CHAPTER FOUR
The dragon's landing shook the very foundation of the Vance estate.
Dust rained from the cellar ceiling, coating my hair and my freshly branded skin. Lord Vance didn't stay to watch me suffer. The moment the tremors stopped, he turned and fled up the stairs, screaming for his guards to secure the outer gates.
I was left on the freezing floor, gasping through the agonizing throb of the dark magic burned into my collarbone.
Rough hands grabbed me under the arms. Two older women in drab, gray dresses hauled me to my feet. They didn't speak. They didn't offer pity. They simply dragged me down a long, narrow stone corridor and pushed me into a massive, sweltering room.
The kitchens.
It was a nightmare of steam, shouting, and clattering iron. Dozens of servants rushed blindly from station to station, their faces pale and drawn with terror. The Radiant Festival was only three days away, and the arrival of General Grant Castiglione had just turned a lavish celebration into a frantic scramble for survival.
One of the women shoved a coarse, gray uniform into my chest.
"Put it on," she snapped, her voice thin and exhausted. "And get to the wash basins. If the Head Overseer catches you standing still, the slave mark won't be the only thing causing you pain today."
I didn't argue. I didn't have the energy, and I certainly didn't have the voice.
I stripped off my torn, filthy tunic in the corner of the pantry. My hands shook so badly I could barely manage the simple wooden buttons of the servant's dress. It was scratchy and smelled of lye soap, but it was warmer than what I had.
As I pulled the collar up, my fingers brushed the black, jagged rune etched into my skin. A sharp jolt of cold pain shot straight into my chest, stealing my breath.
It was a brutal reminder.
I was not Dove Miller, the quiet college student from Ohio anymore. I was property. I was a nameless slave in a dark fantasy novel, bound to a cruel merchant in a city that worshipped the stars but ignored the dirt.
My past life was entirely useless here.
In college, my biggest problem was the broken air conditioner in my dorm. My worst habit was ignoring text messages and isolating myself because I was too anxious to deal with people. I was selfish. I hid in my room and read books while my mother begged me to go out and experience the world.
I thought being quiet made me safe.
But as I walked over to the massive iron wash basins filled with greasy, scalding water, the harsh reality of the Empyrean Cities finally crushed my naivety. Being quiet here didn't make me safe. It made me a target. Being isolated didn't protect me. It made me easy to sell.
I plunged my hands into the scalding water. It burned, but I grabbed a wire brush and started scrubbing a heavy iron pot.
I scrubbed until my knuckles bled. I scrubbed until the hot water turned murky gray.
Hour after hour, the grind continued. I hauled buckets of water from the courtyard well until my shoulders screamed. I peeled mountains of hard, bitter root vegetables until my thumbs blistered and popped open.
Whenever I slowed down, the Head Overseer—a massive, broad-shouldered man with a leather riding crop tucked into his belt—would stalk past. And every time he looked at me, the black rune on my collarbone would burn, forcing my exhausted muscles to keep moving.
I couldn't run. I couldn't hide.
If I wanted to survive long enough to see a way out of this, I had to adapt. I had to become harder.
By the second day, the atmosphere in the estate shifted from frantic to downright suffocating. The whispers among the servants in the dark, cramped sleeping quarters were filled with absolute dread.
"The Dragon Rider is at the high towers," an old cook whispered, her hands trembling as she chewed on a stale crust of bread. "They say the scholars tried to refuse his terms. He ordered his beast to burn the western library to ash."
"He's a monster," another maid whimpered. "He has no heart. If the festival banquet is not to his liking, he will slaughter Lord Vance and every single one of us."
I lay on my thin straw pallet, staring up at the dark ceiling.
General Grant Castiglione.
I had read his entire life story. I knew why he was ruthless. I knew the tragedies that forged him into the villain of the Five Cities. But knowing his tragic backstory didn't make the threat of his dragon any less terrifying. He was a force of nature, and right now, he was tearing Astrelle City apart from the inside.
He was coming to this estate tomorrow night for the festival banquet.
The next morning, the kitchens were a war zone.
