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I didn’t know how I would change my life, though—how I would get out of here. Being human in a world where we werenothingwas a curse, and I had no way of changing my fate.
I wouldn’t die of hunger tonight, but if I had to keep trudging through this mundane existence, I didn’t know how I would keep on living. My soul yearned for more, yet it was never fed what it needed.
A sound from below snapped my attention back to the present. What was that? It had sounded like someone was in the kitchen, but…
I strained my ears for the sound again. This time, it was loud and clear. Someonewasdown there.
An icy finger trailed down my spine, and fear crept up from my core.
If someone broke in and stole something—anything—from Craig, I would get the blame—no matter what I did or said. I’d clapped back at him often enough. I’d put my foot down. I’d made life harder for him than I’d needed to because I hated being pushed into a corner. But he would take all this—pathetic as it was—away from me if something happened now.
I crept across my room, careful not to let the wooden floorboards creak, and climbed down the ladder. When I crept into the kitchen, the lights were off. I poked my head around the corner, tasting my heart in my throat.
Nothing.
I straightened and frowned. I could have sworn…
A scratching sound came from the storage room next to the kitchen. I spun around.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
Silence.
I took a step closer, and another. Again, the scratching sounded. I took a step into the storage room.
The whooshing sound of a large object swinging through the air came fast. An object hit my head. Hard. I swirled, but my vision was already blurry, and I barely made out a figure in the dark before everything went black.
2
Ididn’t kill the Fae King of Jasfin, but that was the first thing someone screamed at me the moment I woke up.
I opened my eyes, and nothing around me was familiar. I was lying on the ground, and the cold concrete seeped through my clothing and was frigid against my skin. My whole body involuntarily shivered. All four walls were metal bars, like a cage. Was I in a prison cell? Yes, I definitely was, and I had no idea why.
The same guard who had yelled at me from outside of the cell stormed in and forced me to my feet. My arms were chained, and the cold metal dug into my skin when the guard grabbed my wrist to force me forward.
“Move,” he growled, and I obeyed.
The hallways and stairways he led me through were dark and cold, and the air was damp and smelled like mildew. A door opened, and there I was, in chains and standing in an arena of sorts. The stands rose like an amphitheater, and the crowds all around me were losing their minds with excitement. The electric atmosphere crackled on my skin.
Despite the sun beating down on the sand in the arena, a chill ran through me. The weight of the chains dragged me down. The magic of the spelled metal hummed against my skin. I would not work my way out of these chains. I had seen cuffs like this before—the magic was impossible to break unless whoever had cast it recalled it.
I tasted bile at the back of my throat. Blood rushed in my ears, and despite shivering with cold, sweat broke out on my skin, dampening my hair. I cleared my throat, and my voice was thick and…different. When I looked down at myself, I wasn’t me. My body was enormous, muscular, the body of a man.
What in the seven realms of hell?
I wore a battle outfit, not my own clothes. But nothing here was my own—not even my body.
“Next!” a guard boomed.
Another guard pushed me forward, a spear at my back. The sand kicked up beneath my feet, and I tasted dust in my mouth.
Rainier, the Fae Prince, sat on the throne, his face stony, eyes filled with rage. I was just as confused as I was terrified. I was in the presence of the Fae Prince of Jasfin. He was a sight to behold, his pitch-black hair in stark contrast to his marble skin, and his eyes the color of ice. His gaze chilled me to the bone.
“Zander, I have charged you with the murder of the King.”
Zander? I’d seen the flyers. I’d heard the name. But that wasn’t me.
“I didn’t do it,” I said. My voice wasn’t my own—it was deep and distinctly male. “You have the wrong person!” I fought against my restraints, but the spear dug into my back, and I stopped fighting. “I’m not—”
