Chyrie had never seen such an enchanting man.

The shadows of night enveloped broad shoulders and a lean, tapered waist. Like a captain's strong arms - toned from throwing rope and arguing with the waves - coupled with the slim form of a rider.

Her eyes strained, preternatural sight aching against the damper on her magic. Focusing.

The wyrm behind the man chuffed, frost brushing through the air on its breath and sending chills over Chyrie's bare frame. Her shivering returned in force, the cold ripping away her blankets of smoke.

Her throat tightened, teeth grinding together so they might not chatter.

"M-Monster?"

Chyrie's hand slipped down to the curved dagger she kept beneath her pillow, heart pounding. A winding kris she had flashed her first night within the Mines, reliably sharp and long enough to impale both creatures and individuals alike.

Her only comfort when night came and rest consumed her panic.

The man shifted from beneath the wyrm, stepping up to the iron gate. His intriguing blue eyes, both deep-set and marbled, scanned her against the cave wall. Analyzing. The closer he stood, the less she could distinguish the storm of blues and greens bleeding together in those irises. Only how she'd never seen another pair like them.

Her gaze dipped down, inspecting the brown jacket masking studded black straps of leather. A weapons vest, no doubt.

Only when he stood directly in the light did the breath leave her lungs.

Where freckles dusted across her cheeks, shimmering scales of gold subtly framed his. They disappeared in his hairline, but coasted down his neck, building up near the jugular before thinning again.

Chyrie rocked backward, putting more distance between her and the mystery of him.

"You are Fae," he whispered, his accent thick.

Accent. A tenor with softly lilting vowels. A voice so similar to the one she'd heard after Anryth left her.

Chyrie swallowed tightly. "You are not."

He hesitated before nodding.

"If you are not a monster," he began, searching for words. "Why are you in a cage?"

She couldn't help the huffed laugh escaping her, not as she glanced toward the dying forge and the gooseflesh on her arms.

"Because I will become as monstrous as I must to protect my people," Chyrie replied, stark honesty bleeding into her voice. "But I'm no villain."

The cold gripped her with unrelenting pain. Many words bunched in her throat, burning with the need to explain.

For one soul to hear her story.

"Are you a traveler?" she asked in return. "From Rymedör?"

The man shook his head, his hand testing the iron for weakness. "Not Rymedör."

He didn't elaborate.

Chyrie pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped them in her arms. She couldn't read his calm, inquisitive expression or place the heritage from clothing alone. Her trust in him was solely a gut feeling - one she couldn't shake but yet wouldn't settle.

Her throat dry, she made a decision.

"This is-was Emberlin. I am the heir, as my parents, the King and Queen, were slaughtered two moons ago," she rasped, bile shooting up at the mention of their lifelessness. Their heads rolling on the floor before her, the blood spatter on her dress. Chyrie cleared her throat, gripping the hilt of her blade. "An Elven Lord stole into our city claiming vengeance, his name Anryth Ceirvani. The last remaining troops of Rymedör's elite forces stormed our grounds on account of a war he maintains we decided, offering weapons from Niukka's Hearth..."

Glancing sidelong at the smoking contraption, she frowned. If the goddess truly smiled upon her, it might light. Not sentence her to death.

"My father... The King maintained that his shipment set sail to aid Rymedör in their darkest hours, not strike them down, but-but no one has seen those armaments since they left the port and Anryth..."

The man grumbled something under his breath, another language which felt ancient and untamed.

Chyrie's stomach turned. "He keeps me here like some twisted trophy."

With one fluid motion, the rider aimed for the gate's hinges, his boot beating the weaker metal.

"No!" she yelled, throwing herself toward the bars. "No..."

His brows furrowed.

"What?"

"Anryth... tortured me into revealing my true name, held me to the forge until I swore a blood oath to him..."

The man's face contorted more, his arms crossing against his chest.

"Even if you broke this gate, I'm bound to the hearth, forced to forge blades so my court and I might free ourselves," Chyrie muttered. She'd accepted the tang of defeat after the first moon's cycle. "His blood lives within me and I cannot disobey those orders until our contract is complete."

"A contract sworn in blood?" he grimaced.

"It was that or burn," she answered, tucking her arms underneath her pits.

"What happens should you leave?"

She shuddered. "I'll die. Blood oaths are lethal, breaking one risks a fate worse than death."

Chyrie ran her fingers through the knotted edges of her hair, thumb pausing over the transition from copper to black. She often wondered if the oath might kill her anyway, given the precarious cost of magic.

Now the moon began its third cycle and she was running out of time.

"What is it you hunt?"

A sliver of her conscience shriveled at the acid in her tone, but she couldn't be bothered to withdraw. Even her small friend withered, the drakeling's head ducking away.

"The Sinmar," he answered. "Incubus' that lust for power."

She'd never heard of such a thing.

