Chapter 1

Ariselle

The lie has a scent, and tonight, it smells like pine needles and sweet, cloying oil. It’s an aggressively pleasant aroma, meant to mask the cavern’s true perfume of damp stone, wet fur, and the faint, metallic tang of old blood that has seeped into the marble itself. The Vrakken call this the reformed Solstice. I call it putting a wreath on a tombstone.

From my hiding spot, I can see the evidence of this grand reformation glittering in the torchlight. Where heavy iron chains once hung, symbols of conquest, now hang delicate strands of carved ice and raw crystal. It’s all very civilized, a pretty lie to tell themselves. 

My stomach, however, doesn’t give a damn about hypocrisy. It only cares about the gnawing, scraping emptiness that has been my only constant for days. That hunger is a clawed fist twisting my insides, a truth more pressing than any royal decree.

The scent of fresh-baked bread, dense and rich, cuts through the pine-scented lie like a sharpened blade. I watch the guards, their ghostly white skin and dark-socketed eyes making them look like specters. They are predators forced to play shepherd, and their boredom makes them careless. 

My target is a wicker basket piled high with dark, round loaves, still radiating a faint warmth. The plan is simple: a feigned stumble, a quick hand, and two loaves disappear under my coat. My heart gives a slow, heavy thump against my ribs, a familiar drumbeat of risk and reward.

Just as I gather my muscles to move, a figure detaches itself from the deeper shadows. Lord Veynar. His skin is the color of old bone, his lips a pale, bloodless slash in his face. 

He isn’t watching the guards. His dark, empty-socketed eyes are fixed on the stores, on the shadows, on me. He is a vulture, and I suddenly realize with a jolt of ice-cold certainty, he’s been waiting for me all along.

Being dragged into the main hall is like being plunged into a nightmare. The sheer scale of the cavern is designed to crush the spirit, to make any living thing feel small and insignificant. Black-ice stalactites as thick as ancient trees hang from a ceiling lost in shadow, each one weeping a slow, eternal tear. The air is cold and rich with the scent of their strange, floral perfumes and the clean, inhuman smell of their flesh. 

I am a public spectacle, a smear of human dirt and sweat, a flaw in their ethereal, monochrome tapestry. Veynar’s grip is a band of iron on my arm as he propels me toward the Warlord Drazien and the human queen, Solenne.

Veynar shoves me hard, and my knees crack against the polished marble floor.

“A thief, my lord,” he announces, his voice ringing with a well-rehearsed, self-righteous fury. “A human, caught stealing from the Solstice offerings. An execution would honor tradition.”

I tune out his speech, focusing instead on the woman on the throne. The human queen. I can see the ghost of fear still lingering in her gray eyes, but she speaks for me anyway, her voice a thread of steel in the oppressive silence. It takes guts to speak for a street rat in a room full of wolves.

The Warlord Drazien watches the exchange, his crimson eyes unblinking, his handsome face a mask of cold indifference. He is not a king weighing justice; he is a general assessing a tactical problem. When he speaks, his voice is like the grinding of glaciers.

“The Queen is correct,” Drazien says, his gaze flicking dismissively over Veynar before landing on me. “However, a punishment is required. A lesson in community. You will be bound in iron chains to my enforcer for the duration of the Solstice rites.”

It is not mercy he offers, but a political calculation. I am to be chained to Aric, his enforcer. My gaze is drawn to the figure standing at the base of the throne, a mountain of pale, scarred skin and black iron, the monster from the stories. As he looks down at me, I feel not terror, but a grim, weary recognition. 

I know his kind. He is a language that I understand.

The chain is heavy, each link of black iron as thick as my thumb, smelling of the forge, of coal smoke and quenching oil. It’s a functional thing, made for binding beasts and breaking spirits. Aric approaches, his steps unnervingly silent on the marble floor. 

The great hall has fallen into a hush, every Vrakken noble watching this small, intimate drama unfold. He takes the shackle, and the act of fastening it around my wrist is a violation more profound than any blow. His fingers are cold, impersonal, but his proximity is an oppressive weight that radiates a silent, simmering rage.

The cold iron closes around my wrist. A collar. A cage. The primal, suffocating fear of being trapped surges up my throat like bile. 

Panic, cold and absolute, threatens to swallow me whole. Don’t you dare, I snarl at myself, the voice in my head the only thing holding me together. Don’t you dare let them see it.

I force the frozen muscles of my face to move, to twist into the only weapon I have ever truly owned. The heavy lock clicks shut, the sound sharp and final, sealing my fate to the monster beside me. 

I lift my head slowly and meet Aric’s furious glare. And I smile. It’s a sharp, mocking, street-rat grin that shows too many teeth.

“Don’t you look thrilled,” I say, my voice like a blade of sarcasm.

Before he can react, I give the chain a sharp, deliberate tug. It’s an insult. A challenge. A promise. 

The heavy links rattle, a dissonant chord in the silent hall. Even leashed, I will not be broken.