Chapter One
The Hunt
MAGNOLIA
“Ineed you to go on a hunt.”
I flinched as Dahes’ voice slithered up my spine. I would have thought that after seven years of being his slave, I’d be used to him by now, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know if I ever would be.
“Who am I hunting this time?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral. It was how I tried to keep everything. I had to train myself to not react, to keep my face composed, to be emotionless, to hide the last shreds of humanity I was clinging to.
I was getting better at it. Some days I felt so numb that I swore I was one of the dead that Dahes ruled over beneath the castle.
“Three sisters,” he drawled as he made his way around my room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him sit on my armchair. My room—cage—was simple. It consisted of a single bed, two pillows, one blanket, one sheet, and a chair off to the side. That was it. I didn’t have a bureau or any place to store clothes. I didn’t need it. There was a clean outfit waiting for me every morning when I got up and a nightgown every evening, and on the occasions he’d send me hunting, my hides would be in its place.
Dahes crossed his knee over his leg as he leaned back inthe chair, looking like he owned the place. Well—I guess he did. He owned everything in the Moriann Kingdom. The living, the dead,me…
“They go by the names Prae, Nuna, and Reli. They’re Wielders from Viven.”
I froze, my emotionless mask dropping as I tucked the last corner of my bed sheet into the mattress and turned to face him.
Dahes was smug. His lips thinned into a smirk as he took me in. The seldom times he smiled,reallysmiled, it always caught me off guard. He looked—well not dead. I hated that for a split second I was mesmerized by it, that I forgot he was a monster, his rot hidden beneath a striking face with hard lines.
“They’re being exiled to Moriann in the morning,” he continued. “I want you to bring them to me the moment they’re dropped.”
All Wielders originated from the Vivenian Kingdom. If you were lucky enough to have magic and be gifted a Token, that’s where you lived. Hilithia only had two kingdoms left after the war.
Viven—the court of life ruled by Elion.
And Moriann—the court of death ruled by Dahes.
I resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to see the kingdom of life. Once you were in the Dead Kingdom, there was no escaping.
I didn’t say anything, didn’t speak, just waited to see if he would give me more information.
His pale eyes soaked me in. Everything about him was white, except a thin band of blue around his irises, the same band that was now around mine, indicating that he owned me. He reminded me of a living ghost.
He rose from the chair. “You’ll dine with me tonight, and I’ll fill you in on what you need to know for the morning.”
I nodded, holding my breath as I watched him walk out of my room, not exhaling until after the stone slammed shut.
I hated it, hated that this room was supposed to be my only safe space in the castle, but it felt the opposite. He gifted it to me after my first year of slavery to protect myself from the dead and monsters that roamed the castle. No one was allowed entrance.
Except, it didn’t protect me fromhim, and he was worse than any monster or beast he kept locked below the castle.Hecould still enter. And regardless of whatever horrid creatures I had come across in my seven years here, nothing was as terrifying as him.
Two sentries rappedon my door later that night, my only indication that Dahes expected me for dinner. I had all day to wait, all day to work on becoming emotionless, but the sentries always rattled my hard exterior.
As soon as I opened the door, Dahes’ faceless guards stood waiting. I learned early on that their humanity had been effaced by the metal swallowing them whole.
They used to be human. Most were on the brink of death, desperate enough to not grasp the gravity of what they were doing when they made their deal with the devil.
I still remembered the first time I’d seen it happen. Dahes was seconds away from killing a boy before he begged to be saved. I watched as he swore to obey him, as his flesh melted off his body and he screamed, but then his voice was gone. He couldn’t scream without a mouth. His eyes went next. Everything morphed from human to metal. His bones reshaped, growing taller, broader. Every sentry was exactly the same. The same height, same build, same movements.
Every inch of them was covered in impenetrable metal, even their heads were a circular silver sphere. Completely devoid of all human features—no faces, no expressions, no emotions.
It wasn’t a life. Death would have been the mercy.
I often wondered if Dahes kept their minds intact. If they knew exactly what was happening to them but were powerless to stop it. If some part of them still screamed inside the metal, still felt every moment of it.
