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  Lady of Shadows

  Forbidden Forest Prequel

  Amber Argyle

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  Copyright

  Lady of Shadows

  Forbidden Forest

  Copyright © 2019 by Amber Argyle

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be re-produced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trade-marked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trade-marks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Dedication

  For Stacy Jacobson,

  who taught me when no one else would.

  ***

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Stolen Enchantress

  About the author

  Map

  Chapter One

  Hollow

  Caelia stood before her family table in the back of the manor house. She pushed the heels of her hands into the warm, sticky dough. Too sticky. Her fingers dipped into the sack beside her. She sprinkled flour across the top and folded it in. The dough clung to her skin before coming clean away.

  Her family’s servant, Joy, stepped up beside her. Her hair was tightly curled and black as night. Her skin was a cool brown. The woman was like her bread, warm and soft and filling. She tested the dough’s release. “Perfect.”

  Caelia smiled to herself, proud of the simple task she had mastered. The fire was warm behind her, pleasant in the cool, predawn morning. Joy and her kitchen were like splashes of rain to Caelia’s parched soul, each drop thrumming into the hollow emptiness inside her.

  Wearing his most elaborate leather vest, her father stepped into the room. They had the same pale skin and black hair, though his was turning gray at the temples and beard. Caelia’s smattering of freckles and her winter-blue eyes came from her mother.

  Her mother. Dead of the putrid throat three years past. The pain in Caelia’s heart was still sharp and poisoned.

  Papa frowned when he saw Caelia’s dress, the lines bracketing his mouth severe. “I buy you a wardrobe of the finest dresses from Landra, and you wear a peasant’s attire.”

  Caelia brushed her hands down the apron, aware of the baggy shirt and plain brown skirt she’d bought in town yesterday—the shopkeeper had assumed she was buying it for Joy, and Caelia let her think it.

  She couldn’t bend in her fine dresses—not with their blasted corsets and tight bodices. Not to mention that it was impossible to brush the dirt from the fine velvet skirts. “I need to work in the garden.”

  Her father pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “That’s why we have Joy and the hired hands. You’re a lord’s daughter. Not a maid.”

  Caelia’s head dropped. She was trapped in this house. Trapped by the disgusted looks and the buzzing gossip that followed her like angry wasps—never to her face. Not yet. After all, she was still the lord’s daughter. Expected to manage the household, plan parties, and keep correspondence with their family throughout the United Cities of the Idelmarch. Not hoe the garden barefoot, the sun-warmed earth soothing the hurt inside her.

  Joy pulled the skillet of dala bread off the hearth stones, and plopped it down hard on the table. “Taking nothing and making it into something can be its own kind of healing, Lord Daydon.” She was obviously angry, but smart enough to keep her tone civil.

  Papa clearly wanted to argue—the servant shouldn’t talk back. But Joy wasn’t just any servant. Her breads and jams were enough to keep any man silent. And there was the matter of Caelia and her father’s secret. Joy couldn't know for certain, but she had to suspect.

  “Fine,” Papa grumbled. “But you will not wear that attire beyond the yard.”

  Caelia bowed her head. “Yes, Papa.”

  Grumbling, Papa looked around the spacious kitchen. “Has that boy not come down yet?” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Bane! Breakfast! Now! Or you’ll have nothing until lunch.”

  Caelia shot Joy a thankful look as pounding footsteps traced Bane’s progress from the side of his bed on the second story down the narrow stairs—where he skipped the last four to jump to the bottom—and rounding in through the kitchen.

  Still half asleep, he raked thick, black hair out of his eyes. It promptly fell back. He had the same pale skin and hooked nose as Caelia, though his eyes were bright gold surrounded by brown. He instantly zeroed in on the dala bread. “Is there honey?”

  Joy chuckled. “Honey, yes, but only if you agree to a haircut.”

  He glared at them from under said hair. “I hate haircuts.” Stuck between a child and a man, his voice warbled.

  “I’m afraid that will have to wait.” Papa laid a slice of ham onto his plate beside his dala bread. “We’ve a full docket of rulings today. The magistrate will be waiting.”

  Gleeful at his triumph, Bane wolfed his meal down like he hadn’t eaten in days, though Caelia had heard him sneaking food from the cellar in the middle of the night.

  Joy packed them eggs, bread, cheese, and an apple for lunch. “Speaking of which, I need permission to attend today.”

  He eyed her as he drank his tea. “You’re a complainant?”

  This surprised Caelia. Joy and her husband and daughter got along well with everyone in their small town.

  Joy didn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, sir.”

  “Why not tell me now?”

  Joy shuffled uncomfortably. “Harben agreed to pay us ten bags of wheat and two chickens for our goat when his harvest came in.”

