Chapter 1
LYRAE
From the shadows behind Queen Anaria’s throne, every bone in my body screamed for blood as the two big males strode up the center aisle toward the queen, heads held high as if they’d truly come to save us.
To me, they were nothing but dead males walking.
And I would be their executioner the first chance I got. Fuck the judge and jury part. Fuck the part where I told myself the past mattered, because the phrase blood was thicker than water was nothing but bullshit.
These two would pay.
For deception and abandonment and for my sister.
A hundred years had passed since I’d last seen them.
A hundred years of wondering if they were dead or alive. Suffering or happy. Of wondering if they might come and save me from the muddy trenches and the gore and the suffering and of everything that came after.
A hundred years of crushing disappointment.
Varian Kronos hadn’t aged a day. With that playful cleft in his chin and not a single blond hair out of place, he was watchful to a fault, those keen gold eyes assessed the soaring vaulted ceiling, the fifty-foot-high windows framing the majestic mountain range, calculating, no doubt, the value of every last item in this room.
The Citadelle was thousands of years old, the glittering crown jewel of Tempest, the capital of New Valarian, the proud symbol of a realm reborn from the ashes.
This gilded throne room was a long way from where the three of us had begun our thieving careers in the rotting slums of Blackcastle, two hundred miles to the east.
Only I would notice the miniscule shift in Varian’s expression when he entered, that practiced, smooth expression turning to awe when he took in the formidable royal court positioned around Queen Anaria like an impenetrable shield.
Shifters and seers, generals and mages. Dragons and wolves.
All of us fiercely loyal to our young, idealistic ruler.
All of us willing to lay down our lives for her.
Why does such a powerful female need me? I imagined Ryland asking himself as he prowled up the center aisle like a conquering warrior, cape flowing behind him. And how much gold can I leverage out of this situation? Varian would add.
The very sight of Varian Kronos made me yearn for the old days when heads rolled at royal audiences, one after another. When I’d been the one to make them roll with a lazy swing of my sword and a bright-red spray of arterial blood.
Once, I’d known Varian as well as I’d known myself.
So well, I could finish his sentences—his thoughts.
Seeing him struck a chord deep inside me, and I realized he might have been the very last person I’d ever really trusted. And was definitely the reason I’d never trusted anyone ever again.
Ryland Storme presented a different threat altogether, and I despised how my heart tripped over itself at his approach, how the morning sun picked out the red highlights in his dark hair, the green in his eyes.
Dust softened the shoulders of his long coat, mud caked his boots, the bottoms of his trousers.
He’d ridden hard to get here by morning, but except for his chapped cheeks, his arrogant smirk was as unruffled as ever.
As much as I wanted to look away, I couldn’t, counting each new scar, wondering when he got them, how much they’d hurt.
Who had patched him up afterwards. Storme was broader than he used to be, densely packed with muscle, but that careless swagger was still the same, spurs clicking sharply against the stone floor with every confident stride.
In tandem, they bowed at Anaria’s feet, the picture of loyal bondsmen, here to serve their liege.
“Your Majesty. I received the High Seer’s owl commanding me to appear before you.
I hope I have not taken liberties, but I asked Varian Kronos, expert tracker, to join me.
He has crossed the Shadowlands border nearly as often as myself. ”
I held back my snort. Expert my ass. The only thing that fucker was an expert in was collecting bounties and destroying people’s lives.
Raziel and Zorander closed the gap on either side of the queen, the air in the room growing tenser by the second. They were Anaria’s lovers, her advisors, her sword and her shield, and if Ryland so much as looked at her wrong, they’d slaughter him before I got the chance.
Lips curling, I inched closer, staying well inside the shadows, not willing to reveal myself.
Not yet.
Not until I looked my past dead in the eye and decided what, exactly, I was going to do about these two traitors who’d ruined my life without a second thought.
“I hope you are as good as they claim, Lord Storme.” Anaria folded her hands in her lap.
“I have spent three years rebuilding this kingdom into a haven for Fae, humans, and shifters alike. Something poisonous festers in the south, but my advisors tell me this Prince of the Shadowlands has erected a ward around his territory that cannot be breached by ordinary means. They also tell me you may be the only one who can get through that protective barrier.”
Even me, jaded and bitter, leaned forward to hear the answer.
This self-proclaimed prince was a burr in my ass, and had killed six of my best soldiers.
No, six of my friends.
Festering was a good word for the rot he’d been spreading through New Valarian, rumors and gossip and fear, meant to sow malcontent and undermine a young queen’s new reign. This enemy was a threat, but all attempts to cross into the Shadowlands had ended with…
Well, I’d sent a patrol of my very best males to take care of the problem, and a week ago, their severed heads were delivered back to me as a message, which meant this pretend prince had to die.
