FIVE

When Fayette entered the gazebo, she was more magical than any librarian Torsten had seen before. Her blonde hair was set in waves that rippled down to her waist. The clothes she wore were casual but well-made and expensive. The lack of frills and ruffles gave more of a hint as to the shape of her figure underneath the gown than was fashionable back at the castle. The ladies back home kept the shapes of their bodies a secret.

Torsten swallowed a lump in his throat.

He tried to stand when she entered to display his gentility, but she waved for him to sit.

She placed herself in the seat across from him on the right side. “Perhaps we can meet each other more properly now.”

He nodded. “I’m Prince Torsten, third prince of King Rollo.”

She smiled.

He shut up. Of course, she knew who he was.

“I’m Princess Fayette,” she said as a formality. “You may call me Fayette and I will call you Tor.”

“I’m not to call you Fay?” he asked curiously, shortening her name.

“You can try. No one shortens my name. If anything, people find ways to make my name even longer. They often add a miss on the beginning and call me Miss Princess Fayette Clearwater.”

“Is that your last name?”

“No. It is the name of the library community we will travel to when we are finished here. After our ride in last night, I have the feeling that you do not understand why you were brought here or what your role will be.”

“Yes. I said some strange things last night. I’ve had a few hours to draw new conclusions. I see now I am to take part in an arranged marriage,” he said bluntly.

She nodded.

“Is it to you?” he asked, taking a little courage and saying it as openly as if he had lost a bet with himself.

She nodded again, her tongue trapped behind her clenched teeth. Finally, her lips opened and she confessed, “It is to me.”

“Who is to perform the wedding?” he asked, looking around as though a clergyman would leap out of the bushes to do the honors.

She turned to her right and with a swirl of her hand, a bit of parchment appeared out of thin air and into her hand. “This is the marriage agreement. It is simple enough if you wish to read it. It merely states that you wish to enter into this agreement and that you will happily serve as my husband. Below, it speaks of what that sacrifice entails.”

Fayette handed over the document and allowed him to look it over.

Torsten read it. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said after his eyes had gone over the word block several times. “I’m going to marry you, but you also require my blood.”

“Yes, it will be leaked once every fortnight to be used in a ritual meant to separate your people from mine. That is how we maintain peace between our people–total separation. Except for you and I. We will never be separated once we have signed this contract.”

“We won’t be tied together?” he asked, slightly desperate for clarification and trying to hide it.

“No. We will be married and we will live in the library community of Clearwater and neither of us will leave it as long as we live. Thus, you and I are both required to make sacrifices,” she said with a level of tranquility as she took the paper back from him and banished it out of existence.

“You don’t want me to sign it now?” Torsten asked out of concern.

“We have some time here to get acquainted,” she said gently. “There is no going back, but there is time for us to come to terms with the changes in our circumstances. We have all the time we need.”

“Who’s supplying their blood to the barrier to give us ‘all the time we need’?” he asked, sounding more pragmatic than a man who looked like him had any right to be.

“Your uncle. We usually have two of your people at once so there is no shortage. You and I are to be wed because your great-aunt died two weeks ago.” It looked like she was going to say that she was sorry for his loss, but the loss had happened for his family in the time of his grandfather. Thoughtfully, she did not say more.

It was kind that she gave him a moment to think. He needed a moment.

What kind of life had his uncle led? Truthfully, Torsten didn’t know what he was dealing with or how to deal with it. He was a sacrifice, but it was a different kind of sacrifice than the one he expected. Maybe he preferred the gruesome end to a life killed by dullness and occasional blood-letting.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

By nature, Torsten had too much energy. When he was growing up, he should have been out in the training yard with his brothers. He should have been hitting dummies and working out all the excess energy in his shoulders. Too much energy meant that he wanted to go, go, go! He didn’t want to stick around the sad little house in the woods and get to know a princess. If he was supposed to marry her, then he wanted to get on with it because married men had somewhere to put their energy. It was in the bedroom. She was his consolation prize. Why wait?

His blood was itching with excess energy, but he wasn’t so strung out that he couldn’t think clearly.

“Am I expected to be a librarian?” he asked, putting one of his arms behind his head. “Is that what my uncle does?”

She sighed. “I was under the impression that you have been raised to expect and appreciate a life of tranquility.”

“I have been taught to paint,” he said in partial agreement. “I’ve been taught to write and appreciate poetry. I didn’t realize how those teachings were intended to be used. I’m a little disappointed. If this is an arranged marriage and there is no going back, as you say, I don’t understand why we hesitate here making every part of our arranged marriage as slow as the rest of our lives will be,” he said, endeavoring to make his complaints sound as little like complaints as possible with his tone of voice.

