King’s Hern’s horse came to a stop before the troll marker. It took a moment to steady due to its rider’s readied bow and arrow.

Sorem meant to let Vadde go, but instead, he clutched her tighter.

But that wasn’t his only concern. Till now, he’d imagined something in the forest watching him. He wasn’t aware of what but now he could see it. Eyes. Glowing red eyes peering out of the trees and grass.

Vadde swallowed hard. “Ogres.”

Sorem looked from left to the right of the road to find equal numbers. When his eyes settled on the troll marker, he swallowed hard.

“They were following this thing; just like we were.”

Letting out a gasp, Vadde declared, “We must warn the king.”

A whistle zipped through the air and landed at Vadde’s feet.

Sorem looked up from the arrow to meet Vadde’s gaze. Her eyes looked haunted.

“I told you,” she cried, “I’m not welcome in Rowil! I cannot return there.”

Sorem tried to look back to the highway but there was nothing and no one behind them. Rescue was a long way off.

This time when Sorem let Vadde go, it was to hide his trembling hands at his sides rather than allow her to feel his fear.

“He’s misunderstood us,” Sorem attested. “We need only explain ourselves.”

Vadde looked from the right then left before staring ahead. “It’s an ambush. Once the king’s men step forward into this territory, the ogres will kill him. And then they’ll claim his kingdom.” She whipped around and slapped Sorem in the shoulder. “This is all your fault. You fool!”

“What? I’m the fool? What king leaves his home to head an army!”

“The kind that has no choice!” Vadde darted towards her father, but another arrow sailed by. An entire row landed before her, stopping her dead. “This won’t do. They’ll waste their arrows.” She turned back to Sorem and begged, “Listen to me. You must reach the king. I cannot. Please. Please go and warn him.”

Sorem didn’t dare step forward or back. “What?” Instead of listening to her strange plan, he raised his hands in surrender. “I have no lands,” he found himself saying. From where did these words come from? “I am ruler of nothing. You ogres eating me will do you no good!”

Vadde’s jaw dropped. “You bastard!”

Despite her insistence of standing in mortal danger, she ran forward. The arrows came but she cast one hand before her, catching all in her path.

A rumble from both sides of the road sounded and Sorem shot after her.

“Halt!” the king bellowed.

They were close enough to hear him as Vadde came to a stop. Arrow trained on her, King Hern swallowed hard.

“Yesterday, after I received a message about my daughter, I had but one thought. Was she well? That was all,” he shouted. “I did not crave your presence. I did not wish for your return. I only wanted to know you were well. That you were happy. Within minutes my two sons took to fever.”

Vadde’s shoulders drooped. The silence after that gave her ample time to give her father all the warning in the world and yet, she did not speak.

“You have two brothers now instead of one,” he said, “and the doctors say your mother’s current pregnancy will yield twins and it’ll be our absolute last time having children. I am an old man now, and I’ve done terrible things for which I am not proud. But if saving one child must bring the death of four more, what father could justify that!”

Everything became still. Even the wind refused to disturb them.

“So, I ask you, Rihetha. Go back. Go back from this land and never return. Do not force my hand.”

The standoff came perhaps more for shock than defiance, Sorem could see that now. When the crowd parted and one nurse on horseback came with a shivering boy in her arms, Sorem was the next one shocked.

“What was the meaning of all this?” He turned to her and demanded, “You are cursed?”

Vadde stared at her father but answered, “I told you.”

“No! You said enchanted.”

“A curse is an enchantment, you idiot!”

“Enough,” the king bellowed. “Turn back. Turn back now.”

Vadde’s expression worried Sorem because she looked crazed. Finally, she said, “I am, by the way.” When her father gave no answer below his tight armor, she attested, “I am happy. I’m very happy. I’m in love. And I will have children soon. And he treats me very well! Very well.”

Hern opened and closed his mouth often, but no words came out.

“Your Majesty!” the nurse wailed. “He’s not breathing.”

Attention fully on his daughter again, Hern begged, “Leave. Go. Please. Leave!”

“But—”

“Leave!”

Sorem expected for her to at least yell a warning but instead she turned and ran down the road, giving no care to the ogres in wait.

“Nurse,” Hern asked, pleading, “is he breathing yet?”

“No.”

The king took aim and said, “I’m sorry,” before letting his arrow go.

It caught Vadde in the back and she collapsed to the ground.

