The Golden Apple

The

Golden

Apple

MICHELLE DIENER

Copyright © 2014 Michelle Diener

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be copied or distributed in any way without written permission of the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction and all names, people, places and incidents are either used fictitiously or are a product of the author’s imagination.

Acknowledgements

My thanks as always to my critique partners, Edie and Kim, and to all the people who read this and added their comments, you all helped to make it better. Thanks again to Laura Morrigan for the amazing cover, and to AEMS for the technical end.

The Golden Apple is my second fairy tale retelling, in this case very loosely based on the Norwegian fairy tale The Princess on the Glass Hill.

Chapter One

T
he laughter rising from the festivities below was not at her, although it felt like it was.

Kayla threaded her fingers together on her knees and closed her eyes anyway, trying to block out the sounds of merriment.

She was part of the entertainment, and her father’s subjects were throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the occasion.

Whereas she…if she had been clamped naked into the stocks, she could not have felt more exposed, more vulnerable. More disrespected.

Even knowing today was coming had not prepared her for sitting high above a shouting, laughing crowd—merry with holiday fever—in a gilded chair on top of a glass mountain.

She opened her eyes again and watched the fair-goers move below her, skirting the mountain as they talked, ate and drank. More a mystery than how a glass mountain came to be in the jousting field was their acceptance of the mountain at all. It had appeared in the night a few days ago, and now it glittered and flashed in the early morning sun, blinding the unwary.

Was she the only one who wondered at the power it would take to create something like this?

It stood perhaps three stories high, almost as high as the castle itself, but although its peak did not reach the height of the castle towers, it squatted malevolently beside her family home, dominating it.

But if the mountain made no sense, what made the least sense of all was that her father would do this to her.

Auction her off to the boldest adventurer to try his luck here today.

And yet he had.

He’d stuck her up on this crystal monstrosity like the cherry on top of a cake. Her dress wasn’t red, though. It was virginal white.

And that color was no longer appropriate for her. Not after last night. The breeze blowing the sounds of the fair and the aroma of cooking pies up to her suddenly felt cool against her heated cheeks. As if it could sense her thoughts, the golden apple in her lap throbbed, heating the skin of her thighs through her thin skirts.

She looked down at it with loathing. A distorted image of her face looked back at her through the shine. As distorted as her world had become since her father embarked on this mad course.

She lifted her hand, hovered it over the apple. Her father had worn gloves when he placed it in her lap, just before she was lifted up the glass hill.

“Don’t touch it,” he’d said. Then he’d walked away, her obedience a foregone conclusion.

She wanted—wanted so badly—to toss it. To throw it, as far and as hard as she could, away from her.

She hesitated, just a moment, then closed her hand over it. And cried out. A light leapt from the apple to her palm, the pain hot, intense. She let go, and immediately the light disappeared. The pain lingered, a throbbing reminder, and then faded away.

She stiffened her spine against the tears clogging her throat and pricking her eyes. She had given away her innocence last night, so pride was the only thing she had left.

No, that was wrong.

Her mouth lifted in the corners. She’d given nothing away, only gained something. Some power. Some control. She had exercised a deeply personal right. To choose her first lover. Before one was chosen for her.

Did she regret it?

She pressed her thighs together, the movement causing the apple to wobble, and thought of the gentle caresses, the soft sighs, as natural and calming as the falling night rain.

The sight of her lover, tall, broad-shouldered, filling her vision as he held himself levered above her. The hot, heady smell of his skin. The contrast of her pale hand against the bronze of his hard-muscled arm.

She shivered.

No. She did not regret it.

She looked out over the arena, at the crowds filing into the stalls for a good seat to the spectacle. Above her, a bird cried, the sound haunting, and she shaded her eyes and searched the skies for it. Yearned to leap from the glass peak and fly to join it, leave the crowds and her fate behind her.

As if on cue with her thoughts of fate, one by one the knights arrived. They were a rainbow swirl of blue, green, yellow and red plumes and banners, polished metal shining almost as much at the glass mountain.

They paraded, playing the crowd, racing in a loop down the length of the course and around the mountain. Getting the measure of what they were up against.

She recognized a few of them. Some were her father’s own men—men she’d known since they were boys come as knights-in-training—some were in service to other kings, princes and lords. All were here for one thing.

Power.

They intended to use her, to take this opportunity offered by her father and exploit it, and by dint of taking part in this contest at all, they had her unreserved contempt.

They obviously felt the same way about her, as not one so much as glanced her way. She was but a means to an end, and for her father to put her in this position was unsupportable. Incredible.

As she thought about what he’d done to her, bands of steel tightened across her chest.

Kayla gasped for air, every gulp like breathing the poisonous smoke of a tanner’s fire, burning her throat, all the way down to her lungs.

The trumpet sounded, and Kayla saw her father standing in his box, dressed in rich red robes, his crown in place. He lifted a hand.

