She had not always been courageous. She had learned early how to bend instead to the whim of others. Obedience had kept her fed. Silence had kept her safe. But it had taken everything else.
Her gaze drifted toward the mountain rising in the distance, its dark peak veiled in cloud. She had spent her life looking away from it.
Perhaps courage came as a refusal to accept what the world decided.
Alora closed her eyes and leaned against the carriage wall. The steady rhythm lulled her, Zinnia’s words following her into sleep.
Alora dreamed of sunrays through stained glass windows. Of warm rooms that smelled of wisteria and wine. Her mother’s voice hummed softly in the distance, weaving between the garden breeze and the lullaby soothed her like the rocking of a cradle.
But then she sang as she danced through the forest and the dream shifted.
She stumbled into the dark, breathless. Shadows curled around her bare feet, cool and velvet smooth. A presence lingered behind her, watching.
She didn’t turn.
She couldn’t, as if some unseen force held her in place.
A whisper followed, deep and unfamiliar.There you are…
His voice carried like wind in the hollow, curling through her mind. The warmth of a hand caressed her cheek.
Alora.
She gasped and jolted awake in the carriage.
The low sun gleamed amber on the horizon with the evening. She had slept most of the day. Alora groaned, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and rolling her stiff neck.
Her dread and discomfort must have brought on such a strange dream.
Rose-gold clouds spilled across the sky as the trees began to thin. Her stomach sank when the carriage crested the HydellHills, and Alora gazed upon the kingdom that had once called her princess.
Argyle.
Pale spires and tiled rooftops rose above the treeline, enclosed within a fortified wall, the dark sea stretching behind it. It looked smaller than she remembered, stripped of the grandeur her childhood had once lent it. The rolling fields lay in patchwork brown and faded green. The river that had once glittered now ran dull with algae.
A unit of soldiers stood upon the battlements, watching her carriage approach. The drop gate was raised without a single word. They had been expecting her.
The streets were quiet as she was driven through them. Shop shutters were drawn tight. Thresholds lay dark. Guards stood at every corner of the empty streets, their eyes hard and tired.
Alora let the curtains fall closed. She did not want to see the stares.
But she felt them follow the carriage all the same.
Once they reached the castle gates, the guards shouted, and trumpets blew. The grand iron gates creaked open, and the carriage rolled into the courtyard. Alora sat frozen as the wheels slowed. Then she took a deep breath and stepped out.
Servants and soldiers lined the courtyard in muted gray, heads bowed, eyes carefully averted. Alora quickly searched their faces for those familiar but did not see her friends. No welcome but the hush.
Even the air was cold here, the sun hidden behind the tall spires. Faded green flags bearing Argyle’s coat of arms with a white stag snapped in the wind.
The castle looked … dilapidated and unkempt.
Dark moss stained the stone, coated in desiccated thorns. The last warmth of the Midlands vanished from her bones as the enchanted carriage rolled away, disappearing into mist.
A man descended the stairs. He was tall, robed in emerald velvet and lined with gold. His beard had grayed at the edges, and his crown sat lower on his brow, but his gray eyes were the same.
“Father,” she greeted softly with a bow of her head.
King Laurent stepped forward and gathered her into an embrace. Alora stiffed, arms at her sides. She didn’t know how to reach for him anymore. He was unfamiliar to her, except for his scent of parchment and cloves.
