CHAPTER 1
CALLIE
I take a deep breath and holler at the top of my lungs: “I GOTTA PEE!”
Even through the thick, reinforced wood, I can hear my captors groan.
“Again?”
“Yeah, again! When you gotta go, you gotta go! Don’t you know anything?”
I strain to listen to the mumbled debate going on above me. Not easy with how rickety this carriage is. If it can even be called that. It’s a box on wheels, more lock than wall, and I feel every stone we go over. There are a lot of stones between Fairkeep and Helston. They are my only way of measuring time and distance. Not that it matters. I can’t work out if I want to get to Helston faster, or if I don’t want to get there at all. I spend the endless hours in the dark fantasizing about all the ways I’m gonna take Peran out. I could poison his wine with something so nasty the last thing he’ll know is puking up in front of everyone, or I could sneak behind him and slit his throat, or I could transform into a ferocious dragon and bite his horrible head off. That would be nice.
But I don’t know anything about poison, I don’t have any kind of blade, and I’m not a dragon.
I wish I was. I wish I could take all the bits of Neal he doesn’t want and use them for myself. I wouldn’t hesitate or philosophize my way out of it; I’d leap straight into the sky and set the whole of Helston ablaze. Just the way Elowen wanted from the beginning.
Elowen . . . I can’t think about El, or else my heart starts to hurt too badly. Or Willow or Edwyn. Or Papa. I let them all down so bad, even if everything turns out right, they’re never gonna want to speak to me again.
Maybe that’s good. Maybe I’ve already lost everything I’m scared to lose, so if I get taken out alongside Peran, it won’t be such a big deal. A worthy cause. A noble cause.
Something worth dying for.
The carriage jerks to a sudden halt, and I’m pitched forward right onto my face, unable to catch myself with my hands and feet in shackles.
Luckily, I get some assistance. Kind of.
Hands grab my filthy tunic and haul me back and out of the cage, planting me solidly on my feet. I wobble—hours of sitting lighting my body up with pins and needles—and glare at my captors. “Thanks.”
We’ve come to know each other pretty well over the last few I-don’t-know-how-long. For example, I know Liam, the little scrawny one, is fresh out of training and regretting his life choices, and the big grumpy one, Godfrey, is on the tip of retirement and resenting every moment he has to spend away from his family.
Both want to be here as much as I do. None.
It’s a weird kind of camaraderie.
“Get on,” the big one growls. “Go pee and let’s get back on the road.”
I look around at the nothingness surrounding us. Not even a tree to duck behind.
“You couldn’t’ve picked a better place?”
He scoffs. “What? Too fancy to go in the open like the rest of us? Hurry up, kid.”
“Or what? You’ll leave me behind? Oh no. What a shame.”
I duck the hand that swings at me and grin. It’s lazy and half-hearted, and I get it. I’m being a brat. But this journey isn’t just scary, it’s
boring. I gotta get my entertainment somewhere, so it might as well be at the expense of my guards.
“There’s a bush over there,” says Liam, pointing at a vague shape in the near distance. “That’ll do you.”
I guess it’ll have to.
Peeing with my hands and feet tied is like doing a puzzle I would’ve thrown over in frustration if it wasn’t so dire, but I make it. Somehow. Dusk is falling fast across Wyndebrel, casting long, spooky shadows across the bleak moorland. The wind is cold and unforgiving. Even if I was dressed properly and not just in raggedy clothes in desperate need of burning, I would be shivering.
I don’t much like the thought of sleeping out in the cold, at the mercy of the elements and the wolves. It’s almost funny to think about being scared of dragons now. I would give anything to catch a glimpse of one in the sky, just to know Augustine and his dragon slayers hadn’t got to them.
I shuffle back to my group. They look as miserable as I feel, huddled inside their thick cloaks with the hoods drawn up. Shivering.
“You know there’s a village close by, right? I bet they have a really good inn.”
Godfrey glares at me. “You got the coin to pay the bill, kid?”
I think wistfully of the pouch of treasures the grown-ups gifted me and Willow when we left for Fairkeep. I wonder how much of it Willow had to use to survive. If he survived at all.
“You’re king’s men, aren’t you? Don’t that come with some perks?”
Liam looks hopefully at the older soldier. “They’ve got a point.”
It only took Godfrey one mess-up before he got a handle on my words, and Liam hasn’t slipped once. As far as enemies go, these two are pretty decent.
“I’m valuable cargo,” I remind them both, puffing out my chest. “And you’re on a mission for the king. I’d bet it’s some kind of treason not to give you a bed and a bowl.”
Godfrey huffs. He does that a lot. “Not much that isn’t treason these days.” But he gives a curt nod. “Worth a go, I guess. Better’n taking our chances out here.” He shakes his head bitterly. “Back in my day, no man had a thing to fear in Wyndebrel. Now the kingdom is full of dragons and witches, and there’s not a knight to be seen. It’s past time someone made a change.”
I bite my tongue. Now is not the time to get into a debate with a wizened soldier whose opinions are as old and immovable as the standing stones themselves.
I get hustled back into the carriage, and we make the short distance to the tiny village on the border between Dumoor and Westmoor—a travelers’ village, dependent on folks passing through.
I’m left waiting long enough to be pretty sure this is where I’m gonna spend my night, but after a while the sound of the key in the lock gives me hope, even when it’s Godfrey’s scowling face. “Out you get. I wouldn’t be bothering if we had to pay for you, but since it’s free . . . No funny business, though, mind.” He wags a finger at me. “Else I’ll tie you up outside.”
I raise my shackled hands. “Cross my heart.”
“Hmm.” I doubt my promises mean much to him, but he helps me out regardless and escorts me toward the warmth of an inn that, even outside, reminds me achingly of The Roost, with fires blazing and the thick scent of food wafting in the air. My mouth starts watering, but my hunger doesn’t last long.
A shape swings in the wind.
“Don’t look,” Godfrey warns, but it comes too late. I’m already staring, and my hunger turns to nausea.
A body.
No, two bodies.
A man’s and a woman’s.
Strung up by their necks like . . . like . . . I don’t know. There is nothing in my collection of memories that looks like this. Not human. Not dragon. Not even an animal slaughtered for meat, treated carefully, respectfully.
“What happened?” The question is a ghost in the cold air.
But Godfrey’s hand on my back is firm, insistent, and I let him push me into the inn.
It doesn’t matter. Their faces—poor wax likenesses of who they were not so long ago—are imprinted permanently on the insides of my eyes.
The pub on the inside couldn’t be more different from The Roost, despite the warmth and the delicious smells.
Where The Roost was a party, this place is a wake. The few inhabitants are hunched over their own bowls or huddled by the fires in somber silence, everyone looking beaten down and exhausted. The few who glance our way shrink at the sight of us. Like they’re scared of us. Like we’re a bad omen. Like we’ve come to finish the job and hang them all.
Copyright © 2025 by Esme Symes-Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
