This had better not be just another aspect of her totally undeserved punishment. Did Clara honestly think she, Merrigan, Queen of Carlion, would be grateful to have her own teeth back? Or consider being able to eat an apple a reward? Who would be so foolish and gullible to think that dropping her on an unknown road was helping her? Perhaps some foolishly honorable kingdom-less prince would consider the change an improvement, but not Merrigan, Queen of Carlion. Reward? Hah!
She fumed over the unfairness of her situation as she moved from one town to another in the days that followed, always trying to find one larger and more aware of the kingdoms of the world. Why did she have to depend on the kindness of the little people for food, for a bed by the fire on rainy nights, for a ride in their cart? She was a queen—surely justice decreed that wealthy merchants and town officials should be sent to help her along the way. Didn't the leaders of the community deserve a chance to be rewarded for helping her? Why didn't majjian folk hereabouts give them a chance to better themselves by helping Queen Merrigan?
No, it was entirely unfair that enchantresses and faeries always sided with the undeserving. The too-sweet-for-her-own-good twit who couldn't recognize that people were trying to steal the magic key left to her by her dying mother. Or in the case of an impoverished-but-noble young man, the map to a hidden kingdom where a princess lived under an enchantment, just waiting for a good-but-simple youth to break the spell.
How, with all the odds stacked against them, could any of those sugar-coated, cockeyed optimists continue to help old ladies and drowning puppies and enchanters in disguise who needed a pure soul to fetch some magical item? Merrigan just didn't understand. To make matters worse, several times she turned away with a loaf of fresh bread or climbed down out of a farm wagon and saw some majjian swooping down to reward whoever had just helped her. It wasn't fair. Couldn't they see her, standing there bold as life, desperately in need of help?
Finally, she had to have an answer. Certainly four moons of living under Clara's entirely unfair curse had earned her a few answers? Especially with winter approaching. Her chance came when a boy gave her a ride on a decrepit old donkey and helped her down at the intersection of five roads. The nearest town was called Smilpotz. He apologized profusely and explained that the man who had taken the mill that belonged to his family for ten generations had convinced the local judge to forbid him to come any closer to town than the crossroads.
The boy gave Merrigan a loaf of bread, three copper coins, and the names of several people in town who would help her for his sake. He wished her well. She thanked him—it was only polite, after all—and headed down the gravel-packed road wide enough for three carts. At the point where it turned to enter the trees, she glanced back, and saw him heading back the way he had come.
She wondered why, despite her habit of trying not to think about anyone she had left behind. Most especially not someone who had all the earmarks of downtrodden-and-deserving like this boy, on the brink of manhood.
Merrigan's next step faltered. She understood. He had retraced his steps for the last two miles to give her a ride to Smilpotz. His decrepit little donkey certainly hadn't needed her negligible weight on its back. From the deflated condition of his food sack and the lack of jingle when he gave her the coins, the boy certainly hadn't been able to spare either food or money, yet he had given them to her. What was wrong with him?
She froze as a faerie appeared, not thirty steps away. At least, she assumed the coldly handsome man with a face carved from black diamonds, with sapphires for eyes and silver for hair, was one of the Fae. He watched the young former-miller take the time to check his donkey, adjusting the few sacks tied to its back. The boy pulled out a bowl and spilled water from a water skin into the bowl, then held it for the decrepit creature to drink.
"He could have offered me some of that water," Merrigan muttered.
The Fae turned and stared at her, freezing her with the blue fire in his eyes. She shivered, feeling as if her crone disguise had been stripped away. He could see her, Merrigan of Avylyn. Even more chilling, she had the distinct impression he didn't like what he saw.
Then the Fae smiled, bright and glacial-cold. Merrigan cried out. She tried to, but the sound caught in her throat. He turned into her. The crone she was now. He called out with a creaky, frail voice, and hobbled down the road after the boy. Her voice didn't sound that bad, did it? Oh, the injustice!
The imposter commended the boy for being willing to help people, even though the mill that had belonged to his family for so long had been stolen by a cheat with false documents and a lying judge in his back pocket. The imposter then consoled him for endangering the health of his donkey, who was lame in one leg and shouldn't have taken even the weight of a shriveled old woman.
"I could have told you one leg was off, just from the bumpy ride," Merrigan muttered. Stunned that she could speak now, she tried to move. No luck. All she could do was watch and listen. She was probably invisible, too.
Oddly, she felt a tiny flicker of some discomfort that wasn't related to the ache in her bottom from sitting on the bony spine.
Still, I could have walked this far on my own. It's not like I couldn't make it. Who did he think he was, making an old woman ride that awful, knobby old thing? Maybe trying to win a
