Prologue

ANDRIAN, ADRID — THE FIRST

ON THE NIGHT Saran D’mor was born, a storm swallowed the Kingdom of Adrid, and a prophetess, clothed in the sun’s light, visited three people: a poor boy from the Eastern Mountains, a king heading back to his desert country, and her mother.

Her words became known to those who heard it in passing as the Prophecy of the Equitas, and She foretold of a rival to the long-awaited Vel d’Ekaru—the Living God.

Saran hated the story and, mercifully, heard it infrequently. Except on birthdays, which she hated just as much as the story, because it was the day her mother died and left her alone with her father, Yarin D’mor—the ruthless tyrant king of Adrid.

The story brought pity and reverence—the kind of looks earned by martyrs, which she most definitely was not. But such is the unfortunate fate of the daughter to a mad king, a dead queen, and Prophecy’s will.

Now, another birthday had passed, and she was twelve. Her guardian—the prim and deeply emotionless Madam Ophelia—led her towards an uncertain future.

“Saran, what have I told you about dawdling?” Madam Ophelia’s terse voice rattled against the stone walls. She stalked ahead of Saran, clothed in the drab gray dress of a Healer. A cotton gray cowl covered her silver-tinged mossy brown hair.

“Just because I have the power to manipulate time doesn’t mean I should waste it for wasting’s sake,” Saran recited, rubbing her hand as if she felt the sting of Madam Ophelia’s miniature whip—the one she always kept tucked into the front apron pocket of her dress. Saran struggled to keep up with the lithe woman’s stride, having to move her legs twice as fast as Madam Ophelia just to catch up to her. Once side by side with Madam Ophelia, she peered up with doe eyes, begging for mercy. “Do I have to?”

Madam Ophelia pursed her lips together. “Yes.”

Saran shrank an inch. “But why?”

They neared a heavy mahogany door leading outside. Sunlight peeked beneath it, bathing the stone at their feet in rays of gold.

Madam Ophelia paused and draped her hands on Saran’s shoulders. She knelt, as she often did when she wanted to make certain Saran understood her. “Your father, if he doesn’t see you as a pawn to be used, will see you as trash to discard. This is how you will earn his favor.”

Saran rubbed the bruise beneath the sleeve of her dress. “I don’t want his favor…”

Madam Ophelia’s eyes narrowed. “It is not his favor we need. He is not eternal, Saran. He is sick, and when he is gone you will rule. We need the men to follow you. We need to show them the power of the Grand Feminine.”

Saran worked very hard not to roll her eyes, because the last time she did, Madam Ophelia had brought the leather whip down across Saran’s face. Instead, Saran clenched her jaw.

“They will not bend to weakness,” Madam Ophelia continued, brushing a curl of red hair behind Saran’s ear. “We must show them you are strong.”

The Healer rose and drew the exterior door open. Sunlight blinded Saran, but she followed the shadow of Madam Ophelia out into the light, across the courtyard, and into the city streets. A few minutes later, they stood outside the military barracks and training grounds, listening to the clatter of swords and shouting.

She followed the Healer beneath the arched entrance and into the sandy pit within, where young boys were grouped together in sparring circles. They weren’t much older than her and came from all corners of Adrid, having been sold into the service of her father’s army as payment for debts or the purchase of grain.

One smaller circle stood further than the rest, and Madam Ophelia grabbed hold of Saran’s arm and led her to it.

A burly man stood in the center of a circle of young boys, his hands flexing at his sides. The earth trembled beneath him, a subtle vibration shaking the sand at the surface. Dust wove up his ankles and around his fingers. His eyes glowed emerald green as rocks lifted from the ground and danced around his head like a crown.

“Veck, are you actually teaching this lot to fight or showing them parlor tricks?” Madam Ophelia huffed, grabbing Saran’s shoulder and bringing her to stand in front.

Veck cast his glowing gaze down on Saran. “This is no place for little girls.”

