“Fast-paced, quick-witted, deftly plotted and as well-thought-out as it is well-written. Highly recommended.”
– Juliet E. McKenna, Author of The Tales of Einarinn and The Green Man’s Heir
“Recommended for readers of The Lies of Locke Lamora and anyone who loves fantasy mystery starring a delightfully reluctant, unlikely, foul-mouthed and golden-hearted hero.”
– Katrina Middelburg, Read. Ruminate. Write.
Well, it’s been a while, but I have a new full-length book coming out. This is my first novel-length fantasy book for adults and it’s out on May 28th, 2020. In other words, less than a month!
What’s it about? Read on and find out…
Shadow of a Dead God
Agatos, the White City. Wealthy, diverse, rich in history, and lousy with the power of dead gods.
It was only supposed to be one little job – a simple curse-breaking for Mennik Thorn to pay back a favor to his oldest friend. But then it all blew up in his face. Now he’s been framed for a murder he didn’t commit.
So how is a second-rate mage, broke, traumatized, and with a habit of annoying the wrong people supposed to prove his innocence when everyone believes he’s guilty?
Mennik only has one choice: to throw himself back into the corrupt world of the city’s high mages, a world he fled years ago. Faced by supernatural beasts, the mage-killing Ash Guard, and a ruthless, unknown adversary, it’s going to take every trick Mennik can summon just to keep him and his friend alive.
But a new, dark power in rising in Agatos, and all that stands in its way is one damaged mage…
How would I describe this book? Suppose you took Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files or Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and put them in an epic fantasy world full of gods, mages, and monsters. Then you might have Shadow of a Dead God.
I have been lax, and slack, and inefficient. I finished this wonderful book a week ago and I haven’t reviewed it yet. Let’s fix that.
First up, let’s get the basics out the way. The Bone Ships, by RJ Barker, is a magnificent book. It really is. Barker’s previous Wounded Kingdom trilogy (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins, King of Assassins) was very good, but this is a massive step up, and it wouldn’t be unfair to say that this is Barker’s masterwork.
The basic story is simple enough. The Hundred Isles have been fighting a war against the Gaunt Isles for generations. In this world of scattered islands, the battles are fought on the seas between ships built from the bones of gigantic, extinct sea dragons. Over time, with no new supply of bones, ships have become only more valuable. Then a new sea dragon is spotted making its way through the islands. If either side hunts and kills the dragon, the vast haul of bones will prolong the war for many more generations.
Joron Twiner is the Shipwife (captain) of the black ship the Tide Child. Black ships are old, decaying bone ships crewed by women and men condemned to death. Rather than take his ship into battle, Twiner has laid up in an isolated bay, found a tumbledown shack and is slowly drinking himself into oblivion, leaving his crew to their own devices on board ship. And there he remains until the day that Lucky Meas turns up to challenge him for the position of shipwife. Lucky Meas has been condemned to the black ships after losing her position in the fleet, but she’s not taking it lying down. After defeating Twiner and sparing his life, she sets about getting the Tide Child into shape. Because Lucky Meas has a plan: she will not let either the Hundred Isles or the Gaunt Isles capture the sea dragon. She will protect it in its passage through the archipelago, fighting off both sides if necessary, until it is beyond reach and then she will kill it, denying the bones to everyone and hopefully hastening the end of the war.
The Bone Ships is simply the story of the Tide Child as it carries out its mission.
Like I said, a pretty simple story, right?
Well, at that level it is. But where The Bone Ships really shines is in its world building and its characters. Barker dives deep into a very alien world. Much fantasy – most fantasy, and I include my own in this – is based approximately on locations, cultures, and history from our world. The Bone Ships really isn’t. In the ocean-based, ship-focused story, there are obvious echoes of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series and CS Forester’s Hornblower, but Barker has created a complex, unique world to set the stories in and then he has followed through rigorously to the consequences of this world. It’s worldbuilding that informs every aspect of the books. Any examples don’t really do justice to the immersive nature, but let’s take a few anyway. The Hundred Isles is a strongly matriarchal culture, and this manifests itself not just in the political set-up or people’s positions, but in the language. Ships are always ‘he’, the captain is the shipwife, people are referred to as ‘women and men’, not ‘men and women’, and so on. The ships, being built of bone, have different names for their components. The masts are ‘spines’, the front is the ‘beak’.
