Chapter Preview of A Drop of Fortune

With a week to go before release, I’m sharing the first chapter from A Drop of Fortune. Links to preorder will be at the end of the sneak peek.

CHAPTER ONE

A glass bottle hurtled past Evelyn Rosewood’s head, hit the stone wall behind her, and exploded.

She barely flinched.

“This is not what I asked for!” King Ayren roared as tiny shards of blue-tinted glass rained down. “I don’t need something to steady my hand. I need a poison, and you’re going to give it to me, witch!”

The king swirled away, stalking toward his throne, his fur-trimmed mantle billowing. Under the reign of his predecessors, the garment had only seen the light of day for royal ceremonies—a wedding, coronation, or funeral. King Ayren bucked that tradition, and forced his smarmy chamberlain to drag it up from storage anytime he felt the slightest bit out of sorts.

Like a child with a treasured, well-worn doll.

For all Evelyn knew, he’d taken to sleeping in the mantle, too. Mercifully, most nights she was ensconced in her tower—leaky and drafty though it was—by the time the king ceased his paranoid mutterings and endless demands long enough to retire to his chambers, deep within the castle.

Chamberlain Tomlin, the king’s most dedicated and simpering of servants, arched dark blond eyebrows in Evelyn’s direction, a warning etched into his long, sallow face.

Evelyn drew in a breath of stuffy air, as the scents of an untouched meal mingled with the cloying incense left burning near the throne. If the rumors were true, and Calendra’s rightful—or, so proclaimed—king was indeed returning to take his throne from his half-brother’s grasp, he’d be well advised to bring along a bucket and soap, too. The king burned incense from dusk till dawn, leaving every inch of the room saturated with the odor.

“Your Majesty,” she began, dropping her chin out of respect to the title—and to hide the clenching of her molars. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but as I have stated before—”

Chamberlain Tomlin coughed into a blue handkerchief, then shook his head.

Evelyn ignored him. “I do not deal in poisons, and am unable to meet your request.”

The king stopped midway to the throne. His shoulders tensed, and even through the folds of ridiculous and pompous fabric, Evelyn knew every corded muscle had gone taut, like a bow’s string a mere heartbeat before the archer’s release.

Fear clawed at her, quick and ferocious, the swipe of unseen, monstrous paws, but Evelyn mentally bared her own fangs and banished the thing to the cage she kept in the back of her mind.

She lifted her chin and waited. She’d teetered on this line for years, ever since the moment she arrived in Benenfar to begin her seven-year term of conscripted service. There were things she would not do—potions she would not craft.

But to refuse a king…? There would be consequences.

Since the day she had been selected by her coven to make the journey and serve the crown in the name of their goddess, Caele, she had wondered if she might not survive to make the trip back.

There was a time when that possibility might have stopped her, or at least given her pause, but those days were gone.

Come what may, Evelyn was making her stand.

All eyes in the room shifted and darted—the guards at the throne room’s great wooden doors, Tomlin in his stuffy robes, the two kitchen maids who’d come to clear the king’s cold dinner and refill his wine goblet.

Evelyn stared straight ahead, at the king’s back. Slowly, he turned, his pale face gone red, as his dark, nearly black eyes narrowed into something almost serpentine.

Behind Evelyn, a jarring bang on the doors jolted her just enough for the beast of fear she’d tethered to come lunging back to the forefront of her mind. Her pulse quickened as she scurried out of the way. Could she leave now? Would anyone try to stop her if she just ran?

The guards flung open one door, admitting a soldier in full armor—the captain of the royal guard, Darren Ardley. Evelyn knew him well. His son had a chronic condition, and he often employed her services to brew tinctures and potions to help relieve the boy’s pain.

A woman in a long silver-blue robe followed on Captain Ardley’s booted heels, her dark face impassive as she moved to stand on the other side of the doors from Evelyn, her attention completely focused on the captain and her king. However, if the king took note of his advisor’s arrival, he did not show it, his ire now solely focused on the captain of his army.

“Your Majesty,” the captain declared, only slightly winded. “The stronghold of Dunvell has been taken. I’ve returned with as many men as I could gather, but I fear many were lost.”

