PROLOGUE
ASTRID
The woods outside Fairweather Palace have never looked so sinister as they do now. The dark closes in around me the deeper into the forest I go, a sliver of moonlight my only guide. Branches reach out like clawed hands, scraping my cheeks, snagging loose tendrils of my hair. I ignore them, fixing all my attention on my next step. My breathing grows labored as I pump my legs faster. I lift the hem of my skirt and petticoats to avoid them snagging on the underbrush. Beneath the tattered shreds of my silk stockings, my legs burn with fatigue, my muscles begging me to stop.
But I can’t stop. Not yet. Not until I’m far enough away from the palace.
You have to run, Astrid. It’s your only option.
Marybeth’s words echo through my mind, urging my feet to move faster. Faster. No matter how badly my heart yearns to return and see my father properly buried, my lady’s maid was right. She knows what I am. Knows my magic will never cast me in a favorable light. Not where murder is involved.
The queen won’t give you a trial. She’ll kill you herself. You have to run.
Marybeth spoke only the truth.
With almost three years of hate and envy standing between me and my stepmother—the Seelie Queen of the Spring Court—I know she’d never believe me innocent. I’m lucky she didn’t kill me the moment she discovered me next to Father’s dead body.
A body that is now growing colder by the minute.
A body I’ll never get a chance to say goodbye to.
The thought almost crumbles my resolve, but I remind myself of the fae queen’s terrifying fury, how her lips had curled into a snarl before she said, “You did this.”
As if I was the one who killed her husband.Myfather.Myfavorite person in the whole world.
After that, she had her guards haul me away from Father’s corpse and into my bedroom, but it might as well have been the dungeon for the threat the gesture posed. I knew then that it wouldn’t matter whether I’m innocent or not, only that Queen Tris blames me. She was biding her time by locking me in my room. Putting on the act of being a just ruler, waiting to gather evidence before condemning me for the crime she was already convinced I’m guilty of. If my lady’s maid hadn’t snuck into my room through the servant’s passage and spirited me away, I might be dead already.
Like Father is now…
I swallow down a sob building in the back of my throat. It sears my lungs like flames. I can’t cry. Not a single tear. I can hardly see as it is.
Blinking furiously to clear my eyes, I lift my skirts higher, sprint faster.
Father’s face fills my mind. The smile that stretched over his lips for all of a second before he staggered away from the dinner table, clutching his throat.
A cry escapes my lips. I shake my head, but the vision is replaced with the sight of him stiff on the floor. Veins of black trailing over his skin from his lips to his ears and down to his neck—
A heavy feeling tugs on my heart, which in turn frees the sob from my throat. My knees buckle, and I almost collapse in place. Grasping the nearest tree to steady myself, I gather in a lungful of air to counteract the violent weight of my sobs. I keep my eyes pressed tight, but my father’s face remains. My chest heaves with a whimper, and I pry my eyelids open.
The first thing I see is a tall slender shape leering before me. I nearly jump out of my skin, my mind reeling with the fear that Queen Tris has found me. I see her lithe form, her brown bark-like skin patterned with beautiful whorls, her head crowned in brambles and pink cherry blossoms in place of hair.
I blink a few times, and my vision turns sharper, clearer. It is not Tris who stands before me but a cherry tree like every other in the Spring Court, its bark and blossom-covered boughs cast beneath the pale light of the moon.
I gasp with relief, my sobs having fled during my momentary panic. In its place, logic forms. I have no time for grief. I’ll never make it far from the palace with such sorrow dragging me down.
With another heavy breath, I reach into the pocket of my wool coat and extract a vial. My hands shake as I turn the cap and remove the dropper from the ruby liquid. Tipping my head back, I lift my tongue. One drop. Two.
No sooner than I secure the cap do my nerves begin to settle. Calm spreads from my chest to my head, then down to my toes. My mind spins with a slight euphoria, but I know it will pass. It always does.
“Poison.” The voice comes from my left, ethereal yet chilling.
The vial nearly falls from my fingertips, but I close my hand tight around it, shoving it into my pocket as I whirl toward the speaker.
An enormous male equine creature steps from the shadows between the trees. His black mane ripples as if on a wind I don’t feel. I avoid meeting his eyes, but their red hue glows brightly enough for me to see their shade nonetheless. The size of his massive hooves sends a shudder down my spine.
“Kelpie,” I say under my breath as I take a step back. The tincture warming my blood and calming my nerves is all that keeps my fear from taking over. It’s bad enough that I already get an irrational sense of panic when I’m around horses of the regular sort. Kelpies, on the other hand, are meant to be feared by all. They may have somewhat recovered from their once-deadly reputation in recent years, but that doesn’t mean this one is harmless. Even though Faerwyvae is an island where humans and fae live in unity, there are still just as many vile creatures as there are bad people. The laws enacted by the fae royals forbidding trickery by magic and malice can only go so far.
“Crimson Malus,” the kelpie says. “I smell it.” The voice comes not from his lips but somewhere inside of him. Some fae creatures are like that—able to communicate without shaping words with their vocal cords or mouths. He steps closer again, making me take two steps back, my heart lurching at the nearness of those too-large hooves. “If you can stomach such a poison without dying, then you must not be human.”
