The Temptation of the King’s Daughter

I climbed up the ladder inside my cell every day to the little square opening high above. I liked watching Father down below with my sisters while they rode ponies or played at archery or swords and imagined what it might be like for Father to look up and see me. Maybe he’d vow never again to send his scrawled messages on crackling parchments to my cell. Instead, he’d come personally and seal my noble calling with a kiss.

~

The Strong Man stole the kingdom as Father predicted, and as anticipated, the Strong Man’s tempters set to work worming Father’s secrets from me.

The first tempter carried a tray laden with steaming dishes into my cell. He wore Father’s wools, and when he said to eat, Father’s wine washed over me in a complexity of oak, spices, and Earth.

“The meat would make better boots,” I said.

“We can join hands or spill blood. It’s your choice, girl. Either way, eat.”

The enchantment inside me tingled, heating my cheeks, responding to the tempter’s strength. I shoved the tray. “A meal goes better with a blade.”

“We’d heard you’re clever.”

The tempter retreated, and outside my cell, the Strong Man’s guards whispered how already my older sister wore a golden circlet upon her head. Had my father’s seat even chilled before her knees hit the stones? As for my pretty, younger sister, she’d supposedly glimpsed a prosperous future on the arm of one of the Strong Man’s sycophants, a bright, shiny grasper like herself. Father loved those girls, protected them. Gave them his smiles. How easily they’d turned.

He’d given me his absence. I’d worn his neglect like a castle wore its banners. We girls had been born hours apart on the same day, but Father chose me for the honor of keeping the kingdom’s secrets safe. He’d aged and tempered me in the depths like his wine. The Strong Man didn’t stand a chance against me.

~

My cell door scraped open, and a new tempter skipped inside. She hummed an annoying tune and smelled of wind and deceit. She knelt at my feet, and I pulled away, shocked by her intimacy, but I’d seen Father kneeling before my sisters. On summer days, he’d tie their sandals. Stroke their hair. How had his hands felt against their skin?

The tempter’s fingers stole beneath my hem, stinging my ankles like fire sparks. A jolt speared through me, and when I opened my mouth to cry out, the heathen shoved her claws inside.

Father’s messages had warned me about a tempter’s tricks—and the price for failing him. Too late, the tempter’s buttery goodness melted on my tongue.

I gagged and spat the bits back in her face. Still, juices slid down my throat, dragging like hooks and searing into my belly. I sank onto my cot, my legs quivering and my senses swirling. The enchantment spilled flames beneath my skin, and I took to the skies on the wings of a roaring dragon with Father at my side. He struck down the Strong Man and my traitor sisters, and afterward, for my bravery, Father kissed my brow.

~

The silence inside my cell awakened me. A taste of dried bones clung to my lips. The Strong Man’s guards had left my cell door ajar, which was surely another trick, so I climbed the ladder to the little square opening far above. Shouts greeted me.

Below, horses’ hooves pounded, armor clashed, and swords rang. My heart rang too.

Father and the Strong Man’s forces fell upon each other, splattering red.

Others had failed Father. Their cries echoing into my cell late at night were shrill, taut. And still, I’d watched him, so gentle with my sisters, and imagined he loved me too.

The broken enchantment revealed the truth: everybody was somebody’s pawn.

Stealing out of my cell, I padded up cold, abandoned steps and past rooms thick with mold and subjugated by quiet, fleshless bones. My eyes adjusted to the light the higher I climbed.