[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]

WARNING: This story contains strong language, depictions of violence, depictions of childhood trauma, depictions of coercion, depictions of dubious consent, depictions of domestic violence, and depictions of sexual assault that may not be suitable for some readers.

When I was fourteen years old, I was promised to another.

Promised to a sullen Crowther.

It had been me they'd wanted all along, not my elder sister.

Whenever the Houses had come together and I'd been allowed to attend, for some strange reason, my gaze had always been drawn to his. But I didn't think much of him and he felt the same.

Both of us were from powerful Houses.

House Crowther was old and ruthless.

Great House Wychthorn ruled over all of them.

While he was a young lord raised in the art of violence, I was a princess.

A princess of the underworld.

A princess whose subjects weren't just thieves and murderers, but stealers of souls, enders of lives.

***

Tonight, my sister, Evelene, was Great House Wychthorns' sacrifice.

"Shoes, Nelle...shoes," Evelene murmured while batting her fingers at my too-big dress and the tiny bristles hooked into the dirt and grass-stained fabric.

Glancing down, my bare feet greeted me. I wiggled my dirt-crusted toes and grinned.

Annalise, our eldest sister, tossed me a pair of ballet flats, her blue eyes rounding with a pointed look—now.

Scowling, I poked my tongue out in her direction and shoved my feet into the shoes. My entire body recoiled at the restricting sensation. I hated the feeling of confinement, of being separated from the ground.

Annalise rolled her eyes, before gracefully moving behind my short figure, trying to tame my wild hair. Her fingers plucked out leaves and snagged on a knot. I winced, yowling.

Evvie wiped something away from my forehead. Her thumb came away soot-stained. She urged, "She should change—"

"There's no time. They've already arrived," Annalise replied, fussing with my hair. She then hissed between her teeth, flinging up her hands in good-natured commiseration. "I give up, that's the best I can do, my wild, little sister."

Evelene nudged me with a hip, unbalancing me, and earning herself a pinch from my wicked fingers. We grinned. Our joyful laughter bounced off the vaulted ceiling.

I laced my fingers with Evelene and Annalise. I loved my sisters. We were a trio and it pained me that we were slowly breaking apart.

Annalise was already promised to House Reska.

And no one would marry me at fourteen.

So that left Evelene. I hated that the Crowthers would soon be coming between us, stealing Evelene away.

"Girls." My father's baritone voice cut through the room sharply. "Now."

My sisters hurried over to where my mother stood next to the arrangement of elegant seating facing one another. I remained where I stood in the great room as my father strode toward me, tall and distinguished in a three-piece suit. He came to a standstill directly in front of me, his smooth slender fingers curled about my forearms, while his sharp eyes scanned my face as if reading one of his reports. "Are you burned out?"

I'd spent the last two hours in the woods preparing for this meeting. I nodded. I'd burned myself out as best as I could, considering the circumstances of tonight.

The older I got, the stranger I'd become. My father didn't know what to make of me and neither did I. Of late, I could hear whispers across the room as if they'd been spoken into my own ear. I didn't even need to lurk outside my father's office to overhear his conversation. Instead, I had lingered at the far end of the hallway and heard him speak with my sisters in hushed tones about this intended visit from House Crowther. That's how I knew why the Crowthers were here and what they wanted. Annalise and Evelene had been briefed, but my parents wanted to keep the knowledge from me. To keep me safe from them.

House Crowther had been granted a boon. They could ask for the hand of any daughter from any House for any one of their sons. There were four brothers in total, all with unruly black hair and a mixture of violet eyes. All but for the second-eldest—Graysen—he was the only one with eyes as black as a crow's feather. Rather appropriate, I thought. The color of his irises and the roguish waves of dark hair fitted his surname perfectly.

One of the brothers would marry Evelene. Most likely the eldest.

The Crowthers had visited each of the Upper Houses and their daughters, but it was a mere formality. Everyone knew they'd pick our House to join with through marriage. An alliance with the Great House Wychthorn was more than advantageous, it was practically a promise to raise their family from a Lower to an Upper House.

I cast a glance at Evelene's beautiful face pinched in resignation.

Jittering on the spot, I whispered, "Maybe they won't pick Evvie. Maybe they'll pick another daughter from another House."

I met my father's furious look, shrinking a little under the anger of the man who ruled over all the Houses. Godsdammit, I'd given myself away. He now knew I'd overheard him talking to my sisters about tonight. Both my parents had agreed to keep this from me. Only telling me that our two Houses would be meeting. An introduction. A formality.

"Can't we overturn it?"

He shook his head, his severe features tightening. We both knew that wasn't going to happen.

He cupped my chin, tilting my face up. "Calm," he advised. "Calm, Nelle, calm."

