Beasts of Briar (Stolen Crowns #5)

Prologue

BELLAMY

M y earliest memory was frolicking through the Wilds. It was not a place a young child should frolic, but I’d grown up in the Wilds, and it was as much a part of me as I was a part of it. It was all I knew.

I wasn’t scared of the trees with eyes or the towering plants that would eat you should you come too close. I didn’t fear the lake that told of your future or the tall reeds that would drug you with their intoxicating scent. I’d learned how to survive in the Wilds.

But on one particular day, when I was just five years old, I’d been foolish. My father had told me I must stay in the castle that morning. I was to study with my older brother Phoenix. He was teaching me my letters. Letters that I didn’t care about. Not when I could do much more fun things like swing on a vine into a clear pond near our home.

So while my brothers were having their magic lessons with Father, I snuck out of the abandoned castle we’d made into our home after the fall of the star court and ran to my favorite swinging spot.

Only on that day, I didn’t anticipate the dangers that lay in the Wilds. Although I’d learned most of them, some still remained enigmas. Some were still a weakness to me.

I frolicked through the reeds that emitted a lavender haze that would drug anyone who didn’t know the reeds’ secrets. As long as you didn’t step on them, they wouldn’t drug you. The haze was only a defense mechanism. I ran my fingers through the reeds, eyeing the tall trees in the distance that crowded around the pond where I liked to swim. It was one of the only ponds in the Wilds that didn’t have monsters lurking under the surface.

The stars twinkled in the twilight sky overhead, ribbons of green threading through the purple, lighting the world temporarily with an emerald hue.

Sometimes I would lay among the reeds and imagine what life must’ve been like before the star court had been destroyed.

I imagined the villages, the star elementals. I imagined what it would be like to have other children to play with instead of monsters. My father and brothers told me stories of the star court, what it was like before everything had been destroyed, before most of the elementals had been killed, before the ones who survived had been cursed and turned into the monstrous creatures that now roamed the Wilds.

Thankfully, my father and brothers had been spared from the curse, and so had I, since I’d been in my mother’s belly, protected from it all, born after the damage had been done.

I neared the line of tall trees, the eyes set in their trunks swiveling toward me, watching as I approached.

“It’s just me,” I said to them.

The reeds rustled, and I paused. My father and brothers had taught me to notice the signs of danger, had taught me what to do should I encounter a monster I couldn’t fight against in the Wilds.

A cat-like creature emerged from the reeds. Purple fur sprouted along her entire body, orange stripes slashing through the fur. I recognized her instantly. My mother. Or, more accurately, the woman who’d birthed me. She couldn’t be called a mother. She had been. Once. To my brothers. They told me wonderful stories about her. But while they’d been spared from the curse, she had not, turning into one of the monstrous creatures who now roamed the Wilds. Shortly after she’d given birth to me, she disappeared, and that was that.

“What are you doing out here all alone, little girl?” she asked as she circled me, her yellow eyes bright with excitement.

I raised my chin. “I’m not alone.”

“Really?” She smiled, flashing her sharp teeth. “And who’s with you?”

I spread my arms. “The hazy reeds. The seeing trees.” I pointed behind her.

Her smile grew wider. “Ah. Where are your father and brothers?”

“Back at the castle,” I said airily. “They don’t know I snuck out.”

“Mm,” she said. “That’s an interesting piece of information. Where are you headed, little girl?”

“It’s Bellamy.” My nose wrinkled. I didn’t like being called a little girl. My brothers treated me too much like one, so protective all the time. I wanted to be big like them.

She made a choking sound, like the name offended her.

“And I’m headed to Crystal Pond. To swing off the vines and swim.”

Her tail twitched. She finally stopped circling, coming to a stand in front of me.

Whiskers stuck out from her cheeks, black and pointy. I wondered if she saw something of me in her former self. My black hair, my brown eyes, my pale skin. My angular face. Did any of it look familiar to her? I’d inherited my father’s wild black hair, but I’d been told my brown eyes were similar to hers.

My brothers and father had warned me to stay away from this cat woman. They told me if I ever encountered her I was to turn and run, to find them. But she didn’t seem so bad. Besides, if I ran home, I’d get in trouble and then I’d never get to go to Crystal Pond.

“So you like to swing from vines?” she finally said.

I gave an unsure nod.

“Well, then you must come to the lake on the other side of the forest.” She pointed a long claw toward the trees. “It doesn’t just have a vine you can swing off of.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “It has a cliff. A tall, tall cliff you can jump from. And a waterfall.”

I gasped. I’d never seen a waterfall, other than in books my brothers read to me.

“Come,” she said, curling her tail around my waist. “I can show you.”

“Get away from her.” A voice rang out over the field.

I whipped around to see my seven brothers marching toward us, all of them with various shades of blond and brown hair. Whereas I took after my father with my dark hair and fair complexion, they took after our mother with their lighter strands and pale skin.

The cat woman hissed at them.

“Really, Mother, this is low, even for you,” Jorah said.

He was the oldest of my brothers, the tallest, and his long blonde hair glinted under the ribbons of green flashing in the sky, wavy and resting on his shoulders.

Ryder stepped forward. He was the second oldest, the bossiest. “Come, Bellamy.” He gestured for me with his thick arms. He was the stockiest of my brothers, which also made him the one that gave the best bear hugs.

I stuck out my tongue. “No.” I didn’t want to go with them. I wanted to jump off a cliff.

The cat woman snickered behind me.

“She’s your daughter,” Jorah said, voice hard as stone. My other brothers crowded behind Jorah, all of them glaring at our mother.

“She’s not my daughter,” the cat woman snapped.

Unexpectedly, tears sprang to my eyes. Maybe a small part of me had hoped we’d bond if I went with her. That she’d recognize me. That I could finally have a mother.

“Oh, Bell.” Solomon, the youngest, stepped forward and wrapped me in his skinny arms. Even though he was eight years older than me, he was closest in age, and I’d always felt a kinship with him. “It’s alright.”

I sniffled as he drew me back with him.

“Leave her alone,” Jorah said. “If you try something like that again, you will have us to answer to.”

“Unless she wanders again,” the cat woman said, not seeming remotely bothered by my brother’s threat. “Tell your little pet to stay where she belongs. Otherwise, she’s fair game.”

I swallowed as she disappeared into the trees, and Solomon drew me tighter into his chest. Then, I slowly felt all my brothers crowding around, hugging me, kissing my hair, murmuring that they’d always protect me. If only that were true. If only I could promise the same to them.