Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I leaned over the wooden table where all my forging tools lay in haphazard chaos, while I rubbed oil into the hilt of my newly finished dagger. It was ready. And it was a beautiful, deadly thing that had not only been created in my mother's forge at the back of this very room but had been imbued with all the vengeful rage that simmered in my soul.

I'd spent months and months practising my craft to be able to make a blade such as this. I'd even used some of the metal from the blown apart Forge roof in town along with a piece of the mechanical armour worn by the dead beast I'd left down in the wilds that day.

I'd retrieved its claws long ago, crafting them into gauntlets that could be worn to climb in and out of the wasteland too, tools that had come in handy more than once. Whatever metal was used to imbue those magical beasts was strong as kaské. It had been hard to work with, but I'd gotten there in the end. And now my creation was finished, all for one thing.

The place on the hilt I was polishing was bare, a gap left purposefully in the engraved decorations. Flames curled around the spot, but they were being doused by a roaring wave, and the space between them was waiting for the day I learned the name of the man who had murdered my mother. Once I held that knowledge, I would etch it into this very place and send a prayer to Pisces to bless the blade with all the fury of my star sign and grant me favour in my quest to destroy him. This blade, which was blood red at the hilt, paling to a perfect silver at the deadly tip, would soon pierce my enemy's heart.

The door that led onto the alleyway was flung wide and I squinted out at the blazing daylight glinting off of Harlon's bare shoulders. His head was cocked and his expression stern as he stared in at me, one eyebrow arching. He was naked from the waist up, barefoot too, and his tanned muscles gleamed under the morning Cascalian light.

I hissed at him like a wildcat, wincing away from the stark brightness as my eyes adjusted to the sudden change. All the curtains were closed in here, and the whole place was a mess courtesy of my influence. My mama's house was a simple structure, this room the only living space outside the two small sleeping rooms and latrine.

"Ever, get your ass out in the sun," Harlon insisted. "And when did you last eat?"

I looked to the bowl of watery oats I'd picked at a while ago. Or was that last night?

"I'm working," I insisted, glancing down and taking stock of myself in the humbling light of day. My hair had grown in the humidity of the night, my unruly curls taking on a life of their own, each of them headed in their direction. My leather work apron was sticking to my skin, and I recalled taking off everything but my undergarments beneath me somewhere around midnight last night. Was my ass sticking to the seat a little? Perhaps. But if anyone had seen me undone by the obsession of my work enough times to have grown used to the sight, it was Harlon.

"Fuck work. The surf's good, let's get out there. It's our last chance to visit Undashine Shore."

My ears pricked up at that, the ocean calling to me like it so often did. And Harlon was right. We were going to be shipped off to Never Keep in a few hours. This would be my final opportunity to swim in warm waters with my friend for a long time. From what I'd heard, the surf around the island where Never Keep was situated had a lot of power in its waves, but the water was as cold as a polar bear's tits.

I slid the blade off of my work table, trying to subtly slip it into a drawer, but Harlon noticed, stalking through the room, rolling back his broad shoulders. My eyes made a passage down the hardened planes of his chest, perfectly defined in every way, a man fit for war.

"Have you finished at last?" he asked, and my gaze snapped back up to meet his.

"Yes. Maybe. No." I slipped the dagger into the drawer, but Harlon pounced, his muscles having grown muscles of their own this past year. He slammed into me like a fucking boulder, but I ducked down, taking the blade with me and moving so fast, he never saw me coming. I was behind him in a heartbeat, pressing the dagger to his ribs.

I smiled my victory, but he spun around fast, his hand snatching my wrist while the other locked in my hair and bared my throat to him.

"Yield," he purred, and the deep tenor of his voice sent a shiver rolling through me. The kind that shouldn't have been born between friends.

Harlon was made for succeeding in all his endeavours. Between his cocky, easy manner and his good looks, he drew plenty of women to his bed. I would have been blind not to have noticed him now, but in all honesty, I'd noticed him when he was a scrawny kid picking me up out of the dirt and wiping the dust off my knees. He had fixed up my bloody noses, sprains and even a broken wrist once after Ransom and his friends had sprung attacks on me.