“Then why are you here?” Saran asked, and a flurry of snickers rolled through the boys.

The rocks swirling around Veck’s head plopped into the sand at his feet, and the green in his eyes faded to brown.

“She will be trained, like the other mages.” Madam Ophelia tightened her grip on Saran’s shoulders.

“Does the king say so?”

A long, uncomfortable pause settled into the air. Madam Ophelia released Saran and stepped around her. “He will.”

“Unless he said so, I’m not training her. Besides, what do I know about training time mages? He should be doing th—”

“If she beats a fighter of your choice, would you train her?”

Veck frowned and cast his brown gaze on Saran’s unassuming form. She was dressed in simple clothes for a princess, and her hair was always a tangled mess from wallowing or getting into something she shouldn’t.

Saran had gotten very good at reading the changes in other people’s expressions, having made it a practice to predict the subtle, dangerous shifts in her father’s mood. She saw a twinge of pity in Veck’s eyes before they hardened, the sort of hardening that usually came with a lesson.

“Lifesbane,” Veck grumbled over the courtyard.

Saran stiffened. She twisted toward Madam Ophelia, shaking her head in an emphatic ‘no’.

“Not him.”

Madam Ophelia sneered, and Veck stalked away to find Keleir Ahriman Lifesbane, their resident Oruke-possessed Fire Mage.

“He hates me,” Saran said, grasping at Madam Ophelia’s hands. “Please, not him.” If Madam Ophelia heard her plea, it didn’t register. “He’s tried to kill me three times! His name literally means Destroyer of Life!”

“Then he’ll present a challenge,” she said dismissively.

“He scares me.”

“He’s a boy,” Madam Ophelia replied, finally meeting Saran’s eyes. “A boy with a beast inside him, as all men are, but he cannot so subtly hide his darkness.” Saran trembled, and Madam Ophelia frowned. “What have I told you about fear?”

The princess found Lifesbane emerging from a group several yards away. He was a few years older than her, marked by his curse with white hair and blood-red eyes. Ragged pants hung on his lean legs, and he wore no shirt. The inky black Oruke’s mark stained a web of scar tissue over his heart. Blood and mud smeared his torso and arms. He’d come out of a brawl, dragged out mid-kill. He huffed, nostrils flaring and wild red eyes hunting for his next unassuming prey.

They called him Lifesbane because he slaughtered without hesitancy or remorse. Barely fifteen, he’d taken whole villages for her father. Burned them to cinders. He’d probably burn the whole world if it wasn’t for his brother Rowe Blackwell—the poor boy from the Eastern Mountains.

As there is day and night, there was Keleir and Rowe. Rowe was black-haired, blue-eyed, and not cursed with the spirit of an Oruke trapped inside him. While they were brothers, they did not share the same last name. Children born with an Oruke were given the surname Ahriman—which was Mavish for Soulless One.

“Saran,” Madam Ophelia said. “What have I told you about fear?”

Saran didn’t let her gaze wander from Lifesbane as he approached, a sly smile taming his animalistic storm. His eyes locked on her, a hunger burning there that made her stomach turn.

“Everything we need and want in life is on the other side of fear.”

“And what do we do with fear?”

“Use it.”

“What are we without fear?”

Saran unclipped the cloak around her shoulders. “Immortal.”

Madam Ophelia took Saran’s cloak and knelt in front of her. “He is nothing but a fable. All elements and objects bend to the will of Time. You can bring the storms of yesterday or tomorrow, sprout life or age it to dust, call the seas of centuries past or dry them to the cracked ocean beds of days to come. You are Time itself, Saran D’mor. Bend the universe to your whim and show them why they should fear you and not him.”

“You get three chances to best him,” Veck said, pushing Keleir into the center of the circle of boys. “If you can incapacitate Lifesbane, even once, I’ll train you.”

Saran glowered at the white-haired boy. “Just once?”

