The Story of the First Witcher | Bear McCreary ("Who did this to you?")
I Am Merida | Patrick Doyle (Entering the Autumn Realm)
The World is Ahead | Howard Shore (Exploring the Autumn realmlands)
Flaming Red Hair | Howard Shore (Billy and Dom pull Rosalina into a dance)
Noble Maiden Fair | Emma Thompson, Peigi Barker (Farron and his mother feels)
Snow on the Beach | Taylor Swift, Lana Del Ray ("You knew I would feel you.")
Only Love Can Hurt Like This | Paloma Faith (When you're rejected by two fae princes in one night)
Throne | Saint Mesa ("Keldarion and I both look to the throne")
My Jolly Sailor Bold | Ashley Serena (The mermaid arises)
Eat Your Young | Hozier (Ezryn satisfies his woman)
Eye of the Storm | Bear McCreary (Farron is missing)
Fools | Lauren Aquilina ("I’m glad he’s here. At the end of it all.")
Geralt of Rivia | Sonya Belousova, Giona Ostinelli (Kel protects his family)
A Thousand Years (feat. Steve Kazee) | Christina Perri (Rosalina and Farron complete their mate bond)
A Claim to the Throne | Max Richter (Farron returns to Coppershire)
Forever | CHVRCHES (Rose, Autumn, and Summer)
Breath Of Life | Florence + The Machine (Meeting Caspian on the battlefield)
The Fire Within | Within Temptation (Farron lays the dead to rest)
Transformations | Alan Menken (Rosalina is fae)
The Last Goodbye | Billy Boyd (Niamh's funeral)
Everytime You Leave | Sonya Belousova, Giona Ostinelli (Mate of my mate)
Kylo Ren's Theme | Fake Hypocrite (Taking the Spring Realm)
Prince of the Arena
Before the curse, Farron travels to the Summer Realm to watch Dayton compete in the Solstice Games.
Read this Dayton and Farron spicy and sweet bonus chapter exclusive to newsletter subscribers.
1—Farron
The carriage bumps along the cobblestone, the movement much rockier than the smooth dirt road we were previously traveling on.
We’re almost there.
I take a steadying breath and fold my hands in my lap. There’s a wrinkle in my long gold tunic, and I quickly smooth it out. We have to look presentable today. It is a meeting of royals, after all.
On the seat across from me, my mother, the High Princess Niamh, watches out the window. My little sister, Eleanor, sits beside her, reading her book. Though she’s twenty years-old, she’s still a child in fae standards, the equivalent of eight years-old to the fast-growing humans.
My leg shakes up and down. I need to distract myself. We won’t arrive for a little while yet. Carefully, I grab my leather satchel. I brought a good book on the History of Mortal Relations. Lifting the buckle, a pop sounds, and a burst of smoke explodes in the carriage.
My mother gives a shriek of alarm, and my sister just rolls her eyes without glancing up. I’ve been covered with a layer of dirt, twigs, and moss.
My satchel had been booby trapped.
Nerves make way to anger as I throw down the satchel, then open the carriage door. “Dom! Billy!”
Childish laughter fills the air as my two little brothers trot up on their ponies. Dominic and Billagin. They’re slightly older than my sister, but not old enough to know better. The twins are nothing but mischief down to their hearts.
Dom offers me a sparkling grin. “We noticed how long you took getting ready this morning, big brother.”
“Yes, we waited hours to get on the road,” Billy chuckles.
I heave in a steadying breath. “It’s difficult to look presentable while traveling.”
It took seven days to fully pass from the Autumn to the Summer Realm. The landscape changing so drastically, one day you were surrounded by falling crisp red leaves and the next the air was thick and muggy, the trees blooming and green.
But today is our last day of travel. Today we will arrive in Hadria, the capital of the Summer Realm. Today, we will meet the royal family.
“Boys,” a crisp voice fills the air as our mother pops her head out of the carriage. “Stop tormenting your brother. He’s already nervous enough.”
“Yes, Mumsie!” They plaster on matching grins before trotting off on their ponies.
“I-I’m not nervous.” I fall back into the carriage, crossing my arms over my chest.
My mother narrows her hazel eyes at me and shuts the door. She’s dressed in her own finery, a capped sleeved brown dress and a gold ribbon woven through her long brown and silver-streaked hair. “Summer Solstice is a grand celebration. All the royals will be there. Now come here, my clove.”
I huff a breath at her pet name, but then begrudgingly slide between her and Eleanor. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve been to hundreds of these.”
And she’s been ruling the Autumn Realm as High Princess for so long, having inherited the power from her father at a young age. A part of me knows she’s eager to pass the burden on to me.
Something I could not want less. Human equivalents of my age beyond the Vale are only just graduating from their universities. I’m hardly old enough to rule a realm, to take on such grand sums of magic.
That doesn’t matter to Mother though.
“It was at a Winter Solstice I met your father.” My mother blows a gentle breeze, carrying the dirt out a crack in the window. She weaves her long fingers through my hair, picking out the branches and twigs.
As if on cue, my father’s thundering laugh echoes in the air. I catch his enormous frame outside the carriage window, riding his massive brown horse. Probably chasing after the twins. His great red beard and long hair blow in the wind.
“He was the captain of the royal guard,” my mother continues, “so my parents were unsure of the match at first. But when they saw how happy I was, they understood completely.”
“I know the story,” I sigh as my mother drops the last of the twigs onto her lap.
“Almost done.” She smiles, then I feel the stir of her magic. The Blessing of Autumn. My own magic warms within me as the light brush of cold autumn wind twines through my hair. “Eleanor, do you have a brush in your bag?”
My sister gives a long sigh and slowly pulls down a string to mark her place in her book. She’s the youngest in the family, but probably smarter than all of us combined. Her hair, a smidge darker than mine, is braided into a crown on top of her head. “You know, he’d still kiss you, even with shit in your hair.”
“Eleanor!” I snarl.
She just rolls her bright gray eyes and shoves her bristle brush into our mother’s hands.
Eleanor is not like the twins at all. She’s calculating. Well, as calculating as a child of her age can be. If she could live in her books, she would. I suppose we have that in common. Though her preferred subject has always been a tad… questionable.
I peek a look at the title of her current read: The Decaying Process of Small Mammals.
‘Autumn is death,’ she had told me once. ‘As a princess of it, is it so strange I find the subject fascinating?’
Mother gives a sigh, bringing me back to the present moment. She brushes a section of my hair behind a pointed ear. “One day you’ll understand, Nori.”
Eleanor makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “I’d rather be eaten by the Wyvern Tree and slowly digested in its bark for the next thousand years.”
And right now… I am inclined to agree. Because the carriage rumbles to a stop and voices rise outside. We’re here. We’re at the Summer Palace.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It’s been a year. What if he’s forgotten? What if he’s forgotten me? He wasn’t at Fall Equinox or Winter Solstice or Spring Equinox… but he will be here.
And I need to know if he’s been consumed with memories of last summer every waking moment like I have.
The door opens and the footman gestures for us to exit.
I heave in a breath and run a hand through my hair, distantly hearing my mother tsk about ruining all her hard work. But it’s like my ears are stuffed with leaves, and all I can comprehend is the pounding of my heart.