Charm

Two days had passed since Safiya's visit to her room, and the princess had been visibly absent from their lives as the last-minute preparations for the betrothal ceremony fell into place without even the slightest hiccup.

Ninive always became anxious when things ran too smoothly, and as Derya stood for her final dress fitting, she couldn't help but feel unsettled.

"Is the dress not your liking, your majesty?" the seamstress, whose name she had forgotten almost instantly, asked.

"No, it is lovely, I assure you."

"Wedding jitters?" the woman asked, placing a pin in her mouth as she corrected the seam of that powder blue dress that Derya would have loved if it wasn't yet another nail in her coffin.

"Perhaps I miss my home?" she suggested, and it rang true because it was so.

The seamstress nodded, retrieving the pin and adding it to the seam.

"Aye, I come from the far south. We were farm folk, but my father loved the drink too much. One night a man said he'd buy him a pint of ale for my hand in marriage, and he agreed," the words should have shocked Derya, but the fae were a precocious people, and such things often happened.

King Longinus the fifth gave away his daughter's hand to a trickster fae for a leg of mutton. Famously saying, "a female heir has no more value to a king than a piece of meat."

The fae ended up with both his daughter and kingdom before long.

He said, "a father who would trade his heir for a piece of meat did not deserve a kingdom. While an obedient daughter who did as her father commanded, despite her broken heart, merited all the land and treasure her heart desired."

It was a favorite fable of Derya's father.

King Longinus, a seasoned war hero and an elf, charged at the trickster fae and turned into a puff of smoke which transformed into a rat. One of the royal hunting hounds promptly pounced on the rat as they were taught to do at the castle and killed it.

"A fitting end for such a creature," the fae said and returned to his wife.

The moral was that the thing you value the least might become the most valuable thing you own, but not if you give it away.

"What happened to you?" she asked, and the seamstress glanced at her, surprised at the question and perhaps wondering why she paused so long in the asking.

"Luck or fate gave me a good man with a heart of gold, but we did not have long. Two seasons ago, he caught the sniffles and, being such a sturdy lad, still insisted on bringing in the harvest. The cold touched his lungs, and he drowned in his own fluids," she said sadly but practically.

"I am sorry for your loss," Derya said.

Her sentiment baffled the seamstress; royals rarely notice the help or care, and although once guilty of this herself, Ninive quickly educated her on the balance of power.

"The lady Argana asked that when your fitting ends, you dress formally and join them for tea, your majesty," a maid said from the door. "We have quests."

"Who?" Derya asked, and the made hesitated mid-curtsy.

"Princess Safiya's father," the maid answered, scurrying out the door.

"Safiya, the gift that keeps on giving," she muttered, noticing the slight glow of her eyes in the full-length mirror and reining her emotions in.

"Perhaps it would be wise to keep your inner self hidden from the blood-seekers," the seamstress said, drawing her attention as her heart ratcheted.

The woman touched one of the roses on the table, and for a moment, it looked like leafy vines showed on her arms, face, and neck just below the skin.

*Faerie folk.*

"Well met, earth child," Derya said automatically.

"Well met, moon child," the lady responded. "Let us get you dressed, your highness. Prim and proper, or scandalous to distract your new enemy?"

"What is your name?"

"Adae."

"How about a tasteful mix of both?" she said, and the faerie considered her for the longest moment.

"I have just the dress, your majesty."

Not all faekind could hide their true face from humans, and even the ones that could struggle with maintaining that ruse. And then there were the sensitives. Those among humans who could either peek through the magic with some training or the uninitiated who just had a natural suspicion of anything "other."

If a faerie touched something green or a flower, their true face showed. A werewolf could shift at some perceived threat or at the mercy of a powerful emotion. Goblins shifted when they touched anything made of gold. Even those who had amulets were only protected if they had the amulets on them, like vampires, elves, and mermaids. Even with an amulet, pixies could not touch anything made of iron.

Those who needed to rely on the magic of others often found the price of that magic far exceeded the bargain struck or the value of it.

"How about this?" she asked, and that blue dress enchanted Derya instantly. She'd never seen anything as intricate.

But it wasn't until she had it on that she understood what the fairy meant, and a smirk touched her lips.

"If this human king doesn't forget everything he wanted to say, your majesty, his nether parts either dried up, or he doesn't like ladies."

"Adae!"

"No need to pretend, your highness, it is just the two of us here, and we were never as prim and proper as them."

"Time to go," Derya said, making her way down the two steps. Adae helped her adjust her dress, and as she walked into the corridor, two of her new ladies' maids fell into step behind her, and two knights followed in their steps.

In the passages of her home beyond the veil, no one accompanied her. She was safe in her own home; here, things were different. Not that these two knights could do anything she couldn't do more easily, but no one must ever learn that.

Bailey awaited her outside the Great Hall looking regal, and side by side, they made their way into the massive old room with its shields and swords against the wall, the ancient tapestries in their alcoves, the massive hearth, and three chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

Neither of them expected quite as many quests, but Derya had gotten so caught up in the drama of the last few days that she had forgotten that most of the guests attending their betrothal dinner would be here tonight.

Her fingers were slightly trembling, and her insides seemed hollow. Never had she been so unsettled by a crowd before, and even though they had no idea what she was, their eyes on her seemed wary.

*Never show fear.* That was the first lesson her father taught her when he took her on her first hunt. *Animals smell fear, he said.*

Derya straightened her back and squared her shoulders, lifting her chin and allowing herself to be the woman she was born to be. The chandeliers nearly glowed with light in that massive old room. The tantalizing scents of cooked meat, baked bread, and vegetable broth lingered in the air, mixed with the odors of perfume, rich materials, and human.

It reminded her of her brother's birthday festival only a day or two before her arrival on this side of the veil, and it was the reason she was at his castle and not at home with her father. The King would never have allowed her to slip away for so long without sending someone to check on her. Since her mother's death, her father got restless whenever he didn't know where she was.

***

Despite mentally stalling, they drew nearer that main table laden with white damask cloths, gold-edged plates, gold-encrusted goblets of the finest crystal, silverware, and a glittering array of foreign guests sitting slightly above the other guests on a raised stone dais.

The crowd grew quiet when they first arrived, but as they reached the middle of the room, the whispers started. Although most of them spoke of her dress and her beauty, some were focused on the "elfling." And from the way Bailey's shoulders stiffened, she heard them.

Derya could not imagine growing up like this with the hatred, dislike, and intolerance of so many kept at bay only by the Andor's command, and her heart bled for the princess, but her eyes wandered back to the table, and the two men at its center, watching them approach.