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SCILLA SLIPPED THROUGH the forest, a shadow among shadows, feet silent on the leaf-littered ground.

Even in the hush of the late hour, she remained wary.

Sentinels prowled these woods, and worse still, the Secret Sisters.

To be caught meant conscription if she was lucky, death if she wasn’t.

Or perhaps it was the other way around. Wouldn’t bleeding out beneath the trees be better than being forced to live and toil among the Blighted, shunned by the queen’s courtiers if they were in a good mood, kicked and whipped if the courtiers were irritable—or simply bored?

What if Scilla were caught by a Secret Sister and imprisoned in their vast network of underground caves?

The Sisters kept duskwyrms in those dark caves, if the rumors were true.

Cages upon cages of them, their forked tongues flickering.

Would a Secret Sister offer Scilla to one of the wyrms, even though she was no plump-cheeked babe but a gaunt and scrawny girl of thirteen?

If so, and if the wyrm struck—and of course the wyrm would strike—then Scilla wouldn’t just be thrown in among the Blighted.

She would become Blighted, burned from the inside out and deemed untouchable for the rest of her days.

But she was this year’s messenger, and Scilla refused to shirk from her task.

She would serve the True Guard with clear eyes and a fierce heart, honoring the work of all the girls and women who came before her.

She’d made this journey twice already, after all, and no ill fortune had befallen her.

Ten more times—nine after tonight—and her term would be served.

She broke into the clearing, heart hammering.

There, at last, loomed the Seeing Tree, illuminated by the milk-white belly of the pregnant moon.

Its ancient trunk twisted upward. Its branches clawed at the inky sky.

The skull for which the tree was named rose higher each year, impaled through the eye sockets by a prong of gnarled oak.

Scilla fell to her knees and lifted her face. Her ribs constricted, but she didn’t look away. The Seeing Tree only answered those who were willing to be seen.

“She will come. She will,” Scilla whispered.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the elderwomen of the Guard, voices hushed but insistent. “A savior,” they whispered. “A girl from another world.”

Scilla didn’t understand. Were there other worlds than Eryth, then? But where? And how did one reach them? Still, she clung to the promise.

Something rustled. Scilla froze. A duskwyrm emerged from the shadows, one of the few still free, and Scilla went boneless from fear.

The wyrm’s eyes locked on Scilla’s. Its plated coils shifted from sapphires to emeralds to amethysts.

It hissed, and Scilla grew lightheaded, knowing that its venom could kill her in an instant, her flesh blackening and shriveling in the space of a breath.

Once upon a faraway time, duskwyrms didn’t bother with faeries. They ate, grew, drew cocoons around themselves, and emerged as dragons. Then they bothered anyone they chose. They’d had the rule of the land.

They never killed for sport, however. If someone was foolish enough to provoke one, or if hunger pressed and the usual quarry was scarce, then yes, a dragon would strike the fae.

Not in Scilla’s time, of course, but she’d shivered with childish delight when stories were shared of fearsome winged beasts throwing shadows on the ground, shadows that deepened and grew until— snatch! —a screaming faerie met her end.

If the faerie was lucky, they’d die on the spot, pierced through by sharp talons.

If they were unlucky... well. Again, these were only tales.

It had been decades since anyone had seen a dragon, much less a dragon’s lair.

But the old ones swore that a dragon, on the rare occasion of snatching a bleating faerie from the fleeing hordes, would beat their mighty wings and carry the poor soul for miles over the golden fields and jagged mountain peaks of Eryth until they reached their lair.

There, it was said, they played with their prey.

Taught their babies how to wound, how to maim, how to kill.

Or, because dragons were fickle, sometimes they kept the faerie alive for a while, but barely, feeding her berries and seeds and raw silver fish.

Feeding a faerie kept her tethered to life, and the faerie’s toes and fingers and delicately pointed ears did the same for the dragon, providing enough warm, salty blood to keep it going until a heartier meal was procured.

For days, even weeks, a dragon might slowly savor the faerie, or so it was said.

Strips of flesh were peeled from limbs and torso.

Nose, eyeballs, and tongue were ripped off with razor-sharp teeth.

Wounds were cauterized with fire breath to prolong the slow snacking, the faerie teetering between life and death until nothing remained but her organs, which the dragon saved for last.

Then had come Wrenna, who’d subdued the dragons and brought peace to Eryth.

Wrenna the Wrathful, as she was called in legends.

And, true, dragons were no longer a menace.

Wrenna, with her magic, had manipulated the process of metamorphosis so that wyrms remained wyrms, earthbound and small, and grew to be dragons in only the rarest of cases.

Scilla, in her thirteen years, had yet to hear of a single dragon sighting.

The stunted wyrms were the menace now. Trapped in their juvenile form, hatred sprouted where they’d once grown wings. Resentment pulsed in their forever-slender tails, and fury replaced fire, coalescing into venom that burned from within.

The Sisters were immune to the duskwyrms’ poison. But Scilla was just a girl, far from home.

The wyrm, less than two strides from her, swayed its diamond-shaped head. It flicked its forked tongue, sampling Scilla’s scent.

Scilla pressed her palms into the damp earth. Don’t move. Don’t breathe .

The duskwyrm’s jeweled body tightened, then turned, slipping back into the shadows.

Scilla’s shoulders sagged. She steadied her hitching breath. She lifted her gaze once more to the skull’s hollow stare.

“Please,” she implored. “We need her.”