Chapter 1

Chapter One

SIYANA

In all my twenty-five years of drawing breath in this world, my father had never requested my presence at a council meeting. The letter I’d received from him in the early evening hours yesterday broke that streak, and it didn’t sit right within my heart or mind.

Today I was expected to join him.

I had always known that I was a pawn for the kingdom as heir, and that one day I would be played. But how and why?

My mind circled back to the same thought all night. Did this have anything to do with the increased dragon sightings and the women who had gone missing from our kingdom? And if so, how did I factor into it?

The cool steel of my opponent's blade tore into the fabric of my tunic as my mind drifted, pondering the reasons I might be summoned. The weapon nicked the soft skin of my upper arm deeply enough that I knew, if the searing pain and warmth of blood trickling down my arm were any indication, it was going to leave a scar. My teeth ground together as I let out a hiss in both appreciation and pain from the wound.

I spared a brief second to let my eyes fall to the crimson stain that slowly seeped through the sleeve before letting a wolfish grin take over my lips. I wondered, not for the first time, from where the darkness inside of me blossomed–the deep recess of my soul that purred in the midst of a fight. I relished in it and welcomed the wave of coldness that settled into my bones as I looked up into my opponent’s eyes.

Would I be as brave as I was in my current battle if I was staring up into the slitted eyes of a dragon instead? My heart yearned to know what it would be like to stand at the foot of the beasts of ice and water we used to be allies with.

Despite my well-founded fear of their sheer size and magical affinities, I still wanted to stand in the presence of one to test my mettle. I’d even settle for an undine drackya–a beast that could shift between both human and dragon forms–despite their dragons being smaller than that of their full-blooded undine counterparts.

A wistful sigh escaped my slightly parted lips. It was a shame I’d never be allowed the opportunity to join our soldiers on the battlefield and feel the adrenaline coursing through me as the dragons soared above.

I’d already accepted I’d never see the other elemental dragons of fire, earth, and air since they were sequestered to their chosen terrains that established the four kingdoms of Edath.

“Come on, Siyana, focus,” Brenson goaded as he bounced on the balls of his feet, waiting for my rebuttal attack. “We wouldn’t want to mark up the precious princess of Andrathya, now would we? We can’t have all the men with frail egos seeing your wound and realizing a dainty woman has been allowed to train with a sword for years and could actually put them on their asses in seconds.”

A deep pit in my chest kindled with fire at his words. That was exactly what I wanted deep down.

My eyes rolled of their own accord as I parried his next slash toward my midsection, not allowing me time to be the aggressor. “Yes, what a horrible thought, that their wives and daughters could be as competent and fearsome, if not more! We can’t have that.”

Condescension and sarcasm were so thick on my tongue, I found it hard to get the words out. What a shame that this was our reality. But at this moment, I didn’t don my tiara, only my sword. I could allow myself to just be .

The clash of metal against metal sent tingling shockwaves through my upper arms until they found a home within my chest, right next to my heart. My chest expanded as I took in a deep, satisfying breath. This was where I belonged–where I flourished. My upper lip curled back in a snarl of excitement as I gave myself fully over to this fight, body and mind.

With each day that passed, I found it increasingly exhausting to live this double life. I grew tired of biting my tongue and mincing my words. Forced to be a perfect princess to the public, while hiding that my heart beat to the drum of a warrior’s song. Forever torn between who I knew I could be and who I had to be. Lost somewhere in the middle without a path out.

Dropping the tip of my sword to face the ground, I jumped back a few paces to give myself a moment to reassess the fight in case he charged me.

A lop-sided smirk tilted one corner of Brenson’s full lips before he took the break to run a hand through his short mess of blond curls that laid across his forehead, damp from exertion. “Don’t tell me you’re tired and giving up already, Sia?”

Cocking my head at him, I arched a brow. “Don’t tell me you’re scared enough of this battle to resort to using one's looks for hopes of an advantage, Brenson?” Letting out a tsk of disappointment, I smirked back. “Especially when we both know that will never work on me.”

My father had once questioned if there was a romance between us and we’d struggled to not openly laugh in his face. I’d once seen Brenson use a poisonous noctura leaf to wipe after he’d relieved himself in the woods while we were playing tag, and after he flashed me while running to the stream to stop the burning sensation, I knew there was no coming back from that. We were completely and firmly in the friend zone.

