The Trials of Esme

Prologue

LOCKE

Gods! They sound like pigs.

Not metaphorically. Not in some crude, poetic sense. No, literally, like pigs. Snorting, squealing, high-pitched huffs with every awkward thrust, their guttural sounds echoing through the otherwise silent forest canopy where I’ve perched myself for the last six hours.

Below me, at the gnarled base of an old thornbark tree that’s bark is rough against my back, two forest goblins rut with the elegance of drunk rodents.

They’re short, scrawny little things, green-skinned with narrow, hunched shoulders, and stilted horns that look like broken sticks jutting from their knobby skulls.

Their noses are long and snout-like, twitching as they pant, pressed together in a sweaty, hissing mess of limbs and dirt.

Moss clings to their elbows. Twigs snap beneath their frantically moving bodies.

The male grunts loud enough to echo through the clearing, his bony fingers digging into forest soil. The female shrieks in approval. Or protest. Hard to tell with their kind. Pleasure and pain blur together in their primitive minds.

I sigh, shifting my weight against the branch, feeling the grain of ancient wood through my leathers.

They have no idea a predator sits just above them, two heartbeats away.

No concept how fragile their existence truly is in these woods.

I could kill them both without even drawing my sword.

A flick of my wrist. A whisper of magic that would curl from my fingertips like hungry smoke.

They’d be nothing but twitching puddles of moss-stained pulp, their essence feeding the ever-hungry roots of Kasamere.

I suppose I’ll let them finish. I can be merciful. At least someone’s getting some.

Let them have their moment. Let the little green beast slap his mate’s bare backside and squeal like he’s conquered the forest. Let him believe himself mighty for the few moments before night falls and the true predators emerge.

The female wriggles out from under him, giggling again, a sound not unlike choking swine, and scrambles into the underbrush, leaving torn leaves and disturbed soil in her wake.

The male scrambles after her, still half-dressed, swatting her backside with a proud grunt as they disappear into the ferns, their scent lingering like a foul memory.

Vanir’s finest.

I lean back against the tree’s crooked trunk, arms folded across my chest, feeling the enchanted metal of my vambraces cool against my skin.

Kasamere is always like this. Teeming. Loud.

Disgusting and mind-numbingly dull. The forest breathes with its own arrogant life, unconcerned with anything beyond its borders.

Ancient trees, with consciousness older than most of the Court, twist toward the perpetual twilight sky, their branches spread like grasping fingers.

In Vanir, they say the world began with a breath.

Eidryn’s breath, a sigh so deep it became the wind, the trees, the rivers, and us.

Some still whisper the name before battle or birth.

Some have forgotten our god, but I haven’t.

Eidryn’s presence surrounds me, embraces me. Hence, why I’m here.

This is my post, patrolling the forest edge near the gate to the Mortal Realm.

A thankless assignment that leaves me crouched among gnarled roots and whispering leaves for days at a time.

There’s no reason for this constant vigilance.

Nothing moves here but shadows and the occasional lost creature stumbling too close to boundaries they don’t understand.

I’m not needed and there’s no real threat.

The forest itself would devour any true intruder long before they reached anything of value.

No, this is because my father, General Erron, said, “Eyes on the borders,” and what he commands, I do.

His words carry that familiar weight of expectation, the same tone he’s used since I was old enough to hold a blade.

The weight of duty sits like cold iron in my gut, as heavy and unyielding as the ceremonial chains worn during Night Court oath-taking.

So, I am doing what is commanded without question, even if it’s beneath me.

Nothing here can kill me. Nothing here would dare try. I am Locke Erron, son of the Night Court’s general. Death incarnate to these lesser beings.

I haven’t seen anything worth reporting in three weeks. Just wandering boglings, rabid wyrm-wasps, the occasional lost village child chasing mushroom lights. Sometimes a woodland sprite passes through, stealing trinkets from sleeping travelers.

Goblins. Always goblins. Their stench lingers everywhere. That musty, earthy smell of creatures that live half in dirt and half in shadow.

So, when the shimmer begins, silver light warping the air thirty paces ahead of me, I lift my head, instantly alert, muscles coiling with predatory tension.

The portal.

Unauthorized? Well, not really. No one can just fall through the gateway of Vanir. Ancient magic prevents it. Only a few have the right to pass freely between realms.

Leaning forward, I wait. This is the first real distraction I’ve had in weeks.

I move fast, fluid, without sound. My boots don’t rustle the moss.

My leather armor doesn’t creak. The enchantments woven into my gear ensure perfect silence.

I take to the higher branches, leaping from lower branches to canopy as the portal opens fully—a swirling vortex of quicksilver light cutting through reality—and then collapses behind the entrant with a whisper of displaced air.

They step through without hesitation, not stumbling like most do when crossing between worlds.

Mageetha. Or as she’s known in the Mortal Realm, Margaret. Of course, it’s her. Who else would it be?

She’s dressed in that absurd mortal garb she wears when she plays healer in the Mortal Realm, a white coat over pale green scrubs, both soaked with crimson stains that I recognize immediately as blood, too much of it.

Human blood, with its distinctive copper-sweet scent that clings to the back of my throat like a memory I’d rather forget.

Her hair’s tied back in a severe knot, lips set in a grim line, eyes fierce with determination, and something that might be fear, unusual for one who typically carries herself with such calculated poise.

Even out here she reeks of duty and mortality. Years of living among humans has changed her scent, tainted the pure fae essence with something earthier, more vulnerable. Like a blade left too long in the rain, the edges of her true nature have begun to rust.

Mageetha has the king’s permission to use the gateway at all times.

She’s my father’s shadow-slipping informant.

