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CHAPTER 1

Korven

Her gown was absolutely devastating.

And not in a good way.

White frills and lace for days on end wrapped snug around her stunning figure, encasing her body in a mass of fabric that acted as a cage. I had little doubt that’s exactly what her wedding gown represented.

Seraphine Dupont’s immaculate body deserved better than the layers upon layers of white brocade and delicate bows that shifted around her as she took her time walking down the aisle of the temple.

I had not spoken to her in fifteen years. She had become a woman in that time, no longer the girl with the golden locks who had read me stories beneath the sycamore trees when we’d both been children.

I cawed at the top of the rafter in my disgruntled state, rippling my feathers as a bad omen for what was to come.

After all, I was a bad omen for what was to come.

Seraphine’s head, weighted in five-hundred marks worth of jewels, snapped in my direction. She had caught sight of me.

Good.

Color rose on her cheeks and her gaze narrowed. I gave another curt trill just to annoy her by showing up on the day of her nuptials to the great Prince Urik of Havenshire.

She, of course, could not know it was me perched atop the balustrade of the temple, though I’d imagine she was curious about the raven allowed in for the ceremony of the century.

Ignoring my third caw, she continued in her great pretense of happiness, about to marry the worst kind of man from what I had observed in the last week.

Not that I cared about their marriage outside of my plans to ruin it. She could have married anyone, and I’d be there the day of, flapping about, cawing at whatever other atrocious dress she donned.

The real reason for my presence was the curse.

Twenty-five years ago, a princess had been born on a night of a Cursed Moon. By the Veiled One’s law, this meant that the little cherub would receive a curse, broken only by particular conditions.

Curse-giving was an unfortunate, yet orderly business, and handled by the Ravenfae Goddess Reshina who just so happened to be my mother. But Seraphine had been hidden away before Reshina could arrive to bestow the curse assigned to her.

Seraphine’s parents, the King and Queen of Riche, hid her away and did so with greater success than you’d believe just by spending five minutes with them. They’d obviously had help from another of the fae Goddesses, but whom?

It didn’t matter now. Curses could not be avoided, nor could they be broken before they were administered, and tonight, I would deliver this curse and be on my way.

I clicked my beak a few times more, twisting my black head to stare with my beady eye at the woman in white. Her violet eyes caught on me again. They’d grown to a deeper purple in the fifteen years since I’d looked into them and at that moment, teared ever so slightly as she continued her steps towards marriage.

Not that her emotional state mattered to me—I cared nothing for her.

Nothing whatsoever.