Page 1

Chapter one

T wo more steps. Two more villagers in front of me. Once they were done, it was my turn to barter with what I had, which wasn’t much.

At this point, it was that or starve.

I focused on breathing despite the ache of hunger blurring my vision. The cloud of mist that escaped my lips with every breath trembled along with the rest of my body. Through the fog, people hustled down the gravel road beneath ominous gray skies and a growingly vicious flurry of snow.

The tips of my fingers—even in my wool gloves—threatened to lose feeling. I gulped. It was already early afternoon and wouldn’t get any warmer than it was right now.

Warrich in early winter was frigid enough to kill if one wasn’t careful.

The northernmost region of Nyrida, it welcomed only the boldest travelers willing to brave the bitter wilderness and, given the chance, spared not a single one of them.

Still, hardly anyone ventured this far north.

Or so I’d been told. The towns were small and sparse—it had taken me four hours to walk here—and there couldn’t have been more than a few hundred people packed amongst each other for warmth.

“Next!”

The person behind me in line shoved me forward. Gasping, I caught myself. A miracle, given how my knees ached from overuse and exhaustion. And I still had to survive the walk home after this.

Removing my stiff fingers from my pockets, I presented the stall owner with two small gold coins and cleared my throat. “Bread, please. Whatever kind you have.”

The man was middle-aged with a crooked nose and chestnut hair speckled with gray. He stared down at my offering and scoffed. “Bread is three coins.”

My stomach plummeted. “Please.” Panic gripped my pulse and dragged it faster than my small body could handle. “This is all I have. There has to be something. I’ll—I’ll come back. I’ll work for it.”

The stall owner looked up at me and narrowed his eyes, a licentious gaze lingering on my face, lips, and a small bit of exposed neck. An eerie smile tilted his mouth. “On second thought, I might consider other forms of payment.”

“What… other forms?” My throat went dry, but while my nerves burned in my chest, my stomach protested hunger in equal strength, so I waited. If other forms of payment were so commonplace to request in the middle of the village market, it couldn’t be so terrible.

He smirked and scanned me from head to toe. I wasn’t dressed in anything fancy—a gray linen shirt, my thickest undergarments, and pants, bundled up in all the layers I could find. My well-worn boots were laced tight and my green shawl was thick but tattered.

Unease churned my empty stomach when he leaned forward so no one else could hear and uttered, “You’ll have to use those pretty pink lips of yours. ”

I took a step back and tightened my shawl around my shivering body. My mother hadn’t taught me much, but she’d told me how men could use women’s bodies for pleasure in more than just the natural way.

“N-no,” I stuttered, gut-wrenched that I was desperate enough to even hesitate.

But I was nearly out of food. I had a week left, maybe less.

I’d have no choice but to butcher our last two hens, Daisy and Penny, and I’d never…

killed before. Within the last few weeks, they’d become less reliable in producing eggs, resigning me to eat vegetable broth that we’d stored the previous summer. And after they were gone…

I gulped and surveyed the small marketplace for another booth selling something I might possibly afford.

My mother would have known what to do.

But it had been three months since she left me alone in northern Warrich without much of an explanation.

Three months, and today was the first time I’d mustered up enough courage to visit the closest town, which was no less than a four-hour walk from my family’s home.

I wondered about her with less concern than I should have.

The thought of her freezing to death, lost in the wilderness, should have wrecked me.

I should have longed to see her again, but I didn’t feel that pull, not from my heart.

No, the ache of hunger was stronger. Guilt twisted my stomach.

At this point, I only craved the food and drink she’d know how to provide.

Still, shreds of hope that my mother would return, though thinly flayed, carried me through each day.

If only to aid in my survival. Her return felt unlikely—she had chosen to leave me—but I still hoped she would return to the home she’d known and loved for so long.

Even if her daughter’s welfare wasn’t enough to motivate her.

A vibrant red cloth snapped in the brutal wind, just a few stalls down the rocky path. My breath vanished. Icy sweat beaded at the nape of my neck. Disoriented, I centered my feet on the gravel and tried not to sway. I looked down, expecting to find myself sitting up, ramrod straight in bed .

That was where I dreamt of red the most.

I was nauseatingly familiar with the shock of waking up in a cold sweat, and it was always the same bloody, inescapable nightmare that brought me there.

Only now, I wasn’t asleep. I was brutally awake and freezing.

So, it seemed I wasn’t free of the nightmares while conscious, either.

I blinked once, twice, swallowing down the urge to scream the way I had that day.

But I refrained and forced the tears to clear my vision and dispose of the memory. So much red.

But it was hard to rid myself of all-consuming memories when I had little else to fill the space.

Eighteen months ago, I had woken up without memory of my first seventeen and a half years of life.

I’d suffered a fall and struck my head in the cellar, and since then felt like a blank piece of parchment waiting for someone else’s story.

Unfortunately for me, blood was the brightest stain on that parchment.

That recurring nightmare was not just a nightmare, but one of the few memories I kept against my will.

A horror I would never forget, no matter how hard I tried.

Every time I remembered, I felt the scrape of the wail that tore from my throat when I’d found the dead bodies of my father and five-year-old brother, Phillip and Oliver Gold.

I’d only seen the aftermath. Nine months after waking without memories, I found them in my parents’ bed: eyes closed, asleep, with no signs of fear in their peaceful expressions.

No worried creases had distorted their features.

No bruises on their bodies. No signs of struggle.

Either it had been so quick they were both dead before they knew what was happening, or they’d been staged that way for me to find.

The cuts across their neck had been deep and precise. Left for me, looking eerily peaceful. A merciful execution.

And on each of their torsos, an X had been carved through their shirts. A mark, or a target, maybe. For what, I didn’t know.

“Move! ”

A body much bigger than my own slammed into my back, thrusting me forward and back to the present.

Sharp rocks bit through the cloth of my pants and bare skin of my palms as my hands and knees took the brunt of the fall.

I’d been too stuck in my own head to see the assailant.

Not that it mattered. They were already gone down the rocky path, and I didn’t have an ounce of strength or skill to defend myself.

I got up, not without a few more brutal shoves and glares from multiple passersby.

After a look around the market, I resigned myself to returning home.

Signs noted the price of goods at each stall.

There was nothing worth less than three or four coins, and not a single stall owner looked any more gracious than the one requesting other forms of payment.

If I made it home before dark, at least I wouldn’t die today.

I shuddered. Die today or a few weeks from now—what a choice the gods had given me.

If only they would humble themselves and use their magic to aid the hungry and insignificant.

The return trip took me five hours instead of four.

I took a step every second and counted each one.

When I lost count, I started over, and over again, the repetitive drudge a mental counterpart to my dragging legs.

Counting steps was all I could do to distract myself from the sharp, gnawing aches in my feet, calves, hips.

The blisters that split the skin of my ankles.

Everything hurt, and it took every bit of willpower to pretend I hadn’t brought the exhaustion and agony upon myself in vain.

Finally, the well-weathered stone chimney of the house I knew poked out above the leafless trees. I pressed forward, each inhale of frigid air a challenge.

Before going inside, I trudged out to the barn to check on the hens. Opening the faded umber door required the full weight of my hungry, trembling frame.

Penny greeted me with a string of hungry clucks .

“I know, girl,” I sniffled, grabbing the dwindling bucket of food pellets and scattering a half-handful across the floor.

Rationing was crucial to keeping the chickens alive, just as it was for me.

“Come here.” I lifted a reluctant Daisy, then Penny, from their nests, set them on the cold floor of the barn, bit my lip, and swallowed my remorse as they devoured their food. “I’m sorry. I’m hungry too.”