The grass under Kerrigan’s cheek was soft and springy. As if she were waking up back in her mountain home with the feather down mattress beneath her. Any second now, Benton and Bayton would sweep in and busy her out of the comfort of her Society accommodations and off to work. Her eyes would flutter open, and everything would be well.
But that wasn’t right at all.
Her head buzzed. Bees zipped in and out of her skull, and the noise was only getting louder as she drew closer to consciousness.
“Do you think she’s alive?”
Kerrigan shuddered at the sound of the voice. Her whole body trying, yet failing, to break out of whatever web she was snagged in.
“She looks a trifle dead to me, Matron.”
“She’s still breathing.”
“Barely.”
She needed to wake up. She needed to face what was on the other side of this mossy grass. There was something out there she needed to do.
But all of it felt so … distant.
It would be easier if she just lay here and did nothing. She had lost. That much bypassed the buzzing in her ears. She had lost, and she had traveled here—wherever here was—and giving up felt so much easier than fighting.
Surrender.
A voice like honey soothed her, silencing the bees and letting her know that it would be all right. Everything would work out. If she lay here and slept and forgot what she was after, then she could go on. And on sounded so much nicer than the alternative.
“Should I run for a healer?”
“Can’t afford one, can we? It’d be more than she’s worth.”
No.
She pushed the honey tongue away from her. Memories floated past it as Kerrigan forced her way through the viscous substance coating her memories and dragging her to the deep beyond. Her mission was important. It was the only way to save her friends and family back home. A home she might never return to if she didn’t push forward.
What was she supposed to be doing?
“I don’t know. That pink skin and red hair …”
Gentle like a lullaby, the answer returned to her.
Her mother.
Her mother was alive.
For eighteen years, she’d believed that her mother had died in childbirth. Most human women didn’t survive birthing a Fae child. Even a half-Fae, like Kerrigan, who had too much magic by most people’s standards, the mother rarely survived. It was something in the amount of magic that was incompatible with the human.
Except her mother had survived.
In fact, she’d left the land of the gods to drop Kerrigan off with her father to keep her safe. As scandalous as it was, her mother had already been married, and her husband would stop at nothing to remove an illegitimate child.
Now, she was Kerrigan’s only hope.
Alandria needed her. The city of Kinkadia needed her. The Society and all the dragons and all the people it had sworn to protect needed her.
And Kerrigan had to find her.
“Her eyes are moving. I think she’s waking up!”
Kerrigan coughed, spitting up blood onto the mossy blanket. She hacked until there was nothing left in her stomach.
The sun shone like a beacon overhead. She dug her fingers into the mossy grass, and it was not half as soft as she’d imagined. The blades scratched against her fingers, her eyes felt like she had sand in them, and there was an empty pit at the bottom of her stomach.
Her magic.
Oh, right.
Her magic was gone.
She retched again. Retched until she was dry-heaving and thought she might bring up her insides.
The rest of the problem came back to her in a hurry. The Red Masks, a terrorist group set on eradicating half-Fae and humans alike, had taken control of the Society at the induction of the new council. Kerrigan’s mentor, Bastian, revealed himself as the leader and slaughtered her surrogate mother, Helly. A circle of thirteen drained the magic from Kerrigan’s body. She and Fordham had escaped only to fall through a portal to Domara, the land of the gods. Her mother’s homeland.
One of those things was too much to handle.
All of them was a punch to the gut.
She couldn’t survive without magic. People went insane from a temporary loss. But this emptiness felt endless. If she thought about it for more than a second, her world went black at the edges.
No.
She pushed that thought away. She hadn’t died from it yet, and she wouldn’t die before she saved her people. There was no other option.
She needed Fordham.
She needed to find her mother.
And she needed to get home.
“Girl, are you well?” a female voice asked urgently.
It was one of the voices that Kerrigan had thought was lost in her mind. She finally peeled her eyes open long enough to discover there were in fact two people huddled over her. A pale, freckled older woman in a brown dress robe with her blonde hair up in curls and a much younger man who was shirtless, in nothing but dark brown pants. His skin was tan in comparison to the woman’s, and he had dark hair and eyes and a muscular torso and arms.
“I don’t think she can speak,” the man said.
Their accents were slightly different from each other. And they were definitely different from hers.
Kerrigan’s gaze roamed past them. Fordham. Where was Fordham?
They’d fallen together through the portal. He should be at her side. He still had his magic, and he was … he was injured. A stab wound to his side.
