Heart of the Moors Page 11

But more men-at-arms were coming up the stairs, blocking his way. She recognized one of them from the hunt. Count Alain’s man.

  Phillip’s gaze met hers. She could see in his face that he knew just how much trouble they were in. He grabbed for a sword mounted on the wall. You’re a fool, she thought, but a brave fool.

  Reaching her hand through the net, she caught hold of Diaval’s arm. There was only one thing she could think to do, and she hoped she had the magic for it. “Into a raven,” she said with a swirl of glittering gold from her fingers. “Watch over her. Warn her!”

  A moment later, Diaval was gone and in his place was a black bird, his feathers gleaming. Maleficent felt queasy with exhaustion, but she’d managed it. She’d changed him. Diaval the raven cawed and flew from the landing, past soldiers who tried to grab or swung at him.

  In horror, Maleficent watched as one of the blades caught the edge of his body and knocked him from the air.

  Rough hands grabbed hold of his flapping wings.

  A clang of metal brought her thoughts back to where she stood. Three soldiers were trading blows with Prince Phillip. Back and forth they sallied along the narrow hall. She tried to struggle free of the net with renewed fear.

  But then someone clasped her from behind and brought a rag to her face. There was a horrible sweet scent on it, the same smell that had wafted off the drink Stefan gave her on the single worst night of her life. She felt lightheaded with panic. She threw her head back, knocking her horns against the soldier behind her. They both crashed to the floor.

  She crawled away from him, dragging the net with her. More arms grabbed her from behind, pushing her to the ground. The heady smell of poison intensified, and along with it came a vast dizziness.

  She felt herself slipping. She looked up at Phillip just in time to see a soldier’s blade pierce his side.

  For most of his life, Diaval had been a raven. He’d lived in a community of perhaps several hundred on the outskirts of the Moors, roosting in trees, hunting for food, and jousting in the air to show his daring.

  He’d been a good thief. He had stolen fruit from the orchards of humans, earthworms from the beaks of his brothers and sisters, and carrion from wolves. He remembered the thrill of it.

  And he remembered the terror of being turned into a man. A farmer had been about to kill him. The transformation had saved his life, but he no longer felt as though his life was his own. Not only did he owe an impossible-to-repay debt to the faerie standing before him with the curving horns and cold eyes, but his whole self was changed.

  He hated being human, but once he was, he knew emotions he hadn’t known before—regret and contempt, jealousy and empathy. And he had words, which changed how he saw everything, including himself.

  Then she turned him into a horse, which was distasteful, but he couldn’t forget the power of that body. That changed him, too. His mind had been simpler than that of a raven, more driven by instinct. And his instinct had been to protect his mistress.

  Then she turned him into a dragon, which was powerful beyond all things. It woke an ancient hunger in him and a rage big enough to devour the world—and half the beings in it. Ever after, even when he was a raven again, he couldn’t forget that feeling. He felt bigger than his skin.

  But what changed Diaval most of all was being by Maleficent’s side. He’d learned to care for her and Aurora, whom he’d adored since she was a fledgling floundering around outside her nest. Though he’d begun his service in awe, he now stayed by Maleficent’s side because there was nowhere else he would rather be.

  He thought of all that as he felt a wagon lurch around him. He’d been thrown into a burlap sack, as though he were some game bird caught during a hunt.

  His beak was sharp enough to wear through the cloth, so he started on that, rubbing it against the ground. It was slow work, but there was nothing else for it. He dared not move his wings to make sure they were unhurt, for fear one of the soldiers would see. He had to be patient.

  Eventually, he wore a small tear in the fabric. Worming his beak through, he opened his mouth and tore the hole wider. Finally, he was able to get his head out. Then, with some ripping and wriggling, he was free. Diaval found himself in a covered cart with a back that was entirely open. Several soldiers sat on either side, their weapons pointed at two bodies on the floor. Bags were over both their heads, and Maleficent was wrapped in heavy chains.

