Page 3 of Out of Time (The Ice King Chronicles #3)

“Break the curse? You mean the one that pixie creature laid on you so many years ago?”

My father looked confused, but then he usually did at this time of day, when the sun was just beginning to sink behind the mountains. I’d found him in his bedchamber, and this was his time to relax, he said, though how that was any different from the rest of his day no one had yet been able to work out. He was like a sleek, beautiful cat drowsing in the sun. He liked to sit by the windows in the early evenings, too, with only his beloved hounds for company, staring out at the sunset. It was certainly a beautiful scene, with the hills in the distance, gleaming russet in the dying sun like the pelt of a wild fox.

It’s possible there might have been less intelligent canines in the world than the four dogs that gathered each night on the floor by my father’s feet, but I’d have been hard pressed to name them. The king had once described his dogs as “aristocrats—dignified and aloof—their eyes gazing into the distance as if in memory of ages past.”

I was doubtful that these dogs had memories that stretched much before the sausages they’d had for breakfast, but my father seemed to adore them. He currently had four of these creatures—all of them Afghan hounds, and, I suspected, hopelessly inbred.

I thought personally that their eyes only appeared to gaze into the distance because their brains were too small to contain an actual thought—or they might have been contemplating where their next sausages might be coming from. They were glamorous, regal creatures to look at, though, with lovely, long coats and absolutely enormous feet. Again, very much like my father. He turned toward me now, pulling his long shoes with the toes upturned in the Elven style down from the ottoman where he’d been propping them up to gaze at me with clear eyes, blissfully untroubled by any deep thoughts.

“You want me to find a witch to break your curse for you? But why are you bringing this up now, Glori, after all this time?”

“Because I’m tired of always having to run back home after some love affair ends yet again in disaster. And because I fear that what you said to me might be true —that the bloom really is off the rose. I found this just now! On my head!”

I held out my hand with a plucked hair to show him, and he peered down at it. “That’s blond, son, not gray, if that’s what you’re implying. And perhaps you’ve simply been unlucky in love so far. It does seem to be a family trait.”

My father had been married four times to four different women, with my Elven mother as his last mistake. After her, he had vowed never to marry again, but to content himself with his dogs, whose loyalty never came into question and who never cuckolded him or ran off with his gold.

“Lovers are a great deal of trouble, you know. Are you absolutely sure you want one? Esmerelda is having pups soon,” he said, indicating the female hound stretched out on the floor in front of him. “You can have the pick of her litter, if you like.”

“No thank you, Father. What I want is to find a handsome man who will love me and-and cherish me for the rest of my life. Not for my money or for the way I look, but for who I am.” It was a sign of my depression that I spoke to him like this, I suppose. Like my father, I wasn’t much known for introspection or soul-searching. But the events of the last year with the Elven kings had been taxing. I never wanted to feel like that again.

“Oh, very well,” My father said, sighing. “I think you’d enjoy one of Esmeralda’s puppies much more, but I’ll see what I can do. I do know of a powerful witch among the Sidhe. She lives near Avalon, I believe, and I’ve heard she’s very clever. I’ll send for her tomorrow. Perhaps she can find a way around this curse of yours.”

The Sidhe were considered quite magical, but they didn’t consider themselves to be Fairies like us. Not strictly speaking. The Sidhe were a spiritual and religious race; they believed in gods and goddesses, and many of their members had powerful abilities. Once they had been mortal, but they dabbled far too much in arcane magic and eventually became something supernatural. Most people still thought of them as Fairies. Tribal in nature, they were said to live beneath the hills and often identified as the remnants of the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann. They didn’t think much of the rest of us Fairies, and the feeling was often mutual.

Still, I needed help, and I should have sought that help long ago. “Thank you, Father,” I said.

He waved his hand, already going back to staring out the window, so I leaned over to drop a kiss on his forehead. “I’ll see you at supper later.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, distracted by whatever stray thought that might have wandered through as he sat there by the window. Or maybe like the hounds, he was wondering what we’d be having that evening for supper too.

He was as good as his word, though, and only a week later, he sent for me to come to his throne room. The beautiful woman standing beside him was tall, wore a black robe and had an austere, though striking look. She was a Sidhe Fairy, of course, and her face should have been too bold for beauty, full as it was of all those angles and planes. It was not. It somehow suited her perfectly, and her cheekbones were so high and sharp they could have cut glass. Her hair was unrelieved black, but shiny and her eyes were as dark and deep as a stormy night.

