Of Fairytales and Magic by Emma Hamm

Chapter 5

She dragged her feet down the halls toward their private chambers. Freya knew that an argument awaited her beyond the comfortable doors of their bedroom, and she didn’t like to argue there.

But she also knew that Eldridge had every right to be angry with her. He deserved to shout and scream that she’d been foolish or rash in her decisions. And he would. She knew he wouldn’t hold back a single second of his anger and fear.

Placing her hand on the door, she smoothed her palm down the warm wood. This was the one place in the entire castle that never got cold. Eldridge had caught her shivering the first few nights she’d moved into his bedroom, and that was that. He’d cast a spell to warm the room completely so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable in their shared space ever again.

Damn it. She hated disappointing him.

She pushed the door and let it swing open before her. Eldridge had already started packing, it seemed. He’d brought out a majority of their clothing and tossed it at the bed. A single chest stood open at his feet and he angrily threw articles of clothing at it.

Walking onto the battlefield with no knowledge of what weapons he chose sounded dangerous to her. So instead, she leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re packing already, I see.”

“Someone has to,” he snarled.

“I can manage packing on my own.”

“Just like you manage everything else on your own. Yes, I’m aware.” He threw a shirt into the crate without even attempting to fold it. “And yet, here I am. Still doing it for you.”

They were definitely fighting, then.

Freya sighed and wandered onto the battlefield. She sat down on top of the bed, right in front of him, with a pile of clothing trapped underneath her hip. He huffed out an angry breath and turned away from her, obviously disinterested in the argument they were about to have.

But Freya didn’t want to argue. She didn’t want to go into this new quest, once again, without knowing that he was going to be there for her and not fight her. They had all the time in the world to fight with each other.

Right now, she wanted to talk.

“I don’t think throwing clothes into a basket is going to make any difference,” she started. “You’re only going to wrinkle them.”

“No one will care if your clothing is wrinkled where we’re going.” Eldridge raked his hands through his hair until the dark strands stuck up in all directions. “Do you have any idea what you did? I know the Autumn Thief is convincing, but I have always held your intelligence in high regard. You’ve proven me wrong today.”

Low blow. Freya knew he was saying the words from a place of fear and worry. Still, they stung as they struck her with all the force of a falling mountain. She could play that game, too, if he wanted to make this personal.

“Do you want to watch me die?” she asked.

“No!” The word burst from his lips. “That’s exactly why I cannot understand why you would take this risk! The trials are difficult for the most powerful of fae. For a mortal, I don’t even know if they’re possible to complete.”

“I’m not asking about the trials. Everything in the faerie realm is dangerous. I know that.” Freya threaded her fingers together and rested her hands in her lap. “I’m asking if you want to watch me get old and die slowly. Because that’s our future. I’m a mortal, Eldridge. I will end up aging, as you’ve likely already seen. I will turn into an old woman right in front of your eyes, but for you, it won’t be slow at all. It’ll be in the blink of an eye and then you’ll have to hold me in my last moments when I don’t even look like myself.”

His eyes widened with every word, and his throat worked in a hard swallow. “That won’t happen. I’ll find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“You know it’s difficult to grant immortality. I have to become something more than what I am, and simply staying in the faerie realm won’t do that. Look at my father, he was raised here, and he still aged.”

“Because he returned to the mortal realm!” Eldridge threw his hands into the air. “I don’t know what to tell you, Freya. You have to trust me that we’ll figure this out without sending you to your death to take part in trials that you cannot defeat.”

She wasn’t so sure that the trials would defeat her. Freya had done a great many impossible things here, and she didn’t feel any fear. She should. Everyone else certainly seemed very concerned on her behalf.

But she was confident right now. She knew what had to be done now. Go to the Autumn Court, prove she was worthy of this magic, and accept that being a court ruler of her own people would be the next stage. She could do this.

Even if Eldridge didn’t believe that yet.

“I’m not so confident that’s possible, and I think you know the same,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Eldridge. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I don’t think even the great Goblin King can save me from death itself.”

“I would fight it for you.” A lock of his hair fell in front of his eyes, but she could still feel the determined burn glaring at her. “Not even death itself could take you from me, Freya of Woolwich. You are the other half of my soul and I’ll be damned if I will suffer being parted from you.”

She wished it could end there. That her Goblin King could fight death and all its army until the end of time, but they didn’t live in a romance novel. They weren’t living legends that could battle against something nameless and faceless. No one had ever beaten death.

Freya patted the bed. “Sit with me, Eldridge. Talk to me without arguing like you are so wont to do right now. I don’t want to fight before a battle as important as this.”