  He wanted to save her, but what could he do? If he tried to peck out their eyes, they would likely recapture him or kill him. And he couldn’t manage to blind more than two.

  I expect you not to fail me.

  Well, he didn’t intend to. He would go and find Aurora, and together they would save Maleficent.

  With that in mind, he sprang up from the floor of the cart and hoped his wings weren’t damaged, hoped they could carry him into the air. And when they did, he gloried in the shouts of the soldiers below. They would see him again—and hopefully when they did, Maleficent would turn him into a dragon and they would know what it was like to run from his fire.

  Flying back toward the castle, he thought of what it would be to lose her. He recalled his last sight of Maleficent, caught in the iron web of netting, her horns pulling against it, her eyes wide and bright with fury.

  He would save her. He must save her.

  For the first time, he would have traded away his raven-ness forever to be a man who could speak. Who could fight. Who could do something more than circle in the sky, searching for the gleam of a gold crown and hoping that somehow Aurora would be able to understand him.

  Aurora hurried after Count Alain as he led her toward the palace, changing directions abruptly halfway there. When he’d told her that one of his people had overheard Simon’s family arguing with a group of faeries, she’d followed him without question.

  “You ought to have told me before the dancing began,” Aurora said. “Who knows what’s happened without us intervening!”

  He accepted her criticism without comment. And then there was nothing to say, because she saw two groups shouting at each other. Humans stood face to face with Fair Folk, both groups appearing to be frothingly angry.

  “All we want is our child back!” Simon’s father yelled into the face of a tree warrior. The faerie’s features were seemingly carved out of bark, with moss hanging off the side of his head like oddly cut hair.

  “We’ve told you a score of times, we don’t have your pup,” piped up a mushroom faerie.

  “We’d prefer not to fight,” Simon’s father said, “but we will if we must. We know about your weakness when cut with cold iron.”

  There came a hiss from the nearby faeries at this threat.

  “We know about your weakness when enchanted,” said a pixie with green wings and sharp teeth.

  Never had Aurora been so glad that she’d had the foresight to forbid weapons from the festival.

  “No one wants violence of any kind,” said Count Alain, to Aurora’s surprise. The crowd turned to see him and, noticing their queen standing to his side, bowed hastily.

  “You are mistaken. The faeries do not have your boy,” Aurora told Simon’s family. “My own soldiers have sworn to me there’s no sign that faeries took him, but rather that it was the work of brigands.”

  Simon’s father looked surprised, but he didn’t seem ready to believe her words.

  “We told you!” said a hedgehog faerie, wrinkling his nose. “What do we want with a poxy human boy?”

  That seemed about to set off Simon’s father again when Nanny Stoat arrived. She moved to stand next to Aurora.

  “You heard the queen,” she said, making a shooing motion. “Time to disperse.”

  “But one of the soldiers told me it was them,” Simon’s father said. “He said that those faeries there were the ones who carried off my child.”

  “Who told you that?” Aurora asked.

  Simon’s father looked around the festival desperately but then seemed confused. “I don’t know.
He was here a moment ago.”

  “It’s not true,” Aurora said.

  Simon’s father’s expression turned mulish. “But he said—”

  “Is that a way to talk to your sovereign ruler?” Nanny Stoat asked him, emphasizing her point by poking him in the leg with the end of the walking stick she held.

  He shook his head, looking more repentant after her reprimand than he had following anything Aurora said.

  Gathering himself up, he raised his eyes to Aurora’s. “You will tell me if you hear more news of him, won’t you? And you won’t stop looking?”

  “I won’t stop looking,” Aurora said, although from what her castellan had told her, she wasn’t sure that anything more they heard would be at all good.

  After he left, she turned to Nanny Stoat. “Thank you,” she said. “Without your support, I am not sure they would have believed me half as readily.” She looked around. “I hope this festival wasn’t foolish.”

  “No,” Nanny Stoat told her. “We ought to be like this, all together. Even if we squabble. And it does the people good to see their queen having fun.”

