Page 1 of Hearts on Fire

One

AMBER

Nocking an arrow into the bow, I squinted at the painted center on a piece of wood attached to the farthest part of the wall. I carefully aimed the iron tip of the arrow at the red circle about the size of an apple—or the size of a dragon’s eye.

I lingered, making sure everything was just perfect. I’d already broken one arrow by sending it too far to the right. It’d hit the rock wall instead of the wood and snapped in two. Now, I only had six arrows left in the quiver, and I had to be careful.

Holding my breath, I released the arrow. It flew across the courtyard. Its tip sank into the corner of the wood. The power of the impact made the arrow sing, the feathered tip of it swaying.

“Good,” Zenada approved.

She crouched by the fire that was heating a round oven in the other corner of the yard. Iolena, another woman of the Sanctuary, brought a tray of flat, round bread made from a simple dough of salt, water, buckwheat flour, and a rising agent. Once Iolena left and the oven was hot enough, Zenada put the bread rounds inside it, slapping them on the thick, heated walls of the oven to bake.

Her cheeks glowing from the heat, she brushed a few long, black strands of her hair from her face.

“You’re getting really good at shooting, Amber,” she said, stretching her back.

“Goodwould’ve been getting it straight into the center of that ‘eye.’ Anything outside of it would get me killed out there.” I sighed, heading to my target to retrieve the arrow.

I’d been practicing daily, sometimes twice a day if my chores permitted it. I was getting better at it. Just not good enough for my skill to be useful yet.

“You’re getting there,” Zenada encouraged.

Mother allowed me to train without arguing. Other women were encouraged to train with weapons as well. With Isar gone, the Sanctuary had lost its most capable guard and protector. Now, everyone had to step up.

Zenada removed the baked bread from the oven, piling the flat, dark rounds onto a wide, ceramic platter.

“Here.” She shoved one round into my hand. “Have it now, before the meal.”

Perpetually hungry, I had no willpower to refuse, biting off a huge chunk of the warm, fragrant bread right away.

“Thanks. Do you want some? I can share.” I ripped the bread in half.

I knew thesalamandraswere hungry too. Just because their bodies were better equipped to deal with the lack of food, showing almost no signs of malnutrition, it didn’t mean they didn’t suffer from the gnawing pangs of hunger.

“No, thank you.” Zenada averted her eyes from my offering. “I’m good.”

A winged shadow fell on the stones of the courtyard. I ducked instinctively, my heart nearly stopping with a loud thud of panic. After more than two weeks in Dakath, I expected nothing but bad things to come from the sky.

“It’s just a cloud owl,” Zenada said, her voice lifting.

The shadow was smaller than that of a gargoyle man and much smaller than that of a dragon. Still, it was bigger than any bird I'd ever seen.

I looked up, following the flight of the magnificent white bird. Gliding over the courtyard in a slow, graceful arc of descent, the owl flew past us and through the open doors into the Sanctuary.

“Why did it fly inside?” I stared after it.

Zenada’s obsidian eyes lit up with excitement. “It’s a messenger owl. From the king.”

“But I didn’t see it carrying any messages.” There was no letter in its beak and no scrolls in its claws.

“It’ll speak the message directly to whom it’s intended. To Mother, of course.”

“A talking owl?”

“Yes. Its kind comes from the Sky Kingdom that’s high above the clouds where the sky fae live. King Edkhar got one as a gift long ago.”

I remembered Mother saying she would write to the king. They clearly had some form of communication. I’d just never imagined it involved a magical talking owl.

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