Prologue
MOTHER LIANA, WISE WOMAN TO THE ENDUARES
Ipull the blanket back from my sweat-slick legs and sit up against the small mound of silk pillows as my vision darts around my room. Crystals and concoctions glow around me, but the figure that I was sure I would find sitting in the stuffed blue chaise in the corner is absent.
I shouldn’t be disappointed.Hehasn’t been there in a very long time.
Brushing back damp tendrils of hair, I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and my left hand twitches. I pause, holding up the limb to inspect it.
Something is wrong.
I lean over to reach one of the shelves bracketing my large, silk-laden bed and pick up a substantial quartz tower with a sharp peak. From within the clear crystal, a deep orange-red hue blossoms. It highlights the occlusions that speak to the ancientness of the stone, and all at once, the stone in my chest—the goddess-given Fuegorra stone used by my people to harness magic and communicate with our gods—lights up.
A vision of leaves, smoke, and blood pierces my senses. The cloying smell of elven magic snakes around my throat, bleeding into the air I breathe and nestling deep in my lungs. My eyes widen.
It has been a hundred years since I’ve even approached an elvish settlement. If I am seeing one now…
My heart jumps to conclusions long before my mind does. A thousand small sparks, little thrilling jolts of hope, mix with the euphoria of my connection to the crystal, and I fully expect a dark touch, one filled with shadows, to brush over the bare skin of my arms.
Instead, reality strikes once more, and I see a handful of ogres, accompanied by human slaves, carrying out enough decorations fit for a king. Their garb—simple white robes draped over them, chains clinking at their feet—gives them away, if their location in a place unkind to them wasn’t enough.
Shorn heads accompany the grimaces on their faces, reddened from the sunlight that filters through the trees, as they line up standing votives weighed down by blossoms. Braided branches are attached to rows of benches carved from the finest elm and topped with pristine, light blue cushions two shades from the color of pale quartz.
The elvish temple, dedicated to the goddess Nicnevin, slopes at the front of the scene to tall wooden columns carved with trees.
Understanding hits me. As one of two remaining Wise Women, it is my job as the Mother Seer of my people to receive visions. And this? This is bad news.
A grand festival in the heart of the elven empire? In the last month, my city has been alive with change, new matings, and dreaded “growing pains.” The thing that threatened all of this newfound growth and peace was a demand from the Elf King Arion. He had asked for one of our newest council members, a human woman named Lady Arlet, to be his bride.
Arlet had refused, only to be taken by a curse. I helped her leave Enduvida, and then I helped the personal advisor to the king, a gruff but gentle-hearted warrior named Lord Vann, follow her to find a cure. She was supposed to be better by now.
But…if the elven capital is preparing for a celebration, there is only one answer my mind can conjure. Something that might explain the sudden disappearance of a certain elven emissary with short white hair named Thorne.
Either Arlet was taken by him and her attempt to break her curse was futile, or he has found a new bride for the Elf King. If the former, it means the loss of one of the most valued members of our growing court and the potential that Lord Vann, right hand to the king, has also fallen.
“Fuck,” I breathe. I never trusted Thorne. He was meant to be aligned with our allies, the rebellion called the Sisterhood. But he was a fickle little assassin. A viper in our den.
My stomach drops, and I press my hand to my mouth, trying to soothe a bit of the shock and anger. I force myself to ease my emotions and explore other explanations.
If Arlet hasn’t been captured, then that could very easily mean he has found a new bride. But who? An elf?
I doubt the smoking remnants of the giant court is of enough interest for him to care about them in the slightest. He might have played ally, but that wasn’t because the elves suddenly thought better of their old enemies. Power politics do not offer loyalty without some measure of assurance.
Regardless of the answer, this is categorically bad news and needs to be brought to the attention of my king and queen immediately.
I break the vision, setting the crystal back on its base near my bed, and then grab my robe on the way out of my chambers. Tying the covering at the waist, I descend the stairs of my home and push out of the front door.
The street where the council members live is quiet, and I can tell that it is still early in the morning, far too early for the others to be stirring for their regular tasks. The neat cobbled street, lined with large, two-story stone and crystal houses, calls back more memories of the golden age of my people in which I grew up.
I hurry quickly to the steps of the newly restored palace and climb them, hair free, my culture’s ideal of modesty be damned (in truth, I hadn’t thought to care). At the top of the stairs, one of the guards seesme, bites his lip, and opens the doors to the front entrance of the royal palace. Once inside, I pass by the hall that leads to the throne room and then pass the library, making my way to the residential wing where the king, queen, and their two sons now slumber.
Several guards stand outside the entrance, and a royal attendant emerges from some unseen place, a tall Enduar with the royal insignia proudly stitched on the front of his slightly oversized doublet.
“Mother Liana,” he says with a deep inclination of his head. “What can I help you with?”
I take a deep breath. “I must meet with the sovereigns.”
He just begins to open his mouth as I tack on a quick, “Urgently. I have had a vision.”