PROLOGUE
WHEN I WAS young, I didn’t know this room was shaped like a womb. I played and laughed as exchanges were made from woman to woman. I taunted the farmhands and fisherman, the only men I saw regularly, who delivered our weekly rations. Their presence made everything seem fuller, bringing with them the deep scent of spice, the fresh snap of green vegetables, and the salt air of the sea on their skin. As I grew, I learned the dragon shifters, the only other men I came in close quarters with, had carved our great hall into this shape for receiving them. They placed the likenesses of the gods in alcoves high on the walls, illuminating each with skylights bored into the ceiling. All to remind us of why we’re here — to serve them, so they can serve the gods.
As if it would be easy to forget as I stand here waiting, recalling all the times before the great hall was packed full of bodies. Times when the sound of a mother’s ravaged cries echoed as her son was removed from her arms so that he could take his place among the dragons in the sky kingdom.
Today though, the room is silent and stagnant with the press of bodies. Today, we’re gathered for the selection. Once a sun cycle, all of us newly eighteen are assessed by the Sar Dyeus, the dragon king, to become a carremai, one honored to bear their children. The old and used are sequestered outside of the hall to greet the hoard’s arrival, while the young and virile wait inside, the youngest of us fading into the back of the room. Our duty has always been made clear; they serve the gods, we serve them, and they in turn protect us.
A low vibration passes through my eardrums. A stirring of the wind, the din of feet peppering the ground. A stillness rushes through the crowd as a breeze drifts in from the hall’s single opening to the outside. I take that fresh air into my lungs, though most others are frozen, waiting, for what’s to come through that opening next.
The cavernous space, alive with laughter and community only hours ago, is muted, the only sound the approach of careful footsteps dulled by the tightly packed room. A group of mothers acting as the hoard’s escorts appear first, amid them, my mother, her eyes flitting between me and my sister, her face on the brink of cracking into an earsplitting grin. She’s waited for this moment our entire lives. And I’ve waited my entire life to prove to her that I wasn’t a mistake. Behind the mothers, their figures like shadows against the bright opening, come the Sar Dyeus, flanked by his elite hoard, and a half dozen or so eager dragon shifters trailing after.
Locking my jaw tight, I lower my head with everyone else as the Sar Dyeus comes to a halt before us. Beside me, Ninon is still as stone. On her other side, my sister Kalixta bows even lower than most. Mother taught us well. Still, I bend only low enough to conceal my eyes from his view. I will show my strength and worth in my own way. I will do the near impossible and have one of the Sar Dyeus’s high ranking elites choose me.
“Rise,” comes the commanding rasp of the Sar Dyeus’s voice.
In unison we raise our heads, my eyes immediately drawn to his imposing figure. Though he doesn’t stand much taller than any of the other shifters, nor is his form particularly broad, his hair is as white as a cloud on a sunny day. His brows are dark as night, skin smooth and pale like the moons, the angles of his face sharp as a star. He appears no older than twenty-five or so mortal years, though I know he’s lived many more than that.
The Sar Dyeus’s focus is some place over our heads, as if meeting our eyes isn’t worth his effort.
“Proceed,” he says, his timbre low.
My mother clears her throat. I see her try and fail to keep her gleeful expression contained as she gestures to my sister. “From those who’ve reached eighteen in the last turn, I am honored to first present Kalixta, sired by Rathon.” There’s a bite of hesitation as she says our father’s name. After mine and Kalixta’s marking ceremony as newborns, he never returned, despite my mother’s hopeful prayers that he would. We heard no word of him until our fifth year, only to be notified of his death. It didn’t matter much to us that he’d died, but it mattered a great deal to her. She was never quite the same after that, and I bore the brunt of her discontent.
My mother goes on with the introductions, taking the responsibility of presenting Ninon, before moving her open hands towards me. I see the tension in the set of her mouth as she prepares to introduce me—the daughter that never should have been, the daughter that ought to have been a son. “Kaisa, sired by Rathon.” Her words are quick and clipped, as if my name is hardly worth mentioning.
