Chapter 1
Aurelia
“Once upon a time, in a land far away...”
Fairy tales. What bullshit.
I’d heard it all in my youth. Handsome princes and thrones made of gold. Dresses and balls and animals that talked.
Sure, why not.
And yeah, maybe I’d believed it as a kid. I’d sit with my mom, reading until the small hours of the morning even though I should’ve been in bed hours before, lulled by her soft tone, held tightly in her arms. I’d dream of one day flying like the dragons. Of leading a hunt with the wolves. She’d said I could be anything, live anywhere. It wouldn’t matter where I started because my prince would find me. He’d save me. He and I would eventually lead the kingdom wearing gemmed crowns and creating a safe space for everyone to co-exist, even those who couldn’t quite feel the magic they were supposed to be blessed with.
Turned out, there were no princes for the magically inept. No friends, either. Most of the time, especially in my youth, there was not even kindness. We were the outcasts. The unwanted. If I wanted to be saved, I’d have to do it myself. There was a freedom in that which I valued, an empowerment to claim myfuture. Though I will admit... it would’ve been nice for a prince to sweep me off my feet.
I inhaled the slightly stale air of the work shed where I spent the majority of my time. Two windows let in the light and a few desks acted as work stations, positioned around the single room space. My fingers moved quickly from years of experience, twisting a particular vine around the Nimfire leaf. After this batch was done, I’d take to my rigged-up contraptions to add pressure and heat, turning the contents into a powerful hallucinogen.
A drug, in other words. The fun kind. The kind that was against the law and would get us all brought in by the royal guards and put to death if anyone should find out we created it.
My life was anything but a fairy tale.
I yanked the vine into a knot. A thorn sliced my calloused finger and little spots of crimson welled up along the cut. The sting of it barely registered.
Another knot, and I dropped that piece into a basin of warm water before picking up another vine.
“You about done?” Razorfang asked. His name was one he’d chosen for himself after taking too much of the particular product I was making. A scratch ran down his cheek and frown lines etched into his ruddy face. The grizzled older man had a slight hunch from many years of tending the village gardens, a necessary element to our operations.
He stopped a few paces away from my workstation, a rickety little desk tucked into a corner with a slight lean to the right. He never dared get too close, which was fine by me. He didn’t bathe as much as he really needed to.
I leaned back a little and reached for my tea perched on the edge of my desk. “Yeah. A dozen more or so. Why? Is it date-night with your mate?”
He swayed toward me a little, his eyes a little too wide, a touch manic.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his tone accusatory. “You plottin’ on me, girl? Tryin’ to get me out of here so that you can rig up a trap on my desk?” He stuck out a hammy finger, stained purple. “I know what you’re up to. No dud is going to catch me unawares. I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.” He half-turned to point. “I know all your tricks. Don’t think for one”—he squeezed his eyes shut with the force of the next word—“momentyou can catch me with my hands tied!”
I let loose an annoyed breath, re-focusing on my task. Clearly, he’d sampled the product again. He was unreasonable when he was like this, paranoid I’d try to harm or kill him. It wasn’t him who needed eyes in the back of his head, though; it was me. I’d gotten very good at sensing when he was sneaking up on me with a knife or some other sharp object, trying to do the village a “favor” by getting rid of the dud, a slur for a shifter without magic.
“I’m not the one you should be worried about,” I warned. “Granny is in town. You can’t be sampling the product when she’s here. You know that.”
“Let me worry about her. I know what I’m about. You just mind your manners, filthy dud.”
I shook my head as he stared down at me. After a few moments of getting no response, he finally shuffled away.
As a rule, I didn’t create chemically addictive products. My life afforded me very few moral principles, so I stood by those I had carved out. The product could be habit-forming, though, if a person wasn’t careful. Raz wasn’t careful, not in the slightest. He hated his job, he hated his dependency on Granny, our benefactor, and most of all, he hated working with what he correctly suspected was a violent dud.
I didn’t know why he was so concerned. Without access to my animal, I didn’t have a shifter’s enhanced strength and speed. I couldn’t heal quickly. He had the advantage over me in every way. I’d gotten quick with a lot of practice, but that’s about all I had going for me. Well, practice, and honing my sixth sense regarding danger so I could anticipate when he would strike. The guy was delusional in all ways but one: the village definitely wanted the filthy dud gone. They’d all, at one time or another, made that quite clear.
Thank the gods for Granny’s protection. She wasn’t blood—everyone called her that—but shewasmy fairy godmother. She’d taken me in as a kid when I was on the brink of starvation, chased by dud-hating hordes, having no coin and nowhere to go. She gave me a home, found me this job, created connections with sketchy shadow markets and forced this village to (mostly) leave me be. She was my guardian angel. My divine intervention. I owed her everything.
I dropped the vine-wrapped leaf into the water before stopping for a quick sip of my lukewarm tea. Cup returned, I proceeded to wrap the next vine. Then the next. My mind drifted, conjuring up images that I might try to draw in charcoal. Before I knew it, I stared down at an empty desk with two more slices in my thumb.
I pulled a little jar from the top of my station, by the wall. The few petals within started its slow, mournful throb, glowing a pale, pastel pink. Or maybe ‘mournful’ was just my reaction to having picked the whole flower, thus condemning it to death. I should’ve taken a few petals and memorized the location so I could go back and pick more another time. The flowers were supposed to bloom all through spring and summer.
After unscrewing the jar, I delicately removed one of the petals and paused, holding it in my palm and watching the pretty glow intensify.
“That the Moonfire Lily?” Raz once again approached. He forgot to maintain his distance this time, his head cocked as he stared at the flower.
“Yeah. Pretty, isn’t it?”
