Page 1 of Faeling (Monstrous World #4)

Despite all her father’s careful planning, despite the sacrifice he and her mother made to keep her safe, Ravenna’s long sleep wasn’t so long at all.

She’d been told that the long sleep was a dreamless, peaceful thing. That time and the outside world meant little to a sleeping fae. Her body would need neither food nor drink, her mind would not mark the passage of time.

But Ravenna wasn’t a true fae. A halfling, the daughter of a human mother and fae father, Ravenna and her magic had never acted as her father, Maxim, had predicted. A creation of two worlds, her magic was unpredictable, wild. It took years of honing to forge it into something manageable for Maxim.

Yet, it defied him. One last time.

Ravenna awoke from her deep sleep far sooner than he’d designed.

Hers hadn’t been a dreamless sleep, either, instead filled with vivid but incoherent images.

That was often the way with her gift, her foresight.

Given the chance, with her usual defenses dulled, all manner of disjoined visions had unspooled one after the next, a jumbled pile of thread to detangle.

—the burn of saltwater in her eyes—the pass of warm green skin over hers—white lashes catching the sun—the screaming whinnies of unicorns—sprite—all hail all hail all—

Ravenna’s eyes peeled open, her true vision blurry with disuse. Her mind quieted almost immediately, her gift receding behind the careful ramparts she’d made for it.

Reality pierced the protective cocoon her father had constructed for her, and Ravenna felt nothing but relief.

As her vision slowly refocused, she started to rouse her body, one little bit at a time. She began with her toes, wiggling each before rotating her ankles. Working her way up, she tested each joint, carefully easing sensation back into her corporeal form.

By the time she was ready to sit up in her bower bed, her body only creaked a little.

Although only fifty-two, barely out of adolescence by fae standards, it took long moments before Ravenna felt secure enough to stand.

As she waited, she tested her hands on the textures of her bedding and her nose on the warm scents of summer outside the bower.

Her hand found and clutched her childhood blanket, drawing it onto her lap.

The batting had long gone flat, the embroidery frayed and bleached with time, but when she held it to her nose, she still caught a waft of her childhood—sea breezes with the tang of salt, sugar and lemon mixing in a bowl, thyme and rosemary drying on the windowsill.

The blanket was all softness and comfort, just as her mother Aine had been.

That knife of reality sank a little deeper, finally pricking something that hurt. She quickly put down the blanket and her softness.

Maman is dead.

A sheep led to slaughter.

Angry tears blurred her vision, and Ravenna quickly wiped them away. There had been enough tears already; more wouldn’t bring her mother back.

When she felt able, she pushed herself up to standing, her knees only wobbling a little.

The door to the bower her father had built into the side of a grassy knoll creaked on its unused hinges, opening to a quiet summer afternoon.

The air was warm and fragrant, a contrast to the cool bite of late winter when she’d first entered the deep sleep.

Ravenna stopped a few paces from the bower door, regaining her bearings. The world was so vivid, every shaft of light blinding, each scent overpowering. Her fingers and toes prickled as blood flowed back into her extremities, and her wings slowly unfolded from her back to spread in the light.

As blood and feeling flowed back through her body, so too did the memories. Her heart pounding as she ran. Her mother’s cry in her ear. “Run! Run, Crow!”

Ravenna had run, as fast as she could. All her life she’d lived with the fear of the evil Fae Queen coming to claim her—when it finally happened, it hadn’t seemed real.

That her whole life should come crashing down just by chance, bad luck—it was unbelievable.

That she and her mother should happen upon a handful of fae knights on a commonplace walk through the forest, foraging for mushrooms, truffles, and wild onions.

Maman had wanted to make truffle soup, her father’s favorite. For when he returned.

There would be no return. Flinging their baskets away, she and her mother had fled at the first sight of the fae knights, their ghostly pale armor flashing between the trees. For a moment, Ravenna hoped they hadn’t been spotted. For a moment, she hoped they’d gotten away.

“Run! Run, Crow!”

Ravenna had run, as fast as her feet could take her, back to their cottage by the sea, surrounded by a wall of wards set by her father. She’d returned alone. Too late, she realized her mother had drawn them off. Too late, she realized the fate she’d dreaded was coming to pass.

It wasn’t until weeks later that the fate of both her mother and father was confirmed.

Her father’s friend Allarion Meringor had come for her, as planned.

He brought with him the terrible news—the culmination of Maxim’s own morbid prophecy.

Her parents had died protecting her, refusing to give her up.

Now it was time for Ravenna and Allarion to play their parts in the plan. To secret away to lands unknown, seeking a life of anonymity and possible safety. It was the final gift her parents gave her—and Ravenna didn’t want it.

She was an ungrateful, angry, guilty daughter.

Maman’s blood is on both our hands, papa.

The sound of hasty hoofbeats broke her concentration, and from the eastern tree line burst a silver blur.

You stubborn thing, Oberon scolded, what are you doing up?

Ravenna squinted at the question—it was a good one. She’d always meant to wake up before Allarion could come to fetch her, of course. How or when hadn’t been so precise, however.

But Oberon, her father’s dread-mount, his bonded unicorn warhorse, wasn’t finished.

Get back to sleep, Crow. It isn’t safe.

His silvery head turned, those velveteen ears she’d loved to pet as a child flicking back toward the trees.

Ravenna’s skin pricked with gooseflesh. A breeze shifted the dry leaves and branches of the grove, a chill of awareness brushing against her cheek.

