Special Edition - Ruined Wings

PREORDER: THIS IS A PREORDER FOR RUINED WINGS SPECIAL EDITION HARDCOVER. IT IS ANTICIPATED TO SHIP JANUARY 2025.

** SERIES BUNDLES INCLUDE RUINED WINGS AND STOLEN EMBERS, AND WILL NOT SHIP UNTIL FEBRUARY 2025.**

The deadliest part of my day was this stone staircase.

Hunger clawed at my stomach as I trudged up the uneven catwalk toward the overseer behind the line of other miners. The weight of my pack turned my knees to jelly as my muscles threatened to dump me on my ass down the stone steps to the back of the line.

That was if I even survived. Nausea warred with hunger as I lifted my gaze from my feet to the gaping hole in the mountain, the coming night a warning more than anything else. The night brought monsters—great winged beasts that threatened to pick us off if we strayed too close to the surface.

Beasts that breathed fire and pummeled us without mercy.

Beasts that made leaving this place impossible.

Or so the Perder Lucem said. I still thought the catwalk was deadlier than any beast outside of this mountain.

Roughly, I was shoved forward, my foot knocking a loose pebble off the edge of the step to the gorge below, which was enough to prove me right. If I didn’t pay attention, I’d slip off this skeletal stone staircase that wound toward the top of the mountain and fall to my end like so many had before me.

Last week, a young girl fell from the top—the fraying joke of a rope lining the catwalk unable to stop her from going over the edge.

Some say she was pushed.

Some say she jumped.

But I’d bet she simply fell like so many had before her, not that it mattered. Life under the mountain went on as if we hadn’t lost another one of us, as if she meant nothing.

Maybe none of us did to them.

Gritting my teeth, I kept my eyes trained forward, ignoring the burn of my thighs as I took another step. If I didn’t fall, I’d hopefully get something to eat. Though, if the expression on the overseer’s face meant anything, today wouldn’t be a good day.

It never was.

Filthy and sour, Darren was just as tired as the rest of us, but at least when he was doling out rations in exchange for the magic-stealing ore mined from this very mountain, he got a seat. I envied that spindly chair and contemplated what I’d give for a cushioned spot to rest my weary bones.

But more?

I’d commit murder for a real meal. It didn’t even need to be a real meal, either. It could be broth and a hunk of bread—anything more than the scant brick-like rations they used as payment for Lumentium.

Those iridescent rocks poisoned me with every hammer, every breath, every second I spent under this mountain, but they were also my savior. Without them, there would be no way to keep the magic brewing beneath my skin a secret. No way to sneak under the noses of the Perder Lucem guild without a death sentence.

Because that was exactly what magic was here.

Death.

But it wasn’t just death for me. It was also death for the winged beasts that kept us here. It was our one weapon against the kingdom pinning us inside this mountain. A kingdom I planned on fleeing to, even as much as I hated it.

Each day, I snuck one of those hunks of poison into my pocket, hoping it would temper the cursed power that had awoken on my twentieth birthday. For the last five years, I’d hung onto one of those rocks tight, praying no one ever noticed me lining my pockets with them.

Praying no one tried to take them from me.

Praying I’d still had enough strength to get us out of here, even though I poisoned myself.

Praying the magic-abhorring guild didn’t look too closely at what was left of my family.

The three people ahead, a man I didn’t recognize slipped on the steps, his pack too heavy for him to carry up the deathtrap that was the catwalk. His shout echoed off the rock walls as his pack knocked into the two men in front of us, nearly taking us all out. My head spun as I let my gaze fall to the bottom of the crevasse. Bones littered the jagged slate, the rest washed away in the trickling stream—all that remained of the dead.

It had been six years since my parents had fallen, trying to escape the fire-breathing beasts that pinned us here, the dragons ferrying them into the afterlife without so much as a warning. I cursed Orrus daily for stealing them from us, but a part of me worried cursing the god of death would have me meeting him sooner rather than later.

At least they’d died before they could see what I’d become.

Crouching so I wouldn’t fall, I latched onto my sister’s hand, yanking her to the relative safety of my position while my stomach turned end over end. I tried to peel my gaze from the poor man scrambling for purchase on the edge, his pack nowhere to be seen. Someone must have ripped it from his back, and now he dangled above the wide-open crevasse, his death almost assured.