My father was smiling when I came in. “Ah, Glori, there you are. This is Lady Drogheda, and she has come to look at you and see if she can help.” I recognized Drogheda as an old Irish name, which denoted her heritage. My father turned to the woman with a little flourish of his hand. “My youngest son, Prince Glorfindel.”

I bowed and she gave me a long, interested look, holding out her hand. I took it in mine to shake it, but she pulled it gently away and shook her head. “I don’t want a greeting, Your Highness. I simply want to hold your hand to get a feel for your energy.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, dubiously extending my hand again. The lady took it in her own cool one, and I felt a slight tingle in my palm as soon as she touched me. She must have noticed too, because she drew in a breath and searched my eyes for a moment.

“Mm. Not exactly a curse, but yes, I feel it. It’s old-fashioned, and as simple as the one who cast it. Wicked, but effective and I’d wager it’s difficult to break whatever it is. This came from a pixie, you say?”

I nodded. “She says she has some magic.”

“Hmm. I’m not so sure. Very passionate though. She’s dead now, you know.”

I gasped in disbelief. “No, I didn’t know. Does that mean her curse is gone too?”

“Oh no. Death only strengthened this, if anything. She died with the ill-wish on her lips.” She concentrated again for a moment, still holding my hand. “She drowned herself in a lake, leaving a note behind saying she did it because of unrequited love for her cruel and faithless lover.”

“Me?” I squeaked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

My father interjected here, because I’d been stricken speechless.

“But what does this mean? Does it mean nothing can be done about it?”

Drogheda didn’t answer right away, which made my heart fly to my throat and threaten to suffocate me. “It makes things more difficult,” she finally intoned, fixing that strange dark gaze on me. “Tell me her exact words.”

“She said something like, ‘Because you’ve never loved, I curse you never to find love in this world. Not ever,’ I recited miserably. ‘You will sabotage and destroy every serious relationship you enter. Thus, you will live a long, miserable life alone for all eternity.’ Then something about ‘By moon and sun,’ her will being done.”

“I see. Never to find love in this world...very well. Then you must leave this world.”

“I say, that seems a bit extreme,” my father said. “If Glori’s dead at the end of this, then it seems rather to have defeated the purpose of having you intervene.”

“No, no,” Drogheda said, shaking her head. “I don’t mean he has to die. I mean that he has to leave this world, the Fae world, for some other one.” She tilted her head to one side as she thought about it. “Perhaps the mortal world. I could send him there so that he might find love. And when he does, the curse will naturally break.” She continued to gaze at me, now looking me up and down. “The difficulty lies in the fact that he’s a Fairy.”

“How so?” my father asked.

“Well, just look at him.” They both proceeded to do just that, while I frowned and squirmed under their scrutiny. “That bone structure,” Drogheda said, gesturing at me. “Those oddly colored amber-gold eyes, exotically tilted in his perfect little face. That long curly blond hair and those thick, black eyelashes, the high cheek bones and the perfectly shaped lips. Then of course, there are his ears…”

To be fair, I could see how my ears would be a problem. They were definitely pointed, like all my tribe. Delicate points that I now self-consciously tried to hide underneath my long hair.

Drogheda shook her head. “This really won’t do. He’s so beautiful he practically glows. Not to mention he has the body of a young Greek god,” she said, pursing her lips. “No, he’s far too inhumanly beautiful for the mortal world. They would suspect him as a Fae creature right away, and most would be too afraid of him to approach him. Fairies are known to use their beauty as both a lure and a weapon.”

“So…not the mortal world?” my father asked.

“No, we can still send him there. Just not during this time. He has to go in the future.”

“What?” I asked in alarm. What was this Sidhe woman talking about? “The future? Why?”

She turned to look at me. “It has to be then. Those in the mortal world now would surely recognize you as a Fairy otherwise.”

“But-but he’d still be as beautiful in the future world, wouldn’t he?” the king asked, looking puzzled. “Won’t people in the future recognize him as a Fairy there too?”

She shook her head. “Oh no, I shouldn’t think so. People in the future don’t believe in Fairies, or any of the Fae for that matter. Mortals develop an amazing capacity for not believing the evidence of their own eyes in the future.” She came a bit closer to survey me critically. “We may have to dye his hair, though.” She ran a finger down my cheek. “Or perhaps a scar?”