The two other women alongside us have their mother’s present them, taking care to note who sired them. It’s an effort not to scowl at the mention of all these sires while our mother’s names go unspoken, though today I should be grateful for it. For Ninon. Hearing Myrna’s name would crack Ninon’s careful facade, despite her mother’s unexpected death being four years past. Myrna’s passing wasn’t the first unexplained death among our people, and it hasn’t been the last, but it was the one that hit the three of us closest.
The introductions continue for those who were not selected in previous years’ carremai ceremonies, the women returning in hopes of catching the eye of one of the new shifters here to choose a breeding mate.
There are ten of us waiting to be selected and courted by one of the attractive and noble soldiers of the gods. If selected, we’ll spend half our time home in the underground caverns of Nevoba and half our time visiting Dyeus, the sky kingdom among the clouds, until we reach the child bearing age of twenty-and-one, when we’re permitted to do our duty to help continue their line and ours. In exchange, the dragon shifters offer their protection from the savage rogue dragons that plague our night skies. Together, we act in service for the grace of the gods. All I want out of it is to stay by my sister and Ninon, and prove to my mother that I am not worthless.
I will do what she could not, and all her hate for me will have to fade into the background with the cries of my children upon their birth. Old words she’d sling at me haunt me in this tight packed chamber. “You’d better bear twin sons when your time comes,” she would say, condemning me to a life where once my womb was empty, my arms would be too. Fine, then, if that’s what it takes.
When the introductions are finalized, the Sar Dyeus steps closer to the line of us waiting to be assessed as a desirable mating partner. Ever since I can remember, I’ve witnessed these ceremonies take place. Only on a very rare and wild occasion is a woman marked as undesirable, so the worry of that is far in the back of my mind. As I study the horde waiting to choose a mate, all their faces blend together despite their differences. An elite is what I’m after, but as long as I can do what my mother failed to do and produce a son, that will be enough.
I tongue away a sneer forming on my lip and examine my mother’s wishful expression. Her attention lingers on those she hopes will choose me or my sister. Then, my eyes snag on a handsome elite with dark skin, a wide face, and close cropped black hair, whose gaze is pinned on my sister.
The intensity of his stare, and the realization that he’s the Sar Dyeus’s right hand, sets me on edge.
The Sar Dyeus steps forward and hovers an open palm over Kalixta’s chest. A dim, yellow light radiates from her sternum, the word “acceptable” barely out of his mouth when the elite who’d been staring at her steps out of line.
“Mine.” His voice rolls through the cavernous room like a distant thunder.
The Sar Dyeus pauses, his fingers curling ever so slightly as he pulls his hand back from Kalixta, her eyes wide with shock. The king twists his head, angling it to the side to look at his elite. “Thrace?”
The elite, Thrace, seems to take some effort to hold himself back from moving any closer. His hands squeeze into fists. “Should it please you, Your Highness.”
The Sar Dyeus glances back at my sister briefly before returning to his elite. They simply look at one another for a long moment before the Sar Dyeus inclines his head once.
I blink, looking between my sister and the man who claimed her as his with such force, such ease, and without her having any say at all. I know this is how it works. I’ve witnessed this very thing every year of my life, and yet I didn’t truly understand what it would feel like until this moment, seeing it happen to my sister. Watching her get what I always vowed I would.
As the Sar Dyeus moves in front of Ninon, I can’t help but watch his face, the subtle change in his expression. He seems…concerned. Or perhaps caught off guard? Of course, it’s rare for an elite member of the hoard to choose a carremai. There are so few of them, after all, and many are older and have already mated at least once or twice before, but I can’t see how Thrace choosing my sister would be a cause of concern. Perhaps it’s required that elites notify the Sar Dyeus of their intention to mate, and Thrace had not? As I puzzle over his expression, the Sar Dyeus’s hand pauses above Ninon’s chest. He holds it there for a long moment before withdrawing.
“Undesirable.”
I snap my head towards Ninon.
No.
