A Dance with the Fae Prince (Married to Magic)

  A Dance with the Fae Prince

  A Married to Magic Novel

  Elise Kova

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Silver Wing Press

  Copyright © 2021 by Elise Kova

  All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

  Cover Artwork by Marcela Medeiros

  Developmental Editing by Rebecca Faith Editorial

  Line Editing and Proofreading by Melissa Frain

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-949694-33-8

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-949694-34-5

  eISBN: 978-1-949694-29-1

  Also by Elise Kova

  See all of Elise’s books and find where to get them on her website at:

  https://elisekova.com/books/

  Married to Magic

  A Deal with the Elf King

  A Dance with the Fae Prince

  A Duel with the Vampire Lord

  (More to come)

  Air Awakens Universe

  Air Awakens Series

  Air Awakens

  Fire Falling

  Earth’s End

  Water’s Wrath

  Crystal Crowned

  Vortex Chronicles

  Vortex Visions

  Chosen Champion

  Failed Future

  Sovereign Sacrifice

  Crystal Caged

  Golden Guard Trilogy

  The Crown’s Dog

  The Prince’s Rogue

  The Farmer’s War

  A Trial of Sorcerers

  A Trial of Sorcerers

  A Hunt of Shadows

  (More to come)

  The Loom Saga

  The Alchemists of Loom

  The Dragons of Nova

  The Rebels of Gold

  Never miss a release.

  Get exclusive giveaways, review copies, and a free gift on sign up by subscribing to Elise Kova’s newsletter:

  https://elisekova.com/subscribe/

  Map of Midscape

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Discover more from Elise Kova

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author: Elise Kova

  for everyone who stays up late

  reading books about kissing

  Chapter 1

  When the money ran out, Joyce sold the paintings, then Father’s silver, then my mother’s jewelry and dresses, then everything of value in my corridor. She sold and sold to fund her parties and ambitions. She sold to try and reclaim some of the glory that died with my father.

  Now there is nothing left.

  So today she will sell my hand in marriage.

  It hasn’t been said plainly. I just know it to be true. I’ve known it for over a year now—I feel it deep in my bones, in the same way I can feel a storm lingering just beyond the horizon, the air thick with anticipation. It started with little comments my sisters made, small things, here and there. Every time, I was “unreasonable” for reading between the lines.

  But that’s where the truth always lies, isn’t it? The unsaid between.

  Then, mentions of marriage and “suitable arrangements for my age” became common around the dinner table. I eat too much and do too little. Marrying me off makes the most business sense, and Joyce is a businesswoman before anything else.

  The thoughts are as heavy and inescapable as the fog drifting across the rolling highlands that stretch from my father’s estate down to the dense forests that cluster at the foot of the Slate Mountains. These worries have been an unshakable cloud hanging over my head for weeks. I shift Misty’s reins in my hands. She lets out a whinny and shakes her head; I pat her neck in response. She can sense my displeasure.

  “It’s all right,” I reassure her. But I honestly have no idea if anything is all right or not. Today’s the day Joyce will meet with the man who will purchase my hand in marriage. Everything hinges on discussions had in a room that I’m not even privy to. “Let’s go, one more run to the forest.”

  Misty is a gray-colored mare, but I didn’t name her for her coat. She was born in the late fall months like this three years ago. I stayed up all night in the stables with her mother, waiting to meet her. I wanted to make sure that I was the first person she saw.

  She’s the last thing my father gave me before his ship went down.

  From then on, every morning, we’ve been inseparable. Misty runs with a speed that makes me feel like my feet have left the earth and I soar with the birds above. She runs because she understands the pain of being trapped and saddled day after day. As we fly over the wet soil, cutting through the mist like an arrow, it crosses my mind not for the first time that maybe we should just keep running.

  Maybe I could liberate us both. We would go…and never come back.

  The trees come out of nowhere—a solid line of sentinels, more like a wall than a forest. Misty rears back, nearly throwing me. I tug and twist, regaining control. We trot along the doorstop of the dark forest.

  My eyes scan between the trees, though there is little to see. Between the mist and the thick canopy, anything beyond a few feet is as dark as pitch. I tug lightly and bring us to a stop to try and get a better look, though I don’t know what I’m searching for. The townsfolk say that they see lights in the woods at night. Some brave huntsmen who dare to go past the natural barrier of man and magic claim that they have seen the wild and wicked creatures of the forest—half man, half beast. The fae.

