Page 41 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

Dragon Kidnaps Common Princess; Prince Refuses Quest!

Queen Annabeth and King Rupert are said to be recovering at a resort spa in the coastal village of Serenade-By-The-Sea following the unexpected refusal of Crown Prince Archibald to leave on his quest to rescue Common Princess Amber Smith from the clutches of the vile (and incredibly sexy) dragon who carried her off to his evil lair.

The prince first claimed his best horse foundered, but this paper has obtained information from the First Stableboy that the horse, a gray destrier named Champion, is healthy as any horse and has suffered no lameness.

The prince remains in the castle with the Captain of the Guard.

Are wedding bells soon to ring for the prince and his paramour? This paper says yes!

Council Set to Burn Witches Over Magical Snafu. Is Happily-Ever-After Dead? Juicy details on page four!

—The Sorcerer’s Star

A distant thud from the direction of the castle let Hector know Ida had reached it and that she was still in a towering temper. He turned and walked off in the direction of the bog garden.

This was his favorite place, and one he’d wanted to show Ida especially.

Here, a peace descended with the mist that brought him comfort on restless nights.

It had always brought him comfort on the nights when the belladonna failed to keep the insomnia away.

He loved to walk the paths he’d raised between the pools, where his tame mire imp might be snacking on stray Will-o-the-Wisps, to smell the skunk cabbages reeking, and listen to the fire-toads croaking in the mist. And he loved to gaze at the dangerous snapdragons devouring gnats, the ghost lilies floating on the water—here one minute and gone the next—and to hear the stray plop-fizz when a firewort shot off a volley into the murky water.

But he found no peace tonight as he made his way, a garden trowel in hand, to the lone tree on an island hidden in the middle of his sanctuary.

How could she be so foolish? He’d had his differences with her, which was understandable when he was wicked and she was good, but he’d always found it reassuring to have at least one person in the world who knew what he’d endured in the past. Granted, the Northern Mountains had never seen the kind of devastation he’d witnessed in what had once been the breadbasket of the kingdom, but still, she should remember how hard it had been waking up every morning knowing there was no breakfast, wondering if the smoke on the horizon was a charcoal burner taking advantage of a destroyed forest that some giant had knocked down or if it was a warlord’s army on the march and no one in his family would survive to eat dinner, if that existed anymore.

He could not—could not!—allow that to happen again.

Happily-Ever-After must be saved. The warning signs that the fractures were spreading were obvious even here, when he saw the tiny fruits swinging red and wrinkled on an apple tree that was just beginning to flower.

He knelt in the grass, parting it until he found the stone that marked where he needed to dig.

He didn’t have far to go. His shovel struck a box after only six inches of earth had been removed.

He knelt and carefully dug it out of the damp soil.

He didn’t need to open it, but he did anyway, fitting the silver key that he’d taken from the library desk drawer.

Inside, his heart beat, an organ darker than the velvet night settling over his castle.

He should have done this years ago—a thousand years ago to be precise.

Ida had clearly done away with hers, probably the day he’d sworn her in as a Cardinal Witch, or she’d have never been able to condemn an entire world to destruction just to salve her conscience.

The worst part was that the moment she’d said it—Happily-Ever-After was wrong—he’d actually wished she might be right.

That was pure selfishness—the selfishness of an eighteen-year-old boy holding a black rose seed and thinking that running away from home might have been a mistake after all.

His heart had helped him then, giving him the courage to face what he would have to do to preserve everything the world needed. But it was a hindrance now.

He filled in the hole.

The box, he carried back to the castle.

***

The next morning dawned misty, but by the time Hector led Ida into the foothills of the Dread Mountains, a sun as hot as summer could make it had baked the sky dry. He sweated under his robe as he took the lead onto the path that would take them to the Flamelord’s lair.

He hadn’t been this way in probably six hundred years—not on foot anyway.

But when he was younger, he’d hiked his way through these mountains, starting when he was an apprentice and his mentor sent him out for a six-month quest to discover the people who would be part of his life as their Wicked Witch.

He’d enjoyed it: meeting giants, making friends with the dragons, getting nearly seduced by an attractive chimera who seemed to know he liked men as well as women, and making the acquaintance of Adorphus, who strung him up by his toes for filching pickled eyeballs before deciding he wasn’t such a bad sort. ..for a human.

Ida hiked behind him, wearing a set of his boots she’d enchanted to fit her feet.

She’d not said a word to him that day except “good morning” and “did you pack an extra umbrella” since they’d left the castle.

Beside her, Tinbit led a furry goblin pony carrying their baggage—warmer clothes for the mountains mostly, but food as well, and Tinbit’s cooking gear.

Hari perched on top, looking much better but still pale.

Hector cleared his throat. “When we reach Wyrm’s Pass, we’ll call it a day. Sebastian is expecting us.”

“Oh, joy,” Tinbit said in a tone that implied he was anything but joyful about the prospect.

Ida said nothing, merely leaned on the spare staff he’d loaned her.

“Why is it called Wyrm’s Pass?” Hari asked.

“For the worms, of course,” Tinbit said. “Nasty things. They burrow under your skin and cause a horrible rash. Hector read about them in a book and thought they sounded fun.”

“I did not think they were fun. They sounded like a good, solid obstacle for questing knights. It’s important a man face his own mortality with a good case of uncontrollable itching.

So much more useful in building character than slaying the blind worms who used to live here.

Extinct long ago. The king used to send his knights to fight them for sport. That’s royalty for you.”

Ida’s shoulders went up an inch.

“How long to reach the dragons?” Hari asked.