I nodded, rolling my shoulders and easing the tension from them. My wrist was bound with a necklace of beads, not glass, but made of a much stronger material—adamere. Freeing a loop long enough to slide through my fingers, I rubbed each bead between my thumb and middle finger and recited my own prayer. With each bead, each heartbeat, each breath, my mantra—My roots are deep. My strength is stone. My breath the wind. I bow to none.

My father led me over to my mother and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze before he took his place beside Evelene, nodding to the servant to allow the Crowthers to enter our domain.

I didn't like the look and feel of the Crowthers as they strode in. They were a blot of darkness in our great room with its white marble floor and walls, our antique furniture adorned in silver and gray. They seemed made of night and shadows, sucking in the light of the room.

The brothers ranged in age from 15 to 21. There was something wild and untamed about them that was at odds with their elegant suits and polished leather shoes.

The air in the light spacious room was thick with tension. There were more of my family guards in attendance than usual. But the Crowthers were enforcers who oversaw the cartels and crime syndicates for the Horned Gods. Even I'd heard the whispers about Lower House Crowther and their enhanced strength and speed. They were deadly weapons and dealt in violence. It was an art to them—death.

I wasn't sure what the outcome would be and who would remain standing between us if they chose to strike.

We stood in a row. Evelene's arm was curled tightly around my father's. Annalise stood beside her. Then came my mother and myself.

Evelene would sit by my father. The Crowthers attention would be on him and on her. While Annalise and myself were purposely dressed in muted colors, Evelene was in resplendent burnt orange. The haute couture dress had been designed by Saint Laurent, especially for this occasion, and its sleek lines curved precisely to her figure. At seventeen, Evelene was breathtaking. Tawny hair burnished with gold hung over her shoulders in a cascade of soft waves. And her eyes, the color of a sun-drenched ocean, lit up further with her smiles.

We politely greeted the Crowthers, one by one.

They bowed.

We did not.

Varen, the Crowthers' patriarch, was bigger and broader, and more weathered than my father. My father exuded power, bending dangerous men to his will. Varen felt just as powerful, but lethal in a different way.

His twin sister Valarie reflected his black hair with a few locks streaked with gray. Her violet eyes bored through mine as if she wanted to empty my head of every single thought. My mother's breathing was erratic, a thin sheen of sweat coated her upper lip and her hands were trembling slightly. She was more than nervous of the elder Crowthers.

Then came the brothers. Curiosity had my gaze sliding over what I could see of their tattoos peeking beneath the collars of their crisp, white shirts. They were all tattooed, though the younger brothers less so than the elder two with the ink crawling up the line of their necks. The tattoos were similar in nature with whorls of flames, yet the patterns were individual and distinct from one another.

Lastly came their baby-sister Ferne clinging to the arm of the second-eldest—Graysen.

Ferne was a few years younger than me but I was short and slight for my age so we were the same height. Like her brothers, her hair was inky darkness. A great curtain of hair swept across her forehead and covered one eye. An eye I might have been able to see if not for delicate white lace strapped across her brow obscuring her sight.

As I stood beside my mother, I stared unashamedly at the other girl, unconsciously swaying my weight from foot to foot. Halfway through my mother's conversation with Ferne, I realized the other girl was mirroring my movements. It wasn't as exaggerated as my own, but I caught it nevertheless. She lingered too, much longer than the time she'd spent talking to my father and sisters, but despite her small talk with my mother, her entire focus was fixed on me. I could feel her interest humming like a live wire, while her brother barely looked my way. And when he was forced to answer one of my mother's questions, he replied in a bored, flat tone.

He wasn't nearly as disinterested in me as he was trying to make out. I felt his intrigue—my skin prickling with awareness—as it crackled between us, back and forth, back and forth.

I shouldn't have. My father had warned me implicitly not to, but I sent my senses swirling outward in a featherlight brushstroke against Graysen, curious to feel him. Sometimes, not always, I could feel the essence of the person, their soul I suppose, like the sun on my skin. Purity was a dry summer's heat. Kindness and sincerity were a spring afternoon. Some souls I felt on my flesh like dappled sunlight on a crisp autumn morning. But others, the worst kind, mostly the souls born into the Houses that served the Horned Gods, leaked a bone-chilling coldness like twilight creeping on a wintry afternoon.

This Crowther, his soul, who he was, was a contradiction. It was the cold snap before dawn. But there was warmth, a purity too and I didn't know what to make of it, of him.

Whatever lurked beneath my skin, purred.

Graysen's black eyes sliced to mine. His nostrils flared as if he'd felt what I was doing and hated it.

I quickly reined my senses in, much like reeling in a loose skein of wool, feeling guilty and worried. My fingers went for the beads twined around my wrist. A comfort and reminder to keep myself in check.

I smiled at Ferne. "You can see me."

