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In a place, neither near nor far, and a time, neither now nor then . . . there was a kingdom, ruled well by a king. The king was brave and just, and he had sensibly married a princess who was clever and kind, and so the kingdom prospered. The king and queen had one son, and then another, and then a third, pop pop pop. They might have been plucking apples.
The people were happy, and it was felt far and wide that king and queen must have been happy, too.
Until the day, before the youngest prince was even old enough to hold a sword, when the shadow of death came to call upon them. The queen, once so sweet and fierce, grew pale and weak. She took to her bed, and nothing could rouse her from it. The halls that once rang with her laughter were silent and cold.
The youngest prince was by her side in every moment as she faded. She mouthed words of love into his hair. She called him her sweet mischief, and prayed he would find the happiness and love she had found herself. She held his little hand until her fingers grew cold around it.
The youngest prince hated her for leaving him.
He was much, much too young to untangle rage from grief. So he took a knife and cut the curls his mother had loved to brush, and if anyone dared to call him by the name she had called him, the prince would scream and kick as though they had tried to murder him.
He dirtied his face and tore off his royal clothing and spent so much time in the town with the peasants, away from the lonely corridors of the castle, that almost everyone forgot there had ever been a third prince at all.
* * *
The young man (who was still a prince, even if no one bothered to remember) was sitting on a bench beside a fountain,. He was eating an apple. Somewhere his brothers would be doing paperwork or training with the guards, but he was barefoot under the sunshine with a slice of tart, juicy apple in his mouth and the water from the fountain spraying against the back of his bare neck.
Being forgotten, thought the prince, was just terrific. And he took another large bite of fruit.
He was content, and he stayed content even as another young man with shaggy hair and a crooked jaw ran across the village square like a demon was after him and collapsed, panting, on the other side of the bench.
"I'm in so much trouble."
The prince nibbled his apple. "Got caught flirting on duty again?"
"Much worse." The prince's friend buried his face in his hands. "Someone stole the apples."
The prince looked down at the apple in his hand, and then up again. His eyebrows raised. "So?"
"No, no, no." A hank of hair fell in front of a flustered eye. "The apples. The golden apples. I was on duty last night and I fell asleep and you know how they count the apples every morning and one was gone. Stiles!" He moaned, piteously. "They're going to fire me. They might behead me! I think this counts as treason."
The prince clapped him on the shoulder. "No one's beheading anyone. Chill, man. You're with me." He crunched, and swallowed. "It was just a stupid apple."
* * *
"Those apples are the pride of this kingdom," said the eldest prince.
The king waved a weary hand. "Our people are the pride of the kingdom," he corrected, though without any particular conviction. After the death of his beloved queen, the king had become a shadow of himself. He was rarely convinced of anything,
His first son was everything the king was not. Strong, handsome, and forceful, with hair like a field of wheat and eyes like a clear sky. More than one of the szlachta had wished the king into an early retirement (or even an early grave) so that this paragon might rule them instead.
"Six nights," spat the first prince (his mother had named him Jacek), "six sleeping guards, and six stolen apples."
"Whoever this is," chorused the second prince, "is playing with us."
Prince Teodor was not a paragon. Few of the lords liked his scruff of a beard, or the smile in his eyes. But he was still a king's son, and when Prince Jacek ascended the throne at last, Prince Teodor would be there.
His brother's most trusted advisor.
(The knife pointed at his back.)
"Just one apple every night," scowled the first prince. "It's humiliating."
"Your mother loved those apples," said the king. His voice was barely a whisper.
"Father," said the first prince. "Tonight, I'll stand watch under the tree. And when the thief comes, I'll clap him in chains and parade him before the people, so that they see just what happens to a man who dares to steal from the king's garden."
The king sighed, and the prince took it for approval.
He had always taken everything for approval.
That night, he took his approval out to the royal orchard, and stood against the tree that grew golden apples.
Whatever witchcraft had affected the guards was hardly likely to affect Prince Jacek. It was too bad he'd sent all the weaklings away - he must be cutting a very fine figure, with his bright hair and his prince's garb framed against the bark. He only hoped he wouldn't frighten the thief off. Jacek had no desire at all to spend more than one night out here in the gardens. He had much better things to do. And the air was chill, and a tree's bark was no substitute for his soft feather bed.
His very own bed, with the piles of blankets and the heavy curtains that blocked out the light, so that everything was dark, and quiet, and warm . . .
The gardener's boy found the prince the next morning, sleeping as soundly as if he'd been drunk. It took a bucket of cold water to wake him.
The prince rose, sputtering and furious, and only the arm of a knight (and the growing confusion at his failure) kept him from beating the boy half to death.
One more golden fruit had been plucked from the dark branches.
There were two spots of red on the prince's cheeks (just like apples) when he confessed what had happened before the king.
* * *
The second prince was contemptuous and self-confident. He had enough of both qualities to fill up a sea. The smile he expressed them with was infuriating.
He said, tongue both barbed and slick, "This thief's witchcraft must be extraordinary to have overpowered Prince Jacek. His will is like iron, after all. I can't imagine," sighed the second prince, "that I'll succeed where he failed, Father, but I'll have to try. What sort of prince would I be if I didn't?"
Prince Teodor was something of an amateur magician himself, and he could smell the traces of it in the air. So it was, that (unlike Prince Jacek) he had no idea of relying on his will alone.
On went every protective charm he had collected, until the second prince jangled and clinked as he walked. And, if those wouldn't work, Prince Teodor brought a servant known throughout the castle for his insomnia. The servant brought a carafe of strong coffee, a plate of little sugared cakes, and a long, sharp pin.
* * *
The sun rose the next morning on a perfect tableau of incompetence. There snored the prince. There snored the restless servant, pin still unused in his pockets. There lay the carafe, with all the coffee spilled out on the earth, because the servant had dropped off to sleep in the middle of pouring the prince his second cup. Some of the coffee had stained the prince's fine suede leggings.
And there, sitting on the second prince's neck, was the eaten-up core of a golden apple.
* * *
"When I catch that thief," swore Prince Teodor, "I'm going to wring his scrawny neck. I'll have his corpse hung from the castle gates. I'll have him dragged, drawn, and thoroughly quartered."
The first prince snorted. "Good luck. All of your little amulets and your coffee did you no good. What's your next clever plan? I'm not in a hurry to give the thief another chance to humiliate me."
"I-" Prince Teodor paused. A thoughtful look passed across his face. "Why," he asked slowly, "should this thief have another chance to embarrass either of us?"
"I'll be equally damned if I turn the task back over to the guards. Imagine if one of them caught the bastard."
Prince Teodor scoffed. "Not a guard. Isn't there another prince waiting to take his turn?"
"Oh," said Jacek. "Him."
