Page 9 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

Those heartbeats passed, and logic returned. This stranger held a sword and had chased me through the woods. He was no friend of mine.

“Who are you, and what business do you have in the Edgelands?”

“We have business with its king.”

“Its king has no business with mercenaries. Drop your weapons,” I said. “Turn around and go back in the direction you came. Any other movement and this arrow will be the last thing you see.” I pulled back the bowstring a hairsbreadth more.

“You don’t want to do that,” said the man in front. He took a step forward.

Fear was like an Anima now – the remaining soul of a lost life – casting deadly shadows across the forest.

I had to work to keep the bow lifted, the arrow straight, but I did. “Last chance. Turn around and go back to the border or meet Oblivion.” Our world was Terra; Anima lived in the second realm, the Aetheric, until they departed for the third realm, Oblivion. The land of nothingness.

“As I’m sure you noticed, that arrow isn’t a match for my army.”

“Your army isn’t welcome here.” Winning, my father often told me, doesn’t require the complete destruction of the enemy. The enemy only has to believe their destruction is possible. “Arrows kill as easily as swords,” I said. “And at a distance. Last chance.”

They watched me, rain dripping down their faces, but were otherwise still as statues.

They’d made their choice.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Release.

The arrow whistled through the air and struck the man in front. He stared at me, then looked down at the arrow now lodged in his thigh. “Didn’t think you’d…” he began. And then he crumpled.

* * *

Chaos erupted. Two of the soldiers reached for their fallen friend. One gave chase. I ran, pausing along the way to take three more warning shots.

I was out of breath and dripping wet when I broke through the trees, the forest giving way to land cleared generations ago for the village that comprised the Edgelands’ largest community. A chilling breeze poured down from the Two Sisters, still capped with ice. The peaks reached up across the northern horizon, the long-frozen river of ice between them. Foothills curled around to the left, meeting the thick earthen wall that surrounded the village. The Great Hall, tavern, smithy and other necessaries sat within the wall, and wooden houses and tiny shrines were tucked into niches in the foothills.

Graene waited at the gap in the wall, the iron gate, with its symbols of the Terran gods of protection, open for traders or neighbors. She looked me over. “Arrows?”

“Four. One definite hit. I shot the others in a hurry.”

She nodded, raised her gaze to the treeline. “They haven’t followed you.”

“They will,” I said, with dread sinking heavy in my belly. “I think it’s the Golden King.”

“The Golden—” she began, and fear covered her face, too.

They’d reach the village and gods knew we didn’t have the strength to fight an army. I worried for my friends, my parents. And thought of the old tales, which said no good happened to the daughters of dethroned kings.

Bannock, the man who stood guard near the gate today, looked down from the top of the wall. “Your Highness. Graene.”

A man waited inside the gate, apparently having been talking with Bannock. He was called Trevellyan, a rich merchant from Intarha who’d resettled in the Edgelands years ago in search of a new market. He’d become one of my father’s counselors. He was handsome, with dark hair and honed features, but that didn’t do enough to disguise his repellent personality.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and reached out as if to comfort me.

“Army,” I said, ignoring the gesture. “On the other side of the forest near the creek.”

He gave me a pitying look that managed to be condescending. “Just reivers, Your Highness. There’s no need for any army to come this way north.”

“Yeah,” Bannock said. “What would troops want up here?”