Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Pity a Fool

I watched my creature leave the garden, her dress wet and clinging to her form like a second skin. There was a rage within me that the flowers and trees and the fairies and the selkie had seen her in such a state. My fingers curled into fists at my side.

“What are you sulking about?” Naeve demanded, hopping onto the bench beneath the window to peer out. When she saw my creature, she grinned wickedly, showing her crooked teeth. “Fancy her, eh?”

“I do not fancy her,” I snapped, and yet I thought of how she must have gotten wet and knew the selkie had seen her. Had he seduced her with his horrible song?

“Is that why you begged her to speak your name?” Naeve asked.

The mirror choked, suppressing a laugh. I glared at the two.

“I need her to love me,” I said again, just as I had last night, though I could not shake this feeling. It was sort of like dread, sort of like fear. What if she fell in love with someone else?

“And how will you make her love you?” asked Naeve. “She hates you.”

I glowered. I knew that well enough, but perhaps with enough coaxing…

“Lust is not the same as love,” said the mirror.

“I know the difference,” I seethed.

The brownie raised a brow at me, and though the mirror had no expression, I knew it did the same.

“Who says she cannot lust for me and love me?”

Naeve exchanged a look with the mirror.

“Love is learned,” said the mirror.

“You keep saying that, and yet no one has learned to love me,” I said.

“And you have learned to love no one,” said Naeve.

“She can learn to love me while she lusts,” I said and turned back to the window, hating the disappointment that dropped into the pit of my stomach when I no longer saw my creature below.

“You will have to do more than fuck her if you want her to love you,” said Naeve.

I spun to face her, no longer interested in the view.

“What do you know about love?”

The brownie glared back, a scowl on her face. “You expect true and devoted love from this woman, and yet you do not plan to give in return? What part about ‘she hates you’ do you not understand? You will have to woo her, and you have done a pitiful job of that thus far.”

“She has been here for less than a day,” I snapped.

“Precious time when you only have six days,” said the brownie.

“Have you ever wooed anyone, Naeve?” I asked. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her brow at me. “And you, Mirror?”

His silence was telling.

“Then why would I listen to either of you?”

“The Mountains are trying to teach you a lesson,” Naeve said.

I know!I wanted to scream so loud the Mountains would hear my rage, but I did not wish to give them the satisfaction of my frustration.

“What good is a lesson born from spite?”

“If you learn it, then it is revenge,” said Naeve. “And you will know true love.”

“True love,” I snarled. “Who needs it?”

“You do, idiot,” said Naeve, who jumped from her place on the bench and left my chamber. I had a feeling that if the mirror could leave, he would too.

“She is right, you know,” said the mirror.

“No one asked you!”

“You posed the question. She answered it.”

“It was hypothetical!” I yelled, throwing my hands in the air.

I started to pace. My body was tense, and I was frustrated. I had been frustrated since that creature had arrived in my room on her knees. This was her fault. I would not feel this way if she had never come. I would not have hope.

I hated hope.

I stopped pacing with my back to the mirror and began to ask, “How do I…”

I stopped abruptly.

This was ridiculous. I was an elven prince. Hundreds of women had fallen in love with me. Why was this one different?

“Were you about to ask me how to woo a woman?”

“No,” I snapped, folding my arms over my chest. I hated the embarrassment I felt and how it warmed my cheeks.

“I am a mirror.”

“I know you are a mirror,” I said. His meaning was twofold. He had never wooed a woman, and he also knew the truth behind my question. Yet I could not bring myself to ask it. “I know you watch my brothers.”

“Your brothers are no more knowledgeable about love than you are,” he said.

“Lore is in love,” I said.

“With a mortal who does not know he exists,” said the mirror.

“Cardic is charming,” I said.

“Yes, and he uses his charms to bed women.”

“But do they fall in love with him?”

“They usually end up hating him,” said the mirror.

I frowned as I considered my other brothers, but none of them had managed to fall in love. Not even our father had loved our mother. Their union was one of convenience, and while they produced heirs, they had other lovers. Had they loved them?

“Perhaps you should ask someone who is actually in love,” the mirror suggested. “Like the mortal prince you imprisoned for stealing a rose from your garden.”

“I doubt he will help me.”

