Crooked Desires

CROWN PRINCESS, Elliot Havenash isn't the most serious person in the kingdom of Evengale. Though everyone seems to find the need to remind her as often as possible that someday she will be crowned Queen and have to make difficult decisions, she still doesn't see the need for all the history and spells and magic and and information and blah blah blah that she's forced to hammer into her brain everyday. But when her ascendence to the throne comes quicker than expected and a new wave of terror sweeps through Evengale and every kingdom on their world, will she finally realize that a little solemnity might be needed?

WOOD GROOLER, Cairo Keensplitter senses a darkness in the famous Grooling Woods where she was raised. Birthed by a nymph, she's always had a deep connection to the forest, so when fires start erupting from nothing and dark, thick substances begin to coat the trees she knows something is wrong. But when she tries to speak with the nymphs they don't respond, not even her mother's best friend who had taken Cairo in after her mother's death. Worried, Cairo does the one thing her mother told her never to do, she goes to the King. When she gets to the palace she's surprised to find the young Princess Elliot seated upon the throne instead.

Bias against Wood Groolers has been going on since the beginning of time, or so Elliot thought, so when a dirt covered one stomps angrily into the palace, somehow granting herself the permission to have an audience with her, the Queen, she doesn't know what to say. She automatically doesn't like her, but it's not because she's a Wood Grooler, it's simply based off the fact that she has the audacity to insult her in front of her court then proceed to demand she help the Grooling Woods. Elliot almost turns her away before she notices a splatter of a thick, black substance on her clothing.

Sanguis de inferno. The Blood of Hell.