Chapter 1

Within this book you will find the truths of the deities.

It all began in the Twilight Dynasty…

I can't read. It's a sad truth, but as I stare at the endless books on display in the king's library, oh, I wish I could. I might not be able to read, but I learnt the language of flowers, regardless.

Roses, red and bright as blood, are for passion.

The king regularly leaves them on my nightstand.

I regularly dream of throwing them in the fire and watching them burn.

But to do that would be an insult to my king, and an insult could mean a painful death for me when I've spent years doing everything I can to survive. I keep my soul alive by dreaming of freedom and of flying high enough in the skies that no one can hurt me.

The king throws yet another book onto the ground, making the fae workers jump before rushing over to his side, their brown cloaks rustling in the silence. It smells like them in here, the sweat on their brows and the fear lodged in their throats. A fae male comes close to grab the book off the floor nearest the king, but he doesn't back away. Move. Run. Don't say a word. I can't voice any of the warnings on the tip of my tongue. He bows his head, but I already know the fae male has made a grave mistake and nothing and no one can save him. "Your majesty, may I ask which book you are looking for and I might be able?—"

The king lunges like a snake, sinking his teeth into the fae man's neck, and the metal tang of blood invades my senses. Draining him, destroying him as he takes his life, and the man screams into the void of the library. I can't help him. I can only look into his horrified and scared eyes as he dies.

I can only dream of a future where I might be able to save people like him.

But dreaming doesn't work. Hope is fruitless in this world, and the fae is dead within a minute. The king releases his body, letting him drop unceremoniously onto the tiled floors with a thump that echoes. Right next to the scattered books the king has thrown. I don't know his name, if he has kids or parents, or what his dreams might have been. It all means nothing to the vampyres, and it never will do.

No one else dares to offer the king help as he reads for hours, frantic and unhinged as he always is when he is around books. We stay long after the fae man's blood has dried on his chin.

When he throws the last book, he stalks out of the room, and I dutifully follow him. He is fast, but he has always kept to a slower pace to almost mimic the fae he hates so much.

Except me. He tells me I'm more than the others. I'm different .

I hate it. I hate him .

My detest has festered for so, so long that it's become my own private song, repeated over and over in my mind. It's a song that I can never let come out into the open. I can never admit to the fire in my soul that wants revenge or even acknowledge my true feelings. I have to act like I'm in love with the king and want nothing more than his pleasure. The truth can't be seen out in the light of the day, but there are those I trust in the darkness, like my sister and her husband.

The fact that the king likes me as much as he does is the sole reason I've managed to stay alive, and whenever I speak of him, I speak of love. The Valin lands of the south are brutal, and my childhood was worse than this. The orphanage where I grew up was not a kind place for pretty girls who had hair like mine and stood out in a crowd. The king did save me from it and gave me the opportunity to save my sister later on, when I became his lover at fifteen.

It doesn't mean I truly love him. I can't. Love doesn't hurt, it doesn't scar and bleed red. The king heads to the throne room with his red cloak trailing on the ground behind him, and any fae or vampyre lurking in the corridors quickly bows their head. The warm air is thick and humid tonight, and I can smell the sage incense that the king likes and constantly has burned throughout his home.

The throne room is old, revealing the past of this legendary castle in every direction I look. This is the only older part of Valin that the king didn't destroy and remake years ago. The walls are the deepest orange and yellow; paintings of incredible sunrises fill tapestries that are hung between massive open archways that overlook deserts that surround the castle. The castle is made of sandstone, and despite its age, it is still rich with beauty.

The king heads straight to the glass jugs of blood. Blood from fae blood slaves like me. They just drain us like we're nothing. Our blood sits on a table by the throne, and a fae stands nearby to serve. A nervous fae servant in a thin brown cloak pours a heavy crystal glass and hands it to the king with her head bowed.

I never know his mood or what causes him to lose his temper, but every fae in this castle knows, when he loses it, death is coming. He takes the glass and walks over to the throne, sitting on it like he does every single morning for a few hours. He sits in dead silence, and I listen to the wind for company. My own thoughts are something I like to avoid.

When the day begins, just when the dawn light casts through the castle and hits the throne, the king smiles. Maybe he was handsome once, and young and something else, because for this second of the day, I can see it. It makes him look vulnerable and I wonder if it means there is a way to kill him. The light makes it almost seem like the crystal throne glows orange and red. I don't know why he is so fixated on this time of day, but I know better than to make a sound, to dare interrupt. Even his children and his queen don't dare come in here at this time. He tolerates me here, as I go onto my knees, my red dress fanning out around the white stone floor, and bow my head on the steps.