Silence fell, rippling out from the crowd until the only sound was the creak of leather saddles and the huff of horse breath.

“Welcome, gentlemen. The rules are simple. You will each have a chance to ride your horse up the glass mountain, and pluck the golden apple from my daughter’s lap. Whoever succeeds will have my daughter’s hand and become the heir to my kingdom.”

The knights let out a cheer—dogs barking as their master threw them a bone. Kayla wondered how happy they’d be to know the bone had been tasted already. Her lips curved. Oh, she did not regret last night for even a moment.

“Is every competitor present?” the herald called out.

There was a murmur of assent, and then a shuffle of horses near the gates.

A late-comer?

Kayla almost deigned not to look. What did she care how many and who? But the murmurs of the crowd piqued her curiosity, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes and saw him.

A knight all in black, on a black horse.

Her heart gave a traitorous lurch at the figure he cut, his mount dancing through the crowd, moving towards her shimmering perch.

He was the first to approach her. Acknowledge her.

And when he was close enough, he raised his visor.

The breath caught in Kayla’s throat. Her heart stuttered.

Bright blue eyes looked up at her. No longer warm and laughing as they had been last night, but cold with purpose.

He turned with a salute and rode back to the waiting pack, and she clenched her skirts with white-knuckled fists.

Whatever she had to do, she would make sure he was the one.

* * *

“What in hell is that thing?” Jasper stood with Rane in the knights’ holding pen and eyed the glass monstrosity with dislike. Rane knew it was an unwelcome obstacle to Jasper’s plans.

Usually anything that was a problem to Jasper was cause for celebration in Rane’s view, but in this instance, Jasper’s goal was his own. For the last time, though.

“A glass mountain.”

“I can see that, but where’d the king get it?” Jasper’s plump face was unusually pale.

“Dark magic,” Rane answered shortly. He could feel magic coming off the thing. Crackling the air around it. Snapping at him. And Kayla sat on top of it, her face blank and white. At its mercy.

As she was at yours just last night, his conscience whispered. And did you not take from her her only bargaining chip?

He fisted his reins in the heavy black gloves and his mount moved uneasily beneath him, sensitive to his mood.

Of all the stains on his soul, letting Kayla of Gaynor think she was seducing him while he reeled her in as finely as any master would be the hardest to wash clean.

She’d been determined to give away her virginity last night and oh, she was sweet.

He had no excuse.

He could have walked away, but he did not. Even as she whispered her joy at the taking, moaned his name, knifes of disgust tore through his heart.

Why had he not walked away?

He’d meant only to gain her favor. Become her favorite, even while she thought he was not participating in the contest. So when he did appear, it would seem as if he’d come to save her.

He’d been here days before the others, and he knew full well the task set was impossible. The only way to succeed was with help.

And who could help him more in this than the princess herself?

“Rane? Are you listening?”

He jerked his head down, saw Jasper’s impatience in his stiff bearing. “Yes?”

“You said dark magic. Who would oblige the King so?”

It wasn’t impatience making Jasper so tense, Rane realized—it was fear.

He shrugged. What did he care whose power the king made use of for his strange husband-choosing?

“I’ve heard whispers that a few of the kings in the Middleland have a sorcerer obliging them, these days. Now the King of Gaynor?” Jasper rubbed the side of his face, and Rane noticed his fingers trembled.

“You suspect some plot?” Rane controlled his expression as Jasper flinched at his words. He’d never seen Jasper this rattled.

The sheer size and magnificence of the mountain, the strangeness of it, pointed to someone of immense power. And Jasper was in the business of power. Rane knew Jasper thought he had an edge with a sorcerer for a brother, but if the King of Gaynor had a sorcerer of this caliber on his side, there were few who could stand in his way.

“No…No. I wonder who the sorcerer is, that’s all.”

“The question should rather be, why is the king making the trial so difficult? Why does he want a fighter and a madman for his daughter?”

Jasper’s eyes widened. “You think he wants a bodyguard for her?”

Rane had not, but it was a good point. One to ponder. “I thought he might have a further quest in mind. One that would take more than a spoilt prince to accomplish. A quest he could trust only to his future heir.”

“With this trial he can sidestep the rules of royal marriage, and find the best man for the job, even if he is a commoner.” Jasper nodded his head slowly.

“Only a theory.” Rane’s eyes swung back to the magic hill, back to the woman in her white gown, her dark hair woven with tiny white flowers and flowing over her shoulders. Hair he’d grabbed in fistfuls, felt like silk between his fingers as he exposed her throat to his mouth. Hair that twined round his arms as he’d taken them both to a better place for a while.

Jasper’s gaze turned curious, and Rane regretted his thoughts. Regretted what must have passed across his face.

“Just get me the apple, and you can have your brother back, and all the pleasures that come with marriage to the royal house. Or not.” Jasper shrugged. “Walk away from it all if you choose, if the king has a more dangerous job in mind for you than impregnating his daughter. I don’t care.”