Heart of the Moors Read online

  Aurora knelt down beside him. “No, no, there’s nothing to worry about. She’s not really like that.” She slid a ring—gold, with a pearl—off her finger. “Here, take this for your troubles.”

  Maleficent was obviously offended. “I am absolutely like that,” she muttered.

  “Why don’t I show him the way out of the Moors?” interrupted Diaval, slinging an arm around the man’s shoulder and ignoring his attempt to pull free. “We can commiserate about being transformed. Come along now. There are so few people who really understand our troubles.”

  Maleficent watched them go, then went to Aurora’s side. “Are you pleased?”

  “Yes,” Aurora said, leaning her head against Maleficent’s shoulder.

  The faerie absently stroked her golden hair, and Aurora sighed. “Do you think that I would have turned out horrible if I was raised in the palace? Would I have hated faeries?”

  “I think you were born with a generous heart,” Maleficent said, “and no one could have made you otherwise.”

  “Would I have been frightened, then?” Aurora continued, thinking of the girls her own age who had been among the townsfolk and the farmers.

  “You were never afraid of anything. Even when you ought to have been.”

  Aurora gave Maleficent a fond smile.

  “Come,” her godmother said. “Eat with me.”

  They dined inside the conjured palace of vines and moss, at a table of gnarled wood. Stacks of honey cakes, a pitcher of cream Aurora hoped wasn’t stolen, and duck eggs were all spread out on dishes and bowls of black clay.

  When Aurora was full, she lay on her back on mossy cushions and looked up at the stars through a screen of vines.

  “You must like this place,” Maleficent said, lifting a single brow, “a little.”

  “Of course I do,” Aurora said, stretching out her arms. “I love it. And I love that you made it for me.”

  Everything felt like it had before Aurora discovered whose daughter she was, what Maleficent had done, and what had been done to her.

  She slanted a look at her godmother, who had come to rest on another cushion. She was different with wings. She took up more space yet also seemed to have a new lightness in her. Aurora had never realized how confined she must have felt, being forced to walk on the ground as Aurora did.

  There were many things she hadn’t realized.

  What had it been like to be so disastrously in love with Stefan and so horrifically betrayed? What had it been like to face him down? What was it like now, to try to trust humans enough to make a treaty with them?

  Aurora thought of the meeting she’d had with the villagers that afternoon and Phillip’s strange expression. This was the day they were meant to go walking, but he’d never appeared to escort her out, so perhaps he was displeased in some way? The thought bothered her more than it should. She wished she could ask for Maleficent’s advice, but she was pretty sure she knew what her suggestion would be.

  Cook his heart over a spit. Roast it well. Then discard it.

  “Would you like me to make up your bed for you, as I used to when you were a child, beastie?” asked Maleficent.

  Aurora grinned at the old nickname. “Yes.” It would be good to be away from the Perceforest castle, away from the smoke and the iron and the constant feeling that someone was waiting to corner her.

  When she was younger, she had slept in a spider-silk hammock hung from the branches of an enormous tree. But that night she had a magical bed in a leafy bower.

  Aurora climbed in, under piles of blankets of faerie workmanship, each one almost impossibly warm and light.

  But a few hours later, while Maleficent dozed on a divan, wings folded as tightly against her back as a bird’s, Aurora was still wide-awake.

  She willed herself to rest, but as her eyes drifted closed, her whole body jerked awake in nameless terror. After several attempts, her heart was beating so wildly that she knew sleep wasn’t coming. And if she wasn’t careful, Maleficent might discover her trouble. Aurora knew it would make Maleficent feel awful. Aurora wanted that least of anything.

  As quietly as she could, she slid from the bed. She didn’t bother looking around for her shoes or even pulling on her overdress. She hurried down the stairs and out of the palace. The moss under her feet was soft and cool and a little damp. The breeze was warm. She began to walk. In the starlight, gems shimmered beneath the waves. She saw wallerbogs snoring gently, sleeping beneath blankets of mounded leaves.

