Chapter One
Piris
Lady Piris Volesion strode into the royal meeting rooms on long legs covered by a simple navy travel dress, which just happened to conceal her sharpest blade, strapped to her thigh. Head held high and back straight and sure, she gave a wide smile to her best friend, Princess Strella, who was seated at the impressive oak table. Princess Strella had been princess of the Winterlands for about a month, but she’d been Piris’s friend, her sister, for most of their lives. When she saw her friend’s worried expression, her suspicions about this meeting soared, although her sure steps didn’t falter.
As expected, King Frit and Queen Alene were at the head of the table. The frail king was seated, his warrior wife standing at his side, gripping his shoulder as one of her snowy owls gripped her own and surveyed the room with a fighter’s attention. Prince Ghel sat close at their right, his eyes as hard as one of his mother’s birds of prey, always at the ready to protect if necessary. He looked forever cold and hard, like the landscape of his kingdom, the Fae Winterlands, but Piris knew different. She’d witnessed firsthand how his gruff exterior vanished at the touch and concern of her friend, the princess seated close to his right. Strella’s icy exterior appeared as impeccable as always—white-blonde hair artfully wavy and impossibly light-blue eyes fixed on Piris. Her shimmering gray dress, the color of the Winterland skies most middays, echoed the skies around the Ice Plains just outside the Winterlands Palace gates.
Lady Piris took all of this in, running scenarios in her mind, as Prince Jarok, who’d fetched her for this meeting, brushed past her to take his seat at the left hand of his parents. Her teeth ground, the sound grating in her own head and loud enough to get a smirk from the arrogant prince as he moved away from her.
The Fae male was a fighter, like most in his family, except he was all lean- muscled strength and stealth compared to the bulk of his brother. Made sense to her, as they weren’t blood related. No one brought it up, of course, or implied he was less a part of the family. She’d heard stories of years ago, when nobles occasionally whispered about the differences and what they implied, but Ghel and Queen Alene shut such talk down with force, and King Frit, before his illness, was equally as impressive in his anger and wrath. All who knew the royals had learned early on they’d have a serious fight on their hands if they so much as hinted at Prince Jarok not being a true part of the family.
Piris wondered if this had instilled his arrogance and entitlement, but squashed the idea quickly. It was love, true and simple, that made his family defend him. He, for his part, acted the same for them, something she had to at least begrudgingly respect when she found little else to respect about the man. He cared for his family, at any cost, something she’d experienced firsthand when he’d focused his attentions on her, his mind certain she was a threat because of their disastrous first meeting. He’d eased some over the weeks they’d known each other, which was surprising, given he now knew the secret of her magic: that she was no null as everyone had believed but a mimic, wielding the affinity most feared in the minds of many Fae. He said little of her magic, but his wicked tongue still lashed out at her every chance he got, and his condescending sneers and looks lingered long on her.
Lady Piris Volesion was curt, prickly, and sarcastic at times. She was able to hold her own in a verbal or physical altercation, so she wasn’t worried about Jarok getting in too many hits. She was worried about spending more time with him, although the idea of going home put a pit in her stomach. She’d miss Strella, and didn’t want to have to confess to her parents the royals now knew the secret they’d kept for so long. Her father would likely erupt and, even worse, her mother might cry, but she would be happy to have distance from the infuriating prince who always seemed to get a rise out of her, no matter how hard she tried to ignore him.
“Lady Piris Volesion, please. Come closer.” The king called her forward, waving a hand for her to the edge of the table. She’d stopped several feet away before giving a deep curtsy of respect. Too far away for his liking, apparently. She spared a quick glance at Strella, who’d started twirling a strand of hair on her forefinger, then braced. The outward sign of Strella’s worry made her even more wary than Prince Jarok’s words to her when he showed in her room earlier: “We are required in the royal meeting room.”
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, lady,” the king said, a small but tight smile on his face. His words brought her back to the issue at hand.
“Of course, Your Graces,” she said, doing another dip and small bow of the head to the king and queen.
