BEFORE MALICINE BECAME a dragon, they dreamed of becoming a bird.
They dreamed it so often that they would awaken to the thud of their body hitting the ground. Then their eyes would open, and reality would sink in like the heavy weight of their heart. They were not a bird, but a child trapped in a cage. The enclosure was tall and narrow like a cabinet. Instead of a hinged front, their sisters crafted iron bars to reveal slivers of the world around them. The smallest ray of light leaked from the sole window of the cabin. A bitter taste of what they would never have.
A trickle of blood streamed down their forehead and stung their eyes before they blinked. They had reopened their wounds from striking their horns against the iron bars, trying to tear the spikes from their head. But the horns stayed where they were, a deformity that sprouted from their temple like weeds they couldn’t rip out.
The more the horns grew, the more Malicine grew. It became harder to believe their cage used to be as small as a chest box. In thefourteen years following their birth, their sisters had enchanted the size of their crate to grow along with their body. The iron bars expanded just enough for them to stretch their limbs, but never enough to spread their wings.
They swallowed dry saliva and counted the number of times they watched the sliver of sunset through the gap in the crawl space.
Three times.
It had been three days since their sisters left for Gyldan.
The faeries didn’t bother to refill their empty bowl, like they were a neglected dog. Malicine wanted to rip their sisters apart and feed their flesh to every starving creature in the forest. They imagined the three faeries dining in a lavish castle with the Gyldan king, feasting on wide plates of venison and bowls of rabbit stew, the very same animals that lived among them in the wild. How ironic it was to be a faerie from these forests, wanting so badly to be chosen by a king who killed animals for sport.
It was their sisters’ dream to serve the royal family of Gyldan. Ancient tradition tied both species together: The royal family offered wealth and status, while the chosen faeries extended magic and wisdom in return. Dahlia, Iris, and Clover wanted this prestige more than anything. Meanwhile, the thought of serving anyone made Malicine want to heave the contents of their stomach, if they had anything left.
They were hunched over cold ground when a shadow blocked the light from the window. Perched on the broken sill stood a raven with eyes as red as blood. He had a broad neck and unkempt feathers at his throat, yet the tip of his beak was sharp as a knife.
Here they were, a weak little child shriveled up in a cage, while this bird stood free. Malicine wondered if the raven understood the cruel irony.
His curved beak opened, and a deep croak rumbled from his throat.
“You have his blood. I can smell it on you...”
Malicine’s pulse hummed. His voice was clear and crisp, sinking into their green skin.
“How can I understand what you’re saying?” they demanded. “What are you?”
The raven tried moving across the ledge but limped with a two-footed hop. Malicine spotted blood staining his black feathers. His head hung weary.
“Oh, I am so hungry,”he moaned.“I don’t suppose you have an extra pair of eyeballs for me to eat...it would be too strange to taste his blood from you...”
“Answer me,” they snapped. “Whose blood are you talking about?”
Red pupils glinted in recognition. An ugly and harsh sound rippled from his chest, almost like he was laughing.
“You do not know, even though you are the spitting image of him,”the raven mused.“You are the descendent of my master, the Demon King.”
“There’s no such thing. Only humans become kings.”
“Ah, but there does exist a king in the Otherworld.”
Cold sweat slicked their palms. They swallowed hard and asked, “Where is the Otherworld?”
The raven croaked under his breath.“I have wandered so long in this world that I hardly remember what the other one was like.”
Malicine scowled. “Some useful raven you are.”
They had wondered about their heritage before, but saw only a corpse in their mother’s death and a shadowy figure in their father’s absence. Half of them was Fae, and that half alone waswhy their sisters never killed them, for it was against principle for faeries to murder their own. The other half of Malicine remained a monstrous enigma, one that they wore on their green skin.
Malicine watched the raven’s wings hover in rigid motion. The blood from his wounds had dried into scabs around his throat. His wingtips looked burnt at the ends, like a match long left out.
“He left you behind too,” they murmured.
His gaze flickered in an unreadable expression. Weak legs hunched him forward, old and weary from wandering a foreign world for too long. Malicine felt a strange sense of solidarity with this creature, so unlike their fair-colored predecessors that made their difference repugnant.
“I have tried to return to my world for centuries, but I cannot find a way to cross over. But you...you are a part of him. You can find the portal to the Otherworld.”
