The First Lineproduces individuals with an innate mastery over emotions and desires. They can read hearts with a glance and inspire or destroy relationships with their presence. Their magic manifests as an ability to see and manipulate the bonds between souls.
The Second Linebirths those who can perceive and gently influence the threads of fate. They possess heightened intuition and can sense potential outcomes, sometimes nudging events toward favorable results, though true destiny remains beyond their control.
The Third Linecreates masters of secrets and hidden knowledge. They can walk unseen when they choose, uncover truths that others would hide, and protect or reveal information as their will dictates.
Unlike all other magical beings, the fury-born require no runes or tools to work their magic, it flows through them as naturally as blood through their veins. They age normally until their twenty-eighth year, at which point their aging halts entirely, preserving them in eternal youth until violence claims their lives.
TheFuriesstill walk among the fury-born, but they choose anonymity over worship. No one knows which are the ancient mothers and which are their children. This secrecy serves them well. While most revere the Furies as goddesses, the Sisters remain mortal, powerful—but not beyond the reach of blade or poison.
Some whisper that to kill a Fury is to send them back into the Underworld to face the wrath of the demon princes, but the legend has it, the truth is far worse.
Chapter 1
Syneca
The world gnaws at our kind with iron teeth and silver tongues. So, as our first, I write these truths in soot and memory, that you might live long enough to burn brightly. Remember: a Blood Moon brings blood magic, and blood magic brings ruin.
There was something almost beautiful about the way cold steel kissed my throat, the hunter’s blade finding that delicate space where breath becomes whisper, where life reaches the edge of ending. He pressed against my back with the promise of violence, and I found the dark peace that came when magic sang through my fingers.
“One sound, witch,” the bastard breathed against my ear, his threat carrying a strange note of satisfaction, “and I’ll carve out your windpipe.”
How typical. Twenty-seven years of hiding, only to be undone by some hunter who probably couldn’t even spell ‘magic’ correctly. The irony would have made me laugh if I weren’t about to die for it.
Behind us, three more hunters moved through my tiny apartment, their boots shaking the floorboards like thunder, their hands searching for evidence of the illegal magic that lived in my bones. They searched for the secrets I’d woven into stone and silver, for the enchantments that shouldn’t exist and the art I’d bled into it—in spite of every law saying I had no right to create unmonitored.
In this moment, blade to throat, magic hidden, hunters circling, I stood with a truth I’d always known: there were only two ways to exist in this world, and I’d spent my life dancing between predator and prey, learning to find grace in the spaces where both collide.
We were allowed to be witches, to breathe and blink and consume. We just weren’t allowed to do magic outside of direct orders from the Magistrate. We weren’t allowed to live unregistered. Each witch must be accounted for. Watched. Controlled.
And Vitoria, my sister in all but blood, wasn’t.
If they found her? If they discovered a fire witch was sleeping in the room next to mine every night, we were both dead.
The hunter’s voice was sharpened steel. “Where is she? The other witch they say lives here with you and the Heartless One.”
I kept my face blank, deciding if there was a way to kill him with the water dripping from our faucet, even as my heart hammered. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
His blade pressed deeper. A trickle of blood ran down my neck. “The Magistrate speaks highly of your runework. Says you’re valuable. But not so valuable I can’t bleed you dry right here on your kitchen floor if you’re lying to me.”
Through our clouded window, I caught a flash of black hair on the rooftop across the street before green eyes met mine. Vitoria. She’d made it out. Thank the Furies.
“Search the place again,” the hunter snarled to his men. “Tear it apart if you have to.”
They would. And when they found nothing, they’d leave. At least I hoped so. And then, maybe tonight I’d finally win an argument, and we’d just stay home. Stay safe. But I wasn’t holding my breath. Because Vitoria was just shy of reckless. Fierce. The kind of person who’d rather die fighting than live kneeling. She was me, but two inches shorter and holding far fewer secrets. She was me if I didn’t have to leash every move. The kind of person I’d follow straight into the Underworld.
The hunter released me with a shove that sent me sprawling across the floor, slamming into a pile of books they hadn’t destroyed. Yet. Leather bindings cracked beneath my weight, and a pressed moonflower, its silver petals still faintly luminescent, fluttered from between yellowed pages. “We’ll be watching, Rune Weaver. One toe out of line...”
They left our door hanging off its hinges. Fuckers.
I waited until their footsteps faded before touching the cut. Amateur work. Barely deep enough to scar. If you’re going to threaten someone, at least commit to it. Still, the message was clear: they knew. And next time, they’d probably send someone competent.
“Syneca?” Vitoria’s voice came from the window a moment later. She swung inside, landing as silently as a cat. The black lace curtain hung in tatters above her, torn from its rod, of course. Her eyes were wild with fury and fear. “Are you hurt? Did they?—”
“As if Silas would have let anything happen to me.” My eyes found the corner of the room where my familiar lurked, held in place by my will alone. Had I needed him, truly, he would have ripped this building to shreds protecting me. “I’m fine.” I caught her hands as she reached for my throat, her fingers still cold from the fire escape. “Just a scratch.”
“Just a scratch? That bastard had a blade to your throat because of me.”
“Tor—”