The king shifted his cold glower toward his captain. “If the men still draw breath, why have they returned? Why are they not there—fighting in my name?!”

To his credit, not so much as a muscle twitched in Captain Ardley’s hard, grizzled face. “It is not a battle we can win, my king.”

Tomlin buried his face in a handkerchief, using it to mop the sweat from his brow.

“There have been too many defectors,” Ardley continued, lifting his chin ever so slightly.

Evelyn bit back a gasp.

“Some have joined your brother’s—”

Tomlin’s head popped up, like a tortoise from its shell, his eyes bulging with alarm.

“My what?!” King Ayren roared, loud enough it seemed to rattle the bronzed swords and shields mounted above the throne.

“The usurper,” Ardley quickly corrected, though it appeared to cost him a portion of his patience, for his jaw flexed. “Ivor has proven quite persuasive. More than two dozen men stayed behind, in Dunvell. Still more deserted camp in the night. I believe they’ve sworn their fealty—”

“Then we will have more skulls with which to decorate the city gate when this is over!” The king threw his arms wide, his face twisted and terrible as he turned to look out the expanse of windows surrounding his throne room.

It could be considered an impressive sort of war cry, under different circumstances, but as it was, King Ayren wasn’t a strategist. Evelyn had seen glimpses of the war room, and found the king used its large, painted surface to play card games with some of the lords. Port stains covered the map of Calendra, and the cast iron figurines used to represent armies and ships were instead used as tokens to keep track of which player was winning.

But then, what did Evelyn know? She was a witch, not a warrior. And no one had asked her opinion on the matter.

“Witch!” King Ayren snapped.

This time, Evelyn did flinch.

“Go back to your tower, and if you return without the poison, I’ll see to it that Ardley throws you from the blasted thing at dawn’s light!”

The captain looked at her, pleading in his eyes, and Evelyn took up her skirts and fled from the throne room.

As she slipped around the corner, another glass bottle hit the wall and shattered in her wake.

* * *

“He’s lost his head!” Evelyn exclaimed, slamming her hands on the top of her worn worktable. A stack of books and parchments wobbled and fell to the floor in a cascade.

She huffed an impatient sigh, still halfway winded from stomping up the one-hundred-sixty-four steps to her stone tower.

“Hoot!” A small pygmy owl chimed in from his perch, startled by the noise.

Evelyn cringed. “My apologies, Archie.”

Normally, her feathered familiar would be out hunting for his supper at this time of night, but with the rain lashing the sides of the tower and multi-paned windows, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to stay indoors. If not for her enchanted cloak, she’d be soaked to the skin just from the walk between the castle’s southern exit and her tower. As it was, her dark chestnut hair fell around her shoulders, dry but for the shorter strands that stuck to her damp forehead, though she was not sure if it was from sweat or rain blown sideways or both.

“Whoooo?” Archie trilled, rearranging himself and smoothing his feathers. “Who has lost his head? Surely you would not say such things of the king, lest you risk losing your own head, Evelyn!”

He cut her a knowing glance, his dark eyes glittering as he leaned nearer.

Evelyn scoffed and squatted to begin collecting the fallen books and parchments. They didn’t deserve to suffer for the king’s ire. “He wants a poison, Archie.” Her lips twisted into a scowl. “You know how I feel about such magic.”

At this, Archie took flight and went to the windowsill, landing on the cold stone as lightning flashed, illuminating the angry, indigo sky. The small owl flinched, hovering in the air a moment before fluttering back down to the chiseled sill.

“Poison, huh? A dreadful night to match such dreadful business,” the owl said, watching the sky. “And does he suppose his brother will merely wander in and accept a glass of tainted wine?”

“His brother?” One side of Evelyn’s mouth twitched in a short-lived smile. “Now which one of us is flirting with treason?”

Archie shuddered.

Evelyn’s wry amusement quickly faded, and she turned back to survey the variety of ingredients scattered across her worktable, the remnants from her previous potion still lingering, as she’d not taken the time to clean before going to the throne room. She’d brought the king a tonic to calm his nerves—if not for his sake, then for everyone else forced to be near him, she’d thought—but she could not risk such a trick again.

