Prologue
IRELAND
250 years before our story…
The echo of pale green flames illuminated the walls of the tall cave, casting a sickly glow on all of the inhabitants who were circled around me. Their stone gray skin flickered from green, to gray, to black as they stared at me with expressions ranging from disgust to pity.
In my forty-five years on the mortal plain, I’d never witnessed the green flames of judgment that my people used to punish those who did not follow our rules.
My people called themlasair glas, and as I stood in the center of the circle eyeing them, I knew that they were fated to end me.
Alasdair, the leader of our clan, stood in front of me. His heavy brow furrowed as he glared at me with a pair of luminescent eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.
“Cashiel, son of Fiona, you have broken a core tenet of our laws. You have interacted with humans, something expressly forbidden by our ancestors,” Aladair’s voice rippled with the ancient magic that all gargoyles were gifted with. His magic was the strongest, his wingspan was the largest, and he exuded enough dominance that he’d never been challenged for his position.
Lasair glaswould not allow the average gargoyle on trial to speak. The magic forbade it, as their time to speak had long passed before the flames were conjured up.
But I had no trouble working my way past the enchantment tangling my tongue. Whether that was due to my own magic, or because of the gargoyle who had enchanted me, I could not be sure.
“I could not let the child drown,” I protested, looking past Alasdair to my mother who was standing just behind our leader’s shoulder.
Fiona was one of the few female gargoyles alive, being her only son had afforded me some level of privilege within our clan. She’d doted on me, teaching me everything I knew.
But now, as I searched her gaze, I found it empty of affection for me.
She turned away, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she refused to watch the proceedings entirely.
“You saved that child, and in doing so, that child brought the rest of their kinsmen to slaughter our kind during our stone sleep.” Alasdair’s voice was cold as he gestured for a pair of gargoyles to move aside.
Behind them were the crumbled remains of two of our brethren, smashed to pieces before the sun rose and released us from our sleep.
It was rare for all of our kind to sleep as one, it was within our abilities to resist the call of it during the day. Most only used stone sleep to recover from ailments or injuries. But yesterday had been our Winter Solstice celebrations, when night was the longest.
Customs stated that, after the long night, all gargoyles in our clan fell together into a collective stone sleep, resetting for the year to come.
An age had seemingly passed between then and the day I saw the youngling’s head struggling to stay above water. I do not know how the little thing had managed to wander so far away from its mother, but as I watched its head bob up and down, the urge to save it took over me.
Pulling the child from the water was easy enough, but getting away from it before it could see me was much more complicated.
The child had called after me as I flew away, and I prayed to all of our gods that he didn’t understand what he was seeing.
I was wrong.
When I awoke from my own stone sleep to the sound of wails, I knew that it had been me that had brought disaster to my clan.
Meara, one of our oldest female gargoyles, was sobbing over the remains of Bryne, her life mate. Her body was caked with the blood of the humans who she’d killed when she awoke to them shattering Byrne’s stone form.
Gargoyles could survive most things, but our stone form being broken down was not one of them.
They had left one human alive who had told them in a stuttering voice that his child came back to their village talking of a stone angel pulling them out of the river.
I was the only gargoyle who had a penchant for venturing away from our caves, so it had been easy to figure out who had pulled the child from the water.
“I did not know,” I said, my words broken as my clan, my family, all turned to look away from me.
Alasdair, however, did not. His eyes were fixed on my face.
“Judgment states that we should force you into a stone sleep and shatter you, the way Byrne and Conall were shattered. But that is too easy a fate for someone like you,” the gargoyle spat, drawing himself up to his full height. “You will becomegan sciathán—a Wingless.”
