Page 1 of A Storm Rises

Princess Gabriela Avila Strong exhaled with a groan and turned to her side. “The pain.” The last remaining heir of House Strong of Strong Haven pressed into her midsection with both hands. “It returns.” She clenched her teeth and squeezed the sheets. “Worse this time.”

“My dear lady. Hang in there,” Maid Gidna said soothingly as she wiped Gabriela’s wet forehead with a soft cotton cloth. “Help is on the way. It should arrive any moment.”

Gabriela panted in bursts. Her breathing grew shallow. “It’s all wrong.” She looked to Maid Gidna for help. “Please… My baby is not due to arrive for another month.” Tears streamed down her face as she shook her head from side to side. “It is too soon.”

The stocky and faithful dwarf had served the Strong family, and then Gabriela and Lord Leaf, for almost one hundred years. Her lady had never endured such pain. It was all too much. “All will be well. I am sure Lady Sonia is on her way. She will fix you right up.”

Maid Gidna prayed to the Stars Lady Sonia would arrive soon. But who knew when the hard-to-locate witch-healer would show.

“And Leaf?” A hard swallow and then Gabriela asked again. “What of Leaf?”

Gidna glanced at a maidservant huddling in the shadows of the bedchamber’s corner. The young and tiny maiden clutched her fitted white dress skirt in her small hands. The flowers that usually adorned her short-clipped brown hair had fallen away. With wide eyes, she moved her head from side to side.

Hiding a gulp, Gidna reported the progress to the princess. “Surely, our raven has reached him and he races home now. I have no doubt.”

Gabriela dug her nails into the feather mattress. With jaws clenched, her face contorted. When the wave passed, she gasped for more air, and her head fell back against the pillow. “I am breaking in half. I need help.”

She wiped Gabriela’s chin with the square of cotton and pulled the long white-streaked brown hair away from her lady’s face. She stroked Gabriela’s moist and cool cheek. “You are not breaking, my princess.”

Seventy years ago, Gidna had stepped in and filled the void after Gabriela’s mother, Princess Celyse, went to the Passing Place. Five years later, Gidna assisted with the paternal role when Gabriela’s father, Lord Julio, died in a car crash. He paid the ultimate price while visiting the human realm. She and others suspected responsibility lay with House Kane or those aligned with them. Yet, there had been no way to prove it, of course.

“I love you, Gidna.” Gabriela locked eyes with her servant and best friend, then squeezed her hand. “You are my family.”

The dwarf blinked and then harrumphed. Her lady mustn’t start with that talk. “You will be fine, my lady. I know it. I can feel it with every sense inside me.”

Ignoring Gidna, Gabriela went on. “Do you remember when we first met?”

“Sun, Moon, and Stars, my lady. Of course, I do.”

The princess smiled, and her eyes took on a faraway look. “I was seventeen when I came here from the human realm. I hardly knew anything about Faevenly. But you…” Gabriela swallowed and winced as if the pain had jabbed her again. “You helped me. Because of you, I learned the balance between the human and fae realm.” She threw her head back and unleashed a throaty wail that echoed throughout the small room.

This time, Gidna could not stop herself. Tears fell from her eyes. They trailed down her cheeks like a mighty river carving through the rocky mountain range. If Lady Sonia didn’t appear soon all would be lost. The princess could not take much more of this agony. Neither could the baby. Disaster loomed, and Gidna was determined to stop it.

She hollered over her shoulder. “Send more guards! Find Lady Sonia at once!” She turned to the shy maidservant in the corner. “And where is Manny!?” Gidna did not know how to help the princess. She could not save the baby from coming early, and she was woefully unprepared.

The maidservant scurried away and left Princess Gabriela to her ragged and shallow breathing. “My Uncle Manny…is probably…fishing somewhere. He’s surely lost in a daydream.”

“It would not surprise me in the least.” Gidna flashed her a half-hearted smile. Manny spent countless hours fishing and wasting time. “Daydreamer, that one. But full of nothing but love for you.”

“I know.” Gabriela struggled to prop herself on her forearms. “You must promise me something.”

“My lady, please, none of that talk. Lady Sonia will be?—”

“Please, Gidna!”

Gidna’s mouth dropped open. Her next words hung in her clogged throat. Giving in to Gabriela’s plea, she exhaled and pursed her lips. “Anything, my lady.”

“If I do not make it, you must know that Leaf will perish too.”

“Your soul is linked to Leaf’s. I have not forgotten what that evil witch Draven did to you both.”

Gabriela clutched the platinum cross hanging from her neck. She stroked the smooth edges of the precious heirloom. Her father passed it on to her when she was a child. It was all that remained of him—a powerful symbol of his human faith and a reminder of the powers held within her human bloodline. “If my baby survives, this must be passed on. This represents great power. The child will need it throughout life and beyond.”

Gabriela’s mother had foretold in a dream that her child—the Only One—would restore peace throughout Faevenly. Gidna knew and trusted that prophecy. She had seen the power within Gabriela. Her father, Lord Julio, possessed it too. “Your word is my command, my lady.”

With a deep, guttural grunt, Gabriela struggled to remove the chain from around her neck. She placed it on Gidna’s warm, thick palm and then closed Gidna’s trembling fingers around the cross. “Faith is a warrior.”

She nodded. “It is.”

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