The Proud Princess and the Mage at the End of the World

“It looks like the end of the world,” she murmured.

“Maybe it will be the beginning of yours,” he murmured back.

Continuing the fairy tale which I wrote in Czech and am translating into English for fun! What’s happened so far is SO CLICHE! All the cliches, y’all. A dastardly masked stranger ruins a spoiled princess’s ball with a magic ring and a contract that claims her father gave her to him in marriage to save his kingdom. Oh, dear, what will she do with such a cliched problem?

If you want to start from the beginning, all the previous parts are here: The Proud Princess and the Masked Mage. Otherwise jump right in lol–>

IN THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT:

“I suppose,” she groused, “you should tell me your name.”

“Ah. Finally, my bride admits curiosity about me.”

“I admit nothing!”

“I’m afraid your eyes betray more than your lips. Although…” His smile unfurled like a poisonous bloom while he unfurled his penetrating gaze down to her mouth. “I’m willing to wager that your lips will betray you, too, soon enough.”

The continuation:

Damarishka drew herself up, indignant.

Truly? What could she say to this overweening popinjay? Should she huff? Sniff?

Surely her scoff was implied.

She hooked herself, boringly, onto the unanswered question. “Your name? Or,” she arched a rigorously censorious brow, “is your name a violently guarded secret?”

“Not violently guarded against you.” The low way he emphasized ‘you’ brought her existence into an intimate place—too intimate for someone she’d just met—and intimate enough to make her strangely squirm.

All in all, the timbre of his voice did things to her that no voice should dare to do.

Or he did them.

And then, gently—dare she say gallantly?—he cut across the space between them and captured her hand.

His power and heat seemed to encompass her in impossible ways (unwisely not entirely unpleasant ways).

Without removing his gaze from her face, he caressed her palm, then kissed her knuckles. And there, he breathed: “Nothing of mine is guarded against you.”

She ruthlessly tamped down another visceral response. “Then…”

His smile went toothy as a wolf’s. “I am Darian of the Darklands.”

She stiffened. “No.” Then forced a false laugh. “No.”

“Yes.” The rascal grinned. “Yes.”

The known miscreant’s kingdom hid itself behind a veil of storm and lightning, beyond which no one could forge a path—not for years, some claimed for decades. The most potent mage in the world had made this kingdom his home and brutally struck every intruder down.

He was the scourge of… well, something. She wasn’t well-versed in world news.

The world news wasn’t supposed to affect her.

Now the world’s worst news had her in his clutches.

He let her limp hand slip from his, and he retreated to his seat while his face cradled his lupine, satisfied smile.

Damarishka’s breath whooshed back in (the breath she hadn’t known she was holding—and what was it with the breaths one didn’t know one held? They always assailed one at the worst of times, when one wasn’t supposed to be influenced by dastardly men).

Her mood went spiky, and she retreated into silence like a sulky bug behind its carapace.

Desultorily, the villain Darian waved his hand, and the carriage hoisted into the air.

Damarishka, jolted, stifled a squeak. What—

She threw herself at the window, her nose plastered to the pane.

They were flying! How?

She had never even imagined this. Her heart thumped like a hare that had nowhere to flee but into excitement. Like a child, she took in the fields, forests, and bridges dashing past below, the villages that sat like scattered toy cottages in the valleys, and the rivers that wound like ribbons through the dales.

Part of her chest constricted, understanding now that she truly couldn’t escape this scoundrel, but the other part of her chest expanded, unable to absorb the experience of being airborne. She almost—nearly—didn’t mind being abducted.

When she’d been young, she’d longed for more; longed for something, adventure? But her mother had always shushed these wishes. Don’t wish for anything outside, my darling. Stay hidden. Be content.

Damarishka had never been content, but for her mother, she had obediently caged her wants. If it wasn’t proper, then she must stuff them down.

She must copy her father and go overweening with pride… but not violence. Never that.

“Are you hungry?” her tormentor broke into her morose introspection.