  Aurora smiled at that. “I am not sure what my court makes of me, let alone my people.”

  “They think you’re young and a little foolish,” she replied. “And entirely too comfortable with the common folk. Not to mention the Fair Folk.”

  Aurora wrinkled her nose. “And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either.”

  The old woman laughed.

  “I don’t know how to make any of them listen to me the way they listen to you,” Aurora said with a sigh.

  “You will,” said Nanny Stoat. “But changing their minds is something else. You might see the beauty in magic, while some people will only ever see the power in it.”

  With that, Nanny Stoat walked off, leaning on her walking stick for support. The crowd was still breaking up. Count Alain remained by Aurora’s side.

  “Thank you for bringing me here and for knowing that I’d want to come,” she told him. “I didn’t think you understood.”

  “Because of the necklace?” he asked her.

  She thought of the arrow he’d shot into the Moors and the rage on his face. “For one thing.”

  He took her hand. “My queen, I have lived my whole life thinking of the faeries as monsters. To see them differently isn’t easy for me, but you have made me want to try. I should have considered my gift to you more carefully, but as it is the metal mined in my lands, I have a special affinity for it.”

  “I am glad you’re trying,” Aurora said, smiling up at Count Alain. She recalled how she’d thought that if she could convince him to see the benefits of allying with the Fair Folk, then it would be possible to convince the rest of her kingdom. She’d given up on that after the gift of the necklace, but it seemed she’d succeeded after all. She ought to be pleased.

  But it was impossible for her to feel much of anything when she still needed to make things right with Phillip.

  She’d spotted him during her dance with Alain. It had been all she could do not to rush from the dance to chase him down and explain things. She knew she shouldn’t have spoken so harshly to him after the banquet in the Moors. She owed him an apology.

  But first she had to find him.

  When she returned to the dancing area, a branle was being performed, the participants moving back and forth in a wide circle, up onto their toes and down again. Phillip was neither among the dancers nor among those watching. Her godmother was nowhere to be seen, either, but there was some time before the signing ceremony.

  With a sinking heart, Aurora danced the gavotte, the saltarello, and several caroles. Her spirits lowered with each one, although a tree man spun her with such grace that she never lost her footing. And yet, she could see that her plan was working. She wasn’t the only human partnered with a faerie. Nor were all the dancers noble. For her last set, she was partnered with a sturdy farmer who clearly couldn’t believe his luck and guided her through the steps with aplomb.

  When it was done, she excused herself from the floor. Phillip hadn’t returned. She meant to look for him in another area of the festival, but before she could, Lady Fiora brought her a cup of cider. Immediately, she began discussing the nobles who had come, and telling Aurora how beautiful she had looked on the floor.

  “I shouldn’t say this, but my brother stared so while you danced,” Lady Fiora said with a giggle. “And you are beautifully flushed. Your eyes are positively sparkling.”

  “Have you seen Prince Phillip?” Aurora asked before gulping down the drink.

  Lady Fiora looked surprised. “Why, I thought he’d gone,” she said. “Back to Ulstead.”

  Aurora’s heart seemed to twist.

  “Did I say something—”

  “Excuse me.” Aurora raced away from the dancing and across the lawn, past jugglers and an impromptu wrestling match between a hedgehog faerie and a burly human who seemed surprisingly equal in both strength and agility, past the storyteller Maleficent had uncursed, who was telling a tale about a fish with a ring in its stomach. But Phillip was nowhere she looked.

  It was hard for Aurora to move through the crowd without someone stopping her to tell her either how lovely the festival was and how much they were enjoying it or to make a request that she do something about, say, their neighbors’ goats always grazing on their land.

  But Aurora paused long enough only to smile or thank the person or say that she couldn’t help them right then. And with each step, her feeling of panic intensified.

  She spotted Flittle near a large basin where children were laughing and bobbing for apples.

  “Have you seen Phillip, Auntie?” she asked.

  “No, my dear,” said Flittle. “Is he lost?”

