(Books of Arriland #6)
by Alethea Kontis
YA Fantasy
Paperback & ebook, 210 Pages
March 28th 2016
March 28th 2016
Join Trix Woodcutter on an epic new animal-filled adventure!
Fey magic and animal magic: that troublemaking imp Trix Woodcutter has both, if not the ability to use them to their full potential. While traveling with his companion—the golden girl Lizinia—to see the King of Eagles, Trix is sent a vision of the Faerie Queen, who is in desperate need of his help. An evil sorceress has stormed Faerie and trapped all the fey magic under the Hill, leaving the Faerie Queen powerless! Trix’s talent for communicating with animals is desperately needed…but before he braves the wild world of Faerie he must arm himself, with nothing less than the bow and arrows of a god.
With the help of his gilded companion, her ghost-cat godfather, a blind brownie and a sister or two, the Boy Who Talks to Animals must befriend a mischievous leprechaun, best a wolf, and journey into the depths of Faerie to restore order and free the fey magic before the imbalance destroys the world.
Trix and the Faerie Queen is second in The Trix Adventures and sixth in the Books of Arilland.
Fans of the Woodcutter Sisters: Desperate to know what happened to Saturday and Peregrine after they found Trix at the end of HERO? Here’s your chance!
Chapter 1: The Emissary (Part 6)
“I did not intend for us to meet like this, but time is short. Forgive me.”
Asking forgiveness instead of getting permission was something Trix himself had done too many times to count. He managed to force his eyes open. His head ached as he strained to focus in the new light.
“Where am I?”
This was no place he had seen before. No longer up a tree in the dark, color-melting forest, he now found himself stretched out on a grassy knoll. Wildflowers and clover sprouted in clumps throughout the meadow and brought with them the scent of spring…not autumn, as it should have been. Fat clouds floated by in a sky that seemed to have no sun—the world here was lit with a strange, unearthly blue light.
Trix dug his fingernails into the ground. It all felt so real, even though he knew it couldn’t be. And then he realized what was happening. “No, no, no, no, no. ABSOLUTEY NO MORE VISIONS!”
The woman shrugged. “Too late.”
Trix’s previous experience with visions had revealed his birthmother to him. She’d visited him multiple times, compelling him to poison his family and run away from home, all while she’d lain ensorcelled by a sleeping spell. He hadn’t seen her since visiting her body at Rose Abbey.
“This is ridiculous,” Trix said angrily. “A person should at least have control over his own mind.”
“I agree,” the woman answered. “One day, you and I will have a chat with the gods about such things. But this is not that day. Something terrible has happened.”
Trix considered all that he’d been through since running away from the towerhouse, culminating with his being trapped by a vision in a tree surrounded by furious magic. “Something terrible is always happening.”
He half expected the powerful woman to scold him for the flippant remark, as Mama would have, but instead she gave him the finest of smiles. She possessed incredible beauty—his eldest sister being the most beautiful woman in the world made Trix a more than adequate judge of such things. It was difficult to look away. Her eyes were a shocking violet that seemed to change with the light, flashing with either blue or red. Her brows arched dramatically above them like the sweep of a butterfly’s wing, lending her countenance a sense of both the wicked and the wonderful. Both her brows and her hair were black as the night and scattered with stars that seemed to twinkle—as her eyes did—whenever she moved. She wore a dress of flowers and fog and spidersilk and shadow.
The moment Trix put all the pieces together, he was too shocked to reply. What in the world did the Faerie Queen want with him? If this even was the world…on this grassy mound, surrounded by a ring of mushrooms. Even the mushrooms bowed, bonnets to the queen.
“Once upon a time,” the Faerie Queen began, much in the same way Papa always did, “there were dragons in this world. But that was a very long time ago.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Trix.
“Along with them, high in the White Mountains, lived a race of people. They dedicated themselves to the beasts. In turn, the dragons allowed them the use of their magic.”
Other Books in the Series
Alethea Kontis is a princess, author, fairy godmother, and geek. Her bestselling Books of Arilland fairytale series won two Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Awards (Enchanted and Tales of Arilland), and was twice nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Alethea also penned the AlphaOops picture books, The Wonderland Alphabet, Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome, Beauty & Dynamite, The Dark-Hunter Companion (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon), and a myriad of poems, essays, and short stories. Princess Alethea lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. You can find her on her YouTube channel, all the social media, and at www.aletheakontis.com.
Tour Schedule
April 2nd: Launch
April 3rd: Rockin' Book Reviews & Wishful Endings
April 4th: Brooke Blogs & Zerina Blossom's Books
April 5th: deal sharing aunt & Goddess Librarian
April 6th: Becky on Books & Colorimetry
April 8th: Grand Finale
Tour Giveaway
3 copies of Trixter and Trix and the Faerie Queen (signed copies if US, ebooks if INT)
Ends April 15th
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3 copies of Trixter and Trix and the Faerie Queen (signed copies if US, ebooks if INT)
Ends April 15th
a Rafflecopter giveaway
