Prologue

Emery remembered the stories from when she was young. Lying on her belly on the ground playing with her toys listening as her mother would spin a tired tale “He was an animal he was, covered in scars. He came for all of us, we almost didn’t make it.” Gasps sounded from all corners of the small tavern, “What happened next Mel?” someone would always interject. My mother would wait for dramatic effect before saying “Well I gave ‘im what he wanted, I let him look at ‘er arm.” Emery always caught herself, coyly glancing at the mark on her arm, an opalescent scar sat just below the crux of her elbow. It danced prettily in the light. “Why would they want her arm?” they’d all bark in unison.

Emery could smell it. The fear. The loathing. As if there were a singed piece of meat in the room, it irritated her senses. “He ne’er said, just said it would be our heads if we didn’t hand her over to the queen by the time she turns thirteen.” The sadness of what was to come wouldn’t take hold of Emery until much later, not until it was too late.

Emery brushed the leaves out of her raven hair. Her back was aching from where she’d struck the cold hard earth. He looked at her with an unapologetic stair. “Where is your head?” Emery couldn’t help herself “Attached to my neck.” At his searing stare, she added “Sir.” With a huff, he bent to grab the sword he’d dropped in the scuffle. “The Queen’s dragons are meant to be swift and lethal. You are too wild, you have no focus.”

Emery rolled her eyes and went back to her position, hand to hand was not her favorite method of combat but she knew that the Queen’s dragons needed to be skilled in all forms of combat. She caught his eye as Rican began sharpening the magma sword he carried. She had asked to touch it once. The flames incumbent on either side of the sleek edge, it’s middle a mixture of black cooled and cracked magma. It was the most beautiful piece of weaponry Emery had ever seen. Her fingers had lingered so near she could feel the sting of heat lick against her fingertip. Before she could make contact a large scaled hand caught her arm and with just enough pressure to cause pain she had known she had crossed the line.

Regretfully, she had withdrawn her hand, stung at the instant rejection. Rican was her only family, but at times she felt she would never really know him. Studying him now as he dragged a heat stone along the blade’s edges she could see the composed rigidity of his posture. The way his onyx hair fell gently over his mangled brow. The way he seemed unfazed by the wind around him. Emery felt uneasy at times like this. Times when she realized how unnatural her feelings had become.

Sighing she drew a breath of icy air into her bruised lungs and began her cooling stretches. Confusion had been her constant companion of late. With every hour she felt more and more conflicted about the man who had raised her from the time she was thirteen. Her captor and savior, perhaps one of the few people who would ever truly understand her.