Starfallen (The Court of the Fallen #1)

Prologue

I wear grief like a torn silk dress and shattered diamond crown.

It clings to my bones, haunting, hollowing, possessing me, a ghost flickering behind my grey eyes.

At first, I was numb, in an out-of-body haze.

Words reached me like echoes underwater. None of them made any sense.

And when they did, I refused to believe them. To hear them.

Once the denial faded, reality hit me all at once.

No more smile, no familiar warmth wrapping around me like a soft blanket, not a single breath left to brush my skin.

Everything had been ripped away from me in an instant.

Declan is gone—just like that.

It’s been a month since my boyfriend died.

A promising young man with a bright future, all of it ruined by alcohol and a few careless words that landed at the wrong table.

He was beaten, stabbed outside a tavern, and left to die in a filthy alley.

And I’ve been stuck ever since, drowning in waves of sorrow, crushing pain, and guilt.

I wander in the dark, pacing and panting, unable to find my way home.

It’s my fault.

I know it’s all my fault.

And people go on with their lives, doing whatever it was they did when Declan was still alive, whilst I can barely scrape the broken pieces of myself off the floor.

I see him everywhere in my home—in the empty space beside me when I wake in the morning, and behind my closed eyes at night. A stupid attempt to steal sleep, to shut down long enough that this shell of a body still functions to breathe through the next day.

There were so many words I should have said.

So many words I’ll never get to say.

Some days, I stand on the edge of a cliff, screaming into the raging wind, begging the Gods to give me a reason.

Why?

Why him?

All I’m left with are unanswered questions and sleepless nights.

I pray to the stars, wishing for things that will never come true.

I wish Declan and I could still fight. I’d yell at him for leaving me, for storming out for a drink after our argument.

But most of all … I just wish he was still alive.

But stars don’t grant wishes.

Not the ones that shine in the night sky, anyway.

There’s only one place that does: the Court of the Fallen.

A realm built from fallen Fae, exiled starbeings, appearing only during celestial events—eclipses, blood moons, meteor showers.

And when it does, the Fae of that court host twisted little games, cruel competitions and trials, most likely watched with wine-stained, wicked smiles.

Seven desperate humans. One prize.

Win, and a wish is granted.

Any wish.