The Unready Queen, стр. 2

Florabelle’s time approached, but the war approached faster. With their baby expected within the month, her husband was summoned away to defend the barrier. Florabelle begged him not to leave her, but he told her that he must. The fairy court had allowed his union to a human, but he was still fae. Rich or poor, male or female, it was the duty of all fair folk to defend the realm. Before he left, he gave her a gift. “If I should fall in battle,” he told her, “take this and go—bring nothing else from this land with you.”

Florabelle unfolded a thick, warm cloak of bearskin. It was rough and ragged, so unlike the silken gowns that filled her closet.

“Put it on before you leave this place,” he told her, “for the way is cold and unforgiving.”

And he left. The world shook. Days passed. Weeks. It became clear her husband was not coming back. Florabelle, whose true name had all but forgotten her, now shed her beautiful clothes and all her lovely trinkets. She kept nothing she had been given there, except that bearskin cloak, which she wrapped snugly around her shoulders.

And then the girl whom the goblins had stolen away finally stole herself back.

The frozen air bit her cheeks, but the cloak was warm against her skin as she slipped into the forest. In her belly, her baby kicked impatiently.

Miles passed under her bare feet. The sun dipped low in the sky, but she was nearing the passage—she could feel it. She was so close.

Noises erupted in the brush. Creatures lurked ahead. The musk of something vile crept through her nostrils: the stink of rot and the coppery scent of blood. Her heart pounded in her chest. A chill flooded through her like ice spreading across the surface of a stream. She could see flashes of teeth and talons between the branches, and for a moment she froze. She pulled the cloak tighter and slipped the hood over her head. As she did, she changed. She felt the hide settle heavily against her skin . . . and then settle a little deeper. She felt hot and powerful. The veil-gate was there, just ahead. It was ten feet away, atop a mossy mound in the forest. She took a deep breath and bounded toward it, paws hammering against the forest floor.

It was quiet on the human side of the veil, except for the gentle hum of insects and the whisper of a soft breeze through the leaves. In a world called Earth, in the middle of a thick forest known by the locals as the Wild Wood, a great brown bear erupted from the empty air and landed heavily on the leafy ground.

The bear breathed in deeply. She savored the smell of the wind and the dirt and the pine trees. Her head was spinning, and her eyes swam with tears. She was in a strange new wood in a strange new body, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, the world felt right. It felt like a warm embrace, like a tender kiss on her forehead. The forest rustled with excitement. It had been waiting, too.

The bear lifted her eyes to the golden sunlight and remembered. Raina. It was the name her mother had given her. Raina. It was a name that meant queen, and it was her name, and no one could take it from her.

Twigs snapped, and Raina turned around. A woman was standing in the clearing behind her, as thin as a birch tree, with soft white hair that caught the sunlight and fluttered in the breeze like cobwebs. The woman shook, but she did not shy away.

Slowly, the bear drew back her head, and her thick hide became a cloak once more. Rich brown curls fell across her shoulders as she lowered the hood.

For a long time, the two women gazed into each other’s hazel eyes.

“Raina.” The old woman’s voice was barely a whisper. “You came home.”

By week’s end, the woman in the woods had died. Raina knelt and kissed her mother’s forehead, and then she wept. The forest wept with her, and as they wept, the skies darkened and sheets of rain poured down the hills and flooded the valleys. The mire swelled and swallowed up the mossy glens around it, and creatures huddled in their burrows and dens as thunder shook the hills.

When at last there were no more tears to shed, the sun cut through the clouds and the Wild Wood wrapped itself around its long-lost daughter. Raina felt it settle on her shoulders like a mantle. Her mother’s mantle. Her mantle, now. The Queen of the Deep Dark.

And then the contractions began.