Prologue
The children had quieted into their bedrolls, each of them wide-eyed and waiting as I took my seat.
It was our nightly routine; they’d all gotten quite used to cozying up in their bundles and allowing me to transport them to a time and place that that would teach them more than they would realize. It was the only way that I could tell the truth—the only way that I could pass down the knowledge that’d been bestowed upon me.
My daughter was already tucked away in her crib and my youngest son had wedged himself between Carys and Brynnick. And though Carys and Brynnick were not my own, they may as well have been. I loved them like they were mine. Aside from their mothers, I’d been the first in the kingdom to cradle them to my chest. And while it was merely customary for the Queen to bestow her kiss upon the brow of all infants born into the court, those two were different.
Damieren tried to hide his and Carys’s joined hands under their blankets, but as much as he would have like to be sneaky, he was not. He never really was.
“What story are you telling tonight?” Carys asked, her round cheeks flushed as she smiled up at me.
I leaned over, retrieving the journal that was always tucked into the crochet box. The book was worn down, its spine cracked and the pages torn at the edges. I opened it slowly, fingers tracing over the faded ink and yellowed pages that carried all of my most precious stories. “Tonight, I will be telling you the story of The Lost Princess, The Queen With No Name.”
I expected Damieren’s groan—ever the dramatic child that he was. “Notagain.” He whined, throwing himself into Carys’s lap and gripping his chest as if he’d been impaled.
I frowned. “Damieren.”
He huffed, closing his eyes as Carys began running her fingers through his hair. “Fine. I won’t complain, but just know that I’m not going to enjoy it at all.”
Carys tugged at a strand of his hair, earning a yelp and bared teeth from him. “Do youevershut up?” She growled.
“Children.”
They fell silent, both of them laying back and scooting together. And when not a sound could be heard other than the children’s steady breathing and the creaking of the my rocking chair teetering back and forth on the wooden floor, I began telling my story.
“Long ago, there was a girl. She was wild and she was smart. And she liked… tohide. In the trees, in the brush, far away from the seeing eyes of the people who adored her. She hid. Hiding became a talent. One that the people she loved treasured. And for them, she challenged the darkness within, she fell in love, and she hid all the things she loved under a veil.”
I turned the page, eyes lifting briefly to see that Damieren and Carys were already fast asleep, foreheads pressed together and hands entangled. I let out a sigh, my heart aching deep in my chest as I looked at the next sentence.
“A veil of shadows.”
With their shallow breaths sounding through the nursery, I realized that there was no point in continuing. I closed my journal and let my hands rest upon its weathered back. I rocked back and forth in my chair, allowing the tears to fall for just one moment before my eyes drifted closed and I began to dream.
Chapter 1
She came into the world for a purpose. Nearly two hundred years before her birth, her mother had a vision of Ailikaya andknewthat she would be destined for great things. It was an immense amount of pressure to put on a baby, and the pressure only increased with each passing year since her birth.
At the ripe age of twenty, Ailikaya Aesa was feeling the weight of her title.Dark Bringer, they called her. Not just a princess, but a Blessing. Born with Cadaith’s kiss—a Mother’s Kiss. It was mostly unheard of. There hadn’t been a Dark Bringer born since Thybalt Joran. And now, the title was hers.
The Mother of all creation, Cadaith, was said to have bestowed three Blessings amongst the leaders of the old Driikona Clans: The Dark Bringer, the Dark Flame, and the Death Cry. These three abilities were to protect the people of Driikona, the chosen ones, thenativesof these lands—thefae. Ailikaya’s power was amongst the most deadly and was said to not only help conceal the people of Driikona and protect them from harm, but also to defend them. It fueled the Dark Flame and was triggered by the Death Cry—the cry of the Banshee. Each Blessing aided the other in it’s ultimate goal: protecting what Cadaith sacrificed so much to create.
When the Caddagh warlords invaded the once-peaceful land of Driikona, they believed the fae to be beneath them… lesser beings that were wild and savage at heart. The Credulans began dismantling everything the Three Clans of Driikona had built.
Taking their land and their way of living was not nearly enough, the evidence of their greed was in their desire to steal every sacred thing the faeheld dear and mold it into something…darker. Their interest in Ailikaya and her power was another example of that.
She was rumored to be a weapon. A fighter. Their servants whispered about how dangerous she was—that she’d nearly killed her own mother. She was a monster. She was—
“Not going.” Ailikaya scoffed, lifting her skirts. Her feet were caked with mud, the fabric of her dress wet all the way up to her knees.
Moryna chuckled, shaking her head. “Your father will be greatly disappointed.” The princess turned, eyes narrowed. She never would have expected Moryna to be the one to betray her. Not when they both knew what this meeting entailed and how opposed the both of them had been about such matters only mere days ago.
“Moryna, myfatheris a fool to believe that those monsters are wanting to join forces. After what they did in Drikiera?” She scoffed, shaking her head. Ailikaya opened the latch on the garden gate, stepping onto the dirt path with great reluctance.
She would go. If only it meant that Moryna wasn’t going to be bored on her walk home.
Bored was the loosest of terms that Kaya could use when it came to describing her friend’s innermost feelings. Fear may have been a more accurate description, but her personal guard would never admit it. After the Credulans destroyed Drikiera, everyone was in fear that Holiadon would be next.
It had been two-hundred years since the Queen of Credula died. In her wake, she left one of the most tyrannical and evil beings to walk the lands to be crowned king. Queen Rydanthe was adamant about the clans being able to keep their people united but the new king, Tymon Thepyra, had no such desire. Based upon what happened in Drikiera, he was on a war-path and determined on destroying any form of society that remotely contradicted his sick and sadistic ideas of leadership.
