Prologue
With a sound like rolling thunder, the horse canters onto the ridge of Waylan’s Tor, his midnight coat shining in the soft dawn light.
The black steed’s rolling eyes are fearsome, but his nature is warm and calm. In contrast, the rider’s beauty shines bright and fair, but his heart is as dark as coal.
The barren hill has a perfect view of the Crystalline Oak—distant and removed—and exactly how the golden prince prefers it.
Brow furrowed, he scans the grassy earth beneath the tree’s metallic roots.
Searching. Searching.
After long minutes, his broad shoulders drop, and he exhales a heavy sigh, white puffs of air swirling to join the mist.
An amber moon sinks low in the lightening sky and, once again, the girl is nowhere to be seen. Thank the Elements. His lids fall closed, the pound of his black heart slowing.
More times than he cares to remember, he has held his breath, standing on this rocky outcrop, silver eyes seeking—always looking for someone who never arrives.
Forever waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting for her.
He tears his gaze away from the hated tree, twisting the garnet ring on his left hand that proves he is the kingdom’s heir, for no other fae can wear it. Then even though he has no desire to view the tree and what may lie below, he forces his gaze to return—to be certain she isn’t there.
She isn’t.
Relief flows warm through his fouled blood.
Drawing wild lengths of hair from sharp cheekbones, he sneers with those wicked, kissable lips as he ponders his people’s prophecy. Perhaps the legends of his court are no more than tales to entertain children, stories spun from fanciful lies about him and the one who has the power to end his pain. She who is foretold to come.
One day.
The girl he doesn’t want.
Every day.
The girl he already hates.
Forever.
He recalls what happened to his older brother, Rain, the horror—and he knows the stories of the curse are true.
The cold bites through gaps in shiny armor, nibbling around snug leather, but it doesn’t matter; his veins are already filled with icy winter.
Why, then, does he shiver?
Maybe it’s the poison slithering its way toward his heart—the creeping magic from which only she, his fated queen, can save him.
He leans forward in the saddle, fingers stroking warm horse flesh, and squints over the dusty plain below. Checking—to be absolutely certain.
All is well. Not a creature stirs. This morning, no girl lies dew-covered beneath the oak’s grasping branches.
Brilliant. He won’t be saved today. Instead he will ride far and ride hard. And be at peace… as much as a cruel heart can be.
But one day—one very unfortunate day—under that tree is where he shall find her, the queen who can make him king.
And when he does… under that tree is exactly where he’ll kill her.
For Everend Fionbharr will never be king.
Never.
Never. Ever. After.
Chapter 1
LEGS
Lara
Whenever I remember Mom, I think about how her legs looked the last time I saw her—thin, grotesque branches covered in striped stockings and red boots, twisted and broken beneath the wheels of an inner-city delivery truck. Like the Wicked Witch of the East in that old kids’ film, The Wizard of Oz.
I’d just turned fifteen.
She’d just turned dead.
Even though we were complete opposites, my mother, Ella, was my happiness, my home. My everything. Now four years after her death, I rely on photos and videos to remind me of what she looked like because staring in the mirror doesn’t help.
She had black hair and serene dark eyes. Her face was tanned, and she was always, always calm. And, me, I’ve got strawberry-colored hair, freckled skin, moss-green eyes, a quick laugh, and an even quicker temper. We were summer and winter.
At least once a day, I long for her so badly I clutch my stomach to ease the ache, like I’m doing right now as I make my way to work, crossing from one end of the city to the other, imprisoned in a metal firecracker.
The train goes clack, clack, clack, wheels shooting sparks as it hurtles over a bridge and slices through the sky like a curved silver blade.
I stare at my reflection in the dark window, my pale face merging with the city buildings we pass, and I allow memories of Ella to fill the cold spaces inside my body.
Mom was a game coder obsessed with fantasy games about fae kingdoms where elven warriors and all manner of strange creatures got up to no good together. She justified her obsession as work, which in a way it kind of was. My father never justified anything. He’s just a loser I’ve never met—a sperm donor. If I sound like a sad sack little orphan girl, trust me, I’m not. After I found singing, everything made sense again.
More on that later.
Ella was also a digital artist, and the walls of the house I grew up in were lined with magical paintings of fae kings and queens, ethereal creatures with flowing limbs, dancing hair, and frighteningly pretty smiles. Each one a beautiful, terrible nightmare.
“It’s real you know, Lara,” she told me when I was thirteen.
“What is?” I’d asked, not glancing away from the jigsaw puzzle of the emerald castle she’d made, a gift for my twelfth birthday.
“The castle, the king and queen—all of them.”
A bright-green piece of jigsaw grass held suspended in my fingers, I asked, “Honestly?” At the time, I was still naive enough to believe in fairy tales.
Mom’s smile was steady. “Honest, peanut. Their world is just as real as ours, separated by a mere shimmering veil that’s as easy as peeling back a layer of onion skin to look inside. Don’t be surprised if one day you trip down a forest pathway and find yourself falling into their world. Believe me some people are prone to it.”
“That sounds fun. I hope I do go and visit someday.” I giggled, and she tickled my ribs.
“Well, I hope you don’t. But if it ever does happen, remember these three things: One, never be fooled by fae beauty because they’re all jerks. Every last one of them. Two, don’t ever promise them anything. And, three, no matter how much they’d like to, they can’t lie. That last point is important. They will twist and omit and evade until the cows come home. So listen carefully to every single word the sly snakes hiss at you, because doing so may save your life.”
The jigsaw piece slid from my fingers, plunging into my glass of milk.
Mom laughed at my goggle-eyed expression and ruffled my hair. “Don’t worry too much, sweetheart. I’ll tell you more about them when you’re older—when you’re in greater danger.”
“In danger of what?”
“Falling,” she said, whisking away my empty bowl of popcorn and heading for our cramped and messy kitchen.
No matter how hard I begged her, she never spoke of the fae—the Elementals as she liked to call them—as if they were real-live beings again. When she died, I hid her seductively spooky pictures in the basement and tried to pretend they’d never existed. I wanted to forget them. But, of course, I didn’t.
After the accident, I moved into Aunt Clare’s uptown apartment where I’ve lived with her and my cousin, Isla, ever since. They’re both great people, and I love them dearly. But, as I said, not a day goes by where I don’t long for my mom’s special brand of kindness and warmth. The smell of her jasmine perfume.