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ONE

The portal was supposed to spit me out on the polished dais of Enlathaes Kastali. Midday. Controlled. Predictable. My father preferred things predictable—his tea hot, his court silent, and his children kept firmly where he could see them.

I had spent the last six months hiding out in a little coastal town in Northern California, where the Pacific chewed endlessly at the redwoods and the air tasted of salt, damp dirt, and heavy fog. Out there, the atmosphere was a passive thing. You breathed it just to keep your lungs working, and the world asked nothing from you in return.

Elfain was a different beast entirely.

The moment I cleared the threshold, the air slammed into my chest like an electric current—sharp, biting, and saturated with the scent of crushed pine and cold granite. Magic didn’t sit quietly beneath the surface of Nymeria; it hummed through the soles of my shoes, a steady, restless vibration that felt like an apex predator waiting for me to miss my footing.

During those endless, restless nights in my mortal bed, listening to the freezing crash of the tide against the rocks outside my window, I had imagined my return a hundred times. I expected the sudden shift in light. I expected to step through the ether and find King Fjörn sitting on his high obsidian throne, his expression a wall of familiar, stoic disappointment. I expected Aerynn to be leaning casually against one of the silver-veined pillars, a snarky, self-satisfied grin plastered across his face before hitting me with a sharp remark about my grass-stained Converse, worn Levi’s, and the oversized thrift-store leather jacket I refused to part with.

It was a predictable script. Cold and royal, but grounding in its own way.

Instead, I stepped straight into a slaughter.

My sneakers hit the flagstones, and the world shattered around me. A wall of sound hit my chest before I could draw a full breath—the frantic, deafening ring of steel striking steel echoing off the vaulted ceilings hard enough to make my teeth ache.

To my left, a shout was cut brutally short. A heavy, wet thud followed as a body hit the granite. The stench hit me next: raw iron, fresh copper, and the suffocating heat of scorched wool and burning leather.

War.

For half a second, my mind slammed the brakes. This isn’t right. This isn’t how today should go. I was supposed to be enduring my brother’s sarcasm, not standing in the middle of a bloodbath. But before panic could lock my limbs, pure muscle memory took over, burning away the shock into a cold slate of adrenaline.

Move.

My right hand shot over my shoulder. My fingers closed around the worn leather hilt of my broadsword before my brain could consciously register the motion. I pulled, and the steel cleared the scabbard with a clean, fluid hiss. The familiar, balanced weight settled into my grip like an extension of my arm—something remembered rather than learned.

My duffle bag, stuffed with books and the few relics of my mortal life, slipped from my shoulder. It hit the blood-slick stone behind me with a dull thud, forgotten before it even settled.

Survive first. Ask questions later.

The throne room, usually a vast, ordered space carved from pale granite that caught the golden light off the cliffs, was completely unrecognizable. It had dissolved into a roiling vortex of movement, severed limbs, and dying males. The King’s Black Guard were fully engaged, their interlocking dark armor glinting through the haze. They weren’t scrambling; they fought with a cold, synchronized ferocity.

This wasn’t an accident. This was a meticulously planned execution.

“Coup!” someone screamed from the lower tiers, the sound raw and breaking before it was swallowed by the clash of blades. “It’s a coup!”

I couldn’t turn my head to see who was shouting. There were too many bodies crossing the floor, too many stray blades swinging through the red-tinted mist. My half-human senses struggled to keep up with the sheer speed of the room, leaving my body to rely entirely on the brutal conditioning Manem had beaten into me since I was old enough to lift a wooden sword.

Survive.

A shadow lengthened on the stone behind me.

The whistling hiss of a blade slicing through the air targeted my unprotected back. It was too fast to turn fully, too close to dodge entirely, but my body moved before my mind could overthink. I twisted my torso sideways, my steel meeting his blade with a sharp, metallic crack that vibrated straight up my forearms. The blow bit deep into my muscles, a jarring ache that made my jaw tighten.

My attacker was massive—a rogue from one of the outer provinces, judging by the coarse leather of his vest and the wild, unkempt tangle of his dark hair. A jagged, milky scar bisected his face from temple to jaw, dragging his lip into a permanent sneer that exposed teeth filed into sharp points. He had fifty pounds on me and every intention of driving me into the floor.

Size had never mattered on the training mats.

Instead of backing away to create space—which would have given him the advantage of his longer reach—I stepped directly into his guard. I closed the distance so fast I could smell the stale ale and copper sweat on his skin. It always caught them off guard, that absolute refusal to cower, that willingness to press so close you could feel the heat radiating off their flesh. His balance shifted, his eyes widening in a split second of pure shock.

Too slow.

I drove my blade forward. The steel slid between his ribs with a sickening, heavy resistance, sinking deep into his chest.

There is always a suspended fragment of time where everything stills—where the body realizes its demise a fraction of a second before the mind can process the wound. His eyes went vacant. The light behind them didn’t fade; it simply went out, like a candle snuffed by a harsh wind.

He dropped heavily onto the stone, his weight dragging my hilt down. I exhaled sharply, the cold air burning my lungs as I violently wrenched my steel free. A spray of dark warmth splattered across my left cheek and the back of my hand.