Chapter 1.
It had been too long since I’d spoken to my sisters. But sending messages to them was dangerous—for them, and for me—but I couldn’t leave them in radio silence any longer. So, as I languished in this Fae realm, in my own little cottage, I picked up a pen and set it to magical paper.
Dearest Bella and Courtney,
I miss you both and hope you’re well.
Things have gone terribly wrong here, and I’m in hiding.
The Council wants me dead, but luckily, I have some friends that are helping me.
I can’t tell you any more than that, for your own safety,
But please, stay in the realm, study, train—protect yourself, and I will contact you as soon as I can.
All my love, forever, Ava.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell them anymore, and for my own safety, I kept the letter vague, so if it was discovered, it could not be traced back to me.
However...
I chewed my bottom lip and decided to rewrite the letter, leaving their names off it. And mine. Satisfied, I folded the piece of paper that I’d written the letter on four times over and closed my eyes.
My love for my sisters knew no bounds, so as I chanted the spell the mages had taught me for transport and focused on where my sisters were, the paper burned up within my hand and disappeared from sight.
I sighed. I hoped they received the letter. I hoped they understood. I still felt wretched for not being able to talk to them directly, to explain all that was going on. The fact that I was nowhere to be found as far as my sisters were concerned must have dragged on them. I couldn’t go to them and risk being followed, not yet. I wasn’t powerful enough to protect them, or myself, against the Council.
I also couldn’t protect them against the man who hunted me. The head of the Council guard. The face that still haunted my dreams even now.
Tavlor.
Something inside my chest, and much lower down, clenched at the mere thought of Tavlor. I hadn’t heard from him in a while. It was probably a good thing. He did want to turn me into the Council. It was his job, and even though they hated Tavlor, hated what he was, he followed their orders without question like the good soldier he was.
God, he was beautiful. A strong, magical, half breed man with more loyalty, love, and mixed up emotions than anyone I’d ever met.
From the moment I’d seen him, I’d wanted him. Like no-one I’d ever met before, nor met since. Not that I met many people in the Fae realm. Something about him called to me, connected me to him.
I’d never felt like this before. Unfortunately, my mother—who passed recently—never warned me about this sort of sensation either. It was just something I had to deal with. I had no idea if he felt the same way I did, despite a singularly hot kissed we’d shared.
My father, the High Warlock, had lied about my parentage and stood by while they passed the sentence to execute me. How could he be on my side? Granted, standing up for me would force the Council to strip him of everything and regulate him to that of a war criminal. There was the chance that he was pretending, but I couldn’t believe anything anymore. Not when so many people had already lied to me, including my mother.
Tavlor was no more trustworthy. He’d been the one to arrest me and had turned a blind eye to my interrogation and incarceration.
Abigail had said my father and Tavlor had helped her rescue me, but Tavlor hadn’t come to see me since that fateful day, and neither had my father. I had been in a strange realm completely alone with no idea what was going on, no idea who was after me and who wasn’t, who I could trust and who I couldn’t.
It had been weeks since the day I’d been sentenced to death. When my world had gone from being the heir to the High Warlock, a powerful and happy witch... to Hell in a handbasket, in a matter of hours.
I still couldn’t believe how fast everything had turned.
The locket around my neck heated my skin and I laughed at her timing; my mother always knew when to speak.
“Yes Mother?”
I told you Ava... I told you they would never accept you. That your life would be in danger if they found out who you were.