I never liked the day or night, but there is something about the twilight of midnight that makes me feel alive for a second. The very opposite to this time of day. It's the only time I usually get alone, to pretend I don't feel used and broken in this pretty cage I call my body. If I was born ugly, perhaps I wouldn't have been forced to this fate. The light makes the sun highlights in my black hair glow, and I almost enjoy that colour. Almost. It's the same colour as my blood and the very reason I am a slave.

The throne room doors slam open, the echo of the wood creaking fills the silent throne room. My eyes widen as I watch Prince Emyr Valerian Vampirion, crown prince and heir to the throne, walk in with three guards trailing after. He is in red armour that glistens in the orange light, spread across his thick and muscular body. The crown prince is a pretty prince but empty. Cold and evil. There is something deeply wrong with him, and he gets it from his father. The guards shut the door behind him, and the prince walks right up next to me, looking at his father and standing on my cloak. From what I've seen and heard of the crown prince, he is every bit of a cruel psychopath like his father. The entire royal family is the same, and him being here can only mean trouble.

He usually stays in the dark lands of Nightwell, where he has a castle and a big city to rule. His name is never far off the lips of the nobles and royals at court, though. The prince who fell in love with a lessborn fae blood slave and declared her his. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't met her myself and saw how she is. Even I know Story Dehana is a force to be feared or loved. She escaped, if the rumours are right. Those rumours, or even mention of Story's name, are dangerous. The idea of a favourite to the crown prince escaping is pure hope to all of the fae. But it's true and everyone knows it. Story Dehana has become quite famous. Even a powerborn fae wouldn't have managed to escape the royals. A lessborn fae, who somehow managed to conquer the prince's heart and then abandon him? She is now whispered of as a god walking among fae. I wonder if she knows about the far-reaching effects of her escape.

It was very embarrassing for the royal family. The king killed three hundred fae for sport to quell his anger, and I suffered many nights of pleasing his mood. The king looks at his son with boredom in his orange eyes, the dullness in them matching the sheen of his skin that looks more broken with cracks than my soul. His silver hair matches his son's, but the king's is long and braided down his spine, whereas the prince keeps it kept and short. "What do you want now?" He makes a point of looking around. "Unless you've finally found that runaway fae girl of yours. I want to meet her."

I don't know why he still allows the prince to have such freedom. If anyone else came in here, he would have beaten and bit them, whether they were his queen or daughter. But not him. For some reason, he manages to get past every rule with a charming bow. Emyr straightens his shoulders this time, and I wonder if he has finally found his limit with the king. "I need an army, and I've lost the city of Nightwell to our new enemies. I'm here to report to you what has happened."

This catches the king's attention. He looks around the room at the fae servants. "Leave." I go to stand but the king shakes his head once at me, and I kneel. I'm surprised he is letting me stay, and I try not to shake with nerves as the room empties until it's just us three. Me and the two most powerful vampyres in my world. "A rebellion?"

"No," Emyr responds. I frown at the floor. I know there are rising rebellions in the Nightwell lands among the powerborn, but I don't think they have the numbers to have taken the city. Not this quickly. "Dragons. With riders. I heard word they burst out of the woods before a magical barrier surrounded the city and locked everyone inside. No one can see in or out of it."

Dragons?

Riders?

What in the name of the deities? The king is silent for a long time, but he is completely drained of the little colour he had left in his face. Is he scared? I try to hide my joy at seeing him look fazed. "They're alive." He suddenly stands up and walks the few steps to his son. He grabs his chin and stares at him for a long while. "You'll get an army. The biggest army with my backing, and together we will end the riders for good. I know who they are, and they must have the other book. We will need it if we are to defeat them, my son."

The king lets his son go and puts some distance between them. His eyes are nothing but calculating.

"I didn't think you would believe me," Emyr admits, brushing a hand through his silver locks that have grown wild around his face. "Dragons are truly real then?"

"Yes. Every story that I told you when you were a child of the dynasties and dragon riders was real." The king looks back at me, and for a moment, I feel like he sees someone else when his eyes soften. He speaks like I'm not here though. "I remember the past like it was yesterday. I remember the reason I became a vampyre to begin with and what it cost me." He looks away and frowns at the window. "They cannot be allowed to ride around the world and take it back. Vampyres will rule for eternity."

Before she died, my own mother told me passed down stories of dragons that used to be crystal red and flew the skies in my ancestors' home. She told me stories of how the dragons used to be the brightest crystal colours that you ever saw and would look different in moonlight or sunlight. If this is true, maybe the chance we have been waiting for is finally here. Hope. The dragons can mean hope for us all. "I will follow your orders, father. I only request my plan for Story Dehana does not change. She will still be mine."

