But interestingly enough, I do not hear any males here. Not a single deep voice, not a heavy footstep, not a masculine cough or laugh.
I do not ask. It is not my place.
Iris catches my eye, and understanding passes between us. I need to look around. She will stay, keep the queen occupied, and maintain our cover as simple messenger creatures.
I am anything but simple.
I phase out of the room—that cold-water sensation again; the world going gray and insubstantial around me—and emerge in the rafters of the castle. The beams are thick and ancient, dark wood worn smooth by centuries. Dust motes dance in shafts of light from tall windows. Cobwebs cluster in corners, their occupants long departed.
I walk the shadows, my paws silent as thought, my body a dark smear against the darkness above.
Room by room, I search. Bedchambers with rumpled sheets and personal effects scattered across dressers. Kitchens where cooks chop vegetables and stir bubbling pots. Libraries where scholars bend over ancient texts. Armories where weapons hang unused, their edges dulled by neglect.
Women everywhere. Old women and young women, human women and those who carry the subtle tells of other blood—fae touched, mer descended, shifted kin in human form.
Not a single male.
I fly into town as the sun sinks toward the sea, painting the sky in shades of orange and crimson. The streets are cobblestone, worn smooth by generations of feet. Buildings cluster together like oldfriends; their walls whitewashed, their roofs tiled in terracotta. Window boxes overflow with flowers, and the smell of baking bread drifts from open doorways.
Mostly females fill the streets—shopping, working, laughing, living. Children run between market stalls while their mothers haggle over prices. Old women sit on benches in the fading light, their voices raised in gossip and song.
The only males I see are... different. Smaller. Softer. They move through the crowds with downcast eyes and careful steps, clustering in groups, never alone. Omega males—I recognize the type from my travels, though I have never seen so many in one place.
Most omega males are slaughtered at birth. That is the way of things in most kingdoms—seen as weak, as useless, as mouths to feed that will never contribute to the hunt or the fight.
Yet here they walk freely. Here they live.
Interesting. Very interesting.
I fly farther, my wings carrying me over rolling hills and cultivated fields. Crops grow in neat rows—wheat and barley, and vegetables ripening in the autumn sun. Orchards heavy with fruit. Vineyards stretching toward the horizon.
But no defenses. No walls around the farms, no watchtowers on the hills, no soldiers drilling in formation. No preparation for war.
No signs of fighting or training anywhere on the island.
Odd. Very odd.
In a world where conflict is constant, where enemies mass and plot and strike without warning—how does an entire island exist without so much as a standing army?
I investigate the rest of the island as the stars emerge overhead. Fishing villages line the coast, their boats pulled up on pebbled beaches, their nets spread to dry in the moonlight. More women. More omega males. And now, as I look closer, I notice something else.
Scars.
So many scars.
The females here bear marks I have never seen before—burns that cover half a face, missing fingers and missing eyes, limbs that end too soon, skin mottled with the evidence of old cruelty. These are not battle scars, earned in honorable combat. These are the marks of abuse. Of torture. Of systematic destruction.
Understanding dawns, cold, and heavy in my chest.
This island is a refuge.
A place where the broken come to heal. Where the abused come to escape. Where females who have known nothing but pain can finally know peace.
No males allowed—because males were the ones who hurt them. No army needed—because who would attack an island of survivors? I sit on a rooftop and watch the moon rise over the sea, silver light spilling across the water like scattered coins. The weight of what I have learned presses against me, heavier than my small body should be able to carry.
So much suffering. So many survivors.
And a queen who has built a kingdom from the wreckage of shattered lives.
