Page 14

Change is Constant Unless One is Stuck

T he fae prince was drunk. Maewyn dropped him onto the bed in the chamber they’d been given to share, his eyes already shut to the world.

She huffed, exhausted from dragging him into the room, from dancing, from laughing.

Laughing . He had done that, had inspired mirth she’d tucked so far away she thought the ability to feel it at all had been lost, and now she found even more laughter bubbling up as she stared down at the Crowned Prince of the Autumn Court splayed out and snoring.

Gently, she pulled at the mask he wore, and the magic let it go. Gods, he was pretty, even when he sleepily scratched at his nose and snorted. Maewyn cackled, but he didn’t wake.

When was the last time I found something so funny?

Certainly not when they had arrived at this strange manor in the woods and met Ulric.

That fae had an ominousness about him, punctuated each time his blue eyes met hers while she and Roan danced.

Roan was oblivious, which neither shocked nor unsettled her—he had been confidants with the fae for the majority of his life.

He’d not said it, but Ulric seemed almost like a father, just one who couldn’t tell him what to do, which she suspected was the preferred kind.

But Maewyn didn’t have any such blinders on about the fae, and even if she had, they would have been ripped right off when Ulric cut in and swept her into a dance.

“Your bond concerns me,” he had said as soon as they were away from Roan. “Tethers should easily be broken if both are willing.”

Maewyn had felt her brow go sharp at that.

“Tethers are complex,” she argued weakly, as if she were some expert after only a few days of study.

She faltered then, tripping over her feet as she had with Roan, but Ulric was quick to correct her, fingers pinching her side and jerking her into place painfully.

“You are holding on, yet you are well aware the prince does not want you.” This he said with a smile as if he were paying her a compliment, his voice too low for any other courtier to hear. “If you care for him, why do you stand in the way of what he truly wants?”

Maewyn stuttered, no answer found in her throat. She was helping Roan to get what he wanted, wasn’t she? The very dangerous, very stupid thing that he wanted.

Her eyes darted away from Ulric to find Roan in the crowd. The prince stood beside Aunyx engaged in conversation, but their gazes immediately locked. He had been watching her, and when she finally watched him back, he broke into a wide smile and tipped his glass.

Ulric spun her, and she lost sight of her fae.

“This realm is dangerous. Beasts prowl forests and halls alike, and the corners are at odds. Power is needed, not genuflecting to fae nobles.” There was a venom in his voice, and his teeth glimmered as he smiled, pointed and perilous.

The mask he wore obscured much of his face, but the blue of his eyes struck her, alive with intent.

She had been relieved to return to Roan, but also confused, and their ensuing conversation about their tether had only made her heart heavier. Roan was quick to cheer her, though, and they returned to their chaotic dancing as he fell deeper into his cups until she dragged him to bed.

“You’re too trusting,” she whispered down to his sleeping form, brushing a crimson lock away from his forehead.

Roan’s lips curled, and he moved like he would have nuzzled into her hand had she left it there.

Her fingers trembled as they hovered over his face, the desire to touch him so strong, but the knowledge that it would be a mistake even stronger.

That sealed the decision she’d been pondering, though, and Maewyn stood from the bed, determined to find the truth.

The manor was silent in the wake of the masquerade when she finally sneaked out of the bedchamber.

The other fae that made their home in Ulric’s court didn’t concern her—even if they weren’t sleeping off the drink they’d imbibed, they had seemed so hollow .

The courtiers in the Autumn Palace were of all sorts, some scowled at her while others smiled, but every fae under Ulric’s roof wore the same serene look and had the same spiritless tone to their voices.

If she met one in the corridor, she was sure she could feed them a simple lie and continue on unbothered.

Still, Maewyn didn’t want to run into anyone. She wished she could just quiet her steps a little more as she hugged the manor’s walls, but then there was a tickle along her spine like the prickling of hair. She halted, felt the strange embrace of some foreign magic, then shook it away.

A trap set by Ulric , she thought, but it wouldn’t stop her. She had done her research on locked fae doors, and he had all but handed her the key with his words: “my home is yours.”

