Page 1 of Feralheart

CHAPTER ONE

ERADIN

The bonewailer’s keen split the air as my fingers closed around the last sprig of graymallow. I froze, half-crouched in the undergrowth, the shriek echoing off the ridge above.

Once for the gathering.

Twice for the⁠—

It sounded again.

The hunt had begun.

My heart kicked against my rib cage. The herb beds I was supposed to be harvesting lay a quarter-clek back, safely within the cultivated borders where servants like me were permitted. But graymallow didn’t grow in tidy rows. It thrived here, deep in the forbidden woods, where the canopy eclipsed the sun and the undergrowth could turn hostile.

Where I had no permission to be.

The north ridge was the fortress’s throat. Hunts started there with horns, banners, and the first sweep of elite dragon wings, before it spilled down over Shaleside and swept into the forest. The queen’s castle sat higher, a pale crown above the fortress’s black stone towers.

I grabbed as much of the graymallow as I could and shoved it into my gathering bag, adding it to the silverleaf I’d already stolen for my younger brother, Tolross. Without it, he’d die, though collecting it might kill me.

The bonewailer keened again. Getting closer.

Turning, I bolted. My gathering bag slapped against my hip with each step, the herbs inside bruising.

Evidence of theft.

The forest floor was a mess of roots and fallen branches, last night’s rain made everything slick. I kept low, my soft-soled boots quiet but my breathing too loud in my ears. The elite didn’t care who got in the way of a hunt. Servants learned to make themselves scarce or they learned what dragon fire felt like.

The boundary stones appeared through the trees, three pale markers that separated the cultivated gardens from the wild.

A hundred more steps and I’d be back where I belonged, where I could explain my presence without losing my skin.

Then a low, guttural sound of an animal in distress shot from the woods on my right. Pain and fury twisting together.

My feet slowed, and I came to a stop.

The echo of my mother’s voice cut through my thundering pulse. She was dead, but I still heard her voice. A creature in pain doesn’t care about your fear. It only knows its own.

She’d said that the first time I’d balked at approaching a wounded dog in the street, its leg crushed by a cart wheel, baring its teeth at anyone who came near. She’d knelt beside it, humming until it let her touch the break.

The dog had lived, and I’d perfected my mother’s song.

I turned and hurried through the woods to my right.

The trapped beast crouched in a small clearing partially hidden by bracken and trees. I saw the dragon before I understood what I was looking at. A wild one, something I’d only seen once in my life and from a great distance.

This one was smaller than the aerie dragons, maybe two-thirds their size, with stone-gray and purple scales. A pale stripe ran down its snout, the mark of wild-born bloodlines. Its right hind leg had been caught in a trap, the kind designed to bite deep and hold tight. The metal teeth had punched through its scales, and dark, almost black blood pooled on the ground beneath it.

A dead goat lay nearby, a rope around its neck. The tag hanging from its ear read, PROPERTY OF THE CROWN.

Bait for the dragon.

Bait for me if I stayed here too long.

The dragon saw me and thrashed. The chain attached to the trap went taut, bolted to a boulder half the beast’s size. Its spiked tail whipped behind it, gouging lines in the earth. Smoke curled from its nostrils, and the spikes jutting above its eyes splintered the dim light into silver shards. Claws as long as my forearm dug into the ground as it tried to drag itself free.

This was the hunt’s quarry, the reason for the bonewailer, the riders, and the bloodseekers that would soon dive down through the canopy. They’d free the dragon with magic. As soon as the wild one had fled, they’d unleash the bloodseekers to follow the scent trail.