Veck nodded.

Keleir sneered and smiled all at once—a maniacal look for someone so young. His fingers flexed at his sides, dried mud flaking off as dust.

“Here,” a boy said to her left. She glanced up to meet Rowe’s blue eyes. He was as dirty and disheveled as his brother, but his eyes were kind where his brother’s were cruel. He passed her his sword. “At least you have a Healer here to patch you up.”

“I don’t need her and I don’t need that…”

Rowe smirked.

No one ever beat Keleir in sparring. That’s why he sparred with the adult mages, and even they couldn’t beat him. Veck had given her an impossible task because he didn’t want to train her, and she suspected Madam Ophelia had tricked him into it because she wanted Saran to prove she could do the impossible. If she beat Lifesbane, she wouldn’t need to be trained to earn the respect of her father’s army.

Rowe stabbed his shortsword into the earth. “Well, it’s here if you change your mind.”

“Alright,” Veck said, backing all the boys out of the ring. “Don’t kill her, Lifesbane. She’s still the princess.”

An orange glow flickered in his red eyes, a circle of fire wrapping around his pupils.

Saran tried to still the quiver in her knees, mercifully hidden by the skirts around her legs. Her throat ached at the memory of his hands strangling the life from her. He didn’t care if she was the princess; it was clear from her memory and the look in his eyes.

She glanced at Rowe’s waiting sword, before moving past it and into the ring.

She was Time itself, and all things were bound by Time.

Keleir moved. He reared back the second she crossed the threshold into the ring and threw his hand forward. She barely had time to register his shift in posture before the coiled ball of flame struck her in the chest and sent her back out of the ring to lie next to Rowe’s discarded sword.

She frantically beat the fire off her blouse and focused energy into the singed skin. Her eyes lit with white light as she sat up and, as she stood, the shirt mended itself. Saran dusted the sand off her bottom and glowered at the boy in the center of the ring. Fire curled around his legs and hands, tendrils of power flexing and shifting like snakes.

Saran turned her eyes to the sky and thought of the storm that had swallowed Adrid on her birth day. She’d heard stories of rain that lifted the seas and wind toppling towers of stone. The light in her eyes grew brighter as a circle of black clouds swirled over the fighters’ ring. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled and the boys who had gathered to watch Lifesbane slaughter her took a step back.

Saran wasn’t sure how the storm appeared or how she’d called it. She’d only willed for the wind and the rain of such a storm to dampen the Fire Mage’s magic. The storm had come on its own.

Saran reached down with a growl and curled her hand along the hilt of Rowe’s sword, pulling it from the earth.

Rain, isolated to the fighting ring, fell in a torrent, pouring hard and fast until Keleir Ahriman’s fire struggled to stay lit.

When Saran stepped into the ring, the wind nearly took her off her feet. She planted her steps, leaning into it. Water soaked her dress and hair. It was cold as ice and fell so hard it stung like needles against her skin.

Keleir’s fire flickered and puffed and wavered under the rain, but he didn’t need fire to hurt her. He definitely couldn’t use it to kill her. He stomped forward, unarmed, as if she weren’t holding a very real sword.

But Saran knew little about swords. Well, except, pointy-side-goes-in.

She jabbed at him. He side-stepped and punched her in the jaw.

For a moment, the storm blinked. The sun returned. The fire grew hotter.

Saran stumbled, regained her balance, shook her head, and the storm flared again. She swung at him, and he moved. He moved as if he knew exactly what she’d do before she did it. Like he saw a future she couldn’t, and it seemed all so unfair to someone who saw the past and potential of objects by touching them.

If she got close enough to touch him…

Saran tightened her hold on the sword’s hilt.

“Last chance,” Veck yelled into the storm.

