Chapter 1 — **Chapter 1**

Arisyn

TAKEN. Stolen. Denied the choice to stay or go—whatever she wished to name it, the result was unchanged. Arisyn would be whisked away as payment for a cure, a bargain struck in desperation by Queen Rina with Baron Halric of Felgren Forest, while the evening sun bled into the distant horizon, abandoning her as she was abandoned. The scent of spring brushed her face, teasing the loose strands of her dark braid with a tender, mocking kiss.

She recognized the bitter symmetry. The sun would slip away only to return with dawn, while her departure held no such promise. Her gaze lingered on a familiar castle turret, a silent anchor to her fracturing resolve, before she closed her eyes and let a wry grin twist her lips. A madwoman, perhaps, but the absurdity of the future she was forced to embrace clawed at her heart. The alternative—panic—was a luxury she could not afford.

Arisyn had imagined her theft would occur under the cloak of night, the Baron spiriting her away when the moon reigned over a starlit sky, the exchange hidden from the eyes of Caerithen. Instead, the scene before her was a spectacle. The Queen had summoned her guards in their finest, ensuring Arisyn’s departure in the waning sunlight would be a public scar on the city’s memory. Her people, who had endured so much, would witness the cost of their salvation.

The royal guards stood in precise rows, their Caerithenn armor gleaming with silver plates on shoulders and torsos, the deepest blue silk draping elegantly across their chests, embroidered with thistle patterns Arisyn herself had once stitched with care. As she stepped from the castle’s shadow, her worn shoes scraping the dusty path, the weight of eyes bore into her. Whispers hummed like a restless wind—some pitying, others resentful, a few tinged with reluctant gratitude. A child’s curious stare pierced through the crowd, while a mourner clutched a black ribbon, a silent testament to the Black Fever’s toll. Arisyn’s chest tightened, but she pressed her lips tight, refusing the tears that threatened to spill in this moment of farewell.

*My farewell for now*, she reminded herself, clenching a small, hidden token from home—a pressed thistle petal—between her fingers. She would return one day. After proving to the Baron of Felgren that she was of no value to him, she would carve her path back to Caerithen.

She had done what she could during the plague’s reign. The Black Fever struck without pattern, claiming an elder one day, a young mother the next, black filigree creeping from fingertips to wrists. Arisyn, unsure of her channeler power’s true extent, had offered solace in the castle’s sick wards, her whispered words easing pain if only for fleeting moments. She recalled the Queen’s rage after a futile meeting with the seven medicus conduits, storming through the halls to dispatch yet another plea across the grasslands to Felgren Forest—to Baron Halric, the only one with magic potent enough to end the nightmare. As Arisyn scanned the crowd now, she spotted a scarred survivor, a stark reminder of the thousands lost, and her resolve hardened.

Most channelers trained in Felgren before earning their conduit title, siphoning magic from the forest’s endless shadows—a place of whispered tales and unseen dangers. They were granted an Offering, a choice to pursue their power or remain as they were, their magic dwindling without proper mastery. Arisyn, incomplete in her transition to conduit, would have refused such an Offering. She had no hunger to expand her gifts, no matter what a Baron might decree.

On the ninety-first day, with death’s shadow over the city, Prince Philius succumbed. Called to his side in the dead of night, Arisyn clasped her closest friend’s hand—her brother in all but blood—tracing the blackened veins on his once-elegant fingers. She poured every ounce of will into him, begging him to survive when no one else had. Queen Rina’s face that night was a mask of anguish, her mahogany skin taut and sickly as she watched her only son, Caerithen’s future, writhe in fevered torment. Her tear-brimmed eyes met Arisyn’s, emotions flickering too swiftly to name.

Now, Arisyn understood. The Queen had chosen between her son’s life and her ward’s freedom. Arisyn became the price for the cure, the details of the bargain shrouded but irrelevant. She accepted her role as a willing prisoner, a sacrifice for the Prince, for Caerithen—her home she had never meant to leave. Yet beneath her resolve, a suppressed anger simmered, a quiet rebellion she once showed in small acts, like slipping a forbidden bloom into the Queen’s garden.

