Soman Chainani - The Last Ever After

Agatha tried to look understanding. “What bothers you about me?”

“Oh let’s not play this game,” Tedros puffed, rolling onto his stomach.

“I want to know. What bothers you about me?”

Her prince didn’t answer. Agatha flicked hot turmeric onto his back.

Tedros flipped over angrily. “First off, you treat me like I’m an idiot.”

“That’s not true—”

Tedros frowned at her. “Do you want to know or not?”

Agatha folded her arms.

“You treat me like I’m an idiot,” Tedros repeated. “You pretend to be busy every time I attempt conversation. You act like it’s easy for me to give up my home, even though a princess is supposed to follow her prince. You clump around the house in those horrible shoes like an elephant, you leave the floor wet after your baths, you never even try to smile these days, and if I question anything you say or do, you give me this attitude that I shouldn’t dare challenge you because you’re just so … so …”

“So what?” Agatha glared.

“Good,” said Tedros.

“My turn,” said Agatha. “First off, you act like you’re my captive, as if I kidnapped you away from your best friend, who doesn’t even exist—”

“Now you’re just being spiteful—”

“You make me feel guilty for bringing you here, as if I shouldn’t have saved your life. You act like you’re all sensitive and chivalrous and then declare things like a princess should ‘follow’ her prince. You’re impulsive, you sweat too much, you make sweeping generalizations about things you know nothing about, and whenever you knock things over, which is often, you blame my house instead of yourself—”

“There’s barely any room to walk—”

“You’re used to living in a castle! With west wings and throne rooms and pretty little maids,” Agatha snapped. “Well, we’re not in a castle, oh princely one—we’re in real life. Have you thought that maybe I’m spending all my time worrying about keeping us alive? Have you thought that maybe I’m trying to figure out how to make our happy ending happy and that’s why I’m not spending all my time smiling like a clown and having deep conversations over cappuccino? Of course not, because you’re Tedros of Camelot, handsomest boy in the Woods and god forbid he feel old!”

Tedros cocked a grin. “That handsome, am I?”

“Even Sophie was more tolerable than you!” Agatha yelled into a pillow. “And she tried to kill me! Twice!”

“So go into the Woods and get your Sophie back!” Tedros retorted.

“Why don’t you go and get your Filip back!” Agatha barked—

Then slowly, they both blushed to silence, realizing they were talking about the same person.

Tedros slid next to his princess and put his arms around her waist. Agatha gave in to his tight, warm hug, trying not to cry.

“What happened to us?” she whispered.

When Agatha rescued Tedros from the School Master, she thought she’d found the way out of her fairy tale. She’d escaped death, saved her prince, and left the Woods behind, with her lying, betraying best friend still in it. As she clutched her true love, haloed by the white light between worlds, Agatha breathed in the relief of Ever After. She had Tedros at last—Tedros who loved her as much as she loved him … Tedros whose kiss she could still taste … Tedros who would make her happy forever …

Agatha smashed face-first into a wall of dirt.

Dazed, she’d opened her eyes to pitch darkness, her body on top of her prince’s in Gavaldon’s snowy cemetery. In an instant, she remembered all she’d once left behind in this tiny village: a broken promise to Stefan to bring his daughter home, the Elders’ threat to kill her, the stories of witches once burned in a square … Relax. This is our happy ending, she’d soothed herself, her breath settling. Nothing bad can happen anymore.

Agatha squinted and saw the slope of a roof atop the snow-capped hill, shaped like a witch’s hat. Her heart had swelled at the thought of being home once and for all, of seeing her mother’s euphoric face … She looked down at her prince with an impish grin. If she doesn’t have a stroke first.

“Tedros, wake up,” she’d whispered. He’d stayed limp in her arms in his black Trial cloak, the only sounds coming from a few crows pecking at grave worms and a weak torch crackling over the gate. She grabbed her prince by the shirt strings to shake him, but her hands were flecked with something warm and sticky. Slowly Agatha raised them into the torchlight.

Blood.

She’d dashed frantically between jagged graves and sharp-edged weeds, clumps crunching through powdery snow, before she saw the house ahead, none of its usual candles lit over the porch. Agatha turned the doorknob slowly, but the hinges squeaked and a body bolted out of bed, tangled in sheets like a bumbling ghost. Finally Callis’ head poked through, her big bug eyes blinking wide. For a split second, she colored with happiness, reunited with her daughter who’d been gone for so long. Then she saw the panic in Agatha’s face and went pale. “D-d-did anyone see you?” Callis stammered. Agatha shook her head. Her mother smiled with relief and rushed to embrace her, before she saw her daughter’s face hadn’t changed. Callis froze, her smile gone. “What have you done?” she gasped.

Together, they’d fumbled down Graves Hill, Callis in her saggy black nightgown, Agatha leading her back to Tedros. Plowing through snow, they lugged him home, each grappling one of his arms. Agatha peeked up at her mother, just an older version of herself with helmet-black hair and pasty skin, waiting for her to balk at the sight of a real-life prince—but Callis’ pupils stayed locked on the darkened town below. Agatha couldn’t worry to ask why. Right now, saving her prince was the only thing that mattered.

As soon as they pulled him through the door, her mother lay Tedros on the rug and slit open his wet shirt, the prince unconscious and covered with cockleburs, while Agatha lit the fireplace. When Agatha turned back, she nearly fainted. The sword wound in Tedros’ chest was so deep she could almost see the pulsing of his heart.

Agatha’s eyes filled with tears. “H-h-he’ll be okay, won’t he? He has to be—”

“Too late to numb him,” said Callis, rifling through drawers for thread.

“I had to bring him, Mother—I couldn’t lose him—”

“We’ll talk later,” Callis said so sharply Agatha shrank to the wall. Crouched over the prince, her mother made it five stitches in, barely closing the wound, before Tedros roused suddenly with a cry of pain, saw the needle in a stranger’s hand, and grabbed the nearest broomstick, threatening to bash her head in if she got an inch closer.

He and Callis had never quite seen eye to eye after that.

Somehow Agatha sweet-talked Tedros into sleeping, and that next morning, while he snuffled shallow breaths, his stitches half-done, Callis took her daughter into the kitchen, hanging a black sheet to close off the bedroom. Agatha had sensed the tension immediately.

“Look, first time we met, he threatened to kill me too,” she’d cracked, pulling two iron plates from the cupboard. “He’ll grow on you, I promise.”

Callis ladled foggy stew from the cauldron into a bowl. “I’ll sew him a new shirt before he leaves.”

“Uh, Mother, there’s a real-life prince from magical fairy land sleeping on our floor and you’re worrying about his shirt?” Agatha said, perching on a creaky stool. “Forget that the sight of me within a hundred feet of a boy should be cause for a town parade or that you’ve been telling me fairy tales are real from the day I was born. Don’t you want to know who he is—” Agatha’s eyes widened. “Wait. Before he leaves? Tedros is staying in Gavaldon … forever.”