Whack.
Something hard, possibly karma disguised as debris, hit her head. The world tilted sideways, the smoke softening to silver around the edges.
Esther’s last coherent thought before darkness swallowed her was that at least she had finally managed to leave the palace.
Though her next stop might be the dungeon.
4
Nythir
How to care for a skyborn catastrophe: ignore all the red flags.
Nythir crouched beside the unconscious girl who had just been knocked out by a book—Proper Etiquette for Improper Thoughts.
He burst into startled laughter that echoed through the trees. It cracked through the forest so sharply that a flock of dusk-feathered finches shot from the canopy. His companions stared at him as if he had finally lost whatever remained of his sanity, and maybe he had. Most people would be terrified of a mage capable of obliterating a camp with a single emotional impulse. But he felt… curious. Intrigued. Alive in a way he hadn’t in years.
She had fallen from the sky straight into his life. This wasn’t a sign from fate; it was a gut punch.
She smelled faintly of embers and roses, with a surprising hint of cinnamon, likely from the pastry mashed into her hair. Her dress was scorched, her cloak half-burned, and the phoenix sigil still pulsed with a faint gold, as if refusing to acknowledge that its wearer was unconscious.
A catastrophe, wrapped in silk and cinnamon.
He brushed a lock of soot-stained hair from her face.
He knew power like that didn’t come from training; it came from heritage.
Or destiny.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
“She’s either royalty,” he said, “or an explosion disguised as a woman.”
Lyssara groaned. “Are we sure she isn’t cursed?”
Vorrik poked Esther’s cheek and shrugged. “If she’s cursed, it’s a fun curse. Can we keep her?”
Lyssara scowled. “She’s wearing royal silk, idiot. We can’t just keep her.”
“Not just royal silk,” Nythir added, pointing to the unmistakable symbol of a phoenix in flight embroidered on her cloak. “Royal silk with the imperial insignia.”
The orange stitching stood out like a beacon, ready to attract every thief and scoundrel in sight. She was lucky she’d landed on him and not the bandits. There was no way she would have survived on her own, even in the safest city in the world, yet she had dropped straight into the middle of a deadly forest where bandits were hiding.
Vorrik gasped. “She’s a symbol?”
“She’s a problem,” Lyssara muttered.
“She’s interesting,” Nythir said.
That was enough for him.
He heard a soft rustle behind him and turned to find a small forest creature, barely bigger than a squirrel, peering out from a burnt shrub. Its body was smoke-gray, its eyes pale gold, mirroring the glow pulsing beneath the girl’s skin. A dusk-fawn, half-magic, half-mammal, drawn only to intense arcane signatures.
It approached cautiously, sniffing the air.
Nythir lifted a hand. “Easy.”
The creature stepped closer, not to him, but toward Esther, as if her magic were a hearth in an endless winter.