"Him," agreed Teodor. "Knowing him, the calf-legged little fool, he'll make a bigger spectacle of himself than we ever could. And that's the story everyone will remember."
"Well," Jacek admitted, "it can hardly hurt. There is no chance that Stiles will catch a thief that outmatched both of us."
* * *
The royal messenger found the youngest prince in the castle library, ink-smudged and more than half-hidden behind several stacks of books.
"What? No, not now. I've got this idea about how we can solve the snake problem in the granary and - ugh. Fine."
Stiles wandered into the garden alone that evening, without amulets or servant or well-honed muscles. His only armor was his favorite red coat, with the hood to keep his ears and his shorn head cozy.
The youngest prince had no urge at all to impress either his father or his disagreeable brothers (or to do them a good turn). That being so, he hardly hesitated to drop into sleep just the moment his back was against the tree and his legs were folded underneath him.
And that, as it turned out, was a very wise move. The genuine slumber of the youngest prince was repulsive to the spell of false and heavy sleep that had been cast on his more wakeful brothers. Stiles woke easily and naturally when the leaves rustled above him. Curiosity struck him irresistibly as a bolt of lightning, and he was just about to open his eyes when a bright, golden light exploded like a dropped lamp from behind the shades of his eyelids.
So this really was the work of some unnatural creature. Stiles calmed his breathing, snuffling as though really, deeply asleep, and let out a few realistic snores before very, very carefully peeking up into the tree from beneath his eyelashes.
The apple thief was no man at all.
It was the Firebird.
Stiles had never yet seen the Firebird himself, but this could hardly be anything else. Not with those bright feathers threatening to set the tree ablaze, or the crown of plumage like the kingdom's most expensive hat. Its tail was more magnificent than anything ever grown by a peafowl, and the graceful curve of its neck would have struck Stiles with unnatural dumbness if he hadn't already been pretending to be asleep.
The Firebird bit delicately through the stem of an apple. Stiles leapt to his feet. He wanted, he needed, to touch the bird. To coo sweet nothings at it, to feel the flames of it against his skin. But the Firebird, even taken by surprise, was much, much too quick to be caught by any mere mortal prince.
Stiles was left holding nothing but a tail feather than looked exactly like the flame atop a candle.
* * *
He spent the rest of the night, sensibly enough, in his own bed. The servants found him there the next morning, and the least loyal among them alerted his brothers, and Prince Jacek pulled him by the ear into the throne room to explain himself.
Stiles stumbled out of his brother's grip. "Don't bruise the merchandise, bud." He straightened. "I found out who the thief is, so I'm pretty sure I earned a night in my own bed."
Teodor snorted. "So where is he? Is he hidden under your mattress?"
Stiles said, "That happened one time. Look, I didn't say that I caught anyone, just that I solved a mystery." Stiles brandished the feather. "There's your thief, gentlemen."
Even when the feather's fire had faded after a night in a coat pocket, it was a magnificent thing. It could have outshone half the gems in the treasury.
Teodor looked at it with naked avarice gleaming in his dark eyes. He whispered, "The Firebird."
"Yup," said Stiles. He tucked the feather into his collar. "Case closed. Birds steal half the pears in the orchards every frickin' year; this was all just a matter of time. We can put up some wire netting."
Jacek scowled. "Wire netting?"
"Yeah!" enthused Stiles. "See, birds can't get through it - I've got some diagrams-"
"As if," said Teodor, "the Firebird wouldn't just burn through your 'wire netting'."
"I've got an idea about that, too-"
"I swore," Prince Teodor hissed through gritted teeth, "that I would wring the thief's neck. That's only gotten easier. Father." He spun, and knelt before the king. "Send me to catch the Firebird and I will return wreathed in flames and glory. I will roast the bird's thieving, apple-fat flesh into a feast, and I'll use the plucked feathers to create the finest mantle a king has ever worn." He bowed so low that his forehead brushed the marble. "Only say the word."
"Wait," said Jacek. "Teo. The Firebird is-"
A legend. A creature of magic and fire and wonder. The fluttering heart of their kingdom. Even the brief glance Stiles had gotten last night had lit the coals of his heart into a roaring fire.
And Teodor wanted to eat it?
"Father," Prince Teodor repeated. "For the glory of the crown."
"A mantle of Firebird feathers would truly be a thing worth talking about," said the king, savoring the words. Sucking the meat from them. His eyes lit up with his first pleasing thought in years. "Everyone knows that the Firebird is an elusive quarry. A beast like that will be more easily caught when two princes hunt it."
Jacek frowned.
"Finally, a way for my sons to test themselves. I will give you both leave to hunt our apple thief. And," said the king, exhausted but pleased, "whoever captures the Firebird will have my crown."
The two eldest princes shared a look worth a thousand words. Jacek bowed to their father. "I am honored to receive my father's quest. This hunt will be a fine beginning to my reign as king."
Prince Teodor said, "When I bring back the Firebird, its head will be the finest trophy in the castle, and every future king will know how to revere our family line."
The king sighed, and settled back into the throne. "Any father would be proud to have two such fine sons, and any kingdom would be proud to have two such fine princes."
Someone cleared his throat. Stiles coughed again, loudly, and said, "I think you meant three?"
* * *
His brothers took the best horses. Not even just their particular own mounts. They took horses for each of their enormous gaggles of servants. And then they took all the strongest cart horses to pull the wagons full of their luggage and what must have been a full quarter of the treasury.
Stiles was forced to compromise.
"The stable needs some of these horses for the running of the kingdom," protested the stable hands. Stiles felt suddenly annoyed at the lack of a 'your grace' even though he'd trained most of the staff out of the habit himself.
And he frowned at the horse they'd brought out for him. Stiles knew this horse. This horse had once almost kicked him in the stomach when Stiles had tried to brush a burr from his tail. This horse had an appetite for the fingers of groomsmen. This horse spat like a llama. A decade ago this horse might have been allowed to take up space at the very back of a formal parade.
But Stiles doubted it.
This horse was on its last leg. This horse was on its last tooth. This horse was an ill-tempered, wheezing bag of joints and dried up organs. Stiles was positive it would collapse into a heap of dust and leather the second he tried to get on top of it. He was amazed it had the strength to hold up a saddle.
Okay, Stiles thought. I'll walk next to the horse. The horse can carry my stuff. This adventure is going, so, so well.
The horse made a casual attempt to bite off his ear.
It wasn't what anyone would have called an auspicious beginning. But Stiles could buy another horse somewhere on the road. More importantly, he could feel the Firebird's feather, smoldering a hole through his collar. Burning like a coal.
Or like a beacon.
* * *
It was later, maybe three days, or maybe three months, or perhaps even three years, when Stiles found himself threatened by a stone in the woods.