“Perhaps he means to wet the blades of his personal guard with the poison. I read a story like that once,” Evelyn said, her eyes narrowing as new ideas swirled through her mind. “That way, even if a hooded assassin could only manage a small injury, it could prove enough to take the usurper down.”

“He’s not patient enough for that,” a third voice countered.

Evelyn jolted so hard her hip rammed into the side of the worktable, sending two bottles of stargazer sleeping draught crashing to the stone floor.

It was a bad night for her collection of glass vials.

A figure emerged from the shadows, a wiry woman in a silver-blue robe. Her long limbs, once regal and strong, were thin now, and a slight hunch bent her spine where a hump rose between her narrow shoulders. Even still, her presence struck fear into Evelyn’s heart.

She swallowed hard and ducked her chin, her knees bending slightly as she dipped into a respectable bow. “My apologies, Lady Kilgour. I did not expect company tonight.”

Catriona Kilgour’s hair had long since turned white, but her mind was sharp as ever, and clearly fixed on a solitary devotion to the crown.

Soft footsteps scuffed against the stones and cold fingertips lifted Evelyn’s chin, forcing her gaze upward into the woman’s severe face. Her white hair was pulled back in a harsh style, made for practicality, not fashion, and the way it pulled at her thinning skin made her angular features all the more imposing.

“We’ve no time for formalities, witch.” The woman’s sharp blue eyes, bright as a morning star, flicked a glance past Evelyn’s shoulder as another bolt of lightning shot through the sky. “Half of Crownvale can hear the king roaring and snarling. What is it he’s commanded of you?”

“He wants… a poison, my lady. I think he means to send it to his—the usurper,” Evelyn quickly corrected.

Lady Kilgour’s eyes flashed again, narrowing as she dropped her fingers, her spindly hands disappearing into the billowing sleeves of her regal robe, its insignia marking her as the king’s royal advisor.

“I cannot do what he asks. None of the Sisters of Caele could. It goes against our sacred vows to the goddess herself.”

Lady Kilgour stared down her nose. “And what did you bring to him in its place?”

Evelyn’s fingers twisted the fabric at the sides of her own cloak. “It was a draught meant to calm his nerves. I thought it could help him… clear his mind long enough to sleep.”

To her surprise, Lady Kilgour exhaled and bobbed her chin. “Yes, well, that certainly would prove useful.”

Another set of footsteps clambered up to the landing outside Evelyn’s chambers, these ones far more conspicuous than Lady Kilgour’s wraithlike approach.

Archie gave an alarmed hoot as Captain Ardley stormed into the room, his square jaw clenched and one hand gripped around the hilt of the longsword at his left hip. He narrowly missed barreling into the back of Lady Kilgour.

His dark eyes widened as he scrambled back half a step, creating space between him and the royal advisor before bowing. “My lady!” he exclaimed, immediately releasing the hilt of his sword.

Evelyn swallowed hard. Had he come to throw her from the tower after all?

Archie flew to Evelyn’s shoulder, his talon piercing the tight weave of the wool as he pressed in closer to her neck.

“I am sorry to interrupt, but Evelyn, please, there must be something you can do. I fear His Grace is quite serious about his threat, and I do not want to be the one to carry out his order.”

“I believe you were ordered back to Dunvell, Captain Ardley,” Lady Kilgour replied, her thin brows arching.

The captain shrank back half a step.

“The king has ordered Captain Ardley to throw me from this very tower if I do not return with the poison by daybreak,” Evelyn interjected, anger quivering in her voice.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should still be afraid. Lady Kilgour held nearly as much power as the king. But in place of the snarling fear from before, Evelyn could only dredge up the barest wince of remorse as she looked at the woman. The overwhelming exhaustion of recent days had sunk down to her very bones.

Evelyn wasn’t quite sure what she expected Lady Kilgour’s response to be, but when the woman heaved a sigh and rolled her unnerving eyes to the rafters over their heads, Evelyn blinked.

“By the Four,” the woman muttered.

