I

  After a long day spent with dragons, there was nothing more enjoyable than playing cards in the Dusk Den tavern among gambler imps and trolls—unless, of course, you spotted a fool whose purse jingled with gold. The half-blood troll sitting across from me was the perfect target.

  His dark eyes are buried deep in his wrinkled green face, his mind clearly elsewhere. The gold pouch, seemingly filled to the brim, lies within easy reach in the loose claws of his enormous hand. A fool like this is as rare a gem as they come in Varrendale, the den of outlaws and outcasts.

  Without taking my eyes off the glittering gold, I muttered a curse. If my body weren’t covered in bruises, my left eye weren’t swollen shut, and my jaw weren’t broken, I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity in a million years. As if all that weren’t enough, I was also covered in the foul-smelling mud of the Northern Swamp.

  You look awful, Asterin Eloyne.

  With the thought Finnor the bartender sent into my mind, I took my eyes off the pouch. I tore my gaze from the pouch, turned on my stool away from the bar, and looked at Fae’s serene face — a face that seemed all too accustomed to seeing me like this. “Why are you using telepathy?”

  “I thought talking with your jaw like that would be painful,” Finnor winced, his hand rising to cradle his own chin, as though the ghost of my pain had found its way into him. “That dragon did it, didn’t she?”

  I sighed, knowing there was no escaping this interrogation. Each time I came down the hillside to Dusk Den, distraught and bearing new wounds, I was met with the same pitying judgment from Finnor and my cousin Nerissa. “She has a name.” Finnor was right; my jaw was hurting terribly. “Ilmestys.”

  “Ilmestys, who will one day kill you.”

  When Nerissa joined the conversation, the tavern’s clamor seemed to hush for a heartbeat, and admiring glances turned in our direction. The nymph blood she had inherited from her mother never failed to draw attention. The last thing I wanted was for the patrons to think I was failing in Ilmestys’s training.

  “That will not happen,” I said, my voice lifting slightly as the tavern’s clamor swelled once more. I was trying not to think about Ilmestys sweeping me away with her enormous tail all the way to the Northern Swamp. Instead, I thought about her indigo-blue skin, her iridescent scales, and her immense wings. “But she’s a fascinating creature isn’t she? Believe me, I’ll be flying on her back soon.”

  If she ever stopped fighting the saddle.

  “We have no doubt about that.” Finnor handed me a glass of wine. “Still, if I were a pure-blooded elf like you, I’d do much more than just spend time with dragons.”

  “I agree.” Nerissa ran her delicate, veiled fingers over the purple scale on her cheekbone. In her other hand, she held a mirror shaped like an oyster shell. “If my father hadn’t been ensnared by a nymph, I wouldn’t have stayed in Varrendale for a single moment.”

  Nerissa’s words slipped from her lips with effortless ease, like some passing remark from an ordinary day — yet they settled inside me like a rock. I glanced over my shoulder at the hybrids scattered throughout the tavern. In the dim torchlight, the shadows that fell across their faces seemed to deceive the eye, turning even the gentlest expressions into something touched by sorrow. I wondered how many others felt as Nerissa did — how many of them dreamed of escape.

  I drained the wine in a single gulp, as though to force down the tightness in my throat. “So you believe our grandmother deserves no respect?”

  “Our grandmother is senile now, Asterin.” Nerissa rolled her sapphire-blue eyes.

  “Still, she is the founder of Varrendale.” Finnor recoiled as if afraid of my grandmother’s wrath. “Remember, Nerissa — had Lady Kathel not sparked that rebellion, we might never have had the chance to live at all.”

  As I watched the infinity wine in my cup quietly replenish itself, I gave a faint nod. Finnor’s words softened the weight of Nerissa’s suffocating reproach. If the half-bloods could freely play cards, sip their drinks, and build friendships and families here, it was because they were in Varrendale. I lifted my bowed head, and the crowd once more seemed at ease.

  “Do not be ungrateful, Nerissa,” I muttered.

  “Of course it’s pleasant for you.” Nerissa shifted in her seat; her salty, dizzying scent reached my nose. “Grandmother favors you because you’re the pure-blooded grandchild.”

  “By favoring, do you mean assigning her missions that put Asterin’s life at risk?” Finnor leaned against the bar, a sweet but mocking smile on his face. “You don’t expect us to believe you envy such treatment, do you, Nerissa?”

  “I can do a good job too. I’m curious about the Elven Kingdom as well—the other kingdoms too.” Nerissa crossed her arms over her chest. This wasn’t the first time she’d brought it up, but I couldn’t seem to get through to her that my visits to the Elven Kingdom weren’t for tourism. “I can’t spend my life trapped here.”

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  “We are all trapped here. Gloomwood is our cage, Nerissa. If you long so dearly to leave, why not try to cross it?” A flicker of horror crossed Finnor’s face. “Let me guess — because you know damn well that if you tried, you would die.”

  At the mention of Gloomwood, a familiar weight settled in my chest. I had crossed its shadowed edge multiple times, and the forest had never turned me away as it did the others—but that did not make it welcoming. The magic woven into it did not strike at flesh, but at blood, bending itself against the mixed lineage of half-bloods until their will faltered and their steps turned back or their minds broke beneath its pressure. It was not a wall to me; I could pass through it if I chose. But for those bound by divided heritage, it remained an unyielding cage, and every crossing felt less like escape and more like a quiet severing—another reminder that the path out was never meant for all of us.

