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IRIS

I’ve reached for my non-existent phone fifty times in the hour since I arrived at Lomfort—the last station at the end of the line. One more time, I catch my hand halfway inside my empty pocket.

When I snatch my fingers back, I wince at the weird, bare ridge of skin where I used to wear my engagement ring.

I left it and everything else behind.

Out here on the edge of Faervaine’s shrinking empire, pulses of magic from constant monster spawns fry all human technology. Maybe someday, I’ll learn to live without scrolling and same-day delivery.

Right now, I have no way of contacting the Farguard to remind them that I’m waiting for a ride.

I’m still reeling that I made it.

That I escaped .

That some clueless bureaucrat actually approved my request to transfer guards.

I think of Duke Kevan Kyorgos—my former fiancé and now former commander—twice as often as I reach for my phone.

It’s easy to pull back my fingers.

It’s harder breathing past the sickening wave that sweeps through me every time I remember why I had to flee.

Five years of devoting myself as Kevan’s Guide. Of being his all-in-one spiritual healer, life planner, and pre-scheduled sex partner. Always working behind the scenes to earn his recognition, running his Deathguard and dreaming of the day I became his titled duchess.

The day I finally had a permanent place to belong.

Now, I’d bet everything I have left:

For all the times I’ve thought about him on my journey, Kevan Kyorgos hasn’t thought of me once.

I’ve already been replaced.

I swing my heels on a weathered bench, waiting for someone at my new guard to care that I exist.

The military engine that dropped me at Lomfort chugged off without coming to a full stop. As soon as I hopped onto the collapsing platform, the conductor steamed away.

When I shield my eyes against the setting sun, I spot the jagged, half-oval cut out of the train station’s rafters.

Something ate the ceiling. No one ever bothered to fix the damage.

It screams desolate and forgotten.

Just like home.

Just like me.

I let out a bitter laugh.

For a few crazy seconds on that train, I wondered if I might actually have things easy in the Farguard. What other S-class Guide would volunteer to fight in a territory this doomed?

No one could even tell me who’s in command out here.

Thankfully, I didn’t come for easy.

I came for the “far” in Farguard.

It’s delivering that.

Done waiting for help that never comes, I hop off the bench and start to poke around.

I’m antsy to make my transfer official.

Until I leave my mental mark on the commander’s token, I won’t be able to stop thinking about the past.

There’s too much risk of being clawed home and stuck back in the miserable position I never managed to make my own.

It’s not so bad, being ignored.

If Kevan had been paying attention, I’d still be rotting in his estate, wasting my powers while my “mother” schemes to re-sell me to the next available duke.

Alessandra Ashbourne didn’t rise from a mistress to a baroness by waiting for the job to become available.

She wanted to teach me how to cozy up to power.

From the day I tested as an S-class Guide, the very moment Baron and Baroness Ashbourne found out I was the perfect pawn for kissing ducal ass, I realized I’m the one with the power.

And it doesn’t matter at all.

Suddenly, the family cared about my homeschool plan, why I had so many bruises, and whether I’d eaten—after we hadn’t shared a meal in years.

My “brother” Sorrel was sent away for outside study. The family even summoned a healer for me—to erase the scars he left behind under the guise of training me for future combat.

Then, I had new books and weapons instead of tattered hand-me-downs, and an army of etiquette tutors appeared to drill me on how a proper duchess holds a teacup.

All the Ashbournes ended up teaching me was the same lesson that Kevan just hammered into my bone marrow.

Promises and power, even love and family ties are all just smoke.

If you want a place?

Prove your value.

The day someone else does it better is the day you’re replaced.

I made a mistake, putting all my energy into Kevan.

But new guard, new game.

This time, I’ll make myself invaluable to everyone in the Farguard.

I can’t fail again.

After a careful lap around the platform, I find a bleached map of Lomfort old town askew on an unbitten stretch of wall. The train station’s location is marked under cracked glass and dried flecks of green blood.

Someone drew the Farguard’s base over the glass in marker. The tower shape labeled “FG” sits surrounded in crooked fences, just north of town.

Carrying nothing but my backpack, I head north, toward the range of mountains looming on the horizon.

The twilit streets are as empty as my pockets.

Faervaine’s Northern Legion has been fighting to keep the territory around Lomfort for centuries. I read that the last human stragglers fled decades ago.

What’s left of the town is an eerie time capsule. Smashed windows and acid-pitted sidewalks show how often the battle has spilled into the streets since the era of the first spawn, when monsters appeared out of nowhere.

