Excerpt

THE BEGINNING…a black fawn…runaway girl…wolves in a Saint's Glen…scars…Ten Years Later

TEN YEARS AGO

"A black fawn was seen in the forest."

"Black? Are you certain?"

"Black as night."

Six-year-old Bryn sat beneath the banquet hall's giant oak table, hidden by a velvet tablecloth, eavesdropping on two of her father's guards. Her hands were sticky from the half-devoured honey cake in her lap. Mam Delice had slipped her the treat along with the last of the winter strawberries after the feast, the only person in Castle Mir who recalled—or cared—that it was the youngest princess's birthday.

"The sighting of a black fawn is one of the war omens," the first man said darkly.

The second, her father's captain of the guard, replied, "It's been spotted three times. Twice by my men and once by a journeyman from the south of Eyrie. A team of my huntsmen is preparing to set out at first light. They'll slay it and throw the carcass in the ravine. No one will know."

"And the journeyman?"

"Who will he tell? The wastrels at the tavern? No one will take it as more than a drunkard's rumors."

"It's a risk to let this man live."

"It's a greater risk to order the murder of a man during the Low Sun Gathering. You saw the families who arrived this afternoon. The Hytooths. The Surins. The Baer king and his three half-wild sons—they're hungry for a fight, even at their young ages. If murder were discovered, it would break whatever tentative peace there is."

Bryn frowned. The honey cake sat heavy in her stomach. The poor fawn. I must try to scare it away before they kill it. She lifted the tablecloth an inch with the tip of her spoon and crawled out, only to immediately collide with a pair of shoes she recognized all too well.

"Bryn!" Her mother frowned downward with her hands resting on her hips. Her cheeks were dusted with rust like a dawnsong angel, and her golden hair was woven into its crown braid. Mama's lips pressed together. "Up."

Bryn clamored to her feet.

"Why must you crawl on the floor like a dog, my child? And during the Gathering! The other royal families are going to think I raise heathens like those Baer princes."

Curious about this wild, disreputable family she kept hearing about, Bryn scanned the crowd until she found a family dressed in bearskin cloaks. A great grisly man wearing a carved oak crown, sullen and serious, and three boys a few years older than Bryn.

The Baer king and his sons.

In their heavy fur cloaks, Bryn thought of them more as Bears.

Mama cupped Bryn's chin. "Go on. Upstairs to change your dirty clothes and wash the honey from your hands. Tell Nan you're excused from the festivities."

Bryn didn't need to be told twice. She wanted nothing more than to escape the party, and besides, there was the black fawn to rescue. She snuck away in the opposite direction, throwing a look over her shoulder. Her brother, Mars, wouldn't tattle on her, but her sister, Elysander, might. She spotted Elysander perched by the roaring hearth with her ladies-in-waiting: hands clasped, blonde hair perfectly in place, eyes lowered demurely.

Bryn darted behind a maid carrying an empty tray down the stairs to the kitchen, where she traded her party shoes for a pair of muck boots, grabbed a lantern, and escaped the castle.

It was black out, a moonless summer night. She hesitated, looking out over the dark forest. Even at six years old, she knew better than to go into the woods at night. But if she ever had a chance of rescuing the black fawn, it was now.

Her lantern shone over a path through the trees to a Saint's glen with a water shrine. It looked different at night. The water was so black that she couldn't see the fish in the shallows.

The grass crunched a few feet away, and she sucked in a breath.

Footsteps.

The forest suddenly went quiet. Bryn could hear her heart beating. An owl hooted, and she got spooked. She grabbed the lantern, started to run back to the castle. Then, she stopped. The path ahead was marked with wet red spots and downy fuzz.

Blood and fur that was black as night.

She'd found the fawn, but so had something else. A branch snapped behind her. A growl came from the shadows. All she saw of the first wolf were two yellow eyes. The second wolf was on her before she could scream.

Their claws found her ribs, tearing through her dress, slicing her flesh like knives. Then, out of nowhere, someone else was in the glen. Someone who didn't scream as the wolves turned on him, too, who bore their sharp claws with nothing but grunts as he continued to fight until wolf blood mixed with her own.

A boy in a bearskin cloak.

One of the Baer princes—the youngest. He must have seen her lantern's light at the edge of the forest.

A Bear.

Her Bear.