Chapter 1

1

The Crossing was that rare place in Shecrish where elves thumbed their noses at distinctions everyone else seemed preoccupied with. It sat half in the Above and half in the Below , a place where Dark Elves ventured from the depths of the earth to mingle with the other elven races who dared to enter the tavern—but rarely any deeper. The Dark seemed to be the only ones who didn’t fear the shadows.

The pub’s entrance didn’t have a door. The dark rock had been chiseled smooth with a gentle, wide arch like a pair of open arms. Welcoming . Inviting . Everyone who entered The Crossing , be it from the narrow doorway from Below or the wide access from Above , all saw the same wall. If the entrance was smooth, the wall was smooth as silk. And on it was an enormous mandala. Half the geometric symbol that represented the universe for elves sat in the sunshine, displaying vibrant colors. The other half, with its white lines, was bathed in shadow.

Arya’s eyes were glued to the design. No matter where she placed herself when she visited the tavern, her gaze always found the symbol. It meant something much more to her, something she had tried to forget and put out of her memory. She even succeeded a few times.

But she couldn’t seem to release that part of her past completely.

Just like she couldn’t forget Jai .

Time didn’t lessen the pain. The wound occasionally scabbed over, but something would inevitably make her think of Jai and the future that had almost been theirs. Then the scab would be yanked off, and the hurt would begin all over again. The scar ran too deep and was too jagged to ever fully heal. Even though she pretended otherwise. Her chest was empty, devoid of the heart that had once beaten so steadily there. It had been ripped out of her chest and shredded to oblivion. There were no pieces left to pick up for her to move on.

So , she didn’t.

She was the walking wounded. A shell of who she once was. A portrayal of what had almost been and should have been, but never would be.

The hours she had spent at The Crossing , waiting and hoping for Jai to show, had been some of the longest, most agonizing moments of her life. But it was nothing compared to finally realizing that he wouldn’t come. That he hadn’t chosen her.

She pulled her gaze from the mandala and looked down at the table where her ale sat untouched. It took her a moment to realize that her superior had stopped talking. She swung her attention to him. Yellow eyes that tipped toward gold stared intently at her. There was nothing soft about Dain Kelro . He moved with predatory grace. He saw everything in one sweep of a room and had skills no other Dark possessed.

His long, white hair was loose, except for small, silver bands around some locks. He wore the scars of his battles like a warrior. The deepest ran from the inside corner of his left eye and cut diagonally across the left cheek to his jaw. Another dissected his mouth at an angle from right to left. A third ran from his left temple through his left brow, across his nose, and along the right cheek.

Even when he wasn’t going into battle, Dain wore his favorite long, black coat, with the bottom cut into six thick strips and armor-plated shoulders. Beneath was a black shirt with chest and abdomen armor. Black trousers were tucked into knee-high boots with more silver armor on the fronts.

And he had been mentoring her since she joined the Dark’s elite Counter Corruption Division .

She would never dare call Dain a friend, at least not aloud. Mostly because he didn’t have friends. Or he hadn’t before. Something had changed recently, and it all pointed back to Dain’s recent encounter with a Dragon King .

“ You’re doing it again,” Dain remarked.

Arya lifted the cup of ale to her mouth and drank. She held his gaze as she swallowed and then slowly lowered her arm. There was no use denying it. Dain always saw through lies. Even hers. “ Am I ?”

“ It’s been four years.”

She tried to school her features, but she wasn’t sure she managed it, given how Dain’s lips compressed.

“ It was your first assignment. Those are always difficult.”

Arya didn’t want to talk about the assignment or Jai . She inhaled and released her breath as she looked away, her gaze returning to the mandala.

“ You attempted to warn him,” Dain continued. “ It didn’t work. You know he wasn’t captured in the search. He got away.”

That should be enough. Why wasn’t it? She had waited at The Crossing for Jai for two days, but he never showed. And that stung more than anything.

“ I’m fine,” she said.

Neither believed the lie.

She looked at Dain expectantly. “ You didn’t call me here to talk about the past.”

“ Actually , I did. Just not that far back.” Dain scanned the room before leaning his arms on the table.

