I can’t catch my breath. I don’t know how to make it stop.

In the midst of the darkness and panic, something moves in the sky. And just like that, the black clouds twist—they scatter into a swarm of a million moving flecks that swirl across the sky and then dive down, down, down at the crowd. A nightmare of locusts. They descend on us with merciless efficiency, their buzzing drowning out the people’s cries. The Inquisitors swing their swords uselessly at them.

The flames lick my feet, their heat searing me. It’s coming for me—it’s going to devour me.

As I struggle to keep away from the flames, I notice the strangest thing. The locusts come near, then pass straight through my body. As if they aren’t really there at all. I watch the scene before me—the insects pass right through the Inquisitors too, as well as the crowd of people below.

This is all an illusion, I suddenly realize. Just like the phantom silhouettes that attacked Father. None of it is real.

One Inquisitor has staggered to his feet, his eyes burning from the smoke, and points his sword in my direction. He lurches toward me. I find my last reserves of strength and pull as hard as I can against my chains. Hot blood trickles down my wrists. As I struggle, he draws closer, materializing from a sea of locusts and darkness.

Suddenly—

A rush of wind. Sapphire and silver. The fire at my feet flickers out into curls of smoke.

Something streaks across my vision. A figure appears between me and the oncoming Inquisitor, moving with deadly grace. It’s a boy, I think. Who is this? This boy is not an illusion—I can sense his reality, the solidity of his figure that the black sky and the locusts don’t have. He is clad in a whirlwind of hooded blue robes, and a metallic silver mask covers his entire face. He crouches in front of me, every line of his body tense, his focus entirely on the Inquisitor. A long dagger gleams in each of his gloved hands.

The Inquisitor skids to a halt before him. Uncertainty darts across his eyes. “Stand aside,” he snaps at the newcomer.

The masked boy cocks his head to one side. “How impolite,” he mocks, his voice velvet and deep. Even in the midst of chaos, I can hear him.

The Inquisitor lunges at him with his sword, but the boy dances out of its path and strikes with one of his daggers. It buries itself deep into the Inquisitor’s body. The man’s eyes bulge—he lets out a squeal like a dying pig. I’m too stunned to utter a sound. Something in me sparks with strange delight.

Inquisitors see the battle and rush to their fallen comrade. They draw their swords at the boy. He just nods at them, taunting them to come closer. When they do, he slips through them like water between rocks, his body a streak of motion, blades flashing silver in the darkness. One of the Inquisitors nearly cuts him in half with a swing of his sword, but the boy slices the man’s hand clean off. The sword clatters to the ground. The boy kicks the fallen sword up into the air with one flick of his boot, then catches it and points it at the other Inquisitors.

When I look harder, I notice that other masked figures flicker among the soldiers—others dressed in the same dark robes as the boy. He didn’t come here alone.

“It’s the Reaper!” Teren shouts, pointing at the boy with a drawn sword. He starts heading toward us. His pale eyes are mad with glee. “Seize him!”

That name. I’d seen it before on the Young Elite carvings. The Reaper. He’s one of them.

More Inquisitors rush up the platform. The boy pauses for a moment to look at them, his blades dripping with blood. Then he straightens, lifts one arm high over his head, and sweeps it down again in a cutting arc.

A column of fire explodes from his hands, slicing a line across the platform and dividing the soldiers from us with a wall of flame stretching high into the blackened sky. Shouts of terror come from behind the fiery curtain.

The boy approaches me. I stare in fright at his hooded face and silver mask, the outline of his features lit by the inferno behind him. The only part of his face not hidden by his mask are his eyes—hard, midnight dark, but alight with fire.

He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he kneels at my feet, then grabs the chains that shackle my ankles to the stake. The chains in his grasp turn red, then white hot. They quickly melt, leaving my legs freed. He straightens and does the same to the noose around my neck, then to the chains binding my wrists.

Black scorch marks on the walls. Bodies melted from the inside out.