It took a few hours, pushing back tapestries, lifting cauldron lids, and blindly feeling along crevices, but eventually she found it.

It wasn’t a door at first, only a misshapen stone in the wall, but she could see the wood grain when she squinted, and then the handle when she bent down, and finally she was able to push it open and spy the threshold.

“Now, to fit,” she whispered, feeling about the opening in the darkness.

The size was only another trick to keep others out, Maewyn knew from her reading, yet she wasn’t quite sure how she would get her shoulders or hips through.

Kneeling there in the hall of Ulric’s manor, she swore as she tried to fit, frustration mounting.

Maybe there was another way in…but no, she knew better than that: fae wouldn’t risk having more than one door that they kept their secrets behind.

She huffed, determination renewed. It wasn’t her curiosity that needed satisfying, but her desire to protect Roan—her need to protect him—and she thrust herself through.

A breeze carrying a grossly unpleasant stench, rot and dirt and musk, hit her.

How she knew the specifics of what she smelled, she couldn’t understand, but the doorway didn’t feel quite so small once she pushed forward.

In fact, if she crawled on her hands and feet, only her whiskers brushed the doorway’s edges.

It was simple then, the ground changing under her paws from cold stone to cold earth, and her tail just grazed the top of the archway as she passed through.

Oh, I’m a fox.

The thought was only briefly alarming before it felt as natural as having a nose—snout or otherwise.

Oh, my gods, I’m a fox!

Maewyn bounded forward with a pounce, excitement and magic coursing through her as her paws scuffed at the earth.

Paws . All of those years of silent wonder, all of the scorn and loneliness, all of the worry at being the curse everyone said she was—it all fell away as her tail—her tail —flicked through the air.

She had transformed, and she had done it with magic, and it was wonderful .

But then the greys of the world beyond Ulric’s hidden door washed over her, and she stilled herself.

Was it her new eyes that changed the landscape so?

They could see more than her human ones, but they wouldn’t focus on any one thing—a rocky outcropping here, a tangle of tree limbs there, the shiver of a tuft of grass in the breeze.

This wasn’t the welcoming autumnal forest they had traveled through that day.

The world was too much then, too volatile, too dangerous, and she snapped her jaws shut to listen.

No, it wasn’t just her new awareness—something here was wrong .

Slowly, Maewyn padded forward, the quiet footsteps she’d yearned for in the manor finding her now as she hunched low to the ground.

She scurried into the shadow of a bush, its thorns unable to prick at her fur like they might have her skin.

From where she’d come, there was dense fog, the vaguest sense of walls beyond, and in every other direction… nothing.

The wastes stretched, flat and desolate and grey.

A few scraggly trees dotted the dried earth, gnarled branches reaching for a moon that wasn’t there.

Maewyn couldn’t imagine a sun nor rain, though the sky held clouds.

The only light came from mist that rolled over the barren land, a sickly yellow flush that undulated with the breeze.

Maewyn scampered on to search the bleakness for answers. There was an anomaly ahead, rows of dirt and dried-out vines that had withered away. Something snuffled amongst the deadened plants, and then a head snapped upward, one odd, long ear bending toward her.

It was a rabbit, or would have been once, but it was merely bones and patchy, grey flesh now, one missing eye and an ear that had been gnawed to shreds. It froze under Maewyn’s gaze, and then it darted, speed shocking for how frail it was, disappearing into a swirl of dim mist.

Maewyn clawed at the dry, pebbly earth, noting how much more robust her paws were than the rabbit’s had been. She took a brief look at her tail, too orange and fluffy for the arid lands around her, then tucked it between her legs as she trotted off.

This place must still be fae , she thought, sniffing at the air and distinctly smelling ravenous magic. Old magic. Ancient magic. But the life has been sapped from it.

A cluster of something like trees swelled from the earth ahead, limbless and leafless.

She skittered across an open plane to reach the odd orchard then tucked herself within.

Another sniff told her what had been there once, a true forest under the golden glow of a low hanging sun that would shimmer between crimson leaves and house an entire unkindness of ravens.

If she pricked her ears just right, she could hear them too, many wings flapping…