Somehow, I'd always gotten away, and Harlon would invariably find me at Undashine Shore licking my wounds. He'd tend to my injuries, cleaning and binding them while I cursed out Ransom and swore I'd beat him next time. Harlon had offered to be my escort a thousand times, but I'd refused to use him as a shield, facing my fate like a Fae and working to come out on top. It didn't matter that Ransom moved around with a pack of heathens and I was severely outnumbered, because accepting Harlon's help felt like failing. And I wouldn't offer any more reason for the assholes in this town to call me weak.

I slammed my heel down on Harlon's foot and he cursed, his grip easing just enough for me to throw a hand up, jamming it into his wrist to force it out of my hair. I snatched the blade from my snared hand and held it to his heart instead, the tip pressing into that tempting golden skin of his.

He boomed a laugh, the sound filling up the room, his presence dominating the space. "You're good. But you're not that good, little fish."

"Yonla i pishalé," I hissed.

"Tut, tut," he scolded. "You should be speaking the Universal Language not Cascalian."

"But calling you an asshole always sounds so much prettier in the old tongue, Harl," I said with a smirk. "The U.L. has no pizzazz."

He jabbed my bare back with something sharp and I glanced down, finding he'd somehow unsheathed his own deadly little knife.

"I reckon I'd survive that easier than you'd survive a skewered heart," I said, fluttering my eyelashes as my lips lifted in a twisted smile.

His gaze dipped to my mouth then back to my eyes, a frown lining his brow as he shifted minutely closer. For a second, I was frozen, unsure what he was about to do but having the sense that I wanted him to do it. There'd always been something between us, and it had grown sharper when we'd reached adulthood. But even when Harlon snuck into my filthiest of dreams, I'd never crossed that line in real life. Our friendship was far too valuable to risk on the sake of a relationship that might just end up in shattered pieces. Then I'd lose him forever, and that wasn't an option. He was my lifeline in the dark, the one who had gotten me through the greatest depression of my life.

After Mama's death, I'd spiralled. Hard. My hand had taken a long time to heal, but he had been there to tend it day after day, soaking it for me in aloe and rike leaves when I couldn't even muster the will to leave the house. Eventually, something had shifted in me. The grief I had been drowning in had transformed from a jagged, agonising kind of torture to a hard, impenetrable fortress of vengeance against the man who caused my pain. My heart had been hardened, strengthened by my loss and made anew. What I was now held little innocence, my eyes wide open to the cruel, unforgiving world, but so long as Harlon was there to keep enticing smiles from me, I wasn't wholly lost.

Which was all the more reason that I couldn't ruin what we were. I would never sate the desires of my flesh in him. When it came to sex, I'd sought release in the arms of some truly ruthless men. The type fresh home from war, warriors who needed the heat of bare skin to wipe the horrors of battle from their minds. The ones who drank too much and indulged too hard, men who were scarred, vicious and had no idea of the life I led here in Castelorain.

At eighteen, I'd found myself captivated by a man who went by the unfortunate yet apt name of Ruckus, following him to one of the taverns that lined Brissale Beach. I'd walked up to him wearing a hand-stitched green dress with little gold fish embroidered into the fabric and a necklace made from spoons swinging around my neck, then I'd laid my hand on his cock through his britches and raised an eyebrow.

Me and subtle didn't exactly belong in the same sentence.

It hadn't been in any way like Alina's first time which she had loudly regaled to her friends after a training session in the Sunserl Courtyard, speaking of a Fae who had brought flowers to her door every night before taking her virginity in a thrall of passion and gentle love.

Me? I had found myself with a firm, rough hand sliding around my wrist and a man called Ruckus leading me into a back alleyway behind the tavern. There, pinned between a hard wooden wall and a man twice my size, my dress half pulled off me in his need to get to my skin, I had been fucked with the brutality of a warrior who had known nothing but violence in however many years he had served in battle.

