THE SOVEREIGN'S DRAFT

Chapter 2: No Plot Armor Allowed

Aelin sat in the glowing pink grass for a solid five minutes, waiting for the ambient soundtrack of her life to kick in.

In every portal fantasy novel she had ever read, devoured, or reviewed, this was the exact moment the universe provided a convenient explanation.

The heroine would stumble into a magical realm, immediately discover a glowing aura surrounding her palms, or meet a conveniently handsome wizard who would hand her a sword and explain her ancient, world-saving prophecy.

She stared down at her hands. They were pale, smudged with damp dirt, and possessed no glowing aura whatsoever.

Her right pinky finger had a slight ink stain near the knuckle from her gel pen.

"Okay," she muttered, her voice sounding unnervingly tiny beneath the violet sky.

"Step one: inspect your inventory."

She dumped the contents of her tote bag onto the pulsating turf.

One half-empty water bottle.

One bag of stale roasted almonds.

Two black ballpoint pens (one missing its cap).

A tube of cherry lip balm.

Her phone (still displaying a mocking No Service icon).

Her worn, leather-bound notebook.

"Brilliant," she whispered to a nearby glowing blue flower that seemed to lean toward her curiously.

"If I encounter a dark lord, I can either offer him an almond, aggressively moisturize his lips, or bore him to death with Chapter 1 of my rejected draft."

The flower rustled its petals, emitting a high-pitched, ringing chime that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Aelin pushed herself up, dusting off her jeans.

The air in Eloria smelled intoxicating—like crushed clover, ozone, and toasted vanilla—but the sheer scale of the landscape was terrifying.

Huge, jagged mountains carved from glittering white stone pierced the horizon, and high above them, actual chunks of land hovered in the sky, complete with cascading waterfalls that dissolved into misty rainbows before touching the ground.

It’s just a dream, she told herself, taking a shaky step forward.

You fell asleep on the bus. You’re having a very detailed, highly aesthetic hallucination brought on by exhaustion and bad menthol fumes.

To test her theory, she pinched the soft skin of her inner forearm.

"Ow! Mother of—"

The sharp sting was entirely real. So was the cool breeze whipping through her tangled brown hair, and the distinct feeling that she was being watched.

She froze.

A few yards away, at the edge of the crystal-leafed willow trees, stood a plant. At first glance, it resembled a massive, oversized orchid, its petals painted in vibrant shades of magenta and gold.

But as Aelin stared, the center of the bloom peeled open with a sickening, wet slurp.

Instead of a delicate stamen, the flower revealed four concentric rings of needle-sharp teeth, dripping with a thick, sweet-smelling purple sap.

Deep within its gullet, three long, whip-like tendrils writhed in the air, testing the wind.

Aelin blinked. "That... is not a rose."

The carnivorous plant suddenly snapped its stem upward, expanding to nearly eight feet tall.

The sweet smell of its sap washed over her—a scent so sugary it made her teeth ache—and the tendrils violently lashed out, striking the ground mere inches from her sneakers.

"Oh, crap!" Aelin shrieked, scrambling backward.

She waited for the surge. The instinct. The dormant, ancient magic that was supposed to flare to life in her veins to save her life.

She thrust her right hand forward, locking her fingers into a dramatic wizard spell-casting pose.

"Begone!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Fireball! Light beam! Anything!"

A tiny puff of static electricity jumped from her sweater sleeve. Nothing else happened.

The plant hissed, a wet, guttural sound, and lunged.

"No plot armor! There is no plot armor!" Aelin screamed, turning on her heel and sprinting wildly through the luminescent clearing.

She wasn't a warrior. She wasn't an athlete. Her primary form of physical exercise was pacing around her tiny apartment while muttering dialogue aloud to see if it sounded natural.

Running for her life through an alien forest in denim jeans was an absolute nightmare.

Behind her, the plant moved with terrifying speed, its thick, thorny roots dragging it across the ground like a grotesque, leafy centipede. The tendrils snapped through the air, shearing through thick wooden branches as if they were made of paper.

Aelin dodged left, diving beneath a low-hanging golden branch. A tendril lashed out, snagging the strap of her canvas tote bag.

She was jerked violently backward, her feet flying out from under her as she hit the damp earth.

"Get off!" she yelled, kicking wildly at the vine wrapped around her bag.

The plant pulled her closer, its gaping maw of needle-teeth opening wide. The smell of its digestive sap was suffocating, thick and rancid beneath the artificial sweetness.

Desperate, Aelin grabbed the only weapon within reach: her thick, heavy, leather-bound notebook.

With a guttural shriek that surprised even herself, she slammed the spine of the notebook directly into the center of the plant's open, fleshy eye-spot above its teeth.

The plant shrieked—an ear-splitting, glass-shattering wail—and instinctively retracted its tendrils. Aelin scrambled up, leaving her tote bag behind, and sprinted blindly down a sloping dirt path winding deeper into the woods.

Her lungs burned. Her legs felt like lead. Branches whipped against her face, leaving stinging scratches, but she didn't dare slow down.

Behind her, the heavy, thrashing sounds of the monster tearing through the brush continued, relentless and hungry.

This isn't how it goes in the books! her brain screamed in panic.

Where is the cool magic power? Where is the ancient sword in the stone? Where is the knight in glowing armor?!

She rounded a sharp curve in the path, her foot slipping on a slick patch of moss.

She went airborne, tumbling down a steep grassy embankment, rolling over and over in a chaotic blur of green, purple, and sky before crashing heavily into a pile of freshly chopped wood.

Log after log cascaded around her, burying her in a shower of bark and woodchips.

Aelin lay there, flat on her back, staring up at the purple sky, wheezing for air. Every inch of her body ached. Her jeans were torn at the left knee, her hands were covered in dirt, and her pride was completely obliterated.

Through the ringing in her ears, she heard the heavy, crashing footsteps of the flower monster approaching the top of the embankment. It let out a wet, angry hiss, its tendrils whipping through the air above.

Aelin closed her eyes, clutching her battered notebook to her chest like a holy relic.

"I'm going to be eaten by a dandelion," she sobbed softly.

"My agent is never going to get Chapter 3."

Then, a voice broke through the noise.

It was deep, low, and entirely unimpressed.

"You're crushing my cedar logs."