Chapter 1

Tyra

The lock is a stubborn, rusted thing, but my hands know the language of resistance.

I crouch in the shadow of the perimeter wall, the red sand of Nagaland pressing into the knees of my trousers. The air here near the cliffs of Kario tastes different than it does in the slave pits of Jalma. It tastes of salt and crushed flint, sharp and clean, untainted by the copper stench of blood and misery. It tastes like a lie.

My fingers, small and roughened by years of scrubbing floors and dismantling traps, work the tension wrench. I watch my own hands as if they belong to someone else. They are wiry tools, the skin over my knuckles bleached white from the strain, mapped with a latticework of faint, silvery scars that shine in the moonlight. They are hands made for breaking things, for stealing, for surviving, but tonight, they tremble.

Just a tremor. A ghost of a shake in my left thumb.

Focus, Tyra.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste iron. The pain centers me. I push the pick deeper, feeling for the tumble of the pins. Click. Click.

The heavy iron gate groans, a sound like a dying breath, and swings inward.

I slip through the gap, melting into the darkness of Lord Byshu’s estate. The silence here is heavy, pressing against my eardrums. It is not the silence of peace; it is the silence of a held breath before a scream.

My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate to flee. I shouldn't be here. I am a rat creeping into a dragon’s den. But I have no choice. The memory of Lord Vexis’s voice, smooth and poisonous as oil, slithers through my mind.

“Bring me the formula for the Viper’s Breath before the Day of Light, little thief, and I will give you your papers. I will give you your name back.”

The Day of Light.

The thought settles on my shoulders like a yoke of lead, nearly making me stumble over a root. It is the only reason I am risking my life tonight. In the slave quarters, we whisper about it when the masters are drunk on wine. The Day of Light. Most humans call it Christmas. 

My mother told me the story before the fever took her—a legend from the Before Times, of a single day where the sun did not burn, where the labor stopped, and where families gathered around a tree brought indoors, covered in lights that pushed back the dark.

A day of rest. A day of plenty.

It is a fairy tale, I know this. But Vexis promised he won’t hurt my sisters. If I succeed tonight, we could have my own Day of Light. I could be with them. I could sit in a room that belongs to me, eat bread that isn't stale, and sleep without one eye open.

That hope is a more dangerous drug than any poison brewing in this estate.

I push deeper into the grounds. The architecture of the naga is stark and imposing—great slabs of grey stone rising out of the earth, devoid of ornamentation. It is cold, functional, and terrifying. But the garden... the garden is a chaotic explosion of color that makes my eyes ache.

Blue trees twist toward the moons, their leaves shimmering with a faint, bioluminescent pulse. Ferns the color of dried blood brush against my thighs. It is beautiful, and that makes me suspicious. In Nagaland, beauty is usually a warning.

I need to find the fume slits on the east wing. That is the entry point Vexis’s spies identified—narrow, angled channels carved directly into the grey stone to let the heavy, toxic vapors of Byshu’s experiments escape. It is a dangerous path; if the Master of Poisons is brewing tonight, the very air I breathe to get inside could kill me. But the wind is blowing inland, pushing the invisible death away from the wall. It is my only chance.

I keep low, moving with the fluid grace Vexis beat into me. My auburn hair, usually a tangled mess I keep hacked short to avoid grabbing hands, is pulled back tight, but a few rebellious strands escape, plastering to my sweat-damp forehead. I brush them away impatiently.

The path narrows, winding through a dense thicket of flowering bushes. The scent hits me then—sweet, cloying, like overripe fruit and honey. It makes my head swim, a pleasant, drowsy sensation that wars with my adrenaline.

I pause, my boot hovering over the earth.

The flowers are gorgeous. They have petals the color of a bruised sky, vibrant blue and violet, opening wide to the moons. They look soft. Harmless. A decorative touch in a monster’s fortress.

Just flowers, I tell myself. Even monsters like pretty things.

I step forward, intending to skirt the edge of the bed.

My boot sinks into the soft loam. A sharp, stinging pain registers in my calf, just above the leather of my boot.

I freeze.

It feels like a bee sting. Insignificant. I look down.

A single, long thorn, black as obsidian, has pierced the fabric of my trousers and sunk into my skin. It belongs to the blue flower.

Numiscu. 

The name surfaces from the depths of my training, screaming in my mind. Vexis made me memorize the flora of Kaynvu, but seeing it in a diagram is different than standing in a patch of it.

Fast-acting paralytic.

Panic, cold and absolute, floods my chest. I try to step back, to rip my leg away, but the command doesn't reach my foot. The connection between my brain and my muscle has been severed.

"No," I whisper, the word slurring on my tongue.

The numbness isn't a slow creep; it is a flash flood. It rushes up my leg, stealing the sensation of the ground beneath me. My knee buckles. I grab for a blue tree branch to steady myself, but my fingers—my nimble, scarred, capable fingers—are suddenly clumsy blocks of wood. They scrabble against the bark and find no purchase.

I fall.

The ground rushes up to meet me. My temple cracks against a stone boundary marker hidden in the ferns.

Pain explodes behind my eyes, a starburst of white light that blinds me. Then, the pain vanishes, swallowed by the cold, heavy weight of the toxin.

I am lying in the dirt. The red ferns are tickling my cheek. I can see the stars through the canopy of the blue trees, swirling in dizzying arcs. I need to get up. I need to run. If I am found here, Byshu will peel the skin from my bones.

Move, I scream at my body. Get up!

Nothing happens. I am a statue in my own skin. My chest heaves, the air leaving my lungs in short, shallow gasps that sound loud in the silence.

The sweet smell of the Numiscu fills my nose, mocking me. It smells like the sleep I have been denied for years.

Is this it? The thought drifts through the fog in my mind. Is this my Day of Light? Dying in the dirt?

Tears prick my eyes, hot and frustrating. I wanted to see the lights. I wanted to know what pine smelled like inside a warm room. I wanted to stop running.

Suddenly, the sound changes.

The wind dies. The rustle of the leaves stops.

In the silence, a new sound emerges.

Shhh. Shhh. Drag.

It is a heavy sound. The sound of something massive moving over the earth with terrifying, fluid power. It is the distinctive sound of scales sliding over stone and sand.

He is coming.

I try to close my eyes, to hide from the monster approaching, but the paralysis has stolen even that small mercy. My eyes are wide open, staring helplessly into the dark as a shadow detaches itself from the estate walls.

It is huge. A wall of jade and obsidian scales blocks out the stars. The heat radiating from the creature hits my cold skin like a physical wave.

My vision tunnels, the edges turning gray. The last thing I see before the darkness takes me completely is a pair of golden eyes, vertical pupils narrowing as they fixate on me, and a dark hood flaring wide against the night sky.