Yet between the bite of pain his thick cock had caused while driving inside me and the bruising kisses he'd laid on my lips as his stubble rubbed my skin raw, I had found something to like in the frenzy of his lust.

It wasn't the sweet, romantic pleasure Alina had spoken of, but it was something equally rare to me. The way that man ached for me with such simplicity was something foreign in my life, the whispers of my beauty passing his lips in heavy pants such a stark contrast to the taunts or ridicules I was used to. I had reduced that powerful man to a singular want, and that want was me.

After that, I'd occasionally wandered to the taverns, looking for him at first, but once he had returned to battle, I'd found others who had been just as willing to worship me with that same kind of rough delight.

It wasn't something I spoke to anyone about, not even Harlon. He didn't go into detail about the women he bedded either. It was an unspoken rule between us, like deep down, we knew that the other wouldn't like to hear about it. Though sometimes I wondered how Harlon was with the girls he laid his affections on. Was he as rough as the men home from war? Or was he gentle like Alina's first boyfriend had been?

Harlon's gaze fell on my blade as I lowered it from his chest and he swore, the tense moment falling away between us, lost just as it should be.

"Ever, this is…" He took the dagger from my hand, and I reluctantly relinquished it into his hold, my lips pressing tight together as I prepared to get his opinion. The only opinion I gave a kaské about these days.

"The tip could be sharper," I said quickly. "And I still need a name to fill the blank spot on the hilt. It won't be finished until then."

He twisted the dagger in his grip, admiring it from every angle, from the Pisces fish swimming along the blade, to the very same constellation etched onto the other side.

"It's perfect. Perhaps even better than your mother's work," he commended.

I snatched it back, scolded by his words.

"I could never match her talent," I growled.

"Don't take offence, little fish," he said, smirking in that way that always had women falling at his feet. But I wasn't like them.

Harlon and I were an echo of each other's souls. He had lost his parents in a bloody battle with the Stonebreakers from Avanis, and his upbringing here in Cascada had been anything but easy. His carefree smiles hid it well, but I knew about the farrier who had taken him in and had raised him with a cruel hand. I knew about the whippings which had left the scars that still tinged my friend's flesh when the sun shone on them just right.

He was a man on a passage to war now, but once he had been a boy that had well known the scent of his own blood. It was why we'd bonded. He'd catch waves on his tiderunner to escape the farrier for a while and that was how we'd met. The two of us chasing freedom at Undashine Shore, a beach that had been a refuge for both of us. Our secret escape that not even Ransom and his friends bothered to make the arduous trek to.

Today was our last chance to claim a ride upon the ocean at our sacred hideout before we were shipped off to Never Keep for our assessment. I knew from that point on, I would be on a path of revenge that wouldn't end until the man who had killed my mother found a just and wicked death. From guessing his age, and knowing that he couldn't have been Awakened as he had crossed through The Boundary, I knew he would either be at war by now or perhaps about to become a neophyte at Never Keep. And the only way I would find him would be by walking in his footsteps.

Regardless, the battlefield was the destination I was seeking. I had dreams of visiting Castelorain decorated in medals, only to find my father's attention turning from Ransom to me, praising me and me alone.

It was a petty dream, but one I quietly hung on to. If only I could be seen as more , as a powerful warrior with an endless list of deaths to her name, then I wouldn't be shunned from society. I might even be revered.

I wasn't allowed to fight in battles before my training at Never Keep by law of Cascada, but ever since I'd discovered that I could slip beyond The Boundary into the wilds, I'd returned there regularly to test my strength.

After one particularly bloody encounter with Ransom, I'd taken my mother's sword and stalked into the wilds, determined to prove myself. I'd returned with the flesh and metal head of one of those vicious beasts, the thing still wrapped in a sheet now and stuffed beneath my bed. I'd peeled off some of that metal for use in forging weapons, but it was still mostly intact. A trophy that I'd shown no one but Harlon.