Evelyn slid Captain Ardley a sidelong glance. The grizzled captain mirrored her own surprise.

Lady Kilgour moved to the far window. “I believe I have a solution to both of your problems,” she began, her voice raspy but infused with purpose. “If Evelyn is not here in Crownvale, then you, Captain Ardley, would be unable to throw her from any of our fine towers.” The woman flashed a smile, its edges brittle. “Word has arrived from Shieglas there is some kind of blight affecting the lush farmland around the city’s walls. We cannot afford for the city to turn and swear loyalty to Ivor, should he come calling—and I have no doubt that he will, in time. Shieglas is too important of a port for him to ignore.”

Shieglas. The name tickled at the back of Evelyn’s mind, and she realized where she’d seen it before. It was the location printed on the bottles from an herb business. Salt & Sage. She’d found the bottles in the tower, left behind by the last Sister of Caele sent to serve the crown. She’d kept the bottles long after they were emptied, simply to look at the delicate seascape painted on the labels.

“The farmland is yielding fewer and fewer crops, and if this continues, we may find it hard to feed the settlements and cities along the coast. Not to mention, the merchants are unhappy about their exports being slowed, and they’re already plenty unhappy enough with the new taxes to fund the military increases.” Lady Kilgour paused, her expression pinched, leaving Evelyn to wonder if perhaps the king was no longer taking his advisor’s counsel.

“You want to send Evelyn to the harbor to fix the blight?” Captain Ardley said.

Lady Kilgour looked up from the map and fixed Evelyn with that pointed stare. “You’re a witch of Caele, are you not?” she asked.

Evelyn didn’t bother correcting her. She knew well enough the term the covens used was sister.

The advisor straightened as well as she could and peered down her thin nose. “The goddess of spring seems the right one to beseech in such a case as this. Or shall I go to the gnome? She serves Avalora. Perhaps this is a matter for the goddess of harvest, instead? Although that will not solve the matter of you drawing the king’s ire, will it?”

Captain Ardley gave Evelyn the same pleading look he’d given her in the throne room.

“If the blight is in the soil, it would fall under Caele’s domain,” Evelyn replied slowly, her mind still reeling at the sudden turn of conversation.

“Then it is precisely the sort of task a royal witch would perform,” Lady Kilgour continued, her expression unchanged. “However, in this case, I think it may be best to keep your purpose to yourself. I would like you to keep an eye on things, hear what the people are saying. You will report to me, and if your efforts with the blight prove successful, the glory goes to King Ayren. Do you understand?”

Captain Ardley cleared his throat. “And if Ivor should try and claim the city? Where will Evelyn go?”

Lady Kilgour’s shrewd eyes narrowed, perhaps beginning to realize she was not the only one in the room with a mind for making a bargain. “She would still be safer, I would venture. You vex the king, Evelyn Rosewood, and I cannot keep you safe, should you remain here and refuse to give him what he seeks.”

Evelyn swallowed.

Lady Kilgour eyed her intently for a long moment as a menacing rumble of thunder rolled overhead. Raindrops plunked in the metal pails placed strategically around the tower, catching most of what leaked through the battered roof.

“It is in the crown’s best interest to keep the favor of the four covens,” the woman added. “Take my offer, Evelyn. Go to Shieglas, remedy the blight and restore the farmlands by harvesttime, and you shall have your freedom.”

Evelyn jerked back. “My—my freedom?”

“You heard me quite clearly, witch. You have eighteen months left on your term of service as it stands, by the treaty of the covens, if I am not mistaken. Do this in service of your king, and whatever time is left remaining will be vacated.”

Evelyn’s mind whirled, trying to find a gap in the agreement, some trap or bit of trickery. A blight could take many months to mend—if it was within the depths of her powers at all—but even so… she would be away from the castle and the king’s demands and threats.

And if she succeeded…?

Evelyn squashed the thought before she could be swept away by the possibilities, all the dreams she let herself savor at night when she lay in bed, listening to the northern winds howl and buffet against the sides of her rickety tower.

Setting her jaw, she met Lady Kilgour’s eyes and gave a firm nod. “I will see it done, my lady.”

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