Love Is the Way Forward

Entry in Forest and Fawn's Romantacy Spring 2025 challenge (2000 words). Hiding from daemon troops, Princess Cerys comes across someone else hiding from them as well. Her plan to kill the daemon prince is temporarily delayed while she helps a handsome stranger.

Hearing the approach of the daemon troops, Cerys looked across The Wastelands. It sounded like dozens marching from the sound of their feet and clanging armor. She spied an abandoned sword on the ground and quickly picked it up.

Jumping into a deep ditch amid the battle-scarred barren landscape, the faerie kept her head down and began running while crouched over. She found refuge while coming around a corner. It was a hole in the side of the trench, braced with some old hewn pieces of lumber and the entrance covered by some long dead branches. Cerys pushed the branches aside, moving them back into place behind her to conceal it once more.

She held her breath as the enemy soldiers marched past overhead, crouching far enough back to remain in the shadows. Hearing their retreating steps, she let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank the Fates, they didn’t find us,” a voice quietly said behind her.

Spinning around while trying not to shriek in surprise, Cerys brandished the daemon forged sword at the voice in the dark.

“I probably won’t hurt you,” the voice claimed. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He coughed weakly and gave a soft groan.

Her eyes adjusting to the dark of the underground refuge she had discovered, she saw someone sitting on the floor with his back against the wall while partially slumped over. There was an arrow that had entered his shoulder from the back where the tip had gone through, and one in his calf.

“You have me at the advantage.” His eyes traveled from her face down to the sword in her hand still pointed at him.

Cerys’ eyes followed his, realizing she was still holding the sword before setting it down. “It’s not mine. I found it since I left unprepared and needed something.” She added with disgust, “I’m not a daemon,” noting the make of the sword might cause him to assume her to be one.

“That’s a relief,” he sighed, closing his eyes momentarily.

She stated as she approached, “But it looks like the daemons got you,” noticing that the arrows were not made by faeries. “Let me help you get these out.”

Nodding his head, he placed a strap of leather in his teeth to bite down on. Cerys grabbed along the shaft just below the arrowhead and pulled it out in one clean move. His muscular body arched in pain as he groaned through gritted teeth. The arrow in the calf was harder to remove.

He leaned back against the wall, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and his brow covered in sweat. “What are you doing out in The Wastelands by yourself?” he asked, his breaths short and shallow as he panted.

Ripping off part of the bottom of her tunic, she applied a pressure bandage to his calf. “I could ask you the same thing.” She finally had a chance to properly look at him as she pressed more torn fabric to his shoulder to stem the bleeding. He was very attractive, even in his injured state with high cheekbones, a straight nose, full lips, pale skin and the most enchanting black eyes that she found herself hypnotized by. His strong facial features were framed with long silken black hair that reached his waist. When she found herself staring at him longingly, she began to blush and turned her head away.

The comely stranger said, “Let’s just say there was a change of plans, and I had no intention of carrying out the orders of my mother.” There was a long pause as he gazed at his nursemaid with gratitude.

“So, you ran away to The Wastelands?” she asked with confusion.

“Not exactly.” A weak smile tugged at the corner of his mouth when he said, “You’re turn.”

“I could say the same as well.”

Cerys suddenly remembered the last words her father told her before she snuck out of the battle camp. ‘Love is the way forward.’ In her eyes, the only way forward was the death of daemon she refused to be married to.

For over five thousand years, faeries and daemons battled each other for a reason that was so long ago, its impetus was forgotten. When King Hywel told her that she was now married to the daemon prince through the peace accords, she was certain that the only peace she would find would be with the prince’s death. There would be no love.

With the threat of being thrown into the back of a carriage and driven to the castle of the Potentate of Demons, Queen Danann, at the other side of The Wastelands, Cerys ran off. In her haste, she forgot to bring any weapons with her. A found daemon sword on the battlefield was a sign from the Fates she was meant to kill the prince, thus avoiding a marriage that was already conducted on paper through messengers, without Cerys being consulted. The only thing lacking was consummation.

To fill the awkward silence, Cerys said, “I’m surprised anyone from the Southern Clan had made it past the Daemon Empire. Were you hoping to seek refuge from your mother with the Northern Clan?” He had the dark features often associated with the Southern Clan, but she had never met anyone from that distant faerie faction. In the five thousand years of war, the Northern Clan had been separated from the Southern Clan, with the Daemon Empire keeping them apart with little to no chance for them to interact.

“Not exactly. It’s a long story.” He studied her for a moment, his head cocking sideways. “So, you’re from the Northern Clan?”

            “If I succeed, I may not be any longer. I may be seeking refuge with the Southern Clan, if they would take me,” she said, noting the similarities in their predicament.

“Why would you need to seek refuge with them?”

Changing the subject, she asked, “Just how did you find this place?”

