Shattered Birthright - Heirs of the Dragon Throne 1

Chapter 1

Sorelle

The temple's shadow was supposed to be darker.

Sorelle Vexera pressed herself against rain-slicked marble, cursing the full moon that turned the city's sacred district into a silver-drenched betrayal. Three stories below, the night patrol's lanterns swayed like drowsy fireflies, their lazy arc about to swing back toward her precarious perch. She had perhaps two minutes before the light caught the hem of her ratty coat.

One hundred and twenty precious seconds to break into the apothecary's private stores, find the fever remedies, and get out. Not for herself—Relle hadn't been sick a day in her life—but for the five children burning up in the abandoned bell tower she called home. Strange, how the same fever that made them delirious with heat left their small hands ice-cold.

The lock was speaking to her, each tiny pin's whispered click a familiar conversation. This exchange had played out dozens of times before, but never at the temple, never in the sacred district where even the poorest citizens could always seek healing. Never would have tried it at all, if the new head priest hadn't started turning away anyone who couldn't pay their "devotional offering."

The last tumbler aligned just as torchlight crept up the wall. Relle slipped inside like a shadow flowing beneath a door, but not before glimpsing something that stopped her hear. Hung prominently in the apothecary's office was a royal seal she'd seen once before in a collection of stolen goods. The same dragon motif, but this one bore a date exactly twenty-one years ago.

Her birthday.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

"The blue bottles are just for show," said a voice behind her—young, male, and far too calm for someone discovering a thief. "The real medicines are kept behind them."

Relle's fingers found her knife, but she didn't draw it. Not yet. The speaker wasn't dressed as a guard. She could tell that much from his shadow.

"Strange way to store healing remedies," she said carefully. "Almost like someone doesn't want them found."

"Almost like someone's been watching who gets turned away at the temple doors and is keeping a secret stash." A pause. One step closer. "Three children died in Lowtown yesterday."

She turned then, keeping her back to the wall. The guy was barely older than her, dressed in an apprentice healer's robes but with a bearing that suggested he wasn't born to them. His dark eyes studied her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

"Four," she corrected, chin lifting slightly. "Your head priest doesn't count the ones who can't afford death rites."

Something flashed across his face—approval? "I was wondering who would come." Another step. Still careful, still measured. "Though I didn't expect—" He stopped himself.

"Didn't expect what?"

"Someone so young," he said, but she could tell that wasn't what he'd meant to say at all. "Why do you think I left the window latch broken?"

That made her pause. She'd assumed the easy entry was carelessness, not invitation. "You're the apprentice. The one they call—"

"Kai." He was already moving to the shelves, gathering bottles with practiced efficiency. "And you're the Ghost of Lowtown. Defender of street rats and bane of bread merchants." He glanced back at her, something like respect in his half-smile.

He handed her a satchel that clinked with glass bottles. "There's enough here for ten children. Instructions are inside. And—" He hesitated, eyes falling to the royal seal that had caught her attention. "You should come back. When you need more."