“As you are well aware, Lady Piris, we have… issues we need to overcome, for the good of all the Winterlands,” the king said. Piris managed to keep herself from snorting at the understatement. They’d defended their land from an internal warrior rebellion, thanks to Ghel and Strella.
Ghel and the Winterlands forces had met the amassed army outside the palace, in the cold, frozen wastes of the Ice Plains, and struck down many who came against him, including the rebel leader himself. He had only had the chance because her brave friend had ridden out in the heat of battle, alone, to warn the prince of the treachery of her father. Despite winning the battle, Prince Ghel’s mercy allowed the leader of the rebellion, Engad Monti, to slip from their grasp, killing a slew of Winterland soldiers who guarded him and disappearing.
Now, word in the land said he was hiding with the Monti Benders, a contingent of elite archers he’d groomed to fight at his side. They were formidable and, now hidden, enemies the Borau royals couldn’t afford to leave free in their lands. More importantly, the group seemed bent on destruction, killing any who opposed them as they gathered what forces they could. To what end, she could only guess. Likely some devastating attack on the royals again, which made her blood boil. Her best friend, her sister, was now one of those royals who very well could be under attack. Soon, if Monti was given enough time.
Queen Alene nodded in support of her husband, her dark eyes assessing Piris so thoroughly she itched to squirm under her gaze. She knew—they all now knew—what she was. A piece of her also knew what they would be asking of her, at least in the abstract. The details would be different, sure, but her fighter trainer had told her what was coming before the words were spoken.
Prince Ghel waded into the conversation, taking ownership, as a good man would. “Piris, I’ve come up with a plan which could help us uncover the Monti’s whereabouts in a more covert manner.”
“A plan you may or may not take up,” Strella interjected, conviction in her words. Strella would always fight for her, and if Piris didn’t agree to the ask coming her way, the princess would ensure there would be no consequences, even going toe-to-toe with her new family to do so. Because Strella and Piris were old family, not by blood but by bond, and the loyalty for each ran deep. Which meant Piris would agree to whatever plan they had concocted if it meant keeping her best friend safe from future Engad Monti attacks. Gods be damned, she was stuck either way, despite the fact she would be asked rather than commanded to do something.
“Given your special gifts…” Ghel continued, slightly uncomfortable.
“My magic?” she asked, her brows arched. She’d revealed her secret, her magic, of the power of mimicry, to help Strella save Ghel in battle. Now the entire royal family, and the Autumnlands Lord Cylian Padalist more than likely, knew she could manipulate sound, mimic anything she heard, and mimic the powers of others, reproducing any form of magic she’d witnessed. It was a formidable magic, historically manipulated and used by Fae leaders for their own advantage. Or hunted down and erased so it couldn’t be passed, thought by some fanatics to be an abomination for whatever ridiculous reason they concocted in their heads. Hence the reason why no one beside her mother, father, and Strella knew of her abilities until recently. Everyone’d thought her a null and had shunned her because of her lack of power, never realizing she held one of the rarest and most coveted or condemned gifts in all of Fae, depending on who one asked. Now, the royals of the Winterlands knew, because she’d chosen to reveal it in service of her friend. In service of Prince Ghel. She trusted Strella to be at her back and ensure they didn’t use it to take advantage of her, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t ask things of her, things they might not ask other ladies to do who weren’t mimics.
“Your magic is impressive, yes,” the Queen said, “and might well come in handy on such a mission. However, we are more concerned with your fighting ability.”
Ah. They knew she was a fighter from Prince Jarok, or simply because one Fae trained in combat could always spot another. The movements of the body, the look in the eye, always seemed to give it away to anyone paying attention to such things. Her father, Lord Brettly Volesion, had trained her in secret after they had spread the rumor she was a null, helping her control her magic while also teaching her offensive and defensive skills. It was written on her body, as it was written on all the Boraus, so it was a toss-up how they knew about her training. She, however, liked to blame Prince Jarok, so she cut him a scathing look before continuing the conversation. “What do you wish of me?”
Ghel said, “We wish, Piris, to escort you to your home. You planned to leave soon, correct? We suggest you leave with Lord Padalist, my cousin Gem Aurora, and Prince Jarok as escort.”