If I were brave enough, I’d run to help him. But instead, I was frozen, squeezing Nyrah’s hand so hard she gasped in pain. I met wide green eyes as he realized no one would come to his aid, no one would help, and then I was helpless to watch as he lost his fight with gravity, his body falling to the jagged rocks below.

Closing my eyes, I cursed Orrus yet again for taking another life so needlessly—for making his presence known with every heartbeat, every step, every waking second.

Then the line moved on as if we hadn’t just watched someone take their last breath—as if we hadn’t just become closer to our own end.

As if tomorrow it wouldn’t be one of us.

Ignoring the burn of tears in my throat, I forced myself to stand up, to move forward, to take another step. Nyrah peeled my hand off of hers, her mumbled chiding barely a murmur over the ringing in my ears.

Ten years my junior, it had been a challenge to keep her safe—to keep her from following our parents in death. If it wasn’t the stairs, then it was the lack of food or the cut-throat miners trying to rip off our haul. And that was just what was under the mountain.

Outside brought its own dangers.

Each day was a new delicate dance of survival, worse now that she’d caught the eye of the guild leader’s son.

Thane Ashbourne was attractive enough, with a square jaw, bright-blue eyes, and hair as blond as my sister’s. But his muscular shoulders hadn’t seen a day of mining, and he lacked all humanity, all warmth. He saw my sister as a prize simply because he couldn’t have her.

And he couldn’t have her.

I didn’t care who his father was.

All we needed was two more days—maybe a week—and we’d have hoarded enough supplies to carry us to Credour. From there, I didn’t know what I’d do to feed us, but it mattered less to me than getting us from underneath the guild’s thumb.

“Half a ration,” Darren barked to the man in front of us, his haul twice the size of Nyrah’s.

My little sister grumbled in affront as she readjusted her grip on her pack, her knees likely trembling harder than mine. We’d worked from sunup until nearly sundown with no breaks, no food, and no water—wasting away as our quotas rose day by day.

That’s how they keep you docile.

That’s how they keep you under their thumb.

You can’t look around and see the cracks if you can’t even breathe.

Momma’s words echoed in my head, the truth of them just as bitter as the loss of her.

The Perder Lucem had been at war with Credour since before I was born—the magic-wielders keeping us locked under this mountain in a conflict which seemed to have no logical end. Other than “our” side being against magic and Credour being the home of it, much of the start of the war was a mystery.

Well, other than the Luxa, but I tried not to think about them.

The deadly fire witches had haunted my nightmares since the day my power rose to the surface, my mother’s dire warnings almost like premonitions of what I would become. And her book on the subject did little to ease my fears.

A Luxa will wake the Beast…

A Luxa will unbind him…

A Luxa will destroy us all…

But it was tough to give a fuck about what kind of magic-user I may or may not be—especially from a book so old it might as well have been a fairytale. Credour was the only place that might accept me—the only place I could keep us alive.

Dragons be damned.

If we remained here, one of two things would happen. One, I’d lose my tenuous hold on the magic beneath my skin, get thrust before the guild, and summarily executed. Or two? We would starve to death like River and Jonas had, their withered bodies just giving out on them, even though they were so young.

And for what?

So we could mine more poison rocks?

So we could produce more weapons for the Perder Lucem’s war?

So we could live and die by a creed likely none of us believed in?

A Luxa hadn’t been heard of in two hundred years. The race had probably died out just like the rest of us. And the magic under my skin could be fire. It could also be light, or energy, or…

Acid churned in my belly, the gnawing ache of hunger mingling with the heat of my anger as I stared at the back of the man in front of me. I dreamt of a day when I didn’t have to hide, when merely breathing didn’t hurt. When I didn’t have to fear that every single breath would be my last. When I didn’t curse the god of death for taking so many away from us.

But acting on my rage wouldn’t serve me—it wouldn’t give me bread. It wouldn’t give us a real home.

All it would do was get me killed—get us killed.

I slipped a hand in my pocket, squeezing the poisonous rock hard enough to split my skin.

Two more days. Maybe a week. Quit being a baby and get yourself together.

The heat of my blood warmed the rock in my palm as flecks of the stone sizzled against the open wound.

Ignoring Nyrah’s grumbles and my own desires, I kept my face carefully blank, feigning patience for my turn. Just last week, this same haul would have given us five rations. Either the food supply was dwindling, or someone had gathered the strength to step out of line.

