Chapter 2
The sunrise bled over the rolling desert hills of Kreah, and Mariah’s heart bled with it.
A droplet of sweat rolled down the length of her nose. Dark hair stuck to her cheeks even as the last of the cool night air brushed her skin. Her dragon-winged dagger was a comfortable, familiar weight on her thigh.
The rhythm of her run was steady, eating up the miles as she wound through the thin grove of desert acacias. A rooftop loomed in the distance, the approaching outline of High Counsellor Amasis’s manor or serekah.
Mariah’s lungs ached, and the muscles in her legs burned, but still, she ran. One week in Kreah, and she found herself craving the pain. Craving the distraction that only her physical body could give her—craving the way she could settle into that sweet, blissful detachment.
One, two. One, two. She counted the alternating strikes of her feet on the packed sands. There was safety in this repetition. There was comfort in this silence.
Anything to keep the broken hopelessness of her thoughts at bay.
She’d seen none of the city of Desva, the Kreah capital, beyond this grove. She’d met with none of the other Elders beyond Amasis, and even they had only stopped by once, despite offering their home to Mariah and her displaced court.
Without a crown and driven from her kingdom, whatever part of Mariah that had made her a queen died when the dragon had slipped back beneath her skin.
Rays of early sunlight spotted the path winding through the grove. It hit her sweat-dampened cheeks, gilding her bare arms and shoulders, the shadows that formed on the edges of its light greeting her like an old friend.
She wished the sun would burn. She wished it would scorch and mar and maim.
Mariah hated that it felt like divine perfection instead.
She closed her eyes, tipping her chin up for more of that light. It was an impulse she couldn’t help, could never help, no matter how much it disgusted her.
Her foot caught on a small rock in the path and she stumbled, catching herself against the trunk of an acacia.
She took the moment to pause, chest heaving in lungfuls of the dry desert air.
Exhaustion—sweet, welcomed exhaustion—prickled in her limbs, buzzing through her fingers, burning behind her eyes.
It still wasn’t enough to chase away the loneliness. The stillness in her chest where seven bonds had once thrummed.
They were still there. They had to be. The men at the end of six of those bonds were waiting for her just at the end of this trail. She would return her magical connection to them, no matter the cost.
The seventh…
She couldn’t think long about the seventh. She couldn’t think long about many things.
A quiet whoosh stirred the cool morning air, slicing through the burn of her exertion. Mariah braced against the tree, tilting her chin to the sky.
She could’ve sworn she’d just heard wingbeats. Not the great, booming thuds of a dragon; she’d come to be all too familiar with those.
Mariah thought she’d heard the beats of an eagle. The same beats she used to hear on her balcony in Verith when the Attlehon eagles circled high above, their reflective feathers hiding them from view.
Perhaps Kreah had its own native bird related to her eagles. But as Mariah scanned the sky, she could see no sign of life or movement.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Okay, those were definitely wingbeats. Closer this time, so close she could just imagine the brush of displaced wind across her cheeks.
Mariah pushed away from the tree, shielding her eyes against the sun, still searching the empty skies.
Nothing.
Wait.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Perched on a branch a dozen yards away was no native desert raptor. The bird was formidable, curved sickle-like talons biting into smooth wood. Its feathers were a soft, shimmering gold laced with cloud white, eyes a sharp aureate yellow.
An Attlehon eagle.
But how? They were thousands of leagues from the coastal Onitan mountain range where the eagles roosted. Not much was known about the birds—mostly due to their camouflaged flight—other than that the Attlehon Mountains were their home, where they found their mates and made their nests.
Was it possible that when not nesting, the eagles ranged across the continent? That while the people of Onita were kept cloistered behind man-made boundaries, the eagles were free to see the world and all it had to offer?
Had this eagle followed her here, to Kreah? A symbol of Onitan royalty, following the only monarch it had left?
Mariah rubbed at her eyes, her head pounding in time with her heart. This was the lack of sleep and grief talking, nothing more. If there was an actual Attlehon eagle here, it certainly wasn’t here for her. She was no queen; not anymore. Queens protected. Queens saved.
Mariah was nothing but a fraud.
Yet when she cracked her eyes open and that eagle was still on the branch, just watching her…she wasn’t so sure.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, watching the bird as the bird gazed back. The breeze ruffled the eagle’s feathers and shifted Mariah’s hair, the sunlight painting the grove in shadows. The cool air heated quickly, the clear blue sky shimmering as the desert awoke from its slumber.
