I closed my eyes against memories of distant screams, of smoke and burning flesh.
No kingdom escaped without loss. Thane lost his uncles. The smaller kingdom of Myrda lost its loyal seneschal and the queen’s nephews.
Me—I lost my homeland and voice.
“You’re to leave at first light,” Thane said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful, my friend. This woman will not be Fadey. I’d hate for her to bespell that dark heart of yours.”
I scoffed.I’d slit her throat if she tried. I have no love for melders, and that will never change.
2
Lyra
I was once told we nevertruly knew another soul until we saw the darkness they kept inside.
In this moment, I was looking into the eyes of evil.
I blinked, hoping the bastard could see a bit of the silver scar bending the dark center of my eyes, a warning he ought to choose his next moves with care. Pukki did nothing but gnaw on the clod of grass, wholly unbothered by my disdain.
“Move.” I tugged on the rope around the goat’s neck.
A lethargic bleat followed, and the creature dipped his head to continue his graze of the meadow. I held out a palm, as though Pukki would understand the threat, and whispered, “I could break you, you stupid beast.”
More gnawing, more snorting.
I let my head fall back and cursed the sky. “Fine. Stay there, you damn devil, but don’t go anywhere until I finish.”
I trudged up the narrow path to the small orchard of starplums. The pale outer flesh gleamed in the sunrise, but when eaten, the centers were a crimson deeper than blood.
There, a cart stacked in wicker baskets remained, goat-less.
I glared at Pukki. His jaw rotated lazily, and he flicked his ears, slightly curious why I’d gone away, but not enough to move.
I dug a vial from the pocket of my burlap smock. I’d rinsed my eyes with the intent to intimidate a stupid creature with my scars, but he had no sense of self-preservation. Head tilted, I dropped some of the inky fluid into each eye, wincing against the bite of heat.
Thorn blossoms were lovely flowers that grew by the coast and were often used to dye tunics and wool. For me, the pressed blossoms hid the silver scars in my eyes behind a dark violet lie.
Beautiful, but the blossom dye stung like hot ash tossed in the face.
Time before the scars appeared was lost to a fog in my mind, a life I could not quite recall.
There were weak, vague memories of laughter and warm arms and a thick beard split into two braids. Sometimes I would dream of a woman’s gentle voice singing me a folk song of lost souls.
Whenever I dreamed of the night of smoke and screams, I always saw eyes like a sunrise break through the shadows just before I woke.
The first memories I knew to be real for a certainty began in the cold walls of a youth house meant for abandoned or orphaned young ones. Wood laths overtaken by golden moss and silken webs in the corners gave me a roof and bed. There, I learned the silver dividing the black of my eyes was a cruel curse.
Gammal, the wizened maid whose spine arched like arounded hill, was the first to take note. I would never forget her knobby, crooked fingers working in a frenzy, teaching me to crush the petals of the blossoms, and forcing the dye over my lashes.
She had beautiful, coiled ink tattoos across her wrists that had faded from sun and seasons.
“Unfettered Folk marks,” she told me. “Our young ones are given their marks to begin the sagas of their accomplishments. My clan was often covered in them by the time they were ready to fall into the realm of souls. A bit like your house runes.”
On instinct, I brushed a hand over the tattoo beneath my ear where Gammal had helped alter the rune marks of what once was a sigil of a House named Bien.
The clans of the Unfettered were people beyond the cliffs of the Night Ledges in the North. People without a king, a queen, and no magical craft. They lived in huts and hunted with spears and stone axes. Some said the Unfettered shaved their teeth into sharp points.
Gammal’s teeth had looked like mine.
