Abisai
I'm twenty-four years old, and this morning I woke up certain that my life had just gotten complicated forever.
I'm the youngest son of King Abdarías, direct descendant of the black dragons, prince of Anwar. Until three days ago, my title meant exactly this: hunting, training, disappearing whenever I pleased, and returning without answering to anyone. My older brother, Agur, carried the weight of the kingdom. I made sure not to get in the way.
It was a perfect arrangement.
Then a kirys arrow lodged itself in Agur's chest at the northern pass, and everything went to hell.
I'm in the throne room when my father summons me.
Emperor Abdarías is sixty, but he still has the broad, straight back of a thirty-year-old warrior. He sits on the throne, his large hands resting on the carved stone arms, his gaze fixed on an invisible point between him and me. I know that look. It's the one he uses when calculating how much he can demand of me before I refuse.
"Your brother isn't improving," he says.
"I know."
"The healers can do nothing against kirys."
"I know that too, Father."
"There are rumors among humans of a kind of magic capable of working poisons our healers can't touch. Healers with a power different from ours."
I stay still.
"Rumors," I say.
"Rumors, yes. But your brother is dying, and rumors are all we have."
I expected this. Not so direct, perhaps, but I expected it. Agur has been breathing with that slow, haunting sound for two days now, following me everywhere in the castle. Every time I pass his chamber, I stop, listen, and keep walking. I don't know what I'd do if one day I heard nothing.
Agur and I aren't close. We never were. He always looked at me like something that could take what was his, though I never wanted anything of his. The throne, the obligations, the endless meetings with the clans, the wife chosen for him at twenty—all of it is his, and he can keep it. I just want him to heal so things can go back to how they were.
"What do you need from me?"
"For you to go. Find that healer." He pauses. "And take care of the hunters."
There's the second problem.
The hunters entered Anwar four days ago. That had never happened before. Our borders have protections that haven't failed for generations, and yet someone crossed them, set an ambush at the northern pass, and put kirys into my brother—him, of all people. If they leave here alive, they'll talk. They'll tell what they saw, what they know, and among what they know is something that cannot leave these woods: that dragons can shift forms.
Humans don't know that. It's our greatest advantage and our greatest vulnerability at the same time. If that secret spreads, every human village becomes a trap.
"The hunters won't leave Jurdiena," I say.
My father nods.
"Take Rader and Corin."
"Understood."
He stands. Before I turn to leave, he speaks again, quieter.
"Abisai. With Agur in this state, the clans are restless. The Mordur clan has already sent messengers asking about succession."
I look at him.
"I don't want the throne, Father."
"I know. But the throne won't ask if you want it." He pauses, exhales, weary. "When you return, we'll talk about the Mordur leader's daughter."
I open my mouth.
"Not now," he cuts me off. "Go. Return with a cure or with the certainty that the throne awaits you. We'll discuss the rest later."
I leave the room without answering because if I do, I'll say something I shouldn't.
We leave at dawn. Rader, Corin, and I, in human form, dressed in black.
Rader is a warrior of few words and sharp reflexes. He's been in my guard for years and never given me reason to doubt him.
Corin is newer, recommended by my uncle six months ago—efficient and quiet in a way that always struck me as proper.
We enter the Jurdiena forest with the sun filtering through the treetops. Our horses are as trained as we are.
"The hunters entered through the northern pass," Corin says. "If they haven't moved, they'll still be near the border."
"How many do you think there are?" Rader asks.
"The tracks we found suggested six. Twelve at most."
We walk in silence for a while. The Jurdiena forest is dense and dark, different from ours. It has a particular scent I can't quite place—something old and still beneath the pine and damp earth.
We find them before noon.
There were seven. Camped in a clearing, unsuspecting, their bows leaning against tree trunks, their kirys-tipped arrows arranged with too much care for simple animal hunters. Trained people. People with a specific mission.
We don't give them time to react.
It's quick and clean. Rader and I handle most of them. Corin covers the flank. In less than ten minutes, the clearing is silent.
"Done," Rader says, wiping his hands.
Corin says nothing.
Twenty minutes into our walk, Rader stops abruptly, hand clutching his side. He turns to Corin with an expression I don't yet understand. Corin has a knife in his hand.
"Corin," I say.
He doesn't look at me. He looks at Rader, who drops to his knees, hand pressed against the wound.
Then he does look at me.
"I'm sorry, Prince."
He isn't. I see it in his face.
I lunge at him, but he shifts first—black, massive, his scales glinting between the trees. I shift too, and the forest opens as our wings beat the treetops. We tangle in the air, claws against claws, and for a moment there's only strength and fury.
Then I hear them. A group of hunters who weren't in the clearing before. They were waiting, knew exactly where we'd be.
Corin veered away in the air. The arrows didn't even graze him. The arrows were for me.
I unleashed a furious blast of fire. The forest below became hell: smoke, screams, the stench of burning flesh. When the flames died, I was alone in the sky. Corin had vanished. I searched the treetops and saw him—already in human form, running down a narrow path without looking back.
Rage burned in my chest.
I dove, skimming the branches, gaining ground at full speed. Twenty meters. Ten. Five.
An arrow found me. I didn't see it coming.
The pain was blinding, instant, piercing my right wing and spreading through my body. My wings failed me at once. The forest floor rushed up at brutal speed.
I fell.
The last thing I thought, as branches lashed me and darkness swallowed me whole, was that Corin had joined my guard exactly six months ago. That it was my uncle who recommended him. That Agur wasn't dying by accident.
And that no one in the castle knew where to find me.