A Fistful of Fire: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #1

Year 242 of the Bynding

Year 242 of the Bynding

The Kingdom of Salles

Winter, before Solstice

There is but one kind, my daughter. One kind, altered by magic. Magic created us, Evonalé, just as magic now binds us. Over time, depending on what spells they work, your father and his scions could even become us.

Remember this.

—Endellion

· · · • • • · · ·

Cold sears my body, except for my numb feet. Those sank into the mud a while ago. The dirt pastes my tattered dress to my scraped skin. Hunger shreds my insides.

Yowling dogs draw closer. Maybe they’ll find me; maybe they won’t. I shiver and lean into the rough bark of the tree propping me up. Nobody likes finding whelps like me.

The howling draws nearer. A doe darts through the underbrush past me. I jerk away, to get out of the dogs’ path, but my numb feet can’t support me. I tumble into the mud. My lungs burn with coughing.

The dogs follow the doe’s path, but they stop when they spot me. Yips, whines, and whimpers enter their noise. My arms tremble as I prop myself up.

The lead dog crawls closer to me, sniffing inquiry. He’d be bigger than me even without the thick fur that stands on edge, his ears flat against his head.

“Pups! Fall off!” comes a lad’s clear voice. “That’s a girl, not the doe!” The dark-haired boy’s chestnut steed—a neutered he, I can tell from my angle—shies away from me. He croons to it.

The boy’s mahogany hunting tunic is dirty but not filthy, and the fine fabric marks him as highborn. He’s a few years older than me, perhaps even thirteen and a subadult.

He dismounts easily and tsks to the dogs. “Hush, Plun,” he tells the leading dog, rubbing his fur. I’ve never seen that messy a hodgepodge of colors in someone’s lead dog.

I cough. The bad muscle in my back pulls. I bite back a whimper.

The boy’s attention snaps to me at the sound. He studies me with brown eyes that are more bright than dark. Mine can pass for black in poor light. His can’t.

He moves cautiously, slowly, approaching me sidelong while keeping far enough away that he doesn’t threaten me. “Plun’s short for Plunder,” he offers as if I’m some shy filly to be coaxed into a bridle. “Grandfather gave her to me shortly before he died.” The dog’s a she, then; not he. “I was eight.”

How old am I, that story asks. I close my eyes. The ground vibrates as other horses near us.

The vibrations’ smooth cadence roughens as the horses near me. My godmother’s here, then. That’s not reassuring. She’s the only faery that might help me, and she won’t even save me from pneumonia.

“Aidan, stop riding off without your guards!” The man’s voice is firmly commanding without being agitated. “What if an assassin were here?”

The lad’s clothes rustle as he turns. “It’s just a girl, Father.”

“And little girls can’t kill anyone?” If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought his tone amused. Somebody snorts.

I sense a horse’s movement through the ground; feel that it reluctantly sidles forward to stop in front of me. I open my eyes to see a nobleman’s frown, the man himself in a mahogany hunting tunic, his brown hair just long enough that he ties it back. He studies me with hazel eyes, and his strong jaw and nose match the boy’s.