1 Chapter 1 : Problems and Prophecies

Raquel’s POV

It was always autumn in the Everwood northwest of the Spires, a tawny shade of butter squash blanketed the trees where pumpkin mellow and blood beet hadn’t filtered through yet. The grass was a neutral green, neither dying nor full of life, and I thought that static seemed on par with the rest of the Faewild, where Gaia’s great hand never parted the seasons. Time was lost to us here, centuries bleeding like minutes, and it was only when we crossed over the Spires to human lands, that we saw how much had changed.

The curse of being Fae—Or, gift, if you weren’t so fatalistic.

“Raquel! Raquel!” The wind shifted, full of childish laughter and mischief. Invisible hands tugged at the studs lining my ears, the tips of clawed fingers careful. “We have a message!”

Ah, damn, there went my lunch break.

I stretched, feeling joints pop along my back courtesy of Mal’s impromptu sparring session yesterday, and tossed my apple core into the lake. There was a flash of darkness under the murky surface of the pond, and I knew the kelpie kid was thrilled at his little treat. He was still too young to hold a land-dwelling form for long, or risk drying out, and the apple grove was miles from here. He liked the cores best and savored the potential of life found in the young seeds. The darker attributes are found in the unicorns' Unseelie kin.

But, from the corner of my eye, I did see a lick of a tail, dark with a dusting of scales. His version of a wave. Adorable. I did always have a soft spot for children.

Hands tugged at my earrings again, harsher this time, and I blew air out of the side of my mouth to dislodge the little troublemakers from my person.

The last thing I needed for today was a hex.

Not this close to the Quartering.

“What is it?” It wasn’t that I disliked harpies, but I just wasn’t in the mood for their brand of gossip. “Is this about the paddock again?”

They loved to tell me about who was fucking in the paddock.

“Noooo!” There was a chorus of high-pitched giggles and the wind changed course to pitch my cape over my head, which elicited more laughter. I rolled my eyes at the fine joke, throwing my cape back and my hood down. Remember Raquel, spirits of the air were always young at heart…

I held my tongue, irritated by the number of hands pulling at my ears and cape until one gust of wind blew my bangs up. One of the women solidified in front of me, the feathers of a blue jay framing a sharp face with the blazing orange-yellow eyes of a bearded vulture.

She opened her mouth, wider than her human-like lips would suggest, and whispered, “There’s a human in the meadow!”

I froze, hand already on the pommel of my sword.

Fuck.

“What type of human?” I asked carefully, making sure to not spook Nanica, who was grazing gently by the pond. For a war steed, she was shaping up to be the most cowardly of creatures. But I suppose that was a yale for you... “And in what meadow?”

“Favor,” the little minx chirped, sunset eyes jubilant. “We want a favor!”

There was no way in this world or the next that was happening.

“I promise you will leave with all your limbs intact.” She pouted, cutely in the way all harpies practiced before they set out for human lands at night to feed. It was easier to skewer the stupid ones who mistook them for interested human women in the night. It would do her little good here. I grew up in the Faewild, I was privy to all their tricks. “That’s my favor. Take it or leave it.”

“This is why no one likes you, doxy-bane!” I knew this one. The next harpy to materialize was older than the first, a matriarch. Linette as she liked to be called. “You never play with Mother nor her children!”

“I’ve seen the way you ladies entertain yourselves.” They laughed, circling me like I was carrion already, eyes looking for an entry point. A moment of weakness. Let them try it. Let them see why I was called the Crimson Blade. “I’d be a fool indeed to take you up on your fun.”

“Your liver will grow back!” Claudia. I’m surprised she hadn’t been slayed yet, to be honest. What was left of her right eye still bore the mangled scars of where I’d fought her all those years ago. It clashed terribly with her lilac and blueberry feathers. “Come on, doxy-bane! Let us have a taste! Pretty please?”

“You try it and I’ll finish the job,” Claudia hissed, arching up to fly with her sisters where I couldn’t reach her. Damn. “Why do you even want a favor from me? You know how well the Court likes me…”

“The Air talks,” Linette cooed. “Mother knows all the secrets of what could be and what will, and the tides are turning, little one.”

“What do you mean?”

