She sighed, setting down her teacup. “Ah, how easily I forget that mortals feel so much about so little.”
The Thornbearer rose and placed a small box, carved from pale wood, on the table beside Alora. She hesitated before her fingers brushed over Alora’s hair.
She froze, caught off guard by the soft touch.
“I do not send you away by choice,” Lady Zinnia said, deftly braiding her hair into a circlet of braids, her movements deft and light. “King Laurent sent his daughter here for safe keeping, but now he calls for her to be returned to the realm of men.Againstmy counsel.”
She reached into the box and withdrew a delicate hairpiece. A silver lark with an emerald eye, wings poised in flight.
“This belonged to your mother,” the Thornbearer said, fingers fondly touching the hairpin. “I give it to you now in honor of Salvia’s memory. Wear it always, so you may keep a piece of the Midlands with you.” Then Zinnia pinned it into Alora’s hair, fluffing the golden curls on her shoulders. “You have grown into a fine woman, Alora. Beautiful by the standards of your kind.”
Alora wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but she had at last called her by name.
Her godmother then placed a letter on the table, bearing the royal seal of Argyle.
Alora’s heart pounded as she stared at it, clenching her skirts so tightly her fingers went numb. “Why now?” she asked, her voice quiet but strained. “After all this time?”
“The king shared little with me,” Lady Zinnia said, tugging at a webbed ear, an unusual sign of her discomfort. “He declares that the kingdom needs you now.”
Frustration pressed tight in Alora’s chest, sharp and restless, with nowhere to go. She had lived among the fae long enough to recognize when they spoke around their inability to lie.
“That is not an answer,” Alora snapped.
A sudden gust of wind tore through the garden, scattering petals across the tea table. The porcelain cups rattled, tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
The Thornbearer stilled, her hand tightening around a saucer as she stared at Alora, something sharp flashing in her eyes.
Alora winced and lowered her gaze. She had not meant to anger her. “Forgive me,” she said quietly. “I only need to know why.”
The garden settled, petals drifting to stillness as the wind fell away.
Then Lady Zinnia’s next words landed like frost, ending fifteen years of exile.
“The Crown Prince is dead.”
CHAPTER 4
Alora
Before the first light of dawn, the Thornbearer’s carriage took her down the winding path, leaving behind the manor’s grandeur. It was pulled by two great white elk draped in moss, flickering blue wisps weaving through their antlers. Alora sat stiffly on the velvet seat, clutching all she owned.
Like the day she arrived in the Midlands, she left it with only one bag.
Inside was a change of clothes, her mother’s scarf, and a shabby doll sewn from a patch of velvet, with button eyes and cornsilk hair. A gift from her childhood friend. A relic, really, but it had been a treasured companion for nearly fifteen years.
farther they traveled, the forest dimmed. Glowing lights faded, and the scent of wildflowers and magic gave way to stone and dust.
By noon, they came upon the wall of trees that warded the border. The trunks groaned as they parted for the carriage, asif guided by an invisible hand. The wheels creaked forward and Alora glanced back for another look for another look of the Midlands. But the borough was already dissolving into shimmer and mist.
Alora pressed her palm to the window, watching the land shift past in shades of green and gray, dreading what awaited her at the end of the journey.
She didn’t even know her brother. Rihan had been born after her father sent her away, raised in the castle while she fended for herself.
Perhaps, such truism should have been expected once he replaced his queen. But Alora hadn’t known any better.
The fae lived long lives, yet Salvia withered to a strange illness with no name. Her skin had paled to a sickly green. Her once-beautiful emerald hair turned brittle and colorless. The healers called it a spell of madness when her sharp mind began to unravel, thread by thread.
When Alora turned seven, her mother would rave through the halls, shrieking at the shadows in the corners. Sometimes Salvia had lucid days where she smiled and sang to her, and that small mercy kept Alora praying to the Seven for a healing that never came.
