Happy November, friends! I’m enjoying a brief reprieve to get my house together and my ducks in a row before we begin hosting friends and family for the holiday season. For the rest of this month, I’ll be swapping out relatives at our house, which is always fun, and a little chaotic. But it’s the kind of chaos surrounded by love and only the occasional headache 😉 What are your plans for November and Turkey Day (for those who celebrate!) What are your favorite things to cook/bake/eat? Share your thoughts in the comments!
In other news, did you see the new and updated covers for Blackbriar Cove and Stay: A Love Story? I am so in love and hope you’ll agree the team at Qamber Designs outdid themselves as always!
Next, what you’ve all been waiting for: a fresh teaser for Annwyn Park for you, friends! Keep reading to find out what happened to the Unseelie after the end of Dalriada Valley…
*spoilers ahoy*
CAERLEON, SILVER HOLLOW
Long ago, the Wenderdowne brothers gifted Caerleon to King Arthur and what remained of his family and court. The court lingered until their unnatural long lifespans left them itching to return to mortal lands where they might finally rest in peace.
A part of Amie, the part that had lived as a human for fifty-odd years, bereft of memories from before, still had trouble believing this was her life. Once upon a not so distant time ago, Amie had believed herself a human girl in her late twenties. She had never fit in with anyone but her family and the twins, not even before she lost her parents. Not so long ago, Amie had written stories about magic and magical beings, stories from half-remembered dreams, but she hadn’t truly believed.
Not until Myrddin Emrys appeared suddenly in her life, and dragged her from one literal train wreck to the chaos waiting for them in Silver Hollow.
“Mother doesn’t know him,” Amie muttered to her horse, Silverfoot, just outside the border of Caerleon. Already, the scent of the orchards and night flowers carried down the empty road with an invisible breeze. “She doesn’t know what we’ve sacrificed to be here.”
Silverfoot whickered with what felt like understanding. Speaking to animals wasn’t Amie’s strong suit. The twins were more talented…especially Faye. Pushing aside the pain she always felt when she thought of her former friend, Amie closed her eyes and drew in the night air.
Her mother was wrong. Amie knew better than most of the consequences of her actions. Emrys before his death had been powerful enough that most courts and beings sought to either destroy or coerce him to their side. In that other, half-remembered life, Nimue had loved him desperately, but she had also struggled to trust him.
No matter. We are bound together in every way.
Whatever came, their fates were tied together.
Amie opened her eyes. Tonight was important. An eclipse. A chance for them to be together in a way they were rarely afforded due to their natures. Due to who Amie was in Silver Hollow.
Shadows danced in the corners of her vision. Most Unseelie were not keen on rules, but they still kept to the bargain Emrys made on their behalf with their new queen. She sensed them watching from the thick enchanted trees.
Pixies and other light-seeking beings tended to trail wherever their queen went, but they had not followed her today. Not when Amie released the sun and began to reach for the shadows hidden within her mooncraft.
Glittering eyes and wisp-like wraiths accompanied her return to the dark court. Though Silverfoot shifted uncomfortably beneath Amie’s coaxing touch, the mare stayed upon the path. “Remember, I’m still their queen,” she whispered.
Fredrick had told her the mare possessed more than a little unicorn blood. Such beings of pure light were once starved and dangerous to Seelie such as Amie. Her reign had thankfully tipped and maintained the balance. Each day and night that she received and poured her power back into Silver Hollow, the beings under her care became more than the fading remnant they had become under Henry’s reign.
Golden rays of sunlight faded and shadows thickened around their path. Silverfoot’s coat shimmered with trapped starlight, but Amie yet carried the sun trapped within her skin. Tendrils of living shadows darted toward them from the path and forest ahead, caressing her skin like a lover.
Amie smiled at the formless spirits as they whispered, “Welcome home, your majesty.”
The old apple orchard and crumbling ruins of Caerleon had changed drastically since Emrys took residence. Once ruined outer buildings had been repaired with obsidian, and the castle shimmered with countless gems and other precious stones embedded within the mended cracks of the main hall.
The long hedge lining either side of the path leading to the entrance was no longer neglected but carved into the shapes of dark creatures. Monsters of legend and truth, some of which lingered in Nimue’s memories.
Amie shivered at the too-lifelike gaze of these hedge-creatures. Some things were better left forgotten by the world beyond the Borderlands. She ignored the flash of memory, of razor-sharp teeth and poisoned claws. Nimue remained part of her, but if she was lucky, slumbered just beneath her subconscious.
Past the hedge, the shadow dissipated, then reformed into diaphanous figures which flanked her arrival on either side as her honor guard. The dark spirits had bonded willingly with Emrys in Blackbriar Cove and answered to him alone. Amie had come to see them as an extension of the man she loved.
The beings lingering in the yard just before the open entrance hall were another matter entirely.
Whereas most Seelie magic was tied to flora, fauna and air, Unseelie power manifested in less predictable ways. They were tied to the darker side of nature, from tempests and quakes, to wildfires and floods.
Tonight, they were dressed in their best, gowns and coats bearing hints of every fashion and era. In some ways, they were more colorful, brighter and richer in bearing than the Seelie of Amie’s court. Yet some, especially those who had come since word of the Unseelie refuge had spread, were far less polished, wilder. These Unseelie hailed from distant mortal and borderlands. Most of these solitary beings wore tattoos and metal marking their decimated clans on their skin.
“The oldest honor you for your strength. They will care little for politics, only power,” Emrys once said.
All bowed at the waist as Amie dismounted Silverfoot, some tipping over their glasses at her approach, liquid offerings to the earth and to their queen. Magic and power were only gained by sacrifice, after all.
Nimue had bled for this land and died, but not before delivering a deadly prophecy. Jessamiene Wenderdowne was queen because Henry Iudicael fulfilled that prophecy by giving up his life to make it so. A fair exchange in the eyes of those who dwelled in Silver Hollow.
He never asked if I wanted him to sacrifice himself for me.
to be continued…
Escape to Silver Hollow…
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