This time I gave him no time to respond, rushing in with my blade following behind me. As he lifted his blade to block, expecting an attack from the front at my current trajectory, my foot planted into the ground and I spun over my shoulder, swinging my sword around with me as I barrel-rolled through the air. Our eyes locked as I pulled my blade just short of cutting deeply into his neck as soon as my feet hit the ground. The smallest trickle of blood ran down from his rapidly beating jugular as his eyes widened.

“Maybe I need to lay off the ale the night before our sessions,” he breathed out, shaking his head in seeming disbelief. “You’re getting damn quick on your feet.”

Our breaths mixed in puffs of steam floating through the cool, early morning air. We needed to end this soon, if the tendrils of light beginning to crest over the mountains in the distance were any indication. My eyes swung around the secluded training yard that was tucked behind the armory in the northern corner of the ward. It felt like a second home at this point. We’d practiced here undiscovered for years, since it was blocked partially by the stone wall of the storehouse.

“Admit defeat,” I demanded as my eyes narrowed, knowing this battle was not over until one of us did so. We’d graduated to the anything-goes-until-the-other-admits-defeat part of training long ago. After all, it wasn’t as if real opponents would play by a code of conduct.

The cool metal hilt between my palms heated the longer I held it, showing our fusion. The blade was a part of me, and I, its master, and I’d be damned if I was ever forced to give it up. Even my own father, the king of Andrathya, hadn't been able to stop me from sneaking in sessions as a teenager despite his grumblings. I’d had nothing on the line then. What was he going to do, take away my crown if I took up the blade? He’d be doing me a favor.

Brenson’s crystal blue eyes ran along my face and body in a slow, practical way, trying to look for an opening out of our current positions.

A dark laugh bubbled in my chest. Leaning in close, despite him towering a few inches above me, I fluttered my lashes while looking up from beneath them. “If you don’t, shouldn’t you be afraid of the boys under your command coming out soon and seeing your ass on the ground, with the edge of my blade to your throat? I’m guessing that wouldn’t be good for morale within the ranks. End this.”

The crown princess fighting a commander of our army—and winning? Unheard of.

We’d grown complacent in the preceding centuries of peace with the dragons who resided within our kingdom’s territory. There was no cause to have a well-trained army at our disposal, be it men or women, but ever since a curse had supposedly plagued the drackya in our lands twenty-seven years ago, the way of life our kingdom had known crumbled to the ground.

We weren’t able to withstand the year-round frigid temperatures of the most northern reaches of Andrathya. The majority of our food supply came from the oceans bordering the dragon’s tip of the mountain range. With being cut off from that, besides the few rivers that ran from the ocean and into our land at the southern tip, we’d been forced to overhunt the forest. Soon, rations would need to be established to prevent in-fighting amongst our citizens.

I wished that was our only problem…

In recent years, there had been an increasing public outcry for us to deploy our army to find all of our missing citizens who had been taken by the beasts, driving my father into the position of a possible mutiny if he didn’t soon acquiesce.

Although I wasn’t sure how he expected to win a war against the dragons, if that was the route we were heading in, considering none of our men had ever seen war and our numbers were nowhere near enough for that scale of an attack. They’d wipe us out with ease. We were mere humans against dragons, after all. Even if the undine dragons left the war to the drackya to handle, we couldn’t win.

Dirt and small stones scratched underneath Brenson’s boot as he tried to shift his weight, and I pressed my sword in harder. “Don’t try it,” I hissed out in warning.

His feet stilled and he shrugged, a small, deceptive smile gracing his face. “I think you have me for the day.”

Still, he didn’t say the exact words needed to call the duel to an end. Did he think he could trick me with a mere switch of words?

I shook my head and let out an exaggerated yawn that likely appeared fake for the dramatics of the moment but was mostly real. I was running myself ragged having spent every hour in our royal library since receiving that letter. That voice within me spurred me to search for any information I could find that had to do with our northern enemies. I wanted to be able to participate in discussions, and offer my own thoughts, but quickly realized I’d never looked too deeply into the history of our lives before the curse.

I was well-versed on the ley lines that provided the magical affinities of dragons and drackya, while also maintaining the climates needed to support their specific element. But if it were about the bonds and relations between humans and the beasts, my knowledge was severely lacking.

