You cannot fight a mating bond and win, he’d told me. And so with a frustration born from wasted coin and our people’s time, my grandfather had welcomed my father but ordered him to clean up the mess he’d caused.
He’d done so gladly and had replaced Elhn to wed my mother instead.
A fairy tale written and spoken of with great awe in the human kingdom.
But, as their many stories suggested, not all fairy tales ended happily.
“A mate you won’t find, not in this realm.” A cough followed her grim words, and I frowned. “The prince wrote us.” She entwined a lock of my hair in her fingers. Staring at it, she said with little care, “He requests for you to stay with him for protection while they consider marrying you into their family.”
“What?” I almost shouted.
Marriage. I hadn’t thought I’d still be expected to… I’d thought I’d ruined any chances of such an alliance when I’d spun gold into the prince’s cloak, and he’d fled home.
Mother didn’t startle, just smiled sadly and sighed. “Oh, the games we’ve been forced to play.”
“Mother, I cannot—”
“You leave the day after tomorrow with the rising sun.” As she scooped my hair behind my ear, her touch began to warm. “You will have their protection, and we need you safe. That is what matters right now.”
I closed my eyes, wanting to protest, wanting to yell at her to get up and help me fix all of this. But she was, and she had, and the prince was our only way out.
She knew that.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, swallowing thickly. “But I will, though the blood king…”
“He will return, so no one knows you are leaving. Just you.” Sharp eyes met mine, a command in them. “And me.”
I was to take myself. I was to shift and fly.
Nodding, I took her hand. “I will do this for you, but you must eat.” Her eyes rolled. “Mother,” I said, softer now. “If I have nothing to live for, what’s to stop me from flying across the sea instead?”
I awaited reprimand, a reminder of my duty. Neither arrived.
After long moments of staring at me with a vacancy to her gaze I’d never seen before, she brought my hand to her lips. “You should, honey bee. You should flee and never return.”
We both knew I wouldn’t, so she sat up while I fed her broth-dipped pieces of bread.
The Polinphe Mountains rose alongside me, silent watchers of my lone journey east.
Their peaks stretched toward the clouds, blocking the perilous cliffs beyond them above the Night Sea.
The only way for ships to venture to our war-ruined half of Nodoya was via the Royal Cove, which was too often ambushed by waiting crimson bandits sent by their king.
I’ve never done this.
Hard to believe, and undoubtedly a lie, that the beast of the west, the king of wolves, had never dared to kiss another before. Rumor stated he was thirty-four years, had been brandishing a sword and upheaval for more than twenty-five, and could tear someone in half with his claws alone.
The tyrannical king had likely taken hundreds of lovers to his bed.
I squashed the intruding thought of it, the unexpected and unwelcome fury that accompanied it, and any imaginings of those too-soft lips on my own.
He would pay. One way or another, he had to—even if I died trying.
For I surely would.
Keeping to the trees, the foothills, and the quiet trail of farmland only broken by the Salt Creek and the nest of greenery surrounding it, I pushed thoughts of vengeance and guilt aside.
Mother had mercifully risen from her bed and left her chambers yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was for my comfort or because the kingdom needed her. I was merely thankful that she had. Now, crossing the border, the woods that stretched for miles and miles from the mountains at my left toward the ravine turned river to the right, I needed to fabricate an excuse to feed the human royals.
To explain my lonely arrival.
Perhaps, merely the fact that I was Fae would be enough to mollify them, though I knew most, especially the king and queen, knew better than to accept that.
I’d yet to discover if I contained such a gift, but there were those of us who could warp from place to place. Typically, they were either gold and crimson nobility—and powerful ones at that. As if the beasts needed more of an upper hand.
I was beginning to truly empathize with my grandfather, who had led the charge in ridding Nodoya of King Dade’s parents. The threat they’d likely posed to our continent was now abundantly obvious for all to see.
A threat that had now unraveled with their son into a deadly promise.
Drying fields and sandy dunes that rippled toward the Royal Cove soon replaced the lush and rolling green as it faded behind me. Castle Errin sat in the southeast corner of Nodoya, stone and wood and mortar that shone in bronze and browns beneath the peaking sun. The city of Errin sprawled and climbed between it and the Royal Cove, a vast array of cream and color, buildings shaped from sandstone and brick squashed together with little thought for clear thoroughfare.
A kingdom easy to hide within.
I tucked that thought away, keeping it in the safe space of my mind beside the darker things I couldn’t and didn’t have time to release. Later. Perhaps years from now, there’d be time to give to those aching thoughts that matched the changed tempo of my heartbeat. A time when we could afford to reflect and vow to do better.
I couldn’t see such a time for that existing. All I could see, even with the sand-crusted beauty below me, the waves rolling against the cliffsides and into the bay, was gore and blood and endings.
Village roads, little more than packed dust skirted by shrubbery and cacti, crawled to the glittering city, and I veered left away from them, toward the castle hidden beyond a giant stone wall.
A few guards looked up, most looked away, and I waited until there were no eyes on me at all before quietly drifting down to the fountains in a sprawling courtyard. A swan, black and peering around with slow arcs of its neck, was all anyone would see if they happened to spy me standing upon the stone ledge, water misting my feathers.
Looking up, I met the marble eyes of a statue, one of the gods the humans bowed to, his manhood exposed and a spear in hand.
“A black swan,” said someone from behind. “Look, Georgette, do you see?”
Shit.
“Oh, my,” said who I guessed was Georgette. “I do believe it’s been years since I’ve seen a swan at all, let alone a black one.”
“An evil omen, do you think?” asked her companion.
At that, I couldn’t help but swing my head their way, causing both women, carrying baskets of bread and fruit, to squeak. They then hurried away from the fountain and into the adjoining city street.
An omen. I would’ve scoffed. Instead, I made sure I was alone before shifting and shaking out my stiff and tingling limbs. Well, given my parents’ fear of my curse, only time would tell if they were all correct, and I hadn’t the time to care.
Stepping out from behind the giant statue spilling water from his mouth into the algae-infested depths below, I crossed to the shade of some nearby maple trees while righting the emerald and olive skirts of my gown.
I’d kept it as simple as possible, knowing that was how the humans preferred it, the gown lacing up my back in tiny bows and covering my breasts and upper arms. The bodice seemed to squeeze my chest, or maybe that was my chest tightening, the closer I came to the wall of the castle.