Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback

All day she’d felt something happening beneath the gloves hastily donned after her morning’s escapade. The sight of those ladylike coverings had brought approving nods from both her mother and governess, as if they were a sign she was finally listening to their exhortations. A princess does not run. A princess does not shout or curse. A princess keeps the sun in her voice, but off her fair skin. A princess sits quietly, back straight. A princess smiles at a gentleman’s tasteful jest, but never laughs too loudly. A princess never furrows her brow with thought. A princess does not chew her nails.

Emer had been determined that nothing untoward was occurring; that the healing salve she’d sneaked from her mother’s workroom would put everything to rights.

But that night, when Emer closed her bedchamber door and finally peeled away the doeskin gloves, she found that the wound in her palm was sprouting dark fronds around its ragged edge. They looked like the collar of her mother’s favorite cloak—except those feathers with their vibrant eyes were from the palace peacocks. A great ball of fear threatened to stopper her throat.

? 193 ?

? Flight ?

It had been the madness of a moment, to sneak away and run through the gardens with the sky so blue, the clouds so white, the grass such a vibrant green. Trembling in the breeze, the flowers shone like delicate gems: wine-dark amethysts, sun-bright topazes, heavenly sapphires, rubies red as blood, beryl the color of a storm-tossed sea and, stranger still, the roses.

She’d danced and run, bounded and rolled like a child of five not a young lady of thirteen. Not like a princess on the eve of her fealty ceremony, someone who shouldn’t frolic until her gown, once a triumph of pink embroidered with daffodils, had its hem torn and trailing, one sleeve held in place by four tenuous threads, and grass and dirt staining the pattern. Tradition decreed the heir—even if, to the regret of many, she was female—be left unattended this day, not so she could play, but so that she might stand vigil, alone, unsupervised and mature, meditating on her future life of state. Preparing to pledge herself to the land, to be its sovereign and its succor, now and always.

Leaving the manicured lawns upon which she was usually

permitted a chaperoned stroll, Emer had wandered into unkempt areas where the demarcation between garden and myrkwood was little more than a rough boundary of aged briars. Smooth malachite stems spiked with roses’ thorns—roses black as ebony!—entwined seamlessly with the gray and brittle barbs of the brambles.

A burning glow from the heart of each bloom had compelled her closer; an opalescent flash of green and red and gold, orange and azure and magenta had drawn her. She’d reached out to touch the nearest one, careful to avoid its prickles. The petals were like velvet.

As she pulled away, she felt a stabbing pain in her upturned hand.

One moment the air in front of her was empty and the next, a raven, which had sat so still that it’d been invisible in the chest-high hedge, occupied the space with regal mien, its claws fixed tightly around the briar barrier. The crimson wound in the center of Emer’s palm showed where it had made its mark.

Emer stared at the bird; its feathers glistened tenebrous-dark, yet radiant as if moonlight had been woven into their undersides. The ? 194 ?

? Angela Slatter ?

raven gave a harsh cry—if she hadn’t known better, she’d have said it sounded apologetic—and Emer noticed its eyes burned with the same fire as the blossoms, colors flickering and dying, only to be replaced by the next brilliant hue. The creature took off, flying higher and growing smaller until finally it dove, plummeting straight at the girl, veering at the last second and shooting into the shadowy depths of the forest.

That was when Emer’s nerve had broken. Hitching her skirts, she’d fled to her rooms, changed her dress and hid the destroyed one.

She’d smoothed her hair and washed her face, slipped on the snug gloves, and spent the afternoon, heart aflutter, sitting in the solar.