  On she went, until she was almost at the edge of the area where there had once been a barrier between the Moors and the human lands. There she heard a sound, too large for a possum and too tentative for a bear. At first she thought it might be a deer come to nibble at the new green leaves.

  By the time she realized it was a human, he was too close for it to matter if she screamed.

  Maleficent wasn’t sure what had woken her. She turned to one side on the divan, her gaze going automatically to check on Aurora.

  Except the girl wasn’t in her bed.

  The embroidered blankets were piled up where Aurora ought to have been, one of them trailing on the floor as though she’d kicked her way free of it. Maleficent sat up and looked around. The wind blew through the trees on the balcony, sending down a shower of silvery leaves.

  Maleficent walked until she spotted footprints in the moss. They looked leisurely, unrushed. No doubt the girl would be back in a moment.

  But a moment passed, and then another, and Maleficent couldn’t help worrying. She began to walk along the path of the footprints, her worry deepening as she realized that they went farther than could have been explained by the needs of a body.

  Her wings flexed, opening and closing restlessly with her desire to fly and survey the landscape for Aurora, but her view of the ground would be obscured by thick vines and flowering trees, and she worried she might not be able to pick up the trail easily again once she abandoned it.

  Then Maleficent heard a voice. Not Aurora’s—a deeper voice, one that might belong to a man. She rushed forward, moving swiftly between trees. She stopped at the sight of Phillip walking at Aurora’s side with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Phillip, here, after she’d warned him. Phillip, defying her.

  Maleficent felt a wash of rage so overwhelming that it staggered her, overwhelming even her relief at finding Aurora unharmed. When she looked at Prince Phillip, all she could see was Stefan, and when she looked at Aurora, all she could see was heartbreak.

  “You really came here for our walk?” the girl asked him.

  Maleficent stepped behind a tree, hiding herself from view.

  “I hoped to arrive a bit earlier, but—” He broke off and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I got lost again. Did you know there are faeries that lead you around in circles? But I spoke to them kindly, and they brought me to you when they were done with their game.”

  Aurora smiled at him with shining eyes, as though his being a fool were somehow to his credit.

  Maleficent ought to have told those faeries who’d been leading Phillip in circles to take him to a swamp it would take weeks to escape. Months, even.

  Angrily, she watched as Phillip took Aurora’s hand. “I had to see you. I—”

  “You’re going to say that you must return to Ulstead,” Aurora told him, her gaze on their joined hands.

  He raised his brows in surprise.

  “Lady Fiora told me that a messenger had come from your family.” She took a breath and then spoke quickly, as though she’d rehearsed the words and now was just trying to get them out. “I know you must go, but I—I hoped you might be willing to stay a few more days. I am holding a festival, and if you will come and dance with the Fair Folk, surely it will help the people of Perceforest be less afraid of them.”

  “And if I dance with you?” he asked.

  Aurora laughed. “Then I am likely to step on your feet.”

  “I will wear my heaviest boots,” Prince Philli
p said.

  She looked up into his face. “So you agree to stay a little longer?”

  Maleficent began to hope that perhaps she’d convinced Phillip to withdraw after all. Perhaps he really was returning to Ulstead, and he only intended to bid her farewell. Another day or two didn’t matter, so long as he was gone.

  “There is something more I would say to you,” Phillip said. “Before I go, I wanted to tell you—”

  No, absolutely not.

  She ought to have known better. Of course that feckless boy would attempt to take her heart and then swan off to Ulstead, never to return. Of course he wanted Aurora to believe that his love for her would make him less of all the things that all greedy princes are—selfish and power hungry and cruel. But it would be a lie. All of it, lies.

  Well, Maleficent would not allow that to happen.

  She stepped out of the shadows and walked across the grass, her wings like a cloak spread behind her. She pointed her index finger at Phillip, the nail clawlike in the moonlight. Magic sparked green around her hands. “You disobeyed me, little prince.”