  “That is enough — do not even think of it. You would never survive spells crafted specifically to destroy you,” I said, silencing Nerissa before she could voice her protest.

  Nerissa lowered her head, knowing I was right. Experience had a way of silencing every baseless assumption and careless underestimation, time and time again.

  Nerissa’s foolish words were not the only reason my voice had turned so harsh. My wounds had yet to heal — stranger still, they throbbed more fiercely than before. A groan escaped my lips. The pain, ever-present beneath the surface, dulled my senses and frayed my patience to the breaking point. It was unnatural; by now, I should have healed.

  “Damn it… what is this? Why can’t I heal? If I did not know better, I would swear there was a full moon tonight.”

  Nerissa and Finnor exchanged a glance. “There is a full moon tonight, Asterin,” Nerissa said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. I felt like an idiot. Now it made sense — we were in that accursed span of time when spells and enchantments were rendered powerless. That was why my wounds weren’t healing, why the wine in my cup was dulling my senses, and why that foolish troll couldn’t protect his gold pouch with magic. It was a strange feeling—almost like we were… human. “Damn it, I was going to hunt later tonight.”

  “What were you going to hunt?” Finnor began polishing the glasses with a cloth.

  “Mountain goats. Ilmestys loves them.” The moment Ilmestys’s name left my lips, my pointed ears pricked up and awareness descended upon me like a block of ice. “Damn it, I didn’t put her in her cave.”

  Ordinarily, this would not have been a concern — but the full moon reduced Ilmestys’s enchanted chains to little more than threads of cotton. She was meant to pass this night within her cave, where the moonlight could not reach, and I had come perilously close to leaving her beneath its glow, bound by chains so fragile she could have shattered them with ease.

  The seconds had never felt more precious, and if I could reach the hillside in time, I might still contain Ilmestys. I could not lose her— not so easily. The frantic rhythm of my heart thundered in my ears, urging me to act before it was too late.

  I leapt from my seat so quickly that the infinity wine in my cup spilled onto Nerissa’s satin dress. As I threw myself out of the Dusk Den into the cold night, I heard Nerissa curse behind me.

  ***

  As storms rag inside me I dashed through the side streets. The fear of losing was strange to me, a feeling I could never get used to, and right now I felt it deep in my bones. Cold, unfair and sickening. I ran without pause, yet I could not cover even half the distance I normally would. I climbed the hills and moved through the trees, but each time the full moon’s light touched me, it sapped my strength. By the time I reached the slope, it had taken me an alarmingly long time.

  As I came to a halt, a deafening screech filled my ears, followed by the sharp rush of wings cutting through the air. I stopped so abruptly that the dry earth beneath my boots scattered. I quickly turned my gaze to the sky, where a silhouette blotted out the moonlight as it sped overhead. Ilmestys soared above me in all her glory, dragging the chains that once bound her behind her.

  She had not left yet. A tingling rose at my scalp and spread through my body. I still had a chance — I was not too late.

  “Ilmestys!” I shouted with all my might.

  At the sound of my voice, she veered and hovered near the edge of the slope. The wind created by her wings was so powerful that I had to dig my boots into the ground to keep from being blown away. “Good girl,” I said, shielding my face from the dust with one arm while my eyes searched for my whip. “Now land!”

  My commands seemed to vanish into the wind before they could ever reach Ilmestys. They left my lips with certainty — sharp, deliberate, forged in discipline — yet here they scattered like ash in a gale.

  Ilmestys’s enormous claws twitched. She arched her neck, spread her wings, and let out a scream powerful enough to shake the ground. In that moment, I realized she hadn’t stopped to obey me. She was preparing to attack. Her wings snapped open to their full, terrible span, membranes glowing faintly with the gathering light beneath her scales. The air thickened — not with heat, but with pressure, as though the world itself held its breath in anticipation.

  “Illmestys!” I shouted, though I knew she would not hear me — or worse, that she would, and no longer care. I cursed and pressed my hands over my ears, bracing myself against the wind.

  Ilmestys shook her head as if trying to break free of the chains weighing her down. One massive chain, gaining momentum, lashed out and struck my elbow just as I raised it at the last second. I hissed in pain, stunned by the blow.

  Ilmestys let out another scream and continued to thrash, and that was when I saw the silvery glint of my three-headed snake whip, fastened to the saddle. “No!” I shouted, lunging forward. That whip had been specially forged for dragon training, and it had cost me dearly in my deal with that cunning blacksmith. It was sacred to me, and replacing it would be nearly impossible.

  Blood rushed to my head. The world lurched sideways. Wind roared past me as I stumbled forward, fingers outstretched — too far, always too far — the gleam of silver dancing just beyond my grasp as Ilmestys’s massive form reared against the sky.

  My whole body coiled to spring and reclaim what was mine—but Ilmestys moved first. Her claw flashed into my vision, and then agony exploded from my temple.

  The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was Ilmestys’s retreating silhouette.