1. Chapter 1

With a mighty crash, the manor's roof collapsed.

Vermillion sparks surged from the rubble like tiny stars, flickering, drifting, fading. Dead. Fire licked at the night sky, tendrils of orange destruction carrying their crackling prayer to praise the glory of the Creators above. Windows shattered, glittering shards of crystal glass falling upon blackened earth.

Even across the yard I could feel the heat on my skin, sharp smoke tickling my lungs and stinging my nose. And my heart, oh my heart, was wreathed in flame alike, set ablaze by the two young men at my sides. Soot covered their faces, but they were smiling. As was I.

Wehad done this.

Cynthian's fists had struck Matron Blackthorn until her struggle ceased.

Elias' hands had tied the rope around her bruised body.

And my fingers had lit the first match.

Together, my brothers and I put an end to the abuse. The humiliation. The desperation.

Never again.

Brightwood Orphanage was no more.

The other children cheered, reveling in the destruction from a spot at the edge of the forest. They could be as loud as they wanted. Out in the countryside, we didn't have to worry about drawing attention. None would give a damn about filthy orphans, anyway.

Our mere existence was a bother. Such was the very first painful lesson we'd ever learned, one we'd been reminded of all our lives.

For a few years before the orphanage, we'd almost had a proper family.

A barren tailoress had taken us in, giving unwanted infants a home to ease her own loneliness through us. That's when Cyn, Eli and I first met, when we grew close as stepsiblings. All my earliest memories included them. Playing hide-and-seek in between bolts of fabric, stacking toy blocks in the garden, and making rag dolls dance on a sewing box. I couldn't remember a time they weren't around.

We were happy.

Until one day, during a fitting, our foster mother caught the eye of a widowed noble, and our world was turned upside down.

Love blossomed between them. Her new fiancé judged mingling with orphans to be a disgusting waste of time, unbecoming for a lady-to-be. Before the wedding, he demanded she cast off the unseemly blemishes of her former life, including us.

And she did.

He filled a void in her heart we couldn't satisfy.

I was eight years old then, and cried myself to sleep for months. I spent endless days wondering what we had done to deserve the punishment of being abandoned, only to arrive at the same somber conclusion: Absolutely nothing. It wasn't our fault.

But none of that mattered anymore. She didn't matter, and I didn't even want to remember her name. She was dead to us from the day she left us behind.

We had everything we needed now: Each other, and our freedom.

At long last, we were in control of our fates.

"The boon of the Creators shall be shared with their brutal children, for they inherit these blood-soaked lands and tread in their blessed shadows," Elias said, raising his hands to the sky. "Oh Zerian, oh Dianya, accept the charred remains of our greatest enemy as a humble offering!"

"Yeah!" Cynthian's enthusiasm carried like a war cry into the night. He pointed a fist at the burning mansion, kicking up a cloud of dirt. "Fuck you, stupid hag! Told you we'd make you pay one day!"

He picked me up, cradling me in a bridal carry as he started to spin. The world blurred and strands of long, silver hair whipped my face. I lost myself in his eyes, crinkling as he grinned, the right one blue like the calm sea, the left one green like dew-dappled moss.

"We're free, Hellspark!" he laughed.

"We're free!" I echoed, giggling along with him.

We came to a sudden stop as Eli yanked on Cyn's sleeve. He embraced us, pressing me harder against Cyn's chest.

"Finally, our time has come," Eli said, shadows flickering over his pale features as he leaned in to set a kiss on my cheek, then Cyn's. "We will build our own kingdom on the corpses of our foes, just like Zerian and Dianya."

Sandwiched between my brothers, dizzily inhaling the scent of ashes and sweet musk streaming from them, my pulse raced. A warm tug spread through my lower belly, my thighs clenching.

I frowned.

This was the same strange sensation plaguing me daily over the past few months. One I'd been trying to ignore.

Cyn, Eli and I were always together. Inseparable. We touched and hugged each other. We even shared a bed most nights, creeping into each other's arms after the candles in the dorm were extinguished.

But these feelings were new. Mystifying.

These perplexing emotions and feverish urges frightened me and stole my breath. Effulgent promise and atramentous doom lurked in their unmapped depths, holding the seed of irreversible change.

I knew that if I ever gave in to them, everything would be different.

Whistling a merry tune, Cyn put me on my feet. He tousled my hair before he picked up his pack, the matron's savings jingling inside, and strode over to the group of children. Their postures stiffened as they noticed his approach, their excited chatter stopping.

My brothers were the oldest of the lot, and two years older than me, my fourteenth birthday having passed a mere tenday ago. But it wasn't on account of their age that the others looked upon them with anxious reverence.

For the greater part of our years in the orphanage, Cyn and Eli had been bullied without mercy. I was just a runt whose whore of a mother died during childbirth. A tragedy so common, it wasn't worth the mockery, and my heritage was entirely pure.

But no one in the elven kingdom of Zeridia was hated more than Half-Elves, easily recognizable by their pointed, yet shorter ears.

The human blood in their veins was the reason my stepbrothers were left to die in the gutter as newborn babes. Keeping them would have meant a life of exile and disgrace for their mothers. And in the eyes of the other children, that ancestry made Cyn and Eli deserving targets for their scorn and violence, ganging up to overwhelm my brothers.

Eventually, however, the other kids came to fear and respect them. Their veneration was hard won, with bloodied fists and vicious scheming. Those who still refused to accept them met rusty knives, falling into muddy graves deep in the forest.

The matron didn't care. One less mouth to feed. Or several.

"Listen up, you little shits," Cyn said to the children, throwing a grin at us while Eli and I walked over. "We'll go to Hedonfel. Plenty of opportunities for us there. No one looks twice at some dirty orphans listening in and pilfering a few shiny trinkets."

"B-but … isn't it dangerous there?" a blond boy asked, shifty eyes drifting along the trees in the distance, long, pointed ears flicking. He'd only arrived last week, and I hadn't bothered to learn his name. "I heard Hedonfel is full of c-criminals and—"

"For fuck's sake!" Cynthian shouted, and the boy shrunk, head ducking. "If you wanna try your luck alone out there, be my fucking guest! Coward." He spat at the boy's feet, crossing his arms.

We needed the others to come with us if we wanted to build a presence in the city, and it seemed a reminder of what we'd done for them was necessary to ease their decision.

"All of you owe us your lives," I said, cocking my head. "You're indebted to us, and therefore, in our service. I treated your wounds with herbs and lotions when Matron Blackthorn beat you. And without my brothers, you would have died alongside her tonight. You knew what you agreed to when Cyn and Eli offered to unlock the dormitory doors and save you from the flames. Don't be ungrateful. We could have let you burn in your sleep. Or you could have jumped out of the second-floor windows."

I smiled as the younger children looked between each other, horror flickering across their faces.

"You heard our sister," Elias chimed in, running a hand through his short black hair, honey-colored eyes shining with malice. "Myna speaks the truth. If you decide to walk away without repaying the debts you owe us, you will not walk free. You will pay the price in blood, as the Creators demand."

The boy sniffled, hands waving in a placatory gesture. "No, please! That's not what I meant!"

"I thought not." Eli's mouth twisted into a spiteful smirk. "Gather your packs and we shall begin our travels. There is nothing here for us but the scorched bones of the past. Ahead of us lies a grand future as golden as the dawn."