Pix rolled her eyes as Mab kicked a dwarf. She was taking out her anger on them because it was easier and infinitely more satisfying than taking it out on the right person.
“Careful, Pix,” Lethe, her gleaming, black crow, murmured softly as she fluttered about the pixie’s head before landing on her shoulder. “Best not to anger her further.”
“Especially, if she’s going to aim all that anger at you,” Slyth, the slithering green snake, hissed as he wound around Pix’s feet, catching her aunt’s eye.
“This is all your fault, you know,” Mab yelled, turning on Pix, her flowing black cloak fluttering behind her. “If you had just gotten the brat’s heart’s blood, those twittering, meddling fairies wouldn’t have been able to alter my curse.”
“Told you,” the snake muttered sourly before slinking further under Pix’s chair.
Ignoring him, Pix crossed her arms over her chest and bit her tongue, cutting off a particularly nasty reply. For sixteen years, she’d been hearing the same thing every day. It was her fault. If only she hadn’t shrunk away from her duty like a newly hatched dragon from its first flame.
It didn’t matter that Mab had been the one who hadn’t shown up at their meeting place. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t told Pix that they’d needed heart’s blood for the spell to work right. It hadn’t even mattered that Pix had only been a six-year-old child!
In Mab’s eyes, this was Pix’s fault and no one else’s.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pix mumbled.
“What was that?” Mab snapped.
Sitting up straighter, Pix repeated, “It doesn’t matter.” Getting up to face her aunt in front of the whole room, the twenty-two-year-old fairy strode toward Mab as Lethe tittered beside her head nervously. But the loyal bird stayed on her shoulder in support as Pix said, “It doesn’t matter whose fault this is. Cami was able to alter the spell. Now instead of dying on her sixteenth birthday, Princess Aurora will simply fall into a deep sleep until her true love wakes her with true love’s first kiss.” Straightening under her aunt’s censuring gaze, Pix continued, “There’s nothing we can do about that. Nothing we can do to change it. So we need to figure out how to work around it.”
“And exactly how are we supposed to do that?” Mab asked, her narrowed gaze glittering with hard annoyance. “Like you said, we can’t change it. The spell has been cast. In three days, that brat will turn sixteen only to take a little nap until Phillip can gallop the short ride between their kingdoms and kiss the little royal awake.” Crossing her own arms over her chest, she said blandly, “If you’re so smart, what do you propose we do, if not hunt down the girl?”
“Good question,” Slyth said as he coiled next to Pix. “Hope you know what you’re doing.”
Pix smiled. She knew. She’d been thinking about it, planning a plot, for months now. “Stop looking,” she said simply.
“Stop,” Mab ground out skeptically, “looking?” She gave a scoff. “What is that supposed to accomplish?”
“Well,” Pix answered, “it’ll save on manpower. They’ve successfully hidden her for sixteen years, what makes you think we’ll find the princess in the next three days, no matter how many scouts we send out or how hard they look?” She shook her head, her short black strands flicking across her face. “No, the soldiers would be more useful back at the castle. Instead of having our army scattered about the countryside searching for a girl we haven’t seen in sixteen years, we should call them back and begin planning the attack on Morning Valley.”
“Attack?” Mab asked, flustered as she swept her black cloak back behind her as she paced toward Pix. “What attack?”
“The one we’ll wage after sunset on the princess’s sixteenth birthday,” Pix said before reaching out her hand to the bird on her shoulder. “Lethe has been spying on the castle for weeks now,” she said as the bird landed on her forefinger, her strong talons gripping Pix’s digit gently. “Tell her what you saw.”
Lethe peeked at Pix anxiously before saying, “They’ve been planning a huge celebration in Morning Valley. Everyone will be celebrating the end of the curse and the return of the princess.”
“Which means,” Mab said, dismissing the bird and focusing on her errant niece, “that every Morning Valley guard will be sitting sentry all over that castle.”
“Yes,” Slyth said, giving a slight, deferent bow of his serpentine head, “but, with the amount of wine that will be flowing on that night, most of them will be drunk or distracted long before sunset. It should be easy enough to attack once the festivities are well underway.”
Pix nodded in agreement. “It’s the best time to strike, aunt,” Pix said, “when they’re all expecting their happily ever after, thinking that they’ve beaten us. Then when Ava, Lonna, and Cami come to deliver the princess to the king and queen, we can strike.”
“Strike with what?” Mab asked. “We can’t even complete the curse since King Walter has banned all spinning wheels throughout the kingdom. How do we prick her finger?”
“Don’t need a spinning wheel,” Pix said with a shake of her head. Reaching within the pouch hanging at her waist, she pulled out an old, beaten, but still sharp object. “The spell only called for the spindle.”
“Where did you get that?” her aunt asked as she reverently reached for the small bit of tarnished metal and splintered wood.
“They destroy and burn any spinning wheels brought into the kingdom by merchants and travelers,” Pix said. “I stole this from the burning grounds while the guards’ backs were turned.”
“Brilliant,” Mab breathed, her foul mood lifting for the first time in sixteen years as she caressed the spindle. “Brilliant, my girl, but this only solves one of our problems. Even if we manage to pull off the spell, what happens when Prince Phillip comes charging in with his sword drawn and lips pursed?” Mab asked.
“He won’t,” Pix answered simply, tipping her head slightly, letting the candles’ light flicker over her features.
“Really?” Mab chuckled, disbelieving. “And what makes you think that? He’s a prince and fancies himself a hero. He’s made it his life’s goal to protect the princess. I don’t think he’ll just not show in her greatest hour of need.”
“He won’t,” Pix interrupted, “if he can’t.” Gesturing to the snake, who preened and bowed his head proudly at her side, she said, “I’ve had Slyth follow the prince for days now. We know exactly where he is. They’ve spent years hiding their precious princess, but their stalwart prince has been out and about chasing his freedom.” Off beast hunting at the far edges of Starling Forest. Fencin’ princeling.
Pix bowed her head, trying to hide an anticipatory grin at the thought of hunting the hunter beneath the required deference due to the leader of Shadow Mountain. “With your permission, my leader, we’d like to relieve the prince of that freedom.”
Her aunt clapped her hands and laughed, the joyous sound so strange coming out of her usually surly mouth. “Kidnap the prince?” She chuckled. “It’s perfect!”
Of course it was, Pix thought, knowing her plan would work. It had to. It was their last shot. “We’ll bring him back here for you to do,” she shrugged dismissively, “whatever you choose with him. If the prince isn’t there to kiss the princess, she can’t wake up.” Standing straight again, she looked into her aunt’s dark eyes, a mirror of her mother’s—and, she supposed, Pix’s own glitteringly black eyes. “If she can’t wake up, the princess might as well be dead. Either way, it spells the end of the Morning Valley royal line. With no heir, the kingdom collapses and falls to whatever leader strong enough to overtake it.”
“Which is me,” Mab said almost giddily. “Yes. Yes! My brilliant girl, go fetch me a prince while I call back all my minions. In three days, we go to war!”
READ PART TWO HERE
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