Shayera

I do not know why turning nineteen stirred my blood and enflamed my passions the way it did. I was restless and edgy on my birthday. I remembered another time, when I’d turned nine. Those same feelings had haunted me then, and I understood on a very basic level that something momentous—portentous, even—was going to happen to me that day. I just wished I knew what.

Mama and Papa hadn’t wanted Danika to throw me the ball, and they especially didn’t want to allow just anyone to attend. I knew why, of course.

They didn’t want the gawkers, the busybodies, the nosy so-and-sos who came just to catch a glimpse of the siren, cursed no more, who lived amongst them. I’d become a bit of a legend in those parts, and even though I was freed of the curse, Mama and Papa were as vigilant as ever to keep me safe.

I didn’t mind, though. After years of isolation, I found I no longer had the stomach for adventure that I once had. The world seemed so much bigger and scarier, and I wasn’t sure of my place in it. What I’d gone through as a little girl had forever altered my concepts of good and bad, and the truth was, I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to leave the safety of the only life I’d known for the decade before.

A hand clapped against the doorframe to my room. I gasped, startled, and scooted around on my stool to note Papa standing there. He looked handsome as ever, dressed in his trousers and silky burgundy-wine vest, with his dark hair combed back.

I smiled.

“Oh, my petite papillon.” He breathed audibly and clutched at his chest. A definite sheen of wetness glazed his dark-blue eyes. “You are lovely.”

I brushed at my gown with cold fingertips, running them along the seam of the silky-green-corseted waist. “Do I look well, then?”

Danika had left me the gown on my bed this morning with a note that read, “Happy birthday, girl of my heart. May it be the best you’ve ever known...”

The sentence had been innocuous enough but—and maybe it was simply a product of my own nerves—there’d seemed to be a message hidden in it that I wasn’t quite smart enough to grasp yet.

The gown was, of course, magic. The moment I’d put it on, I felt myself transformed, different, even more mature-looking. My skin looked dewy—not glowy like a siren’s, but radiant all the same. My eyes looked big in my face, and I almost couldn’t recognize the woman who stared back at me in my dressing room mirror. When I moved, the gown appeared to change color, from a bright jeweled-green to a richer shade of forest-green. It was lovely, and in turn it made me feel lovely. The second I’d buttoned up the last button, a golden necklace with a dangling stone of veritas in the shape of a heart had appeared around my neck. The stone was cold to the touch and a pretty shade of navy blue with glittering threads of twinkling silver stars inside.

It was said that when two like hearts met and fell in love, the stones would blaze the color of true love and twine two hearts to one—not just hearts, but souls, so that no matter the time or distance between the lovers, they would always feel and know one another deep within the very darkest centers of their beings.

The stories were nice, but I wasn’t sure I completely bought into them, either. Sharing one heart and one soul didn’t sound plausible to me or even all that attractive, really. What happened if ten years down the road you realized you were no longer compatible? What if the magic stuck you with someone who was cruel and terrible? Was there no free will? No say at all in your future? Then what? You were stuck together because a pair of stones forced you to be?

I shuddered. No, thank you.

Besides, Mama and Papa were deliriously in love and they’d never needed the stones to make them so. I was pretty certain the stones were nothing more than a myth, and little else.

Still, it was a birthday present, and rather pretty at that. I patted the skin-warmed stone with my fingertips.

Mama joined us just then and pinned a rose blossom behind her ear. She looked flushed and hurried, but stopped the moment she saw me and gasped. “Shayera, oh my gods,” she whispered. Where Papa’s words were complimentary, Mama’s voice suddenly cracked and tears spilled out her eyes. “Oh, shoot. Darn it.” She huffed, swiping at her cheeks almost angrily. “Now, I’m gonna have to redo my make-up,” she lamented.

But Papa wrapped her up in his big strong arms and murmured into her ear, brushing his fingers through her long brown hair as he stroked her calm again.

My heart swelled at watching that stolen moment of undeniable love burning between my parents. Even after all those years, their passion was still just as palpable as ever.

That was the kind of love I wanted someday. Not a love destined by silly magic and fairy tales, but a love that would rewrite the books, a love that rivaled that of any happily-ever-after the fairies could ever pen for Kingdom.

I wasn’t sure I could ever find that, not with my affliction. I could hold hands now and touch a male without running the risk of him wanting to rape me, and that was everything. But every night I’d have to take off the charm, and then the dark curse was still just as powerful as ever. No human adult could resist it.

