The Fae Queen – Part 1: The Hollow Court

At the edge of the wood, where the path dwindled into bracken and the old oaks leaned together, Seraphine stopped and held out a sheet of birch bark.

"The terms," she said. "Before you cross."

Rowan read it by torchlight. She had burned the words into the bark with a poker in her father's old workshop, and every line was careful. His limits and hers: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, nothing beyond the woods, no one else. The word was Daybreak.

"Say it."

"Daybreak."

"If you say it, the Queen vanishes. I am Seraphine. We walk back to the cottage and put the kettle on."

"I understand."

She was thirty-seven, a theatre costume designer, intense and imaginative. He was thirty-five, a forester, practical and quiet, with a sentimental heart he usually kept to himself. Both had loved the old stories since childhood.

Beyond the tree line, a hollow glowed with fairy lights she had strung through the branches. A throne of woven willow stood on a ring of moss, with a canopy of ivy. She walked ahead of him and he did not see her put on the green velvet gown and the crown of silver leaves. When she turned, her voice was something else, low, musical, utterly unhurried.

"Mortal. You have wandered into my court without leave."

"I am sorry, Majesty."

"You are not yet sorry." She settled on the willow throne. "Kneel."

He knelt on the moss. She regarded him for a long time, her eyes bright, her fingers tapping the arm of the throne.

"By the law of the Hollow, a trespasser belongs to the Queen until the dawn. You will serve her. You will speak when asked. You will be corrected."

"I accept, Majesty."

"Do you wish to continue?" she asked, as the owls began to call.

"I do."

"Then we begin."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Until Daybreak.