But that’s just scratching the surface. From the birdlike wind wizards, the gullaime, to the brutal sacrificing of first-born children (luckily not explicitly described on the page, for those of us who don’t have the stomach for that), and a complex set of shipboard customs, this is an intricate and very different society. It is also not one that is admirable. Anyone born disabled in any way or born to a mother who dies in childbirth is consigned to an explicit underclass.
The complexity of the worldbuilding could cause some problems as the reader flails for familiarity – and a few reviews reference that – but it didn’t for me, and the reason for that was the characters. There are a quite a lot of them, but all of them are well-realised and convincing, and they are what lead you into the story. Joron Twiner and Lucky Meas, being the leads, are the most interesting, but there are plenty of other great characters. They are our guides into a world that at first is difficult to understand but which becomes increasingly convincing.
There isn’t a great deal of fantasy set aboard ships for some reason. Robin Hobbs’s Liveship Traders series is the most obvious example, and The Bone Ships deserves comparison with Hobbs’s books, in tone as well as in it’s shipboard setting.
The Bone Ships is exhilarating, engrossing, and thrilling in equal measures. I loved the time I spent in the company of the crew of the Tide Child. A few readers may find themselves cast adrift by the alienness of the fantasy setting, but I don’t think most will. I understand there was a glossary in the book, but I didn’t have consult it once and didn’t even realise it was there until I saw other people mention it.
I should note here that RJ Barker sent me a paperback copy of this book for review. This did not in any way affect my opinion of the book or my review. In fact, I ended up reading an ebook copy that I bought myself, partly because the paperback was so pretty I didn’t want to crease it, but mainly because I wanted to keep reading at night without a light.
One note, though, and I feel I should include this, because I’ve noted it for some self-published books recently and I want to be fair: there were quite a few typos in the ebook edition. Not so many that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book, but they were noticeable. I don’t know if the print edition shares those.
The Bone Ships is the first in the Tide Child trilogy, and I for one can’t wait for the next.
I mean, not a wrap with a nice gift card and a ribbon, but more of a kind of a wrap with a bit of old newspaper and some hastily stuck-on tape (yes, I’m aware I’m mixing metaphors). But it’s still a wrap, okay?
In other words, I have finally – finally! – finished the first draft of my new novel. And, yeah, I’m pretty excited about that!
This is my first novel for adults that I’ve done since I knew what I was doing with this writing thing. Not only have I now finished the first draft, but I like it! It’s very me. We’ve got cool magic and dead gods and murders and people getting the shit kicked out of them and all the swearing I couldn’t put in my middle grade novels.
The first draft has come in at almost exactly 100k words. I already know there are some bits I’m going to cut and some bits I’m going to insert and a whole bunch of bits that I’m going to fiddle around with, but I reckon it’ll come out not too far from that total.
Okay, that’s the good stuff. Here’s the stress: I don’t have a title for my book! I always have a title for my books when I start, even if they eventually change. But this one? Nope. I kept thinking I would come up with one eventually, but I didn’t and I still can’t think of one and, and, and. Please give me a title. Any title. Your title will do. Do you have a good title for your book? Can I steal it? Pretty please? Okay, I’m stealing it.
I’m planning to take a month off this book then plunge into the rewrite during our summer trip to America.
And now I have to think of something else to write.
This books has the myths. All the myths. Seriously. You might even say there are no myths … mything (no, I’m not sorry for that; Robert Aspirin made a career from that pun.)