  Aurora sucked in a breath in surprise. “Godmother! What are you doing here?”

  “Interrupting him before he makes a terrible mistake,” Maleficent said.

  Aurora moved between her and the prince, looking mutinous. “Stop trying to frighten Phillip! What mistake could you possibly mean?”

  Maleficent found herself powerless to answer. She couldn’t reveal to Aurora she’d overheard his confessions of love; that was the exact thing she didn’t want her to know.

  “He does not have my permission to be here in the Moors,” she said instead. “I have warned him already and do not like disobedience.”

  “He wished to speak with me,” Aurora said. “And he’s my friend. And he doesn’t need your permission so long as he has mine, since you made me the queen here.”

  Maleficent ignored that, too angry to be reasonable. “If his mistake is coming here, yours is to trust so easily. What do you know of him?”

  “I never intended to harm Aurora,” Phillip said, “or anyone in the Moors. I would swear to it, on my life.”

  “Rash words.” They were a temptation spread out before her like a banquet. Curse him, she thought. Make his promise a living thing. Curse him so that if he causes Aurora the slightest pain, he will feel it three times over. Curse him so that if he raises a hand to a faerie, he will drop dead on the spot.

  “Stop looking at him like that!” Aurora was trembling with rage. Aurora, who hated to get angry. The last time she had shouted at Maleficent, it was because she’d discovered how many secrets were being kept from her. She’d discovered that Maleficent wasn’t her protector, wasn’t her godmother, but her enemy.

  Maleficent never wanted to be thought of as her enemy again.

  She took a breath and then another, letting the green magic fade away from her fingers.

  No, she would find another way.

  “Perhaps it would behoove me to get to know Phillip a little better,” she said, although she could barely bring herself to look at him with anything other than hostility. But it was Aurora who needed to know him better, to see through his deceptions. And perhaps there was a way to trick the prince into behaving like the person he doubtless was back in Ulstead. “Come dine here in the Moors with us, tomorrow evening. Before Aurora’s festival and your departure.”

  “It would be a pleasure,” Prince Phillip said, as though the invitation were a perfectly normal one and not a gauntlet of challenge thrown down between them.

  Good. Let him come to the Moors. Let him sit at her table and eat from her plates. He had no more love for the faeries than any of the rest of the humans. He would be frightened, and once he was, he would show Aurora his true nature.

  “You need not,” Aurora said, her voice holding a clear desire to warn him off more firmly.

  “If he wishes for my approval, he will accept my invitation.”

  “Oh,” said Phillip with a bow, “I never thought to refuse it.”

  Aurora’s eyebrows knitted, but all she said was “Good night, then. It was very good of you to come all the way here to give me your news. I am sorry we didn’t get to finish our walk.”

  “After dinner tomorrow, perhaps,” he said.

  Aurora’s smile bloomed, bright as any star. Maleficent refrained from rolling her eyes.

  With a careless wave, Prince Phillip departed the Moors, followed only by Maleficent’s steady scowl.

  “Why are you determined not to like him?” Aurora asked, whirling on her, a fresh light of anger in her eyes. “He has been a kind friend to me since I was crowned queen. You can’t believe he’s here to win my hand like Lord Ortolan presumes. And even if you did, you must know that I am uninterested in any courtship!”

  “I only wish for you not to make the mistakes I made,” Maleficent said, putting a hand on Aurora’s shoulder. Perhaps she had acted too much in haste. “You know little of the world, as I once did. I suffered for that lack. I would not for anything wish you to suffer. I would not wish for you to be betrayed, your heart broken—even by a kind friend.”

  Aurora pulled away. “What am I to do instead? Surround it with thorns, as you did?”

  “You are my heart,” Maleficent said softly. “And you are right that I guard it fiercely.”

  “Did you hear her this afternoon?” Lord Ortolan demanded, pacing his chamber. “We must act, and swiftly.”

  He had wormed his way into King Henry’s court many years before. He knew how to flatter a ruler, how to inflame ambition in his breast.

