Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Dead trees dot the water, merging with their reflections. Weeping willows trail their branches, looking like ghosts in the mist. Soft splashes echo. Jumping fish? Birds? Or lesser fairies?
The convoy is moving over the flat surface of the lagoon—a string of large barges with tall fae guards in shiny helmets and armor poised on their decks. The guards have their spears raised, ready to kill anything that might jump out of the mud and murk.
A convoy, flowing toward the Central Sea and the Pillar at the center of the world, moving through the swamps and wetlands like a river, like a snake. Slow. Narrow. Dark.
Secretive.
I’m standing inside a ruined narrowboat that’s slowly sinking. My bare feet are immersed in the cloudy water, silver fish darting over my toes. The hem of my long, white dress trails in the shivery surface, breaking it into shards. My sodden white hair clings to my neck, escaping from the knot at my nape, feeling like a noose.
It might as well be a noose, with so much hinging on this moment. I clutch my hidden treasures through my wet dress—a sheathed dagger and a pouch filled with pearls, attached to my thin leather belt and hidden in the folds of my skirt; the means necessary for entering what the fae call the anaktor , the sacred palace.
We call it the Sea Palace, for it stands on an island in the sea. Not imaginative, but descriptive enough, I suppose, in contrast to the Land Palace, the Royal Seat of the fae king on land, set among hills on the great plains.
I have seen neither palace so far, but I’m about to do my utmost best to visit the one in the sea in the coming days.
“Ho, there!” one of the guards calls out, lifting his spear high. Daylight glints on the polished spearhead, the crested helmet covering his head, and the copper hair spilling over his metal epaulets. “Who goes there?”
Patting again my hidden pouch and dagger for reassurance, I lift one of my hands in greeting.
They stare at me, and I make myself small and humble. Non-threatening.
Take me with you , I implore them with my mind. Have pity and let me on the barge. I’m but a poor maiden in need of rescue.
But they don’t hear my thoughts, of course, and I’m not permitted to use my voice. Not anymore. I hope my expression is glum enough to convey my woeful petition.
“Are you human?” he inquires, unmoved. “Or fae? Reveal yourself.”
Yeah, I knew that both my circumstances and my white hair might raise suspicion.
Lowering my hand, I turn my head and lift my wet hair, showing them my rounded ear. Then I turn and do the same for the other side.
There, see? Nothing remarkable here. An unremarkable body. Freckles. Birthmarks. Scars, inside and out.
I let my hair hide my ears again, awaiting the fae guard’s judgment.
“She’s human.” He turns to another guard who approaches him with light steps. “Do you think?—?”
“She may still have magic.” The other guard has pale blond hair spilling under his silver helmet, over the leather and metal encasing his broad shoulders. “We have to check.”
Humans rarely have magic. There are, of course, exceptions. Certain witches and wizards are known for certain powers, and objects infused with magic can sometimes be used by those born with an innate affinity with the elements. Objects like my dagger.
So the blond guard is right. You never know. And that’s without accounting for children of mixed heritage.
You see, the moment the fae landed in this world, they pillaged, raped, and produced offspring they didn’t care about, offspring they invariably killed, forcing their human mothers to take their children far away from the fae cities to hide them.
Then, some fae also had children with the finnfolk, whose magic is mostly uncharted, though just as potent. And since finnfolk can shapeshift on occasion… I could be an eldritch creature in disguise.
The only sound is the crying of seabirds over the lagoon and the splashing of the poles in the water, moving the barge forward. Soon enough, the barge will reach me and then sail by, leaving me behind.
I lift my hand again and reach toward them. Take me with you.
After long moments, the red-haired guard lifts a winged amulet, a piece of dragonbone relic lodged inside. He wants to check that I’m not finnfolk, risen from the water to infect or attack them.
It took them long enough to reach for it. Which makes sense, because I’m obviously not what they were told to fear on their way to the Sea Palace.
Fanged, clawed horrors lurking underwater? Sure.
Winged, fanged monsters swooping down from above? Most certainly.
How about lumina , the wicked lesser fairies lurking in remote places such as this to attack and torment? Oh, yes.
A human-looking girl standing inside a sinking boat? Not so much.
As the barge glides closer, I hold myself still, playing my role of a helpless damsel in distress to the full, giving it my all.
More guards have gathered behind the two who noticed me. The amulet in the redhead’s hand glints in the light from the firmament, even as dusk descends. The silver talisman is wrought in the shape of a dragon head, the fanged mouth leering at me, set between two spread wings. Dragons and wings, the favorite symbols of the fae.
I can almost feel the slight vibration of the dragonbone shard inside, a barely contained power that resonates with the Pillar and the entire world.
So I still myself more, turning into a living statue. I even hold my breath. My lungs burn from the lack of air, but this is important.
This is the first test.