So here we were.
Ryland Storme to the fucking rescue.
Anaria’s regal steadiness—as well as the high stakes at play—smoothed the hard edge of my anger, cold fury giving way to something far, far worse when Ryland threw his cloak over one shoulder and pushed to his feet, even though he’d not been given leave to rise.
Pompous, arrogant motherfucker.
“I have been to the very heart of the Shadowlands, faced the prince himself on more than one occasion. Getting past the ward will not be the problem. But killing the Prince of Darkness…that would take a veritable army, your highness.”
Fucking gods, Ryland’s deep, husky voice sent an illicit shiver straight to my core, and my fingers tightened around my pommel, focusing not on the carnal warmth flooding my veins, but imagining my blade plunging between his ribs and ripping into his heart.
Imagined the bastard begging for mercy, how I’d deny him until his dying breath.
Some of the heat eased off. Yes, that was much, much better.
But seeing him again was like lancing a barely-healed wound.
I’d been so very young, blithely in love and naive—unbelievably so—that his betrayal had become infected before scarring over and growing into a hardened cancer. Now I wore those thick scars around my heart like a shield, and never allowed anyone through.
“…And that is why my most trusted commander, Lyrae Antares, will accompany you to ensure this prince answers for his crimes. General Antares is well versed in combat and strategy, and I trust her judgement implicitly.”
Wait.
I was doing…what?
I blinked in surprise from the shadows at the same time Ryland and Varian narrowed their gaze on my hiding place. Fuck, so much for secretly slipping a knife between their ribs in some empty alleyway and calling it a day.
The shadows split apart and I stepped into the light, a careless smirk on my lips to mask my dry throat, my blue eyes colder than the glittering snow on the mountains around us, my black hair braided to my waist.
I’d come dressed for battle, in a worn breastplate of polished silver, leather gauntlets edged in deadly spikes, and two well-used knives at my thighs.
My casual swagger wasn’t feigned. It was the walk of someone who’d strode across battlefields and throne rooms and killing fields and would keep walking until there was no one left to fight.
Yes, that’s right. Look at me. I’m no longer the broken girl you left behind.
After fifty years on the front lines, I’m no longer a girl at all.
I rose from the ashes and remade myself into a fucking monster.
Ryland and Varian’s faces shone with the same shocked confusion I’d felt at seeing them for the first time since the failed Blackwater heist. Brutal satisfaction moved through me as I stepped forward to flank Anaria, glad the dais gave me an extra three feet of height, glad I looked down on these two males who had decimated my life in such immutable ways.
“Lyrae?” Ryland’s dazed expression softened, and in that one brief moment the world shifted on its axis before his expression hardened once again into his usual charmed arrogance, the prince of thieves, untouched by the world around him.
“Well. Lyrae Antares,” his eyes flashed brighter than his smile. “You’re a long way from the Southwell slums.”
“Not so far as you’d think,” I told him, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “You, however, are a long way from the gallows, where you belong.”
“You two…know each other?” Instantly, Zephryn and Raziel formed a wall of muscle at my back, the dragon shifter’s powerful magic washing over me, my heart thrashing in my chest as the past crashed down around me.
“Lyrae, is everything…all right?” Zeph asked quietly, his big hand curling over my shoulder and squeezing gently.
Zeph was big and mean, with an impossibly big heart, and one word would have him ripping Ryland’s arrogant face off his arrogant body. But…I took a breath. The situation in the Shadowlands was truly dire, and I could not afford to wallow in my miserable past, not when all our futures were at risk.
Today was not about me.
Today was about dealing with this threat, avenging the deaths of my soldiers, and keeping our realm safe.
I needed to be clear headed, acting as the queen’s commander, focused on the problem at hand.
But the past had me twisted up in its ugly fingers, hate and betrayal and the fragments of my broken heart racing through my veins in a poisonous slurry.
“Just an old friend, who wouldn’t deprive me of making some coin on the side,” Ryland said quickly, Varian’s eyes bouncing between my face and my sword, sweat beading on his brow. “We’ve all known each other too long to let the past come between us, right, Lyrae?”
“Let’s move this meeting to the War Room,” Zephryn suggested softly, his huge hand wrapping around my arm in a show of support.
“Sort this out in private.”
“That won’t be necessary.” I pulled out of his grasp, hissing, “Like Ryland said, we’re old friends. Far be it from me to stand in the way of him and his friend making some coin, since that’s what they’re both so good at.”
A hundred years of fury swept through me like a tide, and much like seeing these two again, I was unprepared for its arrival.