  It had been easy to steer King Henry toward greater and greater excess, until war with the Moors had been the only way to enrich his treasury. King Stefan had been more difficult, especially after the death of Queen Leila, when he spent more and more time alone, shouting at the pair of wings he’d caged, as though they were likely to give him advice.

  But that setback had led Lord Ortolan to greater opportunities. After all, if King Stefan wasn’t capable of dealing with matters of trade and taxes, then someone else had to do it. Someone had to note down into official record the gold and silver that was moving through the treasury. And someone had to help those nobles who sought Stefan’s favor find his ear. If Lord Ortolan had managed to enrich himself through all that, well, it was only what he deserved.

  But none of his tactics seemed to be working with Aurora. She seemed to care little for flattery, and while she had ambition, it wasn’t the kind Lord Ortolan found useful to exploit.

  “I did hear her,” Count Alain said, sitting in a chair. “I don’t think Queen Aurora cares a whit for your advice.”

  Lord Ortolan turned toward him, unable to hide his anger. Count Alain’s father had been an easy man to work with. He had understood what it took to accomplish things, and Lord Ortolan had assumed his son would be cut from the same cloth. So far, he’d had cause to regret that. Count Alain was entirely too used to having his own way without working for it. “Be careful,” Lord Ortolan warned. “You need me. Not the other way around.”

  “Oh?” asked Alain. “And I suppose you have another way to get your nephew appointed as your replacement despite being barely older than Aurora herself.”

  Lord Ortolan gritted his teeth but didn’t snap at the count. Alain might be proud and lazy, but he wasn’t wrong. And Lord Ortolan was depending on that laziness; otherwise, how would his nephew manage to take over the operation of siphoning funds from the treasury? “And yet you have even less influence than I, even after your extravagant present.”

  Count Alain sighed. “You said she would be tractable.”

  “I was wrong. I did not realize how deep the rot ran.” Lord Ortolan looked down at the count. “But there is still hope. You will become the girl’s hero.”

  “And just how am I supposed to do that?” Alain complained.

  “We need a story. And a villain. And we must separate her from Maleficent and Phillip both,” declared Lord Ortolan.
“The only question is whether you have the courage to do what must be done.”

  The next day was full of preparations for the festival. The cooks had to bring in enormous wheels of cheese, sausages, barrels of apples, baskets of eggs, and carts filled with sacks of flour, along with scores of promising young people to help them turn those supplies into a banquet.

  Fun meant work, and a lot of it.

  Maypoles were being erected, ribbons braided, tents sewn, and chairs cut. Musicians were arriving early, having been called from the countryside. Stewpots were being borrowed and spits constructed by the castle blacksmith.

  Everyone seemed full of fresh energy. The courtiers were eager to plan their outfits. Two young girls recently arrived from a barony were nearly ecstatic with glee.

  “Oh!” said Lady Sabine. She had deep bronze skin and wore her sleek black hair pulled back into a wimple. “We are so terribly excited to be here at court.”

  “And we did so hope you would give a ball!” said her twin, Lady Sybil. “So it is wondrous that we came just in time for the festival. And there will be dancing, so it is very like a ball, really.”

  “I suppose it is,” Aurora said hesitantly. Everything she’d heard of balls made them sound full of fancy people in enormous gowns. Not like her festival, where everyone would be welcome.

  And of course, she was worried about the treaty. She’d listened to everything both the humans and the faeries had said to her and rewritten it herself. She wasn’t sure it would make anyone happy, but she hoped it was fair enough that everyone would at least be equally unhappy.

  “I hope you will forgive me for saying so, but King Stefan and Queen Leila were quite dour rulers,” said Lady Sabine. “There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but you are so young that we hoped—”

  Sybil jumped in, half like she was talking over her sister and half like they were speaking with one voice and few pauses. “We imagined meeting you so many times. We thought you might be lonely, growing up as you did. And we thought that perhaps you would like to do fun things.”