“We should reach the Flamelord’s home tomorrow evening.

After that, I don’t know. It will depend on whether Alistair told his parents anything about his lair.

His mother at least will have some idea of where it is.

It may not be accessible by foot. Dragons fly from cave to cave far more than they walk.

His parents may need to give us a ride.” Not exactly something he was looking forward to, either. Dragons were not for riding.

Ida said nothing.

Hector glanced over his shoulder and caught Tinbit’s curious look.

He faced front again, squaring up to the task ahead of them.

The less the gnome knew about his falling out with Ida, the better.

He’d been worried Cear might ask, but since they’d set out, the salamander had not left their firepot.

“We’ll get an early start in the morning, as long as I can convince Sebastian not to make a big deal over our visit.

He’s prone to going overboard for things like this, and—”

“You rang?”

Ida yelped as a head popped up next to her elbow.

The grotesque thing turned toward her with a grin. “Her Goodness, Ida North! My, my, this is an unexpected pleasure. Shall I put on a spider pie and a cup of mud for you both? Delighted, delighted—”

Hector shut him up with a well-placed cork.

The ghoul spat it out and glared at him. “That was uncalled for, you mean thing.”

“So was spider pie and a cup of mud. All I require are rooms for the night. No spider pie. No mud. And no popping out of the sheets as a cut up corpse. We’re here on business, not pleasure, Sebastian.”

“After the prodigal dragon, are we?” Sebastian grinned and rolled his bloodshot eyes.

“What makes you say that?”

Sebastian popped his eyes out at Hector.

“Why, it’s all over the papers. Didn’t you hear?

” He manifested a pair of bony arms and put on a horrible, cracked voice like a crystal ball broadcast when the magical connection was a bit staticky.

“Dragon Kidnaps Common Princess; Prince Refuses Quest. Council Set to Burn Witches Over Magical Snafu. Is Happily-Ever-After Dead? Details on page four!” He cackled and his teeth clattered to the ground.

“That’s disgusting.” Ida shuddered.

“Oh, do you really think so?” Sebastian’s eyes leaked tears. “How nice of you to say that. Isn’t that nice, Tinbit? You’re never nice to me.”

“That’s because you’re a total ass, Sebastian,” Tinbit growled.

“Takes one to know one, Tinhorn.” The head floated up over the goblin pony and circled like a bat, complete with wings where ears should be. “Who’s the cutie in the baggage? I approve, I really do. Much better looking than the last clotheshorse you were with.”

“Shut up.” Tinbit picked up a rock.

Sebastian stuck out his tongue and waved it around. “Oooooo, look who’s talking, the guy who can’t close it with anyone, not even if they come ready-packed in a casket. Does your sweetheart know all about your past romances? No? Dear me.”

“You’re asking for it!”

“Enough,” Hector said, pulling another cork out of the air and holding it up as a warning. “See that our rooms are ready. No booby traps.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” Sebastian fluttered his eyelashes at Ida. “I’m sure the lady would love to see how beautifully I haunt.”

“No.”

“One tiny booby trap? I promise no one will die! No one will even be maimed, only terrified.”

“Sebastian.” Hector raised his staff.

“Fine.” The ghoul popped out of existence. “I’ll go turn down the bedsheets and hold the flesh-eating beetles. Poo.” Then the voice was gone too, and all that remained was the goblin pony’s exasperated huff.

“Flesh-eating beetles?” Ida said, and for a moment, she sounded almost like herself.

“He doesn’t get a lot of visitors, except for questing knights,” he explained. “The ones that get this far usually deserve the beetles.”

“Naturally,” she said with frost in her voice. “Just another one of your servants, I suppose, doing your bidding because you say it’s the right thing to do?”

Tinbit almost choked.

“He isn’t my servant,” Hector said. “Sebastian needed a place to live. His house burned down in town and left him half the ghoul he used to be. Somewhat literally.” He turned his back on her and resumed walking.

Servants indeed. He’d never felt angrier in his life, and it wasn’t his sore feet.

Didn’t she know how hard he’d worked to improve the lives of the people under his protection?

He ought to throw something back at her—something about how her whole “Save the Unicorns” campaign had worked out—but he didn’t want to get into a yelling match with her in a mountain pass where every one of their arguments would be broadcast from rocks and cliff faces for the entire Dread Mountains to hear, let alone a salamander snoozing in a firepot.

But underneath the anger, a tremor, like the voice of his eighteen-year-old self, manifested itself with horrible clarity—yes, he had indeed thought it was right.

It was right that the dragons stopped cooking and eating knights and had contracted with the goblins to raise cattle in the mountain valleys.

To pay for that, the dragons looted every dwarf mansion in the Dread Mountains.

In protest, the dwarves moved north and eradicated the dragons there. Was that right?

What about the giants? Hector had found their hearts to be gentle, and he’d encouraged them to cultivate their skyfields and be the peaceful people he knew they could be.

Then he’d had to erect a massive wasteland of thorns around the mountain roads that led into the clouds because the more cowardly of the king’s knights chose giants for their quests to prove their valor. Catch and release, but still.

Then there was Tinbit, who had once been like any other gnome, but now—

Hector gripped his staff firmly, stomping ahead faster than before.

He’d never questioned his motives before.

He’d never questioned Happily-Ever-After.

The thing was done, and for the best, and it shouldn’t matter that he’d traded life, love, and happiness for the chance to make things better.

Tucked in the folds of his too-warm robe, his heart thudded unhappily in the box.

It would be a relief to be free of this ridiculous feeling that Ida truly might be right about things after all.