The sun still had not risen, yet it signaled its impending arrival with pale yellow rays radiating from behind the mountains to the east. The dull light peeked through the gap between the curtains of the four-poster bed, laying upon the fast asleep young woman.

In the light of dawn, the silvery metal coin resting on her bosom from a leather cord shimmered with the colors of the rainbow as it rose and fell to the rhythm of her breathing.

Out of the gloom, a pale, spider-like hand reached towards the medallion. Long, tapered fingers unhooked the necklace’s metal clasp, then slid it free from around her neck.

The thief held his breath. Even though he had hovered a rag sprinkled with laudanum under her nose to ensure she wouldn’t wake. When the girl did not stir, he gathered his courage and reached in once more, this time towards her eyes.

He flicked up one of her heated eyelids. The sight that awaited him beneath the burning skin sent him scrambling in fright.

A glowing eye, acid green. Beautiful yet unnatural. Peculiar yet familiar.

Coris struggled to calm his ragged breathing. His hand still clutching the medallion was slick with cold sweat. Arinel—or whoever she was—began stirring then, scrunching her eyes and twitching her shoulders. Coris lay back down, feigning slumber.

Meya woke up with a pungent smell in her nostrils, an itchy dryness in one of her eyes, and a heavy soreness across her body.

Scratching away eye boogers, she propped herself up on her elbows and glanced aside at her bed-mate. Seeing Coris still sleeping in peace and not coughing his insides out, she sighed in relief. However, it wasn’t long before she noticed something foreboding.

Coris was sleeping soundly. A little too soundly. In fact, his chest wasn’t even moving.

“Coris? Coris!” Meya reached over and nudged his shoulder, then shook harder when the young lord remained listless. His head lolled to the side and his eyelids retracted, revealing empty white crescents.

Oh no. Please no. Don’t tell me he overexerted while making love to me last night?

“Oh Freda, no! Coris! Coris!"

Meya shrieked, yanking Coris off the bed by the shoulders, shaking him as if he were a wheat bushel. Coris’s eyes flew open and he raised his arms to ward her off, yelling,

“Enough, enough, enough! Enough, Ari! I was faking. I’m not dead!"

Meya’s lagging brain at long last caught up with her ears and she froze, blinking dumbly at her beau. Coris was trying his utmost not to laugh, his pale cheeks tinged pink from the effort.

“Goodly Freda, Ari. I won’t die that easily.” He chuckled as Meya blushed, then leaned in for a sly whisper into her now crimson earlobe, his chilly fingers dancing atop her breasts. “Of course I’ve got enough energy set aside for doing y—Nuh-uh-uh!”

Coris wagged a warning finger as he folded his lips and clucked. Meya growled in her throat, jerking her fist out of his grasp with all her might.

Coris lurched forth to her pull. Again, Meya ended up flat on her back with the skinny young man pinning her. Before she could protest, his lips trapped hers.

Oh, not again.

Meya closed her eyes, weary. Of course, with Coris being so twig-thin, she could slither off if she’d wanted. Yet, for some reason, she never could resist his advances.

Coris felt the girl’s tense limbs yield beneath him as she committed to the sweet morning kiss. He exploited her distraction to loop the cord with the medallion back around her neck, masking his move as a sensual caress.

Her lips instantly cooled to normal human temperature, but warmed by desire, stoking his own rekindled fire. However, having accomplished his ulterior motive, Coris freed her arms and drew away, shame gnawing at his heart. Clueless as ever, she tugged at his hand and guided him downwards, borrowing his fingers to free herself of the weakened clutches of slumber. He bit back a groan at the feel of heated velvet caressing against his fingertips. Lust overruled logic, and he caved in to his instincts.

She urged him forward with a subtle push on his hips. He mustered up the courage and ventured inside, braced to withstand the worst she would have in store—then immediately collapsed to a smoldering heap under her heat and pressure.

“Coris?”

Meya called hesitantly; Coris had dropped flat onto her like stone, his bony back heaving. She blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened amidst the maelstrom of strange sensations addling her brain. As his fevered breathing subsided, it became clear the lad wouldn’t be finishing what he’d started. Sighing away her disappointment, Meya hitched up a wry grin.

“Serves you right. Looks like Freda’s on my side this time.” She held Coris as she flipped sideways, settling him down before her. Eyes still closed, Coris eked out a smirk.

“No, she isn’t. I finished.”

“You did?” Meya glanced down, only now noticing the masterpiece he had left upon her. A grim realization hit her, draining color from ruddy cheeks.

Oh no. She had been too busy staying alive that she had forgotten about it. This was how a babe came to be, wasn’t it? A man lay with a woman and planted his seeds in her womb, then sometimes she became pregnant.

How many times had she lain with Coris already? Three?

With a shudder of horror, Meya grasped Coris’s shoulder,

“Are you trying for a babe, Coris? If not, I should get Silfum. Fast. We could find that in Hadrian, right?”