Saran admired the Adridian steel in her hand. She knew when it was forged. She saw the face of its blacksmith in the back of her mind. She knew who had owned it, and how many lives it had taken. She saw every terrible act committed by the boys who had come into possession of it, one-by-one, until it fell into Rowe’s hands. She saw the things he’d done with it too. And she saw it discarded someday, lying in a stack of other swords thrown away by murderous boys. She saw it weather and rust, compounded and forgotten and buried in time until it became brittle and dull and useless. Just like she’d be if she didn’t prove to everyone she was more than the daughter of a mad king, a dead queen, and Prophecy’s will.

Keleir smiled. “Come on, Saran. You’ve got more than that in you. I know it.” And he did. She saw it in his Oruke eyes. He knew her in a way that made her sick and nervous and so, so frightened.

“You’re right,” Saran seethed.

She reared the sword back and threw it forward. It slipped from her fingers, spiraling towards Keleir.

The drowning storm around them silenced, and midday light broke through the clouds in a blinding flash.

Keleir brought his hand up as if to block or swipe the attempt on his life away, like it was trash on a table to easily discard. But the sword shattered into a blast of rusted, broken shards. They flew into his chest, punching through the flesh as sharp as arrowheads.

The orange light burning in Keleir’s eyes flickered and died, and they receded back to their usual blood-red. Cold shock washed across his face as he lifted a hand to the seeping red wounds speckling his torso. One of the broken shards had pierced the black Oruke mark on his chest, and with it, his heart. He collapsed to his knees and then to his back.

Lifesbane gasped for air. Struggled to sit and stand.

Saran rushed to his side. Her hands shook over him, uncertain and frightened. She’d never killed anyone before… never hurt anyone like this.

“I’m sorry!” She pressed her hands to his chest. “Madam Ophelia, please help me!”

Madam Ophelia stood off to the side with everyone else, watching in morbid curiosity as Saran tried to stop the bleeding. The only one who did come to her aid was Keleir’s worried brother, who pressed his hands over hers.

“Mend it,” Rowe said. “Reverse it. Do something.”

Reverse it? Of course.

Saran smoothed her hands over the wounds and let herself see Keleir as he’d been before: whole. She saw the steel receding. The blood—

“Help me!”

Saran jerked. She pulled her hands away as if Keleir’s skin had scalded her and looked up at Rowe. He seemed confused as to why she wasn’t saving his brother. He hadn’t heard it. The voice hadn’t come from Keleir’s lips, but it had been his voice, and it sounded frightened—so unlike the Keleir in front of her, who was snarling and angry and in so much agony.

“Fix me,” the Keleir in front of her demanded through blood-stained teeth.

Again, Saran pressed her hands against his chest, and the voice flooded her mind. “Please! Help me! Let me out!”

The shards of metal in Keleir’s chest withdrew. The blood seeped back into him, and the wounds closed. When she’d finished, Keleir’s hands wrapped painfully tight around her wrists. He sat up, holding her so she couldn’t get away.

Saran held on to whatever connection she had with the voice inside him. She stared deep into his red eyes, past the Oruke, into the black void where a boy, the boy the body belonged to, resided.

“I hear you.” The words slipped out of her before she could pull them back in.

Keleir stiffened. His hands tightened until she whimpered and bent into him for relief. He leaned forward, pressing his cheek to hers, until his lips brushed her ear. “You heard nothing.” Then he shoved her away.

Madam Ophelia was next to her in a second, pulling her up from the earth and smoothing her hands over Saran’s hair like any mother would. Saran melted at the gentle, concerned touch. Then the Healer’s hand tightened in the curly, tangled ringlets at the back of Saran’s head and pulled until she had to look up at the Healer’s barely contained rage. “You should have let him die.” Madam Ophelia’s emotions bled out of her quickly, as they so often did, and she released Saran to reconvene with Veck about her training.

Lifesbane stalked off into the barracks, and she watched him leave, watched the shadows of the hall devour him.

There was a boy trapped inside that body—trapped inside with a monster… and she was going to set him free.