Emmazel is written! It releases on Wednesday, and I hope you enjoy this first chapter enough to go check it out. Paperback might be available sooner. We shall see.
Emmazel's chapter 1 contains no spoilers for the previous books.
Chapter 1
Thirty-two companions,
she’d had during her tenure in the tower, and nearly every one of them was now
married into the country’s nobility. Anna was the latest, an older woman who
had been a decided old maid. Emmazel had considered her an especial challenge
but had still prevailed in the end.
“Emma! Emmazel,
child, where are you?”
She sighed at her father’s
call, sending one last surge of magic into the coriander she was tending, and
then she stood. He had just returned home and clearly wasn’t happy with what
he’d found.
“I’m in my garden, Father!”
she shouted down the stairs. “It was such a beautiful day. I just had to
do some gardening.”
The winds swirled,
and suddenly he stood beside her in the room. Her garden was the most
remarkable room – for though she couldn’t go outside herself, the roof was made
of the clearest crystal, allowing light to pass through and her plants thrived.
“Emmazel, where is
your companion?”
Emmazel blinked and
glanced about herself, as though surprised that he should ask such a question.
“Well, not here, obviously. Did you misplace her?”
“Emmazel, child,
you are being meddlesome again, aren’t you?”
“It was another lord,
sir,” she declared. “He’d been bothering us for weeks, convinced that I was
here against my will, and I just had to do something about it.”
“You used a love
potion on the pair,” piped up the black cat who lay sunning himself among her
roses.
“Again, child?” Father
twisted away, throwing up his hands in frustration, and the wind that followed
him rustled through the room with particular agitation. A few of Emmazel’s
plants complained, but most were used to his outbursts. “I go to so much
trouble to find companions for you, here in your tower, and all you do is trick
the poor girls into falling in love with lords and dukes and running away with
them.”
Emmazel shook her
head, kneeling to tend her plants. “Papa, you’ve forbidden me to leave this
tower, so you can’t possibly expect me to have run off with him in her place.
What else was I to do?”
“Turn him away!
Make it clear that neither one of you is a damsel in distress and that his
services are unneeded and unwanted.” Father shook his head in disappointment.
“Love is not to be trifled with.”
“And young men who
have it in their heads that there’s a helpless young maiden for them to rescue
aren’t to be trifled with, either,” Emmazel countered. “You underestimate the
power of love, Papa.”
“You meddle with
things you don’t understand,” said Father. “Stop herding these poor fellows to
marriage with your potions.”
“You do know that
the entire reason that girls agree to come live with me is because I’ll help
them find a husband of rank?” Emmazel raised an eyebrow. “Night can attest!
None would be so brazen to admit it outright when you’re recruiting them, but
most have said as much to me. And I make sure to let them know the risks of a
love potion, and each is instructed to delay the marriage for at least the six
months that it takes for a love potion to wear off. And I hear that most of my
girls are quite happy with their lives since. Why, Lady Bellflower sent me a
necklace just last month as a thank-you for my help. I assure you, I know what
I’m about.”
Father threw up his
hands. “As always, you won’t listen to me, thinking instead that you know best.
Mark my words, dear Emmazel, and stop all this bothersome trouble before you
regret it all.”
Emmazel tilted her
head to the side as she considered her father. How old and frail he looked
these days! Perhaps she really ought to pay more attention to him, for it
seemed unfair for a man to slip away this quickly, and he’d been strong and
hale for as long as she could remember.
“I think,” she said
at length, “that you’re out of sorts because it’s dinnertime. Why don’t we
retreat to the kitchen? Anna didn’t leave us without supper. You, too, Night.
Come along!”
She scooped up the
black cat and headed down the stairs, knowing that her father would follow. He
would also continue his protests, despite the futility.
“You don’t have to
bother yourself, good lady,” said Night, squirming in her arms. “I have four
legs that work perfectly well, in case you didn’t realize.”
Emmazel laughed and
hugged him closer. “But then you might get lost, and just think how distraught
I’ll be!”
~
They sat down
around the table, and Emmazel passed around the night’s dinner of vegetables
and chicken. All were mindful of the empty chair.
Or, at least,
Emmazel and her father were. Night hopped up to his seat and made himself quite
comfortable, paying it no mind.
“There’s no
question about it; I’ll just have to find another girl to stay with you.”
Father tsked and shook his head. “It’s no good, leaving you here alone. No, you
need a new companion, and I’ll just have to find one entirely disinterested in
marrying above her station.”
