Chapter 1: The Last Harvest
The fifth proposal came at dawn, with the smell of rain and desperation.
Layla Blackthorn heard the creak of the gate before she saw him. Thom the miller's son, his good shirt damp with dew, hat in hands already curling into fists. She didn't stop shovelling grain for the chickens. She knew the script.
"Mornin', Layla."
"Thom." She kept her voice flat, a stone dropped in a pond.
"It's a hard thing," he began, the words tumbling out like rehearsed lines in a bad play. "A woman alone. This big farm. People talk. Worse, they get ideas."
She finally looked at him. His eyes weren't on her face, but on the farmhouse, the barn, the rolling barley fields turning gold under the rising sun. He was doing an inventory.
"I have an idea," he said, puffing his chest. "Marry me. I'll manage this. Protect you. It's the sensible thing."
Sensible. The word was a coffin nail. It meant he saw her land, her loneliness, and a problem he could solve with his name. He didn't see her. He saw a missing piece in his own puzzle.
The ghost of her father's laugh seemed to echo in the yard. A man who loves land more than the person tending it is no man at all, Lia.
"That's a generous offer, Thom," she said, her voice dangerously pleasant. She leaned on her shovel. "But you've made a mistake."
His hopeful smile faltered. "Mistake?"
"You're not talking to a helpless girl." She pointed the shovel handle, not at him, but at the horizon. "You see a 'big farm.' I see thirty acres of barley I planted after my father's last breath. I see a roof I mended myself. I see a legacy, not a liability. I am not a problem waiting for your solution. I am the steward of Blackthorn Farm. And I am not for sale."
His face flushed, the calculation in his eyes twisting into offense. Before he could sputter a reply, the sound they all dreaded cut through the morning air: the sharp, precise roll of carriage wheels on gravel.
Not a farmer's cart. A city carriage.
A sleek, black monstrosity etched with a silver raven crest slithered to a stop at her gate, utterly alien against the dust and chickens. A liveried footman stepped down, his nose wrinkled as if smelling something rotten. He held a single scroll like it was a poisoned dagger.
Thom's confidence vanished, replaced by the superstitious fear country folk held for city power. He tipped his hat and fled without another word.
Layla didn't watch him go. Her heart was a frantic bird in her chest, but her hands, calloused and strong, did not shake. She walked to the gate, the gravel crunching under her boots like tiny bones.
"Lady Layla Blackthorn?" the footman intoned, not asking, but accusing.
She said nothing, merely held out her hand. He placed the scroll in it. The parchment was thick, expensive. The wax seal was a raven in flight, its wings sharp as blades. Blackthorn.
The last time she'd seen that seal was on the legal notice after her father's death, the one that said the "estate was under review." It had been ignored. Until now.
She broke the seal. The crack was louder than a gunshot in the quiet yard.
The words inside were not an invitation. They were a warrant.
By the order of General Henry Blackthorn, you are summoned to the capital. As the sole remaining issue of my late brother's line, your presence is required to provide a full accounting of the farm's affairs and to discuss its future management under the auspices of the Blackthorn family. You are expected at the Blackthorn manor by week's end. Do not tarry.
No greeting. No condolence. Just cold, imperial command. Required. Expected. Auspices. They were words of ownership. They were coming for her father's land, and by extension, for her.
From the porch, her maids and best friends, Lucia and Livia, stood watching, their faces pale. Her father's old driver and guardian, Silas, emerged from the barn, his eyes narrowing at the city carriage, a low growl in his throat.
Layla looked from the scroll to the farm the home she'd fought to keep alive, the land that held her parents' bones. They weren't offering a hand. They were throwing a net.
But a trapped animal has two choices: lie down and die, or find the teeth in the trap and use them.
A slow, cold smile touched her lips. It didn't reach her eyes, which had gone the colour of storm-charged jade.
"Lucia, Livia," she called, her voice clear and carrying. "Start packing. We're going to the capital."
Silas stomped forward. "Lass, you can't mean to obey that "
"I'm not obeying," she interrupted, folding the letter with deliberate, sharp creases. "He wants an 'accounting'? He'll get one. He wants to 'discuss management'? We will. We are not going as beggars. We are going as the Blackthorn Farm delegation."
She met Silas's worried gaze, the steel in her own unmistakable. "And we will visit my father's shop, the Blackthorn Hearth. I hear the city is lovely this time of year. I'll need a new dress."
She turned her back on the sneering footman and the ominous carriage, walking toward her home not with the slump of defeat, but with the poised stride of a general surveying a new, treacherous battlefield.
They thought they were summoning a lonely orphan girl.
They were about to meet the last Blackthorn. And she would make them regret ever remembering her name.