No, it was far better to flirt and have a bit of harmless fun and never, ever allow my heart to become entangled with anyone else’s. I’d only be setting myself up for heartache and pain in the end.

So on my birthday, I would dance, drink, and be merry, and I would absolutely stop thinking about happily-ever-afters.

I looked back at the mirror, pretending to be busy still getting myself ready as I pinned my hair up high, allowing a few fat curls to frame my face. I did it mostly just to give my mother time to gather herself again, which she did only a few minutes later.

Knuckling another tear from her eye, she sniffed. “I’m sorry, love. It’s just that you’re so beautiful and I can’t imagine how anyone could resist you.”

Turning in my seat, I looked at my mother with a soft turn of my lips. “I’m not going anywhere, Mama. You know this.”

Visibly swallowing hard, she nodded before giving me a clearly forced smile and pinching the corners of her eyes. “You never know who you might meet this day.” She blinked.

I glanced at Papa, but he’d looked away.

What are they hiding? “Do you know something?” I asked softly. My heart felt as though it had suddenly stopped beating. I was breathless, and my skin felt clammy to the touch. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Papa grunted, took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but Mama gently placed a hand on his chest and shook her head. “I’ll tell her.”

My heart felt like it’d kicked into overdrive. It raced out of control, making me feel like it wanted to tear free of its cage. My stomach dove to my knees. “Mama?”

Papa glowered, nodded once, and then walked off. I knew he was mad. For days they’d been acting off, smiling at me and showing me the same kind of love as always, but still something had been off, as though they were trying too hard to make me think everything was all right.

Mama squared her shoulders. “Truth is, baby doll, all of the realms are invited to this ball.”

My brows dipped. I’d already known that. So had they. “I’m not understanding why that’s such a pro—”

She inhaled deeply, brown eyes looking worried. “When I say all, Shay, I mean everyone. Good and otherwise.”

“You mean villains?” I laughed. Surely, I didn’t understand her. “Mother, you know the books call Father a villain, and he’s not at all.”

She stomped her foot, glaring at me and instantly my laughter died on my tongue. Mama never got like this with me. “This is serious, Shayera. It seems no matter how much I wish this night wouldn’t happen, it happens anyway. None can be barred from a fairy ball. And though the rules are rigid and all must be on their very best behavior to attend, the fact of the matter is the invite unequivocally extends to all. The Man in Black might sh-sh-show.” She stumbled over her words. “I doubt he could stay away even if I begged him to.” She said the last in a whisper, but I still heard.

My heart beat at a punishing and bruising pace inside me.

“You must remain on guard. You must—”

But I’d stopped listening after she’d said “Man in Black,” because a memory long forgotten but never eradicated suddenly blazed like a flame in my mind. The day after my ninth birthday, on the beach, a male’s throat had been ripped out by a monster—a monster with red glowing eyes, bronze-hued blond hair, and the face of a saint but the body of a devil. He’d looked wild and crazed with fury and rage as he’d hovered over me.

What had terrified me as a child suddenly felt transformed as a woman. He’d been magnificently powerful and awe-inspiring. Even now, even to this day, I still dreamt of his ghostly voice echoing through time and space.

Carrots...

Why had he said that word? Had it been me he’d been calling that name? I bit my bottom lip. Whoever it had been directed to, I could still remember the tremor in it, the sound of absolutely desperate heartache and pain that’d reverberated through it so keenly it’d brought tears to a little nine year old’s eyes.

“Are you listening?” Mama said.

And I jerked, because, no. No, I hadn’t been. I looked up at her guiltily, but it wasn’t her eyes I saw, it was his red ones, with fire burning at their centers.

She sighed. “Be on your guard tonight, sweetheart. That’s all I ask. Don’t let any man get fresh with you. You are a powerful and intelligent young woman, remember that. And should you see the Man in Black, just be careful. I’m not ready yet, Shayera. I’m not ready.”

Why would a man as powerful as she claimed him to be care about someone as unimportant as me? Because I was a siren?

My powers were muted down to nearly nothing. I doubted very much I could even affect a sheep at the moment, let alone a powerful darkness such as he. And ready for what?

“Ready for wh—” I said, but Mama held up her hand, cutting off my words.

“Listen to me in this, Shayera. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t ask a ton of questions right now, because I don’t have the heart for it. Just know I love you. I’ve always loved you. For your father and me, though we probably didn’t make all the right decisions, love was always the dominant emotion. Please, just remember that.”

