“You’ve been dead three weeks, Mum.” I said it out loud to an empty kitchen and the words just sat there, refusing to be funny. I’d come down to clear the cottage. Three bags of cardigans by the door. Dust sheets coming off the good chairs. Then I saw the calendar. It was current. Today’s […]

…and pressed its huge frost-rimed forehead gently against the boy’s. Eirik felt the warmth of it. Felt the tremor go out of the enormous body. And then — impossibly — the beast made a sound back. A low, rumbling note. Wobbling. Searching. Trying to find the pitch of the boy’s tune the way a child […]

The jaws opened — and stopped. Not on her hands. Beside them. The great scarred head pressed flat into Mira’s open palms, the way a starving dog leans into the first warmth it has felt in years. A low sound rolled out of the creature’s chest. Not a growl. Something closer to grief. Mira’s breath […]

The Beast-Master did not sit down. His hand stayed at his mouth. His eyes did not leave the girl’s wrist. Governor Calliantes turned in his seat, the gold signet tapping once against the marble rail. “Verrun. Sit.” Verrun did not look at him. “Verrun.” “He knows her,” Verrun said. His voice was not loud. It […]

The quill stayed raised. The page stayed empty. Vihaan listened for the next breath. It did not come on the count he expected. He let his eyes lift from the notched horn to the long lowered curve of her face, and only then to her open eye, which had been waiting for him. “How do […]

The huntsman’s lips parted. The word did not come out clean. “Princess —” It was barely a word. More breath than sound. But the page boy by the arrow basket heard it, and his head came up like a deer’s. The girl heard it too. Her fingers stopped on the daisy knot. She lifted her […]

She did not finish the word. The wyvern closed its golden eye, slowly, the way a person closes their eyes when they have been waiting a long time to be allowed to rest. “How,” Ysolde whispered. “How do you know that.” “Eat the bread, Ysolde.” “How do you—” “Eat the bread. Please.” She had never […]

Wren stood with the jug in her hands and waited. The baron’s ring-hand hovered over the cup he had set down. His eyes had not left the pendant at her throat. Around the long table, the hush moved outward in slow rings — first the guests nearest him, then the middle benches, then even the […]

Larrian took one step forward and the broken clay of the wine cup ground under his boot. He did not look down. He could not look anywhere except at the red cord on the girl’s wrist, the small wooden wolf bouncing once against the bone of her arm as her hand trembled. The beast was […]

The Dowager Duchess’s hand stayed at her mouth a long time. Below her, in the courtyard, the houndsman had stopped with the mallet at the top of its swing. He was looking at the dog. He had known that dog since the dog was a pup in a basket, and he had never, in forty […]