Stain by A. G. Howard
I dedicate this fairy tale—fraught with grit and thorns—to those who delight in strange magic and dark sensibilities. May my creatures grace your slumber with moonlit-gilded nightmares, and may my characters give wing to aspirations as bright as the sun.
Prologue
There once was a humble land, surrounded by an ocean and afloat within its celestial sphere like an islet, where the sun and moon shared the sky. The stronger light shimmered upon the countryside each day, and the gentler provided a reprieve from darkness each night. Together, day and night were complete, like lovers united. But a magical war erupted between the two kingdoms. At battle’s end, one kingdom dragged the night down into the belly of the earth, along with shadows and winter and ice, and those creatures drawn to darkness or cold. There, underground, the moon made its journey across a new firmament, traversing from west to east, and east to west, never to rest again. The other kingdom held tightly to the day above—hoarding the sun and its endless campaign across the skies, with the kinder seasons and all the variants of life making everything bright and colorful. An enchanted boundary fell into place between the two planes, allowing a flash of dawn in the night realm and a dusting of dusk in the day, a routine occurrence lasting only long enough to remind each kingdom of time’s passage and what had been lost. Although the people appeared to thrive in their separation, without both day and night they were incomplete, and discontent brewed beneath the surface. For what they had forgotten, they would soon remember: disassociation breeds prejudice, bitterness, and apathy—emotions too monstrous for any one kingdom in any one land to contain, and too powerful to ever be defeated by magic alone.
Part I
In Which the Thorn
Strangles the Rose
1
Of Brambles and Blights
In one enchanted telling of old, a prince desperately seeks a princess to wed and rule by his side. But when his destiny arrives upon the castle steps, she fails to look the part of royalty, being drenched and forlorn after facing a cloudburst on her journey. To satisfy the prince’s queenly mother, she must prove herself a real princess, with a constitution so delicate the slightest lump beneath a tower of eiderdown mattresses—a lump no bigger than a pea—bruises her flesh and hinders her sleep. Only a girl as tender as a budding rose may marry the royal son and become a queen in her own right.
However, that antiquated telling neglects one vital detail: roses need thorns, just as thorns need roses. If one looks closely at the partnership, they can see the balance a thorn provides—brutal enough to protect from predators, yet gentle enough to share the stem and never tear the fragile blossom. Only if that thorn should lose its rose does it become ugly, purposeless, vicious and vile, with ill intentions to expand its reach and dominate at the expense of all else.
This is the story of two very different princesses—one who lost her rose, and one who gained her thorns. Their journeys to prove their worth unwind within a fairy tale entangled amidst the briars.
It begins with “Once Upon,” and a touch of morbid to set the tone . . .
Once upon a nightmare, a princess was born in the kingdom of perpetual daylight—a fine-boned babe who killed her queenly mother upon her entrance to the world.
Yet, that’s not entirely true. Queen Arael had become ill seven months prior, after pricking her finger on a thorny rosebush yielding deep lavender blooms at the base of Mount Astra, the highest mountain in Eldoria.
The queen adored flowers, and this rose called to her with a seductive nuance of shadows and mystery her sun-bright, royally regimented days were lacking. She didn’t stop to consider that its roots spread deep beneath the earth, far enough to feed off the alter-world of Nerezeth, land of eternal night. An impish, satiny voice whispered on the wind and tickled her ear. Convinced it was her own conscience inspiring her, she ignored any sense of impending doom and plucked the stem free. Some said the moment the thorn pierced the queen’s skin her blood filled with a demon’s curse . . . a darkness that crept into every facet of her being, intruding upon the babe she carried within. Her death while giving birth only validated the rumor for those foolish enough to believe such folly.
On that day of loss and life, a sorrowful hush fell over the sparkling ivory castle of Eldoria. The king’s sister, the beautiful Lady Griselda—elegant as a statue carved of the ivory stones lining the garden ponds, with glossy hair both crimson and black—stepped forward to be the princess’s governess.
Though Griselda put on a show of compassion for her brother, her heart waxed cold with envy, for she had three little daughters of her own who would never sit upon the throne now that an heir had been born to the king. Her embittered mind wasted no time concocting some means to amend this injustice.
Had the babe died with her gentle mother, her fate would have been kinder than what was in store . . .
King Kiran of the House of Eyvindur, so overcome with grief, had yet to look upon his new daughter. Weeping, he pressed his lips to the limp, cold hand of his lovely wife’s corpse. The scent of soil and flowers still clung upon her olive skin from her time in the garden earlier that day. “If only Arael could’ve stayed long enough to see the babe but once.”
“Better that her mother didn’t see.” Griselda’s gaze, dark and hard as wrought iron, fixed upon her brother while she wrapped the wriggling bundle in an itchy lace blanket. “She’s quite unusual. Her lashes . . . they’re bone-white. And longer and more numerous than a centipede’s legs.” Griselda’s own dark, thick lashes trembled as if in pity. “It is startling.”
The newborn screeched out at her aunt’s severe handling. The cry sliced through the silence and echoed through every hall and corridor. Each servant within the room—from those gathering up bloody sheets to the ones mopping the crimson smears off the white tiles—paused and held their breath. For the sound was anything but obtrusive. The child’s wails formed a melody that wrapped around each particle of air, silver and resonate and pure—like a songbird’s trill on a mild spring day. Other servants who had been occupied elsewhere congregated around the door to peer inside.
The king’s tears slowed, and for the first time he turned to look at the babe, taking her gently from his sister’s hands. “So lyrical. Her voice is music. I shall call her Lyra.” He nodded, his white-gold crown glinting in the candlelight, since the curtains had been drawn to offer privacy while the queen struggled to give birth. “Arael would’ve liked that.”
The baby snuggled into her father’s gentle arms.
“Those eyes . . . that skin.” Griselda observed the babe around her brother’s sturdy shoulder; the tiny princess wriggled within her lace blanket, a faint, bluish-tinged creature that resembled a shadow on a saucer of curdled cream. “There’s no denying she’s been touched by moonlight. She’ll have no shield from the sun. And she appears sickly; it must be the illness from the queen’s blood. A contagion from the cursed land of eternal gloom and ice.”
“She has a rare and melancholy beauty, it is true,” her brother answered in that deep, wise tone that made him so beloved to his people, while his black beard nuzzled the babe’s milky-soft head. “But you yourself can relate to tender skin, and how outward appearances rarely reflect inward strength. See how she grips my finger.” Lyra’s tiny pale hand curled halfway around his russet-colored thumb and squeezed. The king chuckled. “Such pith in one so small. Yes. I shall see her live to a ripe old age. She’s blood of my blood and was born to gift our world with song. She will sit the throne and rule in grace and light just as her mother did.” Even amidst the heartbreak over his loss, he loved this child more than his own breath, and the flavor of his tears forever imprinted upon Lyra’s lips as the taste of purest comfort.