Meya had heard from Jezia that getting Silfum Candles, whose aroma was said to kill seeds, wasn’t a big deal in Hadrian. (It was illegal in Crosset). To her immense relief, Coris nodded.

“Bishop Riddell would probably have some, but you won’t need them.” He added. Meya raised her eyebrows. Coris smiled. “Healers have said my seeds are too weak to impregnate a woman. And I don’t want a babe, anyway.”

“Why?” Though she had prayed that Coris wouldn’t want an heir, Meya was intrigued nonetheless. Coris’s smile became bitter.

“You really can’t guess?”

Meya blinked, then sighed and nodded in understanding. Coris probably didn’t want to orphan his babe. Cautious fellow. Still, Meya was curious. And a little annoyed. It seemed this here lad never decided anything simply by likes and wants. It was always logic with him.

“But, don’t you want to try? I thought you’d want to leave something of yours behind.”

“I guess we all do, Ari.” Coris shrugged with a sigh, looking weary, as if it was a question he had been asked countless times. “That’s the drive behind our existence, isn’t it? But, dying doesn’t mean we are free to do everything we want to. Think about the future. Think about other people.”

Meya blew out a disgruntled breath, having no way to counter that noble, rational argument. As if he had sensed her uneasiness, Coris edged close, pulling her towards him with his hand on her crown.

“Besides, there are always other things we can leave behind.”

Their eyes met, and Meya couldn’t help hitching a grin in reply, even as her heart twisted in bittersweet agony.

From the day she first met him, she felt he was a lad with an interesting mind, and she wanted to discuss more about any and all things. She wanted to hear his thoughts, and share her own. But, one way or another, she wouldn’t be able to do so much longer.

Her heart shuddered at the realization, and Meya found herself leaning in to kiss those lifeless lips, deep and slow. Grasping his hand, she reluctantly pulled away.

“I’ll bring up your breakfast, all right?” She sat up with an offer, as Coris seemed too zonked out to get up. Coris caressed her hand with his thumb and shook his head.

“There’s going to be a special charity tent today. You have to be there. Get Zier to help. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

Meya nodded.

“I’ll have the Baroness come take care of you, then.”

“Thanks.”

With one last squeeze of his clammy hand, Arinel untangled the blanket and spread it over his shoulders, then rose and left for her adjoining solar to get dressed for the day.

Once the door had closed behind her, Coris slithered out from underneath the heavy fur, all signs of exhaustion vanished. He bundled himself with a crimson silk robe on the stand beside the four-poster as he strode over to his study-desk, then pulled open a secret drawer within a drawer.

Inside, resting on magenta velvet padding, was a metal arrowhead on a broken wooden shaft. The tip of the arrow was distorted—melted. The silvery metal shimmered rainbow in the early morning sunlight.

Like The Axel. Like that medallion ‘Arinel’ is wearing.

Coris picked up the arrowhead and turned it in his fingers. Memories rushed into him from its cold surface. An enormous leg covered in silvery metallic scales and soaked in dark red blood, oozing from an arrow buried deep into its rotting flesh.

The purple rot was spreading. Iron-gray scales fell from shriveled skin. The monster screeched wretchedly, its other leg clutching him so tight he could hardly breathe. He saw the mountain hurtling up towards them, with the cave opening black as a yearning mouth of doom. They were plummeting. They would crash. They would both die.

With his last ounce of strength, he stretched his arm towards the arrow and clasped his pudgy fingers around the splintered wooden shaft, slippery with blood, then pulled with all his might.

The arrow came free. An enormous force slammed into him. Darkness engulfed him.

A blink, then there was fire and the stone walls of a cave. He was winding strips of his own tunic over and under a nasty patch of rotting flesh on a thin human arm, flicking away the long, red-gold hair that insisted on falling in the way. The rot was spreading like a dollop of ink on parchment.

“It’s not stopping! They’re gonna chop off my arm and I’m gonna die!” The girl wailed between sobs. Thick tears plummeted from glowing, acid-green eyes.

“Just shut up and keep a hold on your hair, will you? You want this to get infected on top of poisoned?” Coris heard his small voice snapping.

“What’s in-fab-turd?”

“In-fec-ted!” Coris corrected in exasperation as he cinched the bandages tight. The girl yelped in pain. “Little bugs eating up your flesh. You want that?”

“I don’t have no bugs in my hair!” The girl whined, indignant. Coris snorted in derision, sounding very much like a pig.

“Of course you do! Your hair reeks of pig!”

The memory flashed away. Coris slumped onto his chair, eyes closed and panting, the arrowhead pressed against his forehead.

The memories were clearer than ever. For the first time in seven years, he could make sense of what was being said. He could even smell the girl’s hair.

Scalding water trickled down his cold cheek. Coris clenched the arrowhead tight in his trembling hand as relief flooded over him.

He needed more proof, but, after seven years, he might have finally found the girl who saved his life in Crosset.

And she wasn’t human.