PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
The Kingdom of Bargth
The child still wasn’t breathing.
The midwife and servants watched Queen Wairn where she sat upon the plush bed, cradling the tiny bundle wrapped in cream wool. She rocked and rocked, pressing her silent daughter close to her chest, as if her stubborn love might coax a heartbeat into those tiny ribs.
Outside, rain furiously hammered the palace windows, the gods themselves weeping for a loss the Queen refused to acknowledge. Along the walls, the handmaidens stood with downcast eyes, barely daring to breathe. None of them would say a prayer, nor offer condolences, or make mention of the grave.
Death was not permitted in this room tonight.
The head midwife’s eyes filled with pity, exhausted from trying to convince her lady to give up the body. “Your Majesty…”
Wairn’s head snapped up, brown eyes blazing. “Enough.”
The woman immediately bowed and stepped back.
The Queen looked down again at her daughter’s porcelain face. Tiny fingers, the softest cheeks, and a little nose that looked exactly like her father’s. The infant was flawless, but she simply refused to live.
“You’re only tired, my sweet one,” Wairn whispered, brushing a thumb across the cold skin. “That’s all. Just tired.”
It had been years of waiting, watching her hopes crushed again and again while noblewomen smiled sadly at her, whispering behind their fans that perhaps the gods had cursed her womb like everyone else in the human realm. And now, this.
An urgent knock came before the doors burst open. A soaked guard stumbled in, storm-water dripping from his cloak. “My Queen! The King has returned!”
Wairn surged to her feet, ignoring the deep ache still radiating through her body from the labor. Midwives rushed forward to support her as she winced, but she shoved them aside, shielding her baby against her chest as she hurried into the corridor.
Hope had come. Her own pain did not matter as long as she could run toward it.
She didn’t stop until she flung open the towering silver doors of the throne room. There she halted, breath caught in her throat at a sight no man would dare imagine.
King Cornelius—her stubborn husband, the monarch who had marched through blood and conquered three realms without ever lowering his chin—knelt upon the floor, his forehead bowed flat to the stone.
And upon his golden throne sat a child.
A boy who looked no older than seven or eight, his silver hair cascading over narrow shoulders. Striking, pale eyes stared out, seeming far too ancient for such a young face.
The air grew colder, disturbing. Torch flames shrank back as if afraid. Every servant present stared fixedly at the floor, trembling under the weight of the vast and unnatural atmosphere.
Wairn fell to her knees, sinking down beside her husband, her arms still clutching her daughter.
The boy tilted his head, watching them both with disdain, his lips curling up into a sneer. “You summoned me. For this?” His gaze dropped to the wool bundle in her arms.
The Queen’s throat went dry as a desert. “Please… they say she is gone. Save her.”
He regarded the dead infant with the curiosity of a child examining a crushed beetle. “Why should I mend something that doesn’t work?”
“Because I carried her for months and felt her move inside me. I love her more than anything in this world.” Wairn blinked away the tears burning her eyes. “Take my life for hers. I offer you my soul.”
“I have no use for a withered soul, Wairn.” The Fae Lord stood up, and the candles nearest to him guttered and died.
As he glided down the dais, shadows slid from the corners of the hall, rushing to his side. They swirled around his small boots like a pack of loyal hounds bowing to their master, following him until he stopped directly in front of her. Up close, his beauty was innocent, but the gaze he leveled at her was pure winter.
“Give her to me.”
Wairn’s instincts screamed at her to refuse and shield her child. But desperation won. With trembling hands, she surrendered her stillborn daughter into his arms.
Looking down at the infant, he adjusted the blanket around her shoulder, holding her with more care than Wairn had expected from a creature so detached. A wicked, tiny smile touched his lips.
He pressed a pale finger right over the baby’s heart. Anticipation choked Wairn’s throat. For several agonizing heartbeats, the entire world seemed to stop.
Then, the shadows exploded.
They rushed up the limestone pillars, extinguishing every torch until the throne room was plunged into blackness.The temperature plummeted so fast that Wairn’s breath misted thickly in the sudden frost.
When the shadows finally rushed back to him, coiling obediently under his feet, a tiny cough sounded. Then another. And then, the furious, piercing cry of a newborn.
The sound was the most beautiful thing Wairn had ever heard.
The boy handed the now-screaming, flush-pink baby back to her mother. “Alive,” he murmured, sounding mildly bored by the noise.
Wairn sobbed, burying her face to her daughter’s warm, breathing skin. Beside her, Cornelius covered his face, his broad shoulders shaking with the relief of seeing his only heir alive.
“We will honor the pact, my lord,” the King rasped from the floor. “Whatever gold, whatever lands you require—”
“I do not want your dirt, Cornelius. Nor your shiny metal.” The Fae Lord turned, walking back toward the throne, his small silhouette casting the shape of a massive, winged beast on the stone wall behind him.
He paused on the top step, looking back over his shoulder with ancient, faintly gleaming silver eyes.
“Raise her well. Keep her safe, and do not bother hiding her,” he muttered, the boyish innocence bleeding out of his voice completely. “Because when the time comes, she will be returned.”
