Chapter 1

Dina

The marble floors of Lord Jildred’s estate are colder than a tomb. The chill seeps through the thin soles of my slave slippers, a constant, gnawing reminder of this place, of my place. Above, enchanted globes of light drift near the vaulted ceiling, casting a sterile, white glow on gilded walls that never feel warm. Their light catches the cruel angles on the faces of the Miou guards, their violet eyes missing nothing, their lips curled in permanent contempt. 

They watch me pass, a human insect scuttling through their pristine world, and I keep my own eyes down, my focus on the grime my rag is meant to collect from the pristine floor. To be noticed is to be a target.

A sharp kick to my ribs sends me sprawling. The bucket of filthy water sloshes, a wave of grey soaking the hem of my rough-spun tunic. Pain, bright and blinding, explodes behind my eyes.

“Watch where you’re going, filth.” The guard’s voice is silk woven around steel. He doesn’t even look down. He just adjusts the silver inlay on his gauntlet and stalks on, leaving me gasping on the freezing floor. Ice floods my veins, stealing what little warmth I had. I bite back the cry that claws at my throat. Sound is a weakness. Pain is a lesson. That is the first thing you learn in a Dark Elf’s service.

I’m still trying to force air back into my lungs when another shadow falls over me. This one belongs to the kennel master, a sour-faced

Zagfer whose cruelty is born not of arrogance, but of bitter resentment for his station.

“On your feet, girl,” he snaps, his voice a rusty grate. “You’ve drawn the beast detail today.”

My stomach plummets. A collective hiss of pity and fear rises from the other slaves scrubbing nearby. The beast detail. It’s a punishment, a threat, a horror story whispered in the barracks after the lights are extinguished. No one wants it. The last girl who had it for a week came back with her arm torn from its socket. She’d lasted a day before the fever took her.

The kennel master shoves a wooden bucket into my hands. Inside, a hunk of raw, bloody meat steams in the cold air. “The Master’s pet has been… agitated. Don’t get close. Just throw it in and run.”

He doesn’t need to tell me twice. My feet carry me down the grand staircase, away from the cloying perfume and cold light of the main halls, and into the deep, damp underbelly of the estate. Down here, the air grows thick, heavy with the stench of unwashed bodies, of fear, and of something else—a primal musk of apex predator that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. The only light comes from sputtering torches that cast long, dancing shadows, turning the stone corridors into a monster’s gullet.

The final gate is a portcullis of black iron, slick with moisture. The guard levers it open with a groan of protesting metal, and the smell hits me like a carriage running with the speed of light. Rot, filth, and the raw, coppery scent of blood. The air leaves my body in a painful whoosh.

And then I see him.

He is chained to the far wall, a creature born from a fever dream. He is immense, a ten-foot-tall mountain of corrupted flesh and knotted muscle, his sheer scale so overwhelming it steals the breath. This is the master’s Urog, the twisted mockery of an Orc warrior that Lord Jildred is so proud of. His skin, what I can see of it beneath the filth and dried blood, is a sickly, bruised-looking grey-green, a diseased parody of the healthy olive tone I’ve heard Orcs possess. Every inch of him is a testament to the sorcerer's vile magic. Muscles bulge at unnatural angles, impossibly thick and dense, roped with veins as thick as my wrist. His spine is hunched, his shoulders so broad they seem they could carry the weight of the entire estate.

His head is a nightmare. A heavy, protruding brow hangs over eyes that burn like coals in the darkness. His nose is flattened, his jaw a brutish, jutting shelf of bone from which two yellowed tusks curve upward, small and blunted but still wickedly sharp. A low, guttural breathing, like a forge bellows, rumbles from his chest, each exhale a hot, foul cloud in the frigid air. 

Thick, enchanted shackles of black iron are bolted around his wrists, his ankles, and his throat, the metal glowing with a faint, sickly purple light. The chains that bind him to the wall are as thick as my waist, yet he shifts, and they groan in protest, the sound of stressed metal echoing the agony of his existence.

He is a masterpiece of pain, a living monument to Dark Elf cruelty. But as I stand there, my knuckles white on the bucket’s handle, my terror is pierced by a pang of something else. Something forbidden. A stubborn, aching compassion. Through the filth and the fury, I can see the faded lines of a tattoo on his shoulder—a stylized sun, its rays warped by the twisted muscle beneath. It is a mark of belonging, a ghost of the warrior he once was before they made him this… thing.

I take a step into the enclosure. Then another. My heart thunders against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. The kennel master’s words echo in my mind. Throw it in and run.

But I can’t. To treat him like a mindless animal is to agree with his captors. It is to become a part of their cruelty.

He watches my approach, his massive head lifting. A growl begins deep in his chest, a terrifying rumble that vibrates through the stone floor. This is madness. He will kill me.

“I’m… I’m not going to hurt you,” I whisper, my voice trembling so badly I can barely form the words. The sound of it, small and human, seems to startle him. The growl subsides into that guttural breathing once more.

I reach the edge of his chain’s radius and set the bucket down. Instead of leaving, I pull a small, cloth-wrapped bundle from my pocket. It’s half of my morning’s bread ration, dry and coarse, but it’s all I have. I place it on the ground beside the bucket of meat.

His gaze drops to the bread, then lifts back to my face. The burning rage in his eyes is absolute, a hellish inferno. But for a fraction of a second, just an instant, the flames part. And in that space, I see it. A flicker of something else. Not rage. Not madness. Something shockingly, heartbreakingly sane. It looks like a surprise.

The moment is shattered.

“What are you doing, you stupid girl?”

A hand slams into my back, shoving me forward. I stumble, catching myself on the cold stone just inches from his reach. The guard from the gate stands behind me, his face a hard mask of fury.

“Get away from it!” he snarls, grabbing my arm and yanking me back toward the entrance. His fingers dig into my flesh like talons. “The master wants a beast, not a pet. You linger like that again, and I’ll let it show you what those claws are for. It’ll rip you apart and not think twice.”

He throws me out of the enclosure and slams the portcullis down with a deafening clang. Through the bars, I look back. The Urog hasn’t moved. He isn’t looking at the meat. He is staring at the small, humble piece of bread, and the flicker in his eyes is still there, a tiny, impossible spark of a soul buried in the dark.