Prologue

Valeria Malvada, current--self-proclaimed--princess of Darkness, maker of cute monsters, and alright mage, was staring up at her mother with hands on hips and eyes filled with a dangerous amount of determination. “I can take care of it, Mom,” she said.

Mom, also known as Luciana Malvada, the Goddess of Darkness, the Eternal Queen, the Lady of Death, the Disgusting One, and a few other less polite titles, crossed her arms, raised her nose, and looked down upon her daughter with the assessing gaze that only a millenia-old goddess could properly perfect.

Valeria squirmed. “Really. I’ll be fine this time. I swear. Plus I have Felix and Esme.”

“Esme, who also happens to have a quest of her own, one that happens to be bringing her in the same general direction that you’re suggesting this critical mission will bring you in?” The Dark Goddess asked.

Valeria crossed her arms right back at her mom. “Yes. It’s entirely coincidental and despite all evidence to the contrary I absolutely don’t want to go just to have fun with my friends.”

Luciana sniffed, but there was that familiar twinkle in her eyes, one that only a bare few people would be able to notice, and one that had Valeria grinning from ear to ear.

“This won’t, of course, be a repeat of the last time you went out, will it?”

“Mom! I was like, fourteen!”

“Ah, yes. And now that you’re approaching sixteen you have become so much more mature and capable.”

Valeria nodded with unironic seriousness. “Yes.”

Were the Dark Goddess not used to proclamations of doom and reading about prophetic declarations of destruction (often at her own hands no less) she might have been worried about the poor citizens of the Caselfella Republic. “Very well, you can go on this little mission,” she said, then she raised her hand to stall her daughter's very mature cheering and dancing. “But I have some conditions.”

***

“Father?”

Bianca entered her father’s office, careful, quiet steps, measured so as to not so much as make a sound. It was the graceful walk of a lady of the court. Her father didn’t notice, of course; he was too absorbed by the piles of paperwork before him.

“Ah, you’re here,” he said without looking up. “Good. I need you.”

She stood taller. “Anything,” she replied. Years of training, in secret more often than not, over a decade of hoping and... now this. She felt a cool chill seeping into her bones.

Her father looked up. He was, by all accounts, a handsome man, a chiseled jaw, bright eyes under a permanent scowl that only hinted at his serious nature. He inspected her the way another man might observe a new weapon before unsheathing it. “You heard of your mother’s arrangement with the Barrios matriarch?”

Bianca’s blood froze, her heart skipped a beat, and yet she didn’t so much as waver. Then the anger came, warm and inviting, tempting her to move. “I have heard, yes. I’m to be married to Tiberius Barrios, is it?”

“No,” her father said. “The boy is incompetent and a fool besides. While I have no doubt that you would break him to your will within a week, the alliance would suffer for it.”

She nodded, slowly. Her father knew. He always knew. She despised her society, at times, but never her father. He was too adept, too cunning. She recognized a lot of herself in him. Had she not been cursed to be born a woman, then perhaps...

“Your mother is having ideas again,” he continued. “I need you gone for a moment, out of the eye of all these suitors and fools.” He looked back down to his papers, then carefully took one from a corner of his desk and set it down before him.

It was different. She wasn’t unobservant. Unlike all the other sheets on the great desk, this one was set aside, apart from the others. It was pure white paper, of a stiffness comparable to thicker parchment. Doubtlessly paper from Iaria. Expensive, but in an understated way. Not one of the local lords then; their displays of wealth were of a more ostentatious nature.

“You are aware of the... people with whom I have been in communication?” he asked.

She nodded. A couple of years ago her father had left the city, not an entirely uncommon event. He had not told her of his destination, but that was also hardly uncommon. Still, she had been curious. Some bribes, a bit of flirting with the keeper of stalls and horses, then a few polite queries. She knew he had left the country, heading west. Little else though.

“Can I trust you, daughter?” he asked.

She locked eyes with him, blue on blue. “Yes,” she said. She trusted him, strangely enough. She hated her home, the kingdom and its rulers. Most of all she hated her place, and feared it in equal measure. Her role was to be traded and bred. It was downright unacceptable to her. But her father was different, above it all.

“You know, I always wanted better for you,” he murmured. “Especially seeing your talents and skills...” He nodded, then tapped the letter. “You’re going to Vizeda. You will meet someone there, a young woman coming in aboard a ship. I’ll write the details down for you. Meet her, and assist her.”

“In what way do you want me to assist her?” Bianca asked. She sensed an opportunity here.

“The young woman is... dangerous. Incredibly so. I do not know her entire purpose in coming here. I want to. Once that is learned, I will act appropriately to place our family in such a way as to survive. Perhaps things won’t be so dangerous, but... I’ve lived this long relying on more than just common sense.”

“I think I understand, father.”

Someone was coming who could shake the status quo within the country. That was dangerous, especially with how jealously some of the families guarded their power.

He nodded. “Good. You have three days to make it to Vizeda. There are books in my library, about the Dark Goddess and what is known of her. They are... not entirely accurate. Take them, read them critically on your way over.”

“Thank you, father,” Bianca said. She pinched the edges of her skirts and curtsied appropriately. “I will do my best.”

“See that you do, Bianca.”

She left, her core roiling with heat and cold and the fascinating clash of the two meeting.

***