Then she swiftly turned on her heel and marched away, leaving me to stare wide-eyed and confused at the empty space she’d just occupied. I wouldn’t lie. The Man in Black scared me, but not for the reasons any sane person might think.

Throughout my years, the Man in Black had become my family’s version of the bogeyman, only ever to be whispered about, discussed in hushed tones in the privacy of our home, and never, ever referred to by name. After all these years, I still had no idea who he really was.

Why did my mother care that I loved them still? What were they hiding from me?

I got up from my stool, but my footsteps felt leaden as I followed in my parents’ wake, down the steps, and to the waiting coach outside.

All my family was already inside. Briley stared out the window with a happy smile on his face. Uncle Kelly sat holding onto his girlfriend’s hands. Mama and Papa sat opposite them. Mama patted the empty space beside her. Her mouth was pinched.

I sat.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “I’m just not... I don’t know how... You just don’t understand, and it’s not your fault, sweet girl. Please forgive me.”

I hugged her tightly. “Of course I do, Mama.”

And I did, but as we rode the rest of the way in silence toward the fairy ball, the only thing I could think of was a pair of fiery-red eyes.

~*~

HE WASN’T THERE.

For two hours, I’d roamed aimlessly down the winding halls of the massive castle, which Danika and her fairy cohorts had transformed into a maze of wonders.

Each room was decorated with over-the-top magic. One room, the dance room, literally dripped with gold, with golden chandeliers lit up by the wings of thousands of fiery golden gossamer fairy wings, and golden-wax candles with golden-jeweled flames hovered above our heads. There were golden-chain-armor statues that walked about, dancing with partnerless dancers. An orchestra band, comprised of blazing golden men with their golden instruments, filled the room with golden rays of sunshine and the scent of goldenrod flowers. Golden flowers upon golden vines roped along the cracks and crevices of the stone facades. It was a fantasy come to glorious life.

In another room was a garden of such Wonderlandian wonders that it defied expectation. There were the usual singing flowers and flying rocking-horse flies buzzing about. But the room was a living mural of the sunset, with clouds fluttering about that looked like pastel-spun sugar delights. A table was filled with some of Alice’s most adventurous creations, including a miniature-dragon cake that bellowed and roared as it traipsed along the table roasting the marshmallow soldiers that tried to take it down.

There were flowers that were butterflies and butterflies that were flowers, and a miniature lake with a crooning toad that sang “Come Fly with Me” as couples twirled and danced around it.

The banquet room was also a marvel of wonder and magic. The moment I sat down, whatever my heart desired was literally made manifest before me. Baked Alaska with sizzling red flames, turtledove stew, trifle with black truffles and cherry cordial, and Zeus’s golden apples—though they weren’t real, since it was a crime to steal from the God of Thunder, they were designed to appear that way and tasted like the most delicious and crispest apple one could ever hope to eat. On and on the list went. No matter how strange or bizarre, the fairy tables could make it all happen.

We’d eaten for over an hour straight and hadn’t come close to making a dent in the food. There was always more of it, a mountain of it there for the taking.

It was the same in all of the magical, delightful rooms, but I couldn’t stop from feeling like none of it mattered anymore. I’d been greeted and kissed on my cheeks a thousand and one times by people I hardly knew, and now I was just ready to go home, tear off this ridiculous gown, crawl into bed, and cry like a baby.

I rubbed at my chest.

I knew none of these people, and though I received a plethora of compliments on my gown, my hair, and my beauty, it all felt fake and ludicrous to me.

I’d made the day into something it couldn’t possibly have lived up to, and I had no one to blame for the letdown but me. Danika came for me at one point and looked me up and down with a hard, calculating glare before sighing deeply, shaking her head, and walking off without saying a word.

I didn’t know why that hurt me. But it did. I felt lost, adrift, and hopelessly unhappy, though I had absolutely anything a girl like me should want. She’d done so much for me, and I was being bloody ungrateful about it all. But any time I tried to force a smile onto my lips, I felt deceitful, so I would just as quickly lose it.

I heard the music shifting in the ballroom and trailed my fingers along the corrugated-stone walls as I made my way back there, in no real hurry to get anywhere.

Once I entered the doorway, I was yanked forward rather unceremoniously by a pair of slender, ivory hands.

“Blast it, girl,” Danika crooned in her shivery drawl. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking high and low for you. It’s time for your birthday dance.”

