Prologue
Briar
100 years ago…
War.
It found our city next on the route of defeat, conquering all the others that neighbored us already. Our numbers were down from sending our soldiers to help in the previous attacks, but all that were left had come when we called because of it.
With another fiery blast of magic hitting our castle, Áine doubled over in pain because it was her magic trying to shield it from the enemy. When she fell into the column in the throne room to support her weight, I reached over to let her use me as a crutch instead. I could clearly see the toll this was having on her to protect my family.
“We’re out of time!” Áine took my hand, escorting me to the tallest tower of a kingdom I recently learned was mine to inherit. With her long, white hair dancing around the waist of her peasant dress, she fought off the exhaustion.
She was my godmother of the fairy variety, bestowing blessings upon me as she raised me as her own. But I wasn’t aware of her true identity or magical side until three days ago on the birthday that made me an adult in our society. Just like it wasn’t the stone walls of the castle’s keep that I grew up knowing.
Outside the small window we passed, I noticed the village up in flames from the seize of a witch by the name of Morrigan. With night finally fallen, the colors of the flames were too bright in comparison to the darkness. As we passed each window traveling up the spiral staircase, I noticed the dark-haired woman standing amongst the chaos in joy. Her green magic was like a disease spreading from below the ground, uprooting all the foliage to decay it rapidly.
The breath within my lungs was stuck as though I could no longer inhale from the panic flaring inside of me. The life I had known was all a lie, and the life I was supposed to inherit was literally being burned to the ground. Everything was changing too fast, and the anxiety pressed heavily to capture my emotions.
“Briar!” Turning to the sound of an angelic voice, I knew I’d find Philip. He was the boy who lived with Áine every spring and summer to help as a farm hand. Over the last several years, he was the one who claimed my heart.
“Philip!” I forced Áine to let go of my hand to run into his arms on the lower steps. My hand brushed the swirling sides of the wall in my haste to get to him. Without even thinking about it, my arms circled around his middle to never let go. He was my constant, but I knew what the sword on his hip meant. He was joining the fight against the adversary that no one could defeat.
“I needed to see you,” he breathed out, inhaling the scent of my hair.
“Please, don’t go,” I cried into his chest. My nose rubbed against his blouse with the mix of my tears. “I’m so scared.”
“I will always find you, Briar. I need you to always know that.” Kissing my head, I knew he did. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that questioned his love for me. “But your people, they need my help out there.”
Nodding, I knew asking him to stay with me was selfish. Even now, I could see the black staining his clothes from the inhuman creatures helping the witch defile our lands. He was a man of the people, a prince that was crowned for a kingdom he hadn’t told me of. When he’d work for Áine in the summer, he never wanted to speak of his life back in his city, and I never pressed him to learn more.
Letting him go, I used the wall again to brace myself, but I wasn’t met with cold stone. Instead, I hissed and jerked my finger away from something sharp getting me. All our eyes saw the needle before it disappeared into the wall, reverting to stone.
“Briar!” Áine screamed in utter horror. There was culpability in her eyes that told me this would be my fate, one she was trying to protect me from. Philip took me in his arms as though I was his bride-to-be, showing me how much he loved in his stare.
It was the last thing I saw. A tiredness swept through me that had the room spinning before my eyes shut. Landing in my love’s hold, I knew I could trust him. As I succumbed to the darkness, I heard Philip promising to kiss me awake once the war was won.
1
Cullen
The harrowing seas and unforgiving winds weren’t enough to stop me as my feet crashed into the grayed sand from my leap off the bowsprit of the ship. The height didn’t bother my form from using my power over the wind to guide me gently down. The three other princes scoffed as they flopped their plank over the side to stride my way.
All of them rushed in haste because time wasn’t on our side. We all had our swords at the ready on our hips for whatever new torment unearthed before us. As the others found their way to my side, I could see the disdain for the change that I too felt in our lands. It all felt wrong and ungodly.
“The land is lost here,” Fergus complained in a sadness that we couldn’t comprehend. It was within his right with his affinity for earth. “More of the core has been drained. My powers are weakening from it.”
We all understood what he meant because it had been happening to all our magic. In the last century, we kept fighting the good fight in order to save our homeland, Faerie, but it hadn’t been enough. With all the time that had passed, we felt the toll of Morrigan’s power more and more. With little to do to help, we took it among ourselves to figure out a way to handle it.
Right now, we were marching into the lands of the first kingdom that had fallen. The one with the princes who didn’t return to help their mother protect it when they were called home. Their mother, Áine, was captured by Morrigan to forever feel the loss of her land by being imprisoned in her isolated home, so it was up to us to release her now. Áine was the only one who knew and saw how Morrigan conquered the other worlds. She had been aiding Earth before Morrigan stormed into our own lands eighty years ago.
Exhaustion riddled all of us to the point we weren’t sure what to do, but we knew our people deserved more than this. We kept fighting and persevering in hopes that one day we’d find the secret to killing Morrigan, but none of us were victorious when standing against her impenetrable immortality. Without much more to do, we were about to give up hope. I forced the other princes to come with me in order to have Áine rekindle what we had all lost. There was never a guarantee that this plan would work because I didn’t know the state of the queen’s own mind. The only thing I knew was that she was my last resort.
High pitched shrills sounded from the decayed trees around us as we moved away from the sandy beach to the withered gardens of the palace. No trees or plants grew on the soil that had turned black. It was hard on us all to see our land unmask into this, and as the next generation of heirs to the thrones, we knew we couldn’t keep living in this turmoil. The devastation reached far and wide, creating a place that no longer could be ruled. We all drew our blades because we knew what was to come.
With the infected magic Morrigan conjured, it mutated and diseased our grounds and creatures. There were no more cute and whimsical things living in this land. Only becoming living horrors of those who had their happiness drained from them. Majority of those who were left without the taint of darkness had merged in kingdoms to survive it, losing majority of our people in the process.
Fairies were now a dying breed, no longer rebirthing after death. All of us princes were Sidhe. Our powerful titles from royal lines meant we would return to our bodies after death from our immortality, but after watching our parents die, we knew the rebirth was no more. If we died, we no longer came back. And now, it fell on their children to fix what might be lost forever.