She turned to find a repast of crumbly cheese and rich, dark bread on a wooden board. A pitcher of water stood beside it, flavored with squeezed lemon, crushed ginger, and spoonfuls of sugar. As she watched, a woven basket materialized, with apples and oranges proliferating inside it.

She pilfered one of the ruby-red fruits and bit into it. Sweetness crunched on her tongue, a delight unforeseen. “Where did you get these?”

“Stolen from some orchard below us.”

“Thief!” she named him, but without rancor, even with a little smile, for food conciliated her inner shrew. And wasn’t this an adventure her little-girl self would have craved?

“Thief?” Darian’s mouth quirked up the slightest bit. “For you, I’d stoop to anything.”

Again, her heart did unwise somersaults.

Best to change the subject. “Tell me why you’ve cut your kingdom off from the world.”

“Tell me why you’ve cut off yourself.”

“Myself!”

“From your own wishes,” he clarified.

Had he read her mind just moments before? “You’re evading the answer.”

“As you are evading mine.”

“I asked first.”

“But I am more interested.”

“Are you accusing me of feigning curiosity about the kingdom to which you’re spiriting me?”

“Foes,” he murmured. “Envy. Hatred. Viciousness. I inherited home and power when I was a small child, and many who knew me were not kind. I was forced to become formidable, dangerous. And when I gained great enough potency to destroy them all, I found them tiresome and simply cut them off.”

She opened her mouth and closed it. When I gained enough potency to destroy them all.

As he watched her digest his words, he curved his gloved hands delicately around his knees. So much power held so lightly.

Keeping her poise, she reached for a crumble of cheese. Tangy. Her mouth watered from its taste while her scrutiny dissected him, her mind working through… a yawn. Her hand lowered with a hunk of bread to her lap.

She slipped… her eyes shut…

Just for a moment…

She startled awake.

Still in the carriage. Outside the window, snowflakes swirled in a fierce gale she could not hear. Inside, shielded from the blizzard, sat a bowl of steaming, soft porridge infused with cinnamon and apples, beside a carafe of hot apple cider.

Her abductor smiled annoyingly across from her.

“You put me to sleep,” she accused him outright, circling around courtesy and barging straight for plain speaking. “So you could cast some enchantment on me, surely.”

“Or,” he reached without warning and brushed the curved backs of his knuckles beneath her eyes, “perhaps you needed to sleep. You’ve shadows under your eyes.”

She pulled away. “So?”

His hand lowered, slowly. “You do not sleep. What worries haunt—”

“I have no worries.”

“Don’t you?”

No worries that she could do anything about. Her father ruled as he wished and brushed aside her concerns with his feather-duster of dismissal. The people can afford to give us more.

And more. And more…

When would he stop draining them? As good as killing them…

Not wishing to answer Darian’s question, she turned to pleasing her belly with the cinnamon porridge and cider while flattening her face again to the window.

Below them now plunged a seemingly immeasurable abyss.

Her eyes rounded. “Where are we?”

“We’re crossing the protective enchantment around my kingdom,” Darian answered willingly enough, but with an inscrutable expression.

“It looks like the end of the world,” Damarishka murmured.

“Maybe it will be the beginning of yours,” Darian murmured just as softly.

And then the darkness was broken by light, and his kingdom unfolded before her.

Aaaah, this is terrible! I keep adding stuff to this story. I can’t help myself! Someone stop me!

No! No one stop me! It’s so much fun. Also, here is the next part if you want it.

ALSO, I am feeling SO much better the past week or so! I’ve started working on multiple projects rather than just trying to focus on Heiress of Secrets (although she is 100% on my agenda to finish ASAP and I have been working on her every week, too). I’m now working on this (The Proud Princess) once a week, a few fairy tales (each one once a week), Heiress of Secrets (multiple days a week), and I convinced a friend to republish a book we co-authored ten years ago! I had a ton of fun redoing the front matter to hide her identity. I’ll share that once I get it done!

In any case, thank you for reading and I hope everyone out there is doing FANTASTIC! Thrice the Shadow.

Be kind to everyone this week, y’all!

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