  Papa’s teacup froze halfway to its saucer. Caelia’s heart echoed frantically through her hollow chest. Harben’s wife, Pennice, knew their secret. If the woman told anyone, rumor would be confirmed as fact and Caelia was through.

  “If Harben can afford to keep the pub in business all on his own,” Joy went on, “he can afford to pay us for our goat.”

  Harben had a bloated sense of self-importance and poor money-managing skills. Papa couldn’t offer such a man leniency. Besides, if Papa started favoring Harben now, when would it ever end?

  Papa studiously avoided Caelia’s panicked gaze as he pushed to his feet. “Maybe you’d better come after all, Joy.” He stiffened as he noticed Bane watching them from underneath his unruly hair. “The forest take you, boy, get dressed! I’m ready to leave.”

  Bane shot to his feet and out of sight beyond the kitchen
.

  Joy untied her apron. “Make sure you grease the corners and mind you don’t burn the bottom.” Caelia didn’t understand what the woman was talking about until Joy nodded to the bread pans.

  All at once, Caelia became aware of the dough drying under her nails and around her cuticles. “Yes. I mean, no. I’ll watch it.” She turned away before Joy could note the desperation on her face. Their family servant already suspected more than she should.

  “Fetch your cloak, Joy,” Papa said. “And wait for me outside. It’s chilly this morning.”

  “Yes, of course.” Joy took her cloak from the peg and slipped outside, where the light had turned more silver than gray. Sunrise would be coming soon.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Papa said softly to Caelia.

  “How?” Caelia’s voice broke.

  “I’ll tell Pennice we owe her one favor—anything she wants. But she can ask once.”

  “What makes you think she’ll honor that agreement?”

  Papa spread his hands on the table and leaned forward. “If she doesn’t, she gets nothing.”

  Their secret lay heavy and dark between them. Caelia could feel the tears building.

  “No one has any proof. Just stay by me until the storm passes.”

  Clearly, the town didn’t need proof. “And if it doesn’t?”

  “I’ll make sure it does,” he said firmly.

  Wanting desperately to believe him, she hastily wiped her eyes and nodded.

  Her father went for his own cloak when a distant shout sounded from the town. Then another. And another. Each closer than the last. The bell tolled, the peal resonating through the hollow of Caelia’s chest.

  A girl had been taken in the night. Stolen by the beast of the Forbidden Forest. A fist of dread reached up from Caelia’s middle, choking her.

  Papa was already out the door. Caelia hurried after him, her boots leaving dark prints in the rime. Spread out below them, the town glittered white with early-morning frost. Chimney smoke rose from the split-shingle roofs of a few hundred homes surrounded by dead fields.

  Past the low stone wall, a man rode a black horse bareback up the hill toward them. Steam burst from the animal’s flared, pink nostrils. Its coat was dark with sweat.

  Caelia recognized the rider and froze, everything inside her going blank.

  Chickens scattered as Kenjin reined the animal in and looked down at them, his face ashen and his feet bare. “Atara is gone.”

  A dozen memories assaulted Caelia. When they were children, she and Atara had caught frogs by the river. Later, they had giggled over boys at the town fair. Later still, as Caelia lay sick with fever, Atara had come to visit nearly every day, the smell of wind in her dark hair.

  No. Not Atara. Not the one friend who hadn’t deserted Caelia. Her legs trembled, threatening to buckle beneath her.

  “The beast took her in the night.” Kenjin’s voice was wooden, as if he were speaking of someone else’s firstborn. Someone else’s daughter. His haunted eyes met Caelia’s. The emptiness there mirrored her own. She looked away first.

  Papa exhaled and passed his hand down his face. More townspeople rushed up the hill as the sun crested the horizon. The harsh morning light robbed the world of color and set the frost to glittering. Everyone was silent. There was nothing to say. Nothing to be done. They all knew the pain of losing a girl to the beast.

  The town parted before the town druid, Rimoth. With his pale, pointed face and sparse mustache, he looked like a dead rat. His silent daughter trailed after her father like a ghost.

  “We must have a sacrifice,” Rimoth proclaimed. “Tonight.”

  Girls tended to disappear in clusters. Two or three. Sometimes as many as five. As town lord, Papa would offer an animal for the beast to take to its lair and devour instead of one of their daughters. Caelia couldn’t see the point, as Rimoth always cut them down for himself come morning.

  “We must go after her!” Kenjin cried. “Her prints are still fresh. If we hurry, we can find her before—” He choked, breaking off.

  Before the beast tore her apart.

  Ancestors, Atara. Why hadn’t she screamed? But none of them ever did. No one knew how the beast lured them into his forest. No one even knew what the beast looked like. All they really knew was that any girl who went into the forest never came out again.

  “Papa,” Caelia murmured, a note of pleading in her voice.

  Papa worked his jaw, his hands balling into fists.

  “I’ll go after her.”

