Chapter One
Briata Catullus.” The elderly fae spat into the dust. “Come to seize the crown while the palace mourns? You shouldn’t be here.”
The prophecy plagued her, spewing from ignorant mouths since the day of her birth. At the front of the wagon, two fae scowled at her. Clearly father and son, one had gray hair and a lined face, the other a younger version with the same slender nose and thin lips. Their eyes widened, and Bri knew with her golden-brown skin, auburn hair, and eagle eyes, there was no mistaking her for anyone else. She was one of the Twin Eagles—more myth than person.
“You know the prophecy about me, but clearly not much else,” she said, giving them a twisted grin as she brushed the dust from her tunic. “I don’t take kindly to orders.” Bri narrowed her eyes, noting a third fae popping his head up from the back of the wagon. “My assistance was requested by the Captain of the Guard herself, whose authority I am most certain supersedes your own.”
“The Captain has clearly lost her mind, inviting a Catullus this far into our court,” the silver-haired fae jeered. “I heard she got hacked to bits in the attack. She’ll probably be dead before you get there.”
Delta’s urgent voice echoed in Bri’s ears. She had to keep moving. Her hand moved from the reins toward her favorite dagger on her hip.
“You’re not welcome in the West,” the son scoffed.
He wore one knife on his belt and his father had a lone dagger. They seemed like tradespeople of some sort, untrained in fighting, but fae were faster and stronger than humans or witches. Of the three, fae were the most headstrong too. Bri moved her hands back to the reins. She wouldn’t need her dagger to dispatch these three.
“Are you going to move that wagon or not?”
Her face hardened, looking at the narrow trail squeezed between the rocky outcrops of white stone. The wagon sat right in the middle of the bottleneck. She doubted she could lead her horse up and over the steep terrain. If t
hey didn’t move, she’d be forced to backtrack and wait them out. Bri guided her horse to the side and waited in the tall grasses. She prayed any snakes hiding amongst the sun-warmed rocks had slithered away. The last thing she needed was to be bucked off a spooked horse.
“Like I said, you’re not welcome in Swifthill,” the son hissed. The defiance in his bratty eyes made Bri chuckle.
“Gods, you’re a grumpy lot.” She dismounted her horse in one smooth movement. Rolling her shoulders, she grabbed the halter of the horse hitched to the wagon and led it forward. She clicked her tongue. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Stop!” the father bellowed, yanking on the horse’s reins.
The son dropped from his seat and Bri grinned, hoping he might be reckless enough to attack her.
“Shit,” the one at the back growled, jumping from the wagon bed and running to back up his friend. The father cursed under his breath and reluctantly climbed down as well.
What was it with men and fisticuffs? Every tavern brawl ended this way—one idiot bolstering the foolishness of the next until a chaotic mob erupted.
“On any other day, I’d indulge you, friends.” Bri grinned as the first fae rounded on her. She hadn’t had a chance to train during the last two days due to constant travel. Normally, she’d let him get a few swings in and correct his careless movements even while besting him, but not this day. She had to reach the palace and find out how bad the situation was after the attack.
The Western Court Queen was dead. That’s all Bri knew for certain. Delta had frantically called upon her through the magical fae fires, begging for her help. Bri had already been on the Western Court border, fighting Balorn’s cursed blue witches in Valtene. The aches of that battle still echoed through her muscles even as she rode with haste toward the Western capital.
The youngest fae swung wildly, and Bri easily stepped out of his reach. She waited for his momentum to pull him to the side before she stepped in, throwing out a quick punch. She connected with his jaw and kicked him in the gut for good measure. He tumbled backward into the scrub brush, groaning as he clutched his stomach. He’d be fine, but he was wise enough to stay down.
