Grove of Trees

Chapter 1 Maura

MAURA

HALLOW LAND—THE PAST

“Perhaps my womb is broken.” A savage smirk overtook Maura’s face. “Or, perhaps it’s your small prick that’s the issue.”

Darkness lashed out, striking.

Maura’s head whipped to the side, not one muscle flinching. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“You dare to disrespect your King?” The Skell King’s grip tightened on her windpipe.

The skeletal tattoos that covered his entire body were now replaced with swirling blackness. A demon unleashed.

“You’re . . . disgusting . . .” Maura spat, ignoring the throb in her cheek.

“Careful, my Queen. With a wicked tongue like that, I might find more pleasurable uses for it. Like cutting it out.” His skeletal face pulled up. “Maybe I’ll send it as a gift to that farm boy you were so fond of back in your village.”

The image of her lover tied up in the village square being tortured, intruded her mind. Shirt torn open, skin flayed—the Skell King’s infamous touch. That was the day he arrived, claiming she was his.

The Skell King clicked his tongue, dragging it up her bloodied face.

“But I do admire pretty, vicious things.” Putrid cold breath hit her forehead. “Your sharp talons and outbursts won’t keep me from getting my heir.”

Bone-white teeth flashed in a sinister grin.

“You see, I’ve found a Soothseer.”

A thousand invisible bugs crawled over her skin.

The Soothseers were thought to have been long gone.

“They’ve foretold the most intriguing prophecy. One where my heir has immeasurable power. And you, my dutiful Queen, will bear me that child.”

Maura’s eyes sealed shut, fighting the burn behind them.

Slowly, the shadows receded, disappearing. Along with the Skell King.

Maura quietly crept through the hallway of the dark castle. It was eerily silent, like it usually was most days.

Orbs hovered above, casting flickering light onto the deep red carpet beneath her feet.

It was faint but not faint enough to shadow the cobwebs building on the dark stones above.

Spiders seemed to be the only happy residents of this ghastly place.

Maura studied them, distracted, before smacking right into something hard.

“My Queen,” a horrid voice rumbled, stunning her.

One of the Skell King’s men glared at her suspiciously. He was a menacing figure, Skell tattoos lining his arms and neck on full display, the marks of his allegiance to the King. Long dark hair was tied back, and a meaty hand casually gripped an onyx blade at his side.

No, not casually, intentionally.

“The King made it very clear you are to remain in your chambers.” He stepped closer with a cruel smile, his eyes trailed down her body as he flashed fangs, thirsting. “Or do you need a reminder?”

She was done being the King’s prized bitch, caged for breeding. She was done with his rats spying and gawking at her any chance they got. Normally, she’d use a spell to remove their memories of seeing her, but tonight, she was done.

Maura matched his smile and tilted her head, “I wonder how those pretty little fangs would hold up against stone.”

He only had a second to give her a confused look before an invisible hand wrapped around his throat, crushing. Wide eyes turned bulging as he desperately clawed at his neck.

Maura’s eyes grew black and her tattoos began to dance up her arms. Weaving her hands, she whispered the incantation and held out her arm as if it was doing the strangling.

Suddenly, she swung it toward the stone wall with force and the man’s body followed.

Face nearing purple and mouth agape, he smashed into the wall with an audible crack.

Crimson painted his body as it slumped to the floor, dead weight.

Seemed his fangs, in fact, did not hold up against stone.

Maura stumbled back, immediately feeling drained from the magic. She released her hold on the spell and nonchalantly stepped over the body.

The underground tunnels were damp with the stench of rot. Maura had searched for the truth, and it reeked even worse.

A carved out underground system ran like roots below the castle. She’d stumbled upon them while sneaking around—the night she discovered the Skell King smuggling Vinter Coal from Vinterland. Something no ruler should’ve been able to do.

Maura’s mind pounded. If he could breech one land, what would stop him from infiltrating them all?

The Vinter King was rumored to be the most merciless ruler within the Ferie Realm. Housing the most lethal weapon—Vinter Coal—which now laid in the Skell King’s hands.

“Sacred souls,” Maura cursed.

A chill caressed her spine. The air shifted to make room for the dead.

Maura’s sixth sense, her inkling, flared. Warning her of a presence.

A plasmic light approached. A soul had sought her out. The spirit spoke to her mind, not in words, but in prophecy:

“The Skell Queen will carry a child of trueborn power,

The first in Ferie, born of two great lines,

A forked path lies before them—one of free will, one of fate,

Should they choose the written path,

All shall bow,

Even the mightiest ruler shall bend the lowest and rise at their side.”

