Amalthea's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Amalthea hid a stolen book under her gown and slipped past the guards. The book named the shadow prince she was born to marry. Her father had burned every other copy. In three moons she must wed a man she knew only through forbidden tales, to break the thousand-year curse on her horned kind. She did not know if those tales were true. She found a quiet garden bench where vines spilled over pale stone. The castle's flowers drooped in the evening damp. She opened the book and read fast. One page called the prince a butcher who fed on fear. The next page called him gentle, exiled for a crime he never did. Both could not be right. She pressed her palm to the page and felt only paper. Her fae magic still slept inside her, useless. "So this is where you have been." Her father stood at the garden's edge. King Thran's silver crown sat between his dark horns. His fur cloak dragged the moss. He held out one hand, waiting for the book. Amalthea's chest went tight. She had never seen him look afraid. "I need to know who he is," she said. "Everyone tells me a different story. I can't marry a stranger." "You cannot marry him at all." Thran took the book from her hands. He did not raise his voice. That frightened her more than shouting. "I have heard the prophecies, child. Every path where you wed the shadow prince ends the same way. It ends with your death." "Then the curse stays," Amalthea said. "Our people keep suffering. For me." "Yes." He closed the book against his chest. "I would let the whole world stay cursed before I bury you." Amalthea stared at him. Her whole life she had been told the marriage was her duty. Now her own father called it her grave. She looked at the burned crumbs of old pages still clinging to his cloak. He had been destroying the truth for years, not to control her, but to save her. "You should have told me," she said. "I am telling you now." Thran's voice cracked. "The prince sent word this morning. He is coming here. To meet the bride the treaty promised him." He let the words settle. "I mean to send him away at the gate. You will not see him." Amalthea rose. Her horns caught the last light. For the first time she understood her father's fear was real, and it was aimed at the one thing that could free her people. "No," she said. "If he comes, I will meet him myself. I will decide what is true with my own eyes." Thran said nothing. He turned and walked back toward the castle, the book and its secrets clutched against him. Amalthea stayed in the ruined garden. The stranger she feared and needed was on his way. And her father would do anything to keep them apart.