“You may not see us, but we are there; watching you, protecting you, and fighting the darkness that wants your soul.”

The Aether

From the prison window, I looked out to the dark world that stretched for miles below.

The Crimson Tower had been home for eleven years, and each year I beheld the same bleak landscape.

Snow. Ice. Darkness.

Sometimes the wind would howl so loudly that the echo on the stone walls would keep me awake for hours. In this part of the realm, the sun barely shed more than a faint hue in the gray sky as thick clouds seemed to hover and drift along at a slow crawl.

Not even the fire could warm me, and even though I’d been born in a hot summer surrounded by tropical jungles, I’d grown used to being cold—to being alone.

Mother had always told me that one day life would change, that I would be free.

Maybe even more than free.

That was before the humans had taken her and father away and burned them at the stake—before my grandmother convinced King Aerion to imprison me instead of executing me. No one found it particularly becoming of a man to kill a little girl, especially when she had yet to display any signs that she’d inherited the stain of magic.

He had agreed. But, the fear of death hovered above me like a black cloud.

Even as I finished hanging my washing above the fire, I wasn’t sure what to expect when the sound of horses broke me from my daydream. The heat did little to warm my face as I dried my wet hands on my apron.

For years, I had watched the world below churn with snow and darkness. But, that night, there was light.

I pushed open the window and shivered at the bitter wind as it swept in and lifted my golden hair. To my relief, it wasn’t the king’s soldiers.

It was a carriage of black and gold.

I leaned out the window, gawking at how the embellishments glittered beneath the bright moon.

“Look, Kala. You don’t see one of those every day,” I muttered.

“Indeed,” Kala, the white dire wolf at my side agreed. “Not in the Outlands of Tythra, anyway.”

In the midst of a snowstorm, a beautiful woman stepped from the covered carriage in a gray fur cloak with a wolf’s head that reached the ankles of her black boots. She didn’t walk to the entrance of the White Tower.

She flew.

Her long hair cascaded down her back in red waves, and her green eyes glittered beneath her lashes. Even in the dark, I could see them, for they glowed up at me.

“I’ve yet to see a human fly, or do anything interesting for that matter,” Kala said.

“A faerie,” I said, eyes wide with awe. “Someone will surely kill her for showing off magic in such a way. How is this possible?”

“We will have to see,” Kala said. “Perhaps they have summoned her.”

“Unlikely,” I said, closing the shutters against the cold. I leaned back onto the wall, wondering if this was a dream. “Do you think it could be her?”

“We can only hope,” Kala said, glancing up at me with ice-blue eyes that sparkled in the dim candlelight. “Eleven years is far too long for anyone to lose their freedom.”

“I almost don’t want to get my hopes up,” I said, taking off my apron and hanging it on a hook behind the door. “I don’t think I could take such a disappointment.”

“Don’t give up hope, darling. All will work itself out. I promise.”

With my ear pressed to the door, I tried to listen in on what she said to the warden. It was fruitless. I was high up in the tower, and the stone door was thick enough to mute all sounds from the corridor.

The locked clicked. I jumped and took a frightened step back.

Frozen, my eyes darted from one armored guard to the next. With their swords pointed my way, and shields held out to block whatever they feared I would do to them, I realized they were afraid of me.

That was odd. Why would anyone fear me? A more pressing question came to me as the guards made a passage in between them.

“Come, girl,” one of them demanded. “Warden says you’re being released.”

Those seven words more than those two guards had ever said to me.

Still, I couldn’t move. All I could do was look to my right at the only window in the room and to my left. This had been my home since I was seven years old. My meager bed was pushed against the wall to give myself more space for my desk and bookcase. It was all I had in the entire world, but none of it mattered anymore.

Freedom potentially waited for me.

Kala stood beside me. While I tried to keep my fear at bay, there was strength and courage in her eyes.

“Are you ready?” Kala asked, startling the guards with her soft voice that echoed off the walls.

Though they remained silent, their eyes widened with questions I knew they were asking themselves.

Licking my cracked lips, I nodded despite the pain of the sting I’d awakened. “I think so.”

I mustered my courage and stepped from my tiny prison. The cold followed me outside into the corridor as we walked along the narrow hall to the staircase that led to the bottom of the tower.

There she was. The faerie. My heart skipped a beat as I remembered her face from long ago. The memory of her having tea with mother and father just the night before their arrest returned to me.

“My goodness,” she said. “What a lovely little lady you’ve grown up to be. Come, let me get a better look at you.”

Nervous and tense, I almost smiled at the compliment. But, the truth was, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I took another step forward, and she touched my hair, her eyes examining every inch of my face.

“Do you remember me? I am Queen Sorcha of Ever Frost.”

“Of course, I remember you. How could I forget?”

She’d taken a sample of my blood with the tip of her enchanted dagger. A little girl would never forget such a thing, no matter how much time had passed. I could still feel the sting and recall the way the blade glowed once it touched my blood, soaking it in as though quenched a desperate thirst.

“The war is over, and you are free to leave.”

My knees buckled, and with widened eyes, my breaths quickened. “Are you certain?”

“I am,” she said, stepping closer and taking my hands into hers. She stared down at them, stroking my rough skin with her thumbs. “I am sorry for how you’ve been mistreated, and how many years you’ve been forced to remain here. But, we have fought long and hard with the Tythrans to get you back. And, we’ve won.”

Picturing armies of magic-born fighting against humans left my stomach in knots. “They fought…for me?”

“Of course, they did. And now, I will take you to where you belong. To Allandria, the center of the Seelie Court.”

When I noticed that the warden and the guards were nowhere to be seen I knew it to be true. Despite my wariness, I nodded and was spirited away out into the cold. I did not ask questions, or delay my escape.

No. I was ready.

Whatever was before me would be better than a life of imprisonment. With Kala by my side, I climbed into the carriage and was wrapped in a heavy fur cloak.

If I was dreaming, I did not want to wake up ever again. I was free for the first time since I was a child. Even though I was about to be taken to a land I’d never seen other than in the books my grandmother had sent to me, I did not care.

A cold night with snow falling in torrents was the setting for my journey into the darkness of my fated future. My destiny. It was the day of my eighteenth birthday when the beautiful faerie queen took me away from the Crimson Tower.

My heart continued to race, and my muscles remained tense even as Kala snuggled close and kept me warm—even as we said goodbye to Tythra.

The humans were never my tribe, and each day on their soil was one day closer to my death.

No, I wasn’t born to die such an uneventful death. I’d come from a long line of faeries with immortal blood running through their veins.

I was Princess Celeste Delacord of the kingdom of Mordigan—an Elemental chosen by the Guardians despite my heritage.

The first ever with the power to control all of the elements. Perhaps the humans were justified in my imprisonment, for it was prophecized that I could build or destroy nations with a single thought.

As we rode away, I glanced back at the tower, wondering when any of that power would give me a sign it even existed.