  Aurora moved on, but at every turn there was someone to engage her in conversation.

  “Did you see what Lord Donald of Summerhill is wearing?” asked Lady Sybil. “He’s got on a jacket with sleeves so long they’re dragging in the dirt!”

  “Beauteous Queen Aurora, whose hair resembles nothing so much as the wheat of fertile fields, I was devastated to lose the riddle contest,” said Baron Nicholas. “But though I could not have the first dance, perhaps I can have this one. Won’t you step out with me?”

  “I see the reason for the treaty now,” said Balthazar the tree man. “Not before, but now.”

  “What a marvelous festival this is,” said Thistlewit. “Come and take a piece of cake with your favorite auntie.”

  Prince Phillip had left Perceforest. She wouldn’t ever get to say farewell to him.

  She sagged down onto the grass.

  All around her the festival went on, but the sounds of it seemed to recede in her ears. She could think of only one thing—she loved Phillip. The very thing she had feared, the very thing she’d thought she was protected from, had happened.

  She had looked for him in moments of distress, sought him out when she was in need of cheering up. She had laughed with him and told him her fears and hopes. And she had loved him all the while, not knowing that was love. But now she had lost him forever, for want of the courage to know her own heart.

  Above her head, a raven circled, cawing to get her attention. Diaval landed in front of her, hopping and waving his wings.

  “What is it?” she asked him, moving close and bending toward him. “Has something happened?”

  A few people looked at her, thinking that it was very strange to see their queen expecting answers from a bird. She waited for him to become a man, but he didn’t change. He just kept hopping and dancing and squawking wildly.

  A terrible dread filled her.

  “Nod your head twice if Maleficent is in danger,” Aurora said.

  Diaval bobbed his head twice.

  “Take me,” Aurora said. “I’ll follow.”

  The raven spun up into the air, flying off toward the stables and then circling back, as though checking to be sure Aurora was heading in the right direction. The stables?
Did Diaval intend for her to ride? How far could Maleficent be from the castle?

  “My queen,” said Lord Ortolan, stepping into her path, “is something amiss?”

  “Yes,” she said distractedly. “My godmother.”

  Aurora spotted Nanny Stoat standing near one of the long tables where villagers sat to partake of the festival food. Near her was Hammond, the man caught poaching in her woods, and a girl she judged to be his daughter. The girl was about Aurora’s size, dressed in homespun and heavy boots. “I must help her.”

  “Now?” Lord Ortolan asked, looking around in bafflement. “But this is your festival. Are you saying that the signing of the treaty must be delayed? Did something happen?”

  The treaty. In her horror over the thought of Maleficent in danger, she’d almost forgotten. If they didn’t sign now—that night—would it seem as though someone had broken the peace? It came to her that perhaps foiling the treaty was the motive for whatever had happened. That thought only deepened her dread.

  “Your pardon,” Aurora said to the girl in the homespun, thinking of Diaval’s leading her to the stables. “Would you be willing to trade your clothes for mine?”

  The girl looked up at her in confusion. “Your clothes?”

  “Yes,” Aurora said.

  Nanny Stoat jabbed the girl in the side. “Gretchen, you ought to agree. Her dress would pay off a chunk of your family’s debts.”

  “Yes, but I can’t possibly—” The girl, Gretchen, shut her mouth and curtsied. “Of course, my queen. Yes. My clothes. And thank you for your kindness to my father.”

  Hammond smiled and put his hand on Gretchen’s arm. “Your Majesty, we’d be happy to give you the shirts off our backs, but surely you’d prefer your own?”

  “Not today,” Aurora said. “Nanny Stoat, I want you to be in charge for the length of time that I am gone.”

  Lord Ortolan cleared his throat. “You cannot seriously mean—”

  But she cut him off before he could finish. “I do.” Aurora removed the crown from her head and set it down in front of the old woman. “They’ll listen to you. And they should. Tell them that the signing will happen—there’s just been a delay. You won’t let them forget we have much in common.”