He was the keeper of my secrets, and I his. We held plenty of crimes to our names, but not even Harlon had stepped into the wilds. That was a place only I dared to venture, a place where I thrived in the disorder.

Harlon had warned me time and again not to go there, especially after I'd come back with blood dripping down my leg and a jagged piece of metal sticking out of it one night. He'd had the job of stitching that wound while I bit down on a piece of wood in the bathing tub and did everything in my power not to wake the neighbours with my screams.

All traces of my passage beyond The Boundary had to remain hidden, but even after I'd recovered from that particularly nasty incident, I'd eventually found my feet padding back there in the dead of night. If only I could be stronger, could push myself harder, could stretch myself a little further. Then maybe I'd ensure I secured my place at Never Keep.

Harlon didn't need to accompany me into the wilds to train anyway – not that I'd ever invited him. He was still enrolled in the daily training classes for un-Awakened Fae which my father had banned me from attending last year.

Harlon often put Ransom on his ass during their spars, and I'd seen him do just that from the tiled red rooftop that sloped down towards the Sunserl Courtyard.

I watched, even if I wasn't allowed to attend, learning all I could from sight alone while perched in the shadow of the statue of Typhon, the giant sea serpent which represented our land. Its spined body coiled up around a trident and the marks of Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio decorated its brow, its legend well-known by the people of Cascada.

The tale claimed that Typhon had been so beguiled with the ocean from his place perched up in the stars, that he begged the three signs of water, Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio, to let him down from the sky so that he might bathe in the moonlit waters.

His wish was granted upon the condition that he would carve a new land from the ocean floor and drive it up to the surface where Fae with water magic flowing through their veins could be protected by the giant serpent. Typhon agreed to be their guardian and drove Cascada from the water after his descent to the ocean, giving birth to our land and blessing it with the grace of the element of water. I didn't know how true it was, but I liked the pretty picture it painted in my mind all the same, and I especially liked the shade his statue offered me from the midday sun on that rooftop.

Harlon had made a point of sparring with me after every session at the Sunserl Courtyard, and we'd become accustomed to the routine. I'd lurk somewhere along the rocky cliff path that led to Undashine Shore and pounce on him, trying to tackle him to the ground. I was successful about half the time, especially when I used ropes to bind his ankles. But he was quick to adapt to every technique I came up with.

I'd taken my training to the extreme this past year. I'd even created wearable weights I could tether to my arms and leg when sparring with Harlon, pushing my body to its very limits, always with the soulless Flamebringer in mind.

I often thought of him, that cruel, sharp-edged face haunting me in my nightmares as deeply as when I was awake. It was an obsession that only intensified with time, never lessening. I would become the greatest warrior I could be, great enough to defeat him when I one day tracked him down. It would be my crowning glory, my moment of redemption, and if I was blessed with the luck of Delphinus, it would be in public too, so that all those who had doubted me before would revere my power.

It was a goal that drove me in every waking hour and every unconscious one too, my hatred ever-growing, mutating into a demon of its own. One that whispered wicked wants in my ear.

"Hello?" Harlon waved a hand in front of my face. "You've completely spaced out."

I blinked, coming out of my murderous reverie, my mouth lifting as I refocused on my friend, the one steady thing in my chaotic life.

"The ocean calls," I said, stepping past him and running for the door.

"Er, your ass is kinda out," Harlon called, and I came to a skidding halt, remembering the leather apron and undergarments combo I was sporting right now. I liked my clothes to be interesting, but this was bordering on a level of unusual even I couldn't accept. My cheeks flushed a little as I realised Harlon had a full view of a lot of bare skin.

I twisted around, a forced kind of laugh leaving me before I ran for my bedroom, slipping inside and pulling off the leather apron. I tossed on a feather-light dress that was palest yellow, little pink feathers I'd gathered from a raygull's nest dangling from the hem and tickling my legs. With a burst of excitement at the thought of meeting with the ocean again, I ran back into the living room, shoving past Harlon and flying out the front door.