  Naturally, I’ve never been allowed into the woods. My palms are slick with sweat and I rub them on the thick canvas of my riding pants. Just being this close always fills me with a restless anticipation.

  Is today the day? If I run into the forest, no one would follow me. People who go into the forest are presumed dead after less than an hour.

  The sharp cry of our rooster echoes to me over the slowly sloping hills. I glance back up in the direction of our estate. The sun is beginning to tear through the mist with its obnoxiously bright fingers. My brief moments of freedom have expired… It’s time to face my fate.

  The ride back takes twice as long as the ride out. Pulling myself away from the brisk twilight dawn, thick mist, and all the great mysteries that lie in that dark wood becomes harder and harder every day. It’s made no easier by the fact that the last place I want to return to is the manor. The woods are appealing, by comparison.

  Halfway back, it strikes me that this
is the last time I’ll make this ride… But I have no doubt that the freedoms I enjoy here, however limited they are to the brief hours of the early morning, are going to completely disappear when I am married off to some rich lordling to be his broodmare. When I will be forced to suffer whatever abuses he inflicts on me in the name of the most wicked thing in the world: “love.”

  “Katria, Joyce is going to skin you alive for being out so late,” Cordella, the stable hand, chastises me. “She’s been out here twice already looking for you.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I dismount.

  Cordella slaps me lightly on my upper arm and points a finger in my face. “Today you have an opportunity most girls would only dream about. The lady of the house is going to find you a smart, sensible match with a man who is going to care for you the rest of your days and all you have to do is smile and look pretty.”

  I’ve had enough people “caring for me” to last a lifetime. But instead, I say, “I know. I merely wish I got to have some kind of say in who that man is.”

  “It doesn’t matter who the man is.” Cordella begins unfastening the saddle as I take the bridle from Misty’s mouth. “All that matters is he’s rich.”

  When Cordella looks at me, she sees a young heiress. She sees the house, the dresses, the parties—all the presentations of wealth that Joyce can’t let go of. She sees the glittering facade left over from a time when we genuinely had all of those good things, long before it was all hollowed out from the rot of poor decisions and my father’s death.

  “I hope for the best,” I say finally. Anything else would give off the appearance of being ungrateful. And from where Cordella stands as a woman of modest background and opportunity, I have no reason to be anything less than grateful.

  “Katria,” my youngest sister calls from the veranda that wraps around the entire manor. The sun has barely woken, and she’s already dressed, looking like she is the one who will get married today and not me in my old, threadbare, mud-stained clothes. “Mother is looking for you.”

  “I know.” I pass the bridle to Cordella. “Do you mind taking care of the rest?”

  “I can make an exception today.” She winks. Cordella has made such “exceptions” more than once. Misty was a gift from my father, not from the lady of the house. Not long after he began to be absent more than not on the trade routes, Joyce decreed that we could not spare any more expenses on horses. She was already aflame by the fact that Father wouldn’t let her sell the foal off. So, if I was to have a horse, then I would be the one who would take care of it. Never mind that my sisters both have had stallions boarded for years and hardly ever ride them. Their expenses have never been “too much.”

  “Thank you,” I say earnestly and start for the manor.

  “You stink,” Laura says with a laugh as I approach. For dramatic effect she pinches her nose.

  “Are you sure that’s not you?” I give her a sly grin. “I don’t think you bathed this morning.”

  “I am as sweet as a rose,” Laura proclaims.

  “A rose?” I waggle my fingers. “Then what are all these stinky thorns?” I descend on her, tickling at her midsection. She squeals, pushing me away.

  “Don’t! You—You’ll get mud on my skirts!”

  “I am the mud monster!”

  “No, no, save me!” She roars with laughter.

  “That’s enough.” Helen cuts through the brief moment of levity with a severe note. Even though she’s younger than me, she acts like she’s the eldest. She’s the one really in control between the three of us. Mother’s favorite. “Laura, come,” she orders our younger sister.

  Laura looks between Helen and I but relents to Joyce’s second-in-command.

  “You cannot keep acting like that,” Helen scolds Laura.

  “But I—”

  “These childish notions. Don’t you want to be a proper lady?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then you should start acting like one.” Helen’s short-cropped blonde hair falls over one side of her face. She has been coddled her entire life, and yet she moves like an assassin. She’s constantly lurking in the shadows, and in my nightmares.