Finally, he sighed. His spine curved, and he made his way to the bed, where he sat beside her. Listing to the side, Eldridge put his head on her shoulder and took one of her hands in his. “I am so afraid of losing you,” he breathed.

“I know. I’m worried about losing you too, but the Autumn Thief is right. If there was ever a chance for me to live like you, this is it.” She lifted his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “And if we’re handed a chance, shouldn’t we take it?”

He stroked his thumb up and down her hand. “I don’t know. There has to be a better way to do this other than to risk our lives. Our happiness. I want to live a full life with you, Freya. Even if that is only the heartbeat of a mortal lifespan. Losing you any earlier than that...”

She knew why he couldn’t finish the sentence. The thought of continuing on without him terrified her.

Tilting her head, she pressed her lips to the top of his head and sighed. “Eldridge, I don’t think you’re going to have to continue on without me. I don’t think either of us is going to suffer that greatly.”

“You know nothing about the trials,” he grumbled.

“No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I cannot learn. I convinced an ancient forest to give a spoiled elf another chance. I talked the ocean into slowing time for us. And I convinced the Spring Maiden that I was a terrifying being worth fearing.” She leaned back and grinned at him, even though she didn’t feel the smile in her heart. “I am capable of a great many things. And you were the person who taught me that nothing is impossible.”

Eldridge stared at her as though he’d never seen her before. As though her words filled him with a sense of hope that he hadn’t realized he could feel.

She could only hope that feeling would bring them both a little peace. She needed him on her side through this insanity.

The door to their bedroom creaked open again, and the padding footsteps of a small dog filled the room. “I know this isn’t the best time for me to join you,” Arrow said. “But I think that the entire family should be together and if you thought you were going to make any plans without me, then you were both sorely wrong.”

Freya tightened her arm around Eldridge’s shoulders and waved for Arrow to join them. “Hop up, then. We’re lamenting my mortality and the impossibility of the task I agreed to complete.”

Arrow rolled his eyes dramatically, but he jumped up on the bed with them without complaint. “As if you’d let this be the task that kills you. The old gods have no idea what woman is coming to greet them, and if they did, then they’d all be blindly running for the hills.”

He settled into the crook of her arm and placed his paw on top of theirs.

Freya stared down at their hands on hers, and she wished she could tell them they were the reason she could do impossible things. Every time she thought she might falter, they made sure to catch her.

And it was luck alone that brought her to their arms. These two goblins had gotten her so far in life. And they would continue to encourage her to be the best version of herself.

Freya kissed the top of both their heads one more time, then giggled.

“What?” Eldridge grumbled. “You can’t laugh at a time like this. We’re all worried you’re about to die.”

“I don’t plan on dying.” She didn’t know if that was the truth, but she was going to put it out into the world that she wouldn’t. “I’m laughing because we’ve never cuddled like this before. All three of us.”

Arrow immediately wiggled in her arms, twisting to get free from this moment he no longer wished to be part of. “Let me go. We’re not snuggling, woman, and if we were, then it certainly wouldn’t be now. Release me!”

She only tightened her grip and forced him to stay where he was. Even Eldridge tried to get out of her hold, but she refused. They were right where she wanted them, and neither of them was going to get free from her love.

“Don’t you dare,” she said while still laughing. “The two of you are staying here and giving me the support I need!”

“We’ll support you from afar!” Arrow growled, snapping his teeth at her. “But I will not be caught snuggling with the Goblin King and his fiance. Unhand me, I said!”

Finally she let go of the two angry men, still laughing until her stomach hurt. At least she’d gotten a small amount of time with her arms around the two of them.

Arrow stumbled off the bed, shaking his head and then his entire body, as if he wished to get her touch off of him. “Ridiculous woman,” he snarled. “You two need to get ready for the Autumn Stronghold, and I need to prepare, as well. None of us have time to be...” He paused, swallowed, then said, “Cuddling.”

He wandered out of their room. But now Freya had something to focus on.

The Autumn Stronghold.

The building sounded very different from the other castles she’d been to at the heart of the courts. “Ominous,” she muttered, looking over at Eldridge, who had straightened.

His hands flexed on the mattress, fisting the sheets in his hand. “It is. The Autumn Court has ever been different from the others. You’ll see when you get there, but the Stronghold is... is...”

Freya watched him visibly struggle to explain what his old home was like. She didn’t want him to fear what she’d think, or worse, scare her even more than she already should be. She put her hands on top of his and squeezed his fingers. “I’ll see it when I’m there.”

He blew out a long breath. “Yes, you will.”

But if he’d come from that Stronghold, if that was the place that had built the man she loved, then surely there couldn’t be so much to fear.