Chapter 1

SERILDA

Everyone in the Summer Court knew it: Princess Serilda Veyra had been spoiled rotten by her three consorts.

I won't deny it. I drank only the sweetest honeywine, ate only the lightest dewcakes, and wore nothing but dawnsilk. The moment anything displeased me, my consorts heard about it.

I was adored, so I never had a reason to hold back.

Then an outsider came to court.

Her name was Nerysah Zorvyn. Behind her ears grew a pair of dark petals, thin as dragonfly wings, that trembled in the slightest breeze. Rumor said their scent could make a fae see things that weren't there, but she never flaunted it. She masked it with wormwood and silverleaf and tucked the petals into her hair.

Where I was willful, she was warm. Half the court flocked to her.

And she didn't need a consort at all. She was raising her little boy, Moren, on her own in a cottage by the herb gardens, and she'd made a lovely life of it.

Little by little, my first consort began to find me too much. Too spoiled. Too demanding.

The day Finnian Lorrel left, he unpinned the Summer sigil from his shoulder, the badge that marked him as mine, and laid it on the table without a word. He was a Raven Knight. He'd never been one for speeches.

My other two consorts were furious on my behalf.

"You walked out on her, Finnian!" Joren bellowed after him. "Don't you dare come crawling back to Sera!" He slammed his fist into the doorframe so hard golden moss rained down.

Not long after, Joren left too.

I looked at Orian, the only one I had left, and my eyes stung. "Do you think I'm impossible too?"

He ruffled my hair. "Don't be silly. They're the idiots. They didn't know what they had."

Then, one afternoon, I saw him.

Just past the low fence of the herb garden, Orian had shifted into his golden panther form, the proudest beast in all the Summer Court. Claws sheathed, back lowered, he was padding at the outsider's heels, practically begging her to pet his head.

I ran, stumbling all the way to the study of my father, King Brenn Veyra.

"Father, this year's marriage alliance with the Winter Court. Let me be the one who goes."

——

Then his oaken scepter hit the floor. "Sera, have you lost your mind? Every unwed girl in this kingdom is praying the lot won't fall to her, and you want to volunteer?"

Summer and Winter had been at war, on and off, for three hundred years, and neither side ever truly won. In the end, they swore a pact on the Frostline, the border between them.

To secure the peace, Summer Court sent a bride across the divide. Winter Court was a wasteland of endless frost, and no one went willingly. Any girl sacrificed to the ice bought the border another era of truce.

It was a marriage. It was also a hostage exchange. A hand firmly on each court's throat.

And the Winter fae were nothing like us. Here, a woman could take as many consorts as would have her. The Winter fae were fearsomely powerful, possessive to the bone, and took one bride for life.

No Summer girl wanted to go to that land of endless snow, where the sun never rose.

"This year's contract bears the name Thalion Riven," my father said quietly. "The Frost-Crowned Prince. He wouldn't even bow his head to our envoys at the peace table."

His face darkened. "It's those boys, isn't it? What have they done now?"

He was halfway out of his chair, ready to haul them before the Knights' Order. I threw myself in his way.

"Don't! Father, please. Stop fighting my battles for me."

When Finnian and Joren left, I'd gone to him in tears. Nerysah had moved farther away, then farther still, to escape me and the gossip. They never came back anyway.

I could still see the ice in their eyes.

"Rein it in, Serilda. Nerysah hasn't done a thing to you, and you nearly got her exiled."

"Take away your daddy, and who the hell are you?"

"I can't believe I ever loved someone like you."

There is no true night in the Summer Court. The sun only sinks low and turns amber for a few long hours, and we call that time the gloaming, when the whole court sleeps.

That gloaming, I clung to Orian and cried until I passed out.

And now even he didn't want me.

My father sighed. "Sera, you're my only daughter. I can't bear to send you so far away. But I can't bear to watch you hurting, either. In three days, every maiden without a consort must draw from the silver bowl in the palace square. Think it over, then come back to me. All right?"

When I stepped out of his study, Orian was waiting in the colonnade.

He was leaning against a pillar, turning a tiny marigold between his fingers, so absorbed he didn't look up.

I knew that flower. He'd earned it today, nuzzling Nerysah's palm in his panther form.

When he saw me, he tucked it away and smiled, eyes crinkling. "Sera?"

I swiped at my eyes and walked straight past him.

"Sera, where are you going?"

I didn't turn around. After a while, I realized no footsteps followed me.

I spun. Orian had stopped far back down the colonnade, frowning, cupping that marigold against the wind as if it might snap.

My heart lurched. "Orian! Why aren't you following me?"

Guards and passing maids turned to stare.

He only lifted his eyes. The low sun stretched his shadow long across the stones.

I stamped my foot and started toward him.

Then I heard him say, "Sera… from now on, I can't walk you home anymore."

He turned and walked away, toward the herb gardens.