CHAPTER 1
LILIA
“Please grow,” I whispered to the plants behind our cottage. I hummed to them to bring some cheer into my dying garden, sensing it was useless.
Plants needed water, sunlight, and nutrients—nutrients our depleted soil no longer provided. I curled my fingers into the ashy dirt that should be rich and dark. The sage I’d planted three weeks ago had given up its fight to survive in this harsh setting, and its brown leaves curled and drooped.
I sat back on my heels as I assessed the rest of my garden and moaned. The thyme had turned woody. The chamomile refused to bloom. Even the hardy rosemary looked gray and defeated. And the vegetables? They’d been the first to fall. I’d collected them in a compost pile to speed up the decomposition process so they could one day enrich the soil.
My grand-mère would have gasped in dread to see the state of what was once her beloved garden. She’d taught me everything I knew about plants and their magic—the greenwitch’s art, she’d called it, passed down through the women in our family. But then again, she hadn’t had to live under Queen Mireille’s reign, clawing to survive.
A cough rattled from inside the cottage, racking his small, frail body.
I closed my eyes, counted to three, then stood and wiped the soil from my hands. They were stained green and brown from hours tending the garden, one that had suffered as we did.
I took a deep breath to ground myself before I went in. Inside the cottage, I found my mom sitting beside my younger brother’s bed. Henri’s eyes were closed as he recovered from the cough. Mom appeared just as exhausted, drawn from the worry of watching a loved one struggle to breathe. She hardly slept anymore, attuned to any signs that he might need her.
She glanced up and caught my eye, locking with my gaze just long enough to communicate her concern. Turning back to Henri, she touched his forehead before standing and gesturing for me to exit his room with her.
Once she closed the door, I whispered, “Does he still have a fever?”
She nodded with a grim expression as she headed over to sit in a worn chair. “It’s even worse.” She rubbed her forehead. “He asked for your father again.”
My ribs tightened. My dad had been dead for three years. The fever had lured him so deep into delirium that there was no return.
And for Henri’s fever to spike…
No, he was only nine years old. Far too young to be stolen from us. Hadn’t we lost enough?
“What can we do?” I asked, my voice catching as I walked over and sat across from her. “I’ve checked the books again for how to treat them. But we don’t have the right plants.”
She exhaled, her shoulders slumping. “And we won’t find them here in the village either.”
No, we wouldn’t. Maren’s shelves were empty. Bess had nothing to help. And our gardens…depleted.
We’d lived this way for over three years now, since the queen had tightened her grip on our region like squeezing her long, sharp finger around a throat. Costs rose despite her promises to ease our suffering. Our taxes rose as she took an increasing cut of any value. She was a monster who had lied and lied and grown too powerful. The land suffered. We all suffered.
Except for her and the sycophants in her inner circle. No, they grew richer with each decadent breath, toasting each other in their lavish ballrooms.
At our expense.
The land would recover eventually, given time and rest.
But Henri didn’t have time.
“There’s a village,” Mom said slowly. “Beyond the forest. Past the queen’s reach. There’s a legendary healer there, named Elisabeth. She’ll have what we need to help Henri. I’m sure of it.” She nodded once as if to solidify her resolve.
My mouth fell open. “That would take days.”
“Not if we cut straight through the forest.”
“Mom, no,” I protested, while my heart thumped faster. “The stories about what’s in there. The stone-watchers… The beast?—”
“I know what they say about the forest,” she cut me off, her voice steady. “Stories. That’s all it must be.” Her voice lowered. “I also know what happens if we do nothing.”
I glanced back at Henri’s door, my heart swelling. He was twelve years younger than me and looked up to me, believing I could fix anything. He’d brought me wounded birds and rabbits and asked me to make them better.
I’d do anything to makehimbetter.
