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Prologue
At the bow of a boat with a name like a curse stood a boy with magic in his veins. He smiled as he watched a merchant ship sink slowly, leaking cargo and sailors. The ocean swirling with blood was as red as the summer dawn sky, but there were no sharks here. They knew the monsters were already on the prowl.
A crate drifted on the pink crest of a wave and bumped against the hull. The boy barely glanced at it. A girl with burn-scarred hands that were the least horrifying thing about her reached down with two flaming fingers and set the crate alight.
This day was not about thieving. This day was about ruining.
The boat slipped beneath the waves into silence. As its captain sank too, the boy released her air from his magic’s hold. Under the water, it couldn’t help her anymore. Some small noise made him turn, spotting one last sailor attempting to haul themself over the side of the boat. He stalked over to them, lifting his hand threateningly.
“If you suffocate me after I tied the target up all nice and pretty for you, I’ll kill you,” they said without any malice. “Thanks for making sure I was clear first, by the way. Definitely was fine and not in need of any assistance.”
“You're welcome,” the boy said, grabbing their arm to pull them up.
Their face flickered from a stranger’s skin back to their own, and they rolled their shoulders as if to help shake the last of the disguise away. They held up a torn length of purple fabric, dripping seawater from their fist. The boy took it, running his thumb along the edge of gold and white embroidery. When it was whole, this flag would have borne a dove carrying a stalk of wheat—peace and prosperity. Hypocrites.
“You checked the cargo hold before it all went belly-up?” he asked. The girl wandered back to the two of them, pulling on a pair of long black gloves.
“Obviously. Plenty of the regular stuff, maybe to throw us off the trail, but the place was full of nyx. I couldn’t go too far without losing the shift.”
The boy nodded, satisfied. A paranoid aristocrat or three was going to be very disappointed when they learned that the ship carrying the only thing powerful enough to keep the monsters at bay had been sucked to the bottom of the ocean. Courtesy of monsters.
“So,” the girl asked, leaning on the railing, “where to next?”
The boy turned his back on the rising sun and looked to where bloody tendrils were chasing away the night. There was nothing to see except the endless ocean, but he knew what lay beyond the horizon. He held up the tattered flag. A weak wind caught it, fluttering the wing of a dove in the air.
“Let’s go to Ach Rhean.”