“I’m from the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Why did you leave?” I wondered aloud. I’d heard that there were no fae there; that the waters were as clear as crystal, and the grass as green as emeralds.
“Because leaving was easier than staying,” he answered without blinking.
There were golden flecks hidden in the depths of his irises, like a seam of gold licking through a piece of coal. His words seemed more honest than anyone’s I’d ever heard. Maybe it was because I left for the same reason. Or because I knew that if it meant something more, something better, I’d take my chances and stow away on a boat headed north.
“I know what that’s like,” I admitted openly.
He made a noise in the back of his throat and peered into the tavern again. The man in the purple coat stood and shook Oryn’s hand. What kind of supplies could he possibly have bought from a man dressed so fine? The thought ate at me. If Father’s habits had been passed down, Oryn could be into something much worse than bottles of liquor.
The pale gentleman walked quickly away from Oryn’s table toward the front door.
As if he’d heard me, Oryn finished his ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his meaty hand, then looked through the window at me. I stepped out of sight, unsure why I cared. I should’ve known he was aware of me watching him. He was a hunter, always keen on his surroundings.
“The man you seek is leaving,” I warned.
“Yeah, I saw that,” the stranger responded, his brows furrowing.
I expected the dark-haired visitor to run away after him; to leave me behind and never look back. Instead, the dark young man turned to me. “Will you do me a favor?” Before I could ask him why I should, he added, “Stay with your brother. I have a strange feeling in my gut today.”
That he even cared to warn me of such things struck a chord in my heart that had never been played. “Now that you mention it,” I began haltingly, “I don’t think you should follow the man in the purple coat. Something is ‘off’ about him. I think he’s fae.”
He pursed his lips and lingered a moment. “Take care of yourself.”
He was going to ignore my advice, which made my gut think he was making a grave mistake. “You too.” The words fell from my lips as the muscles rippled beneath his stained white shirt. He glanced back at me before disappearing around the corner, our eyes meeting for what was only a brief moment, but which felt much longer.
I jogged to the mouth of the alley and searched for him, but the young man had already vanished.
Just then, Oryn stepped out of the tavern and ticked his head for me to follow him. “We’re going to the market for a few things.”
“Food, I hope.”
He chuckled lazily, making me grit my teeth. His belly was full of ale and bread, but mine was empty. He tossed me the other half of the small loaf of bread he’d been chomping on. “If you need more than that to eat, we’d better make for the woods. That’s where we’ll find our dinner.”
“What sort of supplies did you get from that man?”
Oryn turned around so fast, I ran into his chest and bounced backward into a man who cursed me soundly for stopping so abruptly. My brother ignored the angry man and instead pointed his finger between my eyes. “Never you mind. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” was all I could muster. What has my brother gotten himself into?
CHAPTER THREE
CARDEN
When we rolled up to the local tavern, Old man Harper pulled the reins, cooed to his horses, and told me to get out of his wagon. The trip was over. “Welcome to Brookhaven. Don’t get lost,” he laughed. “And steer clear of the woods to the north. The fae queen I told ya about rules those parts.”
I’d thanked him for taking me along with him, and for the warning I didn’t think was real. When I pictured the fae in my mind, they were either little blue men with pointed ears, grotesque human-spider mixtures, thanks to Harper, or tall, thin, beautiful women who loved and took pity on homeless, human former princes.
After leaving the beautiful, sad girl outside the tavern, I followed the man in the vibrant purple coat and saw him climb into a carriage that trotted along a northern forest road, slowly enough that I could follow him for a while. When I lost sight, I could still follow the deep tracks cut into the loamy, dark earth of the northern woods.
That was when a set of guards, wearing blood orange suits and armed with matching spears, surrounded me. “Trespasser!” one yelled. The second man screamed the same thing and they took turns shouting that I was on their land without permission. I looked around, suddenly believing in the fae, and terrified they would alert an enormous fae monster who liked his dinner warm…
I held my arms out. “I mean no harm! I didn’t know I was on your land,” I hollered, trying to get them to stop screaming.
… but what came out of the woods was a woman so beautiful, I couldn’t stop staring. Her flawless skin glowed with a translucent brilliance in the twilight as the last rays of sun disappeared over the hills to the west.
The opulent gown she wore undulated between scarlet and tangerine, as deep as an angry sunrise on the ocean, a harbinger of ship-sinking weather. The gold crown on her head was crafted to look like fire, and the metal somehow writhed and flickered, licking up toward the sky. She gestured upward with her hand and I rose into the air, hovering a few feet above it.
“What are you doing?” I stammered, realizing I’d just come face-to-face with the fabled fae Queen of the Northern Forest.
She narrowed her hawkish eyes. “You’re on my land. Trespassing is punishable by death.”
“I didn’t know it was yours,” I eked out as a force squeezed my middle. It was like she had an enormous invisible hand and I was stuck in the middle of it.
“Everyone knows to whom the Northern Forest belongs.” She turned to her soldiers. “Teach him not to walk where his feet shouldn’t tread. Then leave his body near Brookhaven as a warning to others who might have forgotten their place.”
The soldiers used their spears to jab at my middle, quickly and efficiently breaking ribs on either side until I couldn’t even suck in a breath. I sank to my knees, trying to hold myself together from the outside in, pain tearing through me like bolts of lightning. Then they began to use their fists. The bones under my cheeks split, and my flesh cracked and bled with each blow that rained down. It was a gale of malice and hatred the likes of which I’d never seen.
My mind flashed back to when my father asked his men—my men—to kill me. They beat me, but I was young and strong. I’d taken off for the stables, stolen a horse, and never looked back. I thought I might die then, but I was sure I would now.