I remembered the first time I fully shifted. Young Shiftersshowed small signs at first—perhaps a paw or an ear, fangs or wings, but often weren’t able to control it.
I’d been trying to shift for hours outside our family’s second home, a secluded little cottage by the sea. My father was the governor of Drakorum, and we often traveled to the shore when my parents wanted to get out of the public eye. On this particular day, I tripped and fell over a rocky edge of the cliff, but instead of plummeting to the shoreline below, I sproutedwings.
It was painful at first, the way this vicious creature broke free of my lanky body. Navy and silver scales exploded from my skin, talons cut through the beds of my nails, and my limbs stretched excruciatingly tight as my body elongated into something three—five—tentimes my size.
But after the pain came euphoria.Revelation. For years, I’d had this other half inside, this invisible, gaping form that begged to be free…and I couldfinallysee it. Could finally feel my magic unlocking.
But my parents…they didn’t share my joy. They wereterrified.
A dragon Shifter hadn’t been born in two hundred and fifty years, not since a war almost broke out between the rest of the empire and the Shifters. They were wary of a dragon’s immense power, fearing they would rise up to overthrow the other provinces. So a toxin to suppress a dragon’s Shifter half was developed. It destroyed the gene entirely so it couldn’t be passed on to their offspring.
Ever since that day, dragons no longer existed.
Until me.
I didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation as a child, but my parents did. I remembered the confusing guilt of watching their panic, knowing forsome reason, it was my fault.
Someone claimed to see me in my dragon form, and rumors spread like wildfire. The people believed my parents had experimented on me. This led to more questions, more assumptions. Was Governor Caius Duma trying to build an army of dragon Shifters? Was I a danger to society?
When the voices escalated and began to turn the province against one another, someone else decided to take matters into his own hands.
Kane Scarven, only twenty-one at the time, challenged my father for his position. And when a Shifter was challenged, it was to the death.
I came out of my fog of memories and veered to the left to avoid a large storm cloud forming ahead, then began my descent into central Drakorum. Frost collected on my scales. I relished the cold and used it to clear the brutal images flashing through my mind. Claws slashing and pained roars and blood pouring from my father’s?—
A low growl rumbled in my chest. That was nineteen years ago, and I could still smell the sweat. Could still hear the cries of the crowd. Could still feel my mother’s tears as she held my infant sister and me in her arms and watched my father die.
The only life I’d ever known ended that day. Scarven took us from our home and forced me into his gilded cage. The rest of the world slowly forgot about the Dumas, about the rumors of the mythical dragon. But as their lives continued on, I became his first prisoner. His firstexperiment.
He and his Alchemists did everything to me. They took my blood and tried to use it to make other dragon Shifters. They tore samples from my body—fangs, claws, scales. They forced poison after poison into me to figure out what made mespecial.
The worst part was that I couldn’t do anything to fight back. Not when he had my mother and sister in the palm of his hand.
He gave up on using me as a test subject, deciding instead to make me his weapon. He spent over a decade curating this image of his fearful, mysterious guardian to keep those who would oppose him in line. Sending me off to deliver “messages”—ones that ended with blood on my hands.
Tessa and Kieran said they followed me because I wasworthy. But my ledger was stained red. How could someone who had done the things I’d done ever be worthy?
With a powerful flap of my wings, I careened toward the wide stretch of land in front of the Governor’s House. My feet landed on the cold, hard ground, claws digging into the earth. My limbs shortened, and the world became larger again as I shrank from my dragon form back to my human one. I quickly removed the ring from my finger, feeling the familiar tension snap around my chest that signaled the Alchemist’s camouflage charm breaking.
The Governor’s House loomed before me, a shadowed silhouette against an ever-darkening evening sky. Gray clouds swayed and swelled, the metallic scent of a storm flooding my nostrils with every inhale. I shrugged my thick cloak further over my shoulders and strode across the bridge leading to the entrance. A moment later, the clouds opened and rain pelted my skin.
Of course. I held in a sigh. Shifters didnotlike getting wet.
Up ahead, charcoal turrets clawed at the sky, shingles slick with water. Moss grew from the side of the mansion, and sharp, spired rooftops pierced the mist. The path to the front doors was littered with vines and fallen leaves—brown and brittle, as not much could survive the winters of Drakorum.
Water sloshed from my boots as I pounded up the steps. Two guards with metal lion’s masks stood at attention at the door.
“He’s waiting for you,” one of them said. “In his antechamber.”
Ignoring them, I threw open the iron double doors and strode through.
I was a fighter, but these hallways always brought out the flight in me. Memories of being dragged across the oak floors, watching my blood splatter against the walls, hearing steel from the guards’ swords scraping the wood as they walked. The smell of those years spent in a cell came back to me every time I trudged these corridors. Sweat, piss, vomit, the bitter scent of herbs being ground to dust, the metallic tang of toxins in the needles before they pierced my skin.
And each time, I pictured my sister in my place. Vera was still down here, suffering in those cells. Somewhere wehadn’t been able to find yet.
I forced all of it away.
I reached his personal wing. The stairs leveled off into a wide corridor with several rooms, and an enormous tapestry of a roaring lion hung along the center wall.
