Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
There’s only one thing left to do.
Run.
I’ve served a sentence I never earned, locked in a palace I was never meant to survive. I won’t stay for another Reaping—won’t watch ten strangers die trying to win my hand like it’s a prize the gods tossed into a pit.
Escape is the only path left. There’s no honor in this. No bravery. Just the raw, aching will to live. If I had more courage, maybe it would let me face what’s coming. But hope left me long ago and all that remains is the hollow where it used to be.
Let the gods be angry. Let them come.
I’m done being theirs.
My only way is out. Cowardice is all that’s left.
I’ve lived in the shadows of my father’s palace too long, enduring nights that coil black around their halls like a curse we never learned how to lift.
Torches flicker in their sconces, burning brightly and pretending the darkness isn’t winning.
Marble floors gleam beneath them, polished and proud, but I know the truth.
These halls have held me long enough for the rot breathing through the stone to make my throat close off.
The palace’s stench feeds on all the things we pretend aren’t there.
Columns rise like false idols—ornate, gilded, triumphant—bearing witness to centuries of blood and silence.
Even the paintings along the walls are liars, dripping with color and glory, depicting victories that were never clean.
My gaze snags on them as I pass. They do not look back. None of them ever do.
The shadows cover me as I creep with the caution of a creature used to being hunted.
I’ve rehearsed every step, every pause, every breath.
But when I slip past two guards slumped in drunken laughter, a new fear twists in my gut.
Maybe it won’t be precision that saves me, but luck.
Maybe it never was about being good. Maybe it was always about timing and prayers whispered to gods who stopped listening long ago.
The palace watches. Its hunger gnaws at my back as I press myself into an alcove.
The guards’ laughter grows louder, then fades as they wait for their relief.
The shift will change soon, and for the briefest moment, the corridor will be mine—emptied of bodies, filled with only cold opulence and the sound of my own heartbeat.
That’s when I’ll move.
When I’ll run.
A hidden passage lies just beyond the royal wing, a secret kept by a trusted few, by those my father says are loyal enough to know of the escape his family will take in times of war. Or rebellion. Tonight it’s both. My war. My rebellion. My father never thought I’d dare.
But I have earned this escape.
Earned it with silence. With obedience. With all the days I did not scream.
I will survive this.
More than that. I will escape this place—and never again endure captivity and its smothering protection.
The bell tolls. The guards stir. A burst of movement as they peel themselves from the walls, muttering and swaying as they stumble toward the barracks.
I imagine they’ll be thinking of wine. Of firelit celebrations.
Of the feast the Reaping promises and maybe even the men from Larksbind who will die to appease the gods.
They don’t see me.
I’ll let them chase their hunger. Mine is older. Keener. Mine has fangs.
I move—through the doorway like a shadow unmoored, into a stairwell that spirals downward into silence.
My hand trembles as I ease the door closed behind me, careful not to let the wood betray me with a slam.
One sound—too sharp, too loud—would be enough to shatter the silence and my safety.
So I creep through the dark, my breath slow, my heart beating like it knows what’s coming.
The stairs are uneven and ancient, half-carved into the stone like an afterthought.
I descend them without doubt, each footfall an echo in my bones, before I break into a sprint at the courtyard, veering along the east wing where the manicured beds run beneath the palace windows.
More gardens unfold ahead, their flowers all groomed and beautiful and drowning in moonlight.
I tear through them, the scent of jasmine thick in the air, a cruel perfume meant to mask the stench of what festers beneath.
Even now, even as I flee its grasp, the palace shadows cling, a reminder that freedom will never be mine. Not truly. Not while the cursed magic coils inside me, waiting.
The grate to a supply tunnel eases back onto its hinges as a passing cloud erases my shadow.
Left. Right. Clear. The cover settles on the cobbles, and I drop into the crawl, my hands and knees scraping in dust. Emerging onto the paved streets of Threnos, the capital’s air hits me like a blade. Cold. Damp. Free.
I blink too long. I shouldn’t have stopped to stare. Starsfall’s capital is a jewel in the dark, its spires catching torchlight, its narrow alleys gleaming with secrets. But awe is a luxury for someone not being hunted.
I run.
