Chapter 1
“You sure that’s enough?”
I smiled up at Quinn with a roll of my eyes.
“Never. But I’ll take what I can get.” My words were muffled, my mouth full with the scallion pancake he’d given me as I lingered over his claimed bar area near the back.
The tavern was dim and crowded, the air thick with smoke and spice.
Hanging paper lanterns flickered against the cypress beams, casting everything in gold and shadow.
The tables were jammed close together, lacquer-chipped and stained from years of spilled rice wine and worse. People pressed in on every side.
But no one crossed the middle of the room, the definitive line between Silvers and Azures.
Azures, in our half-patched clothing, blue hair rippling in the glow of the firelight, stayed to this side, closer to the windows and fresh air.
We were lean and fast, our bodies lithe, although I was more slightly built.
Most didn’t have the ability to shift, but the animal was always just under the skin, present in the way we moved: alert and athletic.
Silvers claimed the other side. For the most part burly and large-boned, their hair every shade of metal, from silver to gold to copper to bronze.
They loomed over their tables stiff and silent, as if forged from the steel they revered.
Most wore at least one piece of metal—nobles, or those close enough to pretend, with silver and gold glinting at wrists and throats.
And all of them looked at us Azures with clear disgust. The feeling was mutual.
I was surprised a fight hadn’t broken out yet.
“Have some more,” Quinn said, and I grinned, grabbing for his tall cup of amber millet ale, taking a quick swig. He snatched it back from me with a smirk. “I meant, food. Not ale, ribbon girl.”
“You didn’t specify.” I shrugged. My eyes swept over the divided room once more.
The breadth of Quinn’s shoulders kept me hidden for now, but I knew I only had mere moments before my performance was due to begin.
He pushed his slate blue hair back as he nudged another scallion pancake from his plate. I shook my head, but then slipped it into my satchel for Edith, even though I was positive his leftovers plus more would show up on our doorstep tomorrow morning.
The raucous noise in the bar lowered a fraction as the drummer took his place just offstage, his eyes scanning over the patrons anxiously. Looking for me, I knew.
I’d scrubbed clay bowls all day, climbed stairs until my calves ached, and taken no fewer than three drunken hands off my waist. By dusk, my body was frayed thin, and I was still fighting off a headache from waking to the dream this morning.
“Maybe you should take a night off.” Quinn had caught the wince as I pressed a hand to my forehead, his brow furrowing deeper with concern. “Rubi, please—”
“I’m fine.” I waved him off. “I’ll find you after.” He made another noise of protest before I gave a quick squeeze to his muscular shoulder and drifted away.
Dancing would make everything feel better. It always did.
I sent him a wink as I headed for the center platform. The second my foot touched the wood, hands gliding down for the handles of my ribbons, the musician began.
The drumbeat thudded through the floorboards, thick and heady.
Dancing was everything to me, as essential as the coin for food it would earn me. It was part of my body—something I imagined I’d done all my life, though I had no proof.
Three years ago, I escaped the crumbling Azure Dominion, part of a flood of refugees who sought asylum after the Annihilation, when our Anchor to the Demon Realm failed, overrunning us with demons and monsters alike.
I didn’t remember it.
In fact, I remembered nothing. Only waking on a rocking ship sailing to the Silver Tyger Dominion with no memories—my home, my friends, my family, if I’d ever had any, lost forever. Forgotten. That was when Edith found me, and she’d treated me like family ever since.
It should have been easier for me to start over, completely anew.
But the absence of memories didn’t rid me of the pain of loss, a deep well of feeling with no traceable source. An ache for someone or something I didn’t even know the name of. Heavy and tangled, even now.
The Dominion of the Silver Tyger took in displaced Azures, but grudgingly. We were a burden no one wanted and have been kept aware of that fact.
But I had made a life here and it was the only one I knew—and this was my peace. Dancing. The weight of the wand in my hand, the feel of the ribbon against my skin, the swirl of it through the smoke, displacing the air like something otherworldly. It felt divine, like a gift.
Like magic, when I didn’t have much of my own. Dancing was healing for me, in its own way.
I hadn’t lost the knowledge of movement buried deep in my flesh. My body remembered what my mind didn’t.
When the pressure of grief, longing, and anger got so bad that I thought it might split me open, I danced. Especially after the dream, the woman whispering a song against my temple as she rocked me back and forth. On those days, the dance felt stronger. More powerful.