  Someday, Laura will wake up and be just like her. The sweet girl I know will have been finally crushed under Helen and Joyce’s heels.

  “What do you need, Helen?” I try and bring the attention back to me to spare Laura.

  “Oh, I came to deliver a message.” Helen’s smile is like a snake’s. It’s the same smile as her mother’s. The same smile Laura will learn to make, in time. There are very few things about my father remarrying after my birth mother’s death that I consider a blessing. But knowing that I don’t share blood—and that horrible smile—with the woman who raised me is one of those few things. “Joyce wants you to go and mop the entry for our guests today.”

  A sudden and intense aroma of smoke fills my nose. I refrain from rubbing it. Whenever someone tells a lie, the scent of smoke is thick in the air. I tried to explain the sensation before and was locked in my room for speaking nonsense. So I’ve kept silent about the gift since then. It has become one of my precious few tools of survival.

  “You mean I must leave and stop sharing your delightful company? How will I ever survive?” As I go to enter the manor through the door at Laura’s right, Helen catches my arm.

  “Don’t think that just because you’re getting married you’re suddenly better than us. You’re a bastard child, born out of wedlock, and a shame to our family name. You’re going to marry the lord of some sad little nowhere plot of land and live out the rest of your days in the obscurity we’ve prepared you for.”

  Laura stares at her toes. There was a time she would’ve stood up for me. But that willingness has been crushed. Such sweetness…such light…fading right before my eyes. And I’m too weak and sad to stop it.

  “I don’t want to keep Mother waiting.” I yank my arm away.

  No matter what she says, I can gloat a bit today. I am the first to marry. Something that Helen wants desperately. She sees me as getting something before her for the first time in her life. The irony is that it is also the last thing I would ever want.

  I enter the manor through a short hallway that deposits me into the main entry. Wilted flowers slump over the edges of cracked vases and perfume the air with the peaty and sickly-sweet scent of the early stages of rot. The delicate paintings of the ceiling are soot-stained from years of burning candles with not enough cleanings between. Before the incident on the roof, Joyce tried to force me up on one of the rickety ladders not long after the first time my father left on one of his ships to try and clean the ceiling. Given how young I was, I’m fairly certain she was trying to kill me. “If you’re still burdening our coffers at this age,” she said, “Then the least you can do is help with the upkeep. You have the hands of a man but the work ethic of a child.”

  As if I didn’t spend every hour, of every day, already repairing and fixing this run-down remnant of bygone days. That is another thing that makes me darkly happy about this whole situation: They are going to lose their most valuable servant.

  But as quickly as the wicked thought enters my mind, it leaves. There are vague memories in the recesses of my mind of this place in its early days, when it was still lovely. Of her, my birth mother, the mysterious woman my father met in his journeys as a young merchant and brought home with him, ignoring all expectations of an up-and-coming young lord. I can remember sunlight streaming through the now grime-covered windows that overlook the front of the manor. If I squint…I can almost remember her face, hovering over me. A rainbow of color fanning out behind her. She’s beaming with joy and love as she sings one of her songs that are imprinted on my heart. I know laughter and music once filled these halls—filled me. But here and now, it almost seems too impossible to believe.

  “What are you doing?” A gasp echoes from the mezzanine. I look up to see the only “mother” I have known, the woman who raised me, sweeping down the stairs in a b
loodred, velvet gown. Her pale hair is piled up and harnessed by a tiara, making her look like the princess she’s always wanted to be. “Men are going to be arriving any moment and you’re standing there looking like you’ve been rolling in the pigsty all morning.”

  My clothes aren’t that bad, but I don’t argue. “I was coming in to change now.” I ignore Helen’s lie about the floor. I wonder if it upsets Joyce that I don’t fall for their attempt to trap me into a scolding.

  “Good. I have suitors to attend to.” She folds her hands over her stomach, her nails painted the same shade as her gown. “Do your best to clean up as well as you possibly can. Otherwise, a man might realize what he’s marrying and will run away before the papers are signed.”

  What, not who. I have always been her little monster. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good.” Joyce wiggles her shoulders and stands a little taller. Whenever she does this, I can’t help but imagine her as a large bird ruffling her feathers. “With any luck you will be married before sundown.”

  “Married? Not engaged?” I knew the discussions were happening…but I thought that I would have a little more time. That maybe I could meet the man before we were wed. That I could ruin this somehow.