The prince, whose name I did not know, had come from a mortal kingdom. He had hoped to scale the Glass Mountains and return to his kingdom with a golden apple, which grew inside the mountains. On his way, he stopped, climbed my walls, and plucked a flower from my earth for his princess. I kept him captive even after he begged to be set free to return to his betrothed.

“There’s no harm in asking.”

“There is always harm in asking.”

Besides, I did not fancy being vulnerable to the mortal prince.

“It seems to me there is more harm if you do not.”

“I hate you,” I said, though I knew the mirror—and even Naeve—were right. I needed this woman to fall in love with me, and I was running out of time.

Which was how I found myself in the depths of my castle in search of the prince who had stolen a rose for his beloved. When I found him, he was resting on the stone floor, one knee drawn up. His head was turned to the window, which was shaped like half a moon and barred. Just on the other side, flower fairies had gathered to look upon him, but when they beheld me, they scattered in a flurry of wings and loose petals.

The prince turned his head lazily to me.

He had not been long in this world, his face youthful and full. He was as I expected all mortal prince’s to be: flamboyant and arrogant. He had all the belief that the title he held outside the Enchanted Forest meant something to those of us who lived within.

But here, he was nothing but fuel to feed spells and fill stomachs.

He wore purple velvet and a hat that crushed his golden curls, and in the hat was a long, red feather.

“My captor arrives,” he said.

“I hope you are not making bargains,” I said. “The fae can be cruel.”

“No crueler than you,” he said.

“There is always someone crueler,” I said.

The prince was quiet, so I spoke.

“Will you not beg me to set you free again?”

The prince smiled. “No, because that is what you want.”

“It is not what I want,” I said, frustrated that this mortal would even venture to guess my desires.

“Then what do you want?” he asked.

My eyes narrowed on the young prince, and I felt my body fill up with anger. He seemed to sense the danger, because he tensed.

“You are not to ask questions of me, mortal prince,” I said. “I require your aid, and in exchange, I will grant your greatest desire.”

“My greatest desire?” he repeated, his eyes gleaming.

“Only if your advice produces the results I desire,” I added. I would set him free for nothing less.

“And what do you desire?” he asked.

I ground my teeth back and forth, not wishing to speak it aloud, but even as I stood here and thought about my true name, I had trouble recalling how it was spelled.

Seven letters, I reminded myself.

Your name knows no stranger.

Your name is the wail on the lips of a birthing mother.

Your name is the howl from the mouth of a grieving lover.

It is the cry that breaks the night when death is summoned.

“My desire is to make a maiden fall in love with me.”

My nails cut into my palms as I waited for the prince to laugh, but all he said was, “She did not fall in love with you at first sight?”

“No,” I gritted out.

She tried to bury an ax in my chest.

“Is that even real?” I asked.

“Of course it is,” said the prince, who paused to think. “Perhaps she is not attracted to you.”

“She is attracted to me,” I snapped. I knew it. I could feel it in the air between us. The problem was that she also hated me.

The prince did not look so certain. I reached forward, wrapping my hands around the bars of his cell, and his eyes grew wide at the length of my claws.

“I asked you to tell me how to make her fall in love with me,” I said. “Is your beloved princess not in love with you?”

“Of course she is,” he said, as defensive as I felt.

“Then what made her love you?”

He thought for a moment and then said, “Have you told her she is beautiful?”

I blinked, slow.

“No.”

“Well, is she beautiful?”

“Yes,” I hissed.

She was more than beautiful, more beautiful than I cared to admit.

I thought of how she had looked at me upon her arrival, the shock that had come across her face, the fierceness that had taken over when she decided to fight me.

“Then you should tell her. All women want to hear they are beautiful.”

I tried to imagine my creature melting into my arms at the sound of those words, but my mind only conjured an angry snarl.

“You are certain that will work?” I asked.

“If she does not fall in love with you immediately, it shall be a start.”

My heart felt split in two. There was a side of it that rose with hope at the thought of having her love, and there was a side of it that felt completely ridiculous and would rather forget my name.

“If you are wrong,” I warned, leaning closer so the prince could see my face between the bars of the cell. He paled and pressed against the stone wall, not as aloof as he appeared. “I shall cut the curls from your golden head.”

With that, I left the prison to summon my creature.