1. Chapter 1 #2
For the past two years, Ren had wandered the border towns and villages that clung to the edges of House Vaelaran, shifting through places where no one cared to remember a name.
She kept to the shadows, always ready to vanish at the first sign of trouble.
Most nights found her in the raucous sprawl of taverns thick with smoke and spilled ale, where dice clattered and fortunes turned in an instant.
Luck, fickle though it was, seemed to favor her hand just enough to keep her purse from running dry.
But what earned her the most coin, and the most scars, were the fights.
Underground arenas hidden beneath old ruins or behind taverns with boarded windows. Fights where no one asked your name, only if you'd survive the night. She fought not for glory, but for the weight of a coin purse.
When she finally had enough to barter for passage to the coast, she thought she was finally getting the hell away from this cursed land and as far from the fae as she could get .
But she never made it that far.
Now, as the carriage jolted along the forested path, bitterness coiled in Ren’s chest. Each passing tree felt like another nail in the coffin of her failed voyage.
And when she saw the jagged silhouette of Mount Solfira rising against the horizon, its smoke curling into the sky like a mocking banner, her stomach sank.
She knew that peak too damn well.
She was back where she had started.
Back in House Vaelaran territory.
The wagon jolted over a rut in the road. The blonde man beside Ren shot her a sideways glance. “What’d you do?” he grunted, jerking his chin toward her shackles. “Murder? Arson? Sleep with the wrong noble?”
Ren didn’t answer at first. Her wrists ached, raw beneath the iron cuffs, and the stink of blood and piss was thick in the air.
The temperate heat seemed to thicken every foul scent.
Sweat slicked her back and trickled down her spine, dampening her hair as she consciously forced herself to breathe through her mouth instead of her nose.
“Well?” the blonde man pressed. “Or are you just one of those quiet, tragic types?”
Ren answered, “I broke a fae’s nose.”
That earned a low whistle. “Over what? A duel? An overdue debt?”
“A loaf of bread,” she muttered. When she noticed his raised eyebrow, she added, “Some skinny brat was about to lose his hand for swiping it. Didn’t think; I just swung.”
“Over bread ?”
“He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days,” she retorted, voice flat though a faint edge crept in as if she needed him to understand, needed to justify it somehow, especially considering the consequences it had for her.
“Wasn’t thinking about noble causes or clean endings.
Just didn’t want to see a kid’s hand cut off over something that stale. ”
If she’d just kept walking, kept her head down, she’d have lived to see tomorrow without chains around her wrists. She was a fool for getting involved where she shouldn’t have.
And now she’d lose her head for it.
The man chuckled. “So, stupidity, then.”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it? ”
He jerked his chin toward his own cuffs. “I pissed in a fae lord’s wine barrel.” Across from him, the dark-haired heavy man rolled his eyes.
The blonde man grinned wider. “Didn’t know it was a ceremonial vintage for a sacred moon festival. I thought it was just a fancy barrel they left out in the open. So, I pissed in it. Servant saw me, but not before everyone already had their fill.”
“You poisoned an entire fae celebration with piss,” Ren echoed, as if testing the absurdity aloud.
He puffed his chest. “Didn’t poison ‘em. Just humbled ‘em.”
The dark-haired man smirked, showing off a chipped tooth.
“Got tossed in here for climbing a fae statue naked . It was a full moon, and I drank one too many bottles of blackberry mead. I thought the statue of their God looked pissy, so I climbed it – bollocks out, arms wide, and declared myself the ‘new guardian of the realm.’”
“And you lived ?” Ren asked, half incredulous, half amused.
“They would’ve just flogged me, but then I puked on the fae’s shoes. That sealed the deal.”
Ren snorted. “That pissy statue was Varyn, the fae God of protection, strength, and order. One of the most revered deities in all of Aetheria. Half of the fae would rather bleed out than disrespect him.”
The man gave a shrug. “That explains the pitchforks from the lesser fae.”
“You desecrated a holy symbol — with your balls out.” Ren shook her head, although she found herself fighting a smile. “Stupid move, there.”
“Maybe. But not stupid enough to think the fae need a real reason to lock up a human.” The amusement drained from his features.
“They’re looking for excuses half the time.
You sneeze too loud near a royal, you’re a public threat .
Piss the wrong way? Treason . Gods help you if you look like you might be brave. ”
One of the fae riders separated from the escort. His horse snorted as he reined it to a walk beside the wagon, and his eyes, icy and slitted like a serpent’s, locked on the dark-haired man.
“Another word from your filthy mouth, and I’ll cut out your tongue and string it on a chain to wear at the next tribunal, mortal ,” the fae growled.
The man held up his shackled hands in mock surrender, “Gods forbid a mortal speak the truth. ”
The fae’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Truth?” he echoed. “Truth is whatever we say it is.”
Ren’s jaw tightened as she met the fae soldier’s gaze, memorizing every detail of his sharp, angular face, the pale scar tracing his cheekbone, the cruel glint in his eyes.
She wanted to never forget the kind of being who could say such words to humans shackled to a wagon on the way to the butcher’s block.
“Slaughtering humans like cattle, pretending it’s for some greater cause,” Ren leaned forward, her voice lowering. “Tell me, do your gods smile on you for butchering innocents?”
The fae’s hand brushed the hilt at his side, eyes narrowing.
A predator scenting prey.
Ren went still, every muscle taut, knowing she’d let her tongue run faster than her sense. She braced herself, realizing her death might come sooner than she thought.