Poisoned Prince: Spellwood Academy, #6

By Kate Avery Ellison

The unthinkable has occurred.

Spellwood has fallen.

Queen Druisi, ruler of the Summer Court, has taken the school by force and imprisoned the half-fae students inside. Her soldiers patrol the grounds. Every student is tagged and accounted for, except Kyra and a few others. Kyra hides in the forgotten tunnels of the school, where haunted things wander and old curses threaten to silence her forever, kept company only by Tryst.

Now, Druisi's minions are searching for her, and they have cruel and insidious methods of finding what they seek. Amid the turmoil, Lucien has returned, and Kyra's feelings and loyalties are put to the ultimate test.

Can Kyra survive? Can she find a way to free Spellwood--and her friends?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Avery Ellison
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798231534586

Book preview

Other books by Kate Avery Ellison include:

THE SWORN SAGA

Red Rider

Silver Wolf

Black Veil

White Mask

Crimson Heart

Scarlet Daughter

THE KINGMAKERS’ WAR SERIES

A Gift of Poison

A Bed of Blades

A Kiss of Treason

A Circle of Flames

A Shield of Sorrow

A Court of Lies

A Reign of Thieves

A Knife of Oblivion

A Crown of Ash

A Spark of Light

All Her Secrets

THE FROST CHRONICLES

Frost

Thorns

Weavers

Bluewing

Aeralis

Steam and Glass

The Curse Girl

THE SECRETS OF ITLANTIS SERIES

Of Sea and Stone

By Sun and Saltwater

With Tide and Tempest

For Wreck and Remnant

In Dawn and Darkness

Once Upon A Beanstalk

POISONED PRINCE

SPELLWOOD ACADEMY BOOK SIX

KATE AVERY ELLISON

Copyright © 2023 Kate Avery Ellison

All Rights Reserved

Do not distribute or copy this book, in print or electronic format, in part or in whole, without the written consent of the author.

This book is dedicated to all my lovely readers.

Thank you for your patience as I focused on my family’s medical needs for the last year.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to my usual release schedule soon.

BEFORE SPELLWOOD

TRYST, AGE SEVEN

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THE GATES OF the Sun Court were so bright that young Tryst was nearly blinded by the dazzle of them. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them slowly, holding a hand to his brow as his vision adjusted to the brilliance of the sun-soaked world before him.

Come along, Tryst, his father called with a note of impatience in his voice. You’ll have plenty of time for looking when we reach the palace.

Tryst barely heard his father as he stared around him in astonished wonder, his mouth agape.

He was seven years old, and he’d never left the Autumnal Court before. His father often had business at the other courts, and sometimes took one of Tryst’s older siblings along with him, but never Tryst.

Tryst, his father said again, sharply.

Tryst heard the command implicit in his father’s voice this time, and scrambled to obey.

His home, the Autumnal Court, was a forested place of shade and secrets, with dream-like paths lined with scattered leaves and whispering, white-barked birch trees. The house where Tryst lived was stately and built of white stone, with spiraling staircases that led to the many levels. The people he knew all wore soft robes in colors of plum and rust, and the fae folk spoke in riddles and smiles.

At the Sun Court, everything was vast, golden, and bright.

The sky overhead was a swallowing blue bowl that made Tryst feel as small as a sprite. The path was broad, gleaming bronze beneath his feet, and lined with reddish-gold rock and towering oak trees on either side. The rocks were as tall as walls of a castle, and chiseled into sharp, straight edges engraved with thousands of images of battles and beasts. The trees were even taller, their trunks so thick that Tryst imagined he could live inside one, if it were hollow. Their leaves shimmered far overhead in golds and greens.

Somehow, despite the giant trees, sunlight was everywhere, pouring down in slants of gold, flashing on the stones, the path, and the carvings.

Ahead, the stones arched together like a doorway, and a brilliant slant of sunlight painted them golden-red. Ancient, twisting oak trees grew up around the stones, their roots curling around the arch and across the path like the grasping tentacles of two dueling kraken.

Tryst squinted against the brightness. He stumbled on a root as he tried to look again at the carvings all around him.

His father reached back and caught his hand, pulling him along beside him.

Tryst quickened his steps to a trot to keep up with his father’s strides.