I left my shoes behind, still miserably gathering dust since the last time I'd worn them. My feet kissed the warm cobblestone alleyway beyond the door, the alley sloping down steeply towards the sea. I could scent the ocean from here and hear the soft cry of gulls calling my name. Ever, Ever, Ever.

Harlon muscled past me so hard, he nearly knocked me on my ass, and then he was off, racing down the hill with a taunting laugh trailing back to me.

"Pishalé," I cursed him in the Cascalian tongue. Asshole .

With my gaze set on the sea that glinted between the narrow streets, I sprinted after him as he started a race he'd given himself a head-start in.

The warm wind rushed against my skin, and freedom filled my lungs as I inhaled the taste of the ocean. My truest home, a place I belonged which no one could take from me.

Our tiderunners awaited us in the makeshift shelter we'd built from palm leaves at Undashine Shore along with the two-piece costume I'd made for swimming. I'd used gold whelk leaves to give it a shimmer akin to sunshine and stitched a line of seashells along the hips in the shape of sea turtles.

I couldn't wait to slip out of my shift and walk into the waves, letting them welcome me into their arms. There was magic in those waves, as old as the moon and as ancient as the hill Castelorain was perched upon. And if there was anywhere that could sweep away my fears about today's journey to Never Keep and what lay waiting for me on that island in the north, it was the ocean in all her glamour and beauty.

As I made it to the end of the street, I looked left, my feet slowing as I took in the edge of the town where it had been sheered in half by the Skyforgers a year ago. The Raincarvers had started rebuilding, but this part of Castelorain still held an echo of that day. A house was carved right open, giving view into someone's personal space, a half-finished painting still sitting in its easel. Most haunting of all was that the painting showed a landscape that no longer existed in our town, the once familiar street now lost to the Skyforgers.

I ran on, my thrill in the race dampened by the sting of the past. So much had been taken from us that day. And as I veered away from that ragged piece of Castelorain, I saw my mother's face in my mind, her lips moving, forming the words that were burned into the recesses of my soul.

Never rest, Everest.

"Recite the plan," Harlon encouraged as we filed towards the ship that would take us to Never Keep, the weight of my pack a sturdy reminder of all my most prized possessions perched so simply upon my shoulders.

Harlon had told me that bringing the head of the beast I'd killed in the wilds was one step too far, but I had managed to fit all of my mother's weapons in the pack along with my clothes, my smithing tools and my sewing kit.

I'd swapped my yellow dress for fitted red britches with blue pockets in the shape of scallops and a tunic that matched, cut short to reveal my navel. It was a more comfortable outfit for travel, though it wouldn't keep me warm once we reached the northern seas. It would be a few days before that though. The trip would take ten days in total, our passage across the waters made simple by the gifts of the Awakened Fae of Cascada.

Which was why we held the greatest armada in the four nations. The other nations would take varying amounts of time to reach the northern waters where Never Keep was located. The Skyforgers would travel upon one of their sky islands, the journey perhaps five hours or so from the land of Stormfell by air, and while the Flamebringers were closest to our destination in the north, they held no power over the waters as we did so their journey across the seas would be slower, but the Stonebreakers would take the longest so would likely be underway already.

"Be a badass and downplay the dodgy hand." I saluted him, but he didn't smile at my joke.

"Ever, go through it properly," he growled. He'd opted for brown trousers and a white shirt for the occasion, his sword sheathed at his hip and his pack even smaller than mine.

I fought an eye roll at his tone, trying to deny the way my body reacted to it too. I was pretty sure the rebel in me got a kick out of defying his commands, but at some point in the past few years that kick had turned into a thrill laced with a sinful kind of heat.

I looked beyond the heads of the un-Awakened Fae who were queuing along the boardwalk towards the grand ship that was bobbing at the end of the dock, its white sails glinting in the morning sun. The sea serpent, Typhon, was carved into the prow, winding around it with its large, open jaw reaching from its end, sharp teeth poised as if to bite.

"I've got this," I promised. "I've spent the last year training for this day."

