Autumn queens and shadow.., p.1
Autumn Queens & Shadows, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Wendy Heiss
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Fantastical ink
Formatting: Blue Press ed.
Edits: Jess Sciopa (Blue press ed.)
Proof: Jess. S (B.P)
Map: BMR Williams
Illustration: seijousai
For everyone who has patiently waited for me to write a happy book. The day is here.
PS: Mother? Please. No. Okay. No.
Content Warnings
Gore, death, murder, torture, mention of child torture, war, blood, vulgar language. violence, loss of loved one, scars, grief and hallucinations. Alcohol abuse and addiction. Depiction of depression, dissociation, catatonia and PTSD. And lastly, explicit content. This series is intended to be read by mature readers (18+) as there are several explicit scenes.
Contents
A little note by Wendy
Thora
1. Red Carnations
2. Grey Myrtle
3. Violet Daisies
4. White Tulips
5. The Past
6. Sage Zinnias
7. Black Marigolds
8. Red Calla Lilies
9. Orange Aconites
10. The Past
11. Amber Daffodils
12. The Past
13. Ivory Chrysanthemums
14. The Past
15. Viridian Carnations
16. White Roses
17. Blue Belladonnas
18. Black Hellebore
19. Golden Sunflowers
20. The Past
Malik & Thora
21. Emerald Dahlias
22. Burgundy Snapdragons
23. Pink Orchids
24. Yellow Hyacinths
25. Grey Daisies
26. Blue Liatris
27. White Asphodels
28. Red Tiger Lily
29. Green Buttercups
30. Red Roses
31. Pink Roses
32. Blue Irises
33. White Snow Flowers
34. Orange Alstroemerias
35. Navy Aconites
36. The Past
37. Red Foxgloves
38. Black Spider Lily
39. White Poppies
40. Violet Alliums
41. Golden Lilies
42. Pink Baby Breaths
The Next Red Moon
Fullpage Image
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also By
A little note by Wendy
Hello everyone,
Thank you for reading so far in this story. This is book four!!! Can you even believe it?
Even though so many of you love these stories, the more I write, the more confidence I lose in my writing. I’ve rewritten this book (from September last year to September this year) more than a dozen times and I am still not satisfied with it. I am sure some day I might just go over and rewrite it again, but it had to come out as it is otherwise I would have never released it with how long I’ve dragged editing and deleting and adding and deleting. So, I really hope you will forgive me if this isn’t the story you expected from these two.
Loads of love,
Wendy
Thora
Age six
It had been a week since uncle had brought us to a sunny land. A full week since Eren had not stopped crying. His whole body had burned in the fire, but my big brother was not crying because of that pain, the healers had healed him soon after like they had healed my own burns. Mine didn’t hurt. But then mine had not been all that big—not like his. Every day, he sat at the edge of the wood house where he’d piled two separate hills of rocks. And he cried. He wouldn’t tell me why. He wouldn’t tell me where Snow was either. He cried harder when I said her name so I’d stopped asking.
Today he’d taken me with him to the rock piles and we’d sat beside one another for many minutes. He had not cried today. “Rora,” he said hoarsely. “Remember what I told you that once when you saw Lin…when you saw your sister and I at the courts with the…man who was bleeding.”
“The one who had died.”
His eyes drew shut for a minute. “Yes. Remember what I told you where he had gone?”
“Up in the skies. I know, I’m not silly. Papa taught me as well.”
A string of tears fell down his cheek. “That’s where Lin and ma are. Up…up in the skies.”
“Can’t we go as well?”
“Not yet, Rora,” he said, wincing as he pulled me onto his lap. “Not yet.”
Chapter one
Red Carnations
Thora
I had a cat once.
She was white as snow and just as evil and cold as winter. My arms were almost always covered in scratches. That was until Eren and Snow found it hidden in my clothing chambers where I’d made sure no one could see her.
“Your Majesty?”
They weren’t mad though. Snow and Eren took the cat, fed it and washed it for me. But uncle had found it one day, killed and skinned it, then left it on top of my bed for me to see.
“Your Majesty?”
I don’t even remember crying. It was just another thing that had happened to me as a consequence of who I was and what I looked like.
My resemblance to my mother had made me uncle’s target. We had the same eyes. The same hair. Snow had always hated her long hair, it got everywhere, she hated washing it, combing it, plaiting it, but she kept it nice and long, so our uncle’s hate was divided in two—so I wasn't his only target. She grew loud to attract attention, I grew silent so I wasn’t seen. She became defiant, I became docile. She held onto her anger, I forgot I had it altogether. She remembered every little scar, I pretended I’d never been injured in the first place. We weren’t two sides of the same coin, we were two different coins altogether. She was made entirely of steel. I was made of crumbling clay. Whoever tried to use me as currency had not gotten much in exchange.
