Chapter 4
Alora
Before the first light of dawn, the Thornbearer’s carriage took her down the winding path, leaving behind the manor’s grandeur. It was pulled by two great white elk draped in moss, flickering blue wisps weaving through their antlers. Alora sat stiffly on the velvet seat, clutching all she owned.
Like the day she arrived in the Midlands, she left it with only one bag.
Inside was a change of clothes, her mother’s scarf, and a shabby doll sewn from a patch of velvet, with button eyes and cornsilk hair. A gift from her childhood friend. A relic, really, but it had been a treasured companion for nearly fifteen years.
farther they traveled, the forest dimmed. Glowing lights faded, and the scent of wildflowers and magic gave way to stone and dust.
By noon, they came upon the wall of trees that warded the border.
The trunks groaned as they parted for the carriage, as if guided by an invisible hand.
The wheels creaked forward and Alora glanced back for another look for another look of the Midlands.
But the borough was already dissolving into shimmer and mist.
Alora pressed her palm to the window, watching the land shift past in shades of green and gray, dreading what awaited her at the end of the journey.
She didn’t even know her brother. Rihan had been born after her father sent her away, raised in the castle while she fended for herself.
Perhaps, such truism should have been expected once he replaced his queen. But Alora hadn’t known any better.
The fae lived long lives, yet Salvia withered to a strange illness with no name. Her skin had paled to a sickly green. Her once-beautiful emerald hair turned brittle and colorless. The healers called it a spell of madness when her sharp mind began to unravel, thread by thread.
When Alora turned seven, her mother would rave through the halls, shrieking at the shadows in the corners. Sometimes Salvia had lucid days where she smiled and sang to her, and that small mercy kept Alora praying to the Seven for a healing that never came.
The king had called on every healer in the kingdom to save her and all failed.
Then the Thornbearer sent Delphi.
Delphi had been beautiful in a strange way, her skin like twilight, her midnight hair streaked with violet, her scent like a garden of poisonous herbs. Alora didn’t like her, but Salvia immediately brightened in her presence.
“This is my daughter,” her mother told Delphi as she introduced them. “Care for her as you would me.” Salvia turned then, her fingers warm in Alora’s hair. “This is Delphi, my sweet bloom. One of three who anointed you with a blessing when you were born.” Salvia smiled faintly. “A fairy’s gift.”
But she paused, her gaze locking with Delphi’s, something unspoken passing between them.
“Think of her as your godmother.”
Yet Delphi wasted no time shutting Alora out of her mother’s chambers.
Salvia’s condition briefly improved—for a day.
Then she quickly declined faster than before.
It became clear the blue fairy was only there to provide medicinal comfort in Salvia’s last days.
Then the king stopped visiting altogether once her illness grew beyond saving.
Alora sat alone in her room, listening to her mother’s screams at night until her heart could take no more.
The queen was buried on a rain-soaked morning when no sun shone.
Yet the healer did not leave.
Alora’s heart was crushed the day she caught Laurent kissing Delphi in his study. He showed no shame when he declared she would be her new mother.
And Alora lost her mind.
She attacked the fairy, clawing at her face, sobbing and screaming every insult her child’s tongue could shape.
It was no wonder she was cast out.
When the wedding bells rang through the halls, the servants placed Alora into the same carriage she rode now. There was no goodbye. No explanation but a short letter from her father.
She cried silently into the folds of her cloak as the words duty and education blurred on the page.
Exile, dressed as a lesson.
She had been ten years old.
Perhaps he sent her away because Alora looked too much like her mother. Perhaps grief had twisted him, too.
When she had arrived at the Briar Manor all those years ago, the Thornbearer stared at her with pale pink eyes, as if uncertain what to do with her.
“You will call me Lady Zinnia,” she said.
“Are you my godmother too?” Alora asked through her tears.
Her lips pinched. “I suppose I am now. Nonetheless, you may only call me by name or title. As my ward, I expect you to obey my instruction. Every lesson must be completed with perfection and grace.”
Alora then conformed to her new life as she waited day after day, for forgiveness that never came. She held hope even as the years slipped past.
But when she turned fifteen, word arrived that a new prince had been born in Argyle.
And then she finally accepted that her father had moved on.
Alora swallowed, her breath fogging the carriage windows. The memory still stung like an open wound, but she no longer wanted to go back. Argyle was not her home anymore. It had not been for a long time.
“What if I no longer wish to be a princess?” she murmured to Lady Zinnia that morning, when it was time to leave.
The fairy tilted her head, faintly amused. “Then find the courage to be something more.”
The counsel had lingered in Alora’s mind.
She had not always been courageous. She had learned early how to bend instead to the whim of others. Obedience had kept her fed. Silence had kept her safe. But it had taken everything else.
Her gaze drifted toward the mountain rising in the distance, its dark peak veiled in cloud. She had spent her life looking away from it.
Perhaps courage came as a refusal to accept what the world decided.
Alora closed her eyes and leaned against the carriage wall. The steady rhythm lulled her, Zinnia’s words following her into sleep.
