I call it home.
For now.
We’ve camped here for three nights, tucked in a hollow between thick rock spires and a stream that smells like iron. Kragna’s friends—his monsters—come and go like family dropping by uninvited. Veeto, the centipede-chested madman with too many knives and not enough common sense, arrives first. He brings more of his wretched moonshine in a jug that sloshes like it’s already alive.
“You look like death,” he says cheerfully, handing me a cup. “Worse than usual.”
“Your face looks like an accident,” I shoot back.
He grins like I gave him a compliment and flops down near the fire.
Then comes Toad Knight—six feet of swollen amphibian in rusted armor, a tattered cape fluttering dramatically behind him. He bows low, muttering something about honor and sacred duty and vengeance for the fallen. I think he’s quoting poetry. Or war crimes.
“You smell like wet cabbage,” I tell him, nose wrinkling.
“A gift of my people,” he declares with a sweep of his arm.
Kragna smirks at that. He’s been hovering close all day, watching me like I might vanish again. He doesn’t say much—he’s not the talking type unless blood’s involved—but his hands are never far. A brush of fingers here, a squeeze of my shoulder there. Gentle things from someone who doesn’t do gentle.
Then Bruce stomps into camp, a walking mountain of reptilian muscle with eyes like liquid gold. He noses my hair like a curious dog, lets out a chuff of warm breath, and settles next to the fire like a hill decided to take a nap.
I lean back against him, warmth seeping through my bones, and for the first time in a long time, I laugh.
Real laughter. Stupid, joyful, loud.
“Gods,” I say, wiping tears from my eyes. “We’re the worst-looking family in the realm.”
Veeto raises his cup. “To that!”
“To found families of freaks,” I add, clinking mine against his.
“Toad guts and troll love!” Toad Knight bellows.
“Don’t encourage him,” Kragna mutters.
But I see the ghost of a smile tug at his mouth. He’s relaxed tonight, less stone and more skin. I can see it in the way he lounges with his boots off, one arm slung over Bruce like they’ve shared a hundred nights like this. Maybe they have.
It’s strange, the things that become comfort. The hiss of the fire. The clink of mismatched cups. The scent of burnt meat andwet fur. The low murmur of monsters telling stories around the flames.
For a little while, it’s enough.
For a little while, I almost believe this could last.
Then Charen drops from the trees.
She lands without a sound, drunk and upside down, her web-glider wings twitching as she unhooks herself from the canopy. Her eyes glow like wine spilled across a map, and her mouth is full of fangs and bad news.
“Delivery,” she says with a purr. “Straight from the pale bastard himself.”
She hands me a rolled-up scrap of parchment, slick with webbing and sealed with wax. I peel it open with shaking fingers. It’s Cervantes’s handwriting—flourished, dramatic, smug.
“Dearest Songbird,” it begins.
I already know it’s bad.
Skeela’s name jumps out in the second line. The wordcapturedin the fourth.Failed coup,execution list,resistance crumbling.
I stop reading halfway through.