Arya did the same. The Crossing was an entry point into the dominion of the Dark Elves , who enjoyed an existence belowground. They could—and had—lived Above with the other races, but it wasn’t normal. While the Dark might occasionally mingle Above , other races only ventured Below when it was required. The same went for humans.

No one could see into the shadowy depths of the Below like Dark Elves could. The sunlight caused an issue with her people, making it difficult to see—though that was a secret no one ever shared. It would be considered a weakness. And that simply couldn’t be known.

The pub was mainly occupied by the Dark . There was a Sun Elf , two Moon Elves , and, to her surprise, a Sea Elf . Like the Dark , Sea Elves had their preferred home and seldom left it. The Mountain Elves were even more reclusive. The Wood Elves seemed to be everywhere, but they had a particular abhorrence for the subterranean areas. The Star Elves were nomadic.

Arya glanced at Dain and saw his gaze directed behind the bar. She turned and spotted a human female pouring a drink. It was the first time she had ever known the owner of The Crossing to hire a human.

“ You need to be careful,” Dain said in a low voice.

Arya swung her head back to him. “ About ?”

“ There’s been talk about recent exploits.”

Shaldorn Stronghold . Arya inwardly grimaced at the thought of the mountain fortress. She had been undercover in the depraved, evil place, where humans were held as slaves, and all races of elves had taken part in debauchery, corruption, and other sins. Her assignment had been a secret, one Dain had asked of her, and they kept from their supervisors. She hadn’t understood why until she was inside Shaldorn and saw firsthand those who fought for an invitation to the exclusive citadel.

But she and Dain had merely been backup. Ravi , a Sun Elf working for the Defense Intelligence Agency , and Yasmin , the only human to escape Shaldorn , had infiltrated the stronghold and halted the sale of a weapon intended to start a war with the dragons.

Ravi and Yasmin had accomplished their task, causing those running Shaldorn to go to ground, but it had nearly cost Yasmin her life. Each time Arya thought about the state she had found Yasmin in, it made her stomach roil. And it was churning again, but for another reason.

“ What about it?” Arya asked in a soft whisper. Despite their victory, they had yet to discover the tangled mess of who was involved in Shaldorn . They knew it went up through the government, but they didn’t know how deeply.

Dain held her gaze, his yellow eyes briefly showing his unease. “ As you’ll recall, a few got away.”

Notably the Moon Elf , Gita , who had been running Shaldorn Stronghold , and One , a Star Elf , the last of the trio who answered to her.

“ You’re worried.”

Dain shot her a flat look. “ We’d be stupid not to be. It seems our friends are searching for us.”

A shiver of apprehension snaked down Arya’s spine. “ How did you learn of this? Can your source be trusted?”

“ Unequivocally .”

That made Arya’s brows rise. Dain was distrustful of everyone. She couldn’t name a single person he trusted unreservedly. Apparently , he did with this source. “ What did they say?”

“ Someone took a bounty out on us.”

Seven words. That was all it took for her stomach to drop to her feet. They had no idea how far Gita’s reach went. The Moon Elf had mentioned that others were working with her, and for all they knew, it could reach the very top officials. It was something Arya and Dain had been looking into since their return. How else could the stronghold have stayed hidden for so long?

“ They saw me,” Dain said. “ And the other two.”

He wasn’t saying Ravi’s and Yasmin’s names for many reasons. She nodded. She had expected retaliation. They had halted a profitable operation where criminals could buy, sell, and trade all manner of legal and illegal commodities. Mostly illegal. But it was more than that. The depraved had been able to release their true debauchery by watching others being tortured, killed, and raped.

“ Did anyone see you with us?”

Dain’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. Arya shook her head. “ I don’t think so.”

“ It isn’t a chance we can take. We all need to take precautions.”

She shot him a glare. “ You want to hide?” That wasn’t something she’d ever expected Dain to say.

“ Until we know who is pulling the strings, aye.”

“ We need to keep searching for Gita and One .”

Dain slowly leaned back in his chair. “ We will. Just more stealthily than we have been. Stay at your parents’. They have enough security to keep anyone out.”

She glanced away and drank another swallow of ale.

Dain’s nostrils flared with irritation. “ You still haven’t told your family you’re working for us.”

