Evermore

Prologue

Georgia’s laugh wisped in the air, echoing softly through the twisted trees and limestone walls.

As she crossed through one of the many wrought-iron gates within the magical garden, her slippers quiet on the foliage, she grinned at the sizable fae male before her.

She had grown used to his wyld glamour. To the horns that protruded from atop his head and the claws that twitched as his hands hung by his side.

He did not phase her. Her smile never wavering.

He remained silent, taking her in.

“Where is he?” Georgia gently asked, leaning to the side to peer around him. When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “Rowan, is everything all right?”

Anger rumbled within Rowan’s chest as he appraised Georgia’s shadowed features, and what this meant. She should turn around and go back the way she came. Rowan should yell at her to run.

But the clock was ticking, a tethered reminder of Rowan’s expiring bargain with her father.

He closed the distance between them, his hand wrapping tightly around his dagger, his claws extended. “You shouldn’t be here,” he cursed, body shaking.

Georgia instinctively took a step back, her eyes quivering for the first time since he met her, the glimmering poppy still tucked in her hair from earlier. She loved poppies—her entire face had flushed when Laurus plucked one from the garden and placed it there without a thought.

“Rowan,” she breathed, confused.

He almost muttered an apology, but what would be the point? He’d argue he had no choice in what he was about to do, but that would be a contorted lie.

And when he finally did it—when he completed the bargain by digging his dagger into her heart—Georgia fell to the ground, collapsing to her knees, gasping for breath. Rowan didn’t flinch at the sight of blood and distress. The garden did that for him.

Rowan couldn’t recall a time when the garden had ever wept, all preening and yearning for the sunlight. Easy and lively. But as the first drop of Georgia’s blood hit the ground, sinking into the dirt and quenching the roots, the earth shuddered beneath Rowan’s feet.

He remained frozen in the clearing, the dagger warming his hand, his lungs refusing to fill. He would hate himself forever for this.

Georgia slumped back against an elder tree, her golden hair tangled in thorns, her eyes wide with the question he couldn’t answer: “Why did it have to be her?” The poppy flower slipped from her locks and settled on the grass, the petals immediately browning.

The dusted tulips recoiled from both of them, the lush greenery now wilted and rotted, spreading like a sickness through the foliage.

A shadow stepped through the archway of wisteria just ahead, and Rowan knew exactly who had come to sanction him for his misdeed.

The opposing fae drew his sword, moonlight cascading off his armor. With each movement closer to Rowan, the garden wailed. Petals curled in on themselves. The grass rotted beneath his boots. The vines tightened their vise on the stone walls.

“Laurus,” Rowan began, but he was unsure where his train of thought could go. There was nothing he could possibly say.

“You killed her,” the fae whispered to him, brows knitted as he glanced around in disbelief. Even in the dark, Rowan could see Laurus’ features tighten, his hands shaking, his jaw working.

Rowan straightened, narrowing his attention in a fleeting glance to Georgia.

“You asked for something irreplaceable,” Laurus hissed.

“And now, you’ll bear its weight.” He raised a trembling hand, his fingers etched in holy light.

Venom pooled from his blessed tongue, besmirching every divine rite he stood for.

A sacrilegious sweep over Georgia, the darkness settling around the three of them.

Pilfering any shard of tolerance he still possessed.

“You will live as your garden does: broken and miserable.”

Your garden, he had said. But it wasn’t Rowan’s garden—it was all of theirs.

Blood pooled in Laurus’ mouth and then slowly trickled down his chin. “Bound to its roots. Bound to your rot. And when it finally dies—so will you.”

Something ancient cracked in the air. Vines whipped the stones. The trees moaned.

“You will know beauty,” Laurus continued, voice hollow, “but never be allowed to it. You will be sentenced to my fate—that same fate you just caused. And when she loves you—truly loves you—you’ll be forced to let her go. Alone. You will rot here, alone,” he emphasized again. “Forever.”

Rowan collapsed as the curse took hold, the earth splitting beneath him. The thrum inside him—the umbrophilic pull—echoed as it drowned. The vivid image of the trees fractured, his magic faltering.

“What have you done?” Rowan rasped, the words broken, barely escaping his lips.

Laurus flashed crimson—the raw, unrelenting hue of carnage—before he turned and vanished into the manor.

Rowan was left to keel over on the garden’s floor. He summoned roots that slithered over his hands, but even they seemed feeble. The sliver of light within him dimmed, swallowed by shadow. His powers stilted, weakened, only as strong as the garden around him. The garden that now sank and recoiled.

He tilted his head skyward. Moonlight poured over him and Georgia’s feet, her body limp. It shouldn’t have been her. He never planned for it to be her.

The bristling of withering plants, crumbling flowers, leaves falling from the trees, filled the air. Green turned to brown, life to death.

And the garden began to die.