Reul Ghorm peered at Regina. Petting the ten-year-old's hair, as if she were her kindly grandmother, Reul asserted stiffly, "I hope you know my kindness comes with a cost."
Regina wasn't surprised. All kindness comes with a price. The smallest kindness accepted had major strings attached. But this was a major kindness. Of course the woman felt the orphan owed her, though Regina hoped Reul Ghorm, a fairy, was better than that. "It does?"
Combing the child's hair with her silky fingers, Reul replied sweetly, "Certainly. You owe it to me to reveal to me any secrets the princess conceals."
"Secrets?" Regina parroted dubiously. She was sitting cross-legged on a picnic blanket in a courtyard. Enjoying the fresh air. Watching a few kids race horses. Her hair was in a French braid. Her servant gown was teal. After processing the word "secrets", Regina shifted gears, her mouth dropping. "The princess?"
Reul Ghorm nodded slowly. "Yes."
As a wind pulled at Regina's braid (but left Reul's tidy bun alone), Regina scrunched up her face suspiciously. She shook her head slowly, befuddled. "I never even saw the princess."
"You will," confided Reul. "I'll have a maid introduce you. If you consent to my terms. If not, you're out." Using her thumb, she beckoned behind her shoulder.
Regina's ten-year-old eyes became sparkly. Excited. As another wind came and tugged tufts of her hair loose, she tried to calmly ask, "Really?" but the second syllable ended with a keyed up squeak and uncontrollable grin.
Her four-leaf clover was working! After more than a third of the year apprenticing, she would meet the princess. Her heavy shoulders felt light all of a sudden. All the weight from feeling neglected and unwanted, like she didn't belong in the world, had lifted. Her chin was buoyed by inner peace.
"Thank you, madam!" Regina half-rose from the picnic blanket to embrace the woman.
Reul Ghorm chuckled sweetly, beguiling. "Of course, darling." Taking the girl's wrists as she returned to her cross-legged position, Reul shouldered off a bee tickling her chin. "The most important thing I'd like to know, my sweet, is who gave her the ring." She released the child.
"What ring?"
"The engagement ring." Reul Ghorm leaned down and wrapped her arm around the child's shoulder then pressed her cheek against Regina's neck. "For her protection," she whispered. "I have a feeling she's going after a wet nurse."
Puzzled, Regina paraphrased, "You think she's in love with a woman?"
Reul chuckled. "Oh, no! I meant I'm afraid," her jaw hardened with every word as she pulled back from Regina and sat staunchly, floating in the air, "she's in love with someone far beneath her socially who is using her indisputably sweet nature for power. I think her suitor is a butcher or something who wants to become king then kill her.
"So," she uttered in a silvery tone, "I'd appreciate it if you prove my fears wrong. It would be terrible if our kindhearted princess gave her love to a man who wants to exploit her…and never cherished her. Never saw how wonderful she is. Never falls in love with her. Don't you agree, sweetheart?"
Regina nodded. "That would be awful. Yes…we must protect the princess."
Reul smiled benevolently. "Glad you're old enough to understand the terrible consequences of disobeying me."
Regina wasn't sure she liked the way Reul Ghorm put that, yet she told herself the woman clearly had Princess Snow's best interest at heart.
She was—correctly—sure she was one of Reul Ghorm's many spies. After all, in the four months she'd been apprenticing, she'd never come close to glimpsing Princess Snow. And after thrusting Regina under the nose of the head maid with the order, "Train her," Regina hadn't spoken to Reul. She had seen her in passing and waved, but each of them had been too busy for a conversation.
Until now. Regina had been informed this morning by the head maid that Regina's cooking, cleaning, sewing, and garden duty skills were up to par. "Why don't you take the day to enjoy yourself?" she suggested.
Regina had hurried to the stables, borrowed a gelding, and rode off to practice her archery on a galloping equine. She'd been deathly afraid all this servant nonsense would slaughter her favorite talents, the things she was a natural at—archery and horseback riding.
