Chapter 2
Belle
We rode north, spending the twilight hours searching for survivors and tending to the wounded.
The beast had attacked two other farms, leaving four more dead and one man maimed.
There was much to do. Frightened children to calm, animals to pen, the wounded to carry inside. By the end of the night, I was hollow.
Neighbors arrived from the surrounding farms, bringing comfort and steady hands. Ella was a light drawing them in. Men bowed awkwardly. The goodwives whispered, content to hover in her orbit.
How my sister had grown into her crown.
While Ella moved among her people, I stayed with the children, playing games of jacks and stones.
When the immediate work had been done, and it was time to leave the families to their grief, we withdrew to our horses. My sister turned her back on the little farm, and the strength in her face faded, consumed by exhaustion. She slipped into my arms, and I held her.
“This is all my fault,” she whispered, a subtle quake to her voice.
My arms tightened around her. “You had nothing to do with this.”
“But I did. I broke the mages’ spell over this kingdom. It kept the beasts away.”
“Breaking that spell gave our people their magic back. Don’t let the cost erase that.”
“Magic may have returned, but there’s no one strong enough to stop the beasts. Fates know I’m not.” Her shoulders sagged, and she leaned against me. “I’m so tired.”
I stroked my fingers through her long silver hair, just like when she was a girl. “I know.”
Every day since the beasts had started raiding, she’d ridden into the forest to awaken the trees as sentinels, but there was no way she could enchant the entire forest. Even Siggy, the old seer who’d taught me the ways of the forest and Ella her magic, had no answers.
I stepped back, holding my sister at arm’s length. “We’ll find a way to stop them.”
My voice was soft but stern, the same one I’d used to ground her since childhood—and yet, the words felt painfully hollow.
Ella nodded, a little of the queen in her returned. “We’ll find a way.”
We mounted our horses and headed up the dark road. Her gaze kept drifting to the forest at the edge of the Vale. She was thinking of Cassius. I knew the lines of worry at the corners of her mouth.
The Fates had been cruel to them. They’d barely had a chance to enjoy being newlyweds before the beasts came. The afterglow of their ceremony had faded beneath the full weight of duty.
Neither of them had asked for the burden of rule.
Ella and I grew up on a manor. She’d never dreamed of being queen, let alone wielding the power to protect our kingdom. Cassius despised the immortal court and wanted nothing to do with the throne, but his brother had left him no choice.
Valen. His name was a curse. The vicious bastard had abandoned his crown half a century ago, leaving us to suffer beneath the mages and their lies, and vanishing into the cursed woods.
Now my sister was paying the price.
“I don’t like the idea of you staying at the manor alone,” Ella said, breaking the silence as we rode.
“I haven’t stayed there for some time.”
The house was too empty with Ella living at Silverthorn.
Our stepmother had left the Bloodvale after the wedding—she’d sooner cut ties with both of us than accept a bloodsucker son-in-law.
I didn’t blame her entirely. I’d spent years in the resistance beside her, hating every immortal in that castle.
Ella may have changed my mind about one of them, but not about the rest.
That left just me, the memories of our parents, and a house too quiet to sleep in.
“Stay with me at Silverthorn,” she said. “I know you hate it, but it would just be for tonight.”
I shook my head. The castle and its bloodthirsty court made my skin crawl. “I’ve been staying with Marcel and his family. They’re expecting me.”
Marcel had been our father’s trading partner. After Papa had died, he’d stepped in as much as he could while our stepmother grieved. Over time, he’d become a mentor and the closest thing I had to a father left in this life. His door was always open, with a narrow bed made up for me in the loft.
Ella smiled. “Marcel. That’s good. I’ll ride with you as far as his house.”
Marcel was sitting by the fire when I returned, maps and ledgers spread before him. He leaned back, raising his eyebrows in question. “You’re quite late tonight. Something happen?”
My lips parted, but I snapped my mouth shut as a pair of rowdy children burst into the room, wrapping their arms around me. “Momma said we could have a story!”
