A Kiss So Cruel (The Fractured Crown Trilogy #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Allegra was dying, and all Briar could do was watch.

The monitors beeped their mechanical rhythm while her sister's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths that seemed too fragile to sustain life. Briar wrapped her fingers around Allegra's small hand, the skin fever-hot and papery beneath her touch. It wasn’t fair.

Less than a week ago, Allegra had burst through the front door of their small house, blue first place ribbon clutched in her fist, shouting about George's inability to spell spaghetti.

Now she lay still as carved marble, her dark hair fanned across the hospital pillow like spilled ink—machines doing the work her body had forgotten.

"Miss Delarosa?"

Briar turned to find Dr. Locklear in the doorway, clipboard pressed against her chest. The doctor's expression carried that particular weight medical professionals wore when delivering news they'd rather not share.

"Can we speak in the hall?"

Briar glanced at her mother's sleeping form in the corner cot. June's fingers twitched against the thin hospital blanket, caught in dreams that made her whimper like a wounded animal. Better to let her sleep. These days, consciousness brought no relief.

The hallway smelled of industrial disinfectant and despair. Other families huddled in waiting areas, their faces mirrors of Briar's own exhaustion. Dr. Locklear led her to a small alcove with two plastic chairs that had seen too much grief.

"The latest labs came back." The doctor's pen clicked against her clipboard in a nervous rhythm. "Her white cell count continues to drop. The fever shows no signs of breaking despite our interventions."

"What about the specialists from Portland?" Briar's voice came out rougher than intended. When had she last had water?

"They're... puzzled." Dr. Locklear's professional mask slipped for a moment, revealing the frustration beneath. "In thirty years of practice, I've never seen anything quite like this. The symptoms don't match any known pathogen or autoimmune condition. It's as if her body is simply... giving up."

The words hung heavy between them. Briar's fingernails dug crescents into her palms, the sharp pain keeping her anchored when everything else threatened to dissolve.

"There must be something else we can try. Experimental treatments, clinical trials—"

"We're exploring every option." The doctor leaned forward, her voice gentling. "But I need you to understand the reality of the situation. Without a diagnosis, we're fighting blind. We're managing symptoms, not treating the cause."

"How long?"

Dr. Locklear's pen stilled.

"At the current rate of decline... days. Maybe a week."

The floor seemed to tilt. Briar gripped the chair's metal frame until her knuckles went white. Days. After everything—their father's death, their mother's slow unraveling, the endless shifts at the diner and the coffee shop just to keep the lights on—they had days.

"Your mother mentioned something about alternative treatments." Dr. Locklear's tone shifted to carefully neutral. "Something about the forest?"

Ice flooded Briar's veins. She forced her expression to remain steady even as her pulse hammered. "My mother isn't well. The stress..."

"I understand. But at this point, with conventional medicine failing..." The doctor spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Some families find comfort in exploring every avenue, however unconventional."

"You're telling me to take my dying sister into the woods based on my mother's delusions?"

"I'm telling you that sometimes hope matters more than logic." Dr. Locklear stood, smoothing her white coat. "We'll continue doing everything we can. But perhaps… Perhaps there are things beyond what medicine can explain."

The doctor left Briar alone with those words echoing in the sterile air. Beyond what medicine can explain. As if Briar hadn't spent twenty years watching her mother chase shadows through trees, muttering about bargains and kings and debts unpaid.

She returned to find June awake, perched on the edge of Allegra's bed with her fingers tangled in her daughter's hair. The afternoon light streaming through the window caught the silver threading through June's dark strands. When had her mother gotten so old?

"She's cooler," June whispered without looking up. "Just a little, but I can feel it."

Briar pressed her palm to Allegra's forehead. The fever still raged, turning her sister's skin into a furnace that consumed itself from within. "Mom…"

"You have to go into the forest, Briar." The words tumbled out in a desperate rush. June's hands trembled as she stroked Allegra's cheek. "Today. While there's still time."

Heat crawled up Briar's neck. Not this. Not now.

Twenty-five years of the same delusion, the same story that had made them the town's charity case.