Incidentally, I’ve been writing book reviews on this blog for quite a while, on and off, but I’ve decided that I’m going to call them “book recommendations” from now on. Partly because I’m not going to fill good blog space (they charge by the pixel, you know) telling you about books I don’t like, but mainly because my brain is weird and when I call something a review I get all hung up about it having to be formal and serious, and really, who wants that?
So, back to Paternus.
I’m going to be honest. I tried this book maybe a year ago, and I only got a couple of chapters in before putting it aside. But I kept hearing great things about it, so I figured I would give it another go, and I am very glad I did. In fact, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year, if not the best.
I’m kind of finding it hard to describe the book. It’s a contemporary fantasy, but quite unlike almost anything else. The only book that really came to mind for me was American Gods, but I enjoyed this a lot more than American Gods, which slightly missed the mark for me, even though I normally like Gaiman’s stuff. Here’s the description of the Paternus: Rise of the Gods on Goodreads:
Even myths have legends. And not all legends are myth.
When a local hospital is attacked by strange and frightening men, Fiona Patterson and Zeke Prisco save a catatonic old man named Peter–and find themselves running for their lives with creatures beyond imagination hounding their every step.
With nowhere else to turn, they seek out Fi’s enigmatic Uncle Edgar. But the more their questions are answered, the more they discover that nothing is what it seems–not Peter, not Edgar, perhaps not even themselves.
The gods and monsters, heroes and villains of lore–they’re real. And now they’ve come out of hiding to hunt their own. In order to survive, Fi and Zeke must join up with powerful allies against an ancient evil that’s been known by many names and feared by all. The final battle of the world’s oldest war has begun.
Ashton doesn’t make this book easy for himself. The first four, five, six – can’t remember exactly – chapters each follow different, at-first-unrelated characters. They are also told in an omniscient voice in present tense. In other words, it’s pretty far out of the normal for fantasy, which tends to either be third person or, occasionally, first person and told in the past tense. It was enough to throw me at first.
But the story is incredibly compelling once you get used to the way it’s told. There are so many original, great ideas, plenty of action, really good characters, and a plot that emerges slowly and satisfyingly over the course of the story. I found both it and its sequel (Paternus: Wrath of the Gods) enormously absorbing.
It’s not perfect, of course. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that is. Where Paternus dipped slightly for me was when What Is Going On is explained to Fi and Zeke. The story loses a little momentum, and there is a bit of Forrest Gump-ism going on when certain characters turn out to have been involved in pretty much every major historical and mythological event you can think of. But that only lasts for a chapter or so, and then the story gets going again.
When you’re a writer yourself, there are two types of good books. The books where you think, “That was great. Maybe I’ll write a book like that.” And then sometimes you do. And there are the books where you think, “Yeah, no, I could never write that.” This definitely one of the latter books for me.
This book got third place in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition in 2016 , which unless it was up against The Lord of the Rings and War and Peace that year is kind of astonishing to me. Well, perhaps not. Any book that’s written in such a non-standard way for fantasy isn’t going to please everyone.
As I said, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year. If you decide to give it a go, don’t be put off by the less-than-usual style. Go with it. It will be rewarding.
I’m going to be at Eastercon 2019 (Ytterbium) this weekend, along with my family. This is the first time we’ve taken both the boys along, so it’s going to be interesting. If you spot us, do come over and say ‘hi!’ That’s the point of going to a con!
I’m going to be doing an author reading and a panel, so come and ask awkward questions. This is my schedule:
Okay, let’s start off with the fact that this is a really good book. I’m saying this up front, because I know I’m going to waffle in places out sheer ignorance, and I don’t want to put people off.
Rob Hayes has been making a bit of a name for himself in the self-published fantasy community, but this is the first of his books that I’ve read, and it won’t be the last.