The only reason King Tiberius let the harpies get away with as much as they did was due to the fact that they were gifted with the sight of premonition. They were the only creatures in The Court of Moonlit Shadows that could. Only, these visions, though accurate, were scarce at best.

As far as I knew, the harpies hadn’t had a vision in almost a hundred years since the Queen had passed off into the next life.

Linette flew to one of the low branches of the tree I had previously rested under, her daughters alighting beside her until the willow was more harpy than leaf.

“…Wouldn’t you like to know, dearest?”

I did not have time for this…

“You know as well as I that it’s treason not to tell the King of any visions you receive.”

“He will be no more Mother’s master than he will be yours soon enough.” Linette pecked at her plumage, the resplendent white of a swan’s, bare breasts swaying with the effort. “Mother would say more, but too much would spoil the ending!”

The harpy matriarch tossed her head back and sang, light and enchanting and scarily bewitching. The reason why I wore as many enchanted studs in my ears. These women and their hexing. “Little Ruby, sitting in the Great Gods’ Garden! Slayer of the Dread One’s Beast! Gentle Heart, you will be given Pardon! We cup our hands to the High Priest!”

She took a bow, little chicken foot leading on the branch, and all her children followed suit. Ridiculous.

“Are you quite done?” That was the other issue with harpies. Their visions, though true, were the stuff of nonsense. There probably wasn’t even a human—

“HELP!” The voice was hoarse with age or exhaustion and tight with fear. “SOMEONE PLEASE! HELP!”

“We are not done yet,” I said, casting an irritated finger at the harpy matriarch.

Linette chirruped, grabbing one of her chicks to feed as I whistled for Nanica. Her daughters cackled in the trees, knowing my threat was mostly empty while the other half of them had already settled down for a nap before sunset. “We will have words later, and depending on those words, you may be brought in front of His Majesty for questioning!”

“Promises, promises, light-bringer,” Linette cooed. “Mother looks forward to your next visit!”

Well, that was a new slur I hadn’t heard before. Heeding my call, Nanica trotted forward on glass hooves, eyeing the she-beasts warily. I hopped up on her saddle and charged toward the wood, keen on helping whomever it was screaming its bloody head off.

Gods, I hoped it wasn’t too late…

***

Wargs, night-dogs, the Hounds of the Wild Hunt. As cruel as they were intelligent and ugly.

And there were two of them. Lovely.

“Stay back!” The old woman I almost mistook for a discolored hag, swung her medicine bag at the pair, nearly throwing herself off balance. Her gnarled hand slammed her walking staff down without any real power. As intimidating as a mouse in a den of cats. “Keep away, fiends!”

The wargs huffed at each other, splitting up to circle the poor woman and extend their hunt longer. With the perytons gone east on their annual migration to the Sumerisles, the beasts had grown aggressively bored. Which would probably make the woman’s death particularly painful…

“What should we do, ol’ girl?” I gave Nanica a nuzzle, her soft fluffy pelt tickling my cheek. “Leave the human to fend for herself, or…?”

Nanica was already charging with a ferocious bleat.

Away from the woman and her warg problem.

“Coward!” Fuck, her incessant bleating had brought me to the beasts’ attention. So much for the element of surprise. “Damn you all to the emptiness of the Void!”

It wasn’t much of a war cry, but it did disarm the wargs.

Or, perhaps my physical nature did.

Certain Fae and monsters alike didn’t know what to make of me. Clearly, a wildling born of magic but not like one they’d ever seen. Too tall by a mile to be a proper pixie, not stocky enough to be a dwarf or gnome. Not green enough for goblin-kin. An anomaly, an aberration—I’d been called many a thing in the Faewilds, but never by the truth. Half-blood. Mortal-quickened.

I didn’t blame most for not knowing. Many half-breeds barely survived their first year out in The Wilds let alone a doxy-borne.

Still, I was not one to be taken lightly. I was as dangerous as any of them.

I’d slit the one warg from throat to belly using the momentum of my run to slide underneath it. Warg fur was tough, thicker than the skin of an elephant, but it parted like butter against the obsidian of my blade. Red obsidian to be exact—exclusively made in the volcanic heart of Izgand, the Dwarven Capital. Unfortunately, I lost momentum about a part way out from underneath the beast, and a shower of organ meat and ichor washed over me.