Seeming to accept she would not answer his latest question, he answered, “I found this place some years ago. It used to be a human’s home, and I used to search for artifacts that haven’t decayed over time.”

            “There haven’t been humans for over twenty thousand years, what makes you say this was a human’s home?”

Pointing over to the stacked round stones with a small alcove that protruded along one wall, he said, “That was a feature they used to call a chimney.”

Cerys never heard of anyone who studied humans, faeries viewing them as a failed experiment of the Fates. “Who would want to study humans? They wound up killing themselves from endless wars,” she said derisively.

“One can learn from failure. We can learn from their mistakes too.”

“Which mistakes?”

“Perhaps the same one I was about to make.” Before Cerys could question his cryptic answer, he further asked, “Are all women of the Northern Clan as beautiful as you?”

Suddenly, Cerys felt very self-conscious, nervously stroking one of her long golden braids, her pale blue eyes darting to the side. “I don’t know. I’m nothing special, though my father calls me a swan among crows.”

“Who is your father?”

Cerys didn’t know why, but she felt she could trust this stranger. If she told him her goal, he might help. He was certainly more attractive and kinder than the monster she was already married off to. “King Hywel.”

He cocked an amused brow before warmly smiling at her.

The way he looked at her lit a fire in her heart. ‘Love is the way forward.’ Regarding the person before her, she thought if her father married her off to someone from the Southern Clan, they could be united, and then finally eradicate the Daemon Empire together. Carys could envision herself marrying this person before her instead.

“So, you’re a princess. Do you have sisters?”

“No, but it would have been easier if I did,” she said glumly.

“Why is that?”

            “So my father could have married one of them off to the Daemon Prince, Dubhán, instead of me. I don’t want to be married to an ugly monster with red eyes, green skin, horns, a savage cretin who eats the flesh of newborn babies, and who smells like a privy. That was why I ran away. I plan to kill him rather than to be forced to consummate a marriage on paper with an uncivilized beast.”

“Did you tell your father what you intended to do before you left?”

            “No.”

“That was smart,” he said with somber admiration. Regarding her once more, he asked with an amused lilt, “You’ve seen this prince?”

“No, but I’ve heard the stories.”

            “And if he was handsome?”

“He would still be a beast.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be married to you either, just as much as you with him. Who knows, he may have had the same idea, to kill you rather than face being married to you, though I would say now that he would be a fool to do so. Fed on equally unflattering rumors about you, he probably thought faeries are arrogant, prepubescent waifs with screechy voices, who think only of themselves.” His eyes raked over Cerys’ form covetously. “Perhaps, he has no clue to the mature, voluptuous beauty that you possess, with a sweet voice and tenderness to help a fellow stranger upon the battlefield.”

Kneeling next to him, she wanted to reach out and caress his hand, flattered by his words.

Gazing at her lips, he asked, “Are the rumors true that you’ve never been kissed?”

“Are the traditions in the Southern Clan not the same as ours?” She wondered if they still prohibited romantic touch before marriage like her Clan.

 “Perhaps, if you want to spite this beast of a husband you’ve been wedded to against your will, you should kiss me. Maybe it would cause him to break the marriage contract that you have been touched by someone other than himself,” he suggested with a knowing smirk.

“And then I would have the freedom to choose my own husband. Maybe even someone from the Southern Clan,” she hinted with a shy smile, her cheeks reddening.

“Perhaps.” He gave her a disarming smile to encourage her. “If I had use of both arms, I could hold you. But as it is, you will have to come to me for your kiss.”

Brushing his silken hair away from his face, he leaned into her touch. “You are very handsome,” she sighed. “Are the other men from the Southern Clan as handsome as you?”

“What is your name?” he asked earnestly with a whisper.

“Cerys,” she breathed before tilting her head sideways, gently pressing her lips against his.

As soon as their lips touched, with his one good arm, he pulled her closer and pressed his lips harder against hers, claiming her mouth unexpectedly. She melted against him and let his tongue dance with hers, luxuriating in the splendid rapture of her first kiss, sighing against his mouth wantonly. Instinctively, she straddled his lap and cupped his face in her hands, kissing him back with the same ferocity as he kissed her. She groaned with delight, her hands snaking down his chest, feeling his firm muscular chest beneath her palms. He tasted sweeter than mead and smelled more seductive than orange blossoms. The fire in her heart now flared between her legs as well.

Just as she was about to suggest that he should take her maidenhood to spite the prince further, daemon troops burst into their hideaway.

“Prince Dubhán?” the soldier addressed him, appearing confused by the faerie on his lap.

Looking at the surprise on her face, he gave a rakish smile. “I never admitted I was from the Southern Clan.”

She began laughing, finally noticing the small, sleek black horns on the top of his head while hearing her father’s voice in her head, now understanding. ‘Love is the way forward.’ Leaning forward, Cerys kissed Dubhán soundly once more.