We were preparing for the feast. The heat from the massive stone ovens was unbearable. Smoke filled the air, stinging my eyes. My body ran purely on adrenaline and the terrifying, icy jolts from the slave mark whenever I hesitated.
I was carrying a heavy sack of flour across the kitchen when it happened.
A young girl, no older than twelve, was carrying a towering silver platter stacked with delicate, crystal wine glasses. They were imported from the North City, meant strictly for the Capital emissaries.
She was moving too fast. Her small, scuffed shoes slipped on a patch of spilled grease.
The girl pitched backward. The silver platter tipped.
The crash was deafening.
Crystal shattered into a thousand pieces across the hard stone floor. The entire kitchen went dead silent. The hissing of the ovens and the bubbling of the pots were the only sounds left.
The Head Overseer turned slowly. His face flushed a dark, violent shade of purple.
"You stupid, clumsy rat," he snarled, unclipping the thick leather riding crop from his belt.
The little girl scrambled backward into the cabinets, crying hysterically. She held her hands over her face, shaking like a leaf in the wind.
"Those glasses cost more than your miserable life!" the Overseer roared, stepping over the shattered glass. He raised his arm, the thick leather snapping backward to gain momentum.
He wasn't going to just hit her. He was going to break her.
I didn't think.
My college instincts—the ones that told me to look away, to hide in the back row, to mind my own business—were completely gone. They had burned away in the scalding wash basins and the freezing underground market.
I dropped the sack of flour. It hit the ground with a heavy thud, sending a cloud of white dust into the air.
I lunged forward.
I threw myself between the Overseer and the little girl just as the heavy leather crop came swinging down.
CRACK.
The sound echoed through the massive kitchen.
The leather struck my back, tearing right through the thin gray fabric of my dress.
White-hot, blinding agony exploded across my shoulder blades. It felt like a line of liquid fire had been painted across my spine.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air that suddenly wasn't there.
I opened my mouth to scream, but as always, only empty, hollow silence came out. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper blood, forcing myself not to curl into a ball.
The little girl behind me sobbed, clutching the back of my skirt.
The Overseer stood over me, his chest heaving. He raised the crop again, his eyes wide with fury.
I didn't cower. I forced my head up. I looked him dead in the eyes, my hazel gaze entirely defiant. I couldn't speak, but my expression said exactly what I needed it to. Try it again.
"Stop!" Lord Vance's voice cut through the kitchen from the doorway.
The Overseer froze, lowering the crop immediately. He bowed his head.
Lord Vance stepped into the kitchen, his nose wrinkled in disgust at the flour dust and the shattered glass. He looked at me kneeling on the floor, bleeding through my uniform, and sneered.
"We do not have time to beat the slaves to death," Vance snapped coldly. "The emissaries arrive by sundown. If there is blood on the floors when the General walks in, I will feed you to his dragon myself. Get this mess cleaned up. Now."
Vance turned on his heel and swept out of the room.
The Overseer glared at me, his jaw clenching, but he didn't strike again. He simply turned and began barking orders at the other side of the kitchen.
The tension broke. The frantic scrambling resumed, but something was fundamentally different.
The older women who had dragged me in two days ago rushed over. They didn't yell. They didn't force me to the wash basins. One of them gently pulled me to my feet, her hands surprisingly soft. Another quickly swept the glass away from my bare feet.
The little girl grabbed my hand, pressing her tear-stained face against my knuckles in a silent, desperate display of gratitude.
I looked around the room. The other servants were stealing glances at me. There was no pity in their eyes anymore. There was respect.
There was a quiet loyalty forming in the stifling heat of the kitchen.
I winced as one of the women dabbed a cool, wet cloth against the bleeding welt on my back.
It hurt. It hurt more than anything I had ever felt in my entire life. But as I stood there, surrounded by the lowest class of the Empyrean Cities, I felt something I had never felt in my quiet dorm room.
I felt brave.
I survived the dirt. I survived the grind. And tonight, the Radiant Festival would begin.
The villain was coming, but I was no longer just a helpless victim waiting to be burned.