A hand landed on her shoulder and she grabbed the wrist, instinctively twisting until her attacker cried out at the unnatural angle of his arm. It wasn’t dislocated, but it would hurt every time he moved it for the next few weeks. They didn’t know how many years she and her twin brother, Talhan, had spent perfecting that move. She swept his leg out from under him, and he slammed down into the gravel. Plumes of white dust lifted around him as Bri looked up to the father.
He held his dagger out at her, wide-eyed at the speed with which she had incapacitated his comrades.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, scowling at the fae clutching his arm and the other groaning from where he sat in the underbrush. She eyed the silver-haired fae and his dagger, her voice dripping with menace as she said, “Now, you can move your wagon, or I can move it for you. What do you choose?”
He swallowed, his hands trembling as he sheathed his dagger. Bravado gone, the two injured men rose and darted back to the wagon.
Bri nodded. “Good.”
She mounted her horse, who’d been hastily grazing in the scrub. Perhaps when this horse was too exhausted to keep up with her grueling pace, stealing a new horse in the next town was better than trying to buy one. She couldn’t stop and she didn’t want her recognizable face to start a fight in every town she passed. The forests in the rain shadow of the High Mountains were home to mostly Western humans and witches. They barely gave a second glance, but as the forests turned to sprawling savanna, more fae towns popped up along the road to Swifthill. The closer she got to the capital, the more her presence would draw unwanted attention.
The sound of Delta’s pleading voice rattled through her mind. I need your help, Bri, please. She would have bet a mountain of gold that Delta would never utter those words. The attack on the Western Court palace must have been devastating. How many traitors had infiltrated Queen Thorne’s court? Bri would need to be wary of them all.
As the wagon rolled out of the bottleneck, clearing her path, she braced for what was to come. She would fight her way through the capital to get to Delta if she had to. The Queen’s assassins had never been found, and the Princess barely survived the attack. Bri needed to reach the palace before the traitors came back to finish what they started.
* * *
She was ready for this journey to be over and to wash off the stink of horse, but the sight of her birthplace was no relief. The landscape morphed from forests blanketed in frost to arid red soil with spiky shrubs. The sun baked down, fighting away the winter chill. Cloak discarded, she urged her weary horse onward toward the high sandstone walls and cursed herself for coming. She reminded herself once more of who she was to these people. Briata Catullus was an enemy, banished on the first day of her life.
A towering bronzed gate guarded the main road into Swifthill. She peered between the gaps in the meshwork grating, looking out toward the city beyond. Roofs like mushroom caps dotted the skyline, starting smaller and growing larger toward the center in concentric rings. The white clay rooftops were decorated in whorls of silver and gold paint, patterned with the symbols of each household. Beyond the city walls, high on the cliffside, sat the palace.
The brown stone castle was shaped like a hexagon, with six tall towers each with needlelike bronze spires shooting toward the sky. Only one flag billowed from the nearest tower, bearing the Western crest of a ram skull above crossing axes. The palace’s rooftop flickered in shades of green as seven trees shot out from the building itself, their branches
billowing like clouds across the gold-tiled roofs. Each of the five palaces in Okrith had the styling of their court, but this . . . Something in Bri’s chest tightened at seeing it. This place was different.
A guard stepped up to the far side of the city gate, pulling Bri’s focus away from the palace on the hill. His eyes widened as he appraised her. “The Eagle,” he snarled, speaking Bri’s nickname with a muttered curse. “You shouldn’t be here.”
A scoundrel ready to seize the crown from the Western Queen—that is what they all thought of her.
“If I had a coin for every time I heard that,” Bri muttered, wiping her brow as the hot midday sun beat down on her. She put on her practiced air of indifference and addressed the guard. “You’re wrong. I’ve been asked to come by Delta Thorne.”
He paused, considering her words with a glower. “The Captain was nearly killed that night. She was probably hallucinating from the pain.”
Bri shook out the sweaty tunic clinging to her chest. “Do I look like I’m riding into battle?”
“You can’t handle the Western sun, traitor,” the guard taunted.