Scales. She didn’t see him anywhere. She’d never entered a portal and not come out on the other side with the person she was with. Had he even made it through?
“Girl?” the woman said more strongly.
Kerrigan’s gaze snapped up to her. “Help,” she croaked.
The woman jumped backward a whole foot, her hand rushing to her chest. “My gracious, she is alive, Felix.”
“I see that,” he said with wide eyes. He hadn’t moved at all. The woman cleared her throat, and he bowed by inches. “Matron Flavia.”
She nodded her head once and then took a few steps forward. “Who are you, girl? Where did you come from? Who are your people?”
Kerrigan pushed herself up onto her elbows and then promptly flopped back down again. Her limbs barely functioned. She had never felt this weak in her life. Especially not after the last year of dragon training. Her stomach twisted at the thought. She’d left her dragon, Tieran, back in Alandria. She had no idea what was to become of him. It was enough to make her want to vomit all over again.
“Shall I help her?” Felix offered.
“Find out who she is,” Flavia said. She tilted her head. “Did you run away from your family?”
She sniffed as she assessed Kerrigan’s strange attire. She’d been in her dragon robes for the ceremony on her ascension to the Society council before all hell broke loose. She had no clue what she looked like now.
“I don’t know.” Her eyes focused, and she looked around. “Where are we?”
“Dear me,” Flavia said. “How far have you traveled that you know not where you are?”
Kerrigan couldn’t explain. Well, she could, but she’d sound insane. Dropping through a portal and landing in the middle of nowhere.
“I’m looking for my mother.”
Flavia blinked, a hungry expression crossing her face for a moment. “And who is your mother? Would I know her?”
Kerrigan recoiled from that look. Maybe she shouldn’t tell this woman anything. Her father, Kivrin Argon, had told her that the name Andromadix was a powerful one. That her mother’s husband, Vulsan, had been trying to find and kill her. Giving that name sounded like a death sentence. And she didn’t know if her mother’s name, Keres, was any better.
“I don’t know,” Kerrigan repeated instead.
Flavia huffed. As if she’d just lost a prize. “Well, help her up, Felix. Don’t dally. We’ll take her into the tavern and get her cleaned up. A hot meal and a bath will make a world of difference.”
Felix bent down and gently lifted Kerrigan to her feet. She wavered unsteadily, but he kept a respectful hand on her back to keep her up.
“What happened to you?” he asked low as Flavia traipsed toward the town that Kerrigan could now see in the distance.
“I … I don’t know,” she lied.
“Well, I hope you remember soon,” he said with a kind smile. “So we can return you to where you belong.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded. “Come now. It won’t do to make the matron wait.”
With Felix’s help, Kerrigan shuffled forward awkwardly until she got the hang of her legs again.
The town was only a handful of buildings, and people openly stared at her as she passed. They watched Felix with nearly as much disdain as they did with curiosity about her.
“Why … why are they looking at you like that?”
Felix pursed his lips. “They’re not used to seeing an Andine around these parts.”
Kerrigan understood the undertones of his comment, but she had no idea what an Andine was.
It must have been a touchy subject, because he said nothing further about it, just gestured for her to enter the tavern. More looks were thrown in Felix’s direction as they approached the bar, where Flavia was speaking with a busty woman with muted brown hair and keen eyes.
“This her?” the woman asked.
Flavia nodded. “We need to get her in a hot bath and some sustenance as well. You can handle it, Madrina?”
“Course. Course. Same as normal,” Madrina said. A broad smile came to her face when Flavia agreed. “We’re having stew for dinner tonight. Thalassia is baking the bread as we speak. Let’s get you into a tub, and you’ll feel a might better by the time it’s ready.”
Kerrigan felt as if she were missing a piece of the puzzle. “I … I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll cover it,” Flavia assured her. “We’re going to send out runners to see where you belong. What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t,” Kerrigan said.
“Well, hand it over,” Madrina barked. “Matron Flavia is doing you a real service. A name will help us get you home sooner than not.”
“Felicity.” She swallowed as she said it. She had gone by her middle name, Kerrigan, since her father had unceremoniously dumped her on the door of the House of Dragons and given up her right to the royal House of Cruse. She’d gained it all back herself, but using that name still felt wrong.
“Aye, what is your house name?” Madrina asked.
“Cruse,” she offered slowly. Which was true, but not the truth at all.
