Moon's Flower (Kingdom, #6)

Danika scoffed. “Bah,” she swatted her hand through the air. “I sent her off with Gene. How would it look if they realized I’d spent the last two hours of the night regaling them with a tale of my former life and love?” The last was said wistfully.

“I knew it!” The child like voice could belong to none other than Genevieve. Spine going ramrod straight, Danika pursed her lips and peered over her shoulder.

Not only was the sprite headed her way, but she still had the tiger lily in tow, whose eyes were now wide as saucers.

“You’re Calanthe?” the child squeaked, “but you’re so old.” Her button nose wrinkled.

Sighing, Danika glared at the now chuckling Esmerelda. “Bloody hell,” she growled, “and that is why I did not want to tell them. Do you see?” She pointed at the wee fairy who was at this very moment circling her body like a scientist studying an extinct specimen.

Genevieve cocked her head. “You said Calanthe was made to transform into a flower. But if you’re Calanthe, then you’re no flower at all. Why?”

She hurled the question like an accusation and Danika grimaced, this was exactly why she’d fudged the truth a little. To prevent annoying and prying questions.

“I was made to transform,” she spread her arms. This matronly, goody-goody woman was who Danika was now, but it wasn’t who Danika had always been.

“And your name is not, Calanthe?” the tiger lily peered up at her, as if by sheer force of will alone she could pry the truth from Dani.

Huffing, Danika shot daggers at The Green. “Are you going to help me here?”

“Oh no,” Esmerelda plopped her butt onto the edge of a vacated stump, “you’re doing a bloody fine job of it.”

Sticking out her tongue, she rolled her eyes. “Fine. You want to know the truth, here it is. I was born Calanthe Danika Rose. Most of what I told you was true and the woman you saw in the clouds, that woman was me.”

“What happened to June?”

Danika snorted. “Well, June, wasn’t quite as virtuous as I painted her out to be in the tale. I found out in the end that jealousy had led her to The Blue. Because while I was pining away for my love, she’d developed an infatuation with a dwarf across the stream. By telling Galeta about me, she was able to hide her midnight excursions. Of course, in the end the council decided to banish the law that fairies could not fall in love as the policy was antiquated at best.”

“Why did you not just say that about June? I actually felt bad for her,” the tiger lily growled.

“Because,” Danika huffed, “I was trying to teach a life lesson. What would I teach you if you knew that June was just as manipulative as the rest of them? Hmm? Besides,” she swished her wrist, “everyone knows a fairy tale isn’t always the full truth. Truths can be ugly and painful and sometimes that is not what one should hear. I wanted June to be remembered as something other than petty and cruel. Is it wrong of me?”

“No, but how you could turn her into a sympathetic character after what she did to you, I am sorry, Danika,” Genevieve’s voice grew gruff, her face twitching with anger. Which might have been funny that the grumpy sprite was suddenly taking Danika’s side, but this had been more than a mere bedtime story, and while some of the facts had been switched around, the majority of it had been true.

Talking about it, without the benefit of embellishments made the story so much more painful. Made the constant yearning and dull ache that she’d learned to shove away into the most private corners of her mind, come out and grow. Fester and spread like a malignancy, so that tears gathered hot in her eyes and made it almost unbearable to breathe.

She still loved Jericho. Always would.

“Being apart from him is difficult, isn’t it?” The child’s voice was soothing, comforting, and Danika couldn’t help but smile in response. The little fairy was intuitive, and would make a brilliant godmother someday.

She nodded. “Intensely. Most days,” she sniffed and wiped at the heavy drops threatening to roll down her cheeks, “I can forget and move on.”

“So why tonight?” Genevieve asked softly, all traces of rancor gone from her cherubic face.

“That one, I can answer,” Esmerelda smiled softly and Danika shuddered in relief because The Green had given her enough time to gather her flustered emotions together.

“Because tonight is their three-hundredth anniversary.”

“Wait?” Gene and the tiger lily spoke breathlessly at once.

Esmerelda nodded as Danika realized the conclusion they’d all come to at once. “It’s been five hundred years since his enslavement as the Man in the Moon,” The Green spoke the thought they were all thinking.

“Are you free of the curse then?” The tiger lily grasped hold of Danika’s hand, shaking it hard.