Chapter 1
Spring of 700 AE
Katha
Fire engulfed Freyden’s body as Katha, Queen of the Broken Mountain, watched the flames dissolve his pyre. Her consort and king lay lifeless while his sun-colored hair vanished in a blaze of red. She stood in stoic despair as the entire mountain gathered to mourn their king.
Until today, Katha only wore green, but as she stood before the pyre, black mourning silk flapped “behind her in a banner of grief. Her silver-streaked chestnut hair tucked beneath a veil of night and a crown of gold. The sea roared in the distance and the wind stoked the flames into a dance; she saw her memories of him between the crackle of pitch and flares of orange.Â
Caked in mud, he fought for her hand among the champions and knights until he alone remained. Freyden stood victorious with broken bones, missing pieces of his armor, and blood trickling from his shattered nose. The smell of sweat and soil lingered in her memory as she had crossed the tourney field. She remembered his blue Nadr eyes that stole the air from her lungs like the breath of winter.
Katha’s hands shook as she stood before him, the hilt of Freyden’s blade firmly gripped in her poised hands. She returned it to him as she declared him the next King Consort of the Broken Mountain. His closed lip smile sent warmth through her skin as he kissed her hand.Â
“I know little of fate, but I know it joined our lives for a reason. Ever since I carried a sword in your service, I knew what that reason was. If I may call you Katha, then you may call me Freyden.”
Pain shot across the queen’s chest and she gripped Aerin, her firstborn, by his sleeve for strength. He stood beside her as did Bjorn and Gailah, their three children grown and her only proof of Freyden’s love.
His presence served as a bastion of peace between the realms and that peace cracked with every passing day as his absence burrowed deep in her heart. It formed a cavern so great that while her entire heart longed for him, Katha lost part of herself to the fire as well.
The heat from the pyre burned wildly in a torrent, and its warmth “from where she stood was too great. She stepped back and Katha’s eyes fell upon Freyden’s mother. After years of disagreements, the two matriarchs were united by sorrow.
She stood watch until her joints became stone as every courtier shared their tears. After the hundredth “Your Majesty”, she stopped listening with distant eyes. Her memories invaded and took her far from the fire.
The pillar of smoke rose towards the east, billowing over the budding spring trees of the forest. They had claimed Freyden there, her companion and conscience made flesh taken by bands of rebels slaughtering as they went. Growing bolder each time, now her husband of twenty-five years waited with the gods. She hated the forest. Everything ruinous belonged to the trees.Â
In her memories, Trejen flashed before her, surrounded by the golden leaves of their eternal tree.
Trejen was young, his face shorn and his sienna skin gleamed under the afternoon sun. A crown of yellow oak leaves curling around raven hair, Decius’ laurel, with tears brimming in his eyes. He perched on his brother’s war horse on the crest of the meadow looking down at her. He would not come down to the tourney field. Her mind remembered it well, torturing her with the memory of those old days. Her foolish hope still lingered in her chest as she desperately pleaded for Trejen to fight for her, but that love died with King Decius and Queen Lyssia on the day Trejen claimed the crown of his people.
No longer her betrothed, but King of the Great Forest. Katha arranged the tourney for Trejen alone, to fight for her hand and the love they once shared, but Trejen fled with his golden cloak waving in a coward’s retreat. Freyden claimed the crown of the mountain and her heart with it.
As the sky mirrored the colors of the fire, the pyre collapsed into embers and ash. Only her guards remained beside her between the snowy hills of the mountains and the thawing meadows below. Glowing embers stared back at Katha as their king disappeared further into the rising smoke.
She stared too long into the fire and saw Haydrian’s eyes ignite with strange desire. Before she knew she could love another, she begged Haydrian to make things right, to bring Trejen back to her. When the gods could not help her, she sought the help of the Void.
Her fingers dug into the palms of her hands. Its hellscape flashed before her eyes, a place without light. She walked the breadth of the sentient wasteland every night as it tormented her. A reminder of the separation she formed between the living and the gods.
Katha felt the breaking of the mountain rattle through her as stone cried out to the gods.
Their kingdom was alone. She knew her enemies would come for her, their children, and all semblance of the things she held dear. They would come for the Queen of the Broken Mountain, the Queen who owed a debt to the Void.