The fae who’s spent too much time pretending to be kind, playing nurse to human children at that forsaken academy.

I’ve seen her in that uniform before, watched her slip between identities like changing clothes, each persona as carefully constructed as the breastplate over my chest. Never this bloody, though.

Never this urgent. The red stains her uniform like an accusation, spreading across the fabric in damning patterns that speak of desperate attempts to save a life.

There’s a frantic energy to her movements that sets my teeth on edge.

Her normally calculated steps are too quick, too purposeful, leaving subtle impressions in the damp earth that even a novice tracker could follow.

Something happened. Something recent. Something violent enough to have rattled her composure.

Something that has the typically unflappable Mageetha looking over her shoulder like prey rather than predator.

Her fingers keep straying to the pocket of her coat where I know she keeps a spelled blade, enchanted obsidian that can cut through glamour and bone alike.

Her eyes dart to the shadows where even I cannot see threats lurking.

She moves quickly through the underbrush, following a path only she seems to see, pushing aside thorned vines that would snag any mortal’s skin without a second glance.

The Kasamere parts for her, recognizing her right to passage even as mist swirls thick around her ankles, curious about her companions.

Then comes the man.

He’s massive, towering, broad as an ancient blackbark.

Built like he could shoulder a boulder without flinching and still have strength to spare.

Muscles ripple beneath his shirt with every careful step, the fabric barely containing the raw power beneath.

His shaggy brown hair falls over his eyes, matted with sweat and what might be blood, both his and others’.

The scent of violence clings to him like a second skin.

His arms cradle a bundled figure wrapped in heavy white cloth that might once have been a cloak.

I note the limp weight of it, the unnatural stillness.

The careful way he moves, as though carrying something infinitely precious and terribly fragile.

The reverence in his movements. The protective curl of his body around his burden.

A body. Unconscious? Wait. I focus my hearing, filter out the whispers of the forest, until I catch the faint sound of a heartbeat.

I hear it from here, thready but persistent.

A stuttering rhythm that speaks of trauma and desperate clinging to life.

Like a bird with a broken wing, still fighting against the inevitable.

At first I assume he’s mortal. A guard or a servant. Some human muscle Mageetha recruited for her errand. The kind of disposable ally she might use when venturing into dangerous territories where even fae fear to tread. A student, perhaps?

The wind shifts through the trees, bringing with it the scents of the forest floor, and the man’s scent hits me like a physical blow.

Wolf.

Not a court-hound or half-bred plaything.

A real one. Wild-born. Earth-soaked. Alpha-marked.

The kind that shouldn’t exist anymore. Not since the purge, when the High Court turned on the shifter clans, branding them too loyal to the mortal bloodlines, too difficult to control.

So, they were driven out and banished to the Mortal Realm.

His scent is primal, pine and blood and that old, forbidden wildness my people tried to bury. It’s the scent of a predator who’s known both freedom and pain, who understands territory and loyalty in ways my kind have long forgotten.

He keeps glancing at the trees, nostrils flaring. Eyes scanning the canopy where I hide. He knows we’re not alone. Knows someone is watching. His shoulders tense slightly when I shift my weight, though I make no sound. It’s instinct against instinct, predator recognizing predator.

A very clever and dangerous beast.

I follow from above, silent and sharp, hopping from limb to limb as they cut across the forest floor.

They don’t belong here.

Mageetha might be allowed, but he is something entirely different. Him and whoever he’s carrying. My father would want to know. I should intercept them now, demand answers. Draw my blade and assert the authority given to me by blood and oath.

Something holds me back. Curiosity? Perhaps, or something deeper. A strange reluctance that sits uncomfortably in my chest, as foreign as mortal sentiment.

They reach the clearing, the one that most have forgotten, though I never have.

The one forbidden in cautionary tales. The bramble shifts, as though parted to allow passage by sentient fingers.

The stones beyond the clearing whisper ancient warnings that neither of them heed.

The house beyond awaits, carved into the cliff, windows glowing with warm amber light though no fire burns inside.

Cashira. The exiled witch. The forgotten one.

Tall and veiled in gossamer fabric that catches the faint starlight, she steps into the doorway and stares at the man holding the girl.

The girl whose hair has now spilled free from the cloth.

It’s ice white, tangled like seafoam caught in branches.

Not silver like the Court nobles. Not platinum like the Dawn fae.

Ash white. Pure as bone.

She reeks of something old. Something that makes my skin prickle with recognition though I’ve never encountered it before. It crawls across my senses like frost over water, familiar in its strangeness.

Not magic. Not quite. Something. . .Tethered. Bound. Ancient and new all at once.

I watch them vanish into the stone-wrapped house, Cashira’s hands already working spells of healing and protection.

I watch the door close with a sound like destiny settling into place, the sound dissipating through the now quiet forest. Even the nocturnal creatures have gone silent, as though holding their breath.

I stay behind. Stalking. Because I can’t stop watching. Because my feet won’t carry me back to report what I’ve seen.

Because something is wrong. Or right. I can’t tell which is worse.

Because I may not care about mortals or mutts, but that girl. . .that wondrous creature might just matter. To whom, I’m not certain. For what purpose, even less so.

I can’t put my finger on this pull, this invisible thread that seems to tug at something deep in my chest. Mere curiosity?

No, it feels more than that, more fundamental.

I need, no, want to find out. The distinction bothers me.

Need implies weakness. Want is merely a choice.

I’ve been trained since childhood to purge need from my existence.

When she wakes, when whatever brought her here finally is unveiled, I’ll be the one waiting. Watching. Ready. For what, I don’t know. For the first time in decades, I feel. . .anticipation. It’s both terrifying and invigorating.