Morning sunshine streamed downward, and beads of sweat ran in rivulets down my bare chest. I felt lighter, faster, stronger, and as usual, pissed the fuck off.

The training pit was dug into the inner courtyard of our fortress—an empty well of adamere stone, carpeted with sand. An open staircase wound around the inner curve of the pit, and circling the top of it was a wooden railing which a few members of our warband leaned against, watching my opponents and I duke it out below while placing bets amongst themselves.

Across the training pit came the ringing of steel on steel from a couple of soldiers sparring with swords. Surrounding me in the middle of the pit were my brothers, and it had turned from a spar to an all-out fucking brawl.

Sand kicked up beneath my boots. I was a whirlwind of grit and sand and fury. Kenton, his mouth grim line, moved fast, but I was faster—a cyclone of spinning wind—driving my quarterstaff into his with a thunderous crack, slamming him backward.

All I had in my head was Nelle, always my little bird, but this time accompanied by my mother. Two jigsaw puzzles in one box, with all the pieces mixed up, and no picture to figure them out.

I'd groggily awoken as the sun had started to rise, blinking blearily, slowly coming to. It had taken me a while to recall what had happened and where I was. This time, like when I'd awoken on the long, wild grasses in the Wychthorns' aviary, I felt refreshed and recharged as most people did after a night of peaceful sleep. And I found the reason why—slumbering nearby, her upper body sprawled against the bed and her head cradled by an arm, was Nelle. Her thick mane of wavy locks cloaked her shoulders and splayed like moonlight across the dark midnight bedding. Her right arm was stretched across the mattress and her little finger was curled around mine. Her plump lips were slightly parted and I smiled, as I heard a quiet little purr of snoring, something I hadn't realized she did until I'd trapped her in my residence.

There'd been a few nights she'd cried out in her sleep, caught in a nightmare. Under Sage's watchful eye, I'd gone into her bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed to soothe her before her nightmare had her thrashing and screaming. Danne or darkness—she was plagued with nightmares, the same as me.

Last night, it had been the same dream that had haunted me every time I fell under—a nightmare of a Horned God with red hair and a forked tongue. And my mother... My mother was always there.

But this time the dark dreamscape had melted like honey on hot toast, thinning and becoming watery. It became light and summery, like swaying wheat and lush springtime grass.

Unlike Sirro's otherworldly threads of power, there were golden strands of light.

And the dream turned into something new, a place I'd never been before...

Somewhere with rich opulent colors and glass...

Rows and rows of glass canisters.

My mother's face wasn't white with shock or smeared with blood. Her lips weren't parted as she screamed in terror.

She was looking down at me, steel in her green eyes, but with a broad grin as well.

Her voice spun through the dreamworld as she tapped me on the nose. Young...I was really young...maybe five years old...

"Graysen Crowther you stand here with your hands in your pockets, where I can see you." She turned away to someone I couldn't see, and said, "He's a natural-born thief."

And a raspy voice—I didn't know why I knew it was ancient—replied, "As he should be. Wouldn't be a Child of the Houses if he weren't. Taking after someone else, is he, little thief?"

It was like a suppressed memory, buried deep, hidden from me perhaps.

And somehow I felt that my two current problems were intertwined. Maybe unearthing a clue to my mother's mysterious whereabouts from that memory in Ascendria would solve the missing link I had with Nelle's puzzle. It was a feeling, a deeply rooted feeling, that I was right.

Taking after someone else, is he, little thief?

It was there...somewhere inside my head. Where had my mother gone? Who had she visited the day she was stolen? There was no one amongst the staff who could answer. Often, if she were to spend the day in the city on her own, she'd drive herself there in the car she'd bought with her hard-earned savings as a servant. She had any choice of any luxurious car, but my mother loved her chili-red Honda City. The damn thing was so old you had to manually crank open the windows.

So who had she gone to see?

I'd carefully rolled out of bed. Sage had watched me with wary, slitted eyes, giving me a soft snarl, his misty fur bristling, as I'd crouched down and banded my arms around Nelle's slight body. Careful not to wake her, I'd carried her back to her bed, tucking her beneath the soft blankets. I'd sat there for a good while, letting contentment—even though I knew it would be brief and fleeting—fill the hollow space carved into my chest. Contentment caused by the barest of contact between us, as I'd reconnected our little fingers, each gently curving around the other.

