The icy wind of the North whipped through the gardens at the edge of the boundary, blowing toward the shimmering Veil marking
where the world ended. Curving and rippling in the breeze, the thin, white barrier extended as far as the eye could see, until it faded into the sparkling sun of autumn.
Blood slid over my skin as I brushed a stray hair away from my face with frozen, aching fingers, and tried to ignore the slick, viscous feeling where it coated the skin at my temple. My hand trembled as I reached back into the twilight berry bush once more, grasping the round, periwinkle berry and carefully maneuvering it through the thorny branches to place it in the basket that hung from my other forearm. Shifting my body to relieve my aching back from the same hunched-over position, day in and day out for weeks, I looked through the branches for the distinctive coloring of the berries that were large enough for a single one to fill my palm.
“Faster, Barlowe,” one of the members of the Royal Guard snapped at me, making his rounds as he supervised the harvest. One could never be too careful with the food that grew in the King’s Gardens, which Lord Byron would send to the capitol, Ineburn City, to feed the Court through the harsh winter season. Meanwhile, those of us who remained in Mistfell year-round were left to suffer and starve, with only our meager personal gardens to sustain us.
I jolted, expecting the crack of his whip to follow as I shoved my hand into the bush with a wince. The thorns caught the edges of my palm, tearing
the skin on the pads of my fingers until the moment when I finally wrapped them around the soft flesh of the berry.
I pulled it back, depositing it gently into the basket and grimacing at the way the ruby of my blood stained the light purple fruit. Lord Byron would make me wash them myself before he sat me on his lap and fed them to me, as if I should be thankful for the gift of his attention and the food that was otherwise forbidden to me.
The thin white scars that covered my hand shone like the web of the arachne when it caught the sunlight, too pale against my skin that was bronzed from working under the sun year after year. I had spent far too many harvests tending to the twilight berries when I displeased Lord Byron. Too many summers harvesting the crops that were considered a delicacy because of the pain the plant wrought on those who sought to pluck them. The last day of the year-end harvest was always the most difficult, and yet it was also the most important to secure the prosperity of the Court, and it drew us to the edge of the Veil like moths to the flame.
Driven there by the Royal Guard, which supervised the garden and worked in tandem with the league of elite Mist Guard who guarded the Veil, people like my brother and I had no other choice. We worked mostly in silence for the long, arduous hours every day, not daring to risk the wrath of the Royal Guard who wanted to return to court before the first frost.
No one could blame them for their urgency to escape the village of Mistfell; to get away from the magical boundary that separated us from them.
The Fae of Alfheimr.
Everyone who had any sense hated being so close to the Veil and what it represented. Crafted from the magic of the ancient witches who’d made the ultimate sacrifice to protect us from the nightmares beyond, it was like the thinnest of fabrics blowing in the wind, shimmering with the light of a thousand stars trapped within it. Somehow transparent, and yet not, the mist of the waters beyond provided us with the illusion of being alone in this world.
Even when we were very much not. Even when we’d never been alone.
Despite our fear of the Veil and the Fae beyond it, there was a part of the land of Faerie that drew us back here, the magic of the Primordial of Nature stretching through the soil itself. It compelled some of us to live in this hellhole of a village, where it snowed for over half the year and winter
plunged the world into a darkness that seemed never-ending to those who craved the sunlight.
The gardens of Mistfell closest to the Veil yielded the lushest, most bountiful crops every year, with berries as big as my palm and vegetables massive enough to feed an entire family. This was the reason we braved the proximity to the Veil and the cursed magic of Faerie.
It was the richest soil in the land. The life of Alfheimr itself coursed through the earth beneath the Veil and bled into ours in such a way that the crops of the human realm could never compare. The Primordial of Nature was the one being from Alfheimr that we were thankful for, because she had taken soil and water and made the first humans, breathing life into the resulting clay form. She’d been our champion against the Fae, but even she was rumored to have treated us as errant pets, in the end.
The Veil shuddered and grumbled, thunder and lightning streaking through it, as so often happened with no explanation, as if the magic itself was made from storms. Yet it was not made of the sky, but of pure, unpredictable, wild magic. The shards of light that illuminated from within were quite possibly the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, causing the barrier to glimmer like spun moonlight.
The people who were forced to work in the King’s Garden were the poorest of Mistfell and the neighboring villages; the ones who were the most expendable to Lord Byron. He needed our labor to supply the King with his favorite crops for winter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t play favorites in the jobs he assigned to each of us.
This was how my brother and I had been assigned to harvest the twilight berries at the rear of the gardens. The bushes were furthest from the Veil and the magic anchored there, as well as closer to Mistfell Manor, for the Lord of the village to watch over me from the balcony of his library when he so desired. We were among the poorest families, people who should have been working against the Veil, suffering from the pervasive magic that tried to reach across the barrier. Our mother should have been at our sides, doing the backbreaking labor that she was unable to accomplish. No matter that she was all but crippled after her difficult pregnancy and delivery with me, and that the work itself would likely kill her.
Duty was duty, even in death.