“I don’t require an escort.”
“Of course not,” the Queen said, “but it gives my son and Lord Cylian an excuse to ride through the land, picking up information along the way, while not attracting too much attention.”
“Excuse me, Your Grace, but why? Could they not simply journey alone, themselves, to gather information?”
“True,” Prince Ghel answered for his mother. “However, having a justifiable reason helps with such missions. A prince can go anywhere they wish, but after an open rebellion? With a lord of another realm? It might create too many questions, which in turn draws too much attention. Possibly the attention of Monti and his Benders. While we wish to find and confront them, we would like to do so with additional information and on our own terms.”
Piris swallowed hard at the thought of Lord Cylian, whom she liked, being attacked by the Benders without additional aid. She told herself she didn’t care if the same happened to Prince Jarok.
“I’m a fighter, as you say, and far less suspicious given your logic. Why not have me journey home, as planned, gathering any information along the way, which I can then relay back to you once I reach Volesion Peak?”
King Frit, quiet for so long, spoke. “Dear Lady Piris, we are assured by the fact you can take care of yourself in any possible scrimmages along the way. Your strength, however, is not all the help you can provide your crown. We might also need the help of Volesion Peak and your father, Lord Brettly Volesion.”
“Others would expect you to have an escort, Piris,” Strella said, soft and true. She’d want someone to go with her regardless.
The king nodded in agreement, then continued. “Thanks to some scouting, we have reason to believe the missing Monti and his Benders are in hiding close to the Great River. Your family home, Volesion Peak, would be a good starting point to investigate such claims.”
The picture cleared for Piris. They’d assembled a group of fighters, along with a few savvy Fae used to gathering information, and given them a plausible reason to travel so far from the Winterlands Palace after a direct attack, and one in the group also happened to have a connection to an ally they needed in the moment. It made sense, but it didn’t mean she had to like the plan. Or all of the people she’d be required to spend time with to execute it.
She looked over at the younger prince, and Jarok smirked at her, making her blood pound and her fists clench. Damn, she would say yes, but…
“Are all three escorts necessary?” she asked.
Queen Alene snorted a laugh, then said, “Yes,” pinning Piris with a hard-eyed warning. She’d never openly disparage Prince Jarok in front of his family. She wasn’t that rude. She also valued her life and health too much to take such a stupid risk.
“Very well.” She sighed, resigned. “I’ll need more details, and to speak with Lord Padalist and Gem Aurora before we leave, but yes. I will help you in this.”
“Piris, you know—”
She waved a hand at her friend’s interruption and gave her her most reassuring smile. “I know, Star,” she said. “I know. I also know I can help, and I should. Just as you knew you could and should help in the battle.”
Strella took the hint and didn’t argue, understanding Piris’s need to do this. Her best friend had risked her life to help her love, even after Piris had tried to stop her. In the end, she’d let her friend do what she had to. Now she was asking for the same. Piris felt a need, a spark. A small fire inside. The mission, if all went to plan, did not involve much, but it was opportunity to be more than a quiet, secretive lady around everyone but the smallest circle. A chance for her to use her training, and possibly her magic, to do something good in the world, to help her friend and her kingdom. If it meant spending time with a Fae man that made her blood boil, so be it.
Jarok, timing as impeccable as ever, broke into her thoughts with a half laugh her way. “It’ll be a pleasure, lady, to escort you through the kingdom.” The words themselves were innocuous but they dripped with sarcasm, making Piris bristle at his implication. Gods help her, she wanted to punch the smug look off the prince’s harvest-gold face. From Ghel’s glower at his brother, he might even let her. The king and queen, however, likely wouldn’t enjoy the fight.
She held herself tight, gave her best sneer, and said, “I look forward to time spent with Lord Cylian and the Aurora warrior,” before she gave her formal good-byes and swept out of the room. There were now different travel preparations to make. It also might be best that she practiced calming herself before the prince raked her nerves and made her want to punch him. Repeatedly.