She wasn't as concerned about her riding. As she'd never owned a horse (only borrowed them without asking), her time on a horse was sporadic. She loved horses and would have stolen one, but she wouldn't have a way to feed it.
However, up until her exhausting apprentice training in the castle, Regina had practiced archery every day. It had been maddening and grueling to fall asleep every night in midst of fretting that the one thing that made her proud to be Regina would be spoiled.
To her delight, she discovered her talent hadn't waned. She rode wildly for two hours before turning in for some breakfast. After which, she wanted to enjoy the nice day in the courtyard.
A few hours after Reul's visit, a woman wearing a silver headdress inlaid with emeralds and sapphires came to collect Regina.
She wore a dark green gown. Upon her feet were silver high heels with bright blue bows. Regina had never met anyone with such slanted eyes or with a yellow skin tone. As she led Regina, she kept mumbling to herself about her daughter "Fa Mulan" bringing dishonor to her family.
She escorted Regina to another courtyard—not the one she'd been enjoying earlier but a more private, elevated one only the head gardeners and staff with special permission could enter, aside from the royal family and their guests. Servant and apprentice strode up a path with breathtaking flowers from various regions sidling the trail. Flowers that covered trees and bushes and shoved their way up to the sky.
The path they walked on looked like shiny pure gold bricks. Regina's purple magic stirred, sensing a vague kinship. Of course, the exquisite gold lane had to be made of magic.
The princess was at the end of the trail at the head of a rectangle ivory table, chatting with five other women her age. Princess Snow wore a tiara, red dress that made her eyes seem brighter, and the sweetest red lipstick.
She was beautiful. Regina's jaw dropped at the sight of her. When a blue and yellow butterfly landed on Princess Snow's tiara, Regina realized she was stroking her clover in her pocket.
"Your Highness," the headdressed maid curtsied, "I am sorry to interrupt, but I was ordered to introduce you to this lass."
Regina dropped a curtsy when the princess beamed at her. "Your Highness, I am Regina, an orphan. I was given a chance to apprentice in your castle."
"Oh, and how are you liking it?" asked Princess Snow White with an arched brow.
Regina's heart was pounding hard with the excitement of finally meeting Princess Snow. She could hardly think straight, and she felt sure she was dreaming. "Loveliest place I've set foot in. It's so beautiful…like that gold trail."
Princess Snow glanced at the trail. "Yeah, that's been there for two years. Queen Cora owed my mother, and my mother asked her daughter, Zelena, to do that. Zelena's young, but she has shown more strength in magic than her mother even as a baby. She brought a huge cyclone when her mother irritated her when she was barely six months old. A cyclone that led into another land. Queen Cora had to use a magic bean to get her back."
Regina scratched behind her ear, squirming. "Oh, well, that's lovely. My, you're beautiful," she couldn't stop herself from gasping. She wished she could look just like the princess when she grew up.
The princess' smile broadened. "Why, thank you," she cooed. "I certainly hope you enjoy yourself."
"I will. Especially the horses. Your stables is full of the finest horses I've ever seen!" Regina trilled.
Princess Snow White thought for a moment. "How would you like your own colt?"
Regina's brow furrowed. She'd never known so much kindness since she had plucked the four-leaf clover from its bed. How could this be real? "Are you sure?" she asked suspiciously, believing Princess Snow would retract her offer.
Princess Snow shrugged, took a sip from her goblet, and proclaimed, "Why not? We have one colt too many, and you love them. I'll have a chat with our stable master."
Regina still didn't believe it. It was too good to be true. Even if the princess was serious, she had so much on her mind. Surely, she'd forget?
But Princess Snow White did not forget. The stable master took Regina from her chores the next morning to meet her two-year-old bay colt with black stockings and a black diamond on his forehead.
That four-leaf clover gave her the best luck of her life, she concluded, smiling brightly as she slid her hand up the center of her colt's face.