Then I'd risen, quietly padded out, changed, and gone downstairs to run drills with my brothers and our soldiers. But this time my brothers had a bone to pick with me, in the form of Nelle Wychthorn.

Power hissed through my veins. That strange ancient thing coiled and snarled and spat. I emptied everything out of my head. It was just me and the extension in my hand—a wyrmbone quarterstaff. The rapid-fire clack of bone on wood cracked through the training pit as I drove Jett and Caidan back. The quarterstaff in my grip had been my father's weapon. Twin hunting daggers, the quarterstaff, and my cursed sword had been forged by the Blacksmith for our family from Draxxon's femur bone and passed from my father to me when I'd reached the right age and skill level to claim them.

Caidan, Kenton, and Jett circled, moving like a pack of wolves. Like me, they were bare-chested and sweaty. While I was untouched, fresh bruises and blood marred their faces. Each of them were armed with quarterstaffs, breathing heavy from exertion, and glaring. Each of them were inquisitive and demanding answers, and fucked right off with me—Jett and Kenton more so than Caidan.

"She shouldn't be up there," Kenton snarled, his dark eyes blazing. He whirled his staff over his head, the motion so swift it was a blur. He charged forward with a flurry of ruthless strikes I easily knocked aside. "I don't like it!"

I felt the air moving behind me—Jett.

Crunching feet on sand to my left—Caidan.

I could feel it pulsing through my blood—anger and hissing and a feeling of raw, vicious power wanting to lash out. A savage unearthly growl clawed from my throat as I flowed with the battle. Faster, stronger, and more lethal. I unarmed Kenton with a furious swing. His staff soared through the air and crashed into the opposite wall—the sound of splintering wood. So fast, I moved so fast, a streak of speed, almost as if I were there and then not—

Spinning to kick a sparkly boot into Jett's gut—

Whirling to slam the end of my staff into Caidan's face—

Pivoting low and sweeping Kenton from his feet. He landed on his back with an oomph.

I stormed up, fury burning through every inch of me. I slammed the end of my wyrmbone staff into the sand right beside Kenton's head, sending a wave of sand spraying. He scrambled to a sitting position, swiping the grit from his eyes. I half-bent over and got right in his face. "I don't give a flying fuck. She's mine. It's my blood signed on the Alverac, not yours, or any-fucking-one else's. I decide what to do with her!"

"What the fuck are you doing with her Gray?" I heard Jett croak. I snapped my head his way and found he'd tossed his staff down by his feet and was clutching his stomach, wincing.

"Just messing with her head is all." I gritted out, lying through my fucking teeth.

Jett's eyes, beneath eyebrows thick with fresh cuts and blood, sharpened on me. The tight line of his mouth curved into a smirk. "Yeah, well you're doing a fine job breaking her, Limp Dick."

I whipped around in a strike too fast for him to defend, and smashed my elbow into his nose. Bone crunched and blood sprayed. "Holy fuck!" Jett howled. He staggered back. Blood streamed over his knuckles, pressed to his nose, down his lips and chin to splatter onto the scuffed sand between his boots.

Caidan's left cheekbone was caved in, and the skin rippled where the bones were beginning to knit together. He gingerly touched his face, shooting me a pissed look. "Hells...you wanna pull back next time you hit me?" He spat a gob of blood, wincing. "Shit..."

Kenton rose. He was bigger, brawnier, but so far neither he nor any of my brothers had been able to lay a blow on me this morning. He glared back at me. He had one black eye, which was already fading to yellow bruises, and blood crusted on one side of his face from an earlier wound I'd given him. He stalked up, and I held my ground, both of us refusing to back down, or even blink. "What the fuck is up with you?"

I stared at him incredulously. What the fuck isn't up with me?

It was just about to roll off my tongue—what the hells was wrong with our entire family, my brothers, my father, aunt, all this messed up shit—when I heard Caidan say, "Your eyes..."

Shock slammed into me.

I shot him a sidelong glance. His head was tilted and he was staring at me, his eyebrows slanted in a curious line. As they all were. Kenton and Jett sharing a look.

The fury that had engulfed me slipped into icy worry.

I shied away, scowling, and rubbed my palm over my sweaty forehead, shielding my eyes from my brothers. I knew that all it could be was how my eyes changed color to reflect each Nelle's. Why?—I had no fucking idea. It seemed to happen whenever I was caught up with the territorial possessiveness that heated my blood to boiling point when this strangeness, this ancient savage power—whatever the fuck it was, coursed through my veins.

