Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Happily Ever After

It was almost noon, and the sun burned high in the sky as I road into the town of Elk on Balthazar’s back, dressed in a gown of thorn and shadow. On my head, I wore a crown of twigs and iridescent wings, a gift from Casamir. They’d come from the backs of the pixies who had aided the mortal prince in abducting me. I wore it proudly, a mark of my status as his future wife.

The thought made my chest feel warm, and as it spread through my limbs, I sat up taller.

“Gesela,” Casamir had murmured as we lay together in bed once we returned home from the selkie’s pond, once we had washed ourselves of the mud and blood. “Princess of the Kingdom of Thorn.”

I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips, at the title he would bestow on me.

I looked down at him, tracing his mouth. “But that is my true name,” I said. “Only you can call me by my true name.”

Only he and death.

He smiled. “True,” he said. “What would you like to be called by everyone else?”

My grin matched his. “Princess would suffice,” I said, pausing. “Princess…Ella. It is what my sister would call me.”

I only hoped that one day soon, she would emerge from the roots of the willow tree where she had lain and healed to hear her call me that again.

“Princess Ella it is,” Casamir said.

I laughed quietly, shaking my head.

Casamir raised a brow. “What is it?”

“The selkie was right,” I said. “And so was Wolf. They both said I would come to rule at your side.”

The elven prince did not speak. He only stared, and I bent, my lips close to his.

“How does one turn a raven into a wolf?” I asked.

“Hmm,” he said, his arms tightening around me. “I suppose you could make a wish and I could grant it.”

“Wishes come with great consequences,” I replied.

“And if the consequence means remaining at my side for the rest of our eternal life?”

“That is not a consequence,” I said. “That is a gift.”

We kissed and descended into our own heated madness.

Later I would ask, “Why did you demand the hair upon the prince’s head and the feather in his hat?”

“The prince was too blind to see what he had before him—his golden curls might have become golden apples, his red feather a key to his cell, the buttons he traded to the pixies, feed to summon a horse. He had all the tools he needed to escape me, but he chose to use them incorrectly.”

We spent the rest of the evening together in bed, and the next morning, Casamir granted my wish, which saw Wolf the raven return to his true form as a great, white wolf.

In his true form, Wolf bowed and spoke.

“I am in your debt, Lady Thing,” he said. “I will come when you call.”

And as he disappeared into the surrounding wood, I mounted Balthazar who Casamir had also summoned from the Enchanted Forest.

“Are you certain you wish to return to your village?” Casamir asked before I departed.

“It is not my village,” I said. “But yes, they must know what they have done to me.”

I wanted them to look upon me and fear me, to know that their actions had created something far worse than a curse.

Now, as I passed cottages and shops, I smiled. The townspeople left their cottages to watch, and I heard their whispers.

I thought she was dead.

She has been ravished by fae.

Look at her dress! How indecent!

It was true the dress was indecent, exposing wide strips of skin, the thorned vines only covering my thighs and my breasts, but I loved it because it was a gift from Casamir.

I halted by the well just as bells rang in the late morning, disturbing the quiet. They were not nearly as beautiful as the ones that had drawn me into the forest, as if they were cracked, the sound harsh and jarring.

The doors to the chapel swung open, and more people spilled out onto the steps, among them many council members and the mayor of Elk, all of whom had voted to send me down the well.

In some ways, I had them to thank for my life’s turn of events.

Their merrymaking silenced once they spotted me.

Behind them, Roland appeared dressed in powder blue and Elsie all in white, her straw-blond hair threaded through with white chrysanthemums.

I was not so surprised to see that the two had chosen each other. After they had led me to the well, they deserved each other.

They halted atop the steps, both pale as the snow still piled around the town.

“Gesela,” Elsie said, breathless. “We—we thought you were dead.”

“What a surprise it must be,” I said, “to discover I am not.”

Roland and Elsie exchanged a look.

“We went to your house, searched the whole thing,” said Roland, who attempted a hard and indifferent expression but could not hide the haunted look in his eyes. “You were nowhere to be found.”

“I imagine you did not expect to find me at all,” I said. “Which must be why all my things have gone missing.”

There was silence.

I looked at those gathered, their faces much the same as the day I left, a mix of pity and fear and discontent.

“What will you all do to atone?” I asked.

“Atone?” Roland seethed. “You cannot blame us for thinking you were dead! You fell down the well!”

“I can blame you all I want,” I said. “There is no part of this that isn’t your fault, Roland.”

He shivered as I spoke his name, and I rested my hands atop one another as I sat, elevated above them all, on Balthazar.

“I shall ask you again. How will you atone?”

The mortal ground his teeth and released Elsie’s hand. Taking a step down, he drew his sword.

The gathered crowd gasped, and Elsie reached for his arm.

“No, Ro!”

I did not move as he bellowed. “You are a wicked spirit come to haunt us!”

His dramatic display brought a smirk to my lips.

“You dare draw your blade against me?”

“Do you think you are someone? Now that you have survived the wood?”

Whispers erupted, and Roland silenced them with a shout.

“Be gone, beast!” he hissed.

“She is not a beast,” said Casamir’s voice. “But I surely am.”

The thorn and shadow of my dress began to move, sliding over my skin.

“What witchcraft is this?” Roland demanded as Casamir took form behind me, his arm banded around my breasts, hiding my nakedness now that I no longer wore his gown of thorns.

The crowd gasped in earnest now, shocked by the sight of him.

“An elven prince!” someone shouted. A few people screamed and some fainted at the sight of him, which I was certain he enjoyed.

“Silence!” Roland cried. “Gesela, what is the meaning of this?”

I felt Casamir stiffen at the sound of my name on the sheriff’s lips.

“Forgive me,” I said to Roland and placed a hand on Casamir’s thigh to comfort him. “For I have yet to introduce you. Roland, meet my future husband, the Prince of Thorns, the seventh son, brother of the sixth, who you ordered me to kill.”

“Husband?” he whispered.

A stunned silence followed.

“Yes,” I said. “You asked who I was now that I had survived the forest? Here is your answer. I am Ella, lady of thorns and keeper of wings, wife of the seventh brother, and I have come to wish you only Anguish.”

At the sound of Casamir’s true name, a shattering sound filled the air, and then shards of gleaming glass rained down from the sky and speared Roland through the head, along with the mayor and every terrible townsperson who had treated me with contempt. Despite Elsie’s participation, she remained unharmed, staring in horror as her new husband bled at her feet, her dress spattered with this blood.

Amid the pure clink of the glass and the screams of the villagers, I turned to my elven prince.

“I love you, Anguish of Thorn.”

He pressed a hand to the side of my face, aligning our lips. “I love you, Gesela of my heart.”

We kissed amid the carnage, but we did not feel the sting of the glass, for Balthazar had already begun the journey home, through the Enchanted Forest, past my sister’s willow, to our castle of thorns.

And we lived happily ever after.

The End