The crazy woman who believed in fairy tales.

How many parent-teacher conferences had Briar sat through, watching teachers' expressions shift from concern to pity when June mentioned the forest king?

How many times had Child Services shown up because June told the wrong person about her "bargain"?

And now, with Allegra burning up from the inside, her mother wanted to retreat into fantasy again.

June's fingers found the scar along her lower back, picking at it the way she always did when the forest stories started. "I know you don't believe me. I know you think—"

"There is no goblin king!" The words exploded out before Briar could stop them. A nurse glanced through the door window, and Briar forced her voice lower. "There is no bargain. There's just a sick little girl who needs real medicine, not fairy tales."

"You're wrong, Briar. He saved us both that night. You were so small inside me, barely holding on after the accident…"

"You were traumatized." Briar's hands clenched in her lap. “You created a fantasy to cope, and I've spent my entire life dealing with the fallout."

June flinched, her shoulders curling inward. The familiar fog crept back into her eyes as she retreated from Briar's anger. "I... I know how it sounds. I know you don't..."

She trailed off, fingers still worrying at the scar. The silence stretched between them, broken only by Allegra's labored breathing and the steady beep of monitors.

"Mom." Briar forced her voice softer, seeing her mother shrink into herself. "I can't do this right now. Not with Allegra like this."

"But the forest—"

"Please." The word came out raw. "Just... please stop."

June's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she nodded, turning back to Allegra. But her lips kept moving, forming silent words Briar knew by heart. Into the forest. Find him. Make a bargain.

The monitors continued their electronic lullaby. Somewhere down the hall, a child cried for their mother. Briar wanted to shake June, to scream, to do something to shatter this recurring nightmare of delusion and magical thinking. But Allegra's labored breathing held her still.

"Even if I believed you," Briar said carefully, "what exactly am I supposed to do? Walk into the woods and yell for the goblin king? Hope some fairy tale creature takes pity on us?"

"You find him." June's voice was small now, almost childlike. "You go to the old growth forest past Miller's Creek. You walk until the paths stop making sense. And when you can't find your way back, he'll find you."

"This is insane."

"Please." The word cracked on a sob. June's carefully maintained composure crumbled like wet sand. "Please, Briar. I can't lose her. I can't... I can't lose my baby too."

Briar stared at her mother's tear-streaked face, at the desperation etched into every line. Behind them, Allegra's breathing hitched, stuttered, then resumed its fragile rhythm. The sound drove a spike of pure terror through Briar's chest.

Days. Maybe a week.

"If I do this," she heard herself say, "if I go to the forest and find nothing—because there will be nothing to find—you have to promise me something."

Hope bloomed across June's features like sunrise. "Anything."

"You stop this. All of it. No more stories about bargains and kings. No more disappearing into fantasies while the real world falls apart around us. You get help, real help, and you focus on being present for whatever time Allegra has left."

The words tasted bitter, like admitting defeat. June's throat worked as she swallowed, her gaze sliding to her dying daughter.

"All right," she whispered. "If you don’t find anything, I'll... I'll stop."

Briar rose on legs that felt disconnected from her body. She pressed a kiss to Allegra's burning forehead, breathing in the scent of shampoo and antiseptic that clung to her sister's skin.

"I'll be back soon, Ally-cat," she murmured against the fever-damp hair. "Try to hang on for me, okay?"

No response. Just the machines and the monitors and the terrible weight of borrowed time running out.

The car's engine hummed beneath Briar's white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

Mile markers blurred past as she drove deeper into the mountains, each one carrying her further from reason and closer to desperation.

The GPS had lost signal twenty minutes ago, leaving her with nothing but faded road signs and the sick certainty that she was making a terrible mistake.

This is insane, she told herself for the hundredth time. Chasing fairy tales while Allegra dies.

But what choice did she have? The doctors had run out of options, their careful explanations dissolving into medical jargon that all meant the same thing: there was nothing more they could do.

And June... God, June was barely holding it together as it was.

If they lost Allegra, her mother would shatter completely, retreating into that familiar emotional void where Briar could never reach her.