Chapter One

Story is the lifeblood of our people. Story teaches. Story cautions. But sometimes stories are just stories, and life takes another, unexpected path. The wily Fae may have honor, the fearsome dragon a tender heart, the dainty princess the bravery of a King, and an unfaithful lover might love most of all…

Stories teach us, but they also mislead us. Not all heroes carry swords, and not all villains have evil intentions.

Story is, after all, just words. And words do not have the weight of action.

-

“Concentrate,” I whispered the words. “Concentration and focus are key.”

On the walkways around the walls, King Akyran’s dark elf guards did their rounds, their footfalls armour-heavy, and the plumes of their helmets casting dramatic shadows over the courtyard. The sky overhead was greying with cloud, and the heady perfume of the petrichor released by the earth in promise of rain was sweeter than the other scents of the courtyard – the sweat of the knights in training, the leather, the horse excrement, and the blacksmith’s fire.

“Daethie, move!” Tarragon cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed the order. “Don’t just stand there waiting for the gauntlet to stop for you!” The knights around her laughed and exchanged bets as they joked and vied for her attention.

With her golden hair and violet eyes, even clad in armour, Tarragon was an arresting beauty, the delicacy of her features and soft fullness of her lips belying the steely determination that she displayed as a knight, and the merciless skill with which she wielded her sword, the legendary Intuin Desparen, gifted to our mother by the Prince Rivyn of the Fae Court of Light.

Tarragon cared not for any of the handsome young knights. Unlike myself, Tarragon was intensely focused on achieving her goal, her purpose in life. She was the child of prophecy, after all. Destined to save us all from the monsters that plagued our world.

“Concentrate, Daethie,” Rue met my eyes shaking his head slightly, his golden hair catching the last rays of sun to pierce the cloud cover. In every way he was the mirror image of our father, and only grew more so with every year that passed, though his braid had a long way to go until it reached the length of our father’s.

Concentrate. I turned my attention to the gauntlet.

The gauntlet was a torture device that could only have come from the darkest minds of the darkest of Fae Courts. It was a wooden structure raised as high from the ground as Rue and Tarragon were tall, which, considering they had inherited our father’s height, was HIGH. Especially for me, who had somehow missed every drop of dragon blood, and therefore also lacked the dragon height.

Supported by an A frame structure, various devices designed to bruise, impale, slice and, generally, cause pain, swung, rotated, and scissored. The pathway through this nightmare was not one straight and level, but rather requiring a person to leap or step between platforms, some no wider than a man’s foot was long. What was more, when she was feeling particularly mean, Ecaeris was known to remove the supports beneath the platforms, so choosing to place your weight too long upon the wrong platform would result in its collapse.

There were many things about King Akyran and Queen Ecaeris Monster Hunting academy that I hated – the food, the draughty rooms, the haughty dark elves, the mockery of the knights being amongst them – but the gauntlet easily topped that list.

“You can do it, Daethie,” Valerian called out whilst exchanging a coin purse with Caraway. “She’s not going to do it,” he added to his twin. “Not even halfway.”

“It’s beginning to rain,” Caraway tipped his golden head back and caught a raindrop on his tongue. His violet eyes had concave pupils like our father, something which Tarragon, Rue and Valerian hadn’t inherited in their human forms. “Makes things slippery. Two obstacles.”

“You’re on.”

Rain drops splashed onto the wood around me, washing away the dirt that had dusted the slats.

Through the castle gates, a company of horsemen were arriving, Prince Akyran and Princess Ecaeris at the lead, and a young man in a hooded cloak following petulantly behind.

“Wonderful,” I looked away from them to the many moving parts of the gauntlet ahead of me. An extended audience was precisely not what I needed to witness my humiliation. “Concentrate Daethie.”

I drew in a deep breath and tried, as always, to guess the timing. I could never quite get it right. By luck, perhaps I might get past the first few obstacles, but the further in I got, the faster they moved, and the less chance I had to watch for the next obstacle in my path.

In the end, there was no other option, truly, I decided, other than to close my eyes and jump and keep jumping. I made it past halfway and had just begun to feel the excitement that this time, perhaps, was my time, when something struck me across the top of the head, and the world went black.

I woke with Ecaeris applying smelling salts. “There you go Daethie,” she said as I opened my eyes.

“Oh, my head,” I groaned in pain. It felt as if my head had been cracked in two.

“Yes, I’ll mix you something that will take the edge off of that,” she said with empathy. She leaned back. “Take it easy in the meantime, and don’t try to sit up too quickly or you will - ” She broke off as I sat up, and danced backwards as the world swayed on me, and I turned to vomit up the contents of my stomach onto the dirt. “Be sick,” she finished on a sigh. “I will go mix you that potion.”

I groaned in misery, and sat, my back against the wall, whilst the servants cleaned away my mess and a maid brought me water and a cloth to put against my aching head. Around me, the activity of the courtyard had resumed, with knights practising the various skills of their trade both against the straw and burlap dummies and against each other.

