Chapter 1

Lyria 

The air has a taste this morning—iron and ash, faint but enough to curl my lip as I step out into the yard. Frost crunches under my boots, the kind that clings even after the sun drags itself over the ridge. Our little patch of farmland sits in the long shadow of the magistrate’s fortress, black stone and jagged towers stabbing into the pale winter sky. It feels like it’s watching us. Always watching.

I hitch the bucket over my shoulder, the rope biting into my palm, and head down the worn path toward the river. My muscles burn before I even reach the halfway point—two days ago I was bent over the fields until my back screamed, and last night I helped Ma patch the thatch on the roof because the wind had torn loose another strip. Pa can’t lift more than a sack of flour these days, and even that has him coughing for hours after.

"Don’t dawdle, Lyria," Ma had said as I left, her voice soft but the words tight. We don’t waste time anymore. Not with the magistrate’s quota looming.

The path curves along a frozen ditch, my breath streaming white into the air. Down by the river, the water still runs fast and loud, but there’s ice growing along the edges like the land’s teeth. I kneel, dipping the bucket into the current. The cold gnaws at my fingers until they ache, but I grit my teeth.

Two men stand farther upstream, their boots sinking in the mud as they speak low. I can’t help but hear—voices carry well in the winter air.

"Another attack on Hallow’s Ford," one mutters. His hood shadows his face, but the tension in his shoulders says enough.

"Bandits?" the other asks.

"Aye, if you can call ‘em that. Six-Three Gang, bold as brass. Took the stores and half a dozen goats. And the magistrate?" The man spits into the snow. "Didn’t lift a finger."

I stare into the rippling water, my hands tightening on the bucket’s handle. The Six-Three Gang’s name makes my skin prickle. They’re the kind who’d gut you for your boots and laugh over your corpse, and the magistrate’s guard wouldn’t even bother to scrape your bones out of the road.

"Not just bandits," the first man says. "Heard they’ve been teaming with the darkwood beasts. Saw tracks—clawed, heavy. Big enough to make a grown man piss himself."

The image slams into my mind before I can stop it—something huge and hungry moving under the trees, eyes glowing like embers. The magistrate ignores those too. As long as his tribute comes in on time, the rest of us can burn for all he cares.

I lift the bucket, water sloshing against the sides, and start back toward the farm. Every step makes the rope creak against the wooden handle, digging into my shoulder until it’s sore. My boots slip on the icy ruts, and I curse under my breath.

At the rise in the path, I pause and look back at the fortress. The black stone catches no light. It just sits there, patient and pitiless. I imagine—just for a heartbeat—walking up to its gates with fire in my hands, watching the walls crumble to ash under my touch.

A laugh escapes me, bitter and too loud in the stillness. The sound startles a crow from the hedgerow, its wings flapping as it rises into the cold sky. I shake my head and keep walking, but the picture clings to me.

The smell of woodsmoke greets me as I near the house, thin and sharp. Pa’s seated by the door, a blanket around his shoulders, the cough working through him again. Ma’s bent over her knitting, her fingers moving quick but clumsy in the chill.

"Got the water," I call, forcing cheer into my voice.

Pa tries for a smile, but it looks more like a grimace. "Good girl," he rasps.

Inside, the air is warmer but heavy, the smoke from the fire pit mingling with the tang of boiled turnip soup. My stomach growls. We’ve been stretching the last of the root cellar for weeks now, cutting portions thinner and thinner. I set the bucket near the hearth and glance at the meager stack of firewood. It won’t last another fortnight at this rate.

"Met anyone on the road?" Ma asks, eyes fixed on her needles.

"Two men at the river. Talking about the Six-Three hitting Hallow’s Ford again. Said the magistrate’s done nothing."

She doesn’t look surprised—just sighs, the sound soft but weary enough to fill the room. "He never does."

I sit by the fire, rubbing the ache from my hands. My mind drifts back to that ridiculous image—me at the fortress gates, bringing them down stone by stone. A world where the magistrate can’t bleed us dry, where the Six-Three can’t raid without fear, where my parents don’t cough themselves toward the grave just to meet someone else’s quota.

It’s a dream, I know. But it feels good, even for a breath, to picture it.

By afternoon the house feels too small, the air too heavy with the smell of boiled turnip and the scratch of Ma’s knitting needles. Pa’s cough rattles against my bones. I tell them I’m going to walk the ridge for kindling, though the axe stays by the door. What I really want is to get away from the sound of our hunger echoing in every silence.

The hills are bare this time of year, all frostbitten grass and the skeletal fingers of trees reaching into a bruised sky. I take the long path, boots slipping on patches of ice hidden under last year’s leaves. My breath comes sharp and white in the cold, and the only sound is the crunch of my steps—until I hear it.

Water.

It’s not the river; the sound is thinner, dancing and skipping instead of roaring. Curiosity tugs at me, and I leave the path, pushing through brittle undergrowth. The air grows damper, clinging to my cheeks, carrying a faint mineral tang that makes my tongue prickle. Somewhere ahead, a rivulet threads its way through the hillside, singing to itself.

