Tales of the Seelie Court
The King’s Daughters
By Sarah Tanzmann
Copyright © 2016 Sarah Tanzmann
All Rights Reserved
All the characters in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
The King’s Daughters
Acknowledgements
About the author
The story continues…
The King’s Daughters
In the faraway land of Tír na nÓg, where the weather was always bright, the flowers bloomed endlessly, and the water sprouted plentiful from wells, there lived a hidden people. They were faeries, tall, human-like creatures with unearthly beautiful faces and pointed ears, and their beauty never wilted. In Tír na nÓg, time stood still.
The faeries were ruled by a faerie king who had two gorgeous daughters that were his pride and joy, the essence of his being. Titania, the older one, was a bastard child from an affair before his marriage, and Ophira, the younger daughter, was the lovechild of him and his wife. He loved both equally, and he would have given his life for them more than he would have ever given it for his people.
One starry night, the king left the Glass Citadel to stroll through the gardens. He gazed over his court, the Seelie Court. Tiny wooden huts, overgrown with thick vines and covered in leaves, were clustered tightly around the hill, and the river ran nearby. Faeries were bustling about, hurrying to get home. In the distance, way behind the houses, there lay the Whispering Woods, stretching on and on until they vanished into complete darkness. The king observed them for a while and then continued walking.
The garden burst with iridescent colors of lilac blue, glittery gold, and emerald green. The king no longer admired its beauty, and so he walked right past a patch of fiery red flowers without so much as glancing at them. As the wind picked up, he spread his iron gray, gossamer thin wings, letting the gentle breeze brush them. He followed the path a little bit more until it made a slight turn to the left and descended. In a hollow a few feet down, there stood a massive yew tree. At its gnarled roots, there was a gravestone.
The king sank to his knees in front of it and extended a hand to gently trace a finger along the engraving on the stone.
Eyela. Faerie queen. Loving mother.
Every night since her death, he had taken a walk down to her grave, but never before had it hurt him so much. The recent events weighed heavily on him and dragged him down even further at the thought of his dead wife. Once more, he was filled with despair and, above all, remorse.
He pressed his palm onto the cold stone beside her name. "My love, if only you were here."
Tears started to fill his eyes, but he managed to keep them back. She wouldn't have wanted him to cry at her grave. He let out a deep sigh to get the pressure off his chest. "I'm losing them, Eyela," he said in a low and cracking voice. "Titania has turned my own people against me, and Ophira is so consumed with rage after what her sister has done. I barely recognize them."
He paused, his hand still resting on the gravestone. "I've never thought I'd end up raising a monster. But should I have seen it coming? You know how Titania was as a child, constantly envying her younger sister, constantly striving to become queen. Now she's made her own kingdom."
He blinked away a fresh wave of tears. "You always loved her like your own, but she was too blind to ever see it. You—"
The snapping of a twig behind his back caused him to whirl around. A young woman with long, golden locks that framed her fair face emerged from the dark. Her delicate, almost translucent, wings shimmered golden in the moonlight as she spread them.
"Father, I've been looking for you," she said.
Even after his wife's demise, he still thought it was her every time he heard his daughter's voice. She sounded exactly the same in tone, and he'd caught himself before hoping that it would be Eyela. The illusion lasted a bit longer every time he looked at his daughter's face and found the same blue-green eyes that he had fallen in love with. On this night, his daughter's eyes were marked with worry.
"Are you feeling all right?" she asked. Her long, teal gown rustled like leaves as she approached him.
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her pointed ear. He'd always done it when she was a child, thinking that her face was far too beautiful to be kept hidden. He looked at the delicate young woman that stood before him now. She was barely grown-up, yet he wished he could turn back time to when their lives had been blissful.
"Don't worry about me, Ophira," he said.
The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a faint smile. "You know I always worry about you," she said as she took hold of his hand. "But I can't say as much about my sister."
She almost spat the last word. The king was surprised at his daughter's sharp tongue.
"Your sister will pay for what she's done," he assured her. He lifted his gaze up to one of the glass towers of the citadel, its surface reflecting the blinking stars in the night sky. One of the guards watched them intently through one of the windows, waiting for any order.
"She's coming, isn't she?" Ophira asked.
Before he could respond, the sound of footsteps carried down the path, and seconds later, a group of golden-clad knights appeared. All but two halted. The pair of them stepped forward, each carrying a set of armor cradled in their arms.
"My king," one of them said, bowing.
"And my lady," said the other one.
Ophira dropped her hand from her father's, but he seized it again. "You are not coming with us," he said, his grip tightening.
Her eyes narrowed on him. "I asked you to go into battle with me, not for me. I will fight her for what she's taken from me. And there is no one, not even you, who can stop me from getting justice for the murder of my betrothed."
An image flashed up in his mind: little Ophira, clinging to his arm and whimpering, afraid to enter the Whispering Woods for the first time. He failed to see the resemblance between the girl in his memory and the fierce woman that now stood in front of him, and it broke his heart. All he had ever wanted for her was a happy life full of love, but instead, he'd given her a sister that had ripped that away from her.
He lowered his head, defeated. "I promised you my help, and I shall not break that promise."
"And I'm most grateful for that."
He released his grip on her hand. When her fingers slipped out of his, he felt as though she was taking all his strength with her, and his body was left hollow.
She was only halfway to where the knight stood with her armor when the horn sounded. The gate of the citadel opened, and his army of knights streamed out into the streets of his court, the dark sky illuminated by their torchlight.