"Then why are you fidgeting like there's fire ants in your undergarments?"

"Maybe I stuffed a few in there for good luck," I said, trying to win that smile from him, but dammit he was grouchy today. And that was rare when it came to him. Harlon Brook could be chest deep in a river of shit and he'd still take a moment to enjoy the sunrise. He had a habit of tilting my chin up to see it too, so things must have been really bad if he was grilling me now.

"Do you doubt that I'll get accepted?" I asked my greatest fear.

My own doubts, I could handle. But his? They would be devasting.

His faith in me was often the foundation of my faith in me. Without him, I'd be alone in this wretched world which had been so very unwelcomingly to me.

"No," he said firmly. "But I know the importance of this day to you, I don't want you to just pass the test, Ever, I want you to crush it into oblivion. I want every Raincarver in our land to take note of you as I have. I want them to see your strength, I want them to stop dismissing you. Life's been a piece of shit to you, and I know it's not fair, but you're going to have to work ten times as hard as any other Fae to earn your place, not just at Never Keep but in society." He rounded on me, gripping my shoulder, and the flare of passion in his eyes made me inhale sharply. "This is your path to greatness. The world will rue the day it turned its back on you, and I'll be there to cheer to the damn stars when it does. So don't just succeed, conquer."

"Harl," I sighed. "I fucking love you sometimes."

"What about the other times?" He dropped his hand from my shoulder, smoothing it through his floppy brown hair. My gaze flicked to a group of Fae who were glancing his way appreciatively. Some of them offered me filthy looks, the fox hanging out with the hound not to their taste apparently. But despite my father's public declaration of my out-casting last year, Harlon had never turned his back on me. He didn't step away when people looked too close, in fact, if anything, he moved nearer.

The commander didn't like it, but Harlon was one of the most promising warriors of our generation, and even my father couldn't help but dote on him. I'd heard him refer to me as Harlon's pet more than once, and it wasn't the worst thing he'd called me, even if it was pretty fucking degrading.

"I'm semi-tolerant of you the rest of the time," I taunted, casually ignoring the sneers people were offering me. Most of them ignored me like I was nothing more than a foul scent on the wind, but a few couldn't help but wrinkle their noses. It was surprisingly easy to ignore them these days. I'd realised it was simpler to reject people just as they rejected me.

My walls were high and impenetrable, the only one with access the man standing before me now. But I did have a quiet fear that continued to burrow into my brain in the quietest of moments. Once Harlon was at Never Keep, he'd be bunking with other Fae, I might not even share quarters with him at all. He'd find new friends, ones who didn't tar his name with a pariah's brush. How long would it be before he drifted from me, claiming the golden life of a celebrated warrior that he had always been fated to earn?

"Oh to be semi-tolerated," Harlon pretended to swoon, only drawing more attention to himself as he mock-fainted, knocking into a stocky man ahead of him.

The guy smiled when he realised who had stumbled into him, waving him off while Harlon clapped him on the shoulder and was drawn smoothly into conversation with the stranger. I watched him for a moment, fascinated by the casual interaction, wondering what that was like. To be so…accepted.

"My boy," Father's booming voice made me turn and my heart knotted as I spotted him marching through the crowd. The un-Awakened Fae scattered in deference of his position, making a path from him all the way to Ransom who was a few paces back in the line.

Father's hand clapped down on my half-brother's shoulder, offering Ransom a wide, prideful smile that made my stomach twist with jealousy. What it must have been like to be Ransom. A silver spoon stuffed in your ass at birth and your great destiny laid out before you, sprinkled with hand-picked roses and drops of fucking starlight.

"It is a joyous day indeed," Father boomed, so all could hear. "My latest prodigy heading off to Never Keep, following the footsteps of his decorated father and so many of his sisters and brothers. How many accolades will you come home with after your first season in battle, eh?"

"As many as I can possibly earn, Father," Ransom said, lifting his head, looking as smug as a rat in a larder.

