Princess of Midnight: A Retelling of Cinderella (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 6) Read online

  Princess of Midnight

  A Retelling of Cinderella

  Lucy Tempest

  PRINCESS OF MIDNIGHT – A RETELLING OF CINDERELLA

  Copyright © 2020 by Lucy Tempest

  Cover Art Copyright © 2020 Lucy Tempest

  Editor: Mary Novak

  Proofreader: Line Upon Line Services

  First edition published in 2020 by Folkshore Press

  ISBN: Paperback: 978-1-949554-12-0

  ISBN: Ebook: 978-1-949554-11-3

  All rights reserved.

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  Contact at [email protected]

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Disclaimer

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Created with Vellum

  It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them, as they passed: and when they came to the Mountain-Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for the Ice-King had kissed her.

  The Star-Child and Other Tales, Oscar Wilde

  Contents

  Introduction

  Map

  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

  Epilogue

  Note From the Author

  Pronunciation Guide

  About the Author

  Also by Lucy Tempest

  Introduction

  Welcome to the magical world of Folkshore!

  Fairytales of Folkshore is a series of interconnected fairytale retellings with unique twists on much-loved, enduring themes. It starts with the Cahraman Trilogy, a gender-swapped reimagining of Aladdin.

  It is followed by the Rosemead duology, a retelling of Beauty & the Beast, and Princess of Midnight, a merge of Cinderella and the Snow Queen.

  Join each heroine on emotional, thrilling adventures full of magic, mystery, friendship and romance where true love is found in the most unexpected places and the fates of kingdoms hang in the balance.

  Coming retellings will be:

  Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid and Hades & Persephone!

  Map

  Chapter One

  I had no idea where I was heading, let alone where I was.

  I just knew that I had to keep going. Had to escape the monsters hunting me down.

  The monsters who were my stepfamily.

  And this was no exaggeration. I’d recently discovered they weren’t human. What they were, I didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. All I knew was that I had to escape them, and I’d never have to find out.

  A shudder rattled through me as I frantically looked over my shoulder, my heart almost thundering out of my chest as I prodded my panting, grunting steed faster.

  Even if I couldn’t see them pursuing me though the maze-like streets of Midnight, I could feel them breathing down my neck. Just as the memory of what I ’d seen beneath the magical disguise that made them beautiful women did. Grotesque creatures, with faces and bodies to go with their even uglier natures. What I’d been subjected to ever since Dolora had married my father ten years ago. She and her two daughters, especially Darla, the elder one, had delighted in making me a slave in my own home.

  But no matter how much they’d tormented and abused me, I hadn’t been able to stand up to them. I hadn’t even told my father, who was mostly away for business, what they’d been doing to me, since he’d never seemed to pick up on it himself.

  But I now knew why I hadn’t even thought of escaping them most of the time, and when I had, why I’d always ended up failing. Dolora had been keeping me under a thrall. And my brief escape attempts over the years had happened only when the spell had weakened. They’d always dragged me back by my hair only for her to fortify her spell, submerging me under her influence again.

  That is, until the last time I’d resurfaced, and she hadn’t been able to put me back under.

  That time, when they’d caught me, Dolora had tried to force my face into the fire of the biggest fireplace in the manor. Unable to enthrall me anymore, she’d resorted to terrorizing me, breaking me. Maiming me would have completed my imprisonment.

  It had taken the unexpected intervention of the Fairborns—the distant neighbors I’d run to in my last failed escape—for me to escape that fate. I’d been so desperate to make that escape permanent, I hadn’t thought twice when they’d taken me along on their own quest—to the last place I could have thought it possible to go. A place I’d never really thought existed.

  Faerie.

  But instead of salvation, my great escape had me hurtling from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. At our arrival in the Summer Court, we’d promptly been apprehended and thrown into the dungeons. To compound my terror, I’d been thrown into a cell with a satyr.

  Before I could believe he was only a cursed man, I’d been tossed into another mortal danger—literally pushed over the deep end, along with my satyr cellmate, the Fairborns, and another cursed wolf man and harpy into a series of lethal “games”—for the fair folk’s entertainment.

  After we’d barely survived their cruel whirlwind of whims, Keenan, Bonnie’s half-fairy cousin, had towed us to his home, the Autumn Court. But just as I’d realized my stepfamily couldn’t follow me there, and started to believe I’d gotten away for good, Bonnie’s cursed prince had disappeared. And though I’d wanted to stay in Autumn’s seeming sanctuary, I’d promised Bonnie my company while she endeavored to save her friends as she had saved me. So we’d set out to find him.

