The Flower and the Flame (The Lands of Everlasting Change Book 1) by Talia Devereaux

Author:Talia Devereaux [Devereaux, Talia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

eighteen.

“What do you mean bring me home? Why have you been watching me?” Odette leaned forward, her brow furrowing as desperation for the truth gripped her like a vice.

“To Faery, you silly little sídhe! Back to the Lands of Everlasting Change, back to the Unseelie Court Castle,” Evanora grinned, flicking her index finger. Odette gasped as an invisible force pushed her hood down so that the icy blue hairs that had escaped from the golden hairnet flared around her head.

“I don’t know what you know, so I’ll tell it to you like a story. You’ll find I have quite the flair for weaving tales.

“In the time before King Gramr took the Unseelie throne, he did as all faerie royals do. He travelled the Lands of Everlasting Change, exploring the Six Courts of Faery and the Wildelands. He had many dalliances and attended hundreds of revels, always the diamond of the evening. He shone so brightly that his subjects called him Demantinn—The Diamond King—after he was crowned. It wasn’t until many moons later that he learned a boy had come from one of his unions. A son. An heir.”

As Evanora spoke, she gathered the items scattered over the table, binding each with a different coloured string. When finished, she dropped each bundle into the basket and pulled out new phials full of dried, leafy stems and crushed petals. Odette peeked at the herbs as she plucked them free, recognising wolfsbane, baptisia, devil’s shoestring, and something else, silken and strange. The colours bled together, moving like mercury, oddly like the stone on her faerie ring.

“King Gramr had no true-born heirs as he'd yet to take a consort. His rise to kingship had been sudden and unexpected, but the laws of Faery are clear. Every ruler must bear an heir or name another worthy enough, lest the Lands take from them their power until they wither to dust.

“And so, King Gramr named the boy his heir. He raised the boy to rule, and in the years to come, the boy grew proud, ready to follow in his father’s footsteps. When he reached manhood, he too explored the Six Courts of Faery and the Wildelands. All seemed well.

“While the boy was on his tour, a crazed manticore was sighted, rampaging through the Unseelie Lands. Proud as he was, King Gramr hunted the creature down alone and, in the ensuing struggle, was gravely injured, speared through the shoulder by the manticore’s poisonous stinger. Gramr slew the beast despite the wound, only to find he’d wandered onto the Autumn Lands in his delirium. He was discovered half-dead by the heir to the Autumn Court, Princess Aeliana.”

Evanora pulled a pair of scissors seemingly from thin air, wielding them to cut away a sizeable square strip from a bloodied rabbit skin she’d spread out on the tabletop. Then she packed pinches of the new herbs into the skin and wound a shortened string of catgut around it.

“Aeliana cared for Gramr in secret, healing him from the manticore’s poison

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.