"They disguise themselves in the form of others, shapeshifting and infiltrating countries until they can absorb their magic for their own."

Chyrie's stomach turned.

Her teeth chattered painfully as the night washed over them completely, a sickly feeling starting to rise up again. She was exhausted and frozen, unable to concentrate let alone worry after another plague across her lands.

Another entity trying to steal the country she loved.

She understood, then, why he thought she might be one of them. Why this rider might've detained such a creature.

The hopelessness took hold again, gripping even the faintest bit of light.

Only one question still haunted her.

"What does that make you?"

"My name is Xiran," he said softly, bending over to his pack and pulling out a long, thick cloth. "My pe-I've been given many names, be it siren or mer, but the name of my ancestors was grim."

She caught the correction, her mind lingering on the way he spoke. As if he never anticipated seeing them again. Perhaps he didn't want to.

Chyrie blinked as his arm extended through the bars, offering her a loose cloak.

Xiran watched her closely as she examined the fabric shifting in the wind, a brow lifting as he waited. Slowly, she took it from his hand and slipped it over her shoulders.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He nodded, his movements smooth and weightless as he pulled away. Xiran approached the towering serpent with reverence, though the corner of his mouth ticked as if he thought something amusing.

The wyrm tipped its head back.

A connection.

A link between their minds.

Chyrie had only heard of such things, never exposing herself to the creatures of moral heart. Her father once spoke of the Dragons, telling her hushed stories or battles won and lives lost. Of how the Drakes lived in harmony with Courmasse, but did not bond.

She felt herself shutting down, knees going weak.

As if in response, the drakeling stuffed itself through the gate on clumsy paws and stopped in front of the hearth.

Rearing up on hind legs, it puffed a dark cloud of smoke into the forge. The embers glowed without fire. Another steaming breath sent a pulse of heat through the room, forcing her hair to stand on end.

One last flash of teeth revealed a thin stream of flame. As it poured into the forge, molten fire surged to life once again.

Chyrie fell to her knees in relief, bracing her palms in the ashes.

"He cares for you," Xiran said from behind them.

Her gaze shifted from the drakeling to the silhouette. "He?"

Xiran nodded.

A warm, scaley sensation pressed against her thighs. When Chyrie peeked downward, she found the ovaline snout resting in her lap, staring back.

Her head throbbed to the beat of her pounding heart. She knew nothing, not where this man came from or why he spoke with such a foreign accent. His origins were a complete mystery. Yet here he was speaking for the hatchling as if he could hear the unspoken.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

When Xiran's gaze left hers - hands tracing absently over a thick chain hooked into his belt - the temperature dropped noticeably. The conflict written across his features nearly burdened her in the absence of speech, but she held firm.

For a long moment, he said nothing at all, glancing back to the wyrm for assistance only to receive a cropped growl.

"I'm a Captain without a ship," he said quietly. "My crew is dead and I am... here."

Chyrie's lips curved down, fighting off the frown tugging not only at her mouth but her heart.

"You are here," she affirmed, curiously. "Hunting?"

Xiran inclined his head. "Hunting."

"Then you might want to begin with Courmasse," Chyrie said, the ghost of a smile passing over her lips. An idea churned where dread normally lurked inside her chest. "The home of my people, of Anryth, and anything else that might venture in wearing false skins."

"It's on the other side of the forest, yes?"

She nodded, hand idly caressing the hatchling's head. "You'll find many tribes surrounding the borders, homes of shifting sands and clay, wild animals and steep forest with untamed magic. But there is only one city built into the very cliffs themselves, carved out of crystal and rock."

Xiran's eyes focused on her, lined with intrigue.

"If they search for power that is where they will go."

"And you? You're to stay here and forge weapons? To prepare for battle?"

"Yes," she said. "The north is protected by the sea and the west guarded by werebeasts, but if you find the eastern entrance, you'll discover Courmasse."

"Why are you telling me this?" Xiran asked, brows knitting together. "How do you know I am not an Incubus myself?"

She couldn't know, not when they hadn't existed for her until now. Such small chances wouldn't hold her back.

Chyrie smiled sadly and she shook her head. With fire and weaponry, she stood a chance with this bargain.

"I have one request. Find my brother. Tell Cathan Vespurn the heir is alive. Tell him and him alone."

"Is that all?"

Xiran had grown uneasy, lifting his pack and staring out into the forest. He clipped the bag to his wyrm.

"Tell him..." she began, her smile wavering. "Tell Cathan that Anryth bleeds."

Reassuring words. A phrase once spoken by her father through training, reminding her of the permanence battle wrought. A truth her brother would believe, a sign this strange man had seen her.

Xiran agreed, offering one curt nod as he mounted the lengthy serpent.

Words escaped her.

She'd seldom told anyone such weighted things.

Whispering one last prayer, she offered him and Courmasse the last of her hope.

"My name is Chyrie Vespurn and I am in your debt."