Chapter 1 CHAPTER ONE

I’m probably going to die today. Scratch that. I will die today, but I’m going to try my best not to.

I'm panting like a goat who forgot how to climb a mountain, and my feet and hands are blistered, but I keep going.

As someone who has spent the last couple of years living in the flatlands, the uneven terrain of the mountains is so brutal.

I have been so tempted to back down the mountains for the past two hours, but I keep reminding myself of what is at stake. The life of my mother.

Three months ago, my mother collapsed. Before that, she had lost her appetite, and we had all concluded that it was because of stress: she spent long hours each day working with our village chief. We thought a little rest would bring her back to life

Then three weeks later, she began to heat up. We tried all the locally known herbs and cures, but nothing was working. I took her to the spring of healing to soak, but to no avail. And then a day later, small silver-grey veins appeared on her skin.

Every single witch in the Flatlands knew what that meant – Morva Ashar, the sleeping fire. Or commonly known for its most prominent feature, Ash Vein.

Ash Vein was an extremely rare magical illness that was triggered by the remains of the great war, and witches were its only victims because of our affinity to magic.

The illness took place in three stages over four months. My mother’s symptoms started with constant tiredness. Then she lost her appetite, then it was the fever and lastly, the appearance of the grey veins. That was stage one, and everything occurred within a month.

Stage two happened over a period of two months. The coloring of the veins darkened, and they hardened and turned painful. The infected person’s magic became unstable, and they were bound to lash out unprovoked. And then they started to cough ash.

My mother started coughing ash yesterday, and I knew exactly what that meant. The third stage was coming, and it was going to kill my mother.

I pressed the stick I had in my hands on a rock and used it as leverage to pull myself up. I couldn’t lose my mother. And there was a way to cure her. I had to risk everything.

Fifty years ago, after a war that waged destruction amongst the five species, our continent was divided into five territories: the Witches took the flatlands, the Dragons took the sky mountains, the Phoenixes took the ash isles, the Wolves took the great forest and the Fae took the eternal wood.

No member of another species was allowed to cross over into another’s territory and doing that spelt war.

So, what was I doing in the sky mountains?

Morva Ashar had a cure. A little plant called Heart root. Heart root was a crimson fern found only where dragon fire touched the earth, and it was found only in the sky mountains.

Maybe it was selfish of me, but I would do anything to save my mother, even risk a war. Besides, I had done a little location spell to figure out where the closest growth of Heart toot was, and once I found it, I had taken the path of least resistance. Or the most dangerous path where dragons rarely followed.

I was close now; I could feel it in the way my magic began to ebb and flow, as if following an already carved path. It had tasted the magic that clung to the Ash vein and was now leading me to it.

I continued on my path, and even though my feet were beginning to hurt, I ignored the pain. Pain was a little a price to pay for the life of my mother.

And fifteen minutes later, my efforts were rewarded.

If you didn’t know what to look for, the Heart root flower would look like an exotic beautiful plant but nothing more. It looked like a crimson fern, with its leaves like gently shaved blades. I fell beside it with a cry of joy and felt a tear roll down my face.

There was no time to waste, however. My tears of relief could wait a bit longer.

I pulled a small trowel out of my bag aside a …towel to wrap the plant in once it was free from the dirt. The book I read on Heartroot had been very specific: if even a single root was snapped or damaged during harvesting, the entire plant would crumble into useless ash in seconds. I couldn't afford a single mistake.

I dropped to my knees, the sharp stones biting through my skirts and into my skin. Taking a slow, steadying breath, I slid the silver trowel into the dirt a few inches away from the base, digging wide and deep. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every scrape of metal against stone sounded deafeningly loud in the dead quiet of the mountain pass.

Carefully, reverently, I worked my way around the crimson fern, excavating the soil until I could slip my fingers beneath the entire root mass. The plant felt warm against my cold fingers, vibrating with a subtle, ancient heat. I lifted it out intact, intact with all its roots, and wrapped it gently in the damp towel before packing it securely inside my bag.

A ragged exhale escaped my lips. I had done it. I actually had the cure.

I pushed myself up onto my aching legs, turning back toward the direction of the flatlands, ready to sprint all the way home—

A sudden drop in air pressure slammed into me, making my ears pop.

The wind died instantly. The quiet mountain pass became unsettlingly silent. No birds sang. No breeze rustled the sparse scrub brush. Even the ambient hum of my own magic stilled, cowering beneath a sudden, oppressive weight in the air.

Thud.

The ground beneath my boots trembled. A shadow—massive, dark, and swift—swept over the rocky ledge, blotting out the sun.

My breath hitched in my throat. I froze, every instinct screamed at me to run, but my limbs felt like lead.

From the ledge above me, a tall figure stepped out into the harsh sunlight.

He didn't look like a monster from a fairy tale. He looked like a god sculpted from granite and shadow. Broad-shouldered and dangerously towering, he wore dark leather armor that clung to a frame built for violence. Golden eyes, slit-pupiled and glowing with an unnatural, terrifying heat, fixed directly onto mine.

A dragon lord.

The scent of cedar, smoke, and ozone swept across the narrow space between us, flooding my senses so intensely it made my head spin. His golden eyes flared brighter, his nostrils flaring slightly as he took a deep, sudden breath, his gaze widening for a fraction of a second before hardening into pure, lethal ice.

He took a slow step toward me, the air around him shimmering with heat.

"You are a long way from the flatlands, witch," his voice grunted, deep and rumbling like rolling thunder right inside my chest. "And you just committed a crime punishable by death."