Prince of the Courts

Prologue

Autumn, 2028

With one final shove, Sera pushed her mother's funeral ship into the cold waters of the lake, sending gentle ripples ahead of it to herald her passing into the afterlife. She picked up her bow from where it lay against her pack and pulled out a lighter, sparking a flame to light the arrow that was waiting for one last flight. It was easy for Sera to make the shot, in more ways than one.

The arrow thudded into the bundle of kindling, igniting the carefully-made pile and spreading to the rest of the tiny vessel. It was an old canoe in truth, but it would serve for her mother. Shadowhunters were burned when they died, and whatever else her mother had done, she had been a Shadowhunter.

She watched the canoe drift out farther into the lake, and the wind blowing down from the north was cold as she inhaled. An early blast of winter had come to strip the Muskoka Lakes of their autumn beauty; a thin layer of snow had already covered the ground and would soon bury the land around her tiny cottage. Her breath fogged the air as she exhaled. Everything matched what she had seen in her dream. She had been waiting for this day for nearly a year.

Turning away from the lake, Sera walked back up the embankment toward the cottage. It was time to close it up for good and get moving. No time to waste.

It was easy to pack; she'd never had much out here in the isolated cottage where she had been born and raised. Never allowed to stray far from the lake, her mother had been desperate to keep her hidden from the Clave, from Downworlders, from everything for the last 17 years. Her training had been lonely, but hard; her mother had seen to that. But her mother couldn't protect her from the dreams, and Sera had long-since learned to stop sharing them with her.

While awake, Sera's heart had been chained to this lake and her mother, but it was the hours she spent dreaming that she truly lived for. Her father's blood had given her that much, at least.

A small bundle of food joined what little she had already shoved into her pack and her hands passed by the hand-carved gifts from her mother, and her own childish crafts made years ago. None of it mattered anymore. This part of her life was ending, and she wasn't going to need it where she was going.

She knelt down and pried a stone free from the edge of the hearth, reaching into the space behind it to pull out the last of her family's precious heirlooms. Glittering sapphires and shining diamonds sparkled up at her, and matching earrings followed the necklace into her pack. It would be enough to get her started. That was all she needed. A good start.

She rose, brushing the ashes from the hearth off her jeans. There were still hours of daylight left to get to the highway and catch her ride into town.

As she took one last look at the tiny interior of the cottage, she caught a flash of a vision - her mother's stele, tucked away in the bedside table drawer.

Sera shook her head, willing the vision to jump further and show her why, to give her a reason to take this piece of her mother's life with her. Nothing more came. She sighed and crossed the room to her mother's bedroom. These flashes were so seldom wrong. She slipped the stele into the side pocket of the pack. Just in case, she thought. Although why she would need a stele, of all people, was beyond her.

The door closed tightly behind her but she didn't lock it; there was no lock. Maybe someone would need a safe place to stay someday and find this abandoned cottage. Maybe animals would manage to push their way in and live like kings. The only thing that was certain was that she wasn't coming back. Not ever.

The trees welcomed her as she passed from the clearing into the protection of their boughs. Aged trunks slid by and great branches dipped overhead, escorting her away from everything she had known in her waking life, silent sentinels that had watched her grow up among them. Her dreams had shown her so much, but she still knew so little of what was needed. As she walked, she let her mind drift back to where it always went, to the first dream that had set her on this path, to him.