Page 3 of Manor of Wind and Nightmares (Fae of Brytwilde #3)

Now

T he front door banged shut as Callista darted into our townhouse from her shopping trip. “The fae are here! They’re here!” she cried breathlessly as she raced up the stairs.

I jolted in my chair where I’d been working on my embroidery, pricking my finger with my needle. Breathing through my nose, I slowly exhaled until I pushed the fear down, clearing my mind. “What do they want?” I asked carefully as my younger sister burst into the room.

“Willowbark fae!” she panted, her fingers tangling in the ribbons of her bonnet as she struggled to undo it in her excitement.

At the fireplace, Father grunted and shook the paper. “Child, do compose yourself. I hope you didn’t make a scene running through the streets like this.”

Callista’s cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright. If she was happy, I hoped it was good news.

But what if they found out who you are? What if they know you are here?

Ever since my family had moved to Riverside, a fashionable city close to Willowbark’s border, I’d lived in anxiety. It seemed like taunting fate. And I’d already lost against fate once.

If Willowbark discovered my identity, their vengeance would extend beyond myself and to my family. I was certain of it. I could not expect mercy from anyone, nor did I deserve it. But for my family...

“No, Father,” Callista said, tearing off her bonnet and tossing it onto the nearest vacant chair.

“Of course I did not.” Her gaze darted to our eldest sister, Lavinia, who read in a seat near the window, and then to me.

“Willowbark sent their advisor to make an announcement. They are inviting eligible unmarried women to visit their kingdom for a chance to become their next princess!”

I frowned, my mind trying to make sense of it all. The fae rarely visited, keeping happily to themselves, so I had heard no news of what had become of Willowbark after I’d left it behind forever.

Callista clasped her hands. “They’re choosing the one who will marry their crown prince!”

Lavinia gasped, setting aside her book. Even Father lowered his paper in interest.

“Crown prince?” A ringing had begun in my ears. Did I dare hope? But then...what did that mean for me? For my family?

“Yes,” Callista swooned, twirling in place. “They are permitting unmarried women below the age of thirty from Riverside the opportunity to be chosen as the bride of Prince Kaede!”

“Thirty?” Lavinia, who was nearing her thirty-first birthday and had thus far refused all her suitors, huffed and sat back down. “Do immortals think we begin to turn to dust by that age?”

I scarcely heard her over the ringing in my ears, which had only grown louder. Hope, guilt, and fear were a storm within me, each so intense I could hardly tell which was strongest.

He’s alive.

Tears burned my eyes, and I had to blink and glance down at my embroidery hoop to conceal them from my family.

They didn’t know what had happened during the year I’d been in the fae world, and they’d never asked for details, just as I’d never volunteered them.

They only knew that I had been a servant to Emberglade’s king, a fact that had granted them money to squander while I was away.

How is he alive?

But even as hope blossomed, mixed with the stabbing sorrow of grief, I knew he must hate me for what I’d done to him. I’d betrayed him in the worst of ways. There was no forgiving that, no returning to what we once had been.

“Imagine if I were chosen!” Callista cried. “You must help me pack, Aurelia, for they said they are only here for one day! Their carriages are waiting for the contestants and our luggage!”

I froze. “Callista, you can’t go. The fae are not kind—who knows how they would treat their human guests...” I tried to finish my sentence, to explain they would want to watch the mortal entrants suffer, but my voice trailed off, vanishing into nothingness.

Typical glamour could not continue to influence a person outside of the fae’s general vicinity, but King Wystan had used an especially powerful spell, something dark and sinister and awful, that made it impossible for me to speak about my time among the fae or what I’d truly been tasked to do.

And so, I forgot what I’d been trying to say, as if King Wystan’s spell had wiped my mind clean of all thought.

I shook my head in frustration as Callista laughed like I was silly, as if I didn’t have months of painful experience to back up my fear.

Even if Prince Kaede was somehow, impossibly alive, if he hadn’t been crowned king yet, it meant that his father was still the ultimate authority of their kingdom. And I could not trust that any events or parties he held would be truly hospitable toward mortals.

“They’re looking for their next princess .

They’ll want someone beautiful and graceful, someone who knows how to entertain guests with conversation and musical talent.

” She fluttered her lashes. She already knew she was stunning, the most beautiful of three sisters who’d been told all their lives how lovely they were.

It was our father’s great pride, how we had inherited so many of his fine features.

He claimed we looked like nobility, and perhaps that was part of his justification for his extravagant style of living and self-centered nature.

She hurried from the room before I could say more, calling out for Anne to ready her belongings. My heart sank.

“This is a good thing for our family,” Father said gruffly when I stood, setting aside my embroidery hoop and needle.

“Don’t dissuade Callista from something that would bring her happiness, status, and wealth for the rest of her days.

It would benefit us all. It is not as if they want a servant, as you were.

She will show the prince her talents at hosting parties, carrying on conversation, and playing the pianoforte.

Even the fae would surely be entranced by her beauty and charm. ”

My throat ached. “She would be ...” My tongue grew leaden, refusing to let me finish my statement. “They value different things,” I managed. But that was hardly the warning I wanted it to be.

Father’s gaze was piercing, unyielding. “If she wants to make this choice, it is not up to you to stop her.”

I gaped. “I’m her older sister, and you are her father. If anyone is going to stop her, it would be us.”

Lavinia tsked from her spot by the window. “She is a woman fully grown and able to make up her own mind.”

“She has no idea what they are like—” My voice cracked.

“Oh, don’t go on about that again. So they made you polish a few floors and do their laundry. It may have been beneath you, but that’s hardly worth fussing about.”

My cheeks burned, but I didn’t correct her. I couldn’t.

Tongue heavy, I was forced to leave the room and attempt to intervene another way.

