I burst out of the palace doors, praying the bell is in response to a perimeter watchtower alert.

  “Miss, wait! The Bell—” The guard stationed outside moves to grab me. His gloved hand brushes my arm.

  I twist away and flee down the steps. My boots hit the cobblestone street and a blast of wind erupts overhead, bringing with it an enormous shadow.

  A piercing screech stabs into my ears and massive red wings, glistening iridescent gold, spread wide overhead to blot out the sky.

  My hair whips around my shoulders as the beast’s long, spiked tail whips by only an arm’s length above me. The wyvern crashes into the side of the palace and long, black claws grate the white stone as it scrambles up onto the roof. Another ear-splitting roar cuts the air.

  I stare, frozen at the foot of the palace steps.

  The giant iridescent red beast curls around one of the palace spires and its long neck twists around. Huge gold eyes, glinting in the sunlight, fix upon me.

  I stumble back, slapping my hands over the gold of my chest. But there’s too much exposed. Not only my chest, but my neck, my arms, my face. All glinting gold in the sun.

  Run!

  The word echoes in my head.

  Guards shout both at me and the wyvern, but they do not leave their defensive positions along the palace’s nooks. Knights on horseback with long pollards and spears pour from the palace stables on the far east side. And there, on the west side, far closer, a guard tries to contain Sebastian.

  My heart pulses once, twice, as the beast lowers on its haunches, its limbs contracting like a cat about to pounce—eyes fixed on me.

  Sebastian rears with a screaming neigh of his own. One of his hooves strikes the guard and the man drops his grip on the reins. Sebastian launches himself towards me, head down, mane and fetlocks streaming behind him.

  The wyvern’s head snaps in Sebastian’s direction and its long slit-like pupils dilate, then narrow into a long slash of black through those awful, shimmery gold irises. Its nostrils flare and lips curl back from razor-sharp teeth. It draws in a deep breath.

  I scream and hurl myself towards Sebastian. Even he can’t outrun wyvernfire.

  A spear flies through the air towards the wyvern, a long cable streaming behind it like a tail. The wyvern’s head jerks and it catches it in its massive jaws. The metal shaft splits in half and falls uselessly to the ground. The wyvern turns its wicked glare to the source of the spear.

  High Guard Rahiid Venon stands alone and out in the open on the palace steps, silver armor shining in the sunlight as he hefts another spear and launches it at the wyvern.

  Sebastian reaches me just as the wyvern lets out another blood-curdling scream and snaps the second spear from the air.

  I hurl myself at the saddle. My fingers close around the horn and pommel. With a great, jerking lurch that tears at the muscles in my arms and shoulders, my feet lift from the ground and I somehow twist myself up into the sidesaddle. As soon as I land in the seat and grip his mane, Sebastian drops his head and heaves forward into the fastest gallop I’ve ever ridden.

  My hair whips around my golden shoulders. Behind us, the red wyvern sits atop the palace like the true king. It roars again and a plume of fire erupts from its mouth into the sky. Then it leaps from the roof, beating its great wings and somehow dodging the many spears flying after it.

  Panic stabs me—is it coming after us?

  The wyvern makes one arching circle around the palace and soars off over the forest and away. Sebastian pounds across the bridge in the opposite direction and into the city.

  There, he slows to a flighty walk down the empty, evacuated city street and my entire body gives way to violent shaking. I slump in the saddle and try to control my breathing. Skies, the wyvern didn’t chase me. Didn’t take me.

  In a way…. it saved me.

  In the wake of that sobering realization, grating hopelessness rips through my insides. The Prince’s wet, burning lips upon my mouth, my skin. His hands in my hair, on my body. Farnell beat and imprisoned because of me, because of that stupid little book I’d taken. And he’d not given them my name. He’d endured for me. He’d protected me. He’d been willing to die for me.

  And I stood there.

  My last living relative sentenced for my crime.

  What in Skies is wrong with me?

  The reality of my situation wraps itself around my ribcage and squeezes. I rebuffed the Prince’s advances and with it, I also rebuffed any chance that his power and influence could help Farnell now, or later. My stupid emotional reaction has annihilated any hope of the throne’s power. Gone forever.

  I will never be queen. I will never have that security, that power. That dream, destroyed. I’ll be destitute, homeless. Powerless forever and Farnell will rot and suffer. And if he survives… will he ever forgive me? I’ll certainly never forgive myself.