It was a wretched little obelisk erected on a crossroad of two branching forest paths. It was suspiciously free of moss. Someone had carved a warning into it. It read, in oddly perfect script: Whoever goes left will lose their horse. Right, their own life.
Fuck you, too, rock, Stiles thought. But he could taste something truthful in the air. A warning like a mouthful of pine and wormwood.
Stiles looked at his horse. It was the same horse. He'd passed through a few villages, and all of them were very eager to sell food to even the least of princes, but none had a horse to spare.
Or the money to perhaps buy Stiles' own horse from him. Or the hay to feed it, even if he gave it away as a gift. At least, that's what they had all claimed.
He still hadn't been reckless enough to try riding it. Stiles was even reduced to carrying his own pack. And the damn thing had stolen half his breakfast right out of his hand that morning.
So he looked at the horse he had been leading by the halter for days, said, "I guess this is where we part ways, you hateful old bastard," and led them both down the fork on the left.
He led them into a little clearing. The sunlight trickled down through a gap in the canopy and alit on a horse post. Stiles stared at it for a long moment. He shrugged. He tied the horse to the post, and took a few hesitant steps back the way he had come.
"So, should I just go, or-"
Stiles was cut off mid-sentence by a streak of something big and dark and dangerous emerging from the trees. Whatever the thing might be, it leapt without hesitation upon the tethered horse and ate it all up in just two bites.
It all happened so quickly that Stiles couldn't even tell what the huge, black thing was before it had disappeared back into the trees.
He stood there in silence for a long moment, mouth open and round. If someone had been hiding in the bushes a few yards away, someone hurt, and lonely, they might have thought him haloed in the dappled sunlight. They might have seen the prince's milk-glossed skin, and the little dots of bitter chocolate spotted on his soft cheeks, and flecks of honey the sun had kissed into his eyes.
They might have discovered that love can strike, brutally swift, at any moment it chooses.
Stiles had learned the same thing about huge black monsters that eat horses.
It had been a very educational day.
* * *
There was really nothing for the youngest prince to do but carry on. He still had his pack; he still had his good sturdy boots. The feather tucked safely under his shirt was still pulling him forward like a nail next to a lodestone.
But Stiles wasn't exactly happy, knowing the woods had things in them big enough and hungry enough to eat a horse in two bites.
No more whistling while we walk, Stiles told himself, firmly. And as soon as I'm out of these woods, I'm buying a real sword.
The path was there again on the other side of the clearing, and even though following the horse-eater was terrifying, Stiles was hardly going to turn around and take the other fork. (He wasn't an idiot.)
It was such a beautiful path, under the calm, green shade of the crowns of trees. He found his worries shedding easily as he walked. Magic had rules, didn't it? Stiles had followed the rules; he had paid the toll. Now he would be safe.
Or so he had almost convinced himself, right up until the moment a big, dangerous, black shape lumbered out of the trees and set itself directly in his path.
The prince yelped loudly enough to upset dozens of nearby birds.
"Wah! Y-you c-can't eat me. You already ate my delicious, nutritious horse. You," Stiles paused, feeling ridiculous. "You are the thing that ate my horse, right?"
"Yes," said the wolf.
It was the biggest wolf Stiles had ever seen, though it couldn't be large enough to have eaten a horse in just two bites. Magic. The wolf was still huge, and black, and its blue eyes glowed even in the midday light. It wasn't a wolf at all. It was a Wolf.
The Wolf was enormous. It was terrifying, but now that Stiles could actually see it past the first blindness of panic, did it look . . . sheepish? The way it stood in the center of the path remind Stiles of how the king's hunting dogs looked when the keepers scolded them for chasing geese.
And since it could talk . . . Stiles might have a way out of this. If he was good at anything; it was talking. (Unless the Wolf decided to eat him just to shut Stiles up.)
"Um. Are you going to eat me?"
"No," said the Wolf.
"Cool." Stiles collapsed heavily onto the ground. For some reason, his legs didn't want to hold him up. "So, like, why'd you eat my horse? I mean," Stiles waved a hand, "my dude. You don't look like the kind of animal that needs to prey on domesticated beasts. These woods must be full of deer and rabbits. If you just eat horses all day you're going to fuck up the local food chain. All those rabbits will overpopulate and devastate the-"
The Wolf growled. It sounded like rolling thunder.
Stiles shut up.
The Wolf settled back on its mighty haunches. It placed an enormous paw on the stone collar Stiles hadn't even noticed around its thick neck. "This collar ties me to the stone," said the Wolf, "and the stone only lets me eat the prey it catches. Yours," groused the Wolf, "was the least satisfying horse so far."
"Huh," said Stiles. The Wolf was kind of skinny. For a giant monster Wolf. Stiles could see the shape of its ribs. "Can I maybe take a look at that?"
The Wolf said nothing, but it tilted its massive head forward until its jaw was cradled in Stiles' hand.
"Didn't expect a yes. Okay," murmured Stiles. The ruff of fur around the Wolf's neck was the softest thing he had ever felt. Stiles felt like a brute for touching it with his travel-stained hands, even though this was an animal that lived in the woods and not some noblewoman's fur stole.
(He wanted to bury his face in it.)
"Dude," said Stiles. "There's like, a latch on this thing?"
The Wolf huffed.
"Should I just . . . take it off? Will I get struck by lightning if I do that? Or, shit, will I turn into a Wolf? You have to tell me if my spontaneous act of kindness will result in me taking on your wolfskin curse."
"It won't hurt you," said the Wolf. The Wolf said, "Please."
"Okay. Okay. That's the magic word, I guess." The prince brushed his fingers over the latch, and, taking no obvious harm, unhooked the stone collar and dropped it to the ground.
The Wolf pulled back his head and snapped his teeth, and shook himself all over. Stiles hopped back to give him room, and watched with hawkish interest. A wiser prince might have taken the chance to run, but Stiles had never seen a curse lifted. Curiosity would be his undoing.
"So," Stiles said, after a long moment of Wolf snorting and huffing and snapping, "did it work? Are you free to go forth and eat deer and rabbits the way nature intended?"
The Wolf's blue eyes flashed, and he made some gesture with his great black head that could only have been a nod.
"Cool," said Stiles. "Well, this has been a literally magical interlude, but I have to get back to my quest. So if you could just-" he gestured into the forest with one arm.
"I ate your horse."
"Yeah, but it wasn't a very good horse. You're still not going to eat me next, right? Not when the woods are full of delicious venison."
The Wolf continued to block the path. "You freed me from that collar."
"And that's why you're not going to eat me. Right?"
" . . . I'll carry you. To wherever you're going."
Stiles' mouth dropped open again. He popped it back into place. "Are you sure? It might be a pretty long trip. I'm on the trail of the Firebird."
