“You are exactly what we need,” the Collector says, and there's something almost like pity in her mechanized voice. “The dragons are hungry this season.”
That's when true fear slithers through me. Not the holding cells. Not the city watch. They're taking me to the Ironhold. To the arena.
And few return from the games.
A needle pricks my neck. Cold liquid rushes into my veins. The world begins to fade.
The last thing I see before darkness claims me is a massive shadow passing overhead—a dragon being led toward the distant mountain arena, its wings bound in chains, its roar a mournful echo of my own unspoken scream.
Chapter 2
Iwake to the taste of blood and iron.
My body feels weighted, limbs heavy as stone as consciousness crawls back. The rocking motion beneath me makes my stomach lurch. I'm in a wagon. No, something larger. The rumble of wheels on uneven ground vibrates through the metal floor pressed against my cheek.
“She's waking up,” someone whispers.
I force my eyes open. Blurred shapes gradually focus. Five others stare back at me from the confines of a steel transport cage. Their faces are wary, hollow-eyed, their beauty weathered into sharpness. The youngest is hardly sixteen, the oldest maybe thirty, though hardship makes him look older. All of them wear the same expression I've seen in every dark corner of the Lower Wards: the look of prey animals caught in a snare.
“Welcome to the recruitment caravan,” says a girl with half her head shaved, dark tattoos snaking from the taper of her elegant, pointed ears down the curve of her neck. “End of the line.”
I push myself upright, wincing as my muscles scream in protest. The cage is barely tall enough to sit up in, and wide enough to hold perhaps eight adults pressed together. Throughthe bars, I glimpse a convoy of similar wagons ahead and behind, each pulled by massive lizard-oxen with scales glinting dully in the afternoon light.
“Where—” My voice cracks. My throat feels scraped raw.
“Heading east,” says a thin male with a scar bisecting his left eye. “To the Ironhold. Consider yourself honored.” His laugh is hollow. “We've been chosen to die for the empire's entertainment.”
The Ironhold. All iron and law, they say. A fortress to keep the peace. Once, iron weakened fae, sapping at our power. Now it merely serves as a reminder of what we lost, while holding the lawless, the criminals, the condemned. A stern monument to justice, where fae are sent to die.
The girl with the tattoos elbows him. “Shut it, Dren. You'll scare the fresh meat.”
“Good,” Dren says. “Better scared now than stupid later.”
I manage to take stock of myself. They've stripped me of my coat and boots, leaving me in just my threadbare tunic and leggings. The satchel with my meager possessions is gone. Of course. Nothing comes with you to the games except your body and whatever cunning you possess.Gods,I wish I had more. The kind of power that once belonged to us. A spark that should be there, coiled in my veins, waiting to answer. But it isn’t. It never has been. All I have is flesh. And fear.
I remember that’s exactly the point. I heard that once, to be chosen meant glory among the courts. Now it means only death—for those who break the law, even those with no other choice. A convenient reminder from the empire that sacrifices are made when stability is threatened; that law and order demand obedience above all else. It’s meant to be for the benefit of Thalyris, for the benefit of us all, so the catastrophes of the past never have the chance to rise again.
It’s just my bad luck, then, to stand among the undesirables.
“How long have I been out?” I breathe, tentatively feeling the tender spot on my neck where the needle pierced me.
“Two days,” whispers the youngest captive, a boy with brilliant copper-colored hair. “They keep us sedated through the city gates. Less chance of rescue attempts that way.” His accent marks him as an east-sider, probably from the Scholar's Quarter. Not the usual Collector target.
“As if anyone would try,” mutters Dren.
I peer through the bars at the landscape rolling past. We've left the city far behind. The road cuts through scrubland that grows progressively more desolate with each mile. In the distance, knife-edged mountains tear at the sky—the Spine, they call it. Ancient, dead volcanoes, once alive with fire and power. Now they’re nothing but carved-out husks. Like us.
“I'm Lira,” says the tattooed girl, offering me a waterskin. “Drink. That sleep serum dries you out.”
I take it gratefully, not caring that the water is warm and tastes of leather. “Veyra,” I say after I've drained half the skin.
“What'd they get you for?” asks a muscular female in the corner, her dark hair cropped close to her scalp. “I’m Nyx. Broke a magistrate's son's arm when he tried to claim his 'noble rights' in my tavern.”
“Theft,” I reply. “And existing inconveniently.”
That earns a few grim chuckles.
“Same story every year,” Nyx mutters. “They clear out the Lower Wards, the prisons, anywhere people won't be missed. Once in a while they'll take someone higher-born who's fallen out of favor.” She nods toward the copper-haired boy. “Like our little scholar there.”