Her magic prickled in her ear, a sure sign it needed release. Her father had trained her to fight, her mother had trained her to be a lady, and both had helped her hone her magic as best they could, in secret. It worked because her father’s magic was based in vocalizing sound and her mother’s magic was based in hearing. Some might say it was a perfect combination to teach a mimic, or possibly even form a mimic. Either way, each helped her hone her skills, recognize when her magic swelled inside and needed release, and how to let it out in small doses. All in secret. All only when necessary, even as they helped her use and grow her power, harness it. As her mother always said, to know something was to have power over it, and she needed ultimate power over her magic to keep it hidden.
Thinking on her past and knowing she’d see her family soon made her pick her mother for this release. She missed the woman, even if she dreaded what she’d have to tell her parents when she showed up at Volesion Peak. Focusing, she sang a line of a lullaby her mother always sang to her, her mother’s voice from her lips giving her heart a slight ache. She then focused on her increased hearing, her mother’s magic, honing it so she heard the Fae person breathing in the next room. Her room. She wasn’t too concerned, because she knew the sound of the steady in and out well.
Piris took a moment to stuff her magic back down in the deep well she’d constructed in her mind. The little she siphoned off was enough to keep her magic calm for at least a week. Enough to keep it and her hidden. Though if she were honest with herself, she’d done a poor job of hiding of late. The guilt of it nagged at her as she thought of her family.
After a few beats and breaths of her own, and a few more notes in her mother’s soft voice, Piris walked out of her small closet to find her friend, Princess Strella, peering into her travel trunk.
“Find anything interesting?” she asked.
Strella gave her a dazzling white smile and sat very proper and princess-like on the bed beside the trunk. “No, but I imagine it’s because you like to bury your weapons at the bottom of your trunks.”
“You know me so well.” Piris laughed, moving to toss the thick wool scarf she’d retrieved from the closet into the trunk before closing and latching the lid. She slapped her hands together and declared, “All done,” as she plopped a little less gracefully on the other side of the trunk.
Not that her body wasn’t graceful in its own way, but Piris often thought her larger frame, with her fighter training, overrode the ladylike poise her mother had and tried to help her build, the same poise her friend wielded with ease. The fact was she took far better to her father’s fighting lessons than her mother’s lectures on deportment and expectations of civility. She could play the lady, knew all the rules and etiquette, but it felt like play. Fighting, however, felt like an electric charge to the gut, a game of life and death and injury she knew in her heart. She was far more comfortable in her leathers than her traveling gown, which she frowned down at then, picking at the dark-gray flannel traveling dress. She was at least thankful she didn’t have to wear a corset when in the carriage. It would’ve been even more torturous.
“Peep?” Hesitant, Strella reached across the broad, flat cedar top of her trunk. “Are you certain you want to do this? It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Gods, she loved Strella. Her shining blue eyes darkened with worry, and Piris sent up thanks, not for the first time, that Strella’s treacherous father had thought to do business with her own father all those years ago. Her life would’ve been so lost and lonely without her, a sister despite them sharing no blood—as was clear by the worry, and the general idea she could somehow know best.
“No, Star. I’m sure.” Piris’s brow dipped down and she put on a fake frown to make her laugh. “I could do without the prince’s company, but the mission is no issue.”
She half joked in the moment, and Strella knew. Catching her hand, her friend squeezed tight and replied, “Jarok is an honorable man, a good prince. I can’t say I enjoy your constant bickering, but I can say I’d trust him with your life. I actually am in this. The goal is to gather information, but anything can happen on the Winterlands roads, and who knows where Engad Monti will next strike.”
A nod was all Piris could give her. She knew both the danger and the honor of the prince to be true. Her issues with Jarok ran deeper but hinged almost entirely on personal dislike and distrust. She’d never say he was a dishonorable or disloyal Fae man. He was simply annoying, cocky, and forever frustrating.
“I made Ghel tell me everything about your planned journey,” Strella said quickly, likely knowing Piris wished the subject to be changed. “Prince Jarok and Lord Cylian will follow behind the carriage on horseback, and Gem Aurora will ride inside the carriage with you. There are two inns where you will stop, but you will mostly stay in traveling houses. You’ll also pick up an ally along the way.”