The Wolf bared its teeth. "The Firebird that travels a thousand miles in one flight? That Firebird?" He snorted. "I'm fast, but I'm not one of the sons of the North Wind. Nothing can outrun that bird."
Stiles grinned. "I've got one of its feathers. The Firebird might be fast, but the world's only so big. This feather will lead me to wherever it happens to be. Plus," Stiles scratched his nose, "it's not like I've got anything better to do."
Neither, as it happened, did the Wolf. The prince's impossible quest suited them both.
"So, do you have a saddle I can put on, or-"
* * *
Stiles rode the Wolf for a week, or a year, or, anyway, for long enough that they had far too many adventures to recount in these short pages. However long they ran, the feather always led them on a merry chase. Sometimes it burned so hot that it nearly scarred princely flesh. Sometimes it was as cold as a little lump of ice inside his shirt.
But finally, after a year, or a week, or a day, the two weary travelers came upon the fortress where the Firebird roosted.
"Seriously, man, I think," Stiles drank a mouthful of water from his skin, "I know this is where it lives. We've been circling this place. Look, look at all the little marks on the map."
Derek (Stiles and the Wolf had long since exchanged proper introductions) wasn't looking at the map. He was looking at the grey walls that sheltered the Firebird. Stiles followed his gaze, then looked back at the Wolf. "Whoa, what does that face mean? That face is almost as bad as the one you made when we found the kidnappers that tried to take all those little girls."
Derek growled, "I've been here before."
"And?"
Derek pointed with his nose. "And when I left, King Gerard had the skins of my parents hanging in his trophy room. And there was a stone collar around my neck."
" . . . Shit." Stiles wrapped a hand around the Wolf's ankle. "Do you want me to help you kill him?"
"The Firebird," Derek went on, clearly not listening, but rather following some inner path of thought and pain, "must be his newest plaything. Or Kate's." Stiles felt the shudder rock through the Wolf's huge side.
"So now this is another rescue mission." Stiles capped his water skin. "Cool."
Derek stared, unblinking, at the fortress. "Can you still do that spell that makes eyes roll off us?" Stiles had picked up a trick or two on their journey.
"Yeah, I think I've still got enough of the mud from that magic tortoise. I've been saving it."
The Wolf nodded. "We'll go after nightfall. I'll be harder to see in the dark."
"Uh." Stiles thought of how Derek's eyes glowed like slices of sapphire. "Sure?"
* * *
Once night had fallen, Stiles cast his magicks on them both, and made Derek wear a wool cap to hide his eyes, and followed as the Wolf led him around the back of the fortress. There they found a low wall. The Wolf stood with his paws and his muzzle on the top of it, and Stiles clambered up onto his shoulders. The stone wall went all round a flawless little courtyard. It was perfect in the symmetry of its stone pathways and the squared order of its plants. The roses were mathematically precise.
It was unmistakably the small domain of a tyrant.
The second most beautiful thing inside its walls was a tall golden cage. The most beautiful thing in the courtyard was the woman, and the woman was in the cage, and the blinding sight they made together was lovely and terrible all at once.
"Who," breathed Stiles, reverent and more than a little aroused, "is that?"
Derek shrugged beneath him. "It must be the Firebird."
"Uh?" Stiles turned away from the vision, and frowned against Derek's ear. "No? Birds are, you know, the flappy things with wings. That is a super pretty young lady."
"In a cage," Derek pointed out. "Cages are the things birds live in."
Stiles rolled his eyes.
Derek said, "Many magical creatures can change their shape."
The question that blazed into Stiles' mind caught itself on the thorns suddenly lining his throat. Feelings squirmed in his stomach just like a mass of caterpillars. He swallowed them back down before they could choke him. Not now. "I mean, okay. I guess she is literally glowing."
The woman or the Firebird was, in fact, the only source of light in the courtyard. She was so bright it hurt.
Stiles said. "What's our plan?"
"Gerard enjoys the illusion of peace in his courtyard," said the Wolf. "The guards only prowl the outer edges. I know their schedule from when I was trapped here myself. Right now is the last hour before shifts are changed, and they'll be at their least alert."
"So, I should just take advantage of my last half hour of invisibility and stroll right in? Wild. Bold. I like it."
"Stiles. Gerard will kill anyone who touches his things. Even a prince. I . . . I can't go back in there. Not even to rescue you."
If the silly little cap had picked that moment to fall off, Stiles might have seen the way the Wolf's bright eyes dimmed. It didn't, and he didn't, but he heard the sound in his friend's voice, and rubbed his muzzle. "Don't worry about me, big guy. If I get caught, I'll figure something out." He set his hands on the wall as if to pull himself over.
Derek caught the prince's sleeve in his teeth. "Stiles. This is important. You can not touch the golden cage. The spell on it will alert every single one of the guards."
Stiles nodded. His feet were on a handy stone, ready to push off.
"Don't touch the big, shiny cage. Got it. I'll keep these sticky fingers to myself."
* * *
Stiles touched the golden cage.
He hadn't meant to.
He had strolled into the courtyard quite naturally and quite invisibly, his dark clothes and the mud making him almost impossible to see.
But not to hear. The Firebird certainly heard him, just as he crept up upon her. Her head twisted just like a startled bird, shaking her strawberry hair like a flow of impatient silk. She hissed, "Who's there?" and Stiles nearly bit his tongue in two.
"My lady Firebird," he whispered urgently, "I am merely a handsome but totally harmless stranger who happened to be passing by and wishes to . . . set you free? If that's even a thing you want? I mean, maybe you're in this cage for funsies, I don't-"
"I am not," hissed the Firebird. "Don't be an idiot. A passing stranger? You have one of my feathers on you. I can smell it." She narrowed her lovely eyes. "You. You're the boy who pulled on my tail." Stiles suddenly, intimately, understood the feelings of a field mouse caught under the gaze of a falcon. "If I wasn't stuck in this cage I would pluck out all of your hair."
"Not much to pluck," muttered Stiles. He whispered, "Lady Firebird, you were kind of stealing my dad's apples."
She tossed her hair again. "They were on a tree."
". . . honestly, that's, like, such a valid defense? Okay," said Stiles, "real talk. I used your feather to hunt you down because my dad said he'd give the crown and the kingdom to whoever brought him the Firebird, and my creepy older brother was talking about plucking and eating you so-"
The Firebird's eyes blazed.
"-which I wanted no part of," Stiles added quickly, "because you're beautiful and magnificent and that would be a much bigger crime than stealing apples. Plus, I didn't want him to maybe get to be king? Because he's criminally insane. So I came here to catch you, but now I know you're-" Stiles gestured, "a person, and I hear this whole place is bad news. My friend says the king here might be even worse than my brother. So, just say the word, and I'll pop this lock. No repayment required."
