Elverella's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Elverella's unicorn died at dawn, and that was how she finally got her meeting. The animal had carried her since childhood. It had golden flanks, pink wings, and a purple mane threaded with roses and crystals. Now it lay still beside the enchanted flower at the heart of the kingdom. Its coat had gone gray. Its roses had turned black. Elverella pressed her hand to its neck and felt the rot spreading underneath, soft as wet paper. She understood at once. Someone had touched the flower. The flower twisted living things, and if anyone misused it, every creature in Elderbloom would rot from the inside out. The unicorn was only the first. Elverella was the princess. Her crown of flowers and diamonds said so. But a crown was not an army, and the four rival houses each thought their own leader should rule instead. For months she had wanted them in one room to argue for unity. None of them would come. She had no reason they would accept. Now she did. She stood and smoothed her pink dress. Grief could wait. She walked back to the pink crystal castle, its towers glinting like cut jewels, and she sent her fastest riders out with a single message to each house. She did not beg. She wrote the truth plainly. The flower has been used. Your lands are already dying. Come, or lose everything. They came within two days. The four house leaders filed into the castle's great hall and would not sit near each other. One wore a coat stitched with candy-colored stones that rattled when he moved. He had mocked Elverella's claim at her father's funeral. He crossed his arms now and did not bow. "A dead horse," he said. "That is your emergency, little princess?" Elverella did not flinch. She placed a cluster of pink, blue, and purple stones on the table. Each one had dulled to the color of ash. She had pulled them from her own garden that morning. "These were bright yesterday," she said. "The gumdrop trees on your eastern border lost their leaves overnight. Check with your riders. You know I am not lying." The man in the stone-stitched coat went quiet. The others leaned forward. For the first time, nobody left the room. "Someone reached the flower before any of us did," Elverella said. "Alone, each of your houses rots. Together, we can find who did this and stop it. That is the only reason I called you here." The four leaders looked at the gray stones, then at each other. They did not agree to her rule. But they stayed, and they listened, and they began to talk. Elverella had the room at last. She also had a thief loose inside her kingdom, with a weapon that could kill everything she hoped to inherit. She did not yet know who it was.