A boy’s cry came with her fall and the king hurried to take his son from the nurse’s arms. Though the child struggled, he held him close then ordered. “Pull back. Request reinforcements and let the order go out. Should anyone even mention my daughter’s name again, it will be their death.”

When the nurse was finally able to take the child, she assured him, “It’s just as the soothsayer said, Your Majesty. I’m sure the others are safe. If—”

“Do not say the name, nurse,” he warned, “because my decree will reach even you.”

He glanced back at Vadde’s body for a long minute, then turned and galloped away, his nurse and son at his back.

***

Sorem knocked on the aged wood.

“Come in.”

His mother had a lovely singing voice. That was how she’d won his father’s heart. And despite her age, she still had the vibrance of a woman twenty years younger.

All those beautiful characteristics faded whenever she laid eyes on Sorem, so he took care in treasuring the brief moments of her joy and politeness whenever she didn’t expect him to call on her.

“Good morning.”

Face no longer radiant, she put her hands before her and answered, “Good morning, Sorem. Are you well?”

He knew the source of her displeasure and was sure he had a way to cure it today.

“I have good news.”

The dark waves of her hair bounced when she picked her head up and actually looked him in the eye. Her deep blue stared into his brown, and he felt proud.

“I’ve fallen in love.”

Nothing happened for quite some time. But then it came. Slowly and with great pain on her part, his mother smiled. This was the first time that joy came from the slits of her eyes.

She rushed to him, her green dress dragging at her feet as she took him by the hand and led him to a chair. “Oh, darling. Oh, what has happened? Is she tall? Is she stunning? Has her family approved? Have you met her parents? Must I meet them, too?” She scanned the room. “Oh, there’s so much to do.” Her hands flew to her shoulders. “And I must get a new dress.”

Sorem thought to remind her that nothing was final yet; he hadn’t even proposed but her reaction was too rare for him to risk passing up.

It was wrong, perhaps, but he allowed himself to bathe in her adoration and excitement for as long as he thought fair. Truthfully, a sadness came over him because he had to break the good news with bad.

“Mother,” he called, raising his hands to guide her back to sit in the chair at his side. “I…I have troubling news along with it.”

She slipped from his grip , a smile no longer evident. “Of course, you do.”

The joyous fluttering in Sorem’s belly faded little by little, replaced with a dull sensation as if he’d swallowed nothing but ash for days and days.

“Very well,” she said, adjusting her posture, “out with it.”

He felt cut in two. Like a fruit tossed up and chopped in its playful fall, he flopped his hands down before her.

“She’s…of modest means and—and upbringing. She’s not a princess. She’s not even a noble.”

Head hung, he waited for her to use the last of her imaginary blade to finish what was left of him.

The hand on his face was the warmest he’d ever felt, and it guided him to look up into the face of an angel.

“Oh, Sorem. That is wonderful news.”

Body tensed, Sorem eased out of her grip. She looked strange there with that twisted smile.

“Whatever do you mean?”

She took his face in both hands. “Your path into this world was such a miserable one. And for that, I am sorry. Perhaps that is why you were a miserable baby, then a miserable child. And I’d feared you’d be a miserable man as well, my son, but you’ve broken that bad luck. Especially if you’ve found love and found it with a commoner. Because that is right where you belong.”

In a different time and a different place, a better man would have had an answer to give his mother upon hearing what she uttered next. A better man would have given a response of any kind, verbal or otherwise. A better man would have perhaps found some anger in knowing he had been sent away to a monastery for the reasons she confessed to him, but Sorem had nothing to give.

He did not even have a breath left in him as his mother gave him a sympathetic smile and promised, “But I will meet with her. And I will gift you with some money and perhaps some land and livestock and—”

“Excuse me,” Sorem muttered, rising to his feet. “I…I must go.”

When he reached the door, he swung his head around to look back at her. The sun at her back gave off an ethereal glow but he no longer saw an angel. He no longer saw a woman. He no longer saw anyone worthy of his respect. Only a liar.

For the first time in his life, he walked out of her presence with no interest in seeing her again.

Perhaps he was a miserable child. But spending his days with nurses and staff while Mother was away left an ache that never dulled. And when she’d returned but hadn’t time for his trivial games, he’d cried and begged to matter to her. Until one day, he finally stopped.

His feet carried him out into the stone hallway, then out of the palace.

And had he been a miserable child? He no longer asked for her attention—something he’d never receive, and instead tried to show something artistic. Sports came with a risk because his injury was never seen as more disappointment.

