Page 1 of Faeling
Prologue
Despite all her father’s careful planning, despite the sacrifice he and her mother made to keep her safe, Ravenna’s long sleep wasn’t so long at all.
She’d been told that the long sleep was a dreamless, peaceful thing. That time and the outside world meant little to a sleeping fae. Her body would need neither food nor drink, her mind would not mark the passage of time.
But Ravenna wasn’t a true fae. A halfling, the daughter of a human mother and fae father, Ravenna and her magic had never acted as her father, Maxim, had predicted. A creation of two worlds, her magic was unpredictable, wild. It took years of honing to forge it into something manageable for Maxim.
Yet, it defied him. One last time.
Ravenna awoke from her deep sleep far sooner than he’d designed. Hers hadn’t been a dreamless sleep, either, instead filled with vivid but incoherent images. That was often the way with her gift, her foresight. Given the chance, with her usual defenses dulled, all manner of disjoined visions had unspooledone after the next, a jumbled pile of thread to detangle.
—the burn of saltwater in her eyes—the pass of warm green skin over hers—white lashes catching the sun—the screaming whinnies of unicorns—sprite—all hail all hail all—
Ravenna’s eyes peeled open, her true vision blurry with disuse. Her mind quieted almost immediately, her gift receding behind the careful ramparts she’d made for it.
Reality pierced the protective cocoon her father had constructed for her, and Ravenna felt nothing but relief.
As her vision slowly refocused, she started to rouse her body, one little bit at a time. She began with her toes, wiggling each before rotating her ankles. Working her way up, she tested each joint, carefully easing sensation back into her corporeal form.
By the time she was ready to sit up in her bower bed, her body only creaked a little. Although only fifty-two, barely out of adolescence by fae standards, it took long moments before Ravenna felt secure enough to stand. As she waited, she tested her hands on the textures of her bedding and her nose on the warm scents of summer outside the bower.
Her hand found and clutched her childhood blanket, drawing it onto her lap. The batting had long gone flat, the embroidery frayed and bleached with time, but when she held it to her nose, she still caught a waft of her childhood—sea breezes with the tang of salt, sugar and lemon mixing in a bowl, thyme and rosemary drying on the windowsill.
The blanket was all softness and comfort, just as her mother Aine had been.
That knife of reality sank a little deeper, finally pricking something that hurt. She quickly put down the blanket and her softness.
Maman is dead.
A sheep led to slaughter.
Angry tears blurred her vision, and Ravenna quickly wiped them away. There had been enough tears already; more wouldn’t bring her mother back.
When she felt able, she pushed herself up to standing, her knees only wobbling a little. The door to the bower her father had built into the side of a grassy knoll creaked on its unused hinges, opening to a quiet summer afternoon. The air was warm and fragrant, a contrast to the cool bite of late winter when she’d first entered the deep sleep.
Ravenna stopped a few paces from the bower door, regaining her bearings. The world was so vivid, every shaft of light blinding, each scent overpowering. Her fingers and toes prickled as blood flowed back into her extremities, and her wings slowly unfolded from her back to spread in the light.
As blood and feeling flowed back through her body, so too did the memories. Her heart pounding as she ran. Her mother’s cry in her ear.“Run! Run, Crow!”
Ravenna had run, as fast as she could. All her life she’d lived with the fear of the evil Fae Queen coming to claim her—when it finally happened, it hadn’t seemed real. That her whole life should come crashing down just by chance, bad luck—it was unbelievable. That she and her mother should happen upon a handful of fae knights on a commonplace walk through the forest, foraging for mushrooms, truffles, and wild onions.
Maman had wanted to make truffle soup, her father’s favorite. For when he returned.
There would be no return. Flinging their baskets away, she and her mother had fled at the first sight of the fae knights, their ghostly pale armor flashing between the trees. For a moment, Ravenna hoped they hadn’t been spotted. For a moment, shehoped they’d gotten away.
“Run! Run, Crow!”
Ravenna had run, as fast as her feet could take her, back to their cottage by the sea, surrounded by a wall of wards set by her father. She’d returned alone. Too late, she realized her mother had drawn them off. Too late, she realized the fate she’d dreaded was coming to pass.
It wasn’t until weeks later that the fate of both her mother and father was confirmed. Her father’s friend Allarion Meringor had come for her, as planned. He brought with him the terrible news—the culmination of Maxim’s own morbid prophecy. Her parents had died protecting her, refusing to give her up.
Now it was time for Ravenna and Allarion to play their parts in the plan. To secret away to lands unknown, seeking a life of anonymity and possible safety. It was the final gift her parents gave her—and Ravenna didn’t want it.
She was an ungrateful, angry, guilty daughter.
Maman’s blood is on both our hands, papa.
The sound of hasty hoofbeats broke her concentration, and from the eastern tree line burst a silver blur.
