Page 1 of The Cursed Crown

Stripped to the Bone

Playing the prey was amusing, but if the idiots hunting her didn’t show more respect for the woods, Rissa was going to cut off a few appendages before the night was through.

The dozen riders weren’t the first to come for her since she’d retreated from her former home, and they wouldn’t be the last. Some she’d killed, others, she’d led astray. These trespassers would meet their fate soon enough. For now, she was content to toy with them, leaving false trails, appearing in a grove, then high atop a hill.

Rissa couldn’t begin to comprehend why they’d chosen to come for her after sundown. Only a handful of souls in the thirteen kingdoms could boast knowing her, but surely, they must have heard at least some of the rumors?

Once, there was a nightmare who loved a king. Once, there was a king who fathered a nightmare. The story of Rissa’s birth had traveled through the land like dust. A hundred years had passed and she still heard whispers of the monstrous royal child carried by the wind.

Behave, or the nightmare may kiss you, and lock your soul in the darkest abyss.

She could technically do that, if she were so inclined. Fortunately for all snorting urchins in Denarhelm, Rissa had never been fond of children. Or kisses.

And yet, despite all the talk of her wildness and her cruelty, the hunters came for her at night, when her power was at its strongest.

It made no sense. Still, she had little to occupy her time with until the next full moon, so she indulged the fools who raced deeper and deeper into her demesne.

Clop-clop-clop.

A dozen horses galloped at full speed, their masters’ swords lopping off whatever stood in their way.

Rissa neared the edge of the meadow she’d claimed as her home for three seasons. Last winter, she still woke to the sound of flutes and violins, within four walls of gilt, with curtains made of the finest silk, a bed carved in white stone, and buttered sweet bread waiting for her on a burnished platter. Now she had her meadow, her treehouse, and her freedom. She missed none of the delights of the Court of Sunlight.

Except for the sweet bread, perhaps.

It wouldn’t do to let the brutes destroy her haven—the one place where she could be herself. She would have to face them here or hide.

Rissa’s boredom and her curiosity called for the former option, but she hid all the same, blending with the shadow of a crooked aspen. Its fiery autumn leaves provided enough cover for her purpose.

There, she waited, still and silent. She’d changed from prey to something else entirely.

Rissa was no noble knight, no sportsman following a set of rules of engagement. She wasn’t even much of a fae, despite the fact that half of her blood sprang from the line of Mab herself. She was a wild thing, particularly when she felt cornered. In her youth, she’d been teased, insulted, pushed to the edge of wells, pricked with sharp twigs and spat on whenever the gentry’s children believed they could get away with it. For a time, she’d taken it. Then, she’d learned that nothing tasted quite as sweet as the fear of her enemies.

She was every bit the nightmare.

A soft, warm breeze carried the scent of the strangers before they came into view. They smelled just like any of her foes. Floral, distinguished scents pinching her nose. She wasn’t fond of elaborate perfumes. Rissa had never had any strife with stinky little gnomes or forest imps. It was the gentry, the high fae, she loathed.

Though she didn’t call to the power running in her blood, she could feel branches crawling along her bare skin, curving around her wrists like whips, covering her heart and throat with a thick layer of bark and moss. Under her plain green velveteen dress, an armor of wood protected her. She felt a spider move along her throat and settle on her feathered shoulder. Gently, Rissa rested her clawed hand next to it. The crawler took the invitation, rushing to her palm. She set it on the tree. She wasn’t willing to involve the creatures of the woods in gentry quarrels. Their kind was too callous to those they deemed lesser than themselves.

Rissa scrutinized her enemies. Covered in black floating cloaks over bare skin and metal plates, they were dressed for battle. Two held themselves like true warriors, and six seemed to be indistinguishable lower knights. She ignored them all, dangerous as the first couple might have been.

Only one man mattered: the one riding front and center. Rissa couldn’t take her eyes away.

He was a threat, the likes of which she’d never encountered in these woods.

Rydekar Bane.

She’d been a girl only fifteen years of age the last time she’d seen him. In a century, she’d grown into a confident, powerful woman who didn’t bow to anyone.

Yet her impulse was to bow to him, or dart out and run again, as far, as fast as she could.

It might have been wise. Survival dictated that she should defer to the most powerful man in the entire fae world.

She remained in the shadows, silent and still, taking in everything about him.

He’d grown too. In power and, if it was even possible, in beauty. The high fae were all beautiful, with their refined, elegant features—long limbs, flawless skin, perfect cherry mouths. He was worse than the rest—the one black rose in a sea of reds and whites.

Rydekar was bulkier than any fae had the right to be—courtesy of the human blood in his veins, presumably. His shoulders were twice as large as hers, yet he bore his massive frame with the grace of a tiger lying in wait, ready to strike an unknowing quarry.

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