CHAPTER 1
THE SOUTHERN KEEP, LA’TARI
Present Day
With a tremoring gasp, I force my eyes open, shedding the crimson world that haunts my dreams. I take in the faint pre-dawn light filtering into my small stone room at the La’tari keep. The short breaths searing my lungs are all I can manage upon waking from the terrors that dwell within my mind. I repeat to myself the same mantra I’ve repeated almost every morning since I was sixteen.
Safe. You’re safe. It’s not real.
I sit, poised to strike, a bead of sweat falling to the rough wool blanket covering my naked form. It’s standard issue, grey and coarse, made to serve a simple purpose, not unlike the La’tari regime, not unlike myself. My knuckles are strained white from gripping my obsidian daggers. Blades I hold defensively, shielding my face, as if the nightmares that consume my mind could somehow follow me into the waking world and deal a fatal blow.
The darkness that wells within me as I sleep every night has at least afforded me my own room. Few women are selected and trained to be Drakai, and all refused me as a bunk mate after an unfortunate incidentyears ago. Avanjelin, an exceptionally beautiful young woman, had roused me from a fitful sleep, taking one of my daggers to the side of her face for all her efforts. The girl lived, but the thick, jagged scar left upon her porcelain skin stripped from her the life she’d been intended. She will still be Drakai, an elite assassin of the crown, but never again Fea Dien, the beautiful death. There will never be room in our ranks for the flawed.
My racing heart finally begins to slow, and I sheath my blades beneath my pillow, forcing a deep breath into my lungs, puffing it out in a haze. The grating burn of the cool spring air against the tender flesh of my throat is all I need to tell me that I’ve been screaming in my sleep. Again. Years of the same taught me that no one ever hears me. The walls of the keep are far too thick for my terror to reach the ears of another or, if it does, no one cares to investigate the sound.
I don’t blame them. Even in the middle of the largest stronghold on the southern shore you have to think twice about risking your neck for a stranger. The same deadly skill and brutality the La’tari drill into their ranks seems to come with a lack of discernment as to the difference between friend and foe. Still, what is within the keep is safer by far than what lay outside its walls.
Peeling my sweat-soaked body from the bed I make my way toward a small metal jug by the window. Taking a long drink of the icy liquid within, I ignore the trickle of water rushing past my lips and down my chin. The room is plain, bare of excessive furnishings, save for the small, uncomfortable bed and the simple wash station beneath the window. It is more than most La’tarians would dream of having. I’m lucky, a fact I’m reminded of every day.
My mentor, Leanna, found me as a child, hours after the treaty had been signed, bringing an end to the war I’d been born into. But news was slow to reach the small border towns and by the time her contingent arrived at my village, there was nothing the woman could do but pull me from the burning wreckage of my home. She’s never been much of a mother, not in the way I’d heard them described by others who’d been gifted with lives surrounded by family. But she’s given me a life, a purpose, and a way to avenge all that was taken from me that night.
I fill the small basin beneath my window and wash myself with a cold, wet rag. The chill of the water draws a sharp inhale from my lips as a stray bead of liquid drips down my side. It’s still early in the spring thaw, and just last week I was breaking ice from the surface of the jug every morning. I remind myself that in the blistering summer heat I’ll be happy for the relief offered by the cool water and suppress a shiver as I pat myself dry and reach for my uniform.
My fingers deftly lace up the black fighting leathers I’ve worn since I was a child. They are a stark contrast to the demure lady that Leanna spent the last twenty years training me to be. It hasn’t been for my sake that she’s spent so many painstaking hours molding me into a consort fit for a king, it has only ever been for the good of the realm. I live to serve, and these precious moments alone in my small, modest quarters are the only moments that will ever be truly mine. I push away the thought that even those are quickly coming to an end.
Wrestling the knots out of the thick, raven spirals falling to my lower back, I plait them into a long braid. Despite my best arguments, Leanna always insisted I not cut my hair any shorter. Most La’tari women go through great lengths to maintain their hair and display it as a source of pride, woven and curled or otherwise adorned with all manner of jeweled embellishments. Perhaps I would do the same had I been gifted the golden honey tones that are considered so desirable. As it is, the color of my hair feels like a stain that will never wash away. A sure marker of the feyn blood in my veins, however distant that blood may be.
I glance toward the door, pushing down the darkness writhing inside me. I should never have allowed Leanna to distract me from my sparring lessons with Bront the day prior. It is one of the few ways I have found to quell the demon that plagues my sleep.
I puff out a small misty laugh at the thought that I could in any way manage Leanna. My entire life has been subject to the woman’s demands, and nothing I ever say or do will dissuade her from the trajectory she has set me on.
Through squinted eyes, I peek out the small window above the water basin. Judging by the light, I still have an hour before the rest of the keepbegins to stir. Most everyone is still sleeping at this hour of the morning. Most everyone.
“You look likehisht, Shivaria.”
“Well, Bront, at least the daysIlook likehishtare few and far between. Don’t you wish you could say the same?” I smirk.
Bront laughs, the grizzled old soldier spitting on the freshly groomed sand of the sparring ring. Leaning against the wooden border fence, he swipes a dirty blonde lock of hair out of his eyes. He’s been growing it out since his retirement last year and can now proudly pull it back into a thin leather tie, tucking the few remaining strands behind his ears. His face and hands are heavily scarred, the jagged pink lines only mildly obscured by his fair freckled skin. They have been like that as long as I have known him, though I’ve never gotten enough ale into the man to hear a single story behind any of the white lines marring his flesh. He’s never been keen on sharing his war stories, unlike many of the cocky soldiers who served under his command.
“Leanna know you’re here?” His eyebrow quirks up in an awkward angle, pulled by a fresh, bruising cut above his eye.
“You know she doesn’t,” I say, “I just need to let off a little steam.”
I’ve counted on my morning sessions with the old general for years. He hadn’t hidden his surprise the first day I’d come to spar while the rest of the keep slept, but he never asked questions and he’d always been happy to oblige. After weeks of sparring, he came to expect me in the early mornings. After months, it seemed that he craved the ritual of it. I’m not his favorite student, I’m not anybody’s favorite, but after all these years, I am his best.
He smiles and shakes his head, a few loose strands of hair falling into his face. “Not today.”
“Bront—”
He cuts me off before I can argue. I’m not even sure why I try, I’venever won an argument with the man. Every part of him is cut from steel, from the muscular form of his body to the unbreakable will that made him a general. Even his retirement hasn’t softened that.
“Big day today. Can’t ship you off to A’kori with a split lip,” he says with a knowing smile.
Leanna may have forced me into the service of the Fea Dien, but I have always been most at home in the ring, in battle. If I am, one day, fated to die a warrior’s death, I’d prefer it be on the battlefield, and not tangled up in the silk sheets of a failed seduction.
I’ll never know what Leanna was thinking when she made me what I am. I’m not cut out for it. I have spent my life around women who revel in the chase, the hunt, the trickery, but I’ve never cared for any of it. I have always been, will always be, a sharp blade hidden in a vase full of lovely flowers.
I pin Bront with a taunting smile. “You would have to actually land a blow on me to accomplish a split lip,old man.”
