Chapter 1

Faye

The day I stopped counting the bones in Ti'lith's foundation was the day I forgot I was human—but the prince's claws in a matron's spine reminded me quick enough.

I crouch in my hidden cache, a forgotten maintenance shaft wedged between two massive obsidian supports, sorting through today's pathetic haul. Three strips of dried meat that taste like leather and regret. A canteen that might hold two days of water if I ration it like my life depends on it—which it does. Five black glass fruits wrapped in torn fabric to keep them from oxidizing in Protheka's air.

My fingers move without thinking, organizing everything into neat piles. Order means survival. Chaos means death. It's a lesson Ti'lith teaches with brutal efficiency.

The city groans around me, that ever-present sound of crystal grinding against stone as the floating demon stronghold drifts through the perpetual storm clouds. After three years, I barely notice it anymore. Just like I barely notice the acidic tang of chaos magic that burns the back of my throat with every breath.

A tremor runs through the foundation—different from the usual shifts. My hands still on the fruit I'm wrapping.

That's not the city moving. That's something else.

Another tremor. Stronger. The metal walls of my cache sing with vibration.

"Brass and bone," I whisper, already shoving my supplies into my satchel. A chaos storm. The electrical tempests that shroud Ti'lith usually follow predictable patterns. Usually.

But nothing about tonight feels usual.

I swing out of the cache, my callused fingers finding purchase on the sharp edges of demon architecture. Three years of climbing these vertical nightmares has taught me exactly where to grip without slicing my palms open. The scars crisscrossing my hands tell the story of how I learned.

Another tremor. The air tastes different—copper and ozone and something else. Something that makes my teeth ache.

I need shelter. Real shelter, not my maintenance shaft. When chaos storms hit hard, they can fry humans from the inside out. I've seen it happen. Watched a woman in the breeding quarters convulse as purple lightning coursed through her veins, cooking her alive while her demon keeper just... watched.

The nearest storm shelter is through the abandoned crystal gardens. No one goes there anymore, not since some territorial dispute ended with the whole section being declared neutral ground. Demons would rather burn than set foot on neutral ground.

Which makes it perfect for someone like me.

I drop from a service pipe onto a crystalline walkway, my bare feet silent on the cold surface. Twenty feet below, I can see the lights of the lower markets where demons trade in flesh and suffering. The human pens glow with that sickly green luminescence that means feeding time.

My stomach clenches with a different kind of hunger, but I push it aside. No time for guilt over the ones I can't save. Never is.

The entrance to the crystal gardens looms ahead—an archway of twisted metal that almost looks like reaching fingers. Or maybe claws. Everything in Ti'lith looks like claws if you stare long enough.

I slip through, and the world changes.

The gardens spread before me in a mockery of natural beauty. Trees of silver and gold twist toward a sky they'll never see, their metallic leaves chiming in harmonies that make my skin crawl. Flowers of pure chaos energy bloom and wither in seconds, their petals dissolving into sparks that drift like snow.

It should be empty. It's always empty.

So why do I hear voices?

Training kicks in. Three rules for unexpected encounters. 

Rule one: Don't be curious. 

Rule two: If you're already curious, don't be stupid. 

Rule three: If you're already stupid, at least be quiet.

I break all three.

The voices draw me deeper into the garden, past fountains that weep liquid starlight and benches carved from single blocks of midnight. My feet know how to move without sound, how to use the strange acoustics of demon architecture to mask my presence.

"—promised me she would be alone." A woman's voice, pitched high with fear. No, not fear. Fury.

"Promises are like hearts, Yzzara." The male voice that answers makes my steps falter. Deep as the abyss, smooth as poisoned honey. I know that voice. Every human in Ti'lith knows that voice. "They're so much prettier when they're broken."

Prince Vazriath. The Seventh Son. The Kinslayer, though no one's ever proven it.

I should run. Every instinct screams at me to turn around, to sprint back to my cache and hide until the storm passes and the prince finds other prey. But my traitorous feet carry me forward, toward a clearing where the metallic trees part like curtains.

The sight that greets me stops my heart.

Matron Yzzara—all six feet of her serpentine glory—stands with her back to me, her four arms gesturing wildly. Her scales shimmer between purple and black, and the spines along her back rattle with agitation. She's powerful. Ancient. One of the few demons who remembers their dying world.

And Prince Vazriath is smiling at her like she's already dead.

He's everything the stories say and worse. Eight feet of perfectly controlled violence wrapped in ash-gray skin that shifts to charcoal at the edges like smoke given form. His hair falls past his shoulders, black as the void between stars, and when he tilts his head, I catch sight of the horns that curve back from his temples. The left one bears a wicked scar, a chunk missing from what should be a symbol of power.

He's beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—all deadly purpose and cruel edges.

"You told me the Mother's Keeper had evidence," Yzzara hisses, her forked tongue tasting the air. "You said—"

"I said many things." Vazriath steps closer, and I see what Yzzara doesn't—the way his fingers extend into claws, the way chaos magic wreathes his arms like smoke. "But then, you were so eager to believe them. Tell me, did you really think I'd help you destroy proof of my mother's murder?"

Yzzara starts to turn. "What are you—"

Fast. He's so impossibly fast.

One moment he's standing ten feet away. The next, his claws punch through her spine with a wet crunch that echoes through the clearing. Yzzara's eyes go wide, all four arms spasming as silver blood bubbles from her lips.

"The thing about investigating murders," Vazriath says conversationally, as if he isn't holding a dying matron up by her spine, "is that eventually, you find the murderer."