Never Die is set, I think, in an alternative world version of China. (This is the waffle bit, by the way.) With possibly a bit of alternative world Japan. Or not. Here’s the problem. I know sod all about the history and mythology of China or Japan, other than having watched a few Wuxia movies. So I don’t actually know whether Hayes has based his story accurately on Chinese (or Japanese) mythology, has done it loosely, or whether this book bears the same relationship to Chinese / Japanese history and mythology that, say, Game of Thrones does to British history and mythology. The fact that I keep saying Chinese / Japanese shows just how ignorant I am about all this. It’s probably best to say that I should leave any discussion of his use of history and mythology to people who know what the fuck they are talking about.
So, onto the story. Legendary swordswoman Cho, known as the Whispering Blade, is killed in the defence of Kaishi City against a bandit army. Then, she finds herself resurrected and bound to the will of a strange boy named Ein. He needs her help to kill the corrupt Emperor of Ten Kings. She isn’t the only hero the boy needs, and he proceeds to resurrect and recruit other heroes, all of whom have powers of one sort or the other. Some of whom aren’t actually dead and who have to be killed first by Cho and her comrades.
Hayes does a wonderful job of taking us through this world with its heroes and monsters, all the while carefully dropping in hints that things aren’t quite the way our characters believe them to be. Time in particular seems to be passing oddly.
A couple of things on the negative side, none of which are enough to stop this book being a recommendation. There are a few places where another round of proofreading would have been good. No book is ever 100% free of typos, but from time to time, the number became noticeable and distracting. This is also not a character-driven story (which is okay; not every story should be). We never get incredibly deep into the characters or incredibly close to their point of view. Again, this isn’t something that is wrong with the book, but if you prefer your books to be character-driven, you may enjoy this slightly less. That’s not to say the characters are poorly done. Cho, and the other main hero, Zhihao Cheng, the Emerald Wind, are the best realised, but all are believable and engaging. They are just not massively deep.
While this is, to some degree, a martial arts fantasy, it doesn’t try to shove in too much action, instead letting the story drive where the action occurs.
Overall, despite my waffling review, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be picking up more of Hayes’s work.
Myke Cole is better known for his military SF novels, so this is a bit of a change of genre.
The Armored Saint is a well-written, straightforward, simple fantasy story without many subplots or diversions. In an age of increasingly large epic fantasies, this will undoubtedly appeal to a lot of people, and I certainly found it refreshing (although I still love those vast epic fantasies).
The world of The Armored Saint is fairly standard medieval with the added feature of being ruled and structured by a rigid and violently enforced set of religious rules. The Order who enforce them claim that their oppressive rules are to prevent the demons, vanquished by the emperor, from returning to the world.
Heloise comes into conflict with this Order when she and her father are accosted by them on the road. The Order use their power to intimidate and try to rob the pair and then later oversee a massacre of a neighbouring village.
So much, so fairly standard for fantasy, although the claustrophobic rule of the Order is much more visceral and strict than in many books.
The strength of the book comes partly in the very well realised character of Heloise, who is definitely the stand-out character in the book; others are less well developed. But the main strength that Cole brings to this book is the tension that he creates in scenes of confrontation. There is relatively little actual violence, but the threat of it, the powerlessness of the Heloise, her father, and other villagers, is genuinely and literally nail-biting. I’m not sure I’ve read another fantasy author who brings so much tension into simple confrontations. I wish I knew how he does it.
The action climax and the ‘twist’ that precedes it, by contrast, were less interesting although perfectly well handled.
Four stars, because The Armored Saint has some outstanding aspects but it may lack a little heft in other areas.
I’m making a conscious effort to seek out good self-published fantasy. I’ve read some self-published fantasy before, of course, but only by accident, as it were. Some has been good, some has been less good. So I wanted to actually go out of my way to find the really good self-pub stuff that I might be missing.
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, by Michael McClung was the winner of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition for 2015, run by writer Mark Lawrence, so that seemed a good place to start.
