Excerpt
Thronebound
Perhaps, if only one disaster had scarred the Faerie Realm, Queen Rimewing of the Winter Court might have been perfectly capable of weathering the resulting chaos. Even if two disasters — if two huge, world-rending catastrophes — had jarred the land with their rippling impacts one right after the other, Rimewing could imagine the totality of the Fey Folk banding together to see each other through such hardship.
But when the seasonal power within the Realm turned too early, and the time came as abruptly as a calving glacier for Rimewing, Queen of Winter, to take up her period of rule over all Four Courts, not one or two calamities had befallen the land, but three.
Three is a portentous number among all the Folk. Likewise, all the Folk knew how dire their situation was. They watched their Winter Queen shakily take up her throne among a susurration of fallen autumn leaves yet untouched by winter's first decaying snowflakes, their breaths held as they waited for her to either stand sturdy under the mounting pressure or stumble to her end, and likely theirs. They knew they were witnessing a momentous time in their fair Realm, and they despaired.
Or rather, they thought they knew. But the true despair of that third disaster, the true still-bleeding wound it had left, was one that touched Rimewing's heart alone, and with all those who would be her allies gone in this tumultuous time, she had no one with whom she felt the slightest bit comfortable discussing the depths of her internal agony.
What a horrid turn of fate, she often thought. The lengthened rule would once have brought her exquisite pleasure. Now it only heightened her misery.
The three disasters had cascaded over themselves in their rush to unbalance the Realm not two weeks into the Autumn Court's reign.
First, the Realm had been robbed of one of its monarchs — and Rimewing of her only true ally in the Realm — the Duke of Summer, as he defied his summons to ride with the Wild Hunt, choosing instead to protect one who had fallen prey to that fell host.
On the heels of that loss, before his royal body had time to grow cool, the one he sought to protect had launched such a volatile attack against the Wild Hunt as to rend that host to tatters, damaging a vital piece of the old magic that ran beneath the surface of the Faerie Realm. The tremors from that disaster had spread far and wide in the form of earthquakes, which had subsided somewhat since, but had failed to cease entirely, and which had struck most acutely at the one who had ambitiously taken the reins of the Wild Hunt, the Countess of Autumn.
The Countess's subsequent retreat into her own self left a power vacuum nearly as dangerous as the one left by the Duke, and the Autumn Court leaderless in its time of power.
Hence, Winter Queen Rimewing's early ascent to power over the breadth of the shuddering Realm, leaving her no time to deal with the mangled horror the third disaster had made of her heart.
For in the wake of these first two disasters, Rimewing's mortal Consort, who had pledged to stand at her side for an entire year, had broken that vow and left her. The treasure of the Winter Court that had been entrusted to the Consort, the jewel of magic known as the Snowstar, had been lost, and with it, a large portion of the Winter Court's own share of access to the old magic.
I am adrift on a melting sea, Rimewing thought.
She was at court. On her throne of packed snow, her back straight as an icicle. Ostensibly listening to the latest reports of earthquakes, weakening magic, and emboldened Storm Folk marauding unchecked throughout the Realm.