"Your friend is right," trilled the Firebird. She did something with her arms that looked like an angry flutter. "King Gerard is a monster. He commanded his men to steal my egg, and now he has me at his mercy. First, he ordered me to steal your father's golden apples-
"Whoa. Plot twist."
"-but they weren't enough of a panacea to cure whatever is eating him from the inside, and now he is demanding my tears." The Firebird spat onto the ground outside her cage, only narrowly missing Stiles' boot. "Nothing can make me cry for him. I would rather chop off my own wing than prolong his disgusting life. This unnatural illness is nothing more nor less than his own evil deeds coming home to rot underneath his skin."
"That's pretty much the W- uh. My friend's opinion of him." Stiles produced a stick from an inside pocket. "How about I undo the lock on that cage?"
The Firebird shook her head. "These bars are nothing. He only keeps me here to illustrate his point. Gerard thinks it's funny. He frees me whenever he wants an errand done. The true prison that holds me is my poor egg, and I have no idea where that bastard has hidden it."
"Well," Stiles said. "Shit." He reached out, quite without thinking, to put a comforting hand on the bars of the golden cage.
And all hell broke loose.
Every lamp in the courtyard lit up at once. Stiles was blinded with a flash of white-hot pain, and when he blinked his tortured eyes open again, he was surrounded by a dozen of Argent's most heavily armed men, each wearing a dark lantern opened around their necks.
Their weapons were all pointed directly at him.
So much for camouflage.
Stiles' last real thought before a guard's sword hilt knocked him into unconsciousness (a wise precaution against an apparently magical intruder) was: I really hope Derek doesn't do anything even stupider about this.
* * *
Stiles was certain that Gerard had earned every cell of his illness. He still winced at the sight of the black lines crawling like worms under his papery skin. Disease had been too simple a word.
Even his nails were black as he tapped them on the edge of his throne. "So." Gerard tapped the throne slowly, drawing out each word like it hurt. He would choose his words to hurt them both. "Prince turned common thief. How your mother would weep."
Stiles flushed under his restraints. How dare this monstrous old lich masquerading as a king, with those skins on his wall, even mention Stiles' mother? If his hands had been free, Stiles would have ripped the fat, black tongue out of Gerard's mouth and squashed it under his boot like the worm that it was.
A withered hand drew forth a guard. "Remove his gag," commanded Gerard. "It looks as though the prisoner has something to say."
Stiles spat. The gag had tasted like someone's unwashed laundry. "The Firebird," he said, "started it. It's stolen, what? A dozen apples? At least? My dad, the king, wants to pluck out the payment for them." Stiles thought Gerard might like that, vicious bastard that he was.
He did. He grinned, and his teeth were black and crumbling. "If only you had come to me openly. We have nothing but respect for your father here; I would have been delighted to share how you might keep my willful little pet away from you garden. But now?" Gerard shook his head in a mockery of sorrow. "Now the whole fortress knows you for the little thief that you are. Tomorrow, the word will spread throughout my whole kingdom."
Stiles said, "Okay, look. I didn't technically-"
"If I gave you the Firebird now," Gerard went on, smirking like a kindly old viper, "what sort of example would that set for my people? On the other hand." Gerard put on a great display of thinking, tapping his black nails again. Spiderlike; one finger at a time. "On the other hand. If you were to redeem yourself through a quest . . . "
Stiles tried not to look too eager. "What kind of quest?"
Gerard's swollen tongue flicked out to wet his dried up lips. "I find myself in need of a powerful magical remedy. Since my little pet out in the courtyard refuses to indulge me, I've been forced to chase down other trails." Tap, tap, tap. "One trail leads to my neighbor to the north. To the queen's horse with a golden mane. It's quite the wondrous beast."
"Seriously, though, what's with everyone and gold?" Stiles muttered. Gerard took no notice of him.
"It's said that she eats the shavings of its hooves and the stray hairs combed from its mane to keep herself young and beautiful. And if those external scraps can do that!" Gerard beamed. He licked his lips. "Imagine what sort of effects the internal organs might grant?"
"That . . . doesn't sound like a loan. You can't return someone's horse once you've eaten its golden liver." Stiles tilted his head, all puzzlement and dismay. "We literally just confirmed that stealing was wrong?"
Gerard frowned for a moment, and then turned the thin edges of his mouth right back up. "The queen owes me far more than one horse in tribute. Collecting her debt should just qualify as heroism."
"Uh."
King Gerard waved his hand. "Do this, and I'll give you the Firebird. Do it quickly, and I'll even toss in her egg."
"Yes, sir," said Stiles. "Right away, sir." He pulled for a moment, then glanced expectantly round the room. "Can someone untie me? I've got to see a queen about a horse."
* * *
Stiles stumbled over tree roots in the forest until he found Derek hiding in a dark little cave.
"What did I say?"
""It was an accident! I'm a clumsy person," Stiles protested. "You knew that when you sent me in there. But I made it out, didn't I?"
Derek was unimpressed, and huffed to show it. "Without the Firebird."
"Yeah. About that."
* * *
Spurred on by the painful story of the Firebird's longing for her egg, the Wolf fairly flew to the fortress in the north. They ran for a month, or a week, or a day, and then they were there, hidden once again in the surrounding woods.
The first two nights they watched, and waited, studying the patterns of the guards as though they were tracking the flights of birds. On the third night, as they were crouched in the overgrowth, the Wolf's snout nudged at Stiles' ribs.
"Ow," he said.
"Go," Derek said. "Now. The guards have been drinking, and now they're fast asleep."
Stiles' brow rose and furrowed. "Are you sure?"
The Wolf's lips drew back from its teeth. "I can smell them."
"You can smell them napping?" The Wolf butted its head against Stiles' back. "All right, okay, I'm going."
"Stiles."
"Yes?"
"Don't touch the horse's bridle. If you touch the bridle, the guards will-"
"I know!" Stiles brandished a carrot. "Look, I brought bait. No bridle touching, I swear."
* * *
The horse was a very handsome horse, and it appreciated the carrots and sugar cubes Stiles plied it with enormously. They were friends almost at once, even thought the smell of Wolf must have lingered around the prince like a miasma.
But the bridle.
The bridle sparkled like the whole of his father's treasury. It was a stunning little thing, clearly the work of some master craftsman who might as well have wept themselves to death upon its completion. They would never make anything so good again.
Stiles fingers itched inside his fists. Even the leather straps looked like golden butter, and amidst all the dozens of inlaid gems there was a sapphire the size of a quail's egg that was just the color of Derek's eyes.
Stiles curled his fists so tightly that his nails bit bloody little crescents into his palms.
It almost worked.