The thief Amra Thetys agrees to look after a friend’s looted statuette while he bargains with a buyer. The next morning, the friend is found dead, brutally murdered. Amra is determined to find the killer and avenge her friend. What follows is an adventure full of peril, brutal magic, and fallen gods.
The best thing about The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids were the characters of Amra, who is determined, sarcastic, and loyal, and her ally, the slightly disturbing mage Holgren. The story is told by Amra, and her voice stands out, full of energy and attitude. It’s unusual still to find fantasy where the protagonist has such a distinctive voice, and the book very much benefits from it.
I’ve given this four stars rather than five, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. For me, the writing could have been tightened up in a few places, and the author’s fondness for occasional sentence fragments didn’t work for me, pulling me out of the story. The epilogue, which isn’t in Amra’s voice, seemed tacked on just to make it clear there would be further stories. But these are minor issues.
I’m very happy to have read this book, and I’ll definitely read more of the Amra Thetys series. I would judge my attempt to find really good self-published fantasy novels a success on this first hit out. Give it a try.
Four stars, edging on four and a half.
(I would add that I’m not a massive fan of this cover, but don’t let it put you off.)
I have not written a Christmas story this year. In fact, I’ve never actually written a Christmassy Christmas story. Sorry. My aim for next year is to write a proper one. But for now…
A long time ago, a long, long time ago, when Steph and I were younger and less exhausted, we put together a project called The December Lights Project. For the whole of December, we put up a short story every day, free to read, as a holiday gift. The stories were contributed by a group of wonderful writers who asked nothing in return, just the chance to spread a little holiday happiness.
The only thing the stories had in common was that they were all guaranteed to have a happy ending.
Like I said, I haven’t written a Christmas story, but I thought I would share my contribution to The December Lights Project again.
It’s my spin on a familiar fairy tale. Enjoy!
The Frog King
So, here’s how it happened.
Some people are really into traditions, okay?
I mean, seriously into traditions. It doesn’t matter what the tradition is or how dumb it might be. If it’s a tradition, it’s gotta happen just the way it always has, and that’s that. No discussion. These people, right. These people freak out if anyone just suggests that maybe, oh, I don’t know, things might change a little. That things might start to make some hopping sense.
Who wants to deal with that kind of raving, dribbling, eye-bulging freak-out? Sometimes, it’s easier to just go with the flow.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
All I’m saying is that if anyone says tradition to me again, they’re losing their head. I might be a frog, but I’m still the croaking king, okay?
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it happened. This was back when I was the prince, and a pretty good-looking prince, too, I don’t mind telling you. I was fifteen, I was hot, and it wasn’t going to be long before I was going to get married to some equally hot princess and have cute little prince- and princesslets running all over the place. You know how it goes. You’ve read the stories. Shiny wedding. Lots of gold, silk, horses and carriages, presents, and waving at crowds. Then a stupid number of too-soft mattresses, a bit of how’s-yer-father, and, as the French say, there you have it.
Everything was going swimmingly. There were plenty of princesses giving me the eye, and more than that, if you know what I mean. Which I think you do.
Then this old witch turns up at the castle gates and starts going on about tradition. Now, my dad, he’s a real sucker for this mumbo-jumbo. Astrology, witchcraft, dowsing, freaking crystals, the whole lot. And the witch has got this old book, and as far as my dad cared, if it was written down, it was God’s own truth, because why would someone write it down if it wasn’t true, right?
Don’t go there, okay, because I’m all over that one. But my dad was the king and what he said went and that was that.
So, the old witch, she’s saying that in the old days, in tradition, the princess has to kiss a frog, who then turns into a prince and they all live happily ever after, yada, yada, yada and whatever. Personally, I reckoned she’d been at the wacky-baccy. The thing was, she said, first the prince has to be turned into a frog, so the princess can kiss him and turn him into a prince. Which is a pretty roundabout way of going about things, if you ask me.
Nobody did.
