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WINNOW | 20 YEARS AGO

BELLORUM REALM

So thirsty. So, so, so thirsty.With the tiny shard of stone, I trace floral designs in the dirt floor where I lie in a prison cell, daydreaming of being free to walk through open fields of tall, verdant grasses and wildflowers that ripple in the breeze like waves upon Cerulia’s shores.

My eyes slip shut, as I hum quietly and trace flowers I may never see again, visualizing each minute detail because it means my mind is focused on flowers and not on this cell, hunger, thirst, or the painful wounds on my back.

The humming helps, too.

“Stop it, girl. I’m trying to sleep.”

My eyes peek open at Lorne, sitting on his stool on the other side of my cell’s bars. His large, weathered form is pierced through with odd bits of metal and decorated in ink, leaning against the filthy stone wall, thick arms folded across his chest, brows knit tightly together, though his eyes are shut.

The fae male always sleeps with a scowl on his face.

I’m the very last in a long row of stone and dirt rooms. The only view I have is through the floor-to-ceiling wrought-iron bars, through which I can view Lorne and the hallway. Blessedly, I have no cellmate. When I first arrived here, they’d lumped mein with a large group of people. I hadn’t fared well. Lorne took pity and moved me here.

He’s the closest thing I have to a friend. Even if he does beat the shit out of me on occasion, he’s also the only one who protects me.

My humming turns to singing as a small smile tilts my lips and I watch the scowl on Lorne’s face deepen before he finally opens his eyes to slits and pins me with a glare.

“Don’t you have enough scars as it is?”

A grin blossoms on my face. “Perhaps not.”

Lorne gives me a withering look, shaking his head. He’s quiet for a moment, studying me in a way that makes my gut clench with tension. Like he’s peeling back the curtain of apathy that I’ve succumbed to in order to survive, and is looking beyond at all that lies dormant and restless behind it.

“Don’t let the world darken you, Winnow. You’re a light in a fucking chasm, and there isn’t a thing in this world that can dim you unless you choose to let it.”

Shocked by his words, my breath catches. A moment later, tears sting my eyes as a sudden swell of emotion is ready to burst from me at the first kind words I’ve heard in years.

At theteensiestbreadcrumb of affection fed to my malnourished soul. My tail coils around my thigh so tightly it hurts. Even the muscles in my back—the ones that have now atrophied since they severed my wings after a futile escape attempt—tighten under the force of my emotion.

I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not?—

I’m crying.

Silent tears slip down my face as I hold his gaze. The look he gives me is one of pure pity. “You won’t be here forever, miss.”

Bitterness plumes my sadness like poison in water.

“Why? Do you think I’ll die here?”

Lorne heaves a sigh. “No. I don’t. I think the Nameless King will soon reap the karma he has sewn; he will lose the war, and you’ll be set free.”

I don’t dare hope. The disappointment is too great a burden to bear.

“Finally realize you’re fighting on the wrong side of the war, did you?”

I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. War is such a muddled and filthy thing—a tool wielded by the powerful that destroys all who serve them as they destroy the very ones with whom they should be allies.

Lorne’s wife and child were raped and killed by my father’s local militia that serves him under the larger umbrella of King Erelith.

Between that and the poverty they’d been living in, it was all too easy a choice when Lorne was given the opportunity to dedicate his life to serving the Nameless King’s war, eliminating all those in power under the promise of liberating those beneath him. He hasn’t kept that promise. He is a pirate after all. I’ve even heard rumors that he’s actually a sea god, but… who knows.

Pirate or not, both sides are wrong. My Uncle Erelith, who was King before being usurped, isn’t known for his compassion or justice. He’s just another king exploiting his power like every other king before him.

Even so, if he somehow manages to turn the tide of this war, I’ll very selfishly be grateful for it.