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Prologue

N ineteen Years Earlier

The spirits were in a good mood that night.

A gentle breeze kissed her wild dark hair as she surveyed the clear skies so unusual for the stormy village of Glenn.

She didn’t miss the constant rains, but there was something about the calm weather that always made her melancholic.

Tonight was no exception; she felt more restless than ever.

It hadn’t taken her long to excuse herself from the bustling atmosphere created by her family as they gathered inside her tiny cottage.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love them. Truly, she did.

She was fond of her sister; she got along with her brother-in-law.

When her parents had still lived in Glenn, before they had decided to follow her sister to Leis to be a part of her more colorful, ever-changing life, she had been a dutiful daughter.

She even loved her nephews in a distant sort of way, despite the fact that they wanted nothing to do with their dour-faced aunt who smelled like dusty old books .

She clutched her shawl tighter as she looked back at her cottage, home to her dearest treasures. She had decided early on that she had better things to do, bigger dreams to pursue, and never had she regretted the path she had chosen. Not one single day.

Except nights like tonight, perhaps. When her traitorous heart longed for something she could not name, her chest feeling a hollow sort of emptiness.

She looked up at the inky sky again, the stars winking at her. The night was still, as if it waited along with her for the auspicious moment to occur.

A high pitched wail split through the night, startling her.

The baby had been born.

Her heart gave that peculiar squeeze again, and someone called her name. Her nephew stood in the cottage doorway, his cheeks flushed as he yelled for her to come meet the baby.

Sighing, she trudged back up the path to her home and entered the hot stuffy room. Her sister lay in the bed, holding a tiny bundle up to her chest, a tired smile on her face.

“A girl,” she rasped, her voice betraying a depth of emotion.

With what seemed like a herculean effort, she held the baby up to her aunt, who accepted the precious bundle with a slight wince, expecting the same cry her nephews had let out when she first held them.

It did not come. Curious, she held the little one up, cautiously touching a finger to her cheek.

Tiny, pudgy fingers grasped it with a surprisingly strong grip for something so fragile. She tried to dislodge her finger, but the baby held fast.

And as she looked into those wide, trusting eyes of the clearest green—the color of the forest on a sunny day—her throat burned with unshed tears, and her heart filled with furious emotion.

And for the first time in her life, Maeve Larke fell in love.