My horse’s nostrils spilled steam in the glacial air of the Teeth. Beside me, seven more riders trudged their way through the heavy snow, clustered together in a defensive pact, laden with enough supplies to last us more than a week in these godforsaken mountains.

From out of the fir trees, our scout Yulia rode up to me. Under her frost-stuck red scarf, her eyes matched the pale clouds. “We’re taking the pass!” she shouted over the howling wind. Her words hit me like a club to the stomach.

I yanked my reins, my horse snorting angrily to a stop. “What? With only one bonder?”

“That pass is the only way we bond a new daemon before that storm sweeps us away. We take it or go home empty handed.”

“But—”

“Those are the Captain’s orders, Kain. He has faith in you.”

I nodded stiffly. So be it.

“Have a fetter ready,” warned Yulia.

We wound our way down the path, my hands frozen to the reins. We’d been in the Teymurçin Mountains—the Teeth, most called them—for a little over three days, and we had yet to see any daemons. The pass to Tahir Vos would bring us a daemon with absolute certainty, but it wasn’t the sort of path one took unless they were desperate. Too much could go wrong.

I fell to the back of the pack. Captain Shokarov led us, a red plume in his helmet. Behind him rode six soldiers, clad in the grey-and-black uniform of the Canavar Archon’s military. Some trained their hands on the pommels of their runic swords, some kept their ironbows at the ready.

Three of our squad, like Yulia, were masters. Behind their horses, robed and hooded in black, their daemons followed: two humanoids, the third a hunched figure with six scaled limbs. Even trained properly, the horses snorted in fear whenever the daemons came too close. Like us, they knew the daemons were savage, dangerous things. Every creature alive could feel it.

The mountain path wound down sharply. Near the bottom, it vanished between two cliffs, the space between them trapped in blizzard. I gathered myself. We wouldn’t get through that pass without a fight.

“Kain!” Captain Shokarov shouted. “Where’s that fetter?”

“In progress, sir.” I patted my horse’s neck and leaned in to whisper “Vorsa.” Walk.

I closed my eyes and released my reins. I needed to concentrate.

From the place I locked my memories, caging them in unyielding iron, I drew a bond.

Sage Jawahir’s tutelage hummed within me, filling my blood like a bottle of liquor. My head spun, my tongue felt packed down with cotton balls. The roar of the wind dampened to a gentle rush; if I listened close enough, I could hear the snowflakes in the air, the slight crackling of frozen earth, the heartbeats of voles buried deep below.

With a strangled gasp, I tore off my glove. Searing through my skin, a fetter glowed on my palm: a scarlet circle rimmed with ancient glyphs, spinning slowly. White-hot pain shot from the fetter up my arm, threatening to black out my vision, but I bit back the void. I had a responsibility first. Without me, my fellows might not make it through that pass.

Few had my gift. Few hated the daemons enough to desire it.

The pass squeezed us tight. Yulia rode beside me, her daemon not four feet away from my leg. He was a unique sort, his appearance almost disarming. Artem was a being of fire, but his outer shell was a facsimile of a handsome young man, his skin a pale cornflower blue and his hair in loose black curls around two ram’s horns. It wasn’t until you saw his eyes that you were reminded of the true monster beneath—burning like the pits of hell, flames curling where there should have been an iris and pupil.

I could feel the bond between Artem and Yulia. Even if it was invisible, only a tether of magic, my fetter screamed against its presence. Artem was already claimed. The fetter did not want him.

“Is he bothering you?” Yulia asked.

“I’m that obvious?” I choked out, trying to hold onto the fetter. It lashed at me, furious for bringing it so close to Artem.

Yulia looked at me with pity. “Is there anything I can do?”

“It’s fine. I—” I gritted my teeth against a wave of fire up my arm. “I can hold it for now.”

Yulia reached out and touched my shoulder, and I tried to focus on the gentleness of it, at the way my friend cared for me. The daemons could not feel that. They couldn’t know affection, or joy, or love, or any of the pain that came with them. I had to hold on. Yulia should not be here. None of us should be. The daemons did this to them—to me. They forced us to arm ourselves, to bind monsters to our very souls to keep our home safe.

“We’re grateful for you, Rozin,” Yulia said. Her use of my first name while on duty startled me enough to act as a distraction, even just for a second.

“Thank you,” I gasped.

Yulia raised her arm, and Artem stumbled. “Away from Kain!” Yulia shouted, and with a single leap, Artem was suddenly on the other side of the riders. One of the horses reared in alarm from his appearance, almost bucking its rider.

The laughter of my squad let me keep my head clear, solidify the burning fetter. Joy. Laughter. Beautiful, human things.

A new soldier rode up beside Yulia and I. Rafiq was only a few years younger than us, maybe nineteen at the most. He’d joined our squad last week with commendations, and with news that he was to be given a bonded.

“Captain says I should stick close to you, Kain,” said Rafiq. “How far away can you bond from?”

Yulia spoke for me. “Kain is one of the longest shots I’ve worked with. She can get you twenty feet, maybe more if you hold still.”

Rafiq’s face fell. “That’s long?”

“You signed up to bond with a daemon, and you’re afraid of getting near one?” I asked.

“No. I’m afraid of it dicing me.”