As they walked, his father said in a low voice, Keep your mouth closed, son. Look where you are headed with intention. If you are distracted by your awe, someone might swoop in and snatch you up.

Frightened by this, Tryst tried to do as his father instructed. Snatch him up? He sneaked a peek at the tops of the rocks and saw creatures perched at the top, creatures with faces like his but bodies that were impossibly tall and thin, with gold-tipped wings and claws on their hands and feet. Fire rippled across their bodies like a heat shimmer—a blink and the fire had evaporated.

Tryst squeezed his father’s hand tight as he averted his gaze back to the stone archway in front of them. Sweat broke out across his small back, and his heart thumped painfully in his chest.

The Sun Court lay ahead.

He’d heard tales of this place. His older brothers said that the king of the Sun Court was fierce and strong, and owned two hundred battle horses with golden saddles and jagged teeth, warrior’s horses who craved half-mortal flesh. His mother had said that one of the princes of the Sun Court was around his age, and might want to be friends with him.

Tryst wasn’t sure which piece of information was more interesting—or more terrifying.

They passed beneath the massive stone arch and into the realm of the Sun Court, and once again, Tryst’s steps faltered. Inside the gates was a maze of jutting stone towers and narrow canyons, with twisting bridges of gold stretching overhead and underneath the path before them. Windows opened out of the stone towers on either side, and music drifted on the dry wind along with the scent of baking bread and stewed meat.

Everything was bright and bold. Dazzling. So different from the shadowed, whispery passages of the Autumnal Court. Tryst felt as though his skin was burning from all the brilliance.

A little girl dressed in gossamer-white robes paused her game of brass marbles to stare at Tryst as he passed. Her hair was pale and woven with beads, her eyes were a deep amber, and her brown skin was flecked with freckles of gold that glittered as she moved. Her ears were feathered, and as she watched him, he saw her pupils narrow to slits like a snake’s.

Tryst tipped his head back and saw a massive winged horse soar overhead. Was it a battle horse, with sharp teeth and a craving to eat him? He squeezed his father’s palm harder in terror as his heart thudded wildly against his ribs.

The winged horse’s rider called out something, but the words were lost on the wind. Horse and rider vanished behind a column of rock, and Tryst breathed easier again.

Tryst and his father continued on to the palace, a golden wonder even brighter gold than the gates. Intricate filigree spiraled from the rooftops and columns, the metalwork as fine and complicated as lace. The sunlight flashed off a thousand surfaces, giving the palace the appearance of a sun that had fallen to earth and taken the shape of a dwelling.

The effect was blinding, and he squinted as a headache formed behind his eyes.

Inside, the air was hot and smelled like earth and sunshine. Light slanted through stained-glass windows set high in the walls, casting swaths of blinging color in Tryst’s path, while sweat dripped down his back.

No expressions, his father reminded him, and Tryst tucked away his feelings and raised his chin to seem confident, as he’d been taught.

He squeezed his father’s hand as they approached the throne of the sun king. Bodies packed the court, filling the room with sticky heat. Fae with skin the color of amber, ebony, and bleached bone, their hair worn up in elaborate styles ornamented with gold. Men and women and individuals who were neither men nor women, all of them radiating disdain. Eyes fixed upon the two Autumnal fae who’d entered the court, and Tryst felt the prickle of all those curious glances touch him like hands and then slide away, disinterested. He and his father were dressed simply, and they were obviously not visitors of any importance.

Tryst breathed easier when no one was looking at them anymore.

Wait—almost no one.

He could still feel the weight of someone watching. He twisted his neck to find the source, and his gaze caught a boy, crouched in the alcove of a balcony high above, his fingers curled around the railing and his face pressed between the slats as he watched them hungrily. The boy was like a puddle of living shadow amid all this heat and brightness—his hair was dark and tousled, and he wore a robe the color of ink that covered his skin from neck to feet. The points of downy antlers poked out from his curls, and his mouth was pinched in a frown.

Tryst stared. Something about the boy was like a balm in the midst of all the heat and sun. Like a cube of ice on his tongue.

The boy realized Tryst had spotted him, and he pulled back from the edge of the balcony and disappeared. Tryst was still staring at the place where the shadow boy been when his father tugged him forward. Tryst, he said. Mind what we are doing.

