prologue

                                    

                                          
WARNING: This story contains strong language, and depictions of violence and death that may not be suitable for some readers.
Camille Dufleur was eight years old when she saw the carriage in the woods.
It wasn't an ordinary carriage; the golden wheels shimmered like summer wheat, and the black horses' hooves ate up the narrow path. And on the side of the carriage, Camille realized, was the royal seal: a tower with a morning star over it. The king, perhaps?
But none of this mattered.
Not when her mother was so furious.
Camille twisted. But Adele Dufleur was a blacksmith's wife, and her grip was hard as iron. Camille could feel Adele's calloused fingers digging into her skin where her dirty white cap sleeve ended.
"Hurry, Mimi," Adele said. "It'll rain soon." She yanked her over a tree root. "If it wasn't for you, we'd be there by now."
Camille frowned. Considering that they were running late because she'd spent the morning cleaning white ash out of the fireplace, she wasn't entirely sure this was fair. "But I'm tired, maman."
"Well, you shouldn't have stayed up reading."
Camille dragged her feet. She could see the thatched roof of the cottage, peeking its head above the trees. She wished that she was at the forge, curled up in bed with a cup of tea and her book. Her father would be puttering around the kitchen, stomping his leather boots and smelling of metal and salt. Her mother rarely made her come to the cottage on Saturdays, but something had changed today.
She glanced nervously at the cottage. Camille knew what she would find there: dusty curtains, two hard wooden chairs and a spinning wheel. It had been the same routine for the last four years. Her mother would knit by the window, and Camille would sit at the wheel and do...
Something.
It was difficult to describe.
The feeling was instinctual. She let it pour out of her, gathering the golden substance in a glass phial. It always left her feeling strange after, as if she was floating.
Weaving, Adele called it.
Camille could remember the first time they'd gone to the cottage. Her mother had paused near a rose bush, pointing at a spider clinging to a glistening web.
"Do you see that spider?" Adele had asked. "It reaches inside of itself and finds a strand of silk; it weaves something out of nothing. You can do that too, Mimi. You can create golden threads that turn into dreams."
Her mother had been kind at first. Camille received the best cuts of meat at dinner, and the day that she had filled a whole phial, her mother had bought her a pink dress with ribbons, frilly as a wedding cake.
But she was not kind now, Camille thought. Not since her father had his accident last month and lost his arm; the forge now rumbled on like a sleeping dragon, spitting coals and red sparks, but nobody was there to man it. Furniture disappeared from their home. The rickety wooden rocking chair went first, and then a cozy armchair by the fire. Their best silverware. Her mother's wedding ring.
Now, her mother forced her to weave with threats of slaps and no dinner. Bruises braceleted her arms, purple as plums.
The cottage drew closer. Fear shot through her, and Camille stopped, yanking her arm out of her mother's grip. "I won't go!" 
"Mimi—"
"No!" She set her chin. "You can't make me."
She would be brave, Camille decided, like Rissolyta in her book; the warrior queen let nothing frighten her. Unfortunately, Rissolyta did not have Adele Dufleur as a mother, and Camille shrank back as Adele's eyes darkened.