so useful, in a way that the new king could not deny without looking foolish. So he fulfilled his obligation, by giving me land that no one else dared claim.”
“Simple indeed!” Lady Eisendusk laughed once his story was done. “It would be a shame to have to trade pleasantries with a fool.”
“You have to admit some fools are fun to play with,” Thimbleweed said cheerily. “You can do a lot with a head full of dandelion fluff.”
Larkin, who had sidled closer during the story, pressed a cup of wine into Rahim’s hand, which Rahim used to soothe his dry throat. When he turned to hand it back, he found Lady Eisendusk looming over him.
“I have seen a great many rulers pass through this place,” the gnarled old fairy said. “I bless their short lives, that I need not bother with their petty arrogance and greed. But you… you I don’t mind so much.”
“I am not a—”
“Yes, yes, you say you are not a king,” said Thimbleweed from behind him, and he tried not to jump. “What was it again? A high priest must crown you?” She giggled, lightly clipping the edge of the wreath of flowers on his head with a delicate, slender fingertip. “The hands that placed this crown have carried countless fragile mortal lives into this world. What could be holier than that?”
Rahim was no holy man, but he had never seen a midwife hold authority in any church or temple. But Isa certainly held authority here, from the hunters to the headwoman. And for the people of Greymare, now cut off from help with war looming on the horizon, that had to count for something.
Now was not the time to argue over words and their meanings.
“I… I don’t know about that,” Rahim replied after a moment. “But these people have put their trust in me. I will be what they need me to be.”
Lady Eisendusk chuckled, and Thimbleweed beamed and clapped. For the first time since Asha’s pointed chiding, the two seemed almost in agreement.
“You have been a gracious host,” Lady Eisendusk said with a crooked, lined smile. “And an even more gracious guest, I should say.”
Rahim swallowed hard. “Yes, well, the other reason I am hesitant to call myself king—”
“So modest,” said Thimbleweed. “So humble. I like that.”
“As I was saying,” Lady Eisendusk went on. “Since you have invited me to a celebration of your child, your little princess, I would offer a gift. A blessing, if I may.”
“As would I!” Thimbleweed piped up. “On behalf of my queen, of course. It is tradition, after all.”
“You honor us,” said Asha. She exchanged a split-second glance with Rahim, long enough for him to wordlessly concede to her judgment. “We accept.”
Thimbleweed beamed, then curtsied to her counterpart and gestured her forth. “Please, go first, my Lady. Age before beauty, as they say.”
On the edge of his periphery, Rahim saw Asha tighten her control over the corners of her mouth.
“Very well,” said Lady Eisendusk, visibly unfazed. Then she stepped past Rahim and Asha, and loomed over Azalea’s cradle. “This party is for the child, is it not? Then any gifts given today ought to be hers.”
Rahim drew in a sharp breath. Beside him, for the first time, he saw Asha freeze in alarm. But it was far too late to halt whatever came next.
“My gift to her is power.” Lady Eisendusk’s gnarled hand hovered over the cradle. “A portion of my mine will be hers to command. May she grow to wield magic the likes of which few mortals have ever dared.”
“So like you, Lady Eisendusk!” Thimbleweed laughed. “Flashy and impressive, but useless at best and deadly at worst in the hands of an infant in the cradle.”
One of Lady Eisendusk’s hooded eyelids twitched. “…Very well, then,” she said, teeth flashing behind her lips. “Upon her sixteenth birthday, she will receive this gift. Does that satisfy your worries?”
Thimbleweed flapped a dismissive hand at her and gently nudged between her and the cradle. “I suppose it falls to my queen to hand out sensible gifts,” she teased. “Very well. My gift to her is wisdom, and all that comes with it—cleverness and insight, brains to go with her beauty. She is a princess, is she not? And I have seen the lot of princesses. Friend and foe alike will smile sweetly at her. May she smile back with teeth.”
Before Rahim had time to breathe a sigh of relief, a third throat cleared.
Thimblewood stood up straight, face blank. Lady Eisendusk’s scowl deepened. The crowd parted, and the lovely old stranger whose messy shawl hid the hole in her back stepped through, leaning on her elderwood stick.
“Oh, you must excuse me,” she said blithely. “Gracious and wise hosts, I came uninvited in a time of fear and uncertainty, but still you welcomed me to join in your merry-making.” She inclined her head to Rahim and Asha. “Will you grant me one more honor, and allow me to pay my respects to the child?”
Rahim exchanged a glance with Asha, and for the first time saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, before her expression firmed. “To whom do we owe this honor?”
“Elder Mother,” Lady Eisendusk said dryly, before the third fairy could answer for herself. “I rarely see you away from your gaggle of urchins.”
“You aren’t here to spoil the fun, are you?” Thimbleweed pouted.
“If that’s what you silly girls wish to call it, then perhaps.” Elder Mother laughed, light and warm with a hint of a rasp. She approached the cradle and, to Rahim’s surprise, gently knocked both Thimbleweed and Lady Eisendusk out of the way with her hip. “Oh, sweet girl, look at what they’ve done to you.” The smile was audible in her voice as she spoke. “I know the lot of princesses, too, little blossom. My gift to you is freedom. No matter what befalls you, come storm or fair weather, should your kingdom rise to new heights or crumble to the earth—may you be exactly what you choose to be, no more and no less.”
She fluttered her fingers playfully over the cradle, and Azalea’s giggle rang out for all those gathered to hear. With that, she turned from the cradle and began striding away, back the way she had come. “Well! That ought to do it. Good day to you, little king and queen. Take care of your child. I’ve got plenty of my own to return to.”
Without another word, she left the town square and vanished into the woods.
King Rahim of Greymare stood on the wall and peered over the parapet. It had been constructed quickly around the main town, but constructed well; the wood had seemed almost eager to join together, sturdier and stronger than it had been apart. His daughter, the infant Princess Azalea, slept peacefully in one arm. His free hand clutched one of Asha’s.
They watched silently as Orany’s troops advanced from a distance, both along the road and around it, heedless of the trees. They dared not look away, even as the trees—and the things dwelling within them—converged upon the conquering soldiers. Screams rang out, ragged at first, then building to a howling cacophony. The sleeping princess never stirred.
Not a single Oranian boot landed beyond the wall.
Only in the silence that followed did Rahim dare let out a shuddering breath. Beside him, Asha’s face held a grayish tinge, and her lips were tight.
“Well, you were right,” Rahim said softly.
Asha turned to him, meeting his eyes for a moment before her gaze settled on their daughter. Greymare—his kingdom, now—was saved. And because of that, he could stand beneath the sun holding all that he held dear in the world.
“I hope so,” she replied. “I hope so.”