  There’s no fixing what I’ve done.

  I’m weak.

  Pathetic.

  Helpless.

  Useless.

  Through it all, something tiny and tremulous lights within my breast. At first, it’s just an ache.

  Then it burns.

  Burns like someone has pressed a lit candle into my sternum and with it a fiery fury rises. Fury at the Prince who cast aside Farnell and those other men like pieces of trash. Fury with the King and Queen for allowing a system of such abusive power to exist. Fury at the nobles for supporting this cruelty. Fury at Maurus Venon, for what he’s undoubtedly done to Farnell directly.

  I want to destroy it all. Tear them all down.

  I sit upright in the saddle and gather up the reins.

  The street is barren, all the shops closed up, window shutters latched, doors boarded. The usual shuffling of pedestrians replaced by the eerie quiet of fear.

  For the first time since I’ve arrived here, I can see all the way through the city to the South Gate. That sight consumes me.

  Sebastian’s shoulder twitches, and he tosses his head.

  We could run from this place forever. No one would even see us go.

  I tighten my fists on the reins. No.

  Not yet.

  I set my shoulders back and turn Sebastian away from that tantalizing sight.

  I know someone else as enraged as me. Someone who fights for peasants. Someone with his own power.

  It takes too long for my eyes to adjust to the darkness within Black’s Tavern. Once they do, the fire of determination in my chest flickers to ash.

  I went to Ma’s Kitchen first. There, Ma reluctantly told me to look for Abel here, at the tavern next door.

  Ma sent me to the wolves.

  Inside Black’s is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Most of the patrons are clearly peasants and mostly male. Their clothes bulge and glint with poorly concealed weapons. In the corners sit a few lower nobles with prostitutes draped on their arms.

  It’s not even the odd mix of dangerous-looking patrons, but the atmosphere that sets me on edge. Boisterous, cocky, loud. Like none of them have anything to fear. No castes, no dangerous wyverns. A wild, lawless place.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  And then it begins. At first, with the turned head of the closet patron. Out it rolls, like a tidal wave, cascading through their numbers with an elbow or a nudge, a nod. One by one, silence falls over the room as they crane to look at me.

  My fingers hover over the handle of the door I’ve just closed behind me. I’m consumed with an urgent, aching impulse to flee back to the safety of daylight.

  I’m exposed. A Gold for the taking.

  It’s not just ruinous to my reputation. They could kidnap me, bleed me, sell my skin for coin.

  I draw in a deep breath. I should leave, but I can’t. I won’t.

  Composure. Commitment. Conviction.

  I straighten my spine, throw back my shoulders, and march across the scuffed floor, chin lifted. I step up to the bar. A man spits into a pot at one end of the bar and my stomach turns over.

  The barkeep has a slight gut and the rolled-up sleeves of his beige workshirt reveal thick, dark-haired forearms. His mouth, surrounded by a dense black beard, curves into an amused smirk as he dries a mug with a grimy towel. He gestures to a stool. “What can I get you?”

  I perch on the stool and several chairs screech behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as the footsteps of at least two loom behind me. I refuse to glance over my shoulder or acknowledge them. Oh, how Clara’s face would blanch white if she saw me use my training like this. It almost makes me smile.

  “I’m looking for Abel,” I say, trying my best to convey calmness and confidence.

  The barkeep’s hands still. “Never heard of him. Can I interest you in an ale?” His voice is a mix between rumble and mocking chuckle.

  I press my lips together. Evasive. “Listen, I’m—”

  “Buy something, or get out.”

  “Alright, fine, an ale then.” Perhaps I misread him. Maybe I’ll have to ask some patrons instead.

  He thrusts the mug he’s just wiped with the disgusting towel under the tap, then clops it onto the bar. Foam sloshes out onto the counter. He stares at me, as if daring me to drink it.

  “Thank you.” I lift the mug to my lips with as much dignity as I can and, imagining it as merely a cup of tea, take a small sip. A rich earthiness, sharp with bubbles, burns up into my nose. I force my face to remain neutral—pleasant even—and nod to the barkeep.

  “What’s a Goldie like you doing way out here in the Thieves Quarter?” a man with rancid breath says into my ear as he slides onto the next stool over. “Lords like to keep their pretties close where they can see them.”

  I lean away from the smell and tamp down the erratic pound of my heart. “I’m looking for someone. Abel. Do you know him?”

