Chapter 1

“Y ou expect to kill an Ethereum lord with swordsmanship like that?” Queen Liliana roared. “Grip the hilt tighter!”

I grasped it as she instructed but was sure to growl at her in response.

“Good. Get mad. We only have two weeks to prepare you for the portal opening on fall equinox, and anger is better than weakness.”

“I’m not weak!” I snapped, facing her and the half-dozen tutors she’d forced me to work with every day.

Queen Liliana was very passionate about training me to take over from Dawn. She didn’t speak much about the loss of her daughter, but I knew what it meant when the Summer champion had not returned in time. She was gone, to her final resting place among the stars.

We’d never not had a Summer champion return before and it was now my task to bring back the heart of an Ethereum lord. Lest my own lands be ravaged by the curse that currently befell Summer Court.

“Prove it.” Queen Liliana snatched a blade from the instructor and lunged for me.

I gasped, leaping out of the way but she pivoted and charged. She came down with a blow that was so hard, the block I made with my own sword barely held.

“You’re crazy!” I spat.

She had a wild gleam in her eye. “Yes. I’m crazy about saving our people. If you don’t come back with that heart, we will all be filtering into Winter and asking for refuge.”

Her words shook me and she came down with another blow that I blocked.

“I won’t let that happen!” I told her as we lunged, dodged, and slashed at each other.

Clack , clack , clack , the metal of my blade clinked with hers and I was ashamed to admit that I knew she was going easy on me. My parents never let me take more than two weeks of fencing as a child. The second my … condition appeared, they made me stop all physical sports and training. My gifts lay elsewhere, they said.

Queen Liliana cried out, slashing down on my sword so hard that it was ripped from my hand and fell to the ground. Her beautiful golden hair had been torn free of its bun and now lay in messy curls around her shoulders.

“What will you do now, Aribella?” She cocked her head to the side and stalked toward me. My heartbeat increased, thumping against my chest as I walked backward. “I know of your little secret,” she taunted and the color drained from my face.

She knew? Dizziness washed over me and I began my breathing exercises to calm the frantic racing in my chest.

“Show me how you can manipulate my mood and take my sword,” she said, and relief rushed through me.

Oh, that secret. It wasn’t a heavily guarded one but my gift was quite unique and it made people uncomfortable, so I didn’t share with many that I had it.

“Your highness, I could never use it on you in that way,” I told her and then my back hit the wall.

She pressed the tip of the blade right to my throat, causing my eyes to fly wide.

She was truly insane.

Even the tutors that were present gasped.

“Rip this sword from my hands or I’m shoving it in your throat,” she declared.

My mouth popped open in shock.

“Three … two …” she counted and then I pushed the emotion of frantic desperation into her.

Suddenly Queen Liliana fell into tears, screaming and crying. She looked around the room in anguish, distracted, as if she’d lost something. I took that chance to slip away from her blade and pluck it from her hands.

Seeing her weep openly, grasping her chest as if her very heart hurt, it killed me. So did the fearful looks that the tutors were giving me. Once people learned of my gift, they never treated me the same again.

I pulled the emotion back, like peeling a blanket off her, and the Queen’s face went from destitute sobbing into a full-fledged grin. “Oh, my darling, you’ve been hiding that all this time?”

I felt badly for Dawn then, how her childhood must have been being raised by this woman who only seemed proud when you showed her how well you would kill or disarm someone.

“I am sorry,” I told her honestly.

She wiped the tears off her cheeks, grinning. “It felt so real. If I hadn’t known you had the power I’d have thought it was me. Don’t ever apologize for such things. This is how you will save us all. Let’s work more with this power since your swordsmanship is hopeless.”

I scoffed. She just called me hopeless like it was nothing and yet, I still wanted to please her. I looked up to her, in a way. She didn’t treat me like a delicate, breakable flower. Like my parents did.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly.

Falana, our household secretary, entered the training room holding her clipboard and cleared her throat. She wore her bright red hair in its signature bun and waited until I stepped over to her before she began speaking in low tones. “We have an issue at the southern border that King Leonard wants you to look into. You will be gone a few hours.”

I peered back at Queen Liliana, who dismissed me with her hand. “We will pick up cartography mapping after dinner.”

I groaned. As much as I loved books and learning of all kinds, the preparation I was currently undergoing was relentless. I awoke to weight training, then after breakfast I had the history of Ethereum, then potions, then lunch, and after that it was four more classes before bed. I was exhausted every night and my friends had all but given up on expecting me to hang out.

Following Falana, I stepped out into the hallway and grabbed a clean towel from one of the maids. Wiping my face, I smoothed my palms over my slacks. “What issue are we talking about?” I asked Falana now that we were alone.

The courts in Faerie were historically matriarchal, but my mother, Queen Beatrice, was never interested in the day-to-day ruling. Everyone knew that my father, even though he was only a consort, was the true ruler of the Fall Court. I was still training to take over from him and I couldn’t shirk those duties, no matter how important training to go to Ethereum was.

The past couple months had tested every ounce of my stamina but I was happy to report, I’d had no episodes. Maybe I could have lived my whole life like this. My mother had wrapped me up in metaphorical eggshells my entire life and now that I was living a “normal” existence, I kind of liked it.

