Prologue
The Ivy Awakens
Seven-year-old Mara Ellwood wakes to the sound of the ivy breathing.
At first, she thinks it’s only the wind pressing against the thin glass of her bedroom window, the kind that rattles the frame and makes the shadows sway across the walls. But then she hears it again—soft, rhythmic, almost like a whisper sliding beneath her covers.
mara…
She sits up.
Moonlight spills across the floorboards, pale and cold. Outside, the cottage garden is still. Nothing moves. But the ivy climbing the outside wall—normally dull, dark green—shimmers with a faint emerald glow. Its leaves uncurl toward her window as if they’re waking from a long sleep.
“Mama?” Mara’s voice is barely a breath.
Down the hallway, something crashes.
Then the hurried rustling of drawers. The sharp snap of a wooden box. Her mother’s footsteps race toward Mara’s room, quick and uneven.
The door bursts open.
“Mara—sweetheart—get up.” Her mother’s hands shake as she kneels beside the bed. Her dark hair is half-fallen from its braid, and a thin line of sweat glistens along her temple. “We need to leave. Now.”
Mara blinks at the glowing ivy. “Mama, it’s doing it again. The leaves are whispering.”
Her mother goes still. Not surprised—terrified.
The ivy brightens, a pulse of living green that spills across the room. Each leaf trembles. Each vine stretches closer to the glass, hungry to reach her.
The whisper comes again, clearer this time. Older.
mara… queen…
Her mother snatches something from her pocket—a silver ring, ancient-looking, its band carved with twisting vines. She presses it into Mara’s palm with urgent force.
“Listen to me,” she says, voice cracking. “You must never let anyone see this ring. Not ever. If someone tries to take it from you, you run. Promise me.”
“But—”
“Promise me.”
Mara nods, frightened. “I promise.”
A knock shakes the front door. Not polite. A command.
Her mother’s breath catches. “They found us.”
The ivy lashes against the window like it’s trying to break through. Shadows sweep past the glass—too tall, too sharp, too silent to be human. Mara clutches the ring so tightly its grooves cut into her skin.
“Mama… who are they?”
Her mother cups Mara’s face, forehead pressed to hers, eyes burning with a desperate, aching love.
“They’re the ones who want your crown,” she whispers. “The crown you can never let them claim.”
Another knock—louder. The cottage shudders.
Her mother pulls her toward the hidden door beneath the floorboards. “Go. Don’t look back. I’ll find you when it’s safe.”
“But I don’t understand!” Mara cries.
“You will. One day the ivy will awaken for you, and when it does—”
The whisper cuts her off, echoing through the room, through the walls, through Mara’s bones.
Queen.
The vines slam against the window with such force the glass cracks down the center.
Her mother freezes—just for a heartbeat—as if hearing a prophecy only she recognizes.
“Run, Mara,” she breathes. “Run before they make you what they want you to be.”
Mara drops through the hidden door into darkness. Her mother closes it, sealing Mara away from the glowing ivy and the masked shadows gathering outside.
The last thing Mara hears before the world goes silent is her mother’s voice, trembling and fierce:
“Forgive me.”
And the ivy whispering her name like a promise.
Queen.