I stalked over to the water tap, beads of liquid dripping into the open wine barrel below, and twisted the faucet to let the water spray. I cupped my hands and splashed cool water over my face, and used the metal of the curved tap as a mirror, watching as the silver-gray eyes—Nelle's—fade to black.

"Wychthorn's got less than three months before she's on the auction block, so why not let her out," Caidan said. A statement. A fact that had me frozen in place.

Because I didn't trust them. I sure as fuck didn't trust Jett not to mess with her.

"That's if we get an invite for a Goods Appraisal," I bit back, shaking my head to flick the sweat-damp hair away from my eyes. As much as I didn't want an invite to the Witches Ball, I needed it to save my mother.

"We will. I've been working on something with Zielenski," Jett said, his voice a little stuffy from the rapidly-healing broken nose. He gave me a sly look when I turned to face my brothers. All of them still hummed with a wariness of me. "Twofold. We'll introduce the Wychthorn Princess to the Emporium the moment Jurgana arrives."

The Emporium.

Jurgana.

Holy hells-gate.

I felt ill, physically ill. Bile stung the back of my throat.

Of course, my little brother had overheard what Sirro had said to me and had actually hatched a plan.

Kenton rubbed his blood-smeared face with a meaty hand. His deep voice rumbled, "We need Brangwene's Hjarte, Gray." He moved to flank me, Jett taking the other side. I was pincered in, with Caidan in front and the wall to my back. "The only way we can do it is by breaking Byron to get him to hand it over to us. We need to threaten her to get to him, and it might just pique the Witches' curiosity and entice an invite."

"Besides, Aunt Valarie agrees," Jett added, swiping away the long locks of hair that had come free from his top-knot and stuck to his temple and cheeks.

Aunt Valarie...just her name had fear spiraling through me. Besides myself, Jett had been my aunt's pet project all these years. It had been easy for her to mold my youngest brother into her weapon since he was my mother's shadow.

"She isn't going to like this when she comes home," Jett continued, stabbing a finger upward and behind me, indicating the tower.

"And when might that be?" I asked.

"Soon," he answered vaguely, with a grin that made me want to smash it from his face with my fist.

"Holy fuck," Caidan muttered between clenched bloodied teeth, wincing as his broken cheekbones knitted back together.

Jett began to huff laughter, his lower face still dripping blood.

I pushed forward, glaring. "What's so funny?"

Jett pointed behind me and up. Morning sunlight struck off his silver thumb ring.

And that's when I heard her voice roaring, "GRAYSEN CROWTHER! LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

I pivoted around, and the first thing I saw was fluttering fabric, billowing as it fell. My mouth dropped open—my clothes. Nelle was tossing my clothes from the tower. A clatter as belts swiftly followed. I watched in growing horror as she lifted a bedside table and pushed it over the railing circling the balcony at the top of the tower. It dropped in a straight line, cracked upon the hard cobblestones, and split apart on impact like matchsticks.

My books were flung. My chrome lamp. Anything light enough that she could lift and heave over the side of the balcony.

Holy Zrenyth!

And then my gut fell and my heart exploded into a racing gait as I saw my board games tossed like frisbees. They flew through the air, spinning, their lids ripping free, and all the fake paper money fluttered, game pieces and cards hit the cobblestones, bouncing and scattering.

Oh, fucking hells no!

I was going to kill her!

"You can't keep her locked up there," I heard Caidan say behind me. "Let her out. What is one tiny girl going to do?"

Oh, they had no fucking idea what my little bird was capable of.

I whirled around. "Have you ever considered I'm protecting us from that spiteful mischievous nature of hers?" I shot back, lying my ass off once again. "Worse she could escape."

Jett rolled his eyes and crossed his lean arms over his chest. "She's got Zrenyth's rope tied around her neck. She can't even get near the boundary of our estate. She can't run away, Gray." His mouth tipped up on one side revealing a sliver of bloodied teeth. "And if she wants to play with fire and mess with us, then bring it on."

That wasn't what I was worried about. I gave Jett a shrewd glance. I wasn't sure why he'd want her free of my rooms. Out of all my brothers, he was the one I was most wary of. He was unpredictable and also might be more fucked up than I was.

"Let her out," Caidan urged, just before the sound of metal striking hardened clay rang in my ears. I winced. Not my godsdamned chess pieces.