Instead, she worked inside the manor, helping to preserve the produce that wouldn’t be used before it could expire. But that kindness came at a
price, and I swallowed when I thought of paying it later that night, when Lord Byron’s soft, manicured hands would feed me twilight berries and other delicacies as the hard length of him pressed against me.
He couldn’t take from me, not with our laws and the Gods’ demand for purity until marriage. Not without condemning us both to eternal suffering.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t touch. It didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt.
As I fought the shudder in my limbs at the thought, the Mist Guard moved on, tormenting another harvester as he finally turned his attention away from me. I heaved a sigh of relief, drawing a small measure of comfort in the fact that I hadn’t been whipped for moving too slowly. On the last day of the harvest, all of us were bone-tired and exhausted, ready to drop and sleep for a week. The end of the day couldn’t come soon enough.
“Brann,” I hissed at my brother under my breath as he shoved two of the twilight berries into his pocket. He was lucky they hadn’t torn yet with all the times he’d stolen the fruits from the King’s Garden, risking his hand for a few bites of the luxury he would have never tasted otherwise. “They’ll catch you one of these days.”
“Relax, baby sister,” he said with a hushed laugh, seeming entirely unconcerned about the watchful eyes of the Mist Guard as they walked through the paths in the garden. “No one will notice two missing berries in the rush to complete the harvest.”
“And yet that will not stop them from taking your hand if they catch you stealing,” I snapped, irritated with his recklessness. He judged me for my propensity for going on midnight walks in the woods, yet he risked everything for a few bites of fruit. Not only would he lose his hand, but he would lose all the favor I’d curried for him over the years with Lord Byron. Favor that had come at a great expense to me personally.
Horrifyingly enough, no matter what the price might be, or how unimaginable it seemed in the nights when my body slicked with sweat and I couldn’t sleep, for fear of what memories would haunt my dreams, working at the edge of the Veil was a far more terrifying prospect. I’d heard rumors of the plants that grew just before the shimmering curtain itself— that they were nearly as likely to eat you as you were them. If you survived those, there was the magic-induced sickness that stole the youth from a person’s flesh and reduced them to little more than skin-covered bones.
“Fine. Then I guess I won’t need to share with you later, will I?” he asked with a smug grin, knowing very well the twilight berries had once
been my favorite as a girl. I’d adored the hint of luxury during those first days after my father’s death, when Lord Byron summoned me to his library to have the Priestess tutor me privately. Had it not been for the way the Lord of Mistfell had ruined their sweetness, turning it sour with his bad intentions, they would have still been my favorite. Brann’s eyes darkened as my skin went cold, watching as I reached into the bush and wrapped my hand around another berry. A thorn caught in the skin on the back of my hand, pulling free from the branch and embedding itself in me when I jolted back and hissed.
I pulled my hand out of the bush slowly, careful not to drop the berry clutched in my fingers as I shoved away the memory of whispered promises against my skin about the life I could have if only I was patient. If only I could overlook the details that made a relationship between us both impossible and disgusting.
Like his wife, his age being twice mine, and the fact that he’d forced me to watch as the High Priest slit my father’s throat and sacrificed his life to the Veil.
Those little details.
I winced as I caught sight of my hand, depositing the berry into the basket and setting the entire thing on the ground as gently as I could. The thorn buried in my skin went deeper than I’d hoped, the flesh moving around it as I spread my fingers. More blood welled from around the edges of the thorn, staining my skin as I touched a tentative finger to the wound.
“You really must be more careful, Lady Estrella,” a male voice said from behind me. My body stilled as dread sank inside my heart, and I watched from the corner of my eye as Brann turned his attention back to the twilight berries with renewed energy.
I turned slowly, dropping my gaze to the ground respectfully as my knees dipped into a curtsy, my dirty, bloodstained hands clutched at the edges of my worn pea-green dress. “With all respect, my Lord, we both know that I am no Lady,” I said, rising to full height but keeping my eyes averted in an attempt to show him the respect he believed he deserved.
“Patience,” he murmured, taking a few steps closer to me and taking my hand in his. He pinched the thorn between his thumb and forefinger, pulling it free slowly as my lips twisted in a pained grimace.
He watched the hole it left fill with blood, transfixed, enjoying the sight of my suffering and knowing it would give him a reason to tend to my
injuries in the privacy of his library later tonight. “Will you allow me to clean this for you later?” he asked, raising his brow.
He might have phrased it like a question, but it was really nothing less than a demand for my company that night. “I apologize, my Lord, but I must admit I am exhausted after the harvest,” I said. He studied my face, undoubtedly reading the truth in the circles under my eyes.
“Very well. Tomorrow then,” he said, smiling lightly as he bent forward to touch his mouth to the wound on the back of my hand. His lips were stained with my blood by the time he pulled away, sliding his tongue out to lick them clean.
“Tomorrow,” I agreed, hating the words the moment they left my mouth. I wanted nothing more than to tell him to tend to his wife’s health instead of spending his time with me, but I kept my mouth shut and turned back to the twilight berry bushes.
Because duty came first.
