Page 18 of The Prince or the Bard?
“But why can’t she? She’ll be safe in her púca form.”
“Not even the sea fae themselves are safe from it, let alone my cousin.” I have to look away. “The queen isn’t well, Prince Ruairí. You know that. We all do. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? And even if she were, those currents could still be deadly.”
He lowers his chin to his chest. “Is she strong enough to swim at all?”
A jolt of cold splashes through me, like an unexpected wave. “I don’t know.” I truly don’t.
And that frightens me more than anything. It’s not just the headaches, is it? Queen Fiadh must have some other malady.
“If she’s truly so ill, she shouldn’t have taken such a journey,” Ruairí says, the patronizing tone setting my teeth on edge. “If my brother knew, he wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“That’s not for the likes of y—usto say, is it?Sir.” I cross my arms to match his. “Maybe he did know, and this was the only way he knew how to help. It’s the only decent advice the royal physicians have come up with in months.”
The prince’s body language suddenly loosens, as if until this moment he was as tightly wound as an octopus in a too-small den. He runs a hand back through his dark hair.
“You must be worried for her.”
I incline my head, one brow arched. “Iamher maid and cousin.”
“I want you to know you don’t have to fear for her. My brother has made every resource available to her. More physicians and healers are arriving at the castle every week. We’ll get to the bottom of this sickness,” he says, a touch of fierce protectiveness in his voice, “one way or another.”
And for some foolish reason, I actually believe him.
That night, I preparethe queen for bed as usual, brushing her hair and loosely plaiting two strands—she cannot tolerate the whole of it being braided—on either side of her head. Like me, though, my cousin detests hair in her face when she tries to sleep.
I am with her until the very moment she blows out her candle. And even then, I wait outside in the narrow hall, standing in darkness, watching for the candle to be lit again.
After a few minutes of listening to the other servants squeaking their way to their beds upstairs, I quit my post, neversure what is a fire in the hearth and what’s a traveling candle. Since I do not hear any squeaks of the wooden floors any longer, I retire to my own room in the back.
I am trusting Prince Ruairí to do his part. To be more than the layabout prince.
More than once I think to climb out of bed—where I lie fully clothed—and return to my cold, dark post near the queen’s door. But the queen is tired tonight, and if she does not leave soon, I do not think she will do it at all. If she wishes to see the curse, she must go before midnight, when the waters inexplicably calm.
The mayor’s house is so quiet, I can hear the nobles up late in the neighboring cottages, their laughter full of drink. Every crackle of the firewood in the grate makes the room a little warmer, my lids a little heavier. And I can hear the sea, the way every púca should when she rests her head at night.
It lulls me to sleep in mere minutes.
I wake to a yell. “Laoise!”
I’m flying up and out of bed before I know what’s happening, stumbling towards my door, then back to the window. It sounds as though it came from the back of the house!
As I throw open the sash, I’m just in time to see a flash of movement in the night. The soft, flickering candlelight of my room and the firelight in the grate reveals a familiar velvet shine in the garden.
No—Fiadh!
Curses and bargains! I never thought she’d don her unseelie form so close to the nobles. Though the night has swallowed the deep purple of her mane and fetlocks, I know it is her.
And I know where she’s going.
Pushing open the window, I leap out without really checking the ground beneath me, falling into the remains of last summer’s hydrangeas. I’m running then, barely registering the stark slash of a white collar approaching through the darkness.
The prince follows me, his footsteps trailing mine. The patter of four feet hitting marshy ground becomes two as I stride into my púca form, adding the thud of more hooves. I won’t catch Fiadh unless I match her. So I push it out of my mind when I hear the prince stumble.
My long brown hair recedes to reveal the flat, diamond scales of a water horse around my mane, as tough and fine as the best chainmail. Now comes the fetlocks and fins—shaped like a leafy sea plant. My hair and tail brighten into a startling aqua, a blue that stands out even in the water.
There’s no way Prince Ruairí has missed my transformation.
Onward I go without hesitation, my hooves cutting into the sandy soil, slipping between cottages when Fiadh does the same ahead of me. Her purple as the night, the clouds blocking too many of the stars to help me track her.