“Good luck with
that,” said Emmazel. “There’s no one in the land who wouldn’t like to improve
their lives, and marriage is the best way for a woman to do that. Why, even as
content as I am, I might be tempted
myself if Prince Christian were to stumble upon my tower and suit for my hand.”
“Emma! Emmazel,
child!” Father shook his head in distress. “Put such a thought from your mind!
You have no need of anything outside the tower. And why would the prince have
reason to visit you? I’m certain he’s far too busy doing the things that
princes do.”
Emmazel just
wiggled her eyebrows as she took a sip of her tea. “You’re quite likely
correct,” she acquiesced. “Though, Anna’s husband-to-be is the Duke of
Westbrook, Prince Christian’s own cousin. So you might never know.”
Father’s frown
grew.
“Perhaps, sir, you
ought not to worry so much about what Emma does with the girls,” Night
suggested. “A fool she might be; at least it keeps her in the tower.”
Father harumphed.
“The tower is for her own good, as she well knows. Emmazel is too delicate a
flower for the outside world, and I don’t know if my nerves could take it,
should she ever leave.”
Emmazel reached
over and patted her father’s hand to comfort him. “And with the stories you
tell, I shudder at such exposure. So put your mind quite at ease, Papa, and
know that I have no intention of leaving the home you built for me.
So long as he
lived, Emmazel could never leave her father. Not when he sat there before her,
so frail and old. She was all he had, and she couldn’t leave him adrift.
“You’re a good
daughter,” said Night. “A veritable model of perfection. Isn’t that right,
sir?”
Emmazel sat up
straighter, simpering under the praise, even if she had no idea how serious the
cat was. He did love to
tease her.
“She has flaws
enough – which she would do well to remember,” said Father. “Don’t go filling
her head with idle praise, cat.”
“Idle? Never!” Night
licked his paw as though offended. “But if I puff up her head enough, it might well
actually be able to match that braid of hers.”
Emmazel gave the
cat an offended huff. She was quite proud of her golden braid, which had never
been cut and was nearly twice as long as she was tall, despite her height. She
had an idea that the length would be unmanageable if she had to move about
outside, but in the tower, it was nothing to worry over. Brushing and braiding
it kept her occupied for a good hour each day, besides, and she prided herself
on always staying busy despite her confinement.
“She doesn’t need
your help with that,” said Father, shaking his head. “Now, I don’t want any of
that cake, sitting there under the towel, so I am off to bed. If you want my
advice, you would leave that thing alone yourself, my dear. It’s far too rich
for this late in the evening. But, of course, you won’t listen to me – ah, Night,
is this how children are these days? Always thinking they know best.”
Night paused, a
curious expression crossing his face as he sat up straight. “I wouldn’t know,
but it certainly seems true of your daughter, sir. I think it comes of her
confinement in this tower. It gives her ideas that she knows everything about
the world.”
Father stared at
Emmazel for a long moment, then turned away. “There’s nothing to be done about
that. Alas.” With that, he disappeared from the room, taking his unruly winds
with him.
Emmazel narrowed
her gaze on Night. “You infuriating cat! You know better than to upset him like
that!”
“And so do you, yet
you still persist in making your love potions.”
“It’s hardly my
fault that men are so obsessed with rescuing maidens trapped in towers.”
Emmazel shook her head. “Neither is it my fault that they are so easily swayed by a potion. Why, it’s really only a precaution to keep
them from fixating on me.”
“As you’ve said.”
“And I’m quite
aware that I don’t know everything – how can I when there’s a whole world out
there that I have never experienced for myself? But I do know what I know, and
you can’t take that away
from me, you disagreeable cat!”
“So you say.” Night
was done eating, so he jumped down from the table. “Now, you seem to be on your
own to clean up tonight. Such a pity. I’d offer to help, but I lack hands.”
Emmazel pursed her lips as she stared after Night. Shaking herself, she wrapped up the cake and put it away. It had been meant as a peace offering for her father, and since that had failed – well, it was better off as breakfast tomorrow.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And check out this lovely cover for book 4! It's scheduled for release in December, as part of the Broken Mirrors, which you can check out here - including a sneak peek at the first chapter for anyone who preorders all six mirrors or shares the covers on their social media. It and Rose Petals & Snowflakes are both on sale this week for only 99 cents, so grab 'em while you can!
If you click through links, you may also see that the preorder link is live for Thornrose Estate with a temporary cover. My current plan is to design its cover live when Crown & Cinder hits 100 ratings on Amazon, and it's halfway there, so if you've read it, do pop over and tell people how you enjoyed it, if you can. (I don't know yet on what platform I'll be designing the cover, but it will likely be my Discord server, which you really should join if you haven't yet.)
