She put their hopes to rest with a wave as she said, “Goodnight, and thank you for joining us for Beltane.” With a triumphant grin, she turned on her heel, only to find her father’s fingers winding around her upper arm.
“Unicorns, Mareleau? Is this all a game to you?” His face burned beet red.
She blinked back at him with an innocent expression. “Of course not. I told you, I’m only marrying for love and this will prove which man loves me most.” Lies. Delicious lies.
“I’m of the same mind as your father,” Queen Helena said, voice quavering with suppressed anger. “This is ridiculous, not to mention offensive to our guests. You cannot send three suitors on a fruitless quest for creatures that don’t exist.”
That was precisely the point, of course. Send the three men on a mission that had no expiration, only an impossible goal. And she had the perfect person to blame for her absurd request.
“Oh, they exist. Just ask Uncle Kevan.” With that, she brushed past her parents into the foyer. There, she found her cousin staring wide-eyed at the three royals. Mareleau gave a light flick to the girl’s dangling unicorn-horn earring, sending it swaying back and forth. “Lurel will tell you all about it.”
Her parents burst into a heated argument, which was Mareleau’s cue to make a hasty exit. Mirth bubbled in her chest with every step she took, but she swallowed it down. Only when she reached the quiet halls outside the foyer did she finally let herself erupt with victorious laughter.
5
Cora nocked an arrow into her bow and pulled the fletching back to her cheek. Her heart thumped heavy in her chest, her mind still reeling with the echo of Roije’s words. It was sundown—several hours since he’d delivered his cryptic warning—yet she still couldn’t shake what he’d said.
She released the arrow and heard the beautiful strum of the string snapping forward, a sound that normally settled her nerves. Now it did nothing to calm her, especially when the arrow missed her target and struck an innocent cherry tree standing just behind the pockmarked stump she’d been trying to hit. Pink cherry blossoms rained down to the forest floor in protest.
She cursed under her breath and withdrew another arrow from her quiver. As she nocked it, she replayed Roije’s warning for the hundredth time.
Avoid the villages.
What had he meant by that? Was she simply imagining the darker implications of his statement? His warning must have had something to do with what happened to his father…
Murdered by King Dimetreus’ men.
But had the warning been given out of general worry? Romantic favor, like she’d first assumed?
Or because he’d learned why she’d really been stumbling through the woods six years ago when the Forest People found her?
Her fingers trembled, sending her aim wildly askew as she shot her arrow. “Damn.” She nocked another one, willing her hands to remain steady, her grip easy on her bow as she shot her arrow. This time it struck the rotting half-felled tree, but nowhere close to the circle she’d carved as a target when the Forest People first settled camp at the beginning of spring. This little pocket of isolation was her safe space. Her private training ground. Not that it was doing her any good at the moment. She was normally an adequate archer. But today…
With a grumble, she threw her head back and closed her eyes.
Breathe, she told herself.Breathe. It was nothing. His warning meant nothing.
Releasing a slow exhale, she forced her worries aside and tried focusing on her inner sensations instead. As a clairsentient witch,feelingwas the source of her power. She knew this, and yet it wasn’t always easy to remember in practice. But as the Forest People liked to say, magic was strengthened by challenge. Often that meant doing the very thing that felt the hardest. Right now, Cora’s greatest challenge was getting out of her head and into her magic. The last thing she wanted to do was abandon her attempts at logic, but she could at least admit her current state was doing her no favors. Not where her sanity was concerned, and certainly not for her archery practice.
She breathed in again, narrowing her attention down to the sensation of air moving through her nose, filling her lungs, then warming her nostrils as she released the breath. Shifting her focus to her skin, she felt it prickle beneath the cool evening breeze, then warming under the blush of the setting sun, diffused beneath the canopy of trees overhead. Next, she brought her attention to her feet, to the feel of solid earth beneath her leather boots, and imagined she could sense the Magic of the Soil the way the Faeryn descendants could.
Calm replaced her racing thoughts, settling her heartbeat into a steady rhythm. She took several moments to relish that calm, to feel it with every fiber of her being, before she opened her eyes. Drawing another arrow from her quiver, she nocked it in place and assessed the stump with its carved target, saw in her mind’s eye her arrow soaring straight to it. She drew her arrow to her cheek, felt calm radiate down her arm, her hand, felt her tattooed palms tingle with magic.
Everything inside her felt her next shot wouldn’t miss.
She released the arrow and watched the arrowhead strike the center of the circle. Exactly how she’d seen it in her mind. Exactly how she’dfeltit would hit.
Her lips flicked up at the corners, but her smile faded as soon as she heard the crack of a twig behind her. Nocking a fresh arrow, she whirled around and aimed her weapon.
“Salinda,” Cora said, tone full of apology as she quickly let down her bow.
The other woman didn’t so much as flinch at having been momentarily targeted. In fact, there was a good chance that snapping the twig had been intentional. A test. Salinda nodded at the stump that still bore Cora’s arrow. “You shot that arrow with clairsentience, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Cora said and went to retrieve her numerous arrows that were scattered around her practice area. It was considered disrespectful to turn one’s back on an elder when approached, but Cora had a feeling she knew why Salinda was here and hoped she could end the conversation before it began. Besides, Salinda was Maiya’s mother, as close as Cora had to a mother herself, which meant the woman expected less formality from Cora than the others.
“Maiya told me about the nightmares,” she said.
Cora sighed as she tore an arrow from the stump and tucked it into her quiver. “Of course she did.”