“What ally?” Piris asked about the only new piece of information Strella had revealed.
“I don’t know. Ghel didn’t give me specifics. He said it was someone from another land who knew Lord Padalist and had some stake in fighting rebel leaders.”
“Another fighter then,” she said, almost to herself, thinking through the implications. It could be someone from the Autumnlands who was traveling to the Winterlands, which might explain why they didn’t meet here to leave with the rest of the group. An odd choice for the Boraus, seeing as most nobles in Fae, in and out of the Autumnlands, had little to do with any emissaries from that corner of the land outside of Lord Cylian. Or, knowing of Lord Cylian’s reach, it really could be anyone from any land.
Piris disliked surprises, especially when they interfered with a mission she had in mind, but she would trust Lord Cylian in this. He’d helped Strella during the battle on the Ice Plains, helped bring her back, despite the accuracy of the prophecy of her death her friend had carried all her life. She’d always trust him with her life. He’d saved it once before by saving her friend.
“Have you spent much time with Gem Aurora?” Strella asked, absently twisting a stray strand of blonde hair in a fluttering hand.
“No. Should I have?”
“No. No. I wondered is all.”
“Have you?”
“Some. Here and at the Aurora Outpost, but not a great deal of time.”
She felt a weird thread of jealousy, which was absurd, as her friend deserved to have legions of people to love and be loved by. She thought hard for a second, wondering if someone else new could come in, take a piece of her friend for themselves in a way Piris had her, not in the way Ghel had his wife. Friendship was a tricky thing at times, a relationship like any other, with its ups and downs and moments of doubt, but Piris knew she shouldn’t doubt Strella’s love for a second. She brushed the stray worry aside, and the pain eased in her chest. She’d just had so few people love her—her mother and father and Strella. Less than a handful of other Fae who cared for her in any real way. In a way where they knew her and still her loved despite what they knew.
Shaking her head free of the odd thoughts, Piris asked, “What do you know of Gem then?”
“I suspect you’ll either be fast friends or quick enemies. You’re too much alike for it to go any other way.”
Piris laughed at the assessment. “Fair enough. I suppose we’ll find out soon.”
Strella hitched a knee up to the bed, turning to face her friend full on. Piris mirrored her movement, giving her the attention she obviously needed. “Be careful, will you?”
“Aren’t I always?”
“No,” she said, meeting Piris’s joking tone with her serious one. “You are sometimes reckless, and your training has often gotten you out of those moments unscathed. But this, what you’re doing… there’re so many ways for this to go wrong.”
“You think I can’t handle a simple scout mission?”
“No. No, Piris. You can handle anything thrown your way,” she said, a fierce, forceful air to her words. “There are people out there hiding, waiting for an opportunity to hurt the royal family and the Winterlands. You could well be a target. It’s no secret you are part of my heart.”
“You’re most of my heart, Star. I promise, I’ll be on guard. Keep myself safe.”
She dipped her head, breathed deep, then asked one more favor of her friend. “Will you also help keep the prince safe?”
Piris knew where this was coming from. Strella loved Ghel, her own prince, and he loved his brother fiercely as he loved his whole family, royal or no. He’d be devastated if something happened to Prince Jarok, which in turn would make Strella devastated for him.
“For you, Star. Only for you.”
Strella smiled bright and squeezed her hand hard. “If you say so,” she whispered, then gathered herself up, rising from the bed. “Come. Let’s have a walk together before you leave. Find something interesting and far less sad to discuss for the next hour.”
As they walked and chatted, heads close together, they came upon the queen readying for her own walk. “Come,” she called to the two friends, “walk with me.” Not a question, and not a harsh order, but decidedly a directive they did not want to dismiss. Piris and Strella trailed behind their queen as she took long, quick strides out the door, eating up the distance between the palace and one of the side gardens.
No one spoke for a time, but Queen Alene slowed enough to stay in pace with the princess and lady so they could walk together in silence. The harsh, cold air filled Piris’s lungs and ran through her blood.
Eventually, because her friend could not help herself, Strella turned to the queen and asked, “Do you often walk here in the afternoons?”
