Chapter 2 - Calliope

After my third attempt at running, a searing pain explodes in my back.

I stumble, the world tilting, and then I’m on the ground, ankles still tied, the air knocked from my lungs. A heavy boot slams down on my arm, pinning me to the dirt.

I scream, thrashing wildly, but strong hands clamp around my wrists, yanking them behind my back. Rope bites into my skin. I choke on a sob as they drag me back to my knees. In the distance, I can see the Dragon King’s back as he moves away from the fray, high above it all, no longer paying me any regard at all.

In his eyes was a darkness I didn’t think could exist in real life. I thought it was only in fairytales, the stories my grandmother used to tell.

“Got her,” a soldier grunts near my ear, hauling me upright. His face swims in and out of focus, a blur of hard lines and sneering contempt.

The commander on horseback rides forward, his gaze sweeping over me with a cold, assessing look.

“Well, well,” he murmurs. “You’re definitely what he came for.”

I spit at his feet, earning myself a sharp slap across the face. Stars burst behind my eyes. I taste blood.

“Feisty,” he drawls. “Good. He’ll like a little fight.”

Then he leans closer, his voice dropping to a soft, deadly whisper.

“You’re coming with us, little witch. The king has plans for you. And now, he’s chosen you.”

The universe seems to shatter open around me like glass.

Everything is reduced to a blur. The world is a facsimile of itself, undone by dread and fear. The soldiers drag me through the village square, my feet stumbling over the uneven cobblestones. Every step feels like a death knell, the world closing in around me with suffocating finality.

The commander barks orders to his men, his voice sharp and unyielding, and I barely register it through the haze of pain and fear clouding my mind. I keep my head down, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts.

The villagers watch in silence as I’m hauled forward, their faces pale and drawn. No one speaks up. No one tries to help. They just stand there, staring at me with a mix of fear and relief—relief that it’s me and not one of them. Their lives will go on unchanged, even as mine falls apart.

Lyra, my only friend in this wretched place, is nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.

“Get in,” a soldier growls, shoving me toward a rickety wooden wagon parked at the edge of the square. The cart is old and splintered, its wooden frame bound with iron bands that dig cruelly into my wrists as they push me up and onto the narrow floor inside. The wagon’s wheels creak ominously under my weight, as if protesting my very presence.

I bite back a sob, struggling to keep my breathing steady. The ropes binding my wrists are so tight I can barely feel my fingers. My body aches from where they struck me down. I curl in on myself, shivering as the wind howls through the square, whipping at my hair and clothes.

The storm I’ve been awaiting is almost upon us now. Rain blurs the distant horizon. And I can smell smoke coming from somewhere—coming from everywhere. I spy it rising above the rooftops.

A soldier climbs up onto the front of the wagon, snapping the reins. The horses snort, pawing the ground restlessly, and then, with a lurch that nearly sends me sprawling, the wagon begins to move.

As a subsection of the garrison begins to move out, I spot the king atop his battle mount at the front of the charge, black cape pinned high atop his broad soldiers with silver ornamentation, head raised toward the sky as if scenting our desperation on the wind.

I hate him so desperately that it steals my breath.

I glance back over my shoulder, desperate for one last look at the place I’ve called home for so long. From down here, I can’t see my home, my cottage. My grandmother’s cottage, and her mother’s before her. The only home I’ve ever known. The villagers blur together—a faceless crowd of strangers who have unanimously turned their backs on me. The commander stands in the center of their gaggle, issuing orders with cold, precise efficiency.

The smell of smoke is getting stronger. It begins to sting my eyes.

My heart stutters, and I crane my neck, peering past the soldiers standing guard around the corralled population of Essenborn in the square. Flickers of orange and gold dance at the edge of my vision, the telltale glow of growing flames licking at the thatched roofs and wooden walls of the village’s outermost buildings.

“No,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “No, please—”

The flames grow higher, roaring to life as the soldiers set still more torches to the thatches, to the wooden beams and shutters.

They intend to burn it to ash.

Essenborn’s houses catch like dry kindling, the fire spreading rapidly, hungrily. My throat tightens, and I choke on a sob, the bitter stench of burning wood and thatch filling my nostrils.

The screams begin, faint, rushing south toward me on the growing wind. The villagers cry out in horror, some of them rushing forward in a futile attempt to smother the flames, to save what little they have. But the soldiers push them back, swords flashing in the torchlight. The commander’s voice cuts through the chaos.

“Burn it all,” he orders. “Leave nothing standing.”

High above the whistle of the wind and the shouts of the villagers, I hear a piercing yelp. An unmistakable sound of agony. I know innately that it is Lyra. Desperately, I listen for any further sound, but she is silent.

My only friend in this world, my single ally in a place that has always hated me, is dead. They’ve taken her, too.

Unbidden, the memory of the last time I saw her, only days ago, rises in my mind.

As rainwater drips down the outside of the cottage’s narrow window, I cork another bottle of valerian root tincture and set it carefully on the shelf. The label is neat, written in my hand: For Restless Sleep, Dreamless . It’s one of the last recipes my grandmother taught me before she died, and even now, after all these years, the familiar scent of it brings her voice back to me. Soft, gruff, and filled with a fierce, defiant wisdom. A wisdom the villagers hated her for.

The door creaks open behind me, and I glance over my shoulder, on edge already.

But it’s just Lyra.

She steps inside, her slight frame outlined by the fading light outside. She looks out of place here in my cramped, cluttered space—a girl made of sunshine and silk stepping into a world of shadow and bone. Her dress is far too fine for Essenborn’s rough village life: pale yellow muslin, belted with delicate ivory ribbons. A shade that’ll be ruined by the slightest stain of mud or sap.