So, the next evening, I’m standing in the middle of some dumb circle of candles, as naked as the day I was born, while this pervy, dirty old witch dances around me, waving a dead, dried frog. And, yes, she was naked too. That I do not want to think about, thank you very much.
Five minutes later, I’m on the floorboards, croaking away, and all frogged-up.
My dad was delighted.
Everyone gathers around, the courtiers, my friends, my family, all the rest, as I’m tipped into a marshy pool outside the palace, and they all toddle off back to the comfort of the palace, leaving me with the mosquitoes, the flies, the fish, and a damned heron that spent the next week trying to spear me.
Now here’s where it all goes wrong. Because tradition or no tradition, princesses just aren’t going around kissing frogs any more, if they ever did.
And so there I sit, unkissed, totally frog, until my dad finally croaks it (ha!) and they’re left without a king. Then someone remembers me, and they all come poking around my pool.
By this time, needless to say, no one can find hide or hair of the bloody witch, and I’m still a frog.
Yeah.
Oops.
Which brings us up to now, with me still here, still green, and still warty.
Most of the time they leave me alone. Let’s face it. Frog kings are pretty useless at ridin’ and huntin’ and dancin’ and the cuttin’-of-ribbons, and there’s not a whole lot else in the job description. So here I sit, and everyone’s happy. Happier, anyway.
Except on Tuesdays.
And, yes, since you ask, today is a Tuesday. Fan-bloody-tastic. Thank you for reminding me.
I can hear the feet tramping towards my tank right now.
Tuesday is when the king receives petitions and hands out justice. It’s—yes, you guessed it—a tradition. God forbid that anyone would think that maybe a frog shouldn’t be handing out justice.
Well, here they are, the whole obsequious, slimy lot of them, decked out in robes that looked stupid two hundred years ago and which haven’t improved with time. Oh, your majesty, this, and oh, your majesty, that. Bah.
The chancellor bows, then scoops me up out of my tank where I’d just been contemplating eating a nice dead fly. Then we’re off, in procession, cymbals tinging and trumpets tooting, me in the chancellor’s cupped hands.
You couldn’t come up with something more farcical if you tried.
I could hop out from here and make a run for it, but with all these robed idiots around I’d either be captured or squashed by the time I got to the end of the corridor.
Sometimes squashed seems like an appealing option.
Here we go. The throne room is just up ahead. My loving people are waiting.
Bastards.
The doors are pulled back, the trumpeters blow themselves red, and out we march.
Oh. Oh. Dear God. They’ve put the crown out again.
Someone’s going to lose their head over this.
I want to hide my warty face in my little webbed hands.
The crown is sitting in the middle of the throne. And I’m plonked right in the middle, trying to peer over the rim at the sniggering crowds.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to hand out some justice today.
And… Hell. I recognise those banners draped like pondweed from the rafters.
It’s not just a Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday of the month.
The first Tuesday of the month is princess day. God knows where they find them. Every scumming month they drag another poor, innocent princess into the throne room in the hope she’ll kiss me. There must be a lot of desperate royalty out there. Maybe we’re paying them. Maybe they’re far enough away that they don’t know.
All I know is that they’ve been scraping the bottom of the pond, so as to speak, with the ones they’ve brought in recently. And still no luck. Just a lot of horrified expressions and turned up noses.
Princesses these days, see, they’re more into Cosmo and Vogue and fifty-new-ways-to-satisfy-your-lover than squishing lips with frogs. Can’t say I blame them. I’m a frog and even I think it’s gross.
At my lowest, back in the pond, I did it with another frog. Yeah, it’s embarrassing, but what can you do? She was kinda cute for a frog. Nice shade of green and very smooth skin. Legs like you wouldn’t believe. Bit of a tongue on her, though. Clean up this pond! Don’t poop there! Were you looking at that other frog? The tadpoles were nice little things. Rather more of them than I’d been planning before I became a frog, of course. Still, plenty of heirs out there somewhere, although good luck sorting out the line of succession.