“Don’t worry yourself too much, qarma.” Brother. “I’ve never lost an enlisted before.”

At the word in our shared mother tongue, Azherbali, Rafiq’s shoulders slackened. “Thank you, baszi.” Sister.

His first day in our group, Yulia had heard our exchange and mistaken Rafiq for my true brother. We were similar enough—we shared the black hair, sandy skin, and long eyes of most Azherbi—even if where he was boyish and soft, I was sharp. Hardened from years in the military, from travelling over snow and sleet and harsh terrain. Always on alert for what might lurk around the corner. Like a hawk scanning the ground for a mouse, Yulia once told me. Waiting to strike.

Our group halted.

“Above!” Captain Shokarov shouted. His daemon’s head snapped up, staring at the lip of the canyon.

My fetter almost purred.

“Yihasi!” shouted one of the enlisted, a Mehraki master.

“Daemon!” shouted Yulia.

For a second, our group waited motionless. A dark shape paced the edge of the canyon, kicking down shards of sharp grey stone. There was no way to tell what type it was. I squinted against the sun, trying to determine if it had wings, or a tail, maybe the colour of its skin.

The daemon struck.

In a blur, it dove the sheer canyon wall and slammed into the powdery snow. I struggled to stay in my saddle as my horse screamed and bucked, backing away from the monster before us.

The daemon pushed to its feet. In some ways, he might have been a man—had it not been for his grey skin and pitiless black eyes, filling his sclera. From his back, two leathery wings stirred up flurries, pumping up a hoarfrost wind.

“Elemental!” Captain Shokarov shouted. And just the type we needed—winged, tall stature—fodder for the archon’s personal protectors. “Ice! Kain, get that fucking fetter on it!”

But our group was already in disarray. The daemon’s wind was so cold it sucked the breath right out of me, every drag a squeeze of pain. I struggled to move, but my clothes felt frozen solid. Useless. I was useless.

Horses screamed. Someone shouted.

Distantly, I saw Yulia drop from her horse, a flash of blonde hair and Canavar grey, rolling as she hit the ground. She whipped her arm in an arc, hand curled like a claw.

Artem slammed into the daemon.

Yulia’s eyes were all I could focus on, tracking Artem in hasty flicks and spins. Artem spun with the daemon in the snow, hissing and spitting, vanishing in a cloud of white and churning wind.

The cold broke. I fell forward in my saddle, gasping. The fetter no longer hurt. It sang and hummed, pulling towards the un-bonded daemon. I dug my heels into my horse, but it wouldn’t move any closer. Despite its training, the poor animal was too afraid. Nothing we did could ever overpower its instincts.

My feet sank into the snow.

“Kain!” Rafiq said, taking my wrist. His kind eyes were wide, frightened, but he smiled like a madman. If this worked, his lot in life would take a sharp upturn.

The fetter hummed. Not long now.

Our four masters and the soldiers stood as one, ironbows aimed at the daemon, blocking one side of the canyon. On the other side, their bonded choked the way through the pass. Artem still grappled with the daemon, lost in their contained blizzard. The daemon could free itself from Artem, if it were strong enough. But now it had nowhere to go. Our arrows were faster than its wings.

“Kain!” Captain Shokarov shouted. “Get out of range!”

I pulled Rafiq with me and made it clear just as Yulia screamed “Burn!”

Artem burst into flame.

The canyon blazed with heat so fierce I had to shield my eyes with my arm. Rafiq clutched my hand for dear life. The fire grew hotter and hotter, spinning with the daemon’s wind, until an inferno rose in a tight spiral, spitting out the top of the canyon. I began to sweat in my coat, the air so dry and hot I smelled burning hair—then it stopped.

The inferno fizzled, and we found Artem pinned down by the daemon, its claws sunk deep in his back. I dared a look at Yulia. Her knees were in the snow, her face contorted in agony.

“Back!” the daemon snarled, the Novoski language like a bark from his black tongue. His void eyes slid over our coats—over the emblem of the Canavar Archon, a white enamel wolf pinned to our chests. “Don’t move.”

Our group froze. All I could hear was the rush of wind above the canyon and Yulia’s horrible whimpering. We couldn’t do anything. If the daemon pushed too hard, Artem would die. And so would Yulia.

“Wolves,” the daemon hissed. “Hunted in a pack.”

Captain Shokarov pulled his bow taut. “You mean hunting.”

The daemon pressed his foot down. Black blood seeped out of Artem’s robes, and Yulia shrieked in agony, tumbling face-first into the snow. “No,” the daemon hissed. “I don’t.”

“Now?” Rafiq whispered, trembling against my side.

Our captain couldn’t help Yulia, and neither could the soldiers. Only I could do something to save her. If we moved fast enough, we could separate that daemon from Artem.

I nodded. My breath came in billowing clouds. “Now.”

Rafiq charged for the daemon.

Those few seconds stretched an age: Rafiq’s boots kicking up snow, the daemon’s bemusement at a soldier charging for him empty handed, then seeing my hand and realising what I was about to do, his claws sharpening into ice, reaching for Artem’s neck to finish him off …

And the fetter bursting from my hand in a flash of yearning light.

A black chain, pulled from some ethereal plane, unspooled from within my palm and shot to the daemon; the fetter at the end of the chain screamed as it went, hