She saw it all …
Ravens. Badgers. Bears. Wolves. Rabbits. Falcons. All the green, growing things, all filled with spirit. All the different patchwork pieces of the land fitting together in perfect harmony.
Then humans. Wars.
Spirits rising from the earth, taking shape in the land’s defense.
Bloodshed. Battles. Disharmony everywhere …
Finally, a hard-won agreement among all.
The spirits—those powerful few that survived—retreating to Raven’s Nest, the center of their strength. Their magic spreading throughout the land, keeping borders strong and human rulers safe. Rulers’ connection to the land keeping harvests thriving and weather kind.
In return, human sorcerers working with the spirits to forge the Raven Crown on the slopes of Mount Corve. Both sides blending their greatest magics. Each side making true sacrifices to seal the great promise, to be held true for all of their sakes:
Harmony. Unity. Peace.
For everyone.
Heart and spirit and fierce protection combining in perfect unison for centuries, binding land and people together …
Until human rulers forget the ancient promises forged into their magical crown. All they see is the power that it carries—and the opportunities for more. They turn against the land they’ve sworn to protect. They break the old contracts for the sake of their greed.
The crown breaks with them into three pieces. No human magic can ever repair it.
Sister turns on brother, cousin on cousin. Forests burn to ashes. Blood spills across the broken landscape.
No more unity. No harmony between people and land anywhere.
Until …
A dark-haired, round-bellied sorceress creeps through the night, holding tightly to the hands of one tight-lipped friend and one small, frightened boy with shadows in his eyes.
The sorceress wraps strong spells of protection around the wild forest that she enters, holding it safe from all the battles outside. The forest folds her into its own heart in gratitude. When her babe is born and the forest hears those rare, raw tears that she weeps for her child’s future—and overhears her final, desperate plan to hide her newborn child … then the forest chooses to help her in return, stirred by more reasons than it can fathom for itself.
For once, all the different, fractured pieces of the land are working in unison again.
Two creatures for the spell, they send: a newborn hare and a fox cub, who both pad into the sorceress’s keeping exactly when she needs them. The whole land pours its green magic into her spell as she casts it—and what a spell it becomes!
With human or land magic alone, it would have been impossible. Working together, something miraculous takes place. An act of transformation: two new babes, to hide the third one in plain sight.
She’d only wanted the three babes tied together for her own babe’s protection, to hide her true child from any seeking eyes.
But every spirit of the land feels the click of true connection when it forms. It knows that the moment they’ve awaited for decades has arrived at long last.
Humanity and wildness, heart and spirit and fierce protection, all tie together once more in a bond that must never be broken.
Raven’s Nest still carries the memory of that final moment as it rippled through every piece of the broken kingdom, filling it with the wildest, most desperate hope and joy.
Three human infants lie together on a white cot by the castle window, snuggled into one another: three parts of a perfect whole. Even their soft breaths are shared.
The same size. The same skin. So nearly interchangeable.
“No one can ever know the truth.” The sorceress’s low voice carries through the open window to the listening, watching forest outside. “We can’t even tell Connall. He’s been through so much already. He’s too young to bear such heavy secrets. If we ever have to run as a family, we’ll tell him—but not until then.”
“Do you really think it can be so simple?” The other woman sighs and shakes her head. “They may have started as something else, Kathryn, but they’re children now. Your children. Can you truly give up the others to protect her, once you’ve raised them all as your own?”
“What choice do I have?” The sorceress straightens until she is out of sight from the window, but her voice cuts like a dagger through the night air. “I couldn’t keep Connall safe, and he isn’t even a royal heir. I will protect Cordelia no matter what sacrifices I have to make. That bloodthirsty throne won’t steal her from me, too!”
At the rage in her rising voice, all three infants stir restlessly—first one and then the others all twisting and whimpering together.
Leaning over the cot, she lets out a breath. Then she strokes her long fingers across all three chests in a row and begins to sing the low, familiar tune that the forest heard her humming all through her pregnancy:
“Little ones, go to sleep, it is time now for dreaming …”
The forest sighs its appreciation of the lilting, comforting tune. It lets itself finally sleep, too, to the sound of that lullaby. It has been drained of its power for the moment, but it is content to rest and wait while that new, green shoot grows to save all of them.
White clouds of mist snapped apart, leaving Cordelia reeling. Her breath was a burning bellows in her chest. Panting, she blinked and blinked again …
And found both of her triplets standing with her on the high slopes of Mount Corve, with all her own horror reflected in their faces.
The past and the present blurred in all their eyes …
And a broken silver crown, engraved with starflowers, lay in three pieces on the grass between them.