It didn’t matter that she was Felicity Kerrigan Argon, First of the House of Cruse, a Society council member. All of that had been left behind in Alandria. They could send out as many runners as they wanted, but they wouldn’t find her home.
Not that she planned to stay. After a meal, she hoped she would be prepared to strike out on her own.
“I don’t know that house name,” Flavia acknowledged uncertainly.
“Well, Felicity,” Madrina said, “let’s get you into a bath. We’ll find your people. No one with that pink of skin or red of hair has nowhere to belong.”
Kerrigan looked down at her pale, freckled skin. Pink? She’d never thought her skin was pink unless she stayed out in the sun too long. Such a strange comment and a strange people.
Still, Kerrigan had no other option. She was hungry and filthy. Fordham was nowhere to be found. And she was … weak. She was weak from everything that had happened. She could plan better once she had some food.
Flavia waved her off, already turning back to Felix about some other matter. Kerrigan followed Madrina into a room filled with a large, heated tub. A girl at least a few years younger than Kerrigan came in to scrub her back and help with her hair, which was good since her red curls had never been tamable alone.
“Here you go,” Thalassia said, holding out a brown tunic. “It’s the best we got. If Matron Flavia wants you in something nicer, she’ll have to provide it.”
“Where did my clothes go?” She’d had fighting leathers on under her robes. They were high quality, and she wanted to keep them.
But Thalassia shook her head. “Nothing good happens to a woman walking around in men’s garb.”
Kerrigan eyed her disbelievingly. She couldn’t wear pants here? That was … interesting. Most women back home wore dresses, but no one looked down on her for wearing her leathers.
She still didn’t have the energy to argue. After food, she would figure it out. She let Thalassia help her into the dress, which she clipped up at both shoulders and draped across her figure flatteringly.
“There. Now, you look almost like a lady,” she said with a grin.
“Uh, thank you.”
The dress would have to do even if it was far, far from the fashion she’d left behind.
When she returned to the tavern room, it had filled up with local patrons who eyed her appreciatively as she found Madrina again at the bar. The woman immediately shoved stew and bread toward her.
“Eat up.”
Kerrigan ate like she was starved, like she hadn’t had a meal in weeks rather than in a half-day. Already, she felt her energy returning, and she began to plan. First, she needed to find her leathers and change out of this dress. Apparently, her hair and skin were a problem here. She could figure out what to do about that. But first, she needed to leave this place behind. She appreciated their help, but she didn’t trust anyone. Not after what had happened with Bastian’s betrayal.
Her mission was to find her mother. She’d have to add a step to find Fordham again as well. None of which she could do in this tavern.
As she formulated her plan, she finished the last dregs of her soup and pushed it away.
Thalassia gestured toward the stairs. “This way. We have a room set up for you.”
“Perfect. Thank you,” she said, coming to her feet uneasily.
That was strange. The food should have made her feel better.
Thalassia gripped her under the arm and directed her upstairs to the empty bedroom. Her mind was frantic as her feet began to give way and she toppled forward into the bed.
“No,” Kerrigan moaned softly.
“Sorry,” the girl whispered. “It’s not personal.”
Her plan. Sneak out of the room, recover her clothing, Fordham, her mother. Her brain went fuzzy at the edges. She’d been taken in. She knew not to trust anyone, and yet she’d trusted them anyway. As she had been planning to double-cross their perceived hospitality, they’d already been working to take her in.
She fought hard to stay awake, but whatever they’d done to her was too strong. Her eyes closed, and sleep beckoned.
Voices came back to her, but they felt incomprehensible through the thick syrup of her mind.
“You’re sure? No family by that name at all? No runaway daughters avoiding an arranged marriage?”
“Nothing at all.”
“She looks like a full-blooded Doma.”
“I know. I know. But no one can answer for her.”
“I’ll take her with me then.”
“You sure you don’t want to wait a few days?”
“She has no idea who she is. Felix couldn’t even get anything out of her. I came for the one girl, and I’ll leave with two.”
“Good doing business with you.”
Kerrigan lifted her head, trying to push past the delirium rising to the surface. To fight back against whatever was dragging her down. “Wha—” she managed to get out.
“A strong one,” Flavia said, laying a hand on her head. “Sleep, child. Tomorrow will be a new day.”
“But maybe not a better one,” Felix whispered.
“Not for you.”
Then, Kerrigan could fight no longer. She slipped heavily into unconsciousness.