  We had just entered the Winter Court’s capital when I ’d seen the horrors-made-flesh who were my stepfamily. And they’d also seen me. Primal terror had sunk its talons into me, making me forget everything but one objective—escape.

  And now here I was, on the back of a massive reindeer, heart almost thundering out of my chest with freezing wind whipping across my numb face as I galloped through the cobblestone streets of the City of Midnight.

  I wound blindly between blocky, stone houses with sloping, snow-covered roofs, taking haphazard turns around the eerily intricate ice sculptures sprouting at every corner. Without the least idea where I was heading, or where the friends I’d left behind in my panic were, I waded aimlessly deeper into the city.

  I only knew one thing. I had one last chance to disappear. One last chance to be free.

  All I had to do was avoid getting cau
ght. Keep going until I lost them. They’d abused and tormented me for years, when I’d done nothing but exist. But I’d now caused them to out themselves as the monsters they were and cost them their life of wasteful luxury at my father’s and my expense. If they got their hands on me again—I couldn’t even begin to imagine the punishments they would subject me to.

  I couldn’t—wouldn’t fall into my stepmother’s clutches again. I would rather die.

  “Faster, Oscar!” I begged as I steered the reindeer by his antlers around a corner, feeling my frozen fingers might snap with every sharp tug.

  My heart rammed my ribs harder, booming in my head louder as we entered a more populated area, seemingly a shopping district. Dozens of fairies were bustling around, bundled up in extra-thick winter clothes. They would slow me down. Or worse, might intercept me.

  But as I galloped by, they barely spared me a glance.

  Were they so used to unusual occurrences, my mad dash through their city didn’t even draw their attention, let alone curiosity? In Aubenaire, my sleepy town at the edge of Ericura, the last stop before Man’s Reach on the border of Faerie, the whole town’s inhabitants would have flooded the streets to watch me. Someone would have stopped me by now.

  In contrast, the fairies’ disinterest in my frantic rush was a relief. But it could also be a disadvantage. It might mean I couldn’t hope for any help if my stepfamily caught up with me.

  It was only when I was forced to slow down to navigate through the thickening crowds that I realized why they didn’t pay me any mind. Everyone seemed to be heading in a certain direction, converging to one place, a massive square. And they were all watching something.

  Something above.

  Before I could venture a look up, I almost crashed into a couple who stopped while crossing the street. They were staring and pointing upwards excitedly.

  As I drew Oscar to a stumbling stop, I could finally afford to look anywhere but straight ahead, and followed everyone’s focus of interest.

  Next moment, my jaw almost hit the ground.

  I’d seen many magical things since I’d come to Faerie. But they’d mostly been disturbing, or potentially dangerous. That sight high above us was nothing short of enchanting.

  A flying sleigh, pulled by six reindeer that galloped in midair!

  As I gaped up along with everyone, there was a sudden intensifying of snowfall that seemed to be emanating from the sleigh itself as it swooped lower. And I finally saw the rider.

  Though I couldn’t see details from this distance, I could tell it was a very pale man swathed in dark clothes that seemed to float around his lean body.

  Next moment, my focus was dragged downwards as I felt people brushing past me on both sides. It was only then I realized what my momentary fascination had cost me, and panic crested within me again.

  The area around me had become congested as everyone converged where the sleigh descended to hover in the center of the square. My earthbound steed was becoming surrounded.

  I had to make my way through now, before I became trapped. I had to find Bonnie and her cousin, Keenan. Hopefully, they’d found her upright wolf prince, and we could get away from here before Dolora and her daughters caught up with me.

  Steering Oscar with great difficulty through the congealing crowd, I suddenly heard it. My name. Echoing through the frosty air, floating my way from some uncertain direction.

  I snapped my head around, frantically looking for a familiar face—friendly or otherwise. But my survey was forcefully interrupted when someone slammed past, startling my steed and bumping so hard into my leg they almost spilled me off his back.

  My screaming tension snapped, lashing out in a growl, “Hey! Watch it!”

  My exclamation fell on deaf ears as a hooded figure in a dark burgundy cloak pushed ahead in total disregard.

  As I barely held onto Oscar, I realized my efforts to exit the crowd had only brought me closer to the sleigh that now hovered a dozen feet above ground, affording me a better look at the rider.

  In the cool, glowing light of the lanterns surrounding the square, his face and hair looked almost white, as if he’d been sculpted out of ice. He was standing now, stock-still, an imposing figure swathed in darkness, surveying the crowd in such eerie detachment.