The redhead guard leans over the side of the barge, lowering the silver talisman toward me. If it senses magic in me, any kind of power, it will shake violently, answering the call of magic.
Somewhere overhead, the winged shadow of a drak, one of the common dragonkind, glides by.
The shiny talisman hangs over the water, suspended between the barge and myself, still and inert, hovering like a metallic dragonfly. But as the moments stretch into time, nothing seems to happen. The dragonbone doesn’t react to me.
Relief crosses the red-haired fae’s features. His mouth twitches in a faint smile as he lowers the dragonbone amulet. “No magic.”
“No magic!” his blond friend calls out, turning to the guards behind him, and they begin to disperse.
Not all of them, though. Some still linger, shiny helmets and tall spears, faces tight with curiosity. Staring down at me.
The show isn’t over yet.
Let them watch. I lift both my hands now, water dripping from my lacy sleeves. Let me join you , I gesture. Please.
“She wants to come onto the barge. What shall we do?” The redhead’s smile fades. His frown is visible from where I’m standing. The boat under my feet sinks a little bit more into the murk.
The blond fae taps the gunwale. The barge is still moving, but it has slowed almost to a halt. “She’s wounded.”
That’s right. Lowering my eyes, I gesture at the barely scabbed-over gashes on my shins, visible through the rends in the sodden white silk of my dress. Here and there, the lace has turned brown with crusted blood.
“You’re right, she’s hurt,” the other one says. “Why isn’t she speaking? Can’t you speak, human? Can you hear us?”
I nod emphatically. Tap one of my ears through my hair. Sure, I can hear them just fine. It’s the speaking that’s broken.
“Look at the blue symbol painted on her neck,” he goes on. “She’s pledged to Anafia, the goddess of silence, for the festival.”
Yes, well spotted. Close enough. Good work.
“That’s why she won’t speak,” the blond mutters. “Holy Anafia. Of course.”
Anafia is the silent goddess of swamps and ghosts. Which is fitting. In our pantheon, she is considered a minor deity, but that’s mostly because when the fae arrived, they took over our temples and forced their gods on us. Gods of the earth and air, their elements.
Humans used to worship the water and the flames before their arrival.
“Anafia, huh?” The blond still sounds skeptical. “Haven’t met a believer in ages.”
“It’s more common at the coast,” the redhead says. “As you might imagine.”
“You say that as if I haven’t been to the coast before.”
And still, they don’t offer to take me along, falling into an easy banter that marks them as old friends.
I shift, taking a step on the rotting wood of my sinking boat, splashing water. The boat sinks further into the watery mud as I gesture at them more emphatically. Are they going to leave me here? I was right. The fae are a heartless race.
“Is your village nearby?” the redhead asks.
I shake my head. I point at them and the first barge they’re standing on, then I point at myself, tapping my breastbone. Finally, I turn and point toward the revolving World Pillar.
“You want to go with us? What for?” Pale-Hair is frowning so hard I bet those lines are etched between his brows. “You should wait for a fisherman to take you back to land.”
Wait? In a sinking boat?
I frown and point at the Pillar again. The direction they are heading. The festival, right? The tournament. The games. The trials.
Come on, make the connection.
Gods above, this is hard without words.
“She wants to go to the festival,” the pale-haired one says. “You want passage to the festival, right? Were you on your way there?”
I nod. Finally . Well done, that man. Give him a prize.
So… I lift my hands again. Come on.
“Girl… Won’t or can’t you speak?” His gaze is shrewd. “There’s something about you…”
I tap my lips, then my throat, and shake my head. Can’t.
The barge is now passing in front of me, long and black. Elegant. The barges with the cages filled with the humans follow behind.
Come on, let me aboard.
“She’s completely wet,” Pale-Hair says.
I try not to roll my eyes. Talk about stating the obvious.
“Of course she’s wet. She’s in the water, isn’t she? Who knows what happened to her? A mute human all alone. Come on, girl.” Red-Hair leans over the side to give me a hand up. “Come onto the barge before that wreck you’re standing in sinks completely to the bottom of this swamp.”
A breath of relief escapes me. I reach up, and strong hands grab mine, swinging me up to the deck with ease and dumping me there.
Leaving me sitting on my ass in a growing puddle of murky water.
“Forward!” Red-Hair cries, and the polemen lining the sides at the back of the barge sink their poles into the lagoon, pushing. “Make haste. We need to reach the first coastal outpost by evening.”
Good luck with that.
I look up. The dome of the hollow world glitters here and there. In the distance, the Pillar has begun to phosphoresce as the darkness closes around us.
Gods, I made it. I’m on the barge, heading the convoy to the anaktor .
I let the Pillar’s light fill my eyes and suffuse my dead heart.
To the conquerors of my world, to the fae, I only have to say this: beware, for here I come.