PROLOGUE

MIRA DETHRIDGE

I didn’t mean to kill her.

Clear, cold rain leaked off the roofs of Xercen’s lopsided, crumbling buildings in the dark, a result of the sky’s latest tantrum. 

It was an accident.

Each tiny droplet plummeted as far as thirty feet, suspended in the air before spattering against a skeleton tree or melting into a soft, rich bed of moss to die peacefully. There it waited for the sun to pull it back into the sky, waiting to be expelled again in a sudden fit of the gods. It oozed and crawled and dripped, then finally bled out in the streets. 

What a funny thing, rain.

Mira pulled her mother’s linen, baby blue shawl tighter around herself, the fringe fluttering in the cold, aftermath breeze. The same wind haunted Xercen’s narrow, winding alleys, howling like a forlorn spirit. Its cries echoed through the capital city–the only concrete city in all of Riese.

Soggy, mottled leaves squelched underneath Mira’s footsteps, fallen from the autumn-bare trees looming over the square. The moon and stars were blocked out by dark clouds, and the only light came from cast iron lanterns that flickered and swung on their chains in the gale. They knocked against the stone-and-plaster buildings, chipping dust and paint chunks off their exteriors and scattering them through the cold air. 

She winced against the mist thrown at her face, then paused by the dormant fountain in the square. It was simple, small, plain, and made of hard grey stone.

It had stopped working years ago.

When she was younger, she used to look down into the clear water and imagine she saw the reflection of a castle, perched atop the ancient Airredge Mountains far beyond Riesen borders. Grand and striking and gorgeous, it had turrets like branches on a tree and heavy tapestries as thick and red and slow as oozing blood, swaying lazily in the wind. Light glanced off the polished marble walls and stained glass windows, shimmering and glinting and dancing to the sonata of the wind and birds and endless blue sky…

She would imagine she saw herself, too, draped in the most expensive silks and jewels in all shades of purple, the ones that belonged to far richer countries. She imagined her dark curls were shiny and bouncy, gold ornaments and braids woven throughout, and people would gather to talk to her, to smile and point and wave, and she would smile and wave back, beautiful and healthy and straight-backed.

Now, as she settled on the smooth edge of the fountain and looked down into the placid puddle at the murky bottom, she saw her real, distorted reflection, warped and weathered. Her eyebrows sat low over her plain, tainted yellow eyes, and the corners of her mouth were permanently tugged down by the constant storms of a harsh life.

A life… that would end tomorrow.

That was how things worked here–a leg for a leg, an eye for an eye…

A life for a life.

She reached down into the water and dragged her finger through the surface, sending ripples through her own neck like an executioner’s blade. 

Only she knew that wasn’t how they would deal with her. 

She was a witch, after all.

And they were right to be afraid of her.