Chapter 2
Iwake to the taste of blood and iron.
My body feels weighted, limbs heavy as stone as consciousness crawls back. The rocking motion beneath me makes my stomach lurch. I'm in a wagon. No, something larger. The rumble of wheels on uneven ground vibrates through the metal floor pressed against my cheek.
“She's waking up,” someone whispers.
I force my eyes open. Blurred shapes gradually focus.
Five others stare back at me from the confines of a steel transport cage.
Their faces are wary, hollow-eyed, their beauty weathered into sharpness.
The youngest is hardly sixteen, the oldest maybe thirty, though hardship makes him look older.
All of them wear the same expression I've seen in every dark corner of the Lower Wards: the look of prey animals caught in a snare.
“Welcome to the recruitment caravan,” says a girl with half her head shaved, dark tattoos snaking from the taper of her elegant, pointed ears down the curve of her neck. “End of the line.”
I push myself upright, wincing as my muscles scream in protest. The cage is barely tall enough to sit up in, and wide enough to hold perhaps eight adults pressed together.
Through the bars, I glimpse a convoy of similar wagons ahead and behind, each pulled by massive lizard-oxen with scales glinting dully in the afternoon light.
“Where—” My voice cracks. My throat feels scraped raw.
“Heading east,” says a thin male with a scar bisecting his left eye. “To the Ironhold. Consider yourself honored.” His laugh is hollow. “We've been chosen to die for the empire's entertainment.”
The Ironhold. All iron and law, they say. A fortress to keep the peace. Once, iron weakened fae, sapping at our power. Now it merely serves as a reminder of what we lost, while holding the lawless, the criminals, the condemned. A stern monument to justice, where fae are sent to die.
The girl with the tattoos elbows him. “Shut it, Dren. You'll scare the fresh meat.”
“Good,” Dren says. “Better scared now than stupid later.”
I manage to take stock of myself. They've stripped me of my coat and boots, leaving me in just my threadbare tunic and leggings. The satchel with my meager possessions is gone. Of course. Nothing comes with you to the games except your body and whatever cunning you possess. Gods, I wish I had more. The kind of power that once belonged to us. A spark that should be there, coiled in my veins, waiting to answer. But it isn’t.
It never has been. All I have is flesh. And fear.
I remember that’s exactly the point. I heard that once, to be chosen meant glory among the courts.
Now it means only death—for those who break the law, even those with no other choice.
A convenient reminder from the empire that sacrifices are made when stability is threatened; that law and order demand obedience above all else.
It’s meant to be for the benefit of Thalyris, for the benefit of us all, so the catastrophes of the past never have the chance to rise again.
It’s just my bad luck, then, to stand among the undesirables.
“How long have I been out?” I breathe, tentatively feeling the tender spot on my neck where the needle pierced me.
“Two days,” whispers the youngest captive, a boy with brilliant copper-colored hair. “They keep us sedated through the city gates. Less chance of rescue attempts that way.” His accent marks him as an east-sider, probably from the Scholar's Quarter. Not the usual Collector target.
“As if anyone would try,” mutters Dren.
I peer through the bars at the landscape rolling past. We've left the city far behind. The road cuts through scrubland that grows progressively more desolate with each mile. In the distance, knife-edged mountains tear at the sky—the Spine, they call it. Ancient, dead volcanoes, once alive with fire and power. Now they’re nothing but carved-out husks. Like us.
“I'm Lira,” says the tattooed girl, offering me a waterskin. “Drink. That sleep serum dries you out.”
I take it gratefully, not caring that the water is warm and tastes of leather. “Veyra,” I say after I've drained half the skin.
“What'd they get you for?” asks a muscular female in the corner, her dark hair cropped close to her scalp. “I’m Nyx. Broke a magistrate's son's arm when he tried to claim his 'noble rights' in my tavern.”
“Theft,” I reply. “And existing inconveniently.”
That earns a few grim chuckles.
“Same story every year,” Nyx mutters. “They clear out the Lower Wards, the prisons, anywhere people won't be missed. Once in a while they'll take someone higher-born who's fallen out of favor.” She nods toward the copper-haired boy. “Like our little scholar there.”
The boy shifts uncomfortably. “My name is Ellis. My father… overstepped boundaries in conducting certain research. Broke a law. I-I was assisting him at the time.”
“And punishment followed as night follows day, with junior paying the price too,” Dren says. “Imperial justice at its finest.”
A shadow passes over us, momentarily darkening the cage.