I moved to exit the room just as the butler paused in the doorway, clearing his throat. “Mr. Sinclair.” His gaze shifted to me and he dipped his head. “Miss Aurelia.”

“Excuse me,” I said, hastening around him as he began sharing the same news Callista had just brought to us.

My stomach churned. How many other women were as eager as Callista, casting aside the nightmarish tales of our upbringing as nothing more than children’s stories to convince themselves that it was worth the risk to visit Willowbark for the prince’s hand?

After all, few fae had come to Riverside, and those that had in recent memory had been harmless.

No one had been stolen away or tricked into awful bargains—except for me.

No one knew that the old stories were true.

I hurried down the hall, following the sounds of frantic packing as I approached Callista’s room. Anne paused in her work of folding some of my sister's underthings when she noticed me hovering in the doorway.

“Where’s my sister?”

“She went out the back way, miss. Said she didn’t want to argue with you.” Anne looked slightly guilty.

I swallowed thickly. Of course she’d left straightaway. Once Callista set her mind on something, she would not be refused.

Without wasting another instant, I dashed through the hall and down the back stairs, bolting through our garden, out the gate, and into the street. Neighbors gawked as I raced toward the town center. A few of the ladies whispered to one another, likely taking note of my lack of a bonnet.

The city center was bustling, a sizable crowd already gathered and murmuring amongst one another. Parked outside the main inn was a row of familiar green and gold carriages.

Was Prince Kaede among them?

I didn’t see him, and I wasn’t sure if disappointment or relief was my stronger emotion at his absence.

I swallowed thickly and averted my gaze when I noticed that I recognized several of the guards posted nearby, including Lavender, who scanned the crowd impassively.

They don’t know your human form, I reminded myself, and though my mind understood this to be true, I still did my best to remain discreet as I wove through the men, women, and children all pointing and talking.

At the front of the gathering was Ji, Willowbark’s chief advisor, and a lengthening line of women. Some held trunks or bags or had servants at their sides with their luggage. Others had nothing, as if they’d decided they did not care to take the time to pack before volunteering.

I gritted my teeth when I spotted Callista among the ladies. Apparently, she’d abandoned Anne to a futile mission, or had ordered the poor maid to race out with her luggage as soon as she finished packing.

The line was already moving, Ji either shaking his head and waving dejected women away, or nodding and signaling for some of the waiting guards to usher each into one of the carriages.

“Remember,” Ji announced, “only thirty women will be brought as our guests. Any may volunteer, but we can refuse you, and we will not linger once we reach the limit. We return to Willowbark today!”

Urgency spurred me forward. Even if Prince Kaede or the guards could recognize my human appearance, I hoped the prince would have mercy on my family.

I forced myself into the line. “Pardon me, I’m so sorry,” I said.

One of the ladies cast me a deathly glare. Being fairly new to the city, I did not recognize her. “Wait your turn,” she snapped.

“I’m only trying to speak with my sister, up there.”

Before I could hear her mumbled reply, I walked onward. “Callista,” I whispered. The line was already moving closer to Ji, near enough I could hear what he said now each time a woman approached him.

“Too...round,” he sneered, his critical gaze sweeping over Eva Thompson’s fuller figure.

Apparently feminine curves were offensive to a male fae who stood so tall and straight, his own figure reminding me more of a stick than that of a living being.

“Why would we want to look upon such a plump form? We want shapeliness, not a princess who would be offensive to the eyes.”

He waved away Miss Thompson as if she were a plague in his presence, and though I ached for the shame and sadness on her features, I was relieved to see our sweet neighbor spared from the competition.

“Callista.” I clasped my sister’s hand as she started forward.

“Don’t you dare stop me.” Her eyes burned. “Are you jealous, because you know that if you competed against me for his hand, I would win?”

Struck mute by her scathing comment, I lost my grasp on her as she pulled away. Only two women stood between her and Ji now.

For a moment, Ji assessed them silently as the pair curtsied together.

“I’m not envious. I don’t want to return to their world,” I whispered, hoping Ji was too distracted to overhear me with his keen fae senses. “You must understand that the stories are true—”

“Next!” Ji called. “Don’t make me wait, or you will be disqualified.” His dark eyes seared into Callista and me.

Callista stepped forward, dipping into a curtsey. “Forgive me, my sister had me distracted.”

“Name and age?”

“Callista Sinclair, twenty-three.”

He nodded, gesturing toward one of the carriages behind him.

I stared in horror. Anne met Callista at the door to the carriage with an overstuffed bag she handed to one of the nearby guards.

“Please, you can’t accept her,” I told Ji, desperation clawing up my throat. I scrambled for an excuse, something that would persuade even an unfeeling fae.

Straightening to his full, formidable height, Ji glared down his nose at me.

Though his perpetual frown made him unattractive to me, his features were flawless, with smooth, pale skin that seemed chiseled from marble.

He, like most other fae, seemed surreal—a living work of art.

And his tall, lithe form only added to his intimidating aura.

“Don’t interfere further, or I’ll turn you away. Give me your name and age.”

I inhaled a shaky breath. I could have refused, could have told him that I had no interest in trying for the prince’s hand. After all, if Kaede ever discovered who I was, he would want nothing to do with me. Surely even he couldn’t find it within himself to forgive his murderer.

But I couldn’t abandon my little sister, the one Mother had always pled with me to protect. The one who looked so much like her, with her shimmering dark hair and mischievous smile, it was as if Mother had left a piece of herself behind.

Resolve hardened within me. It felt reckless without time to solidify a plan, but I didn’t have the luxury of time, and this felt...inevitable.

If I couldn’t keep Callista from entering the fae world, I would go with her.

“Aurelia Sinclair.” I forced a smile. “Twenty-five.”