The king places his hand on his son's cheek and, to anyone else, it might come across as a loving gesture, but it's not. The king loves no one but himself. "I will kill her myself if she distracts you from war. I've indulged your affair with her for far too long, son." He grabs his son's throat and squeezes. Emyr struggles, trying to pull the hand off him without hurting his king. I wasn't alive to see what his childhood must have been like, but I can imagine. "You will do as I command—and for the vampyre race. Story Dehana is a name I do not wish to hear again. Do you understand?"

Emyrs croaks. "Y-yes-s."

The king drops him on the floor like a log. "Come, we have much to do, son. It is time you learnt the art of warfare and I teach you all the preparations I have made for the dragons' return. They are not the only creatures that will return to the skies for war." I watch them walk to the doors, and I just hope he's forgotten me. The deities' luck is never on my side, and the king looks back. "Ava, pack your clothes and get ready to leave. You'll be travelling at my side."

I plaster a smile on my red painted lips. "Of course, my king. I wish to be nowhere else."

The prince stares at me. "Your favourite…she looks like Story. I never noticed it until now."

His father secretly smiles at me. "Some bloodlines are more addictive than others and taste better. Ava is a rare breed, and perhaps your Story is the same." As I watch them walk out together, my heart pounds as loudly as the rustle of the guards following close. Only when they're gone do I climb to my feet and rush to the side door, slipping through the corridors, my red dress brushing against my legs.

The secret passageways through the castle are known only to the fae, and it's easy enough to hide in them when I want to. I get to the basement quickly, but I pause by the wall that has a door hidden behind it to make sure no one is following me. I can never be too sure, but usually I'm forgotten within the castle. I'm there to lie on my back for the king, give blood for the king, and not die when he beats me for his pleasure.

I'm the last person they expect to be working against him, and I act broken enough to think there is no hope left in my soul to fight. They don't get it. The vampyres will never understand that breaking someone only works when they choose to give up. It's their power, not the abuser's. Only when it's completely silent for at least fifteen minutes do I open the trapdoor down to the basement level and light a lantern to carry.

I head through the cobwebs of the long-forgotten tunnel, my feet tapping on the damp floor as I pray no rats come near, before I get to a pillar where a boy sits asleep, snoring loud enough for the deities to hear him. I'm relieved to see my nephew, even if I wish my sister and brother-in-law didn't send their young child here. They don't have a choice; they are both worker fae, and they can't be missing for too long. Marius is only ten, and no one notices the young fae running about. I kick his boot and he jumps. "You shouldn't be sleeping when you're on guard in here."

He pulls his cloak tight around his bright red hair and grins up at me, two of his teeth missing at the front. Marius is a lucky kid, though, to have two parents who aren't breeders and a full belly of food thanks to my regular donations. He stands and wraps his arms tight around my waist, and I smell his hair for a second. "I missed you, aunt Luna!"

"I missed you too." I lean down. "Listen, something big has happened, and I need you to tell your dad it's time for him to go into hiding like we planned. Apparently, Nightwell city has been taken by dragons and dragon riders. The king is going to war, and he claims to have weapons against dragons. I will be travelling with him, and I will send word of anything else I hear to the secret place. Do you understand?"

"I understand and I'll tell dad. How can all that be true?" He looks at me with his big blue eyes. "Dragons? What are they?"

I smile at him. "Fire breathing creatures that fly in the sky. They can fight the vampyres, and it's a good thing they are back. They used to be our rulers, but legend has it they vanished overnight." I'm never more thankful for the stories I was told. My sister was too young, only a babe when our parents died, but I've told her all the stories too. I hope she tells her son one day, before he sees them fly above and free us.

"And they're back to save us?"

Or doom us. I stroke his soft hair. "Yes. The dragons must be back to save us all." He hugs me once more and leans away, pulling out a book from the inside of his cloak. "Dad said there were great lengths taken to save this book, and he wants you to keep it safe. To get it to the rebellion in Nightwell city because the powerborn he is in contact with there should know the truth." I take the book and he picks up the bag I left down here with food a few days ago. All of it is sealed well and the rats can't get into it. "Bye, aunt!"

I watch as he leaves before I look at the book and hold it in the light. The cover is blood red, and in gold letters are two words. I've been trying so hard to spell out letters, and I stare at it, mouthing out every letter until I can finally understand the two words. Twilight Dynasty . Why would this book be so important that it's worth risking my life?