  “We know a lot of people. Why you looking?” a new man says, sliding into the seat on my other side. He dwarfs the stool with sheer broadness rather than height—his arms and legs are easily three or more times the diameter of my own.

  “He’s a… friend of mine, and I seek his assistance,” I say with an air of calm pleasantness, even as fear burns through my veins. They do recognize me, at the very least, as a gold-marked. Perhaps it’ll offer me some semblance of protection. Robbing a lower noble is one thing, but harming a gold-marked is another. And that’ll make them no worse than my own stepmother. H might be big, but he’s not scarier than a furious Clara.

  “What’s you needing? Got someone to kill?” He grins, showing several metal-capped teeth and a few outright missing.

  “Not exactly,” I say. Do I have any good reason not to tell them? It’s not like any of these men are going to go running to the guards and tell them a crazy story about a gold girl in a dress plotting to rescue peasants from the Pits. “I’m… a friend of mine got taken to the Pits. I’m looking to… spring him.”

  The barkeep and the other two men just stare at me, unmoving, as my words ink in. Then they both erupt into laughter. Loud, barking, mocking laughter.

  My cheeks flush, but I refuse to cow away.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” the barkeep says.

  “I’m not.”

  They stop laughing. The barkeep stands a little straighter and his gaze lifts past me to the back of the room.

  I follow his sightline to the far, shadowy corner of the room. A dim form leans against the back wall with an almost familiar posture.

  “They don’t take nobles to the Pits. What’s a Goldie care about some peasant?” the big, muscular man on my right says.

  “He’s my friend, my…” I hesitate. Does it even matter if they know? “My cousin.”

  The muscled man and the barkeep share glances. Their sneering grins slacken. The muscled man’s voice takes on a strongly breathy edge when he speaks again, “Aye, you’re Will’s little girl.”

  Again, something knowing washes over the tavern. Something I don’t understand, but am beginning to recognize whenever my father’s name is mentioned.

  “Will’s girl?” someone else murmurs.

  “Aye,” cries a boyish voice from the far side of the bar. “She’s been rubbing shoulders with the prince. She ain’t one of us.” A boy, hardly older than the child Abel rescued in the market. He glares, his lip curled in disgust.

  “Alright, enough gawking,” a voice calls from the back.

  A voice I know even before that shadow of a man rises and the shoddy lighting catches his masked face. Abel. He’s been here all along, listening and watching and letting me stammer and make a fool of myself. Damn him.

  Abel crosses the room with long strides and yanks the skinny man with terrible breath from his stool with startling ease. “Beat it,” he snarls to the burly one on my opposite side.

  The man slides off the stool with a muttered curse.

  “Everyone else, back to your drink or games or bellyaching.”

  With a grumble, everyone makes a show of returning to their seats, though certainly every ear still trains on me.

  Abel picks up my mug with one hand, grips my upper arm with the other, and drags me right off my stool.

  “Hey!” I try to twist out of his grasp, but his fingers are clamped like iron.

  He drags me to a shadowed table in the far corner and forces me into a chair. He slams my mug down and takes the seat next to mine. His forearms stretch across the table, his knuckles blanched white with the clench of his fists. “Why in Skies would you come here?”

  “I was looking for you. It’s not like you left me a calling card so I could write you a letter or make a house call.”

  “Yes, that was on purpose. I told you to stay away and that absolutely included places like this. Coming here is terrible for your image if you expect to win over the Prince.” His gaze scans my all-too revealing dress.

  I draw a breath against the crushing magnitude of what I need to accomplish. I square my shoulders against the burden, the challenge. I have to try. “I’ve come to ask your help. My cousin Farnell was—”

  “I don’t care about your cousin,” he snaps.

  The words reignite that thing deep within my chest, the twisting, burning fury that began back in those horrible Pits beneath the palace. My nose still sears with the rancid stench. Those poor men, caged like animals, driven like slaves. And Farnell, my sweet, smart, kind cousin, trapped there in the middle of it all. Farnell, who’d given up his life, his freedom, for me.

  Able goes on, “I don’t care if you—”

  I slam my hand on the table. “And I am sick of being talked over. I am sick of no one caring. Farnell is a good man. He’s in the Pits right now, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it before, but it’s a pretty awful place and it’s all my fault and I need someone to help me help him.”