“You get used to it,” a voice called from behind her.
A man on horseback rode up beside her. He was middle-aged with pale skin burned red across his cheeks and nose. He was lean and incredibly tall, sitting straight on his mount. She took in his cinnamon-brown tunic and the totem pouch around his neck—a witch, probably a brown witch, given this was their home court.
“Lady Catullus is needed here. I’ve requested her help.” The witch turned to the guard. “Let us in, please, Lifa. I’ll personally escort her to the castle.”
The guard paused, eyeing the brown witch, and then returned his attention to Bri. He spat onto the dirt but still disappeared behind the sandstone walls to open the gate. Bri’s eyebrows shot up. A fae guard taking orders from a witch? Whoever this witch was, he must be important.
“Thanks,” Bri grumbled.
The bronze gate lurched, creaking slowly upward. Bri leered at the pointed teeth of the gate lifting into the sky. She didn’t want to ride under them, but as the witch coaxed his horse onward, she followed, relieved the gate did n’t come crashing down upon her.
Bri gave the frowning guard a wink and led her horse down the main thoroughfare into the heart of the city.
“I appreciate you doing that,” she said, pulling her horse up beside the brown witch.
The witch dusted his straw-blond hair off his forehead and adjusted his golden spectacles. “That guard doesn’t realize how needed your presence is,” the witch said, casting his sky-blue eyes to her. “I’m Cole, head healer to the royal family.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “A male witch with enough power to be the head healer? I’m impressed.”
“I think you’ll find the lines between us are more blurred than our language allows.” Cole’s eyes crinkled. “Saying there are no powerful male witches is as ridiculous as saying there are no powerful female warriors.”
“I like you, Cole.” Bri huffed. “I can see why Queen Thorne picked you.”
Looking to one tree peeking above the palace’s roofline, he whispered the Western prayer: “May we see her spirit in the rustling leaves.” He spoke it in the common tongue of Ific, but she could tell he’d translated it from the witches’ language of Mhenbic.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Bri bowed her head. “I’m sure you’re exhausted after the attack. How many were injured?” If anyone were to know the severity of the injuries, it would be the head healer.
“It was worse than the council let on,” he murmured, gazing down along the quiet streets. He led his horse out to a side road, moving away from the bustling markets up ahead.
Bri’s horse followed, clomping down the tussock-colored bricks. “How many casualties?”
“Twelve,” Cole replied. “Many more injured.” He tapped the saddlebag. “I’ve just come from the mountains. We needed more supplies than our gardens could grow, even with the aid of green witch magic.” He had a calm, warm tone, so common amongst healers.
The Western Court palace probably had teams of witches of every color—green witches who grew gardens and cooked delicious foods, brown witches who made healing elixirs, red witches who could animate objects, and blue witches who Saw the future. The violet witches of the East had long since disappeared . . . or so Bri had thought. She shuddered, thinking of the purple smoke that filled the sky during the battle in Valtene. What ancient magic had Augustus Norwood tapped into to curse
armies of witches and make poisonous smoke? Worse, he’d never been found after the battle. He fled along with his remaining soldiers, his armada sailing out into the Callipho Sea.
Bri eyed the deep furrows cut into the street, giant gutters leading toward immense drains. The Southern Court had similar features, though she wasn’t sure the West had quite the same monsoons. The deep gutters told her enough—when it rained, it rained hard.
“Delta? How is she?”
Cole cleared his throat. His expression darkened, and Bri clenched the reins tighter in her grip. It was bad, then.
“I was being earnest when I said you were needed here,” he said. “Delta needs urgent care but . . . I think she is waiting until you arrive to let me—”
Bri’s pulse drummed in her ears. “Let you what?”
His gaze dropped to his hands. “Her arm was nearly cut off in the battle. She has no feeling in it anymore. . . . It needs to be removed.”
Disbelief coursed through her. “No.”