My boots pound the stone. My cloak flies behind me, catching wind and trailing shadows. Streets blur around me. I cut into alleys toward the celebrations, praying my memory hasn’t failed me. Threnos’s veins wind and tangle, and I am a drop of blood trying not to clot.
A swell of music rises ahead—lutes and laughter and drums echoing off stone. I push toward it, toward the central square where the Reaping crowds gather, their joy oblivious to the price behind it.
The scent of roasting meat and spilled wine thickens. Voices slur in song. My pace slows, just enough for me to tug my hood lower and slip into the tide of bodies, letting their revelry swallow me whole.
Dancers twirl in silks that shimmer with every spin. Men lift tankards in toasts to death and destiny. No one sees me—not really. They see another girl in velvet, flushed from drink or song or sin.
I keep walking. Head low. Hood up. Heart pounding. I weave through the brightly colored cloaks, pretending to dance and sing along with travelers, drifting toward the bread ovens’ gate, the workmen’s entrance the city forgets.
Let them think I’m just another reveler come to watch the gods play with lives.
Let them believe I’m free.
The guards at the gatehouse are distracted by the women clinging to them, each trying to secure a husband by sunrise. The girls ply their charms and flutter their lashes—and I seize my chance, slipping past them, and finally stepping outside the capital of Starsfall.
My body begs to celebrate.
To run and laugh.
To breathe in the wild air of freedom.
I do not give in. Instead, I make myself walk steadily toward the trees that border Threnos. Their trunks are only meters away. All that is left is for me to hold my nerve and slip past them.
The wood swallows me whole and I sink into shadow. The glimmer from Threnos fades behind me, and the night presses close. Branches creak. Leaves whisper. The quiet should comfort me. It doesn’t. It wraps too tight, too still, like smoke around a dying flame. The shadows shift.
My boots sink into moss. I take one more step—
A hand wraps around my throat and pain explodes through my side as I slam into a tree, hard enough to rattle bone. The guard doesn’t let go, not even when I kick out. His weight pins me against the bark like I belong there, and I take a moment to collect myself.
There’s no screaming. Or begging.
Just a girl saving her strength. Assessing his weaknesses.
The air reeks of sweat and sour wine. He leans in, breathing hot and heavy against my cheek. I turn my head, but he laughs as his hands drift downwards, brushing my cloak aside. His fingers reach for my hips, where my coin bag should be.
“What’ve we got here?”
He rocks back on his heels.
He acts like I’m cornered. Like I’m prey.
The fool hasn’t recognized me. Hasn’t found the blade strapped to my other thigh. He doesn’t know I trained beneath Mallen, Commander of the Royal Guard, whose drills carved steel into my bones. Be swift. Be silent. Use your weight. Strike before mercy becomes a mistake.
He’s too drunk to notice me move.
Too slow to stop what’s coming.
I twist. Drop. Strike.
His body hits the bracken, and blood spills onto ground that has soaked up worse. The earth drinks it down, unconcerned.
There’s no time to waste breath on guilt.
But the noise will draw attention. It always does.
And my father ensures Starsfall is full of men in borrowed armor who like the taste of fear. Thugs turned into legal knives with no leash. Men who are paid too little to feed their children, so find other ways to earn gold.
I bolt deeper into the night, ducking under branches, racing into the darkness to widen the distance between us.
The ground is slick, the underbrush dense.
Twigs catch at my cloak and roots try to snag my ankles, but I’m small and quick.
I dart around trunks and duck under limbs.
Any guards who the commotion might attract will be larger—slower through the tight growth—but their strides are longer and they’ll plow through everything in their way.
In a straight chase, they’d win. But Mallen taught me not to play fair.
His training reverberates through every movement, through every turn and breath. He was ruthless. He taught me to fight, to endure, to survive. I’d have been caught already without him. He made me strong enough to escape.
Strong enough to survive my father’s moods.
And this, this is nothing compared to that.
My chest aches, my legs burn, but I keep going.
The terrain is rough, the forest thick, and the moonlight barely touches the path ahead. And then its silver lights a ridge ahead, and I know I’ll reach the clearing in a few more meters.
My heart pounds.
I’m going to make it.
The clearing opens before me. My stomach clenches.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
The horses are tied, just where they should be. But the air is wrong. Still. Expectant.