I’d always thought that doing the you-know-what with a frog would be as bad as it could get, but these Tuesdays, they’re worse. These are damned humiliating. Back when I was Prince Hot and Sexy, I never dreamed that I could be turned down by so many slappers and old maids. And the expressions on their faces. Let’s just say I thought I looked green.
I sink a little lower behind the rim of the crown, eyes just poking over so I can see what they’ve managed to dredge up this month.
The trumpeters blow hard enough to rupture themselves (some hope), silence (except the odd titter) settles over the throne room, the doors swing open with a gust of cold air, and then … nothing. Zilch.
I push myself up to get a better view.
Heads are craning, whispers starting, and the number of princesses coming through the door is exactly zero.
The chancellor clears his throat.
A courtier hurries forward, his stupid, toes-turned-up slippers hushing and slapping on the red carpet, followed by a hundred pairs of eyes. He whispers into the chancellor’s droopy ears.
I’d never really thought how ugly human ears are before. Frog ears are just neat little holes. Human ears? Like something God squashed on in a moment of distraction and didn’t have time to trim away.
The chancellor straightens, glances quickly at me, then turns to the crowd.
“Her royal highness, Princess Gertrude of Ruritania, is, ah, indisposed and unable to attend the gathering,” he booms. “She sends her most sincere regrets to his majesty.”
Who knows. He might even have fooled someone. It’s pretty clear, though, that she’s heard about me. She’s not coming.
My advisors gather in a little huddle, like herons peering into a pond.
A moment later, the chief heron stalks up to me.
“Your majesty.” He bows, and I have to restrain the impulse to hop back as I imagine the long beak spearing down. “There are no more.”
I blink, confused.
“Every princess alive has been invited. They have come, and they have left. There are no more. We have exhausted the possibilities.”
If I were human, I would sigh. It’s over. No princess will ever kiss me. I will never be human again.
It’s almost a relief. I wonder, abstractly, what they will do with me now.
A chorus of indrawn breaths attracts the chancellor’s attention. He turns. I hop to the side of my throne to look past.
Then I see her.
She’s walking down the red carpet, wearing a dress of glittering green that catches the candlelight and throws it back. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. Blonde hair cascades down her back. Her skin is as smooth as a pebble. Her legs are slim and look like they’re never going to stop going up (and in the dress she’s wearing, believe me, I can see). Her hands are delicate and long. Her eyes are as bright and sharp as emeralds. Everyone is watching her.
I realize my tongue is hanging out, and I snap it back like I’ve caught a fly.
“You’re not Princess Gertrude!” the chancellor says.
She ignores him, and he fades back like mist over the water on a summer morning.
She steps up onto the dais. I look up at her, and that’s some view, I’m telling you.
Her eyes gaze down at me. I think I might faint.
“Tell me, your majesty,” she whispers. “Are you true?”
I croak.
“Are you loyal?”
Croak.
“Are you honest and brave and noble?”
Croak. Croak!
“Do you choose … me? For ever and ever?’
Croak!
She leans forward, and the view improves again, if that’s possible. My mouth feels as dry as a sun-baked rock.
Her lips are moist and soft. I watch them, goggle-eyed, as they descend toward me. I lift up my little frog lips.
We touch. She kisses me.
I feel the magic, like I felt it before, when the witch cursed me. Except this time…
She’s falling. Collapsing down. Shrinking.
Her robes crumple.
For a moment, I think she’s gone, disappeared like dew. But then, as I peer over the rim of that ridiculous crown, I see her.
She’s crouched in the middle of her robes. And she’s a frog.
A very familiar frog.
She glares up at me.
“What do you think you’re doing squatting up there on that throne?” she croaks. “Do you think the pond is looking after itself? You’ve got two hundred children waiting for you back home! Hop to it!”
I smile a wide froggy smile, and with a single bound, leap from the throne.
Some people are really into traditions. Seriously into traditions.