I climb a little higher, crouching to brush frost off a rock so I can steady myself. The ground here feels loose under my boots, crumbling in places. The sound of the water is clearer now, like a silver ribbon unwinding. I want to see it. Just a glance before heading back.

The hill sighs beneath me.

One moment I’m leaning forward for a better look, the next my foot punches through the earth. The ground lets go all at once, and I’m swallowed with it—down into black, the world spinning so fast my stomach lurches. The scream catches in my throat as dirt and stones scrape my arms and a cold wind rushes upward, smelling faintly of something sweet, like burning resin.

I hit hard. My ears ring, and  the only thing I can do is gasp, my hands splayed against something cold and gritty. The air here is different—thick, damp, laced with a strange perfume that’s almost pleasant if not for the sharp metallic bite underneath, like old coins or blood.

I push myself upright, wincing at the ache in my hip where I landed. The darkness isn’t complete—faint light pulses along the stone walls in curling patterns, a sickly glow that shifts when I blink. My breath fogs in front of me, swirling in the chill.

Runes. I’ve seen them in the magistrate’s records, carved into the handles of weapons or painted onto banners, but never like this—never alive, glowing from within. They wind across the walls like veins, converging toward the center of the cavern.

And there, rising from the stone floor like it grew out of the rock itself, is a sarcophagus. Black as midnight, its surface gleams like glass though dust clings to the edges. Thick chains the color of spilled wine coil around it, their links etched with more of those writhing runes. Every so often they give off a dim pulse, as though some heartbeat moves through them.

The air hums faintly. My own pulse drums in my ears, too fast. I take a step closer before I realize I’m moving, my boots whispering against the cold stone.

Something shifts at the edge of my vision. A flicker—like a shadow breaking away from the wall. I freeze, straining to listen. The hairs on my arms rise, and the back of my neck tingles as if someone’s standing just behind me.

Then I hear it.

A voice. Deep, warm, the kind that rolls through the air and curls under your skin. Dangerous.

“Lyria.”

The sound of my name in that voice freezes my breath in my lungs. I turn toward it before my mind catches up with my body, eyes dragging over the cavern’s shadows until they find him—if him is even the right word.

He’s… impossibly tall, his head nearly brushing the arch of stone above. Skin the color of fresh blood catches the faint glow from the runes, polished and smooth like carved garnet. Black horns curl up and back from his forehead, ridged and gleaming, their tips fading into darkness. He isn’t all the way solid—edges of him blur like smoke, and I can see slivers of the runes through his chest when he moves. But the illusion doesn’t make him any less real.

Those eyes, golden and bright as molten metal. They lock on mine and hold, sharp enough I swear they can slice straight through me, peel me open, see the marrow of me.

My boots scrape the stone as I back away. “What—” My voice cracks, so I swallow and try again. “What are you?”

His mouth curves, not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. When he speaks, his voice rolls through the chamber, deep and warm, like standing too close to a fire. “Deklattu.”

The name has weight to it, landing between us like a thrown blade. I don’t recognize it, but the way he says it makes me think I should.

I take another step back. The chains around the sarcophagus pulse once, red light flaring like a heartbeat, and his form flickers. For a second he’s gone—just air and shadow—and then he’s closer, too close, towering above me. I can smell him now: the faintest hint of incense, something spicy and sweet, undercut with the sharp metallic tang that clung to the air when I first woke.

My shoulder brushes the cold wall. I hadn’t realized I’d backed that far. “Stay away from me,” I manage, though my voice shakes.

His chuckle is low and rich, and it slides down my spine in a way I can’t name. “If I could touch you, little mortal, I would have already. But alas…” He lifts his hands, flexing fingers tipped with black claws, and the edges of them blur again. “This prison allows only so much.”

I glance toward the shadows that might hide another tunnel, another way out, but the runes on the walls seem to thicken there, twisting like brambles, sealing every path but the one behind him.

“There’s no other way out?” I ask, hating the way my voice tips upward.

“Oh, there is a way.” His head tilts, horns catching the red glow as if they drink it in. “Mine.”

I stare at him, my pulse hammering so hard I feel it in my teeth. “Yours?”

“Mm.” The sound vibrates in the air. “I can guide you through the wards, keep the tomb from sealing behind you. But bargains are the marrow of my kind, Lyria. I do nothing for free.”

I can’t stop the words: “What do you want?”

His eyes brighten, heat flaring in the molten gold. The corners of his mouth curl like a man savoring wine. “Simple. You will come back. You will speak to me again. Tell me of your days. Read to me, perhaps. I find the sound of your voice… compelling.”

It’s such an absurd request that for a moment I think he’s mocking me. “That’s it? You want… conversation?”

He laughs outright now, the sound rich and dangerous, filling the space until the walls seem to hum with it. “For now.” His gaze flicks over me in a slow, deliberate sweep that leaves heat in its wake despite the cold. “Agree, and I will see you safely out. Refuse… and I suppose you can try your luck wandering these halls until hunger or the runes claim you.”

The pulse of the runes intensifies, and for an instant the air feels heavier, pressing on my ribs. I look back toward the sarcophagus, the crimson chains shifting like restless serpents, and realize there’s no other choice.