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."