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Saoirse's blood dances with iron and trickery, a secret she has managed to sheathe from all faery alike.
Until now, that is.
When Saoirse's cunning and charade is shredded to bits by the malevolent interfering of fa...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SAOIRSE AWAKENED TO GIFTS BORNE BY THE IMP who had come to dress her for the day.
Tatterleaf awoke Saoirse with a shake of her shoulder, and a whisper of cold air as she stripped the furs and bedclothes from Saoirse's body. "You must awaken! The Alder King has given you gifts!"
Saoirse tore herself away from the bed with a groan, and blinked her eyes to find an expression of mystified delight written on Tatterleaf's face. Never had the imp, nor any faery whom Saoirse had ever encountered, looked upon Saoirse with such awe and joy. And certainly never any faery that had attended on her.
"Wh--?" Saoirse tore a hand through her hair, in search of horns or a plumes of feathers -- for only such ornaments on a mortal could stun the woodland faery. Instead, Saoirse found her hair was intricately plaited yet again, and threaded through with a vine bearing deep jade blooms akin to peonies; only they were not rumpled, destroyed or torn apart, a fate she would have imagined would befall flowers she had slept upon.
"Oh," Saoirse whispered fleetingly, fingers daintily gliding over the whorls and weaving of the braid. A far as she could remember, she had not gone to bed with braided hair. And even if she had, she distinctly recalled the Alder King having had a fascination with crimson roses.
"The Alder King!" Evidently, Tatterleaf had leapt to the same conclusion as Saoirse had.
Evidently his reach stretched beyond walls, and beyond sleep, had his magic wrought its work on her hair before she had woken for the day. Saoirse smirked, fingers smoothening over a shimmering, violently teal flower petal.
"You've done it then?" Tatterleaf interjected, clearly deciding Saoirse had been given enough time to ponder and mull all she wanted. "You have won his affections? His favor? By a painting, nonetheless! There has never been a Mortal to have won a favor from the Wild King, for never have any pleased him. You must remind him of--"
"I have not won anything from him," Saoirse spoke sharply, cutting off the imp's excited tirade.
Tatterleaf blinked once. Her hands, having risen to gesticulate whatever else she had thought to say, fell suddenly. She clasped them against her lap, features turning subdued, and she said nothing. She seemed to wilt before Saoirse's eyes, and she was discomfited to realize she didn't like the look of the imp collapsing in on herself.
"Yet, at least," Saoirse amended, clambering from her bed. "Now what is this you speak of? Gifts? From whom?"
Tatterleaf blinked again, and for a moment, Saoirse thought her addlepated. "Why, they are from the Alder King. I thought perhaps they were what you requested from him in exchange for your painting."
