She paused to stand in place as she eased her entire weight onto one foot and raised her body to balance on a set of toes. Arms crept outward to create a foreign pose, clearly well-practiced by the required tension. Even slower, the y’siti angled her chin and let her eyes fall on his.

Then she smiled.

It was a look that encompassed pure euphoria, pride, and a challenge. It wasn’t right for a child to move in such a way, or any human. Even in Darakai, the House of War, no man conquered his body so completely, so effortlessly. Unease tightened his throat and chilled his bones. He began to step in her direction to encourage her down, to stop the wrongness of it.

Then she changed.

Her body remained as still as the dead heart she surely carried. It was her eyes that shifted. One eye bluer than the Khan River; the other paler than the sky. Eyes seen only on the Haidrens to Boreal. And as he watched her, those eyes began to emit an incandescent light of their own. A gust of wind swept across the party, lifting her strange, pastel hair to join it.

The stories were true, he realized.

She really was a demon from the Depths.

Before his mind caught up with his body, he’d pushed her from the railing, watching without a trace of guilt as she fell into the black waters. Instinct had dictated it be done.

Stranger still was how her Haidren interceded on his behalf. Once the witchling was fished out of the bay and sent to her quarters to be tended, the Haidren to Boreal turned to where Zaethan’s father and the rest of the king’s Quadren stood gaping. After a series of questions, she’d set her mystic eyes upon him and insisted it had been an accident.

“Children just being children. Isn’t that right, young Zaethan?” the white demon had suggested with ease. Her cool persistence forced him to nod.

“That’s right—an accident. It looked as if she was going to fall, and I was only concerned for the al’Haidren’s safety,” Zaethan had confirmed aloud, more confused than ever.

Regardless of the spoken niceties between the members of the Quadren, his father still struck him that night to remind him of his shame. As well as the next.

It had been six years since her only visit to court, and even now, reflecting on the ordeal, Zaethan didn’t regret his actions. If she pointed that otherness against Dmitri, he’d do it again.

This time with more…permanent results.

“Dmitri, recent events may change your position toward her coming.” Zaethan rubbed the interior of his palm. “The kakk in Marketown I mentioned—”

“Whatever has occurred,” the prince said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Luscia cannot be faulted in her absence. That’s the end of it, Zaeth.”

Zaethan watched the flames lick the walls of fireplace, biting his tongue. He detected the order, hidden beneath the prince’s casual composure. Despite their closeness, Dmitri was still his future sovereign.

“Thinking on Flourette’s unending agreeableness, again?” Dmitri said, changing the subject. “I can see Gregor’s face now, when you announce your forbidden love for his daughter.”

“In the name of your crown, shut it,” Zaethan barked, returning to the sofa.

It was a typical picture of their friendship. Sitting together, Zaethan felt too nostalgic to push the matter any further—not tonight, at least. The warmth of Dmitri’s apartments always provided a shared haven from the demands of their outside worlds. A haven, it seemed, they both still needed. As Dmitri rested his eyes, Zaethan tilted his glass, absent of the golden liqueur, and gestured to the checkered board on his friend’s wall.

“One round of darts and dice? Or does the prince need his beauty rest?”

Dmitri’s eyes reopened with the promise of victory at their favorite game, though the darkening circles on his skin betrayed him.

“This calls for more bwoloa.” With contrived enthusiasm, Zaethan bounded to the cart and poured two more glasses. He raised both in the air and twisted to shout through a corner archway. “Eugenio! The prince is in need of your talents. Now, come have his drink!”

FIVE

Luscia

   They’d agreed to enter Bastiion after nightfall.

When Marek suggested they employ a concealed advantage in the relatively unknown environment, Luscia had readily approved. She concurred that in a city where men with pale faces, light eyes, and fair hair were not welcomed anymore, darkness would reduce the risk of an unexpected confrontation.

She’d chosen to make use of their pausing to privately redress and mentally prepare. Fastening the clasps along the front of her surcoat, Luscia tried to control her restlessness. Trembling fingers brushed the line of fabric toward her collar to straighten it, pulling the material higher to hide the faded scar marring her porcelain neck. Given enough time, Boreali skin could heal from almost any wound—except for an encounter with luxiron.

She stared blankly into the dimming forest as her thumb traced the raised tissue that painted a jagged line from her left earlobe to her clavicle. Branding her skin, it served as a daily reminder of humanity’s nature, etched by the very consort dagger strapped against her thigh, adjacent to its mate riding the other. She’d left Bastiion six years ago as a joyfully innocent, brave little girl. Returning now as a hardened woman, Luscia vowed to honor that little girl’s memory in any way she could.

But tonight was not about the past, she resolved, standing under the moon’s increasing glow. Tonight was the beginning of what was to come: the age of Dmitri Thoarne.

For this reason, Luscia had selected her attire with great intention, choosing a piece normally reserved for ceremonial combat. She’d last worn the garment during her final evaluation on the Isle of Viridis. Paired with a sleeved vest, the indigo skirt split in four places to allow a woman’s full range of motion and hung low atop thin, black linsilk breeches. Trimmed in a radiant labyrinth of silver needlework, it boasted Boreal’s interpretation of war. Her brethren were a people of balance, who executed every practice with disciplined elegance. A people who gave each stitch the precision of a tempered blade.

Uncovering a shard of grey kohl, she lined her eyes in a darkened intimidation the Najjan saved for ceremony, and for battle. She had one chance to make a memorable entrance, and despite her racing heart, Luscia planned to enter Bastiion as a warrior. Gingerly, Luscia felt for the warm metal tickling her nose.

At the sound of rustling leaves, she spun to see Aksel padding into the small meadow, his tongue dangling lazily from a mouthful of serrated teeth and sharp canines. Trotting toward Luscia, he slowed to press heavily against her side in a passing hello. Her fingertips trailed across his back as he rounded her frame.

She dropped her other hand from its fiddling, releasing the tiny, crescent shard of luxiron piercing her septum. The solrahs was a concrete, indisputable declaration of her station in Boreali society. Upon her Ascension, she’d undergone the bestowing like all Boreali Haidrens, including Alora. Even though Luscia had waited eighteen years to receive it, her skin was still adjusting to such intimacy with the living metal, warm against her nose.