I wrinkled my nose as we slowly wound our way toward the center of the room, bumping into one couple after another. The dance floor wasn’t made of wooden boards, but interwoven living tree roots, spongy moss, and ivory-white baby’s breath.

I dug my bare feet into the squishy, yet pleasing, carpet of moss and tried to get Danika to release me.

For such a small thing she was surprisingly strong. “Non,” she hissed at me, even as she tossed a smile toward those clapping and cheering wildly and congratulating me on turning nineteen. It felt as if I’d accomplished something of great importance, but I’d merely not died. “It is tradition and you will dance, you silly, willful, lovely girl.”

And just like that, I was in the center, and a snake of writhing vines lowered toward my head. I grimaced, looking up and wondering what in the bloody blazes it  could be, when I noticed the ugly white berries and long green leaves shooting from out the stems.

“Mistletoe!” I grumped, glaring at Danika. She’d better not do what I think she’s going to do.

She just gave me one of her saccharine-sweet smiles and clapped her hands, clearly using magic as she did, because the sound boomed like thunder in the great hall. “The birthday girl, ladies and gentlemen!” she said.

My face bloomed scarlet the instant I felt the press of all eyes—easily over five hundred of them—turn toward me. Their applause deafened me, and I swallowed hard, running my fingers over my nulling-ring charm.

“Say hi, love,” she directed, elbowing me in the gut.

I grunted, cleared my throat, and tried again to smile.

I guess I must have looked ridiculous, so I waved, which felt doubly silly. But it must have been the right thing, because everyone proceeded to cheer and yell even louder.

From the corner of my eye I saw Mama, Papa, and Briley waving at me. I felt as though I was trapped in a terrible nightmare. Any moment I thought I would look down at myself and find that I was naked and that they weren’t cheering, but jeering.

I pinched myself. And jumped. “Bloody hell, that hurt,” I griped.

“Who wants to dance with the birthday girl?” Danika cried. “Seven years’ good luck.”

A wave of hands shot up into the air and my heart felt as though it’d sunk into my belly. I moaned, clutched at my middle, and shook my head. “That’s not at all the tru—”

“You there!” Danika pointed at someone in the crowd, and I was so sure it was Briley, because my fairy godmother couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to pair me with a stranger.

But no, the male who came running toward me with a pleased and happy look on his face was not at all my cousin.

“Danika, Danika,” I hissed below my breath. “What are you doing? You know I don’t like men to get too close to me. I can’t, I don’t want—”

At this, my buzzy little friend twirled and clutched at my arms. Her gaze was steady and solid, and it soothed me. The fear I’d been feeling was replaced by a wave of calm. “Someday, my dear, you will understand all of what I’m doing. Believe me when I say that I do this for you. For your happiness. Your joy. It is the only way to make that asinine male act and the only way to force your parents to accept the fated truth.”

“What?” I blinked. None of that made sense to me. “What male? ‘Fated truth?’”

She hugged me tightly and pressed her lips to my ear, whispering in a low voice, “The male who comes to you now is of no significance, but he has a good heart and would never seek to harm you. Enjoy your dance and do as your heart commands you do. Follow its lead, as it will never guide you astray.” Then she kissed my cheek hard, gave me a gentle push, and vanished in a plume of pink smoke and dazzling glittering light.

I crashed right into the waiting arms of a perfect stranger. At first, I went completely still, terrified and almost hyperventilating with fear. I’d not been touched by a male who wasn’t family since that day on the beach. I waited for his face to contort and for the madness to take him, that didn’t happen. The magic of the charm held true.

Instead of turning into some kind of crazed animal, he smiled sweetly down at me. “My name is Donal.” His high-pitched voice was soft and sweet. His eyes were a rich shade of brown, and his hair was a thousand different shades of blond. He had a nice face. And he kept his distance from me, only holding onto my elbows with the very lightest of grips.

Somehow, and without my realizing it, we began to sway to the soft stringed music.

I said nothing for what felt like an eternity, though I eyed him warily. But with each second that he did nothing untoward, I found myself beginning to ease a little.

He had a smattering of thick freckles all over his face, which I noticed when he smiled again and showed a pleasing set of perfectly white teeth. That time, I found myself smiling back.

“You are very pretty tonight, Shayera,” he said softly.

I blinked. He said my name with such familiarity, as though he’d seen me around before, though I knew it wasn’t so. I’d have remembered him. I’d have remembered any male.

“Th-th-thank you,” I whispered.

