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THE RAVEN LADY
The Faery Rehistory Series
Chapter 1: UNMOORED
Connacht, Ireland – 1883
Koli
Winter is no friendly season for voyaging across an ocean to offer yourself as a hostage to a sworn enemy.
I was resigned to it. But how tempting it was to read ill omens into gale and tempest—might be that was inevitable. As a child of the Elf King, you could rightly say that I was an ill omen incarnate.
Standing on the deck of the Danish mail steamer in the pelting rain, I could not beat back a creeping resentment. I had been offered as consort to King Finvara, the lord of the Irish fairies. Our union was meant to reinforce a peace accord signed after the Battle of Ben Bulben, where my people, the Icelandic shadow elves, had fought alongside Fomorians, the ancient enemies of Ireland. Such unions were a longstanding tradition for good reason—they often worked. Yet in spite of tradition, even in spite of the wishes of his powerful cousin, Queen Isolde of Ireland, the haughty Finvara would not stoop to a union with a “goblin”—a slur his people often used against mine. And my mighty race—defeated decisively in the bloody battle for possession of Ireland—had no recourse but to agree to our enemy’s revised terms.
I wish not to be misunderstood. I had no desire to wed the fairy king. But I was proud of my lineage. I could have chosen any elven lord—any Fomorian prince, even—and would have made him a formidable ally, a curse upon his enemies. In obedience to my father, I had accepted my exile to the lower isle, and yet Finvara offered only scorn in return.
Now I would enter the stronghold of our enemy, offering myself as a political prisoner. I would be despised for the dark magic in my blood, as well as my fierce appearance. My hair was black as a cloudless night, and even the light of the Irish summer sun would raise no gleam upon it. The iris of my eyes was a shade of gray so near to black that it unsettled mortals. Across my cheek and brow had been stamped the small, star-shaped marks of the highland elves, who were so ancient they remembered an Iceland with trees.
If my mixed elven-mortal ancestry had taught me anything, it was how to live among those who would only ever see my otherness.
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