Tryst obediently refocused his attention on his father’s aim—the throne, and the golden king upon it.

But looking at the king hurt his eyes. He longed once more for the cool halls and shaded glens of the Autumnal Court. Everything about this place was too jarring, too glaring, too... golden.

His father was speaking, but the words flowed over Tryst’s head. He stole another glance at the balcony, but the boy was still gone.

CHAPTER ONE

HANNAH

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I HAD MANY secrets that I never shared with anyone, even my closest friends. Ghostbellow had taught me that secrets were the richest currency, and I’d always been more of a saver than a spender. Some secrets were big and important, the sort of thing that would make people gasp, others were insignificantly small. Still, I liked to keep them.

I liked to have things that were mine, and no one else’s.

One such small secret was that loud noises petrified me.

When I was five years old, one of my older mortal cousins pranked me by setting off a string of fireworks under my chair while I sat outside in the summer dusk, eating corn on the cob and blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

The explosion was so loud that the sound echoed around the block, and brought my mother and all my aunts running.

The stupid prank could have seriously injured me, but luckily, the only casualty was my cob, which I flung into the grass when I screamed and took off running.

That, and I developed a phobia of loud, sudden noises.

I’d always hidden the phobia well, because it was not exactly the sort of person I imagined myself, Hannah Harris, to be. I was in Flameforge, after all. I was a secret, trusted member of Ghostbellow. I was supposed to be a warrior with the strength of a flame and the will of steel and a spy with the cool resolve of ghosts.

I was supposed to be tough. Fearless. Indomitable.

But when the battle that would become known as Wintertide’s War began with Druisi’s army storming Spellwood Academy amid a bombardment of exploding spells and magical detonations, I ended up beneath a bush, my eyes squeezed shut and my arms wrapped around my unconscious friend, Lyrica, as I struggled to breathe through the panic that had me by the throat.

I had to get Lyrica to the healers. She was gravely injured, and she needed immediate help. We’d had a plan to escape, a plan that involved magic pollen and a mad dash across the no man’s land between the enemy camp and Spellwood, but when Lyrica was hurt, Kyra decided that it was too risky to take her through the forest for days on end.

I’d agreed, and I’d volunteered to take Lyrica to the healers.

Even in the invasion, they would be working furiously to mend wounds and save lives.

But my legs wouldn’t move.

Kyra had been refusing to leave when I’d departed with a light-as-air Lyrica in my arms. If Tryst managed to convince her to change her mind—and I hoped that he would—they were probably halfway to safety by now. I’d made my choice to stay, and they’d make theirs. I wasn’t at risk like Kyra was. I was a nobody. A middling student. Druisi would have no special interest in me, and I knew how to make myself disappear on Spellwood grounds. I would be fine until help came.

A fiery burst of red sizzled past the bush where I hid and exploded across the grass.

I pressed my face against Lyrica’s unmoving shoulder and drew in a ragged breath. Her heart fluttered beneath my ear, fragile and erratic.

She needed medical care.

Get up, I muttered to myself, willing strength into my body. Lyrica was depending on me. Get. Up. Move.

My legs still refused to listen. I was limp as a rag.

Sudden footsteps thudded all around me, and Druisi’s fae soldiers marched past, weapons raised. Their armor gleamed in the light of the fires raging across the treetops.

I pressed deeper into the bush as I waited for the soldiers to pass.

Lyrica was as light as a bundle of bird’s bones in my arms. Her face was as pale as the ash drifting from the sky.

I whispered her name against her hair as I pressed my cheek to her mouth to feel if she was breathing, and the faintest ghost of a breath brushed across my skin.

She was still with me, but barely. She needed the healers, and she needed them now.

Lyrica’s pocket twitched as Flock, small and lizard-like, poked his head out and looked at me quizzically.

Tears flooded my eyes.

She’s going to be okay, Flockie, I told him in a hoarse voice.

Flock made a clicking sound and crawled from Lyrica’s pocket onto my lap. My hands were full holding Lyrica, so I couldn’t pick him up. He flicked his tongue at me once and darted up my arm to nestle against my hair on the right side of my neck.

The last of the soldiers disappeared into the clouds of smoke obscuring the campus, and I summoned all my courage and staggered to my feet with Lyrica against my shoulder.