Delta would be devastated. Her greatest pride was being the Captain of the Queen’s guard. Bri’s mind whirled, grasping for some wa
y to ease that blow. Delta could still fight. She could train for one-handed combat. It would be okay, Bri tried to reassure herself.
“She won’t let me do it,” Cole said, the warmth in his voice sounding strained. “I think she’s waiting for you.”
Bri tapped her horse with her calf, urging it to move faster. They picked up the pace, skirting around the edges of the city, where only a few curious people watched them pass.
“You want me to convince her to remove her arm?” Bri asked incredulously.
“I can’t keep healing the wound forever. There is not enough chaewood in the entire Western Woods.” Cole let out a frustrated sigh, clearly having had this conversation before. “Fae healing can only do so much. Wounds left untreated and unhealed will still kill you.”
Narrowing her eyes at the looming castle, Bri rubbed a hand over her tight neck muscles and sighed. Delta was the most stubborn sort of soldier, even worse than Bri herself.
They trotted through the open far gate of the city and up the trail toward the palace. A herd of goats scattered into the golden shrubs. The road narrowed, creating a land bridge as the earth fell into a sheer drop on either side of them. On the high plateau, the palace was protected from all angles. The attackers must have snuck in disguised as guards or servants.
There’s no way a cavalry would get across this bridge unnoticed, and it would be an impossible climb to scale up the cliffsides circling the palace grounds.
She looked out over the rolling landscape, filled with sawtooth plants and spindly trees, stretching out toward a strip of sapphire blue. Golden sand beaches beckoned from the white-capped ocean waves beyond. She wondered how long it would take to ride out to the sea. The heat blurred the landscape, bending it like a mirage, making the idea of a swim all the more enticing.
Bri spotted a silhouette in the gardens, a solitary person staring toward the horizon.
“And the Princess? Is she all right?”
“I think everyone is still reeling from her mother’s assassination,” Cole said diplomatically. “I’ve been prescribing many remedies to members of the council to calm their nerves . . . though the Princess hasn’t accepted any.”
Bri understood the meaning that Cole delicately tiptoed around: Princess Abalina was uninjured but far from alright, and apparently just as stubborn as her cousin when it came to accepting aid.
She wondered if Abalina still looked the same. It had been many years since the Princess had attended a royal engagement in another court. Abalina was there the night of Neelo’s poker game in Saxbridge, but Bri and Tal had waited in the parlor a floor below and never caught sight of the Princess. Her stomach tightened as her mind drifted toward her twin. They’d had long-lasting arguments before but nothing like this. Talhan had looked at her like she was a traitor for coming to Swifthill.
She shook the thought from her head and twisted back toward Cole. “Did they catch any of the attackers?”
“None remain alive.” Cole adjusted his spectacles, angling his head to keep the sun out of his eyes. “There were dozens of them, though. Some escaped.”
“Gods,” Bri groaned.
“The witch hunters were always a problem, one the Queen conveniently ignored.” Cole’s tone soured. “They made themselves good money, and the West was largely exempt from the aftermath of Yexshire. I understand why the Queen did it, to stop them would have made her an enemy to Hennen Vostemur.”
Bri grimaced at the name of the fallen Northern King. His shadow still hung over Okrith, even after his death. His tyranny had echoed throughout every kingdom, and his passing revealed wounds that had festered for years.
“She still should have gotten control of the witch hunters,” Bri insisted.
“Agreed.” Cole sighed. “She allowed so many of her people to die . . . humans, fae, and most of all, witches.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and Bri wondered what happened to his own family to make his voice turn so hollow. “Now those witch hunters are rabid, and it is Princess Abalina who will have to tame them.”
As they drew closer, Bri noticed the black shrouds waving through the open windows, blocking out the sun. The palace was in mourning, the Queen murdered by monsters of her own making. Bri gritted her teeth and urged her horse up the narrow land bridge toward the cliff. Too late to turn back now.
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