When the evening breeze touched his face, he thought of his time with the monks and how angry he’d been for so many years until one day…that vanished, too. He discovered the order of the Divine Thinkers and he found peace and purpose.

But the devotion they required was beyond him.

Turn over your life to the Fairy King and find happiness in vengeance.

For Sorem, there was no happiness upon returning home, but there’d been hope. He had looks and a decent build now to make more than a few heads turn. But he’d made a mess of things by trying to engage princesses in talks of politics rather than complimenting their beauty. He’d seen that now.

That was why Mo’el meant so much. She listened to everything he said.

She always gave him all her time.

It was undone and foolish, but he set off to her cottage to tell her the good news. A rot formed in his gut and spread to all of him, making his neck stiff from how strongly he’d clenched his jaw before reaching.

There was a strange noise coming from inside and he thought to come back another day.

No. This was good news. They could marry. And his mother would provide them with some riches. It was good news, so why couldn’t he smile?

He knocked but nothing changed so he knocked harder.

After a short moment, a grumble came from behind the door. “Hold on, hold on. I thought I was clear on waiting your turn, you stupid, piss smelling—”

When the door swung open, Sorem thought to charge in and rescue Mo’el from whoever this was. Bare breasts met his focus. She dragged the robe closed and slipped out into the open.

“Prince Sorem,” she said, her voice gentle and meek as he’d known her.

Too shocked to answer, Sorem looked her up and down.

Today was the first time she’d ever covered herself to avoid his gaze.

His eyes left her neatly groomed pelvis and traveled up her thin robe to settle on her frightened eyes.

“Wh—what?” was all he could manage to get out.

Mo’el’s lips parted again and again until she gave him a big smile. “Oh, did you hear all that? How did it sound? Did it sound authentic? I was rehearsing.”

“Rehearsing.” He nearly looked down at her but thought better of it. “You are rehearsing naked? Rehearsing for what?”

The smile vanished. “This is how all peasants dress when at home, Your Highness. We haven’t clothes to waste.”

When she turned her face away and her lips began to tremble, he found himself watching the ground. He wanted to leave. More than anything, he wanted to leave. But where would he go? Back to the palace and the eighteen-year lie everyone else knew? It wasn’t even a secret. He had just been the only fool to not know it.

“I—I have good news,” Sorem said at length. His nerves were winning out, so he decided to be brave. He told her of his mother’s approval.

Mo’el’s hands flew to her mouth, and she sported a blush. Her robe fell open when she rushed him, but she paused and corrected herself. Her reaction was eerily familiar when she said, “Oh, what will I wear? Who must I tell?”

And this time, too, he allowed her all the panic and excitement. The rot must have reached his brain by the time she stood before him with an eager smile.

“We’ll get to see each other every day this way, won’t we?” Sorem asked.

But he was no longer watching her pleased eyes, instead, he stared at her bosom, and she let the robe fall open.

Hands extended, she came towards him. He could barely pick his head up—he felt like a wreck.

“But I’m not a prince,” he said.

The words left his lips tasting bitter. She’d already pressed his face into her warm chest when he shed his first tear. He imagined it slip down into the crevasse much like the countless coins he’d given her till now.

Her body no longer felt warm because she was no longer there.

For the second time today, the story of his birth and childhood greeted the autumn air. And for the second time today, that pathetic story was met with silence.

“Oh,” was the only word to leave Mo’el’s mouth.

When her eyes settled on him, they lingered for but a moment before they took on a familiar shape. They weren’t half-moons of joy. Full moons of surprise or excitement. In fact, they were dull shadows sliding to the side, eager to get away from what they beheld.

The moment she turned to leave, his hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder. Sorem couldn’t feel the touch, but he could hear the desperation in his voice.

“We’ll get some money, and we’ll leave this place. We’ll—”

“Get your fucking hands off me.” But Sorem didn’t move and so she shrugged him off. She let out a sigh, shaking her head. “Six fucking months for this waste of time,” she complained and opened the door.

A burly fat man stood beyond the table, a sizeable member stiff and at the ready.

“What is it? I still got half an hour, don’t I?”

“Yeah. You still got it,” she muttered. “Let’s continue.”

She didn’t even bother to close the door as she walked in, threw the robe down, and pressed herself forward across the table, staring right at the open door.

The moment the big lug lumbered to her, hefted himself and rammed into her, she said not a word.

Sorem watched them for some time until something tapped his shoulder. He craned his neck and was greeted by a man with few teeth. “Are you next?”

‎