Page 1 of The Stolen Crown

Prologue

The boy, newly sixteen, let his head fall against the frigid wall. Here, in cold cells made of damp stone and iron bars, he waited to meet the seas of the Otherworld. But death had yet to come.

From crown to toe, his body ached. Cruel hands of his father had left countless marks over the turns. Frustration and rage from losses in the battles were written in a map of pain across the boy’s shoulders, the sharpening edge of his jaw, and in one swollen cheek that hid one of his crimson-gold eyes.

In the realms of the earth fae—enemies of the Sea Folk—the air was too dry. The familiar russet shade of his skin was cracked and peeling in pale flakes. Gods, how he craved the damp, fragrant winds of the Ever, the serenity of her seas.

The Ever. Home.

His folk had already fled, abandoning their boy king. After everything, they ran like sods and left his cousin to die for a war he hadn’t truly wanted.

But he remained. He would always remain, whether his cousin desired his presence or not. The boy would never abandon his king.

Corridors reeked of blood and piss and violence, but the battles were over. Screams, fear, all of it had lived on the shore and in the forests surrounding the strange spires of the earth fae stronghold for days.

Now, it was simply…done.

With a wince, the boy shifted across the moldy straw, careful not to jostle his cracked ribs. Pain was hardly an irritation compared to the fear inside his chest, knotted and harsh, for what might have become of the young Ever King.

From time to time, deep rumbles of voices filled the hallways. Doors across the way would groan as the iron clanged open.

He never heard screams or pleas from his cousin.

Perhaps Erik Bloodsinger still lived. Perhaps the hints of mercy the boy had witnessed at the hands of earth fae during battles might be sincere, and his own neck would not meet their strange curved mallets—axes, that was what one earth fae had called such a blade.

When a skein of silver dawn broke through the small arched window at the top of his cell, the hinges to his prison echoed in a sound that danced down the corridor like a haunt.

Two earth fae warriors filled the doorway with their dark eyes, bone piercings, and braided beards. Where Sea Folk were strong and lithe, earth fae were broad and powerful.

“Time to go, boy,” said one, a touch of weariness in his tone.

When the second warrior reached out a hand, the boy flinched and promptly despised his show of weakness.

Stranger still was the way the warrior slowed his movements, a look of something damn near regret carved into his features. Where the boy anticipated brutality and mockery, the warriors granted silence and steadiness.

Every step up the winding stone stairs sent sharp pangs of agony through the boy’s legs and spine. He blinked through the harsh light once the warriors guided him, chains clanking around his wrists, into the great hall.

There, the sea fae boy took in perhaps the oddest of sights he’d yet come to know in the realms of his enemies.

A fae girl—so small she would need to crane her neck to meet his gaze—held a pathetic knife in her hand, more toy than weapon. The girl was clad in nothing but a simple shift, hair with a touch of sun red in the strands flowing down to her waist, and her eyes glittered a bit like moss in a storm, brown and green and gold.

For a breath, even the warriors were startled to a halt.

The girl slashed her knife and cried and cursed, all of it aimed at a severed head still spiked in front of the open inglenook.

The head of a dark, cruel earth fae. A man the boy knew was an enemy to the earth kingdoms, a man who fought on the side of his folk, the sea fae.

It was not a surprise to see an earth fae lashing out against a traitor. Truth be told, the boy could not blame her. He despised the dead man fiercely for the lies and hate he’d fostered in the boy’s father. For the things the boy had been forced to do because that creature wanted war.

There were scars on the boy’s heart and soul that would never fade, and they’d been carved by the actions of that dead dark earth fae.

No, it was not a surprise such hatred was shared for the same villain.

What was almost humorous about the scene was the ferocity such a small girl brought to the sunken, ashen face of the dark fae’s head.

The boy could not help the rough rasp of a chuckle that rolled from his throat. It cracked and scraped over his lips, a signal he could do with a few gulps of water, but the sound was enough to draw the girl’s attention.

She spun around, shoulders rising in sharp breaths. Red lined her thick lashes from tears, and bright pink flushed her cheeks.