* * *
"-and may I just say? It really reflects well on you that you actually wash your prisoner gags? Like, that's a level of compassion from a ruler that you apparently just don't see?"
"You flatter me," laughed the queen. "So Gerard covets my little golden horse. I'm very fond of that horse."
"Yeah, I saw the bridle."
"But there is something I value more than a dozen horses with golden manes," said the queen. "Fetch it for me, and I will gladly give the horse, and the bridle, and even a sack of treasure for the horse to carry."
Stiles wriggled in his bonds. "Wow, that's . . . a really generous offer. Deal? Deal." He widened his eyes. "What's this object of your desire, my lady? Magical fruit? A comb that combs by itself? Singing harp? Whatever it is, consider it got."
The queen said-
* * *
"Stiles."
"Mmyes?"
The Wolf's silence could have filled a library.
"Okay, but, dude." Stiles was laying on Derek, his stomach against the broad expanse of the Wolf's back, his face half buried in the silky fur of his scruff. "I know you have magic, secret wolf knowledge or whatever, but had you actually seen that bridle?"
". . ."
"Right, no, you hadn't. So you don't understand how shiny it was and therefore you have no room to judge me. That sapphire would have looked so good on you."
". . . what?"
"Nothing, forget it!" The prince bumped his nose against the back of the Wolf's neck and sat abruptly up. "Anyway, everything's cool. The queen said she'd give me the horse as long as I - we- do her one eensy, teensy weensy little favor."
"I suppose she wants you to get her a golden-tusked elephant."
"Does someone actually have one of those?"
The Wolf huffed.
"Right, well, our task is infinitely easier than elephant wrangling." Stiles cleared his throat. "She had this handmaiden? And I guess they were super tight but then the handmaiden's dad basically kidnapped her so that he could marry her off to some lord for cash and prizes. You know the drill."
". . . and we're going to steal her back."
"Un-kidnap. We're going to un-kidnap her. We're heroes, Der."
The Wolf sighed so deeply that Stiles could feel it rumbling through his bones.
"Hold on tight."
* * *
They arrived at the third fortress only a bit less swiftly than the setting sun. The Wolf growled Stiles into an obedient sulk. "This time, I'll go myself."
The prince wrapped his long arms around his long legs and pouted. "Fine."
"Stay right here and don't touch anything."
". . . now that you've said that, I really, really want to poke one of those mushrooms."
"If I have to bite both your arms off, I will," warned the Wolf.
Stiles laughed.
* * *
The Wolf leapt over the wall. The king's daughter strolled, listless and limp, winding through the garden. She had no company at all save a pair of guards. The Wolf landed in front of them, almost atop the princess, who was small and slight and could be tucked as easily into the Wolf's mouth as a pheasant.
In less than a blink, they were over the wall again. The guards were both left far behind.
The rich scent of Stiles led the Wolf back to where he'd hidden him. The prince was curled up like a sleeping fawn in a patch of moss and grass. Derek spat the princess onto the ground beside him.
"Wha?" Stiles asked in a sleep-muddled voice.
"What?" demanded the princess.
"Oh! You're back." Stiles sat up and inclined his head towards the damp princess in the top half of a bow. He caught sight of a streak of spittle shining on her cheek, leaned in for a closer look, and then glared an accusation at the Wolf. "Did . . . did you try to eat her?"
"Yes!" squawked the offended (and damp) princess.
The Wolf merely looked amused. (And smug.)
Stiles rushed in with a soothing explanation. "-and now your Dad will think a giant wolf ate you. Problem solved!"
The princess tilted her head, considering. "I suppose so." She pushed a spit-soaked curl back on her forehead. "I don't have to ride in his mouth again, do I?"
"Ha!"
* * *
"-and you can totally push me off this Wolf if I'm out of line, but, like, you are the queen are together. Right? Like, together together? Spill the tea; we're going to be up here on this Wolf all day."
* * *
The queen was very gratified indeed to have her favorite handmaid snug and safe back in the comfort of her own court. And she was even more pleased to hear the convenient (-ly exaggerated) news of the princess's demise.
Hand in hand, they barely hesitated as they told Stiles to take the horse and be happy. Stiles was happy to wish them well in return.
The horse with the golden mane seemed happy, too, running in out the open air after a lifetime shut inside a stable. Derek had gone small and miserable at the suggestion of Stiles riding anyone but him, so the horse only had to carry a bag or two of silks and spices and small, valuable trinkets the queen had insisted they take away. She had no trouble at all matching the Wolf's pace.
Stiles named her Apricot.
"Don't name the horse."
"But she looks like an Apricot." Stiles offered the horse an apple; she snuffled gratefully into his neck. She had charming manners.
"You told me yourself that Gerard wants to cut her open and eat her heart," said the Wolf, quite reasonably.
Stiles clapped his hands over the horse's twitching ears, without any great effect. She hadn't spoken intelligibly yet, but Stiles wasn't taking chances. "Derek. There is no way I'm letting that horrible man murder this sweet baby."
"He'll kill the Firebird if you don't." The Wolf's eyes flashed dangerously. "He's made of nothing but spite. Your small magicks won't be enough to save her when Gerard is sitting in his web and expecting you."
Stiles put on his riding cloak and his thinking face. "Maybe we can get a different horse? We could dye its mane. No, that's no good. Why does every road lead to horse murder around here? Seriously, what's with Gerard and horse murder?"
The Wolf used his teeth to sling Stiles' pack over his shoulder.
Stiles patted the horse's flanks. "Apricot and I have bonded, Derek. I want to free the Firebird, but not if it means letting someone eat my baby's liver."
The Wolf sighed. The Wolf said, "I might know of a way to save her."
Stiles cradled the Wolf's great head in both hands and pressed his forehead against the bridge of his nose. His smile was like the fullest night of the moon. "I knew you'd think of something."
* * *
Stiles led the horse with the golden mane right into the throne room. Its golden hooves made barely a sound against the stone floors. Its bridle shone like avarice.
Gerard's gaze threatened to corrode them both.
"You've done me a great service, O Prince of Thieves," rasped the king. He coughed, wet and long, something too small to be a heart rattling in his chest, and gestured furiously at a guard as he fought his own lungs. "Br-bring the egg."
It was smaller than Stiles would have believed. Only a size again larger than a hen's egg. But it gleamed like no hen's egg had ever gleamed. It drew every bit of light to it, so it could lick over the shell as a flame. Stiles could feel the warmth of it, the small beating heart of it, even where he stood half a room away, his hand on a bridle and the egg on a silken cushion.
"Okay," said Stiles. "How about we trade on three? One, two-"
Gerard's fingers tightened around the arms of the throne. "I can't wait to cut that tongue of yours out of your mouth." He jerked his head towards a guard and said, "Kill him-"
Just as Stiles said, "-three." And he ripped the garland that had been woven from the hairs of the horse that no longer had much of a golden mane away.
