The Fisherman's Daughter (5 page)

He gazes upon her face, but then he cries out in agony. A hand has reached around his breast and plunged a dagger into it, and he slumps back.

Meiri shrieks.

A third elf, taller than the other two, with snowy blond hair, releases the corpse and lets him fall to the ground. “He—” He catches his breath as his eyes fasten upon her, and he smiles ever so faintly. “He was uncouth and will trouble you no more.”

“Prince Kaladan.” The brown-haired elf eyes the blond with concern. “Are you… yourself?”

The prince smiles. “Of course.” He steps back from her after what seems like a moment’s hesitation, but when he does, the other relaxes.

Meiri tenses, stunned by what she just saw.
He murdered him!

“Your father will not be happy,” the brown-haired one says. “He fastened upon her, that is clear, but exile—”

“He would never accept exile
as
saldaka
,” the prince replies. “You know this. Execution was a mercy.”

Not murder then. A crime? What kind of crime?
She holds her breath, realizing that she cannot begin to understand the beautiful creatures in front of her. Elven ways are foreign beyond human comprehension.
But they’re so… pretty.

“I’m glad we were strong enough to resist, my prince. But you exceed your authority. Only the Archmage may put an elf to death.”

Kaladan continues to smile as he shakes his head slightly. “I don’t think so.” He reaches out his hand, and Meiri finds herself taking it. His touch electrifies her, and her heart quickens.

“Come, my dear,” the prince says. “In apology for my cousin’s gruff behavior, I will bring you to look upon our city.”

“Is that wise?” the other challenges. “You are the Archmage’s
son
, not the Archmage himself.”

The prince shoots a glance at the other. “Now you overstep yours.”

The other falls silent.

Meiri wants to run—
No more magic!—
but the chance to see the elven city? Invited by the sidhe prince himself? No other way could be safer.

“You cannot take her,” one of the shamans calls out. “It is not your way. Take us.
We
have served you,
we
have waited,
we
have—”

“And you have ruined your beauty with your poison,” the prince replies. “You will not see us again.”

She trembles in fear and allows herself to be led by the prince away from the drugged shamans.

Still holding her hand, Prince Kaladan lightly touches one of the tree trunks. The world suddenly shifts, and it feels like she’s being pulled with him into the tree itself. Her body and mind twist, sucked in through a magical current, and then the two of them are standing high in one of the tree branches.

Meiri gasps. “Did we just—?”

“Treejumping,” he says. “Through trunk and root, branch and leaf. It is the elven way to touch a tree in a place to reappear out of that tree in another place. Since trees aren’t connected, treepaths are broken between them. Between the treetops, we’ll move by foot. I’ll have to carry you.”

He lifts her in his arms, cradling her as if she were no heavier than a newborn. She rests her head on his shoulder, arms around his neck, breathing in the scent of pine that clings to his hair.

“Hold tight,” he says, and he runs forward along the limb to its thin leafy extent, far beyond what should be able to support his weight.

Meiri shrieks and clutches him, and he launches through the air, landing on the outstretched leaves of the next tree. They’re pulled again through the wood to the tree’s opposite extent, and then he leaps again.

As they’re pulled through the wood—she can’t grasp how their bodies can twist and become smaller than the limbs, long and narrow as if they were yarn drawn by a knitting needle, but she’s sure that’s just what is happening—she realizes she can still see. She experiences the rushing sensation of speed, and soon it feels like they are soaring through the woods as the treejumping and leaping between treetops blurs together in her mind.

She knows not how long they travel, but it is over too soon. For the first time since her father died, she feels safe, cradled in the elf’s arms. Prince Kaladan loosens his hold and lets her down on the ground. His fingers linger for a moment on the backs of her hands before he releases her.

They step off the tree into a rock outcropping. The prince’s brown-haired companion appears beside them, concern on his face. “No closer,” he urges. “One look, but no closer. You know this.”

“Look,” Kaladan says, ignoring the other elf. He points over Meiri’s shoulder, and she turns around to follow his lead.