Back then, spawns were rare. Now monsters materialize by the horde. They invade more of our territory every year.

Someday, every human city may end up just as desolate as Lomfort.

As I navigate the empty streets alone, I’m hoping it stays quiet.

But an ominous crackling noise breaks the peace.

A wave of energy follows, lifting every hair on my body.

Hot.

Jagged.

The out-of-control magic sinks me in my sneakers.

It’s the pulse of a Sentinel on a rampage—a scream for help that I biologically can’t ignore.

My soul stirs, clawing to escape my skin.

Guides need to be needed.

Maybe I need it more than most.

Stars, I hate how much I need this.

I sprint for the source of the psychic pain choking me with flames. My ponytail bounces as I run, cursing. I should’ve smuggled a weapon when I fled Kyorgos.

There wasn’t time then, and there isn’t time to fix it now.

The Sentinel’s suffering knocks me breathless.

Whoever they are, they’re powerful, and they’re hurting in a way I was born to fix.

But, after countless missions with the Deathguard, I know better than to rush a monster I can’t beat solo.

Backup was a luxury then.

No one in the Farguard will save me now.

They don’t even know I’m here.

Reining in the gut instinct to help at any cost, I slink down an alley, staying low as I near the raging battle.

I recognize the hissing yowls and dry-scale musk before I peek around the corner of a crumbling brick building.

Kobolds .

The monsters are knobby, lizard-dog humanoids. Long tails and tufts of scraggly hair poke out from under their barbarian armor. Swinging spears, they swarm the Sentinel whose soul screams with agony as he lights the town in hellfire.

I can’t see his face.

The raging pink and red flames cover the Sentinel’s skin in living armor. When he shifts, a broad, muscular physique shows between flashes of flame. He’s already tall, but a single horn curves from the right side of his skull, deep red and subtly ridged, adding extra inches.

Fireballs streak from his blazing hands along with the lash of his vicious double daggers.

The Sentinel’s magic is so strong, every surge rattles the cobblestones. A chilling laugh rings when he slices through a stumbling kobold.

He could ash the monsters in a blink.

Instead, he’s toying with them.

At least, he is until the same instinct that dragged me here whips his head to face the alley where I’m hiding.

“Guide,” he hisses.

When our eyes connect, there’s an oven-opening sensation. Just a flash of the heat he’s enduring fries my nerve endings and crisps the edges of my soul.

He’s in so much pain .

Before I can plan my next move, a firestorm obliterates every kobold on the block.

My throat clenches.

He’s really fucking strong.

Definitely an S-class.

“ Guide ,” he repeats in the craggy desperation that tugs my whole heart.

This is what I’m made for.

Any other Guide would have to compatibility test before risking soothing a Sentinel lost this deep in a rampage. The same quirk that all but guarantees I’ll never be able to imprint gives me freakishly high match rates.

With everyone .

The nagging resonance that begs me to ease his pain confirms that recent heartbreak hasn’t fixed me.

I’d bet my life that our match rate is seventy-five percent.

It’s the same with every Sentinel.

Forever five points shy of the eighty percent threshold you need to hit to imprint and form a permanent bond.

Always a Guide’s maid, never a bride.

Despite the fact that I’ll never be anyone’s number one, I’m damn good at what I do.

I step out of the alley, ready to take whatever this fireball can give me.

“Easy, Sentinel,” I croon, lifting my hands as I approach the human-shaped knot of flames and suffering. “I’m Iris. Want to let me look at that magic?”

“Guide,” he gutturally repeats what must be the only word he has right now.

I remind myself that a Sentinel would never hurt a Guide— at least, not on purpose —and move in to read his power.

We’re so compatible that I can taste this Sentinel’s heartbeat.

If he were healthy, I’d be able to tell his mood and status from across the street based on the motions of his soul-silks.

Silks are the magical nervous system—a glowing, physical representation of a transcendent human’s power and soul. They’re how we use our magic and how we connect to each other.

I should see those individual threads waving around the Sentinel like spiritual spaghetti, moving his flames. Even damaged, the soul-silks should be visible. Tangles and burns would tell me what’s wrong with him.

But hellfire torches the Sentinel’s aura.

Instead of the threads of his silks, all I can see is a messy blur of heat.

Silks are much more sensitive than physical nerves.

That’s why all I can feel is the pulse of his pain.

His soul is somewhere in those flames.

I grit my teeth.