My arm shackles break. Immediately I collapse, too weak to hold myself up, but the boy catches me and lifts me effortlessly into his arms. I tense, half expecting him to sear my skin. He smells like smoke, and heat emanates from every inch of his body. My head leans wearily against his chest. I’m too tired to fight, but I still try. My surroundings swim in an ocean of darkness.

The boy brings his face close to mine. “Stay still,” he whispers into my ear. “And hold on.”

“I can walk,” I find myself muttering, but my words slur together and I’m too exhausted to think clearly. I think he’s taking me away from this place, but I can’t concentrate. As darkness descends, the last thing I remember is the silver insignia on his armguard.

The symbol of a dagger.

City of Estenzia

Northern Kenettra

The Sealands

To the north, the snowy Skylands. To the south, the sweltering Sunlands. Between them lie the island nations of the Sealands,
jewels of wealth and trade in a world of extremes.

—Nations of Sky, Sun, and Sea, by Étienne of Ariata

Adelina Amouteru

I dream of Violetta. It’s late spring. She is eight, I am ten, and we are still innocent.

We play together in the small garden behind our home, a blanket of green surrounded on all sides by an old, crumbling stone wall and a bright red gate with a rusty latch. How I love this garden. Over the wall climb blankets of ivy, and along the ivy bloom tiny white flowers that smell like fresh rain. Other flowers grow in bouquets along the wall’s edges, brilliant orange roses and cornflower patches, red oleander and grape-colored periwinkle, stalks of white lilies.

Violetta and I always loved to play among the clusters of ferns that sprouted here and there, huddled together in the shade. Now I spread my skirts on the grass and sit patiently while Violetta braids a crown of periwinkle blossoms into my hair with her delicate fingers. The flowers’ scent fills my thoughts with heavy sweetness. I close my eye, imagining a real crown of gold, silver, and rubies. Violetta’s braiding tickles me, and I nudge her in the ribs, suppressing a grin. She giggles. A second later, I feel her tiny lips plant a playful kiss on my cheek, and I lean against her, lazy with contentment. I hum my mother’s favorite lullaby. Violetta listens eagerly, as if I were this woman that she barely knew. Memories. It’s one of the few things I have that my sister doesn’t.

“Mother used to say that faeries live in the centers of white lilies,” I tell her as she works. It’s an old Kenettran folktale. “When the flowers fill with raindrops, you can see them bathing in the water.”

Violetta’s face lights up, illuminating her fine features. “Can you really?” she asks.

I smile at how she hangs on my words. “Of course,” I reply, wanting to believe. “I’ve seen them.”

Something distracts my sister. Her eyes widen at the sight of a creature moving under the shade of a fern leaf. It’s a butterfly. It drags itself between blades of grass under the fern’s shelter, and when I pay it closer attention, I notice that one of its shining turquoise wings has been torn from its body.

Violetta whimpers in sympathy, hurries to the struggling creature, and scoops it into her hands. She coos at it. “Poor thing.” The butterfly’s remaining wing flutters weakly in her palm, and as it does, tiny clouds of glittering gold dust float up in the air. The frayed edges of its torn wing look like teeth marks, as if something had tried to devour it. Violetta turns her wide dark eyes to me. “Do you think I can save it?”

I shrug. “It’s going to die,” I say gently.

Violetta holds the creature closer to her. “You don’t know that,” she declares.

“I’m just telling you the truth.”

“Why don’t you want to save it?”

“Because it’s beyond saving.”

She shakes her head at me sorrowfully, as if I’ve disappointed her.

My irritation rises. “Why did you ask me my opinion, then, if you’ve already made up your mind?” My voice turns cold. “Violetta, soon you’re going to realize that things don’t end well for everyone. Some of us are broken and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.” I glance down at the poor creature struggling in her hands. The sight of its ripped wing, its crippled, deformed body, sends a jolt of anger through me. I slap the butterfly out of her hands. It lands upside down in the grass, legs clawing at the air.

I’m instantly sorry. Why did I do that?

Violetta bursts into tears. Before I can apologize, she clutches her skirts and jumps to her feet, leaving periwinkle blossoms scattered in the grass. She spins around.