"I can feel you," she replied. Her voice was low and raspy.

The temperature in the room dropped. Every single one of the Crowthers swung my way. Their attention was honed and frigid.

"Why are your eyes covered?"

"It makes people feel more comfortable."

"I've seen blind people before. They don't cover their eyes."

She replied coldly, "I don't have eyes."

"Nelle," my mother hissed in warning.

But it spilled from me. "What do you mean?" No eyes? Had she been born that way? If I were to pull back the lace would I just find empty pockets of flesh?

Graysen bristled. His dark eyes brimmed with violent emotion. Ferne brushed a comforting stroke along her brother's hand while my mother squeezed my arm so tightly I almost winced. A silent warning not to say another word.

Ferne angled her head and the dark locks of hair swayed with the gesture. "My eyes...they were stolen from me."

I blinked slowly. So many questions swirled in my head. The first, the loudest—Who had stolen them?

Ferne politely dipped her head to mine, ending our conversation, and her older brother guided her across the veined marble floor to one of our velvet armchairs. His movements were gentle and precise.

The brothers gathered into a tight pocket behind their sister. The eldest brother stood perfectly still, his expression stoic much like his father's, while the two younger siblings fidgeted, almost as if they found it impossible to remain still.

My family seated ourselves first as the rulers in our world of casual royalty dictated.

Then the heads of the Crowthers' family sat, and Ferne too. The brothers remained standing behind their sister. Graysen angled himself a little in front of Ferne, his icy gaze fixed on mine as if he thought I might lunge and strike her.

I rolled my eyes. He caught it and knew it was directed at him. His nostrils flared and a muscle in his jaw ticked.

I tried not to grin and failed.

Another tick.

Chancing a glance at my mother, her serene smile at the Crowthers was a little too tight. Her hand had slipped inside her skirt pocket. It gave her a little reassurance perhaps to hold her vial of pills. She'd already taken two, swallowing them dry as we were readying ourselves for the Crowthers' visit.

I covertly eased off the offending shoes, sliding them with a pointed toe into the shadows beneath the chaise, very nearly sighing with relief as I stretched my toes wide.

The younger brothers murmured to one another, quietly enough that none of my family could hear, but I could.

"Is she really fourteen? She looks ten, eleven at the most."

"No shoes. She's muddied. Is that...a twig in her hair?"

"Gods, she's some kind of street urchin."

It was me they were talking about. I gritted my teeth at the smirks they tossed my way. The youngest boy didn't even bother to be discreet as he messed with his cell phone as if bored with his family's visit before it had even properly begun.

Irritated with them, I focused on Evvie instead. She sat straight-backed and regal on a leather couch beside my father.

Annalise, sitting on an armchair, didn't look in the slightest perturbed since she'd already been promised to House Reska. But I could tell by an almost imperceptible downturn of her mouth she felt the same way I did. Disgusted that the Crowthers should think they were good enough for our House. That they dared to claim Evvie for themselves.

Evvie offered the eldest Crowther brother a dazzling smile.

He glanced away.

And I hated him for the slight.

The creature inside stirred with my spike of ire. I gripped a bead tightly. Calm, calm, calm—

My mother leaned close to whisper to me to leave, to go to the aviary. I rose, silently padding out of the great room, glad to be gone, not even bothering with a backward glance even though I felt every single Crowthers' attention remain heavily on my retreating back. A sensation that had my skin crawling.

When it got too hard being around people I'd seek refuge and silence outside, mostly in the woodland surrounding our estate and if not there, in my mother's aviary.

Her aviary was a rather grand affair. A gigantic bird cage two stories high encompassed a small grove of trees and pretty shrubs. It was beautiful and peaceful and I spent a lot of time sitting beneath a tree or on a bench, an open book on my lap with the birds flying overhead. But they'd never be free. They might feel the wind on their wingtips but they'd never travel any further than fifty feet in either direction.

Trapped.

Sometimes that's how I felt.

Though it was a summery night, it was still dark, so before stealing outside I'd snatched up several flashlights. A backup flashlight was stashed into my skirt pocket, while I sat one in the grass near my feet, its yellowy light splashing upward, and the third was clasped in my hand.

I'd settled down to lie on the cool grass in the aviary, digging my feet into the cool earth, upturning dirt with my toes. Grounding. I needed grounding and to disappear into the void of nothingness. I squirmed, assured I'd not be called back in until they'd left. I lay staring up at the night sky prickled with faint starlight. It was a full moon tonight, and my mind was full of dark thoughts regarding the Crowthers, wondering if my mother had purposely sent me to the aviary to ensure I wouldn't hear their conversation.

So when he silently entered my domain I didn't hear him, I only felt my flesh prickling and the creature stirring beneath my skin, before his filmy shadow fell across me.