Chapter 1
MAV
The first punch landed somewhere between my shoulder and my pride. Hard to say which hurt more. The next cut squarely across my jaw. I staggered back, boots sliding on spilled ale, and grunted out a laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it didn’t hurt enough.
Most men ran from pain. I chased it like it owed me something.
Some men drank to forget. Others prayed.
Not knowing how to do either well enough, I fought.
The war ended, the banners burned, and no one told me what to do with the pieces left over.
I let my fists speak the only other language I still spoke fluently.
The tavern was a riot of overturned benches, flailing limbs, and bellowed vows of vengeance.
It was glorious chaos. A senseless thing that made perfect sense to me.
A bard snored beneath an overturned stool, one shoe gone to Saints-knew-where.
At the bar, a woman cackled as if she’d wagered on my funeral and liked her odds.
Near the hearth, two men grappled and crashed into the spit, sending the steaming mound tumbling to the stones with a sodden thud.
I didn’t consider myself to be a religious man, but I’d never had enough faith to trust unrecognizable tavern meat.
A smarter man would’ve ducked out. A better man wouldn’t have been here at all.
I identified as neither smarter nor better, so I found myself in the center of yet another brawl in an even seedier tavern than the last. Catching myself on a battered table, my lungs pulled in smoke-thick air.
For a moment, I considered yielding, letting the next blow drop me.
Letting someone else win for once. But old habits are stubborn things.
When another fist came for me, I swung first.
Knuckles met bone with a sickening crack.
Flesh split. Blood hit the warped floorboards in red flecks.
I didn’t stop to see if it was his or mine.
A blow caught my side. Another slammed into my gut, curling me forward.
The pain dulled quickly, courtesy of the inordinate amount of ale I’d consumed.
Lucky for me, the others were just as drunk, which meant fists and fury instead of magic—the way a real fight should be.
A drunk in the corner shouted, “Kick him in the shins! Works on the goats!” Helpful, had I been fighting a goat instead of a six-foot-five wall of grudges.
I ducked another swing, twisted low, and drove my shoulder into the stomach of the man who’d started it—Asshole McStoneface, I’d named him.
He stumbled, wheezing, but two more men were already closing in, hungry for blood, sport, or both.
It made no difference.
I fought like a drowning man—wild, senseless, half-mad with the need to believe it might matter. There was no room for fear, only motion. Only the hollow drumbeat in my chest reminding me death hadn’t yet come to claim me.
The door flew open with a rush of wind and rain. And for one impossible breath, the shouts, curses, and clatter all fell silent.
A woman stood framed in the threshold. She looked like she’d stepped out of a painting no one remembered finishing—rainwater over glass, blurred but no less striking for it.
It was plain she didn’t belong here. Something in me went still, like a coin spun on its edge, waiting for the call of heads or tails.
My chest was suddenly tight with a sense of recognition I had no name for.
How can I recognize someone I’ve never met?
She was barefoot, wearing a gown once fine—silver-threaded and soaked through, trailing like smoke around her ankles.
She didn’t start at the noise, nor so much as blink when a tankard slammed against the wall near her head.
Her eyes were a pale, unnatural blue—not the shade of sky or sea, but something colder, glacial water beneath moonlight.
When they found me, something flickered there that looked impossibly like recognition.
For a moment, I wondered if she was an illusion, a conjuring of some higher order magic, or a trick played by hunger and sleepless nights.
I hadn’t eaten anything that wasn’t soaked in liquor and regret, or slept properly in ages.
Perhaps I’d finally lost my hold on the dregs of my sanity.
But then, the wind from the open door struck me full in the face, sharp as a thousand pine needles, and I knew she was real.
A heavyset brute charged at me with a broken stool hoisted like a cudgel.
I ducked on instinct, boots skidding on something slick I didn’t care to identify.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, tangled beneath the wreckage of a chair, ribs howling in protest. The ceiling spun overhead.
A pair of boots thundered past my line of sight.
Through the haze and falling splinters, I saw her.
She moved toward me like a vision dragged out of some forgotten ballad. Fair-skinned, rain-soaked to the knees, dark hair tumbling down her back in snarled ribbons. She wasn’t delicate. She was carved in contrast—features too bold for dainty, too honest for soft.