And there behind her stands my father, the smell of wine hovering about him in an invisible cloud. Violetta hurriedly brushes away her tears as he stoops to her eye level. He frowns. “My sweet Violetta,” he says, touching her cheek. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s nothing,” she whispers. “We were just trying to save a butterfly.”

Father’s eyes settle on the dying creature on the grass. “Both of you?” he says to Violetta, his eyebrows raised. “I doubt your sister would do that.”

“She was showing me how to care for it,” Violetta insists, but it’s too late. His gaze wanders to me.

Fear hits me and I start to scramble away. I know what’s coming. When the blood fever first passed through, killing a third of the population and leaving scarred, deformed children everywhere, we were pitied. Poor things. Then, a few parents of malfetto children died in freak accidents. The temples called the deaths acts of demons and condemned us. Stay away from the abominations. They’re bad fortune. So the pity toward us quickly turned to fear. The fear, mixed with our frightening appearances, became hate. Then word spread that if a malfetto had powers, they would manifest when he or she was provoked.

This interested my father. If I had powers, at least I could be worth something. My father could sell me off to a circus of freaks, gather a ransom from the Inquisition for turning me in, use my power to his advantage, anything. So he has been trying for months now to awaken something in me.

He motions for me to come to him, and when I do as he says, he reaches toward me and holds my chin in his cold palms. A long, silent moment passes between us. I’m sorry for upsetting Violetta, I want to say. But the words are choked by my fear, leaving me quiet, numb. I imagine myself disappearing behind a dark veil, vanishing to somewhere he can’t see. My sister hides behind Father, her eyes wide. She looks back and forth between us with growing unease.

His eyes shift to where the dying butterfly is still struggling in the grass. “Go ahead,” he says, nodding at it. “Finish the job.”

I hesitate.

His voice coaxes me on. “Come now. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” His grip on my chin tightens until it hurts. “Pick up the butterfly.”

Shaking, I do as he says. I grasp the butterfly’s lone wing between two fingers and lift it into the air. The glittering dust smears on my skin. Its legs scramble, still fighting. My father smiles. Tears shine in Violetta’s eyes. She had not intended this. She never intends anything.

“Good,” he says. “Rip off the wing.”

“Don’t, Father,” Violetta protests. She puts her arms around him, trying to win him over. But he ignores her.

I try not to cry. “I don’t want to,” I whisper, but my words fade away at the look in my father’s eyes. I take the butterfly’s wing between my fingers, then rip it from its body, my own heart tearing as I go. Its naked, pitiful form crawls in my palm. Something about it stirs a darkness within me.

“Kill it.”

In a daze, I crush the creature under my thumb. Its broken carcass twitches slowly against my skin, before finally growing still.

Violetta cries.

“Very good, Adelina. I like it when you embrace your true self.” He takes one of my hands in his. “Did you enjoy that?”

I start to shake my head, but his eyes make me freeze. He wants something out of me that I don’t know how to give. My shake changes to a nod. Yes, I enjoyed that. I loved it. I will say anything to make you happy, just please don’t hurt me.

Nothing happens, and my father’s scowl deepens. “There must be something more inside you, Adelina.” He picks out my ring finger, then runs one hand along it. My breaths quicken. “Tell me I’ve at least been given a malfetto daughter of some use.”

I’m confused. I don’t know how to answer. “I’m sorry,” I finally manage to utter. “I didn’t mean to upset her. I just—”

“No, no. You can’t help yourself.” He glances over his shoulder at my sister. “Violetta,” he says gently, nodding for her to come close. She inches forward. “Come. Let’s see if your sister has any value.” Let’s see if she has any powers.

“No, Father, don’t—please—” Violetta begs, then tugs at his arm. “She didn’t do anything. We were just playing.” My heartbeat quickens to a frenzied pace. We exchange a frantic look. Save me, Violetta.

My father shakes her off, then turns his attention back to me and tightens his grip around my ring finger. “Are you worthless like that butterfly, Adelina?”