Alora dreamed of sunrays through stained glass windows. Of warm rooms that smelled of wisteria and wine. Her mother’s voice hummed softly in the distance, weaving between the garden breeze and the lullaby soothed her like the rocking of a cradle.
But then she sang as she danced through the forest and the dream shifted.
She stumbled into the dark, breathless. Shadows curled around her bare feet, cool and velvet smooth. A presence lingered behind her, watching.
She didn’t turn.
She couldn’t, as if some unseen force held her in place.
A whisper followed, deep and unfamiliar. There you are…
His voice carried like wind in the hollow, curling through her mind. The warmth of a hand caressed her cheek.
Alora.
She gasped and jolted awake in the carriage.
The low sun gleamed amber on the horizon with the evening. She had slept most of the day. Alora groaned, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and rolling her stiff neck.
Her dread and discomfort must have brought on such a strange dream.
Rose-gold clouds spilled across the sky as the trees began to thin. Her stomach sank when the carriage crested the Hydell Hills, and Alora gazed upon the kingdom that had once called her princess.
Argyle.
Pale spires and tiled rooftops rose above the treeline, enclosed within a fortified wall, the dark sea stretching behind it.
It looked smaller than she remembered, stripped of the grandeur her childhood had once lent it.
The rolling fields lay in patchwork brown and faded green.
The river that had once glittered now ran dull with algae.
A unit of soldiers stood upon the battlements, watching her carriage approach. The drop gate was raised without a single word. They had been expecting her.
The streets were quiet as she was driven through them. Shop shutters were drawn tight. Thresholds lay dark. Guards stood at every corner of the empty streets, their eyes hard and tired.
Alora let the curtains fall closed. She did not want to see the stares.
But she felt them follow the carriage all the same.
Once they reached the castle gates, the guards shouted, and trumpets blew. The grand iron gates creaked open, and the carriage rolled into the courtyard. Alora sat frozen as the wheels slowed. Then she took a deep breath and stepped out.
Servants and soldiers lined the courtyard in muted gray, heads bowed, eyes carefully averted. Alora quickly searched their faces for those familiar but did not see her friends. No welcome but the hush.
Even the air was cold here, the sun hidden behind the tall spires. Faded green flags bearing Argyle’s coat of arms with a white stag snapped in the wind.
The castle looked … dilapidated and unkempt.
Dark moss stained the stone, coated in desiccated thorns. The last warmth of the Midlands vanished from her bones as the enchanted carriage rolled away, disappearing into mist.
A man descended the stairs. He was tall, robed in emerald velvet and lined with gold. His beard had grayed at the edges, and his crown sat lower on his brow, but his gray eyes were the same.
“Father,” she greeted softly with a bow of her head.
King Laurent stepped forward and gathered her into an embrace. Alora stiffed, arms at her sides. She didn’t know how to reach for him anymore. He was unfamiliar to her, except for his scent of parchment and cloves.
“By the Heavens,” her father whispered. “Look at you. You’ve grown into your mother’s image.”
He pulled away with a warm smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Come now. Let’s get you settled. We will dine together. The two of us.”
They entered the castle’s main doors, and he led her through sterile halls void of any color or portraits.
The windows no longer gleamed with stained glass.
She had expected to feel nostalgic, but it was all so unfamiliar.
The tapestries were no longer embroidered with her mother’s green and gold but now covered in designs of royal blue and white.
On the second landing, a figure stood in shadow. Tall. Slender. Shrouded in black.
Delphi.
She stood unmoving, hands clasped before her, watching her. A large headdress and sheer black veil hid the queen’s face, but Alora could feel her sharp gaze.
Alora was self-conscious of her wrinkled appearance after the long carriage ride, yet she held her poise. Taking the edges of her simple dress, she dipped in a curtsy. “It is good to see you …godmother.”
Alora offered her a small polite smile she’d often seen Lady Zinnia wear. The greeting was intentional. Petty perhaps. A stark reminder of Delphi’s betrayal to her mother’s memory. Alora could almost feel the fairy’s silent ire in the air.
She thought of the “gift of tears” Delphi had bestowed upon her at birth. A fairy blessing that served no purpose but to cry pretty. A mockery she briefly considered returning.
But the queen simply turned and vanished down the hall.
“Delphi is still in mourning,” her father said lightly, as if explaining away a draft in the air.
“She has not left her chambers much since…” He trailed off, his expression flickering with a brief shadow of grief before he fixed a polite smile on his face.
He gave her arm a gentle pat. “We are grateful you have come home.”
Alora looked down at where he touched her. His large hand dwarfed her thin arm. It was strange to be in his presence, to pretend everything between them was all right.
King Laurent continued onward. “Come. I will show you to your room so you can wash up for dinner.”
Dinner alone with her father? The thought unnerved her. Not merely being alone with him but rather fear at what he might say.
Alora paused at an archway leading out to the castle gardens.
Her mother had once filled this place with life. Singing birds and climbing ivy, a bubbling fountain, and laughter. Now, the stone beds were lined in gravel. The fountain long dry.
“I don’t belong here, do I?” she whispered.
Her question echoed through the empty foyer, fading into dust and shadow.