Hello ACOTAR fam! I have been hard at work to bring part 2 of Yara's story to you and thought you might enjoy a special holiday gift.
Firstly, I'm super excited to announce that the second book, A Court of Malice, will be released on July 7, 2024!
I have also decided to release a short excerpt from one of the first chapters. Please enjoy that below!
"Their homecoming was marked by the death of summer.
Against the ever-shifting earth, that golden disc of pure light drifted behind a field of clouds. The sun that took its place was a colder face of the god that had looked upon the world from his glowing chariot all summer. The sun recoiled in search of hibernation, receding from the world, and with it went the warmth of daylight.
In the lore of the Autumn Court, the birth of this coming season was a mark of restless days. Autumnal storms awoke the cold gods, leaving the warm-blooded ones to fade away on a distant memory. These were the days of isolation, when dark things crawled out from their hiding places and the dreamers were likely to wander into darkness.
As Beron Vanserra's winnowing brought his children to the throne room of his palace, as heavy clouds greeted them beyond those stained-glass arches, it didn't feel like lore anymore. It felt like an omen.
Yara had not stepped foot inside Folia for three and a half centuries. Its memory only came to her in dreams, nightmares so dark and harrowing that she wished someone would rip it from her mind. A strange curse, this Dreamcatching was. She could steal the haunted dreams of everyone else's sorrow, but she was damned to always remember her own.
Dreams retained a private space in her mind. Every detail polished daily; every memory recalled to perfection. She remembered her dreams more accurately than she remembered her waking life.
The ground shuddered beneath the sudden weight of their arrival. She ripped herself out of Beron's grasp, recoiling from Eris, too.
The throne room was just as she remembered it. Towering walls of bronze; mezzanines carved with leaves and flames; marble floors that echoed with each footstep, even in the softest slippers. And, rising above it all on a grand dais of rubies, that wretched throne glared down at them. Behind it, the western wall was a collection of stained glass. At dusk, the sun's position in the sky cast rays of light through the glass, illuminating the throne and coating the room in red light. Fire. That's what Yara's childish mind had compared it to—a sea of fire, burning everyone in its wake, and that throne rising above it all.
She waited for her uncle—no, her father, if everything he proclaimed was indeed true—to climb that dais. In what few memories she had of him, he was always on that throne, a constant reminder of who he was to this court—and the power he held.
He made no move towards it. She watched him, waiting, but he didn't so much as glance in the direction of the throne. Instead, that predator's focus narrowed to his eldest son. A wolf hunting a fox. This was a fight Eris couldn't win."
I can't wait to share more of this story with you in the new year! Until then, stay safe and wonderous.
XOXO
YOU ARE READING
A Court of Innocents
FanfictionTamlin was my mate. That gods-damned bastard. The man who had broken my High Lady, who had sided with Hybern. I hated him. Or, I wanted to hate him. But suddenly hating him was impossible when my heart wanted nothing but him. And what about Azriel? ...