Get back in a pocket, Flock, I whispered to the little not-dog. You can’t be out in the open—you’ll get hurt or lost.

Flock made a soft purring sound against my skin and snuggled closer.

Flock, I said, nudging him.

Another explosion grumbled in the distance, and the little not-dog leaped from my shoulder to the grass.

Flock!

Another explosion rocked the ground, and the not-dog scrambled into the grass with a terrified squeak.

Flock, I cried as the tiny creature disappeared into the foliage. Flock, come back!

There was no time to look, but I took the time anyway. I crouched low, scanning the dew-soaked greenery. The seconds turned into minutes, and I didn’t see him anywhere. Smoke was all around me. Embers caught fire to the grass.

Flock, I gasped out, helpless.

He was gone, and there was no more time to search. I had to go.

My panic and grief compressed into a ball as dense and hard as diamond as I tucked Lyrica against me and ran in the direction of the healers.

Smoke scorched my lungs, and my eyes streamed water. The residue of magic, sharp and cloying, tinged the air and brushed across my skin like the ghosts of spiderwebs.

My foot caught a root, and I stumbled to my knees. I hissed out an exclamation of pain, and a figure appeared in the smoke and stalked toward me.

A soldier.

He pointed his weapon at the hollow of my throat. The cruelly gleaming tip was only centimeters from my neck. If his hand wavered, he would slice me open.

I barely dared to breathe as the soldier assessed me with a grunt.

Mortal scum, he growled, his voice as low and rough as two rocks grinding together. Get up.

I remained on my knees. Please, I said, babbling to buy myself time to think. My friend is gravely wounded and needs a healer. Please. Let me go so I can get her the help she needs. We’re no threat to you—we’re just students. Please.

As I spoke, I assessed the situation. It was only me and this soldier, but he was armed and my hands were full of Lyrica’s unconscious body. He could easily lop my head from my shoulders before I could spring to my feet to try to fight him. I’d had training in hand-to-hand combat in Flameforge, and from my father, but I wasn’t in a position to try to fight.

The soldier glowered at me.

All students are to gather on the main lawn, he said. Those are my orders. Do as I say, girl, or I will cleave your head from your shoulders.

My legs trembled so badly that I wasn’t certain I could stand.

The sword’s point grazed my skin, and a hot, stinging dampness slid down my neck.

I summoned all my strength and stood. Lyrica shifted against me.

Put her down, the soldier ordered.

What? Why?

Don’t question me. Do it. The sword pressed against my skin again, and pain flared from another cut at my throat.

Was he asking me to put her down so he could kill her? Or merely so he could force me to leave her behind to die?

Lyrica’s faint breath fanned against the other side of my neck. Regardless of his reason, I knew my answer.

No, I said, clutching her against me as numbness spread through my limbs.

I knew this numbness. It was called acceptance.

I would not abandon my friend to die.

The soldier shifted his weight as he drew back the sword.

I pressed my heels into the ground. My heartbeat drummed painfully as the flow of time around me slowed to a crawl. Smoke swirled around the soldier’s feet. Flecks of ash drifted past. Dimly, I heard another explosion, but I barely flinched at the sound.

I closed my eyes as the sword came toward me, and then, several things happened at once, which I perceived as if through a haze.

Metal rang against metal. A firm hand closed around my elbow as I was yanked backward so hard that I almost dropped Lyrica. And a low, furious voice demanded, What the hell is going on here?

CHAPTER TWO

HANNAH

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WHAT THE HELL is going on here?

The voice was male, and familiar to me, but not enough that I immediately placed it. Who...? I opened my eyes, and my stomach bottomed out in shock at who I saw.

The traitor student, Lucien, stood between the soldier and me, holding a drawn sword.

Lucien!

The soldier stepped back and lowered his head in a gesture of deference. I have orders to bring all students to the main lawn.

Is that what you were doing? Lucien’s words were like burning velvet. Soft and stinging. Bringing her to the main lawn?

She was resisting, the soldier said, looking at me over Lucien’s shoulder.

I believe, Lucien snapped, the students are wanted with their heads still attached to their bodies. Lower your sword, soldier.

The soldier obeyed. His eyes blazed, but he said nothing.

You are dismissed, Lucien