“Fuck!” I might as well be trying to strip molasses from my face for all the trouble I was doing. I was blind as a newborn hare! “Shit!”

“Watch out!”

The wind knocked out of me with a rattle that damn near loosened my fangs from my head. I lay there, dazed, sprawled against the forest floor, spread eagle. But, I did manage to dodge the beast’s jaws. Infinitely more important. The warg spat blades of grass at me just as I managed to clear my vision of its friend’s guts.

“Motherfucker,” I cried, blinded, and only had a moment of foul breath blowing hair away from my face before I reared my arm back and punched with all my might.

Fun fact, wargs have the most sensitive snouts in the Faewild. They make for wonderful targets.

The warg fell back, writhing with its paws peddling in the air, as it fought the censor overload. Which left its belly exposed. I took no chances. I drove my blade through the beast until it bit into the soft earth, holding until the last of its death throes ended.

“Curimos!” Right, the woman. I should check on her. I turned, hair matted to the sides of my face, a wet squelching in my boots that told me the black blood had traveled down to my toes. Lovely.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” I spoke as gently as I could, hoping to not spook her into fleeing. Humans could be so strange. “The beasts didn’t bite you did they?”

“No, my Lady, they did not.” Good, wargs weren’t venomous but their bites were toxic and prone to quick infection. The old woman smiled at me, and I immediately distrusted her by how white her teeth were in that aged lined face of hers. “How do you fair?”

“Well.” What was her angle? Was she human or some other beastie I hadn’t had the privilege of meeting yet? Gods only knew what the Night Realm held once her shadows fell upon the Court. “Thank you for asking.”

“Of course.” She smiled again, securing her bag to cross over her feeble shoulders. She was tall—even for a human woman. “I think perhaps a boon for my tiny savior is in order.”

“That won’t be necessary, ma’am.” The more she talked, the more warning bells went off in my head. Dangerous, this woman felt dangerous.

“Don’t be so humble, girl.” She tilted her head, and her eyes…shifted. Turned milky from the brown they’d been a moment ago. “Take this gift. My appreciation from a fellow outsider…”

My stomach turned, nausea settling in as I lifted my sword at her.

“Wait—”

Cold, her hands were cold! Like melted ice upon the moors, frigid like the first fingers of frost from an unforgiving winter. I wanted to slap her away, smack myself for being so careless about a human woman when an Elder voice spoke through her thin lips. The type all Fae had to listen to. Paralyzed, I was forced to look into her blind eyes, trembling in her unnaturally strong grip as forever extended in her vision.

“Danger—you are in danger, Raquel Crimson Blade!” Of course, I was, look who had a hold over me! “The veil is breaking! Look for the red sparrow for guidance!”

There was a flash, brighter than the sun, and I shrieked, expecting the worst.

Nothing and she was gone…like she’d never been there at all.

“What the actual fuck…” Hag—she had to have been a hag. Gods, how could I have been so careless? I was lucky she didn’t take my soul! I swallowed, my heartbeat the only sound I could hear at the moment as warg guts dried on me

Two prophecies. Two. In one day. That was practically unheard of.

“I needed to tell the Knight-Commander.” I whistled for Nanica, fingers shaken as I pressed them to my lips. “And I need a bath and a sit-down and maybe a drink or six.”

Nanica burst through the underbrush, her little stubby tail wagging as a trail of wet seaweed dragged from her mouth to the forest floor. None the wiser to her master’s state of mind. I should have trusted her instincts, she was never wrong. I should always follow the bloody yale…

“Ah, there you are, my mighty and noble steed.” Nanica blinked slowly, no thoughts in that pretty little round head of hers. She licked the salt and guts from my cheek, still chewing on her find, perfectly at peace while my mind was scattered. No, get it together Raquel. Shepard, bath, food, and drink. Maybe not in that order, but close to it.

You could do this. You would be fine. Two prophecies didn’t mean shit.

I withdrew my blade from the fallen warg, wiping the blood on the edge of its fur, and settled myself with a long exhale. “Let’s go home.”