“Well, it’s unclear, my lady. A farmer has sent word of a well going bad,” she said, peering down the hall to make sure we were not being overheard.

I stopped walking. “The Fall princess is traveling to the southern border and eating dinner on the road to check out a dry well?”

I wasn’t normally snobbish, but this was beneath me. Was Father mad at me? Why else would he send me on this errand?

Falana stepped closer, lowering her voice. “The farmer says the water he pulls up is blacker than a raven’s feather. Your father wants it confirmed by you personally. You’re the only one he trusts.”

I gasped. Black water. The curse. No. We had two more weeks. It had started already in Fall?

My heart ramped up its beating and dizziness washed over me as I stumbled backward a little.

“My lady!” Falana reached out and grasped my arm, but it was too late. Blackness danced at the edge of my vision and then I lost consciousness.

* * *

I came to in the back of a carriage. Falana was fanning me with her sandalwood fan, my favorite scent wafting over me. As a child I almost welcomed the fainting episodes because Falana was always there to bring me out of it. The scent of sandalwood became my favorite as I associated it with healing.

“How long was I out?” I asked, sitting up slowly.

I’d clearly thought too soon about not having had an episode, and I immediately felt shame that I’d just experienced one. I’d been beginning to think I was healed or had grown too strong for them to affect me like this. It was so disappointing to find out that I’d been wrong.

“About ten minutes,” Falana said. “I had Donte discreetly put you in the carriage. We just left the palace gates. I didn’t want to waste time and I hoped you would wake quickly.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

I eyed the fan, wondering if she knew how much I loved it and cherished her mothering all these years. My family didn’t believe in nannies raising children, like the other rulers. My mother had been the one to put me to bed, wake me up, kiss my boo-boos. But Falana was like a nanny in a way. My mother couldn’t handle seeing me in distress so Falana always stepped in during my episodes.

“Did anyone see?” I asked her.

“No, my lady.”

We were quiet the rest of the ride to the southern border where the farms lay along our land. I opened the curtain and gazed at the beautiful orange and yellow trees, smiling when a gust of wind would come and knock the leaves off them and then drag them down the road. Then magically, more leaves would grow back in their place within seconds.

Eternal fall.

It was the best season in my humble opinion, but every princess thought that about their court. Burned leaves, crisp cool air, pumpkin hand pies, nutmeg cream, cinnamon scones, fire crackling in the fireplace. Nothing beat fall.

When we finally reached the farm in question, my stomach growled in protest for dinner. Falana had packed some muffins and dried meat, but I’d have to eat it on the way back because the farmer was running for the carriage with wide eyes.

I cleared my throat, ready to calm the situation and put on a strong face for my people. Half a dozen guards flanked our carriage, but I’d trained them to look relaxed and not hostile. I didn’t want my people thinking I was protecting myself from them.

Falana left the carriage first, opening the door for me, and I stepped out next.

“Princess Aribella!” the farmer cried out, dipping into a low bow. “I’m so glad you came. You must see, it’s the curse, I’m sure of it. I heard what happened in the Summer Court and now it’s coming for us. We must tell everyone—”

I pushed the emotion of calmness into him and he stopped rambling, taking a deep breath.

“Let’s check out the water together and make a plan, shall we?” I asked him with a smile.

“Yes, princess,” he agreed, his posture much more relaxed.

The last thing we needed was a panic on our hands. If all of Fall Court got wind of this, there would be a full-blown exodus into Spring and we couldn’t have that.

The farmer walked me over to the well, around which his wife and three young children, all under five years old, were sitting, two of them eating apples. As I approached, they stood, wiping their hands and standing straight. The little ones curtsied so low their hair almost touched the ground, and I smiled at them.

“Hello,” I called to them, but they all moved to hide behind their mother, suddenly overcome by shyness.

The farmer’s wife looked worried but was holding it together for the children. She curtsied to me. “Nice to meet you, my lady. I’ll take them inside for bath time.” She widened her eyes meaningfully, as if she didn’t want me to say anything about the black water or the curse in front of them.

I nodded and they left.

Once they were out of sight, the farmer began to crank the well handle, raising the bucket. “I had my wife sit guard just in case,” he said.

I slowly pulled the calmness away from him. I never liked to leave an emotion with people for too long. I didn’t want it to feel fake, or unnatural.

As my powers receded from him he looked a little panicked, so I quickly tried to assure him. “If the curse is here, that’s okay. We have a plan for that. My father and I aren’t going to let anything happen to our people.”

He nodded, seeming to relax a bit, and then the bucket came up.

It was filled to the brim with black water.

I frowned. “Anything that could have caused this? Oil? Someone tampering with the well?”

He shook his head. “Smells like water. It was clear yesterday and the well shaft looks untouched.”

I leaned forward and smelled the bucket. It smelled like nothing, not putrid or oily.

I tried to cover the shudder that ran through me. This made it real.

The curse was here, in the Fall Court, and I was leaving in fourteen days to carve the heart of an Ethereum lord lest all the people I cared about died.