It wasn’t a question. She looked at him again, but couldn’t hold his glare and turned away once more. Of course, she hadn’t told her family that she was a spy. They would force her to stop immediately if they found out she was part of the Counter Corruption Division .

And if she didn’t, her mother would put enough pressure on the CCD that they’d fire her.

“ Fuck .” A muscle jumped in Dain’s jaw. “ You promised.”

“ I lied.”

His yellow eyes narrowed. “ They won’t come after just your position. It’ll be mine, too, for training you.”

“ I went to the CCD on my own,” she argued. “ No one recruited me.”

“ It won’t matter to your family, and you know it.”

Arya reluctantly nodded. “ Fine . I’ll tell my parents. I’m meeting them for dinner tonight,” she stated when he glared at her some more.

“ It might be too late for that confession.”

There was an instant moment of elation at the thought of getting out of that lecture, but it quickly vanished. Dain didn’t want her to tell her parents about the CCD because she would then have to tell them about Shaldorn . If Dain’s suspicions about how far up the corruption went were correct, then there was a good chance it may involve her mother, who had been elected to the Dark Council .

“ Shite ,” she murmured.

Dain nodded after he tossed back the last of his ale. “ Aye .”

How had she not already thought of that connection? But she knew. It was because she didn’t want to imagine either of her parents being involved with Shaldorn . But Dain had. She knew it without even asking him. She felt sick to her stomach.

Arya looked down at her hand, which was still wrapped around the wooden cup. Her gray skin looked pale, even to her. How would she act normal during the dinner? The best in the CCD had trained her. She could do it. It wouldn’t be easy, but she didn’t have a choice.

Her gaze snapped up to Dain to find his gaze on her. “ How much have you investigated without me?”

“ I kept you out of it because of the chance of conflict.”

“ That isn’t what I asked,” she said tightly.

He sighed, his gaze sliding away briefly. “ Not much, but I won’t ask you?—”

“ You don’t have to. I’m part of this. We follow wherever things lead. To whoever they lead.”

“ It’s easy to say that now.”

She lifted her chin. “ If something is found…” She swallowed, not able to say the words. She could barely even think about her parents being involved with Shaldorn . “ I have to see it with my own eyes, or I’ll think it was falsified.”

Dain stared at her for a long moment, before nodding once. “ Fair enough.”

She pushed the ale away. If she drank any more, she might vomit. She might have learned to repress her emotions, so nothing showed, but she had yet to learn how to halt the effects of those feelings in her body.

“ You can change your mind anytime,” Dain told her.

“ I won’t.”

“ I know.”

“ I need to change before the dinner. Where do we start tomorrow?”

“ Meet me here at midday.”

Arya nodded and pushed to her feet. “ See you then.”

“ Be vigilant,” Dain warned.

She paused beside him and smiled, hoping to make him believe she was fine. “ You , too.”

Arya scanned the establishment as she walked to the back, where the lights and torches filling the tavern faded into darkness. There , a door was so cloaked in shadows only a Dark Elf could see it. She looked back to find Dain studying the other occupants. She pushed through the door and skimmed the alleyway to see if anyone was about. A half dozen steps down led to the tunnel connecting The Crossing to the Below .

Much to her parents’ horror, she had a flat in the Deacos Corner neighborhood. It was too near the surface for their liking. Then again, they wouldn’t be happy unless she returned to their home. Preferably married. That’s what this dinner was about—it’s what all the dinners for the past year had been about.

To her parents, she should’ve already found her mate, settled down, and waited for the Domestic Ministry to give them a child. As if that was all there was to life. Her parents paraded men in front of her as if she were picking out a cut of meat, her father proudly listing the contender’s achievements and bodily endowments, which never failed to mortify her. If it was that bad for her, she couldn’t imagine what it was like for the males. Though her family’s ranking meant that many put aside their egos and pride on the off chance she might choose them. There was no way she would allow anyone to make her feel so degraded.

None of the men asked her anything about herself. They probably didn’t care about her. The males were interested in her family name, their connections, and the money.

Actually , she was the slab of meat. They might not flaunt her about, but she was still on display.

And it was time for that to end.