Maxim had added layers upon layers of warded magic around the bower. Only Allarion and his dread-mount Bellarand, Oberon, and his herd could pass through.

Still, something was close.

What is it? she whispered to him. Although most unicorn stallions only bonded with their dread-riders, forming a magical and mental link, that bond could sometimes extend to family members.

Such had been the case for Oberon and her mother, but female fae had entirely different bonds with the unicorns.

Mares were too wild and temperamental to ride, a trait Ravenna admired deeply, yet they could often speak with fae women with or without a bond.

So it was with Oberon’s dam, who came trotting from the grove. Callistix had once been the same dappled gray as her son, but in her regal age, she’d gone nearly white, only a spatter of silvery spots on her withers hinting at her former coloring.

They come closer, Callistix huffed, tossing her graying mane. She turned her ferocious gaze on Ravenna, her bright gold eyes snapping with frustration. What are you doing awake?

My question exactly, agreed Oberon.

Who’s getting closer? Ravenna asked instead, although she thought perhaps she already knew.

For years, the same vision had haunted her thoughts.

—a traveling band of green-skinned warriors—a camp of burgundy tents—the burning blue eyes of a warlord—

Ravenna didn’t know how to explain knowing ; her father always said a gift such as hers was often beyond explanation.

It only made sense to the one who bore it.

She doubted Oberon and especially Callistix would appreciate that answer, but all Ravenna knew was that she needed to be awake.

That the vision was coming for her, and all she could do was meet it.

Her visions had never been wrong. She didn’t see threads of possibility like other fae seers of legend, for which she was grateful. Such sight often led the mind into the oblivion of possibility, never to return to the safety of what already was.

Instead, she saw fragments, images, that often needed stitching together to make any sense, if at all. Many visions hadn’t yet come to fruition or didn’t affect or include Ravenna at all.

She wished she’d never asked her father what they meant.

In the way of children, she’d asked what it could mean when she saw the white-haired queen resting on the rocks of the sea.

The vision, one of her first, had upset her—her young mind couldn’t comprehend that the queen didn’t rest, she hung impaled.

She sought her father’s comfort and wisdom, but she should have held her tongue.

Her father and many of his family had heard her sobbing, babbling about what she’d seen.

Everything changed that day. Maxim put plans into motion that could not be undone.

He moved Ravenna and Aine from the faelands, hid them behind a fortress of wards and magic.

His family was sworn to secrecy, but whispers of the queen’s death still found their way back to her ears in Fallorian.

Because of her gift, because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, Ravenna had been hunted by Queen Amaranthe all her life.

Because of her, her parents had sacrificed themselves, taking her location to their deaths.

Because of her, Allarion had broken from the faelands in search of a safe haven to spirit her to, where Maxim envisioned her living in quiet peace, safe from Amaranthe and her own visions.

Because of this, Ravenna learned not to share what she saw.

She didn’t tell her father she wouldn’t sleep through their sacrifice, waiting to be saved. She didn’t tell him that she’d known for decades that one day she would wake from her deep sleep and make her own way.

Which began with an orc camp of burgundy tents.

Callistix pawed the earth in agitation. Orcs approach. They fell trees for their infernal fires.

Ravenna’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t describe the sensation at her back other than the hand of the fates giving her a push.

She wouldn’t wait to be saved. She wouldn’t live the life her father planned for her.

Ravenna was the daughter of slain parents, a woman robbed of her life, and she would have her revenge. A nocked arrow fired from the bow didn’t care if it would split upon impact; neither did Ravenna care if she survived her vengeance. Only that Amaranthe wouldn’t.

Be it the wind, her visions, the hand of some faceless goddess—it didn’t matter now what had woken Ravenna. Her chance had come to find her, and she had to meet it.

Looking between Oberon and Callistix, she said, “Take me to them.”

Although she had a long name, one that implied many branches of an ancient family tree, Ravenna Broch-Illyinia rode out to meet the orc camp and her fate alone.

Her mother had had a large, jovial extended family, made up of her many cousins and great-great-grandnieces and -nephews, but that warmth always cooled whenever Aine’s fae husband and halfling child accompanied her to visit.

Ravenna had few memories of the imperious Illyinia clan, although she’d spent her youngest years amongst them.

She’d only a handful of memories of each family, a few impressions that weren’t enough to forge the bonds that made blood thick.

So she rode out alone, not to any of her remaining family. Her family was dead. She was a clan of one, an orphan, and—

Please, Oberon huffed, spare me the indulgent melancholy. You are not alone.

Ravenna grinned despite herself. Leaning over his back, she reached to gently pet one of his velvety ears.

It’d taken a long argument—and a few threats—to get the dread-mount to agree.

She hadn’t meant for him to come along, nor his whole herd to follow behind, but he refused to let her wander off toward, as he put it, a murderous pack of axe-swinging idiots by herself.

He’d promised her father. He’d promised her mother. And so he deigned to let her sling saddlebags full of supplies and a few cherished bits she couldn’t leave behind over his sides before mounting his broad back.

They left the bower behind, Callistix and her herd melting into the shadows of the trees to follow them.

Ravenna didn’t know how she would hide or explain a whole herd of unicorns—they and orcs had a history of enmity, after all.

But that was for later. For now, they would find the camp and the warlord there.

Patting his neck, Ravenna replied, That’s true. I have my old friend Oberon.

Indeed. But call me old again and you’ll be walking your way to these orcs.