PROLOGUE
The little girls played in a puddle of blood. They didn’t realize it was blood, of course, nor did their nursemaid realize they had slipped from their rooms to find their way into the dungeons hidden under the palace. How would she? This part of the Thief Kingdom was chained and watched by so many doors and spells and beastly stone guardians that the Thief King himself would be hard pressed to enter unannounced. But such obstacles, when it came to curious children, were as easy to avoid as if they were maneuvering through a spider’s web—one only needed to be small enough to fly straight through.
So the three girls found their way into the bowels of nightmares, none the wiser of the threats lurking in the walls, peeking through cracks with salivating, toothy grins. Or if they were aware, none felt threatened enough to turn and retreat.
“Here.” Niya ran a bloody finger across her younger sister’s pale face, setting loose a spiral design around the baby’s plump cheeks. “Now you can speak.”
Larkyra, recently turned three, giggled.
“Speeeeak,” encouraged Niya. “Can you say that? Speeeeaaak.”
“If she could have, she would have,” said Arabessa, pressing her rouge palms across her ivory nightgown. She smiled at the new pattern along the bottom of her skirts. At seven, Arabessa was the oldest of the trio, her skin white porcelain against hair that spilled ink down her back.
“Oh, how pretty!” Niya held Larkyra’s pudgy little hand as they walked closer to Arabessa. “Do me next.”
Finding another ruby pool that seeped from under a locked steel door, Arabessa slapped her hands into the still liquid. The shadow of her reflection rippled away as she coated each finger.
“This color matches your hair,” Arabessa said as she drew red flowers onto Niya’s gown.
“Let’s paint Lark with it so she can match me too.”
So enthralled in their game, none of the girls noticed a particular creature who stood watching, unchained, in the shadows of the corridor. A creature with more deadly consequences at their fingertips than any of the beasts locked inside the cursed cells around them, yet the Thief King allowed them to roam free. Perhaps for moments such as these: to watch over those who could not yet watch out for themselves. Because though this being might have been created in darkness, their lives had always bridged one of light.
The little one is rather round, said the brother wordlessly to his sister. It was an easily accomplished feat, given that they were twins who shared one body, wrestling back and forth for space in one mind.
It is a baby. All babies are, replied the sister.
We were not.
That is because we were never a baby.
Well, if we had the chance to be, I can guarantee we would not have been round.
The twins had many names in many different places. But in Aadilor, they were known simply as Achak—ancient ones, the oldest beings this side of the Fade. Here they took on a single human form that shifted from brother to sister faster than crashing waves. Achak was taller than a normal mortal, with skin as black as the deepest part of the sea and violet eyes that spun with galaxies. Their body was beautiful, but like most pretty things in Aadilor, it often masked a fatal touch.
A delighted shriek brought Achak’s attention back to the sisters.
The girls stood in the center of a hall in the dungeon, where the path split four ways, leading to endless more complicated corridors. It was a dark, damp place with barely a torch to light the passageways. Which was why a young, joyous laugh in such surroundings might have been more disconcerting than tortured screams.
“How clever, Ara.” Niya bounced on her feet. “Lark looks much better painted in spots. What do you think?” She spoke to her younger sister, who sat at their feet, playing with an ash-white stick. “Do you like looking as fierce as a cheetah?”
Bang. Bang. Bang. Larkyra hit the device on the stone floor, her white-blonde locks twinkling in the torchlight as she cooed in pleasure at the sound.
“That’s pretty,” said Arabessa, finishing up the last circle beside Larkyra’s ear. “Keep going, Lark. You can make the song of our painting ceremony.”
As if in response to her sister’s request, Larkyra continued smacking the stick, the rhythm echoing down the snaking corridors. Only Achak seemed to realize the instrument Larkyra held was in fact a rib bone.
These girls are most peculiar, thought the brother to his sister.
They are Johanna’s daughters. Peculiar is only the beginning of what they are.
A wave of sadness entered Achak’s chest as they thought of the girls’ mother, their dearest friend. But when one grew to be as old as them, such emotions held space and time less and less, and soon the melancholy was dashed away, a slip of a grain through a sandglass.
I like them, thought the brother.
As do I, agreed the sister.
Should we stop their ruckus before they wake the rest of the dungeon and a guardian comes?
I fear it is too late for that.
A putrid stench rushed through the hall, adding a thicker layer to the prison’s already-decaying aroma.
“That’s disgusting.” Arabessa waved her hand in front of her nose. “What dessert did you sneak after dinner, Niya?”
“That wasn’t me.” Niya tipped her chin back, offended. “I think Larkyra messed her diaper.”
The two girls looked down at their smiling little sister, who was still smacking the rib on the floor, before glancing back at one another.
“The last canary to sing gets the broken wing!” they shouted in unison.
“I said it first,” Niya was quick to announce. “You change her.”
“We said it at the same time.”
“If by ‘at the same time’ you mean I said it slightly quicker than—”
A roar vibrated down the cavern, knocking both sisters off-balance.
“What was that?” Niya turned in a circle, searching the multiple darkened halls.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t sound happy.” Arabessa crouched down to Larkyra, stilling her youngest sister’s hand. “Quiet, Lark. I think playtime is over.”
Larkyra turned wide blue eyes up to her sisters. Most children her age were already talking, but not since her scream at birth—which had changed all their lives—had she uttered more than a sound on a rare occasion. The girls had grown used to their younger sister’s silence, knowing that though she might not yet talk, she understood a great deal.
Another growl, followed by the slopping thud of a dozen heavy footfalls, echoed toward them; a beast broke through the shadows of a passageway to their left.
As one, the sisters gasped.
The monster was so large that its matted fur scratched along the rocky walls as it approached, its head forced to duck down. The best comparison was to a giant dirt-matted canine, except it had as many eyes as a spider and far more legs than a dog.
Said thick, hairy legs swung forward, ending with octopus-like tentacles. The combination made its movements seem frenzied, a swinging of hungry limbs, and with every step, the feelers suctioned to the corridor’s surface, cataloging the smells and flavors of what lay in its path. And if something did lie in the monster’s path, it was quickly removed with a squeezing pop before being thrown into razor-sharp teeth and swallowed.