Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(63)

How, after years of plotting and planning, everything she’d worked for threatened to slip from the Black Bride’s grasp. Though she’d schemed and marshaled her resources so she might yet play on, she had failed to get what her heart most desired: healing. It was tricky, balancing the time she had left between revenge and recovery, but she refused to relinquish one for the chance of the other. No matter how it taxed her, she could be— would be—whole once more, and all scores settled with her sister and the king.

Emer listened and watched, watched and listened, although no one spoke to her but the Black Bride. She paid attention to the comings and goings of the shadowed woman’s pilfered court, noting the frequency and severity of the woman’s wet cough, the sweet-sour dying scent of her breath. There were suitors—for her wealth, though stolen, though dusty, was not insubstantial, and the strength of her sorcery was of great value. Aside from these charms, in certain lights, the ravages of her punishment were not so obvious. So, the willing grooms came, though none of them ever left.

? 200 ?

? Angela Slatter ?

In the cold hours, after the woman had talked herself out, after she’d muttered at the windows when wil she come, when wil she come? , then gone to bed, Emer would work with her sharp beak at the deceptively fragile-looking chain, more out of habit than hope, but inexorably, insistently.

Peck-peck-peck.

Peck-peck-peck.

Peck-peck-peck.

“About time.”

Emer, perched on the padded armrest of the throne, was enduring the Black Bride’s caress, staring out the only unshuttered window.

Normally, she divided her time between eyeing the roiling mass of canine domestics, the fluttering carpet of ravens who came and went at the Bride’s bidding, and the hopping, kicking sea of fur that had once been the courting princes—all now transformed to fine, fat hares. This day, though, the sky had her undivided attention. She ignored the dark woman, assuming the remark was addressed to someone else. But the Black Bride’s next words—and her tone, so soft and sad—dragged the raven-girl’s gaze back to the room.

“Did you think yourself forgotten?”

Emer was startled—it was precisely what she was beginning to think. She had lost track of the days, weeks, months, but the turning of the season outside told her winter was arriving for what seemed the second time. She wasn’t sure—speculations about bugs and beetles had occupied her mind of late. A tentative movement at the entrance of the chamber made her head tilt in curiosity.

The figure was willowy, dressed in white furs, a hood of silver fox framing her pale face. She moved with all the grace of a bird on the surface of a lake, effortless. She hesitated as if, unable to find whom she sought, she was unwilling to commit deeper to the room.

“You should know,” continued the Black Bride, her touch stilled, “that she raised an army to find you. Your father failed and wept, wasted away—trust me, my girl, I have my spies. But she, oh she ? 201 ?

? Flight ?

mobilized their vassals, rode at their head, slept in the saddle, scoured all the lands that could be covered by foot and sea. I’ll warrant she’d have given her very soul to take to the skies if it meant she might find you that way.”

Her hand slid to the black chain. She toyed with the liquid length, unconsciously worrying at the dent Emer’s beak had made. She stared at the woman hovering in the doorway and seemed to realize that there would be no further progress without some kind of carrot.

“In the end, though, I sent for her. Reports of her mourning, her burning anguish, warmed my very soul. I could imagine it for I know her as well as I know myself. But there is no true joy in suffering that one cannot witness, child,” the Black Bride said, then she snapped scarlet-tipped fingers, and the ankle chain evaporated. Before Emer could take advantage of this freedom and make it to the open window, the Black Bride wrapped both hands around the raven’s trembling form. She held the bird as if intent upon stilling her heart, then kissed the top of her head. Whispering flux, she threw the girl— not upward, but forward.

The raven-girl’s shape became fluid, like water tossed from a bucket. Her feathers disintegrated, her beak receded to a pert little nose, legs lengthened and grew feet with soft pink toes, the tips of her wings split into fingers. Emer plummeted like a surprised stone, landing half on, half off the fusty carpet, scattering canine courtiers and confused coneys as she went. Naked and suddenly cold, she sat up slowly, feeling sick, stunned. Her mother, as if released from a cannon, sped toward her, hands reaching, lips curving, focusing entirely on her child, drawn by that agonizing relief which makes caution flee.