She gasps, and its as if her world stills. Everything she thought she knew before is now insignificant. The world is bigger than the human lands, and she wants only to contemplate this beauty in humility.

Sun spills over a city the likes of which she has never seen. Fairholm is nothing to this splendor. Fairholm’s brick buildings rise at the highest three or four stories tall, and their towers only double that. The elves build narrow and high. Their towers are slender perfectly round cylinders, and bundled close together as if great reeds of wood and living metal had grown out of the ground. And glass! She has never seen so pure or so much glass as what is at the great entrance halls at the bases of the towers, some archways spanning over thirty feet high.

Each tower appears as polished wood, with veins of silver and gold flowing through its walls. Within the wood surfaces between the metallic veins are sparkling amethysts, deep and rich. Large purple crystals float atop each tower’s spire, reflecting sunlight down into the cylindrical hollow interiors to bathe courtyard gardens. A network of delicate bridges connects the towers at all levels, and she wonders that someone might live their whole life in the city without setting foot on the ground.

The elf reminds the prince, “It is time. We must return her to her world.”

The prince considers, and he frowns slightly. “Perhaps you are right.”

“No!” Meiri protests, surprised by her own words.
I feel safe with you! They can’t hurt me here. It’s been too long since I’ve felt safe!
Instead, she says, “You brought me this far. I can’t go back to that world now that I’ve seen what is possible in yours.”

Kaladan smiles. “It shall be as you say.”

“My prince!” the other protests. “You risk every sidhe who’s not an elder fastening upon her. Would you execute or exile half the city as
saldaka
?”

Kaladan turns to the other, eyes narrowing.

The brown-haired elf continues. “Are you sure, Highness, that you are yourself?”

Kaladan appears to consider this. He looks at Meiri for a long time with intensity.

“You could hide her,” he whispers to his prince. “Outside the city, far away from here. You could visit her, and no one would know.”

Prince Kaladan’s face darkens. “To be
saldaka
means exile or death. To imply your prince might have fastened is treason.”

The elf’s face pales.

“And treason,” Kaladan continues, “is punishable by death.”

Meiri allows herself to tremble. She doesn’t fully understand what’s going on between them, but she’s starting to see. “He will keep us apart,” she says.

Kaladan nods curtly and hands his knife to the other elf.

“Don’t make me do this,” the other pleads.

“You must. You chose this when you gave words to what you see.” The prince’s lips narrow. “Do it.”

The elf closes his eyes. “The love of wisdom is the greatest beauty,” he says before he plunges the dagger into his heart. He gasps and falls off the rock ledge onto the ground.

Shit!
she thinks, managing to keep her thoughts hidden behind a gasp.
What—how—what just happened?

“The love of wisdom
was
the greatest beauty,” Kaladan answers the now-dead elf. Then he takes her hand. “I will show you the city, but he was right. We must be careful. Do you trust me?”

No.
Meiri thought.
Maybe?
The realization that she had the power to make him order his subject to kill himself frightens her, even as it is intoxicating. But what else can she say? What will he do to her if she pulls away now? “Yes.”

He smiles. “I am one of the High Court. I can get you into the city unnoticed. There are magic pathways open to me and few others.” He withdraws a medallion from beneath his shirt. A smooth amethyst, polished without facets in the shape of a teardrop, rests in a bed of gold. He whispers a word in a liquid tongue whose syllables slide through her ears and pass away, and kisses the stone.

A glimmer of light passes over her eyes, and then the forest and ledge overlooking the city disappears. She stands with her prince inside a bedchamber, with gold- and silver-veined walls just like on the outside.

Silk finery like she’s never seen canopies a bed in swaying curtains. Through a window she sees neighboring towers and the golden-spun bridges with rails so fine they might have been cast by eldritch spiders.

She rushes to the window to take in the city’s splendor. “The elven city!” she cries aloud in glee. She’s gazing upon a sight no human has seen. In her excitement, she forgets herself. “I can’t believe I’m here! I want to go out in it.”

“Maybe someday soon,” Prince Kaladan says. “It is not safe for you out there yet. Give me time. Will you wait in here for me?” He puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close. She leans back into his embrace and closes her eyes, smelling the pine in his hair. The troubles of the human lands seem so far away. Almost inconsequential.