  My breaths come out ragged. My eyes burn with the threat of tears I absolutely refuse to allow to fall. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve let myself react, to snap. To feel like that. Emotions rise and swirl out of control in my breast. My throat tightens like I’m being choked, drowning. I take a couple rapid breaths, trying to regain control. I will not cry in a place like this.

  Composure. Commitment. Conviction.

  Abel stares at me, as if I’ve sprouted wings, as if he’s never expected such an outburst from me. He opens his mouth—and I know by the furrow between his brows, the uncomfortable hitch of his shoulder, that he’s about to refuse me again.

  “You’re a rebel, aren’t you?” I blurt, voice still wavering on the brink of ruin. “Isn’t this what the Apostate’s Disciples do? Is this the whole point?”

  Abel sighs and reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. It sends both warmth and a goosebump-raising chill up my arm. “Look, I’d like to help you. I really would. But I can’t risk the lives of others just for a peasant in the Pits, even if he is your cousin. If it makes you feel any better, the fact that they sent him there means his crime was relatively small and his life likely isn’t at significant risk. He’ll probably be out in a few years.”

  I blink. My stomach twists. Years. In that place. I rip my hand away. “So you won’t help?”

  “I can’t risk the lives of my men. It’s too dangerous to send them blind into a place like that.” It’s final, resolute.

  My last shred of hope shatters.

  He pushes back his chair and reaches for my arm.

  Again, something tugs at my gut, something that just won’t let it go, won’t give up. Send them blind. “I know what the Pits is like,” I say, low and surprisingly steady. “I know the doorman, the knock, the entrance. There’s maybe a dozen low ranked guards below. I saw you men at our carriage, I’ve seen you move, I know—”

  Abel stills. “You’ve actually been in the pits?”

  I nod.

  He sits back down, his face transformed. Now his gaze fixes intensely upon me. “Tell me everything you remember about it.”

  So I tell him. About meeting the Prince, how the High Guard pulled the Prince aside. About the secret knock, the stairway down, the long hallways to the holding cell, the snake-faced man, the men toiling below. I try to describe in as much detail as I can. Abel listens to every word and interrupts only for minor clarifications.

  I stop after I recount seeing Farnell. I don’t much want to recall where the Prince took me after that, or what he’d done there. A mix of shame and dread and horror still claws at the thought.

  “You have surprisingly excellent memory,” Abel says, leaning back in his chair and tapping his fingers on the table.

  I shrug. “My stepmother taught me to pay attention.”

  His lips press into a line. When he speaks again, his words are stiff and carefully articulated. “The Pits… it’s a complicated place. It’s under the palace, surrounded by dozens of guards and knights. There’s only one way in and one way out. To break in would be easy enough. We’ve discussed it in the past. But to get out again… we’d be trapped like fish in a barrel, ripe for the stabbing.”

  “No… There’s at least one other way out.”

  Abel leans across the table, green eyes reflecting the dim candlelight. “You’re saying there’s another entrance? Where? Precisely.”

  I hesitate. The High Guard held such a look of warning when he attempted to stop the Prince from taking me through that exit. Clearly, I’m not supposed to know about it. To repeat it feels like betrayal. Treason. But the image of Farnell’s brutalized body locked away behind steel bars wrenches harder at my gut. “It leads into the palace. To a corridor by the garden conservatory. Of course you don’t know where that is, there’s a garden, in the center—”

  “Yes, I know the one.” His fingers steeple, posture coiled tight with energy, and his eyes lose focus.

  “You do?”

  He jerks his head up and his eyes fleetingly widen. Then his brows descend and he waves his hand. “I make it my business to know such things. This door, could you find it again?”

  “Yes,” I say. I’d piqued his interest before, but now I can practically see his mind racing. This must have been a significant piece of information I’ve given. A pang of fear courses through me at what might come of it.

  “You’re certain?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He splays his fingers across the table again. “Alright. I’ll look into saving your cousin. But I’m going to need your help. And if…” his voice trails away as he levels his gaze on mine. “If you do, in fact, know anything about that missing book? The one from Lord Venon’s library? Well, I imagine it might buy you a pretty large favor. Perhaps the size of a missing cousin.”

  My gut twists. “My information about the Pits isn’t enough?”

  His stare doesn’t waver.

  Farnell for the book. I can do that.

  Damn the consequences.

  Are you enjoying Wyvernfire so far?