  Then another man, in some kind of elaborate dark uniform, with flaxen hair, a thick, trimmed beard, and a waxed mustache rushed towards him. Coming to a stop before the sleigh, the man turned to face the crowd, unfurled a scroll, and started to read out loud.

  At first, I thought he spoke at a volume meant for pointy ears. Then I realized I could barely hear him because all my senses were focused on the man in the sleigh. I tried to concentrate, to find out the reason for the gathering that had blocked my way. But I couldn’t tear my attention away from that icy man, who didn’t seem too enthused by whatever that announcement was, as his pale, pale eyes moved unseeingly over the faces milling below him.

  His gaze was sweeping by me when it suddenly stopped and snapped back. Then he was looking right into my eyes.

  Snared by his pale stare, I felt the persistent pounding of my heart slowing down, and my turbulent bloodstream settling into a calm ebb and flow.

  Still holding my gaze, the man pulled on the reins of his hovering steeds, lowering his sleigh to mere feet off the ground, startling the announcer.

  “ORNELLA!”

  The scream sliced through the frigid air, shattering the strange calmness that had come over me. I snapped my head towards the worst sound in the world—my stepmother’s voice!

  I found her at the very edge of the crowd, elbowing her way towards me.

  Panic almost burst my heart as I prodded Oscar forcefully, making him bolt forward, dividing the crowd, and eliciting shouted complaints and insults. But nothing else mattered but getting away from her. I couldn’t let her catch me!

  As I pushed and shoved my way to the other edge of the crowd, desperately trying to decide which alleyway to escape through once I cleared the square, a flash burst at the corner of my eye.

  Snapping my gaze around in dread, I expected it was Dolora, closing in on me. But it wasn’t. It was something almost as ominous.

  On an elevated platform beyond the crowd, the hooded figure from before stood with cloak pushed away to reveal a bow in steady hands, its string pulled back taut by a long arrow.

  The viciously gleaming arrowhead was what had caught my eye. And it was aimed right at the pale-haired man.

  In the next booming heartbeat, my desperation split in half. One part clamoring for the precious freedom that beckoned beyond the crowd. The other latching onto that hooded archer’s menace, and the intended victim’s peril.

  Though all my instincts screamed for me to run, with the embodiment of my lifelong torment and possible agonizing death breathing down my neck, the latter part won out.

  Without another thought, I steered us off course, had Oscar thundering towards the pale man. In a last flying leap, I catapulted off Oscar’s back, slammed into the hovering man, knocking him out of the sleigh, just as the arrow whizzed over our heads. Another half a second and it would have lodged into his heart.

  As we hit the freezing stone ground in a mass of twisted clothes and limbs, I heard a cry of pain behind us, over the chaos of my heartbeats and panting. The arrow had hit someone else, jumpstarting a panicked stampede.

  In contrast to the instant hysteria that surrounded us, the man sat up in calm, unhurried movements, with me slumped against his chest, and stared down at me with those pale, lifeless eyes.

  Then in a deep, tranquil voice, that sounded all the more eerie among the chaos, he asked, “Why did you do that?”

  Head ringing from the impact, even when he’d borne most of its brunt, I blinked up at him, feeling a wave of freezing cold engulfing me. “I—I don’t know—I just had to.”

  Before he could say anything else, the bearded announcer pounced on us, pulling at the pale man frantically, forcing him to relinquis
h his loose hold on me and rise to his feet.

  As the man resisted being pushed back towards his sleigh, the announcer gasped, “We can’t pursue the assassin with you here!” The man still wouldn’t move, and the announcer begged, “There could be more than one! Please, Your Majesty—you must get back to the castle at once!”

  The pale man finally exhaled, nodded, and relinquished my gaze.

  As he reentered his sleigh, took the reins and started receding, I leaned back on my aching elbows, head spinning, processing what had just occurred—and what I’d just heard.

  Your Majesty? As in their—king?

  I’d just saved the King of the Winter Court?

  The realization finally hit me, along with a hope that forced me up to my shaking knees.

  “Wait!” I reached up a begging hand. “Come back! I need to ask you something!”

  But the sleigh had risen too far as he steered it back towards the glasslike castle up the mountain.

  I scrambled up to my feet and ran after it. I had to find my reindeer, and a shortcut to intercept him. He was the only one who could help me!

  But in the midst of chasing this new hope, I forgot what I’d been running away from in the first place. The reminder came in the form of a hard blow to the back of my head.

  Vision briefly blacking out, I hit the ground again, cheek first. The burst of pain made my consciousness flicker as I felt a hand stab into my hair. Two others sank punishingly into my arms.