Anne Stryker

Gold & Glacier Anne Stryker

Three Souls. Two Stories. One Price. A land of ice and fae rests beyond a kingdom shrouded by glass and iron. Aurea would do anything to live peacefully and safely in Dale with her best friend Daryl, but the horrors haunting her nights foretell a future where no one is safe. When stranger powers awaken within her, the price for her life is a simple lie about turning straw into gold. A simple lie that only the faerie king can make true. Rumpelstiltskin has waited many years to hear Aurea promise that which she couldn't keep. In exchange for her salvation, he requires her firstborn, a child woven with ancient magic who is capable of paying the price needed to save his people, the fae, from destruction. What he doesn't expect is for the girl he manipulated to beat him at his own game. Aurea's happy ending is the start of Rumpel's damnation, and if he can't orchestrate from the shadows a way to retrieve his stolen princess, all he's worked centuries for will be lost. A Rumpelstiltskin Retelling with a twist. View the true story from the eyes of both the hero and the villain. First published within the Dual-anthology Kingdom of Darkness and Light (Kingdom of Crowns and Glory and Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance).