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Millions of them. Radiating unimaginable light into the night sky. The aurora she’d seen within the darkened pines spurted and waved up to the stars in clouds of unspeakable colors—some she couldn’t recollect even once experiencing.

And thesmell. Sweet aromas mixed with citrus and berries, warm spices, and delicious wine. Hints of summer and spring, a fresh mountain brook, and the most tranquil scent of dirt after rain.

Tears welled in her eyes. Some from the pain of the luminance, but mostly by the perfection of beauty that rested before her.

Her world had been unimaginably cruel. Since she was an orphaned faeling, the drab colors of Telldaira, the dust and mud, even the faeries’ cold and hard faces, Kaine’s ruthless hands, earthen colors of sand and muddy-gray stone buildings surrounded her every day.

Butthis.

Ever since she was rescued from Telldaira, her world had been brightened, full of color, full of majesty and hope and light.

“I’ve never…” Alora’s sapphire’s glistened, holding back tears. “This is…” She gasped in a breath, unable to speak.

“Beautiful.” Garrik stared into her eyes, feet from her, the luster of the flowers cast iridescent flares across his even-more-so enchanting face. “So beautiful.”

“Yes.” Eyes so wide the whites glowed, staring at him, too. She felt a soft brush against her forearm and squinted down.

Garrik’s hand had lightly brushed her from where he stood, shoulder to shoulder.

Alora wondered if he knew of his touch. His willing and casual touch. But doubted it by the way his eyes were captivated.

“My mother treasured gardens equal to these. They were one of her greatest joys at the castle. She would devote most her daystending to flowers. Pearlseas were her favorite. They all died when she did. Magnelis never allowed them to be tended again.”

A slender tendril of Smokeshadows stirred in his twisting palm. A sheen of pearl across layers of wave-like petals appeared. Garrik twisted the stem in his fingers with mesmerized eyes. Each tip of the petals was born in the foam of the sea and swirled like the swells within it.

Alora’s throat constricted. Garrik’s eyes were enchanted by the flower, but his face held a pain that she was all-familiar with.

Zyllyryon’s Queen of Mist and Sea—High Queen of Elysian—Garrik’s mother, died nearly sixty years passed.

Though Alora knew that not all rumors held any ground, it was said that she was overcome by a dying spirit. In her last days, she was merely a shell of the exceptionally breathtaking female she once was. Their revered queen, most kind-hearted and with a love for her kingdom unlike any other monarch in the histories, found herself with nothing else to give. Airathel had thrown herself from the tallest castle wall, leaving only her memory behind.

In the days following, Alora had worked in the tavern—many years before she met Kaine. The mourning was unbearable, even in her city. Heartache surged through the entire kingdom and had a choke-hold on her people. She could still picture the pearlseas flooding the streets, in every windowsill, on every table of the tavern in honor and remembrance of their High Queen.

Pyres were lit every night for a week, lifting their heartache and wishes to Maker of the Skies for her. And in the following days, High King Magnelis never once publicly mourned her death. She imagined the sea-blue smoke as if it were drifting to the sky in that meadow.

Garrik was still looking at the flower, its petals glistening in a twirling spin. “I miss her,” he breathed low enough the breeze could carry it unnoticeably away.

Alora laid her palm on his smooth wrist, admiring the way the tendons felt as they moved.

“My mother did not seek a coward’s exit. Her memory is stained by a false narration spun by Magnelis for his gain. I watched.” Garrik forced a hard swallow. “My magic subdued, wrists bound behind my back, on my knees from the citadel as my mother was thrown from the castle walls by the High King’s hands.”

Alora’s veins burst with spikes of grief.

“Magnelis gave the order to release me, and Thalon was commanded to cut loose my bonds. By the time I arrived in her gardens behind the wall, her body had been removed. Her flowers speckled with blood and pools of it remained. Magnelis forbade her name from that moment on. Never to be spoken again. All pieces of her were viciously obliterated from the castle, save for her wing. I secured that in an unbreakable, permanent shield. I would not allow her memory to be destroyed.

“She deserved much more. She endured Magnelis’s treatment for far too long and protected me while she could. I watched her fight every-fucking-day to find a way to overcome him.

“But he had become High King overnight. Mother told me that armies rose around Elysian as if they had been resurrected from the dirt and stole her rightful reign. Her own armies fell before him without a glance of reverence to her authority. They marched, kingdom by kingdom, and seized great powers for him until not one remaining king or queen spoke against him. Those that had were replaced by someone who would bow to his claim of High King.

“My treatment was physically barbarous, but my mother endured a great deal more-so. The first time he laid his fucking hands on her in my presence, I released a shield so devastating the dining room crumbled and trapped Magnelis under therubble. I shielded myself and my mother, but Magnelis was too powerful.”

The flower twirled once more before disintegrating in a puff of smoke.

Garrik continued, “He had always been cruel, but my punishment for defending my mother was far more severe. I woke five weeks later, unable to move most of the shattered bones in my body, locked in a darkened cell in the depths of the castle. My guards were ordered to administer a drug to counteract my blood and break my body while unconscious, so when I woke, I would be powerless in my suffering. When he freed me, my mother’s presence was forbidden. Locked away in her wing.”

His face shifted from rippling anger to a softness in his eyes. He began to walk into the meadow, the glistening light beams of the flowers flashed across his scaled armor.

Alora followed, hands lightly grazing soft petals, watching him saunter slowly feet ahead.