  Everything inside Caelia stopped as Mal pushed to the front of the crowd. He was handsome as a midsummer day—eyes like a bright blue sky, hair straight and bright gold as a wasp’s stripes.

  Caelia was not beautiful, and she’d been flattered by the attention of the best-looking boy in town. But he’d never loved her. He didn’t care about Atara either, not really. What he wanted was to prove something. All this time, and Caelia still wasn’t sure what that something was.

  A half dozen other boys shouted their agreement, forming up behind him.

  The townspeople’s gazes shifted between Caelia and the boy she had loved. In the excitement, the gossips had forgotten her. But now their heads ducked together, whispers a warning drone that made Caelia squirm.

  “You go in,” Rimoth said in his high, rat voice, “and you’ll come back mad or dead.” As the town druid, he was their intermediary with the forest. And he wasn’t wrong. Less than a quarter of a mile inside the forest lay the stirring—the vile part of the forest that attacked anyone who dared breech her borders.

  The village erupted in debate—some calling for sacrifice, others for action. As the town lord, it was up to Papa to decide.

  “We will offer sacrifice,” her father shouted over the din. “Gather at the bridge at twilight. Now go home.”

  Mal glared at her father. His gaze never once strayed to her. “We have a right to go after them.”

  Papa squared off in front of Mal. “The forest take you, you will obey me, or you will spend your day in the stocks.”

  The confrontation between her father and Mal had been building for months. More heads ducked together, more whispers buzzed. Caelia couldn’t appear to have a stake in this fight. She locked her hands together to keep from wringing them, every part of her so tense she felt certain she would tremble apart.

  The magistrate stepped closer. Clearly sensing the man, Mal let out a long breath. He turned on his heel and pushed through the crowd, his cronies close behind.

  Knowing he’d lost, Kenjin pushed his horse closer. “And what will you do, Lord Daydon, when the beast comes after your own daughter?”

  Papa didn’t flinch. “We will honor Atara tonight, Kenjin. And I will mourn with you.”

  The loss in Kenjin’s gaze shifted to fury that ran swift and cold as the heart of the river. “They disappear in clusters, Daydon. Keep an eye on your own child.”

  Caelia wasn’t sure if the words were a threat or a warning. Kenjin turned his mount and rode away. A shudder shook Caelia hard.

  “Caelia,” her father said with a start. “Get inside! You’ll catch your death.”

  Only then did she feel the cold and realize she’d forgotten her cloak. She folded her arms tight over her chest. Shame crept up her skin, making her shiver. Her father would never face his daughter’s empty, cold bed. His daughter was safe. The beast never took broken girls. And Caelia was most definitely broken.

  Chapter Two

  Drum

  Situated behind her father and next to her brother, Caelia joined the long procession of people moving to the river. Each held a small homemade lantern. Caelia had made her family’s this afternoon by pounding a nail to the center of a board, pushing a small candle into the sharp end, and tying a small paper dome over it.

  West of the narrow bridge that spanned the river, Caelia came to a stop at the riverbank, the mud seeping into the leather of her boots and making her feet damp. Her father stood on her left, her brother o
n her right. The wind picked up, flaring her cloak behind her. Shivering, she gripped the collar tight.

  Druid Rimoth took his place at the head of the bridge. Behind him, Kenjin stood dead-eyed with his family, his wife and children weeping. Rimoth began his tribute to Atara’s life by illuminating her beauty. Her grace. Her goodness. He obviously didn’t know her. Atara made an art out of cuss words and stomped everywhere she went. She laughed long and loud, her head tipped back with abandon.

  How could it be that Caelia would never see her friend again? They would never sneak sips of brandy from her father’s liquor cabinet. Never slip out of their houses in the dead of night to meet their friends by the river, where they would take turns scaring each other witless with stories of the beast. Never plot Mal’s gruesome death while Caelia lay on her sickbed.

  Bane’s chilly fingers found Caelia’s. He hadn’t held her hand in months. Not since he’d decided he was too old to be coddled. At that tender touch, all Caelia’s walls came down, and she wept softly.

  When the man finally stopped talking, Caelia handed the lantern to Bane. He bent down, carefully set it in the river, and gave it a gentle push. It bobbled in the shallows until it caught in the main current.

  A river of lanterns passed before Caelia. She watched until the last disappeared into the Forbidden Forest. Her eyes slipped closed.

  Last week, Caelia had sat with her friend in the garden, the smell of rotten pumpkins lending a spice to the air as they took a break from harvesting potatoes. Caelia’s eyes were swollen and puffy from crying. She stroked the kitten in her lap as it purred fiercely.

  “Do you really want to live in a place where you have to pretend it never happened?” Atara asked.

  Caelia froze. She’d suspected that Atara had guessed, but she’d never dared ask.