Page 1 of A Kingdom of Pleasure and Torment

Chapter One

Mother is dead.

Dead and buried beneath the cenere tree where she first wished for me. The tree that inspired my name.

Mother’s murderer is seated beside me in the carriage. He believes I don’t suspect him. How could I not? Faeries are immortal, but my mother died. Someone had a hand in it. Why not the villain who stands to benefit most from her death?

Every bump and jostle makes my knees smash into those of Lord Cadwyn Thrace of Elegwyn Manor, very recently widowed. His mourning blacks are garish, his cravat too big, the tails of his coat slightly too long. He cut a dashing figure at his wife’s funeral.

No doubt, he’s already looking for someone new to warm his bed and line his pockets. It will be especially easy now that he’s stolen my title, my lands, and my mother through his treachery. He plays the part of the wealthy, distinguished faery well, and wins hearts with his rakish charm. Mother fell so hard that even learning that his fortune was non-existent wasn’t enough to shake her resolve to have him.

Now, only a year later, he has inherited what should be mine, and I return to the only home I’ve ever known as my stepfather’s guest.

“You’ll be all right.” When he tries to force his pale face into a kind expression, it looks more like a smirk. “I’ll give you a stipend, of course.”

“I am tired,” I say, and turn my attention to the raindrops pelting the window. “I don’t wish to discuss this now.”

“Unfortunately, we must. It may seem vulgar to speak of money so soon after your mother’s internment—”

“It is vulgar for you to speak of my mother’s money at all,” I snap.

“Cenere…” he begins, the antennae at his hairline glowing softly with an insincere silver-white light. “I’m not throwing you out. You’re in a unique predicament. It would be cruel of me to expect you to fend for yourself. You’re leagues from the nearest human settlement—”

“I know where the human settlements are.” I’ve often wondered if a faery lives there in my place. My mother never hid the fact that I was born of a wish, but she didn’t let her human daughter believe in a fantasy of wishes without consequences. I came from somewhere. Certainly not from my fae mother.

“You’ll need my guidance,” Thrace goes on. I hear him, but I don’t listen.

Outside, the forest grieves for its mistress. It robed itself in dense, ghostly fog the moment my mother’s light faded. Since then, the sky has been dirty white and hazy. I wonder how long it will last. How will the buds know to bloom in the spring without mother to sing them softly awake? I can’t do it. I will never be able to do it.

If I am a changeling, I was chosen well. My looks match my mother’s; generous flesh of milky rose, hair that gleams like the copper rays of a setting sun. I look like a Spring Fae. I have all the powers of a human.

I will never know what it is to have wings. I will never wield magic or see all the splendor of a faery court. But perhaps most unfairly, I will never have the power to bring Cadwyn Thrace to justice for my mother’s death.

* * * *

The flames in the parlor’s hearth do nothing to warm me. If I change out of my sodden mourning dress, perhaps it will chase off the chill. I don’t believe it matters; I will be cold to the marrow of my bones for the rest of my life.

I know that Thrace killed my mother. That truth freezes me. That truth, and the knowledge that he will never face justice, are slowly turning me to ice from the inside out. The proof I have is flimsy, a single empty glass with a trace of iron powder at its bottom. But my mother was in exile from her court when she died, and the fae prefer to handle their own grievances among themselves. With no power—magical, symbolic, or otherwise—I will only be able to watch as Thrace spends my fortune and seeks out his next victim.

“It’s freezing in here.” The floor creaks under Thrace’s feet, but only because he wants it to. He has a gift of moving silently, like an insect. He chooses to let me hear his slow approach. “And you’re still in those damp clothes.”

“It makes no difference.” I rise from my chair. “I don’t wish to disturb you with my presence in your parlor.”

The speed with which he stands before me is frightening. So, too, is the smirk that grows across his cruelly beautiful mouth. “Come now. Do you think I would expel you from your home? Nothing has changed, Cenere. You’re still a member of my family.”

I’ve never been a part of anyone’s family. It was Mother and I alone for twenty-five years, and we liked it that way.

At least, I thought we liked it that way, before Mother met Thrace. Then, she was all too eager for new company.

I tried not to take it personally. I still try.

“We are not family,” I say, my hand curling into a limp fist at my side.

I can’t get past him. He looms over me. “That is easily rectified.”

His sneer tells me a truth I don’t want to know: we have been playing a game, and I am unaware that I have been losing the entire time.

“Just as your mother neglected to declare you her inheritor, she also failed to declare you my ward.” He reaches out and snags a long, copper ringlet that fell from my bun. “But there are other ways.”

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