The Wolf stood in its place.
Derek had grown even larger. He was at least twice again his usual size, wild and snarling. Better men than Gerard's would have fainted with fear. It took him no time at all to deal (with Stiles' help) with every guard in the room.
It took even less time to leap upon Gerard and rip out the old king's poisonous throat.
Derek spat a mouthful of black bile and shredded flesh onto the floor. He howled, triumphant and tragic.
There was little enough fuss about a dead king everyone had feared, nor the guards that were sometimes worse. The king's only son had been locked in the tower for years, where he would be no danger to his dying father's grip on the throne. Stiles found the key sewn into the cushion that had held the Firebird's egg, and the other prince wept with relief when he saw it through the gate of his cell.
The newly crowled King Christopher gave them another sack of treasure for Apricot to carry, the key to the Firebird's cage, and a pair of pelts that left two bare patches on the walls of the trophy room.
The Firebird sat in a tree and watched while Stiles dug the hole to bury them. When the Wolf finally stepped away from the grave, there was already a tree growing from it, watered by a spring that tasted like salt.
She might have flown anywhere, and she might have easily outpaced them even if the Wolf wasn't half-blind with swollen eyes, but her egg was safe and warm and the words of her bargain clapped a chain around them both.
Or perhaps she was simply curious.
"I won't actually let anyone eat you," Stiles swore. And for the first time in days, or months, or years, he turned back towards the place that had been his home.
* * *
They nearly made it, too.
"You can't walk in hoping to claim the throne when you look like that," the Firebird said. She stopped them outside the gates of the capital, and she shifted, throwing off feathers until she stood there as a young woman again. "Use some of that treasure and book us a room. You need a bath, and I want one." She gave the Wolf a look. "You will have to make do with the river."
The Firebird was hardly less noticeable as a woman than she would have been as a bird. The innkeeper's attention was so rapt upon her that he never even noticed he was renting a room to the youngest of three princes. Stiles paid without complaint for the finest room in the finest hotel of the capital city where father was, presumably, still king.
For the first time in a long time, there was fresh-baked bread, and wine, and a fire and feather bed and a big copper wash tub that might even have fit the Wolf.
The servants had to empty that tub out three times before the Firebird pronounced herself pleased with him.
She and Stiles drank every last drop of the wine the innkeeper had left them, ate bread and honey, and fell fast asleep in the huge feather bed. The Firebird was a bird again, with her claws tight around the headboard and her head tucked under one wing.
The prince was huddled under all the covers. Even an eiderdown and a blazing fireplace seemed far less warming than a night curled up against the soft-furred side of a Wolf.
Stiles slept; and dreamt of moons like apples and apples like the moon.
* * *
His brother was waiting for them the next morning.
Stiles' head was pounding like the wine had taken a hammer to it, The Firebird was clinging bravely to his shoulder, wine-dulled feathers still singeing the ends of Stiles' hair. And here was prince Teodor, tucking cheerfully into milk and pie.
Teodor's eyes lingered for just a moment on the Firebird and then fixed themselves on the ashen face of the youngest prince. "Well, brother. I see you've had all the luck."
It was, Stiles thought, probably too late to try and hide a blazing Firebird behind his back. "Teodor!" he cried instead, wincing a little at the noise of his own voice. "Great to see you. Is that pie?"
"Rabbit," said Teodor, grinning through a mouthful of tendon. "Is that your horse in the stable? With the fine golden mane?"
Stiles nodded.
"Those bags on her back look awfully full. And here's the Firebird, sitting on your shoulder, when I've gone halfway around the world to find it. Sit and have breakfast with me, both of you. It's the least you could do."
Teodor cut Stiles a huge slice from his pie, and poured him milk from his own jug.
When the princes had broken their fast, and the Firebird had nibbled bravely at a bowl of grain, Teodor said, "Stiles, come and introduce me to this wondrous horse of yours. And," he winks, harmless, a knave, "to all that treasure."
There must have been something. In the wine, or the rabbit, or the milk. Or in all three.
Stiles doesn't even notice the emptiness of the stables, silent except for Apricot's faint noise of greeting. Stiles can hardly hear it over the sound of his own heartbeat. He feels clouded, and sluggish, and he barely notices when Teodor forces a hood over the head of the Firebird.
He barely fights as Teodor slides a dagger between his ribs.
His pulse is thundering, and he barely hears -
"Did you really think I'd let a thing like you take my father's crown?"
* * *
When the Wolf found the prince's body, tossed out behind the dung heap, two crows were already circling it. They were completely absorbed in a loud squabble over which of them would get to eat the prince's honeyed eyes.
The Wolf leapt, and snatched the larger crow out of the air. He held it, not very gently, between his teeth, and snarled from behind them.
He growled.
The smaller crow fluttered and shrieked. "My wife! My wife! You're killing her!"
"I'll do worse than that," growled the Wolf, "unless you fly very fast and bring me back the Water of Life and Death."
"My wife!" cawed the crow.
"Bring me the water, and I'll set her free." The Wolf's voice was muffled by flesh and feathers, but even a crow didn't dare try and pretend to not understand him.
The Wolf waited for hours, or days, or years, with the crow's wife imprisoned behind his teeth.
The Wolf's tears might have had the power to make a spring flow forth from his parents' grave, but they could do nothing here.
He soaked the prince's side with them anyway.
The Wolf couldn't bear to sit there in the terrible silence that the prince (his prince) wouldn't break. He curled up around the cold body as if he could still warm it, and out from his open jaws poured a tale he had heard from Stiles himself, more words than the Wolf had ever spoken to Stiles at one time-
-They say that some gods and goddesses shed spouses like overcoats, but the god of Death only married once. He couldn't make himself mortal, for there was too much work to do, so instead he went to the king of the gods and begged - begged- for him to make Death's mortal wife into the goddess of some small thing. The king of the gods, in a generous mood, made his brother's wife the goddess of flowers. And every spring she would go forth into the world and kiss each dead branch to make it bloom-
The story came out alongside the wolf's tears, and neither stopped until the crow returned.
The Water of Life and Death is more potent than a lone Wolf's grief. It is even more potent than a story. Stiles sat up almost at once when the Wolf held the little jar in his teeth and sprinkled it over his fatal wound, and the wound itself melted away like snow.
Stiles yawned, round and soft. "How long was I out?"
The Wolf's blue eyes were ringed with red. "Not long," he said, and told the prince what had befallen him.
The prince's honeyed eyes hardened into amber.
* * *
The Wolf skulked into the king's throne room only minutes behind the traitorous prince. A figure that can hold a whole horse in its stomach shouldn't be able to hide in the shadows, but the Wolf had learned a few tricks.
