Gwenna’s grin flitted through his mind. Then his mother’s laughter, bright as harp strings. Then…Darius.
His intoxicating, effortless grace. The way his eyes held galaxies of unspoken promise. The heat of his arm slung around Cedric’s shoulders. The ghost of his smile, curling like the rim of a goblet, like an invitation Cedric should never, ever take.
You did something to that drink, he thought hazily.
Cedric groaned and dragged the pillow over his stomach, pressing down, as if he could shove the nausea back. As if he could shove Darius back.
And then his gut heaved.
He rolled sideways, swallowing bile. The garderobe. He needed the garderobe. But when his feet hit the rug, pain erupted. Not the dull throb of too much drink, but a thousand needles searing through muscle and bone. His legs buckled. Cedric crashed to his knees, a raw, strangled cry tearing free.
His breath hitched. His fingers curled against the floor—except they weren’t fingers anymore.
Talons.
Long, curved, gleaming wet in the low light. His nails were gone, peeled away like shed leaves. The bones of his hands cracked, stretched, reshaping as golden scales bloomed across his knuckles, pushing through flesh with a sickening pop.
He pressed his shaking hands—claws—against the cold stone floor, as if doing so might somehow halt the impossible changes wracking his body. His gut soured, and for a heartbeat, he thought, This can’t be real. This isn’t happening. But the searing pain crawling up his spine told him otherwise.
He sucked in a desperate, jagged breath. “No…”
The sound that left him was wrong. Too deep. Too monstrous. His hand shot to his throat, but the skin there was already shifting—bubbling, hardening, elongating. A scream tried to claw free, but what tore from his chest was a roar.
A sound he had never made before. One that didn’t belong to him.
He was changing. Warping. Losing himself.
A sob tore free as he crawled toward the door, clawing at the stone, at himself, at whatever was happening to him. He had to stop it. He had to get help.
And then, through the searing haze of his mind, a single thought cut through: Mom.
His breath hitched. His hands—claws—dug into the floor. She always knows what to do. She always helps. She always?—
A sharp pop cracked through his spine. His vision whited out. But he kept moving. Because if he could just get to her… If he could just reach her…
She’d fix this. She’d fix him.
Chapter Two
Finn jolted upright, the screams shattering his slumber. Sweat chilled against his skin, sheets twisted around his legs like bindings trying to hold him down. But the screams couldn’t be ignored. Danger.
Finn yanked on his trousers, the fabric sticking to his damp skin, then shoved his feet into his new boots—still reeking of the tannery. His hands fumbled with the laces, urgency tangling his fingers.
The hallway air carried the sharp tang of his mother’s nightly tea, bitter in the back of his throat. She stepped from the dimness, her knuckles white where they gripped her robe, her face pale with fear. Finn’s own pulse thundered in his ears. Protect. The instinct roused in his bones, in his blood—older than his fifteen years, older than reason.
“What is it, Mom?” His voice cracked, thin and frightened. He clenched his jaw, gaze locking onto the armor by the wall. Moonlight crawled over its surface, catching on the runes etched into the steel. It should’ve been a symbol of strength, a promise of the future he’d trained for. Instead, it mocked him. Tomorrow’s dream, tonight’s joke.
Torchlight bled through the doorway, carving jagged shadows across his mother’s face. “Dragon.”
What? Finn’s knees locked, his grip slipping against the doorframe. Legends. But legends didn’t reek of smoke and charred stone. Didn’t gouge the sky with claws that made the cobblestones tremble beneath his boots. His tongue turned useless, stuck to the roof of his mouth. Move. Breathe. He lurched outside and stopped in his tracks.
The knights’ families lived in a small cluster of houses at the edge of the palace grounds. A short walk, normally—a piss-and-a-joke distance. Tonight, that stretch of packed dirt might as well have been the ocean. Flames ripped through the sky like rabid wolves.
A huge, winged shape gleamed against the inferno. Finn’s gut coiled with nausea, acid burning the back of his throat. Thrill and terror tangled inside him, twisting so tight he couldn’t breathe. His fingers twitched, aching for a sword, for something solid to hold onto. Destined to be a knight. The words rang empty now, drowned by the thunder of his own pulse.
“I have to do something,” Finn muttered. He whirled back inside, skidding across the floorboards to grab his armor. His hands shook as he tried to fasten the buckles. This was the same armor he had admired just hours ago, the same set he’d planned to don with pride in the morning. Now, the straps felt stiff and uncooperative in his clumsy fingers.
His mother rushed to him, eyes damp with fear. “Finnian, no. You can’t go,” she said, even as her hands—traitorous in their love—helped fix a stubborn buckle. “The knights are already there. The king’s guard, your father...they’ll handle it. Stay here. Stay safe.”