“Yes,” she murmurs.

“I will send a servant to tend your needs when I am gone,” he says. “But do not worry. He is loyal to me and has not yet quickened, so he will not be a danger to you.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means he is too young to love. He cannot desire you as I do.”

Her heart beats faster at those words. “Desire…” she whispers. She feels that she could just melt into his strength.

Prince Kaladan leans his head down, and she feels the heat of his lips close to her ear. “I am your servant.” He reaches his fingers to her face and traces them over her scars. “I have never seen such beauty in this city as you.”

Suddenly he releases her. She turns around, and he’s backing away, as if surprised at himself. “What have you done to me? We’re in grave danger. Do not leave this chamber. I must make arrangements.”

Without another word, he departs, leaving her as alone as a songbird in a gilded cage.

“I’ve become a slave again,” she says to the empty room.
Of a different sort.

But she wonders who is more the slave. She, or the prince?

True to his word, the prince sends a servant to tend her needs. Tomoril brings her food and fresh clothes, and even draws a bath. He lays a clean gown and slippers out for her and erects a privacy screen around the tub before waiting quietly in the foyer. She hesitates, expecting him to leave the room, but he does not.

She peeks around the screen, but he’s standing in the small foyer, out of sight. She slides her clothes off, acutely aware of the air on her skin and how close Tomoril is nearby, though she cannot hear him.

Stepping into the tub, she blushes at bathing in the same room, with him so close, but he makes no effort to violate her privacy. The prince had said he was too young to feel love or desire, but to her eyes she cannot distinguish the age difference, and elf or not he is still a man. She wonders if all elves are equally beautiful.

She relaxes into the luxury of the bath, and nearly an hour passes before she emerges. After drying herself with a thick towel made of fabric so fluffy and soft she can hardly believe it possible, she slips into the elven gown, which somehow fits perfectly. She rubs her fingers over the sleeve’s hem, feeling its softness and hopes she never has to return to her old life.

When the prince returns that evening, Tomoril serves them dinner at a small table by the window. He pours wine and returns to stand near the entryway. She remembers her own time serving lords at dinner, but this feels different to her. The way the prince thanks him with an appreciative glance when wine is poured and food is served sets them worlds apart from the treatment she received from Lord Keeva.

“Tell me your story,” Prince Kaladan says. “Tell me how you came to be in my forest.”

Meiri starts with the last fishing trip with her father. The prince’s eyes grow dark when she tells of his death and her captivity. He becomes intensely interested over her description of the sanctuary home and the bone castle on its horizon.

“It has been said,” he murmurs, “that the humans of Artalon already tease powers that should be left unstirred. The Shining Court of Haranath warns they could upset the gods themselves if they’re not careful. Some Courts contemplate taking Artalon and casting out the human wizards there.”

“What Court are you?” she asks.

“Sutonia is the High Court. There are nine Courts in the Imperium.”

“It’s so beautiful here.”

Prince Kaladan smiles. “Sidhe revere beauty above all else. The High Court believes that love of wisdom is the greatest beauty, but…”

“But?”

He reaches forward and pours her more wine. “You are dangerous to us. That humanity can hold such beauty as you will challenge what it means to be an elf.”

She blushes.

He stands. “It is time I retire. My apartments are yours during your stay here, and I will not be far away.”

She rises from the chair, and he takes her hand, holding the ridges of her fingers to his lips. He lingers, and then lightly kisses, sending fire up her arms and down her sides.

He turns to leave, but as he reaches for the door she calls out to him. “Wait.”

He pauses. His hands hover in the air towards the door handle, twitching as if he fights an internal war against himself.

She wants to test him. There’s something else going on here other than a man’s interest in a woman. She’s not so naive that she believes an elf prince would throw everything away for her, a peasant slave girl with a ruined face. He spoke strange words, of “fastening” and “quickening.” She knows she’s his prisoner, but she senses he’s bonded to her somehow. She wants to test how far she can push him.