She looked around uneasily. “I’m not comfortable rushing things. Even if the end is inevitable, I still need time to get to know you and warm up to the idea of you and I being together.”

“Do you feel warm?” he said, undoing the top button of his shirt. “When you look at me, do you think you could feel warm in the future?”

Fayette hesitated, obviously unsure where to look or how to answer.

“Do I look good to you?” he said, getting in her line of sight and forcing her gaze upon him.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I need time.”

He nodded and backed off. “Shall we talk? Shall I tell you about the paintings I’ve made? Should you tell me about the books you’ve repaired? Shall I tell you about my family? Should you tell me about the place we’re going to live? Shall I tell you how I wanted to live my life and in exchange you can tell me how you envision us reaching this mutual understanding you’re suggesting? Maybe then I can make it come true.”

Fayette looked at him with violet eyes that were so sad they almost turned blue.

It was clear that the sexual innuendo in his words was not lost on a woman who did nothing but study words. He didn’t need to be more flagrant. His meaning was understood. He also understood that he was not approaching the subject with anything like the love a couple usually experienced before their wedding.

He scoffed at her bluish eyes. He was a prince. He had not been raised with anything like the same expectations about marriage. Political unions were political unions. Usually what was required of a prince in his circumstance was the procuration of an heir, so he had to do his bedroom duties no matter how he felt. Except the contract she had given him did not suggest the need for an heir.

He put the two facts together. “If we have children, their blood will not be human enough for your ritual. You will need a new person from the royal family once my blood is gone,” he concluded. “Is that right?”

Fayette nodded.

That fact made Torsten’s stomach turn. In an instant, he felt like he understood the situation completely. They were in the house, an enclosed space, so that she could learn to control him enough that she could take his blood without issue. Like he was her cow that she milked freely.

He swallowed the disgust like a thick cake of dirt in his throat.

If that was all they wanted, then why bother with a marriage contract at all? To remind Fayette that she was to have no other responsibilities other than him? To reward Torsten for allowing her to bleed him?

His mind was whirring the possibilities and the more they whirred the less he wanted to do with her—dressed or undressed.

“This is why we need time,” she cried, before getting up and flouncing out of the gazebo with an emotion he did not understand.

He’d messed up.

He knew he’d messed up by letting so many of his feelings show through his face. That was not the noble way, but he was disgusted and he couldn’t hide it. His jaw flexed as he stared into the forest rather than watch her cross the yard to enter her side of the house.

He was disgusted that there was a layer under the layer she spoke of. If he was going to have an arranged marriage then he wanted an arranged marriage. He wanted all the benefits that night. He didn’t want to wait to fall in love with her. He’d fall in love with her the moment her dress hit the floor.

As for whether or not she’d fall in love with him…

Well, if they were approaching it the way human couples did, then it was obvious that she would fall in love with him. In his mind, that was what making love was all about. That was why it was reserved for married couples. Once they were in the bridal suite after the wedding, all the love that was necessary would click into place.

What more did Fayette want before the wedding?

Control.

He was having a hard time separating the two thoughts. There was his definition of marriage and there was hers. What was the difference? How much time did she need to learn how to control him? It sounded like they’d marry when she had it worked out.

What was she afraid of?

He was being treated like a tiger that needed to be tamed when he had been raised as a toothless lion. He’d been taught nothing except how to be her plaything and now, he supposed, she wanted to check his teachings and see if he was a worthy enough lamb to lead to her life of library duty and bleeding. At the very least, he felt he deserved something worthwhile to paint and the bare skin of his new wife seemed like the perfect consolation prize in exchange for the life of daring adventure he would never have. Would he even have a life where he could paint anything he wanted? Was he meant to become even more helpless still?

The Extra Tail in the Fairy Tale

The clothing that hung in Torsten’s closet had melted the hangers. Now it was busy melting the floor. The wooden slats that made up the hardwood floor were fizzling away, exposing the dirt beneath.

The place on the wall where he’d put his face was melting as well, exposing the wooden planks that separated his space from Fayette’s.

The food in the kitchen had not started rotting, but the house was allowing itself to heat up to an uncomfortable, food-spoiling temperature.

The knives in the drawers and the knives that hid themselves in the walls were merrily sharpening themselves. They were brainless since they were normally lifeless objects that were incapable of sentient thought, but they couldn’t remember the last time they had the honor of killing their guest. They clashed their blades in a happy little chorus of death. All their dreams were about how pretty they would look with Torsten’s blood splashed on them.