Her heart thundered as she walked forward, leaving her world behind for an unknown span of her life. Her stomach churned, a final protest of her soul against this forced path. “My ward, Arisyn, is presented to Baron Halric of Felgren Forest this evening as payment for the cure of the Black Fever,” Queen Rina declared, stepping from the line of guards, her hand gesturing toward Arisyn. Her voice faltered momentarily, a hand reaching out before retracting, regret etched in the lines of her face. “Let it be known that an official Offering was not given, and this woman would choose to decline if presented with one. She leaves for the Fortress in Felgren on my will alone.” Meeting Arisyn’s emerald eyes, tears traced down her cheeks. “And it pains me dearly to demand this of her for my son and my people.”

Arisyn’s gaze shifted to the row of lumens across the stream, near the viridescent portal humming with a shimmering green haze. Two dozen massive beasts, jaws as long as her arm, stood as monstrous guardians of Felgren’s threshold, their beauty both awe-inspiring and chilling. A dark figure loomed beside them, clad in a conduit’s garb—a heavy cloak over wide shoulders, an immaculate tunic beneath a pressed black vest. Baron Halric, her captor and Caerithen’s Savior, the only one with power to end the plague. She would convince him of her insignificance, no matter the cost.

*“Arisyn.”*

The sharp whisper cut through her thoughts, and she turned to see Geyrand, resplendent in royal guard armor, the sun glinting off the silver like a celestial halo around his freckled face. She had sought familiar faces in the crowd, and now rushed to him, clinging to his chest, breathing in the calming scent of mint and chalk from the guard’s powder—a memory of safety. She recalled a moment of shared laughter under the castle’s orchard trees, a lightness now so distant. Pulling back, she cradled his pale face, smiling despite the ache. “Thank you for every memory. I’ll carry them always. I’ll carry you.”

His amber eyes shimmered. “I’ll wait for your return,” he murmured, voice breaking. She rose on tiptoe, threading fingers through his red curls, pressing a kiss to his forehead. He drew her into a trembling kiss, lips conveying a truth too late confessed. A cough nearby shattered the moment, and as she turned to leave, he seized her hand, kissing her knuckles, his gaze unwavering until she tore herself away, her body shaking as she faced the future.

Her steps felt like an eternity, feet leaden in worn leather shoes, simple frock brushing the dirt path like a shroud. Crossing the stone bridge toward her captor, she fixed her eyes on the lumens, their black noses twitching. On impulse, a spark of buried defiance, she released her handkerchief into the breeze, watching it drift before the beasts. Instantly, they shattered their disciplined stance, howls piercing the dusk, paws tearing at the earth for that small piece of her freedom.

“Your monsters are well trained, but even a whisper of defiance can unsettle them,” she said, standing tall before the Baron, her smirk a challenge.

“My dear,” he replied, voice slow and laced with dark charm, black eyes glinting with a sliver of silver, aged lines creasing into an amused grin. “You are hardly a whisper of anything. Shall I wager on the storm within you?” He whistled sharply, and the lumens resumed their guard. “Shall we?”

His black-gloved hand extended, and as she took it, her form transformed. Worn slippers became tall leather boots, her frock a dark green silk gown hued like Felgren’s trees, black beads swirling in vine-like patterns down its length. Her dark hair, the shade of a wood owl’s wing, was swept into a tight bun with an emerald-studded comb. A conduit ring formed on her right forefinger, a silver band blooming with a teardrop emerald, stirring a flicker of confusion—why this design, this mark of power she had not claimed?

“Curious,” Baron Halric mused, still clasping her hand, his eyes alight with unspoken intent.

Refusing to question him, she stole one last glance at the castle, the life she swore to reclaim—a memory of laughter with Philius by the hearth her guiding star. Facing the Baron again, she yanked the ornate comb free, her bronze locks spilling over pale shoulders in the fading sun’s embrace, and tossed it to the earth. “Bind me as you will, Baron, but my heart remains beyond your forest.”

He laughed, a rich tenor of amusement softening his sharp features as he nodded. “We shall see.” She took a deep breath, the portal’s hum vibrating through her bones, and stepped into the unknown.