Chapter two
Seren
The slice of steel through flesh was unparalleled, unprecedented in its sweet sickness. Lifeblood flowed in rivulets down the expanse of her severed neck. Hands clasped the wound futilely. Pained and panicked sounds guttered in the quiet of the morning.
Watching mágik wither and die on jaws, slack with death, was a feeling that satisfied yet never satiated me. It was too much, and it was never enough.
As the woman’s lifeless body fell to the earth, I remembered another version of myself, a little girl on tiptoed feet, blankets and teddies and trinkets clutched in hand. A girl who believed in the simple goodness of mágik. Such a far cry from the woman who cleaned blood from her sword on the cloak of the corpse from which it had spilled.
A crack echoed through the woods, and my eager heart lurched into my throat. I tightened my fingers around the hilt of my blade, but it was only Guardian Horvat of the Third Order and Guardian Barta of the Second Order—my fellow soldiers assigned to this predawn hunt.
Their own weapons were stained red, their expressions severe in the half light.
“It is done.” I toed the body, watching as her head lolled sideways into the fetid squelch of mud and decaying leaves. I forced myself to look at the Rázuri woman—an enemy of my kingdom, the perverse imitation of humans that my army battled to eradicate—a moment longer, to absorb the weight of the soul I had untethered. Gooseflesh rose unbidden on my arms. “What are your orders, Commander?”
Guardian Horvat hardly spared me a glance. His mouth curved in an unimpressed sneer. “Leave the bodies to rot.”
“Are we relieved, Commander?” Guardian Barta asked, sheathing her sword at her hip. She pushed her spill of blonde hair behind her ears and tugged at the ends of her braids, which had loosened amid the fighting. Her limbs locked into a position of military readiness—her training just strong enough to overcome the fatigue behind her eyes.
“My day is only just starting, but you have earned your rest. Lead the forces home, Guardian,” the Commander affirmed. His gaze softened as he addressed Lili Barta, the shining light of the Second Order, to which we both belonged.
I looked away, unwilling to name the tightness in my chest.
Guardian Horvat left us, and we set off toward the King’s Palace of Ordelés Proper, its stone turrets gilded under the rising sun.
Skeletal trees drew shadows that lurched and leered at us as we passed. A shiver ran down my spine, disconcerted, so I focused instead on the birdsong which swelled in the morning air. It reminded me of the songs my parents sang to me when I was a child, the Rázuri ballads of mágik and adventure. I could see the leatherbound tomes they had read to me, vibrant in my memory. They had told me so many stories.
So many lies.
They told me of Drakány, dragons with wide soaring wings, cutting through the clouds. Grazing mountain tops and breathing great plumes of fire. How they could speak to the Goddesses and to the mortals of our realm. How they had guided us and protected us for all time.
They spun stories of the Gryffem that ferried souls to the Celestial Realm or the Underworld when the final sands of their hourglass had slipped away. Golden feathers and black eyes, sharp claws but a painless journey to the end.
They told me about mágik and the people who were blessed by the Goddesses with gifts. Gifts that allowed them to connect with the earth, the cosmos, and with the people around them. People who used mágik to better the world. To help, never to hurt.
People called Rázuri.
I believed in those lies for many years. As my limbs lengthened and my birthdays came and passed, I held on to those beliefs. Even when I heard passing whispers of death and destruction, I never believed them when they blamed the Rázuri.
It had been easy for me to dismiss the tales because I was raised isolated and disillusioned—sated on pretty lies. In the tiny sea village of Kis Temare with my books and my own imagination, with my parents and little brother. We were sheltered from the reality of life in Szrestia, a country at war. I had not known that, in Ordelés Proper, Rázuri burned and pillaged and murdered our people. That they were not the peaceful saviors I had thought them to be.
I clung to the belief that mágik was good until the very last moment, until I saw the life leave my brother’s eyes, and I could no longer deny the cruel darkness of the Rázuri.
What I could never understand was why my parents had lied to me. They had filled my head with pretty dreams and glittering stories though the world was so bleak. I hadn’t been prepared for the reality of war, and when the monsters took my baby brother’s life, they had turned their backs on me.
It often came to me in flashes. The bitter chill of the late autumn air, winter daphne growing in defiance of the sharp season. A sky exploding in a dreamy watercolor of orange and blue and purple, deep pink clouds floating through the spaces between. The smallest sliver of a waning moon.
A peaceful scene and then chaos.
Cloaked figures gliding across the cobblestone. Crashing rock and splintering wood. Fire ripping and hot. The smell of burning and death. Splitting headaches and empty lungs. Pain. Not mine,his. The light leaving my brother’s eyes as my mother’s throat tore on a scream. My father’s gaze left broken and empty.
How I had made it out alive when Luca had not?
Every bad thing that had ever happened was because of the Rázuri. They were not heroes or healers or a connection to the Goddesses. They were evil. They were demons. They had ruined my life. And when I had pulled myself from my grief, when I had reconciled that my beliefs were mere falsehoods, I swore I would never forgive the Rázuri for what they had done.
I had left my home, now soured with the taste of death, and I had pledged my life to my kingdom. I became Guardian Seren Corso, and I trained with my fellow soldiers at the King’s Palace of Ordelés.
Dozens of Rázuri fell to my hand, beneath the Ordelésan banner. I had felt the sweet slice of my sword through muscle and bone, blood rushing in rivulets down flayed flesh. I moved silently throughthe shadows—a wraith with a blade, leaving a trail of bodies in my wake.
