He thrust a letter up at her impatiently.
Alora bit her lip, dread growing before she saw the zinnia crest embossed on the pink wax seal.
The Thornbearer of the Midlands.
A simple title, but a prominent one, nonetheless.
The fae had no need for queens in a territory this small, but Lady Zinnia descended from a distant fairy queen from Arthal and ruled in name, nonetheless.
“A letter from Lady Zinnia?” Alora frowned. “I didn’t expect to hear from her until next spring…”
But Bramble had already shuffled away toward his goat-drawn cart waiting by the road, having completed his duty.
Alora slowly closed the door.
She stared at the envelope in her hands, her fingers trembling faintly.
It wasn’t the letter that was startling, but rather that her godmother had broken routine.
And thatneverhappened.
Since the day Alora had arrived in the Midlands, the Thornbearer kept her distance. Her main interest was managing her education.
Elves were sent to her for schooling.
Weavers for clothing.
Earth brownies to tended to her meals and tidying the cottage, though Alora only spotted them when they were dashing out the windows. She rarely saw fae unless she ventured into town.
Even that too was rare.
The fae didn’t like humans, much less half-breeds.
Alora’s mother had been a spring fae, bright and fleeting as the season itself. Perhaps that was why the Thornbearer tolerated her. But since she had finished her schooling at sixteen, she only saw Lady Zinnia when summoned once a year on her birthday, without fail.
Never twice.
Never urgently.
Each visit involved the same questions. Were there any changes in her body? Any strange dreams? Any pull toward the dark that she could not explain? And always the reminder, delivered with a curt edge.
Stay away from magic. Don’t look into mirrors. Never spill your blood.
Alora glanced up at the mirror on her wall, secretly foraged from a rubbish pile in town. As half-fae, magic may not even be possible. Though she had read enough forbidden texts in secret to understand the fundamentals of spell casting.
But the third rule, she never dared break:
Blood.
Once, when she had been no more than eleven, she had cut her palm on a bramble while gathering berries. The wound had been shallow. Ordinary.
The forest had not reacted ordinarily.
The wind had stilled. The birds had fallen silent. And something—something vast and unseen—had stirred beneath the earth, answering her pain like a distant echo.
Lady Zinnia had arrived before the blood could spill on the grass. She ordered the briars burned and healed her, spelling Alora with wards that prevented shallow wounds. Worse was the bitter draughts she was made to drink to still her cycles.
The yearly audiences began.