“I train still and do other activities, but there is nothing like the Winterlands air to make me feel more alive. Plus, it gives my birds some room to roam with me still near.” The queen nodded upward, where a massive eagle stretched its wings in a smooth glide high above them.
“How—” Piris pulled back before she completed the question. She thought there was no need to prod the Warrior Queen of the Winterlands about what she may consider personal matters.
“Out with it, Lady Piris. Do not hold back with me. You surely do not with my son.” A ghost of a smile flitted over her stony face. If not for that, Piris would have paled at the bite in the words and what they implied about the queen’s opinion of her. Opinions never mattered much to Piris, for good reason, as her reputation had been initially smashed to help hide her magic. Yet, for this woman, she cared. And not only because she was queen of her land.
“How does your connection with the birds work, Your Grace?”
The queen cocked her head like one of her birds, studying Piris while still walking, then asked her own question. “Do you not know, lady?”
A fair enough question, given Piris’s own magic. “No, not in a true sense.” She paused here, not having discussed the intricacies of her magic to anyone outside her parents and Strella all her life. “It’s more like the magic knows but I do not. I let the magic do what it needs to do. I control it, yes, and understand how my magic moves in me, but I cannot understand the specifics of each feat my magic accomplishes. It simply does it.”
“Fascinating,” the queen said, still holding her gaze as they all walked. Strella gripped Piris’s arm tight, a silent sign she was there to intervene if her friend felt the need, and she appreciated it. However, she did not need it then. Didn’t think she’d need it with this queen, ever.
“With my birds, I—” She turned her face toward the sky when her eagle screeched, high and loud, into the open expanse of gray. “Down,” the queen growled, whipping a blade out from under her coat as her eagle dove down from the sky.
Piris did not question the order, grabbing Strella and twisting her so she landed with a hard thump on her back to the left of where Piris had just stood. She covered her friend, searching for signs of danger. An arrow thudded hard into the gravel mere inches away from them.
Piris looked about her for cover of some kind, something to protect her sister, when she heard more birds, hard beats of wings and long cries filling the skies. Queen Alene crouched low but stood strong, her hard face set in concentration, her eyes narrowed on something Piris could not see. Something she guessed the queen only saw or understood through the eyes of her eagle.
Piris, however, did see another arrow, flying fast from a different direction, right at her queen. She yelled, “Move!” as she scrambled low to the ground, to try to stay between her friend and queen, to do something to protect both. The directive wasn’t specific, but the queen seemed to understand enough to dive to her right, avoiding the second arrow, and embed itself in the palace grounds.
The queen let out a colorful curse, and Piris appreciated the sentiment. When Strella tried to raise her head, she pushed her friend back down. “Stay low,” she warned her as she searched the sky for more arrows.
She saw none, but watched as birds of prey started falling from the sky. On her right, she noticed the queen flinch, and her heart dropped at what Queen Alene must feel in the moment. Everything other thought was cut off by a scream of rage.
“Strella!”
She heard the pounding of feet…. looked behind them and found both princes running at full Fae speed toward them, blades drawn. Jarok kept his eyes toward the sky in defense, but Ghel only had eyes for his princess, tucked tight under Piris.
Another, distant scream rent the air, along with a mass of bird screeches. If Piris had to guess, the archer was now felled. She wouldn’t risk the life of her best friend on such a guess though. She stayed planted on her, a shield, until Ghel reached them and dragged his wife into a fierce hug.
“They are done,” Queen Alene said, her voice low and harsh. Piris trusted her and began to rise. The imprint of gravel on her hands, and the few cuts and bruises along her body, twinged as she moved. A hand appeared in her vision—a large, long-fingered, and slightly calloused golden-brown hand. The hand of Prince Jarok. She didn’t take it. She stared, long enough for him to give a sigh of annoyance and grab her arm on his own. She shook it off as soon as she stood, glaring his way, but he’d turned from her to ask a group of guards coming their way about what had happened.
Piris didn’t know specifics, of course, but she could see the outline well enough. Benders, at least two, had breached the palace defenses and tried to kill the princess and queen. Obviously Engad Monti was not done with his attacks on the royal family.