"Here." The commander slammed a weighty pouch of coins into Ransom's chest, and my half-brother grabbed it with a gasp of excitement. He peeked inside, the glint of gold lighting his brown eyes with a greedy hunger. "I'll send you a pouch of karmas every month that you continue to impress the Reapers at the Keep."

"I'll make you proud, Father," Ransom gushed, and the commander drew him into a fierce embrace.

"You already have, my boy, you already have," he said, leaving me with a bitter expression curling my lips.

"Forget them," Harlon said in a low voice, trying to turn me away from the sight, but my feet were rooted in place. For once, I had boots tethered to them, and I already missed the steady warmth of the earth, but mostly the kiss of the ocean.

Father's eyes snapped onto mine and my cheeks flushed hot at the scrutiny that blazed within them. I averted my gaze, looking anywhere else, but sensing his dominating form making a path my way.

He had spoken directly to me so rarely since his dismissal of me that I had no expectations of him doing so now. I waited for him to walk by, but his shadow fell over me and I could no longer pretend I was preoccupied with watching people board the ship.

I turned, my head tilting back to look up at his face, his towering form like a beast in human flesh, an echo of his Merrow Order form.

There was another bag of coins in his hand, smaller than Ransom's by far, but there they were, hanging from his fingers and tempting me to dream of their intended destination. Could he really mean to offer me such a gift? I hardly dared hope it, but my heart lifted with that possibility all the same. A pathetic want, I knew, but there it was, like a starved dog hunting for scraps from the very owner who had turned it out into the street.

"I have decided, after great consideration, to offer you a suitable endowment in the name of your mother's honour," he said tightly, clearly still no fan of mine, but this had to be a positive.

"That's generous of you," I said, throwing a glance at that tempting bag of karmas hanging from his scarred fist. I was going to Never Keep with a sum total of thirteen silver kismets to my name, all of them earned by fixing up the armour of the warriors home from war.

I'd spent the bulk of my earnings on food, then the rest on new materials for clothes, tools and metals for forging. I needed that gold more than I wanted to admit.

"I've trained hard for my position at Never Keep. I think…I hope I can make you proud, Father," I said. Ergh, I could hear it. The pathetic want in my voice, the neediness, the beggar in me who longed for this man's approval. She was a vain creature, always hunting for scraps of praise like a lowly wretch.

Commander Rake's lips twitched with some emotion I couldn't place, and I felt Harlon stepping closer at my back, the hairs prickling along my neck telling me that something wasn't quite right.

"Never Keep," he scoffed, looking me over with a hint of disgust sliding across his harsh features. "You will not place."

"But I-" I started in confusion, and his voice boomed out for all to hear.

"I have put in a good word for you with the Providers whose great honour and duty it is to offer up their wombs for the creation of the next generation of warriors, so that they might pair you with a man of great esteem. A man who has served this land for many a year. Quentinos Wavellion is-"

"What?" I gasped in horror, cutting over him. A circle began to form around us as people were drawn to our conversation, their eyes wheeling from me to the commander. "He must be at least twenty years older than you , his battles long won and that wound of his still festering. He's ancient, besides, I'm no Provider. I won't ever take that path."

"You will take the path that most fits you!" Father roared, taking no consideration for how much attention he was drawing. "Your womb may still bear good fruit, despite the spoiled vessel it's housed within."

Those words ricocheted around my skull, scraping against my mind like sharp nails. Spoiled vessel.

The crack in my soul widened, splintering and fragmenting a little more.

A manic kind of laughter rose in the back of my head, and suddenly my fist was snapping out, flying towards his crooked nose. Harlon caught my wrist half a second before I could land the blow, dragging me forcibly back a step.

I blinked out of the momentary madness that had taken me hostage, finding the commander's eyes widening with utter fury.

He snatched me from Harlon's arms, his hand fisting in my hair and his face twisting into a sneer.

"Strike at me, will you weakling?" he hissed in my ear, wrenching on my hair so hard that my toes almost left the ground.

