Chapter 1: The Moon Count Begins
The Jade Spire, 1,997th Year of the Obsidian Reign
The drums began at dusk.
One for each century Lee had ruled, and one for the curse that would end him.
One thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven beats echoed off the Jade Spire, shaking dust from the thousand-year tapestries. The sound rolled down the mountain and into the valleys where humans pressed their foreheads to dirt and whispered prayers to keep the dragons from noticing them.
Lee didn’t flinch. He never did.
He stood at the apex of the Spire, where the wind tore at his black robes and the clouds bled around his shoulders. From here, the world looked small. Human kingdoms were smudges of firelight. Rival dragon courts were distant smears of color on the horizon. None of it mattered.
The moon did.
It hung low and swollen tonight, three nights from full. He counted them the way a condemned man counts steps to the gallows.
“Three years,” said a voice behind him.
Lady Vyrassa. She didn’t walk. She glided, her crimson gown whispering over stone like spilled wine. Rubies the size of thrush eggs dripped from her throat and wrists. Every inch of her was crafted to be looked at, and she knew it.
“One thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven years, my king,” she continued, coming to stand beside him. Too close. She always stood too close. “And only three left until the 2000th full moon of your life.”
Lee didn’t look at her. “You’ve been counting longer than I have.”
“Someone must.” Her smile was a blade. “The court grows… anxious. An unmated Dragon King is a weak dynasty. If you fall, the Jade Spire falls with you.”
He finally turned his head. His eyes were the color of old gold, and they didn’t blink often enough to be human. “Is that why you brought me this?”
He lifted his hand. Draped across his palm was a betrothal necklace—three strands of black pearls, each one perfectly round, separated by claws of hammered gold. At the center hung a teardrop ruby that pulsed like a heart.
Vyrassa’s doing. She’d had it commissioned four hundred years ago. She’d presented it to him every decade since, with the patience of a spider.
“A queen settles a court,” she said softly. “A mate breaks a curse. I can be both.”
Lee closed his fist. The pearls creaked. “The curse says true mate. Not convenient one. Not ambitious one.”
Her smile didn’t falter, but something cold flickered in her eyes. “And how would you know the difference? You’ve never looked.”
He had. Once. Two centuries ago, when the court scholars first translated the Celestial Court’s sentence: Bound to your true mate. But if she is mortal, the binding will trade her breath for yours.
He’d burned the scrolls and outlawed the search. He would not buy his life with an innocent’s death. Better to die as a king than live as a murderer.
“Go,” he told Vyrassa. “Before I forget why I keep you alive.”
She bowed, but it was mockery. The rubies at her throat caught the moonlight and threw blood across the stone. “As my king commands. But the moon rises whether you watch it or not.”
She left him to the wind and the drums.