“Let her eat,” their father ordered gruffly, then glanced at me. “Maeve saved you some stew in the kettle.”
“It’s fine,” I laughed, dropping down to look the children in the eyes. “It’s past your bedtime, and I think a story is definitely in order.”
They cheered, and for the first time all night, I smiled. Reading to them had become one of the great joys of my life—just as Papa had once read to Ella and me.
The fire had burned low by the time I’d tucked Marcel’s feisty children in and returned to the main room. Maeve brought me stew, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat.
“There was an attack,” I muttered, leaning back against the warm stones of the hearth, more exhausted than I recalled ever feeling before. “One of the worst yet.”
Marcel sighed and sat back, rubbing his brow. “Anyone we know?”
I shook my head—not that it made a difference.
“The queen will find a way to stop it,” he said with certainty, and began tidying his papers. He was planning a journey to the north, intending to be the first merchant to move on the northern trade routes now that Cassius had opened the borders of the Bloodvale.
I was familiar with his mess of ledgers and hastily written notes, as he’d begun teaching me his craft. Accounting. Speculation. How to turn rumors into profit. He’d even promised to take me on a trading mission one day…if I could master the math.
I might as well try to make a table fly.
Before he could roll up his map, I slid it to me and traced my fingers down the line of mountains that divided our valley from the towns in the north. It was a region without kings, ruled by petty lords and bordered by the dark reaches of the cursed woods.
“How do the people in the north handle the beasts?” I asked, my fingers tapping one of the villages nestled along the perimeter of the forest.
Marcel grunted. “They live in fear behind stone walls and palisades. Hopefully, this place doesn’t become like that. We don’t have the quarries for it.”
“But how do the farms and shepherds survive?”
His expression darkened. “I don’t know. I’ve only ever ventured north a few times and never thought to ask. I was always more concerned with getting behind the next set of sturdy town walls.”
“They must’ve found a way to keep the beasts away. Magic spells or deterrents or ways to hunt them. They must have something.”
“Or maybe they’ve just gotten used to living with death,” he muttered.
That couldn’t be it. There had to be answers.
“I want to go north with you.”
Marcel barked out a laugh. “You’re mad. Life on the road is rough for a woman, even at the best of times, and the woods are perilous beyond our borders.” He leaned forward, looking me in the eyes. “You know that better than most.”
My throat tightened.
Our father had been killed on the road. Our stepmother, heart shattered, had insisted we hide the truth from Ella, who was too young and fragile to understand at the time. Instead of protecting her, the lie had festered and fractured our family.
“You’re going because the risk is worth the reward,” I said. “If we could find an answer—”
“I’m going because I’m an old fool,” he said, running his fingers through his gray beard. “But I’ll make a bargain with you. You’ve done well in your studies. After I return, I’ll take you with me on my next venture to Mirelen Bay and Port Amara.”
Amara. My heart quickened. Papa had enraptured us with stories of the port, with its forest of masts and wide bay glinting crystal blue in the sun. Its library was said to hold a hundred thousand books—enough for a lifetime. Ella and I had always dreamed of going.
But Amara didn’t have the answers my kingdom needed.
I shook my head. “Ella is risking her life to keep the beasts back. I can’t just sit by and do nothing.”
Maeve joined us, laying her hand on my arm. “No one expects you to be your sister, my love.”
I might not have magic, but that didn’t mean I was helpless.
Gathering information was something I could do, something I was good at. It’s what I’d done for the resistance—eavesdropping on immortals in the castle, listening while they spoke freely on the hunt. Noting everything. Bringing it all back to my stepmother.
“If anyone knows how to survive the beasts, it’s the people living in the north.” I turned back to Marcel, placing my finger on the map. “While you’re selling ice wine and wool, I can speak to the villagers. Someone must know something.”
The old man stood and took my hand, gently pressing it between his. “You’re a daughter to me, Belle. The thought of bringing you into danger…”
“There’s danger here.” I looked from him to Maeve, my chest tight. “You have a daughter and a son. That’s who I’m trying to protect—them and Ella. Everyone in this valley. That’s why I must go.”