Or perhaps they were simply too busy fighting amongst themselves to notice. Prince Teodor had summoned a whole crowd of lords to watch and speculate, and the room was so full of furs that even the largest Wolf could hide himself in the crowd.
"-someone who gave up and came home after not even a week on the road."
"I had responsibilities," shouted the prince that must have been Jacek. The Wolf knew which one was Teodor. His smell had been all over Stiles. "I had a kingdom to care for. What sort of leader abandons their whole kingdom for an impossible hunt?"
Teodor's teeth glinted in the reflected light of the Firebird's muted gleam. "Impossible for you, dear brother. I found it, didn't I?" The leather hood was still covering the Firebird's head, her leg was chained to Teodor's wrist, and her tail looked as though its been tied with weights. The Wolf could smell her anger and her fear. He knew what sort of things the second prince has threatened to do to her.
The Firebird was something very like to a friend, and now the Wolf had a second reason to bite through Prince Teodor's deceitful throat.
"How," demanded Jacek, "do we even know that's the right bird? Where did you even find that thing?" He spun on their father, sitting rheumy-eyed and bored. "If I know my brother at all, that - that's probably some peafowl he's gilded."
The second prince laughed and laughed. He tore the hood off the Firebird, and the sudden brilliance was so dazzling that it blinded half the room. "This," said Teodor, "is no peahen. It's the trophy of a king. You're a spoilt coward, Jacek, and Stiles is even less useful as a corpse than he was as a man-"
Jacek turned white. "What-"
"-but our kingdom's fortune has granted it one prince who can get things done. I found this bird-"
"-on the shoulder of your brother," the Wolf growled, padding forward, "before you slid a dagger into him, and tossed his body onto the midden."
Teodor's hand went to his sword hilt. The Wolf pounced on him, pinning the prince with a forepaw. He roared. "Do you deny it?"
"I never laid a hand upon him," gasped Teodor, struggling for freedom and his sword.
The Firebird's chain had come loose in his wriggling, and now the bird rose up and bloomed into a woman, cloaked in red velvet and golden fur, beautiful and terrible. She said, "I saw him slide the dagger in myself. And the whole world knows that I can't lie, or the fires banked within me will eat me up from inside."
"I saw the youngest prince's death," said the Wolf, "and so did the horse with a golden mane that Prince Teodor stole from him-"
"-and so did I," finished Stiles, as he stepped forth from the shadows. "Uh. I got better."
The mark of Death was on him, the mark no water could erase.
The king remembered in that moment how he had always loved his youngest son, and breathed, "Mieczysław-"
They clapped Teodor in irons, and took him far, far away.
And the Firebird looked at Prince Jacek as though she had never liked looking at anything more, and said, "You'll let me eat all the golden apples I want. Won't you?"
"-yes-"
And the Firebird captured the first prince.
* * *
The second best guest room, Stiles insisted, was the only one big enough for a Wolf. He bribed the servants to cover the bed with soft grasses, and to cook half a dozen of the geese the Wolf hated to catch but loved to eat. He ordered a bath big enough and hot enough to boil two Wolves. He ordered a keg of beer and all the softest furs a Wolf could ever hope to sleep on.
The hospitality would have humbled a dozen princes, and if the newly crowned king hadn't been so busy with his sudden betrothal, he would have thrown a dozen fits over the expense.
When the Wolf tried to slink away from it all in the middle of the night, like a beast escaping yet another prison, Stiles caught him before he'd even left the garden.
"Bed not soft enough for you?"
" . . . Too soft," said the Wolf.
"Whoa, all of the sudden you have standards? I guess you can sleep out here if you want," Stiles gestured with his lantern, "but don't crush the flowerbeds. The head gardener scares me."
"I won't crush the flowerbeds."
The prince frowned. " . . . was it something I did? They overcooked the geese, right? I told them extra-rare. Was it the bath? That was all the Firebird's idea! She picked out all the soaps. I'll get new soaps," Stiles promised, "or no soap. You never have to bathe again if you don't want to. I'll make them serve the geese raw."
"Stiles."
The prince flung himself at the Wolf's neck. His arms could barely circle it. "Please don't leave."
"You don't need my help," said the Wolf. "I'm sure your brother will do or say something that annoys the Firebird enough to leave him. She'll come back to you, and you'll be king-"
Stiles lifted his face from where he had wet the Wolf's fur with his tears. "What? I - I don't want the Firebird. I don't want to be king. I'd hate being king. I just wanted to make sure Teo," Stiles spat the name out of his mouth and to the ground, "didn't get to be king, because he's a murdering asshole. Jacek and the Firebird can start their own damn empire for all I care. Let 'em have a billion fat, happy babies with hair like the dawn."
Stiles sniffled, and rubbed his face against soft black fur.
The Wolf sat very still, and let him.
"Besides," the prince went on. "You owe me. You ate my horse."
"I did," murmured the Wolf.
"That was a good horse," lied Stiles. "Strong, noble . . . I could have ridden a horse like that for years. For the rest of my life, even."
" . . . really?"
"Yes," whispered Stiles. He pressed a gentle kiss into the Wolf's neck.
Then, with no warning at all, he found his arms wrapped around, quite suddenly, not the neck of an impossibly large Wolf, but the chest of a very sturdy young man. A sturdy and beautiful young man, Stiles noted, looking up. He said, "Derek?"
The man bit his lip, and nodded.
"Holy shit," breathed Stiles. "Did I - did I just break a curse?"
Derek shook his head, and flushed. Stiles could see him turning red even with just the light of the moon and his little lantern shining on them both.
"So, like, this whole time you could - the whole time? I knew it."
"You didn't," said Derek.
"I was pretty sure! Holy shit, you're cute. Were you just shy?"
“You never stopped talking about how beautiful the Firebird was,” grumbled the Wolf.
“Seriously? Oh my god, you’re, like, twice as beautiful. Don’t tell her I said that, but wow. Those cheekbones.”
The prince took the man's face in his hands and warned, with perfect truth, "Fair warning. Curse or no curse; I am going to kiss you square on the lips."
And he did.
They kissed, and kissed, and kissed under the moonlight. The prince drank from the mouth of the man that had been a Wolf like he was dying of thirst. When he was sated, Stiles pulled back and said, "So, uh, here I am, the forgotten, unwanted, inconveniently spare prince. It would be awful if some strong, handsome beast picked me up and ran away with me."
He kissed the man on the chin. "Hint, hint."
And the man took the hint, and the Wolf snapped the prince up in his teeth and tossed him, laughing, onto his back, and took off with him.
He ran off with his prince, for a day, or a week, or a year, or a lifetime.
And, as far as anyone knows, they're running still.