I look up to see a massive silhouette against the clouds—winged, serpentine, and chained to another wagon at the front of the convoy.
A dragon, smaller than those I've glimpsed above the distant arenas but still large enough to swallow a fae whole.
“Transport beast,” Nyx says, following my gaze. “They use the smaller breeds for labor. Save the big ones for the games.”
“I've never seen one up close,” I murmur. Dragons, among other creatures, have always co-existed with fae, but, like everything else in Thalyris, that coexistence is tightly controlled.
“You will soon.” The final occupant speaks for the first time—an exceptionally tall male with aristocratic features weathered by exposure.
Unlike the rest of us, his demeanor is composed, almost resigned.
“They'll start you on the hatchlings. The ones that survive make suitable opponents for training.” He looks at me with piercing blue eyes. “I'm Tomas.”
The name strikes a chord. “Tomas Varin, from the Crown City?” I ask. “The diplomat's son?”
A bitter smile touches his lips. “Former son of a former diplomat. My father's stance on the eastern campaign proved... unpopular.”
Of course. Even in the Lower Wards, we'd heard about the Varin family's fall from grace. From nobility to nothing in the span of a week. Their property seized, their name struck from the records. I'd assumed they'd all been executed.
“They say the games love a noble contestant,” Dren remarks. “Good for ratings. The crowds enjoy watching the mighty fall.”
Tomas's expression doesn't change. “The crowds will have their fill, then.”
The wagon hits a deep rut, sending us all lurching against each other.
Through a gap in the convoy, I catch my first clear view of our destination—a massive structure carved into the mountainside ahead.
Even from miles away, the Ironhold dominates the landscape: a fortress of black stone with towers like fangs rising from the mountain's jaw.
Smoke belches from countless chimneys, and the surrounding terrain has been scorched bare of vegetation, creating a desolate no-man's-land around the perimeter.
“Gods,” I whisper.
“No gods there,” Nyx says, her voice lowering. “Only dragons and the mortals who think they can master them.”
“Most who enter never see the arena,” Tomas says quietly. “The training kills half before they face their first real dragon.”
“And the other half?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Die in the arena for the crowd's pleasure,” Dren says. “The emperor has his sacred duty to turn justice into spectacle. Keeps transgressions at bay across the empire. And what better way than with dragons? But at least we get to see the sky one last time before a drake roasts us.”
“Some survive,” Ellis protests. “The champions—”
“Become the emperor's pet killers,” Tomas cuts in. “A fate worse than death, some would say.”
The scholar boy falls silent, his momentary hope extinguished.
I look back at the Ironhold growing larger on the horizon.
My instinct, honed by years on the streets, screams to find a way out—to squeeze through the bars, to bribe a guard, to fake an illness.
But the bars are solid, the guards wear helmets that hide their faces, and the only fate for the sick is to be thrown from the moving wagon.
No escape. Not yet.
I've survived the streets of the Crown City since I was nine years old. I've endured starvation, beatings, and worse. I've clawed my way back from the brink more times than I can count. This is just another cage, another challenge.
“So,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, “tell me everything you know about dragons.”
Lira regards me with newfound interest. “Planning to survive, are you?”
“At the least.”
For the first time since waking, I feel something besides fear—a small, dangerous spark of determination. If they want to throw me to the games, fine. But I won't make it easy. I won't be just another body in the arena sand.
Before anyone can respond, a horn blares from the front of the convoy. Guards rush along the line of wagons, banging their spears against the metal cages.
“Eyes down!” one shouts as he passes. “We approach the Ironhold! Eyes down or lose them!”
The others immediately lower their gazes. I hesitate, defiant—and receive a sharp jab through the bars for my trouble, the spear tip drawing blood from my shoulder.
“That was a warning,” the guard hisses, his features obscured behind his helmet. “The next takes your eye.”
I lower my gaze, but not before catching sight of the massive gates swinging open ahead—great slabs of metal worked into the likeness of a dragon's maw.
Beyond them, shadows and firelight dance on stone walls.
The air grows hotter, thicker with the acrid scent of smoke and something else. .. something musky and reptilian.
The wagon rolls forward into darkness. The gates grind shut behind us with the finality of a tomb being sealed.
As my eyes adjust to the dimness, I see figures moving in the shadows: trainers, handlers, other recruits. And beyond them, in fire-lit caverns carved into the mountainside, the looming shapes of chained beasts with scales that gleam like metal and eyes that burn like coals.
“Welcome to the Ironhold,” Tomas murmurs beside me. “Time to become a monster or die trying.”