The king had called on every healer in the kingdom to save her and all failed.
Then the Thornbearer sent Delphi.
Delphi had been beautiful in a strange way, her skin like twilight, her midnight hair streaked with violet, her scent like a garden of poisonous herbs. Alora didn’t like her, but Salvia immediately brightened in her presence.
“This is my daughter,”her mother told Delphi as she introduced them.“Care for her as you would me.”Salvia turned then, her fingers warm in Alora’s hair.“This is Delphi, my sweetbloom. One of three who anointed you with a blessing when you were born.” Salvia smiled faintly. “A fairy’s gift.”
But she paused, her gaze locking with Delphi’s, something unspoken passing between them.
“Think of her as your godmother.”
Yet Delphi wasted no time shutting Alora out of her mother’s chambers. Salvia’s condition briefly improved—for a day. Then she quickly declined faster than before. It became clear the blue fairy was only there to provide medicinal comfort in Salvia’s last days. Then the king stopped visiting altogether once her illness grew beyond saving.
Alora sat alone in her room, listening to her mother’s screams at night until her heart could take no more.
The queen was buried on a rain-soaked morning when no sun shone.
Yet the healer did not leave.
Alora’s heart was crushed the day she caught Laurent kissing Delphi in his study. He showed no shame when he declared she would be her new mother.
And Alora lost her mind.
She attacked the fairy, clawing at her face, sobbing and screaming every insult her child’s tongue could shape.
It was no wonder she was cast out.
When the wedding bells rang through the halls, the servants placed Alora into the same carriage she rode now. There was no goodbye. No explanation but a short letter from her father.
She cried silently into the folds of her cloak as the wordsdutyandeducationblurred on the page.
Exile, dressed as a lesson.
She had been ten years old.
Perhaps he sent her away because Alora looked too much like her mother. Perhaps grief had twisted him, too.
When she had arrived at the Briar Manor all those years ago, the Thornbearer stared at her with pale pink eyes, as if uncertain what to do with her.
“You will call me Lady Zinnia,”she said.
“Are you my godmother too?”Alora asked through her tears.
Her lips pinched.“I suppose I am now. Nonetheless, you may only call me by name or title. As my ward, I expect you to obey my instruction. Every lesson must be completed with perfection and grace.”
Alora then conformed to her new life as she waited day after day, for forgiveness that never came. She held hope even as the years slipped past.
But when she turned fifteen, word arrived that a new prince had been born in Argyle.
And then she finally accepted that her father had moved on.
Alora swallowed, her breath fogging the carriage windows. The memory still stung like an open wound, but she no longer wanted to go back. Argyle was not her home anymore. It had not been for a long time.
“What if I no longer wish to be a princess?”she murmured to Lady Zinnia that morning, when it was time to leave.
The fairy tilted her head, faintly amused.“Then find the courage to be something more.”
The counsel had lingered in Alora’s mind.