“Oh Daethie,” Tarragon sighed as she squatted before me. “You are meant to duck, you know?”

“Thank you, Tarra,” I did not open my eyes. “Like I didn’t know that.”

She sighed heavily. “I’ll speak to mother and father again,” she promised me, reaching out to put her hand on my knee. “And try to make them see sense. This just isn’t the place for you at all. We’ll all be happier with you back home in Uyan Taesil, and out of harm’s way. We all have our own destinies, Daethie, and yours is not to be a knight fighting monsters.”

“What is it then?” I wondered.

“Well…” She trailed off, stumped as to what the destiny could be for one such as me. “You could get married?”

“Oh. No.” I opened an eye. “No thank you.”

Even being the second daughter of Queen Diandreliera and King Valsaurienkachelial taradrakyn and their only child born without a hint of dragon, without the ability to shift, no magical power, I attracted plenty of knights aspiring for my hand in marriage. Usually knight errants, younger sons, or Lords whose fortunes had waned, and occasionally a prince under a curse looking for someone to break it, but they were not interested in Princess Daethie, but rather my dowry and family connections.

I did not want to marry someone who wanted me only for such things, I wanted the love I saw between my parents. I wanted someone to look at me the way my father looked at my mother.

“I want to marry for love,” I told her. “And only for that reason.”

“Here we are,” Ecaeris had returned with her potion. “Drink this down, Daethie, and then to your chambers with you for the remainder of the day.”

I didn’t sniff at the potion, rather held my breath, and drank it down in one mouthful, trying not to examine its consistency on my tongue. Experience had taught me that the less I thought, smelt, looked at, or tasted of potions, the better it was, as they rarely held up to close scrutiny without turning the stomach.

“Who was your prisoner?” Tarragon asked Ecaeris.

“Aien Verstarjen. His father is Derien Verstarjen, the warlock who owns the castle that straddles the mountain path you wish to take on your crusade to find the source of these monsters. He is somewhat notorious for his ill-temper and his garden of statues.”

“Statues,” Tarragon lifted an eyebrow.

“They were once servants of the castle, disgruntled villagers, or the occasional knight come to challenge him,” Ecaeris clarified.

“Ah,” Tarragon nodded in understanding. “So, what’s with the prisoner?”

“Surety,” Ecaeris replied. “Akyran and I persuaded Derien to temper his ways, and to ally with us, with Aien as guarantee that the alliance holds. Aien is, after all, Derien’s only child, and a son. He’s pretty, hmm?” She added mischievously.

“He’s not hard on the eye,” Tarragon replied with a slight smile and a shake of her head.

My head felt less likely to throb off my neck, so I carefully used the wall to rise to my feet and both women looked at me assessing whether or not I was likely to vomit or fall over at their feet. “I’ll just…” I put one hand to my forehead and gestured to the door. “Be on my way.”

They didn’t stop me from leaving, and resumed their conversation as I neared the doorway. I slowly made my way through the castle and up the stairs to the level where my room was, discovering as I walked that my injuries were not limited to my head. My hip was sore, a knee ached with every step, and my shoulder on that side – drawing a picture in bruised flesh as to how, precisely, I had landed in the courtyard.

As I limped along the hallway towards my door, I passed a chamber where the door was open, and heard Akyran’s voice from within.

“You are not a prisoner, Aien,” the King was saying. “But there will be restrictions as to how far from the castle you can go. And you are expected to attend the training in the courtyard every day.”

“Training for what precisely?” Aien sneered.

“To help people. This a training school for heroes. We seek to provide this land with the heroes required to fight against the influx of monsters. You can turn your abilities to the betterment of others here, Aien. You can learn to be a hero, and not a villain.”

“A villain,” Aien repeated. “But isn’t that what I am? The son of a villain destined to follow in my father’s footsteps?”

“It doesn’t need to be that way. Think about it,” Akyran turned and raised his eyebrows as he saw me through the doorway. “Daethie?”

My eyes flicked beyond him to the young man. Ecaeris and Tarragon were right. He was very pretty, with strong cheek bones and jaw line, full lips, and a pleasant brow line. His eyes were a green tinged hazel and clever. His hair was overgrown and as dark as night, the strands erratic as if he had wrung his fingers through it many times during the conversation with Akyran – something I could sympathize with, as any conversation with the prince had me doing the same.

“I…” I stammered my eyes flitting between the young man and Akyran. “I was just heading to my room,” I finished, flustered at being caught eavesdropping so blatantly, something I’d never usually do, except my mind was still scattered from the blow to my head. “I’m in the next room,” I finished, and braced a hand against my hip as I continued that way.

“She fell hard and is disorientated,” I heard Akyran explain to Aien as I reached my chamber.

“Yes. I saw.”

I sighed heavily as I opened my bedchamber door. “Who didn’t?”