The eagle slowly spread its wings, gaze still locked on Mariah’s. A low, quiet thrill echoed through the hollowness of her stomach, a gentle tug toward something that wasn’t her despair or her hate or her rage.
A branch snapped. Mariah whirled, scanning the grove for movement. Seeing nothing, she returned to the eagle—
It was gone.
Drawing in a deep, shaking breath, Mariah lurched down the path. She emerged from the grove, the sprawling estate of Amasis’s serekah opening before her.
It was a beautiful structure. Built from plaster and sandstone to fight off the heat. Its windows were recessed into the walls to allow light without the warmth. A carved door stood sentry at the entrance before an open space of packed sand and rock.
Mariah turned away from that entrance, heading instead for a hidden door to the side of the serekah. She brushed her sweat-dampened hair from her face, sweeping her ponytail off her shoulders.
The manor’s kitchens were quiet, as she’d expected. Yet, a familiar face glanced up at her from a butcher’s block. Three fresh loaves of bread steamed in front of him, his ginger hair pushed back by his usual strap of leather.
Gods, so much had gone wrong. But at least Mikael and her other palace friends had been pulled to safety by a quick-thinking Delaynie.
She still hadn’t thanked her friend for all she’d done. Hadn’t yet had the mind for it.
“Care for some breakfast, lassie?” Mikael’s question was soft and hesitant. As if he could see what she carried and was afraid she would break.
But he shouldn’t have worried. Something broken couldn’t be shattered again.
“Yes, please,” Mariah answered, her words subdued. She padded to the table, taking the few slices of bread and cheese from her cook.
“No waffles here, I’m afraid.” He smiled gently. “I asked for the iron, but the locals looked at me like I was crazy.”
Something painfully close to a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “That’s all right, Mikael.” She met his gaze, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “If I had to choose between waffles and your bread every morning, I’d choose the bread.”
“Really? Even I wouldn’t choose that.” Mikael chuckled, adjusting his band of leather.
“Yes,” Mariah said. “Because it means you’re still here to bake it.”
There was a soft pause, a moment where Mikael froze with his hands still on the leather. He slowly dropped them, reaching across the counter to grip Mariah’s forearm.
“I’ll always be there for you, lass,” he murmured. “I can promise ya that.”
The backs of Mariah’s eyes burned. She opened her mouth—to say what, she didn’t know—when a door creaked open and booted steps entered the kitchen. A hesitant hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned her stare up to greet familiar hazel eyes.
Sebastian, her first Armature, met her gaze with a smile that quickly fell to a frown.
Dead. She knew her eyes looked haunted and dead, the skin beneath them dark and sallow. Mariah could see it bothered him from the way his mouth tightened at the corners, the way his hazel eyes flickered.
She’d snapped at him two days ago when he’d first tried to scold her about her appearance and lack of sleep. Since then, he wisely kept his words to himself.
“How was your run?”
Mariah took a bite of the bread, letting the decadent warmth seep into all her broken and cold places. “Fine.”
She swallowed her bite, and with it, all the dangerous things threatening to burst out of her. “Is something wrong?” she asked Sebastian. He usually didn’t come find her after her morning outings; something about this one was different.
Sebastian hesitated, his mouth parting. He dropped his hand from her shoulder. “Nothing’s wrong. But something has happened.”
“What?” Dread swept through her. Gods, she couldn’t handle any more. No more loss, no more surprises, no more pain—
Her panic cooled as Sebastian’s mouth finally relaxed into a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that familiar, comforting way.
“It’s Feran. He’s awake.”
The guest chamber in the cool lower levels of Amasis’s serekah was, for the first time since their arrival, filled with vibrant, buzzing energy.
Mariah’s court was gathered there. Her ladies—Ciana, Delaynie, and the Kreah twins Kiira and Rylla—were scattered amongst her Armature, chattering excitedly around the figure lying in the bed in the center of the room.
Every member of her court. Except for one. Mariah’s lungs caught and she stumbled a step, Sebastian there to steady her.
“Are you all right?”
Mariah nodded, pushing her shoulders back, shoving down her grief. Masking it behind the hollow emptiness she cocooned herself in like a shroud, a blanket of apathy that was the only thing keeping her from falling to pieces on the floor.