Dancing released some of the grief, bled it out.
And when I moved, I felt like fire. Hungry, wild, unrestrained.
I let the ribbons flow from the wands I held, coiling around my arms, then sliced the air with them, sharp and fluid. They cracked like whips and shimmered. I bent low, then rolled up slowly through my spine and spun on the ball of one foot. The fabric flowed behind me.
A tilt of my chin. A flick over the shoulder.
A flash of teeth between breaths. I had control of this body, if nothing else, and I knew exactly how to make the ribbons snap like whips, how to arch my back and swing my hips until everyone stopped talking, how to let the tension build in the room, gazes fixed upon me like a weapon I could wield.
I spun, arms cutting arcs through the air, the fabric slicing behind me.
A tiny thrum in my chest flickered to life, soft and warm. I started to hum without realizing it, a soft thread of melody winding through the air.
Movement became music.
Music became breath.
And for a little while, nothing else existed. My faint yin magic pulsed as I moved, binding the room to me. A thread of sound slipping from my throat, barely audible under the drums. It wound through the crowd, and it pulled the room to me like a tide.
The audience, Silver and Azure alike, bent toward me.
I swept one arm across the floor, then rose slowly, letting the sweat slick down my back. My dress was made of thin, worn cotton. The color had faded, but it clung to my curves, and when I moved, it fluttered around me. My long hair brushed my hips, a shimmering blue-green under the tavern lights.
I flicked a ribbon high, let it spiral down beside my cheek, slow and silky, before I snapped it back with a crack.
I let my hips sway, arms rise, and the ribbons followed, sweeping through the air.
My ribbons swirled as I turned and twirled the wands in my hands, two streams of light spiraling around me.
Men watched me, yes. But women did, too. With longing. With hunger. Not for my body but for what I felt inside mine when I was dancing. The passion. The freedom. Some leaned forward, tankards halfway to their mouths, mesmerized.
Even among Azures, I was a sad case. A weak yin magic user, I couldn’t change into some powerful animal form like the more magical from my dominion.
But here, in this moment, with my ribbons and the heavy beat of the drum, I wasn’t Rubi, the Azure woman with no memories. I wasn’t less.
I was silk and breath.
I was power.
I twirled again, slower now, before throwing both arms out, ribbons cracking wide in one final arc of color.
The music stopped, and I held still with one knee bent deep, the other leg extended behind me in a long line, toes pointed. My arms arched overhead, ribbons trailing like flames, my head tilted back, throat exposed to the light.
Applause shattered the spell. The room howled and clapped and pounded tables.
Coins clattered at my feet. I bowed, chest heaving, then quickly swept them up into my bag, placing it on my hip.
I stepped off the platform, legs shaking from exertion.
The ribbons now hung from the wands in my hands, limp.
Slowly everyone resumed their conversations. My eyes scanned lightly over the crowd, searching for Quinn.
Instead, I caught a pair of arctic blue eyes staring at me from beneath a darkened hood on the Azure side of the room. His jaw was chiseled, and he had a square masculine chin.
I couldn’t make out his hair color, hidden by his hood, but something told me it wouldn’t be blue.
Though he sat among the Azure refugees, his cloak was worn too evenly, the frays looking almost deliberate, and his gloves, which he’d laid beside him on the table, though scuffed, were crafted from a fine, supple leather.
Azures didn’t have that kind of money. Not to mention he was far too broad. The outline of his shoulders stretched the fabric tight across his back.
A Silver, then. On the wrong side of the room.
Ignoring the strange, almost eerie brightness of his eyes still locked on me, I climbed down and headed for my things, planning a quick exit.
At the bar, two Silver soldiers watched me. One flexed as he rolled up his sleeves and ran a hand through his silver hair. The other, well-dressed and handsome, stepped into my path as I exited and grinned wide.
“Care for another dance?” He spoke in the Common Tongue with a heavy Silver accent, voice slurred but loud.
I glanced around him, no quick escape in sight, so I sank into my hip, arms crossing.
“Come here, steelheart.” His grin sharpened. Stepping closer, he grabbed my arm and whispered into my ear: “I’ve always wanted to try an Azure.”
My body moved on instinct, slamming my head against his lips. It was impossible to hide my satisfied smirk as he staggered back, bleeding from the mouth.
I’d have a better retort than violence if I weren’t so exhausted.