It wasn’t like I had anyone around to ask about it, considering those who were old enough to remember those times, that still lived within our lands, were very hush about the subject. It was as if they feared the curse could transfer to them if they even spoke about it. It was said that the drackya were cursed while in their human forms, to not be able to fully shift back, leaving glimpses of their inner beasts on display. How that could be transferred to us, considering we didn’t have the ability to shift, was beyond me, but I digressed. Fear was a palpable force.

“Oh yeah?” I retorted, refusing to move a muscle. If he wanted to fake being conversational, I could play that game. “I was up all night in the library trying to prepare for a council meeting I’ve been summoned to today. How does it feel to know that I’m still kicking your ass after getting no sleep?”

His jaw dropped, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the admission of being included in a council meeting, or that I was truly running on no sleep and still handling our fight with ease.

I thought back to my night as he pondered my words.

What I learned about the drackya from my tutor growing up was that they were the voice for the full-blooded dragons, who vehemently refused to mindspeak with humans, unless said human was a rare rider.

It was openly discussed in our history books that the drackya were the male offspring of the elemental gods, and witches were the female offspring. What wasn’t discussed in the books were the whispered bonds that humans and drackya supposedly shared before the curse.

I’d not been born until that symbiotic relationship between the undine drackya and the humans of our kingdom ceased to exist, so having a soulmate that was half dragon at heart sounded like the thing of tales. It was almost as unbelievable to me as the thought of a curse being placed in our lifetime. Witches were rumored to have been eradicated centuries ago when the dragons and drackya teamed up, coveting the magic of the ley lines.

Brenson let out a throaty growl seconds before he used his height to his advantage, boldly shoving his shoulder up into the blade as his head pulled away from the deadly-sharp blade.

“About time you make a move. I was growing bored,” I murmured, flashing a toothy grin as I gave in to the heady rush of dopamine that flooded my system at his refusal to concede.

He did exactly what I expected, and I side-stepped quickly, noticing all his weight shifting into his left foot that had crept back, showcasing his intent to surge forward and knock me back onto my ass with brute strength alone. Brenson was the only person I’d ever fought, but from observing our guards for countless hours, it seemed the majority of men relied far too much on their weight, rather than their nimbleness.

Pulling the pommel of my sword up behind his head as he staggered by me, I wasted no time in bringing it down hard into the back of his skull. He crumpled to the ground, like I imagined the stone walls of our castle would if the weight of a dragon was to bear down upon them. There was no recourse as he lifted his hand to the area I’d struck.

“When did you become so fast?” he groaned with his face still firmly planted against the dirty ground. “This is getting embarrassing. Truly, I need to be sober for these fights now.”

I bent down to pat his leather-padded shoulder. “Whatever excuse makes you feel better about yourself, Commander. Take pride in knowing it was at least you that’s trained me all these years.”

He’d proven to be the only swordsman in this damned kingdom that cared about my desire to learn the blade and stick up for me.

Before he could respond, a roar echoed from the edge of our territory, sending a shiver of excitement and dread down my spine as my eyes snapped in that direction. A dark shadow flew high through the morning mist that still coated the mountains. The dragon was far enough out that I couldn’t make out its color or true size to know its abilities, but it didn’t matter, as long as it wasn’t silver. Only the royal line of drackya shifters were silver, the full-blooded undine dragons remaining shades of blue, so if we saw a silver beast, I feared their own army would be only moments behind them, following their king into battle.

I held my breath as I waited to see what direction it flew in, but quickly released it as the dragon faded into the higher clouds. Likely scouting. They were becoming emboldened by the month, coming closer and closer without retribution from us, yet . I hoped today’s meeting would give me insight on what my father planned to do about it. For far too long women had lived in fear of a taloned foot plucking them into the air as we went about our day to day lives. If they didn’t want to wage a war for that sake alone, they needed to do it before we began to starve to death.

My head jerked toward the sounds of scurrying of feet, light enough in their steps that I knew it wasn’t one of Brenson’s men on patrol. None of them were that graceful. Only the tail end of a gray dress caught my eye before it disappeared, the person ducking into one of the small doors near the foot of the storehouse that I knew opened into a small servant’s corridor leading in the direction of the kitchen.

Shit. We’d been seen.