Needle-prick sensations ran across her skin, hairs raising.

It was no ordinary soul, it was ancient—the Soothseer.

A cool, crisp breeze rustled the leaves at her feet, rolling them forward. The wind at her back pushed, as if begging for haste as she ran through the forest to the portals. Maura wouldn’t have much time before the Skells would realize she’d vanished.

The King was wicked incarnate. He searched all of Hallow Land to find the strongest Soulsayer as his prized queen for breeding, wanting a child of both Soulsayer and Shadow Wielder abilities.

One of the elders in the village, Tabitha, was a woman of the Craft. She’d helped Maura come into her Soulsayer abilities growing up. Even taught her to concoct potions to avoid pregnancy when she got older—a clever skill that hadn’t failed her yet.

Maura wouldn’t allow the Skell King to break another innocent child, turning them into a creature of darkness.

She’d seen it before. He’d murdered every bastard child he sired when foretold they’d never have power.

All except one. The King’s lowly Soothsayer foresaw the unlucky boy having shadow-wielding gifts and like a dog to train and brutalize when he saw fit, he kept him.

Maura knew the King’s madness couldn’t be contained, that other rulers needed to know the truth.

But first, she needed David, her most trusted friend.

It’d been ages since they’d seen each other.

David, now set to be the next Lord of Loveland, didn’t have time to sneak away like he used to.

And he didn’t know what had become of Maura.

That she was now the Skell Queen, living in a dark cage of nightmares.

As a girl, Maura had stumbled too far into the forest one day.

It was forbidden to portal into another land uninvited, but she was nothing but wild and curious.

The moment she saw that carved heart on the trunk of the cherry blossom tree, it called to her, so she touched it.

It rifted her to a pink beach in Loveland.

David, a prince on patrol, caught her making sand-angels like a giddy toddler.

Instead of arresting her, he joined her.

They’d been kindred souls ever since, sneaking in secret to explore the realm, together.

The moonlight painted a haze over the portal trees. Panic flooded Maura’s body, being so close yet so far from freedom. So she bolted, placing her hand on the intricately carved heart and rifted.

Loveland was silent, and yet, a cacophony of noise: the rush of a waterfall, the chirping of insects, the tapping of flowers swaying in a breeze. Then came the familiar flapping sound she grew to love.

A warmth imbedded itself inside her chest as a half-dozen Cherubs burst from beneath the waterfalls, wings glowing cream-white in the moonlight. Loveland’s ancient guardians. Mischievous, and armed.

They swarmed above her, weapons drawn, one aiming a neon-red bow at her heart. The string crackled with red-hot, molten energy.

Maura yanked her hood down.

“Have you forgotten me already, Honey?” she said with a small smirk.

The Cherub Commander squealed and dove into Maura’s arms, nuzzling her neck. Maura laughed through sudden tears.

“I’ve missed you! Are Pudge and Huck all right?” she asked.

Honey nodded enthusiastically, his giggles echoed through the air, turning into incoherent babbles.

Releasing him, he fluttered to Maura’s eye-level and outstretched a small arm. His expression suddenly hardened, eyes locking in on her swollen cheek. A low and feral growl escaped his tiny body.

“It’s a long story,” Maura muttered, face slightly falling. Her eyes glanced up toward the Crystal Castle. “I need to see him. Can you take me?”

Honey firmly nodded, then grabbed her hand and rifted.

Only Cherubs could rift without using a portal. No one knew how or why, but they seemed to like it that way. Cherubs liked keeping secrets. Cheeky little devils.

Deep laughter echoed through the lush gardens as they arrived.

“You’re too stiff!” a sultry voice teased. “Relax your muscles before taking aim. I have very talented hands if you need a little extra help unwinding.”

Maura rolled her eyes as her lip twitched up.

She wasn’t surprised at all that David would be flirting with some handsome, muscular fella, no doubt.

Typical Lovelanders, the very air around them was charged with attraction.

They couldn’t help it. Affection, physical or otherwise, was in their blood, in the very magic that fueled the land beneath them.

David’s calming, familiar voice cut the air. “Your hands do have a way about them,” he replied smoothly.

“How’s the Lord?” the man asked, more sheepish now.

David sighed. “My father is eager to retire his wings. His advisors gossip like biddies, stewing in paranoia.”

“Well, I think you’d look damn good in those wings,” the man purred. “Plus, screaming Lord does have an appeal.”