A hand touched my shoulder and I almost jerked upright. It was Nissa, my servant with warm sea blue eyes and just as kind of a smile. “It is time, Thora. Do you want to have a look in the mirror?”
Besides the white veil, dress, gloves, and diamond crown I so rarely wore, there was nothing strange in the reflection before me. I didn’t feel strange either. Nor excited. Something was telling me that I should perhaps feel strange that this day felt just like another miserable sunny winter day, not the day I was about to marry the man I was betrothed to.
Ten years into my reign as an Isjordian Queen—that is how far I had made it until I was forced into choosing someone to sit beside me on the throne. A strong Isjordian Aura. Someone with good connections and an old family name just as powerful as mine. A politician who could survive my court. A businessman who could enrichen my treasury. Those had become the conditions for my affections. The very same conditions required to persuade my people against Iskyla Krigborn and her claim to my throne.
Erik was a good man. Good by most definitions that were approved by Isjordian standards. Educated. Rich. A strong lineage.
Just the thought that I needed all those meaningless titles to maintain a strong reign not threatened by men who do not desire to bow before women made me entirely too—
Another familiar hand landed on my shoulder and I breathed out a slow exhale, letting a cold mist roll for a long minute before turning to Kilian who was draped all in black as if I’d asked him to walk me to the God of Death, not my husband. “Ready?”
His smile was soft. “Are you?”
“Erik is a good man.” Not the slightest clue why I had to make that statement when he hid his judgement so well from everyone. Kil did not like Erik one bit.
“You do not love him,” he said matter-of-factly. “So let us not pretend this makes any sense at all beyond what it is.”
“I cannot love.” Not a clue why I told him that either. Not that I’d told it to anyone else before. But I suppose this was the last moment I could say it truthfully.
His brows creased, rightfully so at the idiocy I’d spewed at the most inconvenient time. “Why would you think so?”
“Because what I want is not what I deserve.”
“Says who?”
“The one I wanted.”
He understood. Maybe he had always understood. “You don’t have to do this, Thora.”
“Iskyla Krigborn has been eating through my lands inch by inch, claiming them right under my nose with my people’s permission. Half of the Isline villages have already been taken, Kilian. My court has finally settled and the people are no longer talking of their fears regarding an enemy queen, but rather the incompetent one currently ruling them. This is me pushing my hand.”
“Peacefully. And you know these people have never handled anything with peace in mind.”
“You and Snow really need to take some time apart. She’s really not rubbing on you in a good way.” I grabbed my heavy skirts and led us out of my room and towards the winter gardens where the ceremony would take place. The cold…it w
Skadi stood at the garden entrance, solemn and unbothered by the marriage that she had gone to great lengths to avoid. She bowed her head at me when I passed by her but said nothing.
“I wanted you to sit amongst the guests,” I said, halting.
“This marriage is not something I wish to celebrate.”
“Skadi, please.”
“You will be miserable.”
“Yet dressed well and with an expensive taste that my father in law’s diamond trade has promised to quell,” I said, flashing her my emerald necklace, heavy earrings and crown. If I’d marry, I was going to marry as rich as I could. Emil, Erik’s father, he was the richest there was. If he was a widower, I would have married him instead of his spoiled son.
She eyed my neck for a moment. “You’ve never been fond of diamonds. Your taste has always been for a much simpler rock.”
That was the moment I bowed back and returned by Kilian’s side to walk the remaining length to the altar.
Elias, too, had apparently refused to sit among the guests, positioned by the edge of the celebrations where my guard remained. My right-hand man only shook his head at me even though he’d been the one to introduce me to Erik.
I stopped at the entrance of the white rose gardens covered in soft snow. The small sounds at the distance where the altar had been set flew in all around—excitedly, people awed and gasped at me. All except the front row where my sister, Nia and their children were all sat.
Kilian offered me his arm. “Eren is here. He can walk you down the aisle. Or Alaric. Cai, too? Though I can’t promise a ruly ceremony if he is present. He wasn’t a big fan of this.”
At the mention of my brother, I dropped my eyes down, forcing myself not to look his way. “I want you to do it,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable with it being anyone else.” Kilian was perhaps the reason why I had managed to stand this far on my own two feet.
All was so pure and white and pale while I made my way between lines of chairs framing a long altar laid with white rose petals that melted against the pristine snowy ground.
So pale the world was all of the sudden under the brisk summer sun that was but mere decoration in the skies, offering no warmth. Not even the god I served deigned us with a little ounce of his presence. Not a cloud in sight. No signs of winter anywhere but the one always present. Whatever snow surrounded us had already settled from days ago.