“Callie?” Her voice is a soft whisper, barely louder than the rustle of leaves outside. “You’re here. Thank the Gods.”

“Of course I’m here,” I murmur, turning back to my workbench. “Where else would I be?”

She steps further in, her gaze darting nervously about the small room. The shelves are lined with jars of dried herbs, bundles of roots hanging from hooks in the rafters. All the oddments of a healer’s life—though most here would see me as a poisoner, a witch. I can feel her staring at the herbs as if they might leap off their strings and bite her.

“I thought—” She swallows hard. “I thought you might have left. There’s … there’s talk in the village.”

“When isn’t there?” I snort, though my voice comes out rougher than I intend. Her presence here reminds me too much of what I’ve lost. Of whom I’ll never be. “People always need something to whisper about. I’m a convenient subject. I don’t exactly make it difficult for them to behave like that.”

Lyra frowns, her delicate brow creasing. She opens her mouth, then seems to think better of whatever she was about to say. Instead, she glances down at the small pouch clutched in her hands, filled with hard-earned coppers from the market.

“Is it ready?” she asks softly.

I nod and slide a small, neatly wrapped bundle across the rough wooden table toward her. “Ginger and elderflower.” For her sister’s sickness. “It’ll help with the fever, too.”

“Thank you.” She looks up at me, her wide, blue eyes filled with a mix of gratitude and … something else. Pity, maybe? I can’t stand that look.

“Just take it,” I mutter, turning away. “And tell her to rest. If she can.”

Lyra hesitates for a moment, as if she wants to say something more, then sighs and tucks the bundle carefully into the crook of her arm. “You should come to the village sometime, Callie. To visit. You know … we miss you. And everyone’s getting sick all the time now, since the Blight … well. We could use your help.”

I laugh, a bitter, hollow sound. “ We ? You mean the same people who spat on my doorstep the day my grandmother died, threw stones at me in the streets? The ones who whisper about my ‘cursed blood’ whenever I pass?”

She winces, and for a moment, I regret my words.

It’s not Lyra’s fault. She’s always been kind to me, even when the rest of the village wasn’t. Even when they hurled rocks and stones at me the day I buried my grandmother. They had called it a cleansing, a way to keep the “witch’s poison” from spreading any further.

I have the scars to prove I’ll never forget that day. It’s all clear across my face.

Lyra was the only one who cried for me. But that doesn’t change what the others did. What they still do.

“I know it’s hard,” she whispers. “But you’re not alone. Not really.”

I turn to face her fully, meeting her gaze head-on. “Aren’t I? You’ll leave this place one day, Lyra. Marry some rich merchant or minor lord, and Essenborn will be nothing but a memory. But I’ll still be here. Just like my grandmother was. Alone, unwanted … a ghost.”

Lyra’s eyes shimmer, and she reaches out, as if to touch my arm. I step back, avoiding her hand.

“Just—” She shakes her head, a small, helpless gesture. “Be careful, Callie. That’s all I’m saying. People are … talking more than usual. There’s been news from the capital. Soldiers have been seen in the outlying villages.”

“Let them come,” I say, more fiercely than I intend. “I’ve nothing they want.”

Lyra doesn’t mention the obvious: that to the Dragon King, any young human woman is a potential bride, a potential bedmate. She just nods slowly, then glances back toward the door. The light outside has faded to a murky gray, and the wind picks up, rattling the shutters.

“I should go,” she murmurs, stepping back toward the entrance. “But … thank you, Callie. For everything.”

Before I can respond, she’s gone, the door closing softly behind her.

I stand there for a moment, staring at the place where she’d stood, then let out a long breath. What did she think would happen? That a few kind words would erase years of isolation?

“You’re a fool, Lyra,” I mutter under my breath, then turn back to the cluttered workbench.

I find myself crying harder, now, as I recall my shortness with her, my cruelty. I was so abrupt. I didn’t say goodbye properly.

Now, I am alone in this world.

The wagon picks up speed, jostling me roughly as it rolls away from the village. I twist around, straining against the ropes to catch one last glimpse of the only place I’ve ever known.

Essenborn is burning. For all the times I had wished for it, I didn’t ever imagine it would feel this way.

The fire rages unchecked, consuming everything in its path. The baker’s shop, the tavern, the little cottages with their sagging roofs and flower-filled windows. All of it—gone, swallowed by the inferno. The flames rise higher and higher, casting a blood-like glow against the storm-black sky.

And as the wagon carries me away, I watch it all disappear: the village that hated me, that feared me, that was still mine in some twisted, painful way. I watch it burn, reduced to nothing but ash and smoke.

“Why?” I whisper, my voice trembling. “Why are you doing this?”

The soldier at the reins doesn’t answer. He just stares straight ahead, expression blank and unfeeling.

A hot tear slides down my cheek. I bury my face against my knees, my entire body trembling with shock and fear and helpless, aching grief.

I don’t know how long I sit like that, curled up in the corner of the wagon as the world around me fades into darkness. But when I finally lift my head, the village is gone. The smoke and flames are nothing but a distant smear on the horizon.

Essenborn is no more.

And I … I am alone.

The wagon creaks and groans as it rumbles southward, the road stretching endlessly before us, the dark, hulking shape of the king not far ahead. I close my eyes, the bitter taste of ash still clinging to my tongue.

This is just the beginning, I know. Whatever awaits me in Millrath—whatever the king has planned for me—it will be worse than anything I could have imagined.

But I have no choice but to fight until my dying breath. Survive, my grandmother’s voice whispers in my head, in my soul. She is one of a chorus of voices, women who I have never known, those who came before.

Survive. Survive. Survive.