Because if it wasn’t the insurmountable quotas, it was cut rations when we were all practically starving. The guild would do just about anything to keep us from asking questions—to keep us from rising up, from ripping them from their cozy beds and tossing them into the crevasse along with the miners they let die. It was getting to the point where most of us would rather face the dragons ourselves than live in the darkness for one more day.

My gaze slid to my sister as I mentally willed her not to say anything. Her shining blue eyes met mine, and I wondered where I got my features. Nyrah was waif-thin—like all of us—but with an ethereal beauty like a sprite or a Fae. She was all long limbs on her tiny frame, with a button nose and gorgeous in an obvious way even though they worked us damn near to death.

Where she was blonde and blue-eyed like our parents, I resembled no one. My hair was dark as coal, my eyes the green of the treetops. My little sister barely reached my shoulder and likely wouldn’t get much taller, but neither of us were very tall. It was the one thing we had in common.

Just as we reached Darren, Thane seemed to materialize out of the shadows, his gaze locked on Nyrah as she handed her pack to the overseer.

Thane didn’t mine like the rest of us. No, he stayed with his father to learn how to lead this guild one day—though if I were to guess, there wouldn’t be a guild for him to lead by the time it was his turn. We were barely hanging on by a thread.

The only time he deigned to poke his head out of his plush battle rooms was when Nyrah was close to the guild headquarters. Then he would somehow find my sister, somehow know she was near, seeking her out like she was a beacon.

If he were anyone else, I’d think it was romantic. I’d encourage her to gain his favor. But he wasn’t.

“Beautiful as ever, Miss Tenebris.” He rubbed at the blond stubble at his jaw, avarice in his cold stare. “Care to share a meal with me?”

Nyrah tried to ignore him, focusing on Darren as we waited for his judgment on her haul. “How many rations today?”

Darren looked up from her haul, slid his cool black gaze to Thane, and then returned to her. “Quarter ration. This is the third day in a row you missed your quota. Don’t make it a fourth.”

He slapped the ration into her hand, his filthy fingers all over our only food, effectively dismissing her to the clutches of Thane.

And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I barely registered when Darren took my pack, too busy staring at Thane’s menacing hand wrapped around her bicep as he yanked her closer. Swallowing my fear, I clutched the rock tighter in my palm.

Don’t. She can handle him. She’s not stupid. Just two more days, and we’re out of here.

Guilt stabbed me in the chest. If I were braver, we would have left already. If I were smarter, I would have figured out a way to get us out of here and to Credour as soon as my power manifested. If I were a better sister, I would have slammed my fist into his stupid, smug face.

But I was none of those things, and my sister was suffering for it.

“Quarter ration,” Darren rumbled, his beady eyes alight with a sick sort of glee as they met mine.

I wondered if he ate the excess, the bastard. All of us were starving, but Darren wasn’t as gaunt as the rest of us, and it pissed me off.

“I have four times what my sister carried,” I reminded him, forcing myself not to kick his chair over and watch him tumble to the gorge below. “That should at least buy me a whole ration.”

Arguing wouldn’t do me any good, but I had to try. We couldn’t keep going on nothing. I couldn’t make it out of here without more food in my belly or…

Two more days. Just two more days.

“This is your third day not meeting your quota, as well. If you want to eat, you have to do the work.”

Like he would know anything about work.

He slapped the ration onto my palm, the tiny morsel of food barely two bites. An entire day of work was only worth crumbs. I fought off the urge to scream in his face as I swallowed my rage. Because screaming led to other things. Things like setting my power free just to see if I could watch his head explode.

Squeezing the rock in my pocket tighter, the poison tempered my magic just enough for me to move on and save my sister from the creepy affections of a man it would hurt to piss off. Hooking my sister’s elbow with my own, I tugged her toward our sleeping quarters.

Two more days.

Thane stared at my arm like he’d enjoy cutting it off my body, the twist of a sneer a threat all on its own. His grip tightened on my sister’s arm hard enough for her to whimper before he let her go.

“Remember what I said, Nyrah.” Thane’s sneer fell to a sinister smile, as though whatever he’d said was already a foregone conclusion. “I’ll expect your answer within the week.”

A pit as wide as the gorge yawned wide in my belly, sending me into a proverbial freefall.

One more day.

Because we wouldn’t make it two.

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