And the faint, strange heartbeat I’d heard in the wind all day this morning had suddenly turned so dull and faint, I could almost miss it—if only to drown out my thoughts.
Erik stood under the arbour of white roses and baby breaths. His sea-coloured eyes were pale, too. And his smile—pale. It had always been pale, empty, only a trained glamour he used as a shield when he was thrown into unflattering situations—arguments, boring conversations, and now this, our wedding. Surely, he just as everyone would have preferred to marry someone he loved, but there was very little power love could grant, and none that could help me against Iskyla.
The sound of the strange heartbeat returned, growing louder the closer I got to Erik. It wasn’t my own. I could feel my own, cold heartbeat quietly in an entirely different pace from that I was hearing in the wind. So, whose heart was I hearing beat in the wind?
Kilian was reluctant to let me go once we stood close to the altar where the Isjordian priest was waiting. His hand had curled onto my forearm a little too tightly.
I shot him a pleading look and he sighed, pulling back so I could take Erik’s extended hand.
“You look astonishing,” my husband-to-be murmured in my ear as we turned to face the priest.
“As do you,” I politely threw back at him.
Whatever words came out of the Isjordian priest’s mouth bounced back into the open scenery around. Only when Erik nudged my hand did my attention return, voices returning again. The sound of the strange heartbeat disappearing.
We faced one another, waiting for the priest to say the final vows before we would be joined as one.
All so quickly, the settled snow on the ground rose in the air.
Then the wind broke.
Screams erupted.
And an arrow protruded my betrothed’s chest and another between his eyes. Those sea blue eyes blew wide before going entirely dead as he sputtered and gushed blood all over me, drenching my white veil and dress in crimson.
My limbs had frozen still.
All I could see was blood.
All I could see was blood staining me.
The faint heartbeat resounded in the air. Not my own. I could already feel and hear my own beat furiously against my ribcage. Then it just disappeared. And everything else returned full force, all the noise struck me awake from the reverie.
“Thora,” Eren shouted, pushing through running bodies to reach me.
Elias was quicker, his body shielding over mine while Kilian’s magic roared, searching around for whoever had made the shot.
My ears rang.
But my heartbeat calmed way too soon, my pulse steady.
Yet again, I felt nothing when I saw the man who was one vow away from becoming my forever, bleed into the white snowy floor, eyes aghast and pale blond hair stained red with blood.
Shit.
A sigh left me before I could control my expression.
“Take your sister to safety,” Snow said to her son, shedding her white cloak and gathering her pale blue skirts, her face marked full of rage.
Sam did as told, grabbing Rain and fading away. Then my sister followed shortly, bolting, surely to follow after whoever had been brave enough to pull this—Iskyla.
Pulling my veil off, I followed after my soldiers, only to be held back by Eren.
I hadn’t seen him in so long. And so long I’d forgotten what the sight of him did to me—all that it revoked. So much betrayal. From so many of those I loved, he was the last person I’d expected to do what he did. To leave me. When he knew being left was my biggest fear.
I no longer felt that fear.
I no longer felt much.
“They are trying to lure you out,” he said calmly. “Let your soldiers and everyone else chase this.” He looked into the distance at where lightning was blistering skies and earth alike, probably Snow giving a show to the Isline barbarians who already feared her more than their god—just not enough to leave me alone, apparently. But they knew she would not interfere. They knew if she interfered, another war would commence. If there had been too much to lose ten years ago, there was nothing to spare today. And Iskyla was betting on that. She was betting on a war that would spare nothing and no one. Her belief was set in that war setting history back. Making Isjord what Isjord had once been. A hub of hatred, greed and conflict mongering.
Pulling my arm from his hold, I took a step away. “I’m sure no one in a while has taken such a jab at my pride.”
His brows furrowed, and I knew very well the look of disappointment he flashed me. “Your betrothed just died.”
“It is not yet the funeral. I’ll make sure to cry then.” The wind roared, obeying my command and conjoining with the falling snow to shape a dragon of frost. The earth and sky vibrated with the shrill the ice creature let as it landed to the ground, bowing so I could climb its back. No one knew Iskyla better than I did. For five years, she and I had gotten to know each other well—very well. Instead of following the direction of lightning where Snow was dealing with the men who’d carried out the attack, I headed towards where I knew the barbarian queen was intending to strike next.
Considering my dead betrothed owed half of the coastline in Casmere, and that Iskyla had gone to great lengths to try and cast her influence and grasp access to hospitable seas, she’d gone straight to where my father in law’s fleet rested. My father-in-law who she’d just made a mortal enemy out of today. Emil will want a piece in the cake I was going to make out of her, so she was planning on taking him out just like she took out his son.