"It was instinct," I blurted, my hands fisting as I weathered the pain in my scalp, not letting myself fight back against him. "I'm a warrior, see?"

"Insolent brat," he snarled, throwing me away from him so I hit the dirt at his feet, my pack clattering as the weapons inside it were jostled.

Father's eyebrows raised at the sound and he planted a kick to my side that sent me sprawling onto my front. He ripped the pack from my shoulders and I rolled over, staring up at him as he unbuckled it, tugging it wide and taking note of the contents.

"I have long waited to wield your mother's fine creations," he said, his tongue slicking over his lips and his brown eyes gleaming greedily.

"They're mine," I gasped as he wrenched two of her sheathed blades out of the pack along with the beautiful crossbow she'd made.

"Yours?" he spat, tossing the bag to the ground as he unsheathed one of the daggers, the blue metal practically singing as the sunlight hit it. The handle was etched with a coiling representation of Cascada's sea serpent, looking so real it wouldn't have surprised me if it had come to life and bit the hand that held it. "You are not entitled to anything that belongs to my Providers. You should be thankful I let you live in your mother's dwelling, but all of her worldly possessions passed to me the moment she died."

"You can't take them." I lunged from the ground, reaching for the blade in desperation, but that very knife came up to press to my throat, my father's threat starkly clear.

"Be thankful I do not cut out your tongue for your impertinence, runt. For your behaviour, you will make the journey to Never Keep locked up in a cabin." He sheathed the blade, strapping each of his new weapons to his belt with links of magic-made ice, then stalked away through the crowd with the coin pouch still swinging from his fist.

I stared after him with my heart climbing into my throat, anger racing through every piece of me over the loss of those weapons.

Commander Rake made a path for the admirals who were directing people onboard, but before he made it to them, he slowed in front of Alina Seaman, smiling warmly at her. They shared a few words, then he pressed the coin pouch into her hands.

A wild kind of injustice filled me at the sight. She wasn't even related to him. She wasn't blood. She was just Ransom's little pack mutt.

Harlon lifted my bag, dusting it off and sliding it back onto my shoulders while I stared after my father. People were chattering about all the drama, sniggering at me and not caring that I noticed.

"Look at me again and I'll cut all of your noses off and feed them to a fucking dolphin," I snapped at a group of women who were giggling at my expense. The back of my neck was too warm and I didn't know if I wanted the ground to swallow me up or if I'd prefer to start swinging my blade at anyone who was laughing at me.

They shrank away as I drew the dagger that had been forged for vengeance, turning their backs on me. At least my father hadn't taken this weapon from me.

Harlon squeezed my arm, drawing my attention back to him.

"Breathe," he said.

"It's just – those are my blades – and that fucking coin purse, how dare he give it her ? – and Quentinos!? Is he kidding me? – Me? A Provider? Is he insane?" I growled in rage, flicking my dagger from hand to hand and spinning it between my fingers, jabbing at the air intermittently. "I'll chop Cunt inos's dick off and shove it in his festering wound if he puts it anywhere near me."

"Breathe, Ever," Harlon repeated. "You're doing the muttering thing."

"I'm just so – argh – you know? He took those weapons to hurt me, I know it. And I have to be locked up for the journey now. And what if – oh for the love of Scorpio, I'm not even going to get to see Never Keep from the ocean when we arrive. It's not fair, he's the one who riled me. Who wouldn't throw a punch after hearing an ancient wrinkle dick was being optioned for their womb?" I jabbed at the air again and Harlon let out a noise of anger.

I glanced up at him, finding a tense line on his brow. "That's not going to be your fate."

"Yeah," I agreed, sheathing my blade as I finally took his advice and breathed.

I turned my left hand over, eyeing the pale, scarred skin that contrasted with the deep brown hue of my natural tone. My mind fixed on what it signified, on what really mattered when it came down to it: killing the man with the black eyes who had stolen my mother from me.

Pisces would guide me to him. I'd earn a place at Never Keep. I had to. Because the alternative was simply not an option.