Page 1 of The High Mountain Court

Chapter One

Ablack cat wove around her legs. Remy released a long-suffering sigh. Now the entire tavern would know she was a witch.

A glass shattered on the floor behind her as two tavern patrons pulled daggers on each other. The sounds of their drunken brawl echoed through the room. Remy didn’t even flinch. With her weathered brown boot, she shooed the cat away. She did not fear daggers or tavern spiders or the anger of drunken men. She feared being seen. For if any one of these tavern patrons knew she was a red witch, they would all be clambering over each other to cut off her head.

How many gold coins was the Northern King paying for red witch heads these days?

She set down another heavy wooden chair in the Rusty Hatchet tavern. The smell of dirt and stale beer swirled around her. It was the smell she knew as home. A handful of other tavern workers dotted about, readying for the evening rush of locals who would flock to the tavern for its strong drinks and spiced meats.

Remy swept up after the slow trickle of midday travelers. She stole a sidelong glance toward the bar, where two of the tavern’s courtesans sat, bored. Josephine and Sabine chattered away to the barman, who was listening, doe-eyed, entrapped by their beauty.

Remy looked with jealousy at their delicate embroidered dresses that flaunted their figures. She wished she could wear those beaded necklaces and teardrop earrings, wished her guardian, Heather, would let her paint her face and line her eyes with kohl. She wished she could stand out, but that was, in fact, the opposite of what they wanted with their constant efforts to keep Remy hidden. Soot stained her warm brown skin. She tied her loose black curls in a messy low bun and kept her whole demeanor intentionally unremarkable.

Swapping out the full bucket with an empty one, Remy looked up at the droplets leaking from the thatched roof. Despite its rundown appearance, the Rusty Hatchet was far better than the last tavern. Remy and her brown witch companions had been at the Rusty Hatchet for nearly a year, and it was the best tavern they had worked at in a long time.

Taverns were the only places left that would hire witches anymore. Heather insisted they move taverns every three years. They kept funneling themselves along the chain of backcountry taverns along the foothills of the High Mountains. Remy tried to convince her guardian that the ones closer to the Western Court coast would be nicer. Heather insisted that the ones closer to town would have more fae customers and it wouldn’t be worth the risk.

In their realm, fae were at the top, ruling each of the five courts of Okrith . . . well, four courts now that the High Mountain Court had fallen to the Northern Court King.

An energetic voice piped up from behind her. “Scrubbing pans or scrubbing sheets?”

She looked over her shoulder. Fenrin was the same age as Remy. She had known him since they were twelve. He was an orphaned brown witch. Both Heather and Fenrin were brown witches, the coven native to the Western Court. Heather had found Fenrin living on the streets and offered him temporary shelter. But now, seven years later, he was an inextricable part of their makeshift family.

Fenrin was tall enough to draw attention in a crowd. Eating twice as much as Heather and Remy combined, he couldn’t seem to gain an ounce of weight. Built like a stork, he was still impressively strong despite his lean limbs. He had a mop of straw-colored hair and ocean blue eyes.

“I’ll serve the food.” Remy craned her neck up to him.

“There’s lots of folks from out of town here tonight,” Fenrin said. “Better to work in the back.”

Remy’s shoulders drooped as she dusted her hands down her cream-colored apron. She once would have argued with Fenrin about staying hidden, but she didn’t anymore. The likelihood of one of those travelers being a witch hunter was slim—that was the benefit of living in seedy little villages, but Remy listened to Fenrin. She had made so many mistakes over the years. Mistakes that had them fleeing towns in the middle of the night, and all to protect Remy’s secret: she was a red witch.

When King Vostemur of the Northern Court slaughtered the High Mountain fae, he also slaughtered the native coven of red witches. The witches scattered across the courts, driven into hiding to avoid the witch hunters, who made a living off the witch heads they brought to the Northern King. So few red witches remained now, the only ones she knew of were the property of the royal fae who protected them from the Northern King’s wrath, but the free red witches were either well-hidden or dead. Remy had not heard any gossip of a witch-slaying in years. Maybe she was the only one left.

“Pans,” she said with a resigned huff. She was about to get more stains on her clothes whichever task she did. These were the choices Remy made: pans or sheets, mopping or dusting, cooking or serving.

She would rather scrub grit and grease than face whatever stained those sheets. Remy had learned more about bedroom habits from washing tavern sheets than anything Heather had ever taught her. Everything else she had learned from a cobbler’s son and the tales of courtesans, though Heather tried to keep Remy away from them. Witches needed to keep to their own.

The humans and the fae couldn’t be trusted, a fact which Heather reminded Remy of every day. There was a new hierarchy to their world. That hierarchy changed after the Siege of Yexshire, the mutinous slaughter of the entire capital city of the High Mountain Court. It happened when Remy was six. Now, red witches were at the bottom of the barrel.

“You always pick pans,” Fenrin grumbled.

Remy couldn’t help but smile. “I just know how much you love scrubbing dirty sheets, Fen.”

The roar of drunken laughter echoed through the tavern. That black cat still mewled at the witches’ feet. Fenrin frowned at the cat.

“Go harass one of the humans,” the brown witch said, rolling his eyes as he pushed open the kitchen door.

* * *

Remy rubbed an acrid balm into her sore, cracked hands. Scouring pans had left its mark. Luckily, Heather was a skilled brown witch. Remy’s guardian had a potion, elixir, or balm for every malady under the sun. Many humans would seek out Heather in secret and trade coins for her remedies. Between their tavern work and selling potions on the side, it was enough to keep their group of three afloat and pay for their frequent moves.

“Ale!” Remy heard a deep voice shout from the front of the tavern.

Matilda, the matron who owned the Rusty Hatchet, came bursting through the swinging double doors to the kitchens.

The white-haired, heavyset woman groused to herself, cursing whichever patron had screamed. She chucked a rag over her shoulder and grabbed a tray of clean, dried glasses, hefting it easily. She tilted her head to the four plated dishes on the kitchen table.

“Remy, can you give us a hand?” she asked, exasperated. “Those plates to the loud assholes in the corner booth.”

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