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Chapter 1
Nyana Everdon could not escape soon enough.
A brisk wind tugged on her dress like insistent brambles. The chill breeze clawed at her hair and stung her face. Panic squeezed the air from her lungs as the priest spoke the final word of the ceremony. Avonia and Typheal Svera met each other in a loving kiss as they were remarried as husband and wife, once again united after the previous king had wrongfully annulled their marriage.
The audience clapped.
But Nyana’s chest heaved with discomfort. She wanted to leave. There were too many people. Too many familiar people. And she needed to escape.
Typheal’s face broke into a smile. While black, shameful tattoos used to drip down his face because he had defied her late husband, the previous king of Heulwen, and branded as a traitor, golden tattoos now took their place. They shimmered beneath the late autumn afternoon sunlight, gracing him with pride and renown in King Calle’s court. Avonia’s golden-white wings fluttered with happiness as she faced the audience, hand in hand with the man she loved.
The ceremony was beautiful.
She hated it.
One more minute, Nyana told herself.
But then Calle glanced up and met her gaze over the outdoor pews. His own face broke into a warm smile, the skin around his amber eyes crinkling with mirth. Her panic broke free of its prison, and she hastily pulled the shawl off her shoulders and draped it over her oldest of two daughters, Maisy. The shawl covered the girl’s shoulder-length red-brown hair and her long Sun Fae ears, shading her blue eyes.
“I don’t want to wear this,” Maisy complained.
“Hush,” Nyana murmured. “It will only be for a few minutes.”
As the audience stood after the ceremony and talked amongst themselves, Nyana took each of her daughters by the elbows and steered them away, back in the direction of home.
“Nyana, wait!” Calle called after her.
She ignored him and increased her pace, grinding her teeth against the pain in her leg she desperately tried to hide.
“Mama, can’t we play with Uncle Calle?” Maisy asked. Although Eva said nothing, her large green eyes pleaded the same. Her long blonde hair had escaped from its braid, its strands now buffeted by the wind.
“Later,” she responded, hardly mindful of the rocks jutting out from the dirt path as she tried in vain to escape the man she had loved for a long time. The man who she had thought dead for six years. The man who had chosen to marry another, whose wedding was only two months away.
She didn’t know how to feel about it. She mourned for the life she could have had with him. Yet, she was relieved that they no longer had to walk that path together, especially after everything that had happened.
Calle caught up to them, stepping onto their path and placing his hands on her shoulders to stop her flight. They were warm. Familiar. And they created an ache within her heart. An ache she stomped on and spat upon.
An ache for what could have been, but what was not meant to be.
“You must not have heard me call after you.” He smiled again. Yet, a caution lived within his eyes. It had lived there ever since they’d reunited in unfortunate circumstances.
Her leg ached at the reminder of the event. When her life had fallen apart. But also when she had been freed from her husband’s cruelty. From…from…Liam.
His name in her mind churned acid within her gut.
“I need to get home, Your Highness.” She glanced around him at the path ahead.
“I told you not to call me that. We have too much history together.”
Instead of acknowledging his statement, she nervously glanced behind her to find his fiancée, Skaja Svera, watching their exchange with a wary expression, her golden-white harpy wings hunched close to her body. And rightfully so. Nyana could only assume Skaja felt threatened by her, especially with their wedding date looming closer and closer.
Calle dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Let me escort you home in the carriage. It’s cold outside. I don’t want you or my nieces to freeze.”
Maisy gasped. “Please, Mama? I want to ride with Uncle Calle.”
Nyana gently pushed Maisy behind her back to hide her from Calle’s hopeful gaze. His offers were led by guilt, nothing more. Guilt for what his brother had put her through in their marriage. Guilt for not being there. Guilt for leaving her for another.
Head held high, she reiterated the words she had spoken time and again. “I told you. We don’t need your charity.”