“No scar!” I said, horrified and clapping a hand over my porcelain cheek protectively. “Besides, how do you know what mortals in the future are like?”

“Because I’ve been there,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “I’m a Timeroamer.”

I know I gasped then, because witches who were Timeroamers were so extremely rare in our world, or any other, for that matter.

“You are?”

“Oh yes. And the one I’m planning to send you to is my grandson...a couple of generations removed, of course, and his blood is hopelessly mixed with mortals. Still, he’s a powerful witch and a Timeroamer, too. If the mortal blood hadn’t diluted him, I sometimes wonder what he might have been. At any rate, he’s the one who can help you adjust to the future and find a lover. He can help you break this terrible curse or whatever it is.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of any of this. “But how far in the future do I have to go?” I asked, in a hoarse voice I’d never heard come from my throat before.

“A hundred years should do it,” she replied.

My father nodded. “It’s always a hundred years in the old stories, Glori.”

Drogheda nodded at him and smiled like he was her favorite pupil. “Indeed, it is. I’ll go and talk to my grandson—prepare him for your arrival. He’ll probably be difficult about it, but I’ll talk him around. And then I’ll go along with you to ease your way.”

“But when would we go?”

“First I need to speak to Ethan. As soon as I gain his cooperation, I’ll come back for you.”

“Ethan? That’s your grandson?”

“Great-grandson, yes. Wait here for me.” I’m not sure where she thought I’d go, though I did rather feel like running to hide under my bed. I was uneasy and uncertain about all of this, and I was sure she could see that.

She held her hands in the air, which began to shimmer around her with colors of blue and gold and silver. She was muttering some words I didn’t recognize under her breath and then with little sound that made my ears ring, she simply disappeared right before our eyes.

My father and I, alone in the room now, stared at each other in consternation.

“She comes and goes rather quickly,” he said, by way of observation.

“Yes, she does.”

“Are you frightened by the idea of going with her, Glori? You can still change your mind.”

“No,” I lied. “I’m not frightened by the idea.” I firmed my resolve and reminded myself of the long, long life that stretched ahead of me—as Drusilla warned, miserable and lonely for all eternity. “I suppose I have to do this.”

Another ringing sound filled the air and suddenly Drogheda appeared again in front of us.

“All done,” she said.

“So fast!” my father exclaimed, his eyes wide.

“It seems so only to you. I’ve actually been trying to convince him to agree for a full day now. I’m a Timeroamer, I might remind you.”

“Oh,” I said. “But you had to convince him?”

She shrugged. “Yes, but he’s resigned to it now.”

“Resigned?” I frowned at her, and she lifted one shoulder.

“He can be difficult. As I mentioned, his father and grandfather were both mortal,” she said, as if that explained it. “And his great-grandfather, my first consort, was a Woodland Fairy. Now. Are you ready to leave?”

I took a step backward, butterflies going to war inside my stomach. “So soon?”

“There’s no time like the present, is there?”

My father looked a bit alarmed and stepped toward Drogheda to take her by the arm. “He will return, won’t he?”

“Yes, once this thing is broken, he can return if he chooses. Glorfindel needs to stay until it’s gone though. Of course, there’s always a chance he may choose to stay in the mortal world with his new beloved once he finds him.”

My father cast me an alarmed look. I shook my head. “I wouldn’t. Not without speaking with you first.”

He looked relieved, but still visibly worried. “B-but he could come for visits, surely?”

She looked a bit dubious. “Yes, perhaps. If he can find a Timeroamer to bring him. My grandson might be persuaded.”

“Very well. Then you must go with Drogheda, and I mustn’t keep you here with my selfish concerns. Be strong and find your true love.” He came to wrap his arms around me, and I was surprisingly touched by the gesture, clinging to him perhaps a bit too long. My father had always seemed to me to be distant and uninvolved with his children’s lives, but he had also been the one constant in my life that I could always count on. I was suddenly loath to let him go.

He released me with a little pat on my back. “I’ll see you soon then. Go with Lady Drogheda now and find your happiness, Glori.”

Before I could say another word Lady Drogheda took my hand in hers. The world shimmered like pixie wings in the sun as soon as she touched me, and then it all fell suddenly away.