He twists his hand. Yzzara screams—a sound that should bring guards, should bring justice, should bring something.

But this is Ti'lith. And he's a prince.

"You killed her," Yzzara gasps. "Your own mother—"

"No." His voice drops to something colder than the space between stars. "You killed her. You and Malphas and all the others who thought her weak for opposing your little schemes. I'm just..." He pulls his claws free with deliberate slowness, letting her collapse to the ground. "...returning the favor."

Yzzara tries to speak, but only blood comes out. Silver blood that pools around her twitching form, seeping into the crystal ground.

And that's when Vazriath starts the ritual.

He kneels beside her, using her blood to paint symbols I recognize but shouldn't. Old Demonic. The kind of writing that predates even their arrival on Protheka. Kitchen slaves whisper those words in their prayers, begging forgotten gods for mercy that never comes.

My mind races, translating automatically. By blood spilled and truth revealed. By power taken and power earned. Let the conspirator's silence be broken in death as it was kept in life.

A truth ritual. He's using her death to uncover her secrets.

"Ah," he murmurs, watching something in the blood that I can't see. "There you are. All your little co-conspirators, laid bare. How disappointing that there are so many."

Yzzara's body convulses one last time, then crumbles to silver dust that swirls up and away like ash on an unfelt wind. In seconds, it's as if she never existed at all.

Which is when Prince Vazriath turns and looks directly at me.

"Stop holding your breath," he says, and that poisoned-honey voice carries a thread of amusement that makes my blood freeze. "It's terribly bad for you."

I don't think. I bolt.

Or try to. But between one heartbeat and the next, he's there—not in front of me, but beside me, matching my desperate sprint with languid ease.

"Where are you going?" He sounds genuinely curious. "The storm will kill you far less kindly than I will."

I dodge left, diving between two metal trees. Their branches scream as they scrape together, and I use the noise to mask my change in direction. Three years of running from demons has taught me every trick, every feint.

He's in front of me again.

"Fascinating." He tilts his head, and this close I can see that his eyes are deep crimson, flecked with violet like dying stars. "You move like prey that's learned to think. How novel."

"I saw nothing." The words tumble out, desperate and useless. "I'm nobody. I don't exist. I—"

"Nobody?" His smile widens, showing teeth too sharp to be anything but weapons. "Perfect."

I spin to run again, but his hand closes around my throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just... holding. His touch burns cold, chaos magic seeping through my skin like frost.

"Do you know what I need, little nobody?" He pulls me closer, until I can see myself reflected in those impossible eyes. My dark auburn hair is a tangled mess, hacked short with stolen blades. My hazel eyes are wide with terror, the green in them more prominent in the garden's ethereal light. I look exactly like what I am—a half-starved human thief about to die. "I need someone invisible. Someone worthless. Someone no one would ever suspect of being mine."

"I don't understand—"

"You understand Old Demonic." It's not a question. "You translated my ritual in your head. I could see it in your eyes."

My heart hammers against my ribs. "I don't—"

His grip tightens just enough to cut off the lie. "Careful. I find honesty so much more entertaining than the alternative."

When he releases me, I stumble back, gasping. But I don't run. There's nowhere to go. We both know it.

"Please," I whisper.

"Please?" He laughs, and it's a sound like breaking glass. "Please what? Please kill you quickly? Please make it painless? Or please..." He reaches into the air, and reality bends around his fingers, producing something that makes my soul recoil.

A collar. Black metal that writhes like it's alive, etched with symbols that hurt to perceive.

"Please let you be useful?"

"That's not a choice," I spit out, fear making me bold. Or stupid. Probably stupid.

"No," he agrees, stepping closer. "It's not."

The collar is cold when it touches my throat. Then it's fire. Then it's ice. Then it's something worse—a sensation like hooks sinking into my very essence, binding me to something vast and terrible and—

I scream.

When the pain fades, I'm on my knees in the silver dust that used to be Matron Yzzara. The collar sits heavy against my throat, its magic pulsing in time with my heartbeat.

No. Not my heartbeat.

Vazriath crouches in front of me, studying my face with the detached interest of a scientist examining a new specimen. "Do you feel it yet? The connection?"

I do. God help me, I do. There's a thread between us now, invisible but undeniable. I can feel his satisfaction like a second emotion layered over my terror. His power like a storm contained in flesh.

"If I die," he says softly, "you die. If you betray me, we both burn. If you run..." He touches the collar, and agony shoots through every nerve. "Well. Let's not test that theory."

When I can breathe again, I glare up at him through tears I refuse to let fall. "What do you want from me?"

"Everything." He stands, offering me a hand I don't take. "You need to help me uncover every conspirator who killed my mother. You're going to be my eyes in places a prince can't go. You're going to be my perfect, invisible weapon."

"And if I refuse?"

That smile again. That terrible, beautiful smile. "Then you'll discover that there are worse things than death, little witness. And I know them all."

The storm breaks overhead, purple lightning crackling across the sky. In its light, Prince Vazriath looks like what he is—a nightmare made flesh, a dark fairy tale warning come to life.

And I'm trapped in his story now, bound by chains I can't break, marked by magic I don't understand.

"Come," he says, turning toward the garden's exit. "Let me show you your new cage."

I follow because I have no choice. The collar pulses with each step, a constant reminder that I'm no longer nobody.

I'm his.

Rule four of surviving Ti'lith's underbelly: Don't attract the attention of princes.

I should have listened to my own rules.