He nodded and then twirled me, his movements easy and graceful, and again I found myself relaxing more and more. By the middle of the song, I was actually starting to enjoy myself.

“I’m the blacksmith,” he said. “Never thought I’d get a chance to dance with a—”

“Siren?” I hissed, feeling my hackles rise again just after I’d finally begun to settle down and enjoy myself.

He frowned, thick brows lowering over his halfway pretty eyes. “I was going to say ‘princess.’ Why would you think otherwise?”

My mind went blank. He thinks I’m a princess? “I am no princess. Just a simple lass from our hamlet. Nothing special.”

He chuckled, and again I liked the lilt of it. “The fairies do not throw a ball of such magnitude for just anyone. Surely, you know that. You are special to them, and that makes you a princess in my eyes.” His voice was pleasing to my ears— nothing that made my heart race or my pulse throb, but he was the first male outside of my family whose company I actually enjoyed. It was a novel concept for me.

My lips quivered as I fought a grin. “Oh. Well. I-I-I guess if you want to see it that way.”

“I do.” He nodded.

“But really, I’m just a country girl, I still can’t understand why my godmother went to such a hassle over me.”

“Because you matter, Shayera. Somehow you matter deeply to her.”

My brows dipped. I had never thought of it that way. This had all seemed ostentatious and completely over the top to me, but it was possible that Donal was right, that I mattered deeply to Danika, and that she’d thrown such an incredible ball for me because of it.

So why had she vanished just now? Shouldn’t she want to hang around and watch the start of what I’m sure she believes to be the beginning of my happily-ever-after?

Donal pulled me in closer to his body, molding my form to his so that very little room existed between us. I was startled and very nearly asked him to release me, but when I looked up at him I noted that his eyes were closed and there was a soft smile gracing his full lips as he hummed softly beneath his breath. He was simply enjoying the music.

I sighed. This was really quite nice. And before I knew it, the music had begun to near its end. I was actually a little sad for it to stop. I was just about to ask Donal if he’d care to dance another song with me when I caught him looking at me with the type of look I’d often seen in Papa’s eyes when he looked at Mama.

My heart, which had steadied to a gentle rhythm, was banging around in my chest again. My mouth went suddenly dry.

Donal lowered his head. He was going to kiss me.

Do I want that? Before the dance I would have said no, and I might have kneed him in the nethers if he’d tried. But Donal had been sweet and patient, and... and I weirdly liked him. He was nice.

I made my decision and closed my eyes. His lips met mine only a second later.

It was nothing like what the man at the beach had done to me. There was no pain, no nipping or sucking. There was also no fire or heat. I saw the way my mother’s body would go pliant and soft in Papa’s arms when he’d kiss her and heard the moans they thought they hid behind closed doors at night. I felt none of that spark, only the pressure of soft lips upon mine.

Even so, when he pulled back I let out the softest of sighs. For a first kiss it could have been worse.

I smiled. And so did Donal. Then I felt something. A pressing. A glaring. That shiver-inducing feeling one gets when she senses herself being watched. I looked up and spied a pair of glittering, hateful, ice-blue eyes locked in on me.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that the hard and cruel-looking man, dressed in nothing but black and staring at me, was my bogeyman.

As I looked, I studied, absorbing his features in an instant, including the cruel slash of his thick, supple lips, his square jaw and patrician nose. He looked regal and aloof, that man who’d stood over me, looking wild and foreign, when I was a child. Dear goddess above, my body began to hum and tingle and burn.

There he is...

A voice, clear as a wind chime, spoke the words in my head, making me startle and twitch. I’d not heard the voice of the devil since the night at the beach. I gulped, trembling, because she was not done yet.

Mine...

My eyes went wide in my head, and I wondered if I’d gone insane. The Man in Black’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared, and the look was feral and hypnotizing.

And I swear to the gods that I suddenly felt boiled alive. In that one look, I felt all the emotions and the sensations that I’d wanted to find in Donal’s kiss. I sucked in a sharp breath, trembling all over.

Donal hugged me tight, no doubt mistaking my emotions for ones he’d elicited in me. I had to get away. I had to get some air.

Run. I didn’t know if the voice was the devil in my head or my own thought, but suddenly my feet tingled and every square inch of me felt tense and desperate.

“Thanks,” I squeaked at Donal, and yanking out of his loose grip, I ran. I had no idea where to go. I heard Mama and Papa call my name, but I didn’t turn because I felt the march of a beast pounding behind me, and I knew that if I stopped he would take me down.