She knelt beside me, extending her hand. “May I offer you assistance?”
Her voice was low and melodic, something better suited for chapels cloaked in starlight than a floor littered with blood and broken chairs.
I stared, blinking past the sting of sweat and blood.
For one ridiculous, breath-held instant, all I could think was: she’s real.
Not a ghost. Not a drunken illusion. Flesh and breath and rain.
A boot caught my ribs with a jolt. Someone staggered over me, muttering a curse.
“What makes you think I need assistance?” I coughed, the taste of iron sharp on my tongue. “Yeah, sure. Assist away.”
She smiled; not the sort of grin a man earned mid-melee, but something quieter. Sad, maybe. Certain. Like she already knew how the story ended and had chosen to walk into it anyway. Her hand curled in silent invitation.
I reached up, fingers split and shaking, and took her hand.
The moment our palms met, something shuddered through the room.
Somewhere above us, the rafters groaned like they felt it too.
The tavern lanterns seemed to sway out of rhythm.
A gust of wind, colder than it had any right to be, spiraled down the chimney.
The space around us pulsed like breath held at the start of a storm.
Her skin was warm, the way memories can be. The way hope might be, if you were foolish enough to still believe in it. Something unseen caught hold of me—deep and sharp—a hook buried in the marrow, in a place untouched by anything honest in far too long.
Around us, the fight raged on. No one seemed to notice the way the air had changed. Men cursed, fists swung, laughter rose sharp and mean. The hearth split another log with a loud crack, but it sounded distant, belonging to a different world.
She hauled me to my feet with surprising strength for her frame. I stumbled, catching myself on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, though I withdrew my hand quickly, suddenly aware I’d touched a woman whom I didn’t know twice in full view of the room.
The crowd parted around her as if she were a tide they were powerless to resist. One man, scarred and red-faced with drink, lurched forward like he meant to stop her. She shot him a look. His mouth snapped shut. His hand dropped. He turned away without a word.
I frowned. “How did you manage that?”
She offered no reply. Simply turned and walked toward the door, and I followed—her bewildered shadow.
Outside, the cold struck sharper than any fist. Rain came slanting down in sheets. I drew my arm tight to my aching ribs, teeth clenched against the sting. She did not seem the least bit bothered by the storm, nor did she fill the silence between us with any pretense of comfort.
“You hungry?” I asked.
She tilted her head, as if I’d spoken in a tongue long forgotten. “Pardon?”
“Food. Hot. Likely unpoisoned. I know a place.” I motioned to the lane ahead. “It’s quieter, less inclined to end in bloodshed. You pulled me out of a scuffle that wouldn’t have ended well for me. The least I can do is offer supper.”
She hesitated, as though a meal posed greater danger than the tavern we’d just fled.
At last, she inclined her head. “Very well.”
I exhaled. Relief tasted like rain. The longer we walked, the more I started to believe there were entire worlds behind her eyes, and not all of them were kind.
I’d seen women like her before, after battles, walking barefoot across burned fields, eyes emptied by whatever they’d left behind.
But she wasn’t empty; it seemed more like she was waiting.
“Is such disorder a regular companion of yours?” she asked, eyes still forward.
“Only on days that end in disappointment. Which, truth be told, is most of them.”
A soft sound escaped her, not quite laughter, but close. We reached the mouth of the alley, where rough stones merged to form a narrow street. I paused, bent slightly at the waist.
“Are you going to tell me your name?” I asked.
“Yours first,” she replied.
“Mavromichaeli Bassiano,” I said, inclining my head with what little grace I could muster. “My friends call me Mav. My enemies prefer other titles I’d rather not repeat in present company.”
I waited for a smile, a breath of amusement. Nothing. Her eyes, sharp and glacial, pierced through whatever bravado I’d managed to cobble together.
“And yours?” I prompted when she still hadn’t answered.
She gave a small shake of her head, as if steadying herself for the impending terror of making an introduction. With an elegant dip of her chin, she said, “Lady Quinnève Isadora Elibethrine Liogenoriggia.”
I blinked. “Is that your name? Or your entire family tree?”
“My name.” A shy smile lifted the corners of her lips as a crease formed between her brows; a crack in porcelain. “What compelled you to accept my aid?”