AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That was how they’d come so far into our territory without being seen. And surely how the princess had dropped out of the sky into Northgall. Only something had happened and she’d been captured.
I watched her leave. The falling snow and billowing clouds swallowed them, blurring their figures, but I caught a flash of violet as she looked back over her brother’s shoulder.
Then they were gone.
Rising to my feet, my wounds a mere ache with no pain, a new flame burned white-hot around my heart. This flame was for my father.
I smiled, a twisted sort of joy burning through my soul. He’d put me in that infernal gorge of hell, expecting me to rot and waste away into death. But his spiteful brutality was not strong enough to kill me.
For whatever reason, the god Vix gave me the strength to break my father’s wards and fulfill a prophecy he tried to prevent. Now more than ever, I knew my rightful path.
A soft voice and fair eyes flickered across my mind. I blinked it away.
Peering over my shoulder, I eyed the pinnacles of Näkt Mir jutting toward the winter sky, then I turned back toward the woods and walked on. Vayla was right. My path was resolute and sure—to take my father’s throne.
Chapter 1
FIVE YEARS LATER
UNA
“How long hasit been since he’s spoken?” The burly wood fae stood opposite me his son’s bed between us.
“Three or four weeks.” He stared down helplessly at his sleeping son who couldn’t be more than ten years old. “My sister watches him by day when I’m at the mill.” He gestured outside.
His house was on the outskirts of Issos where his mill was situated on the river. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he earned a good wage and employed others in the trade of grinding grain for the bakers of Issos.
“My sister gave him a sleeping draught before she left so he might get some proper rest.” He looked again at the boy. “I do what I can, but I need to work. I need the coin to care for him.”
I took a seat in the chair beside the boy’s bed and held out my hand to Min, my handmaiden and dearest friend who came with me everywhere. Frowning, she handed me the healing orb.
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, sir,” I told him.
He rubbed a hand through his tousled hair, his pointed ears tipped red like his cheeks, emotion coloring his face.
“I don’t know how to help him,” he whispered with anguish.
“We don’t have a cure,” I told him honestly, taking the luminous white healing orb in its iron cage from Min and set it in its holder on the table beside the boy’s head. “But we’ve found ways to ease the pain and extend life.”
Her green wings quivered at her back, something she did when nervous. Min was my lady in waiting, but also my closest friend. She didn’t like leaving the palace, even heavily guarded as we were. But I simply couldn’t remain holed up when news came that yet another light fae was in the throes of the Parviana Plague. My own father was in his sick bed and had not spoken for the past seven months.
I gave Min a smile of reassurance then turned to the miller. “This healing orb will help with the pain.” As it had for my father the past year.
“I can’t thank you enough, my lady.” The miller clasped his hands together in earnest. “I can’t pay much, but—”
“No need for payment,” I told him. “We are all suffering while this plague sickens our loved ones.” I turned back to look at the boy, brushing his bangs away from his forehead. “It’s my duty to help those I can.”
When I entered this one-room home, a family table for eating and two beds against the back wall for sleeping, I knew this was a humble man with little means. And I didn’t care if my brother complained that I gave away valuable resources needed for soldiers in the battlefields. He could wage my father’s war against the dark fae abroad while I battled this plague taking root in homes across our land.
I didn’t fear catching the sickness from touching the boy. I’d been at my father’s bedside ever since the plague had put him there.
“What’s his name?” I cupped his cheek to find it unnaturally cold, as expected.
“Aven.”
For the thousandth time, I wished I had my healing magick so that I might help him. Or at least try.
I gently lifted one of his eyelids with the pad of my finger. His green iris was ringed white, the tell-tale sign of the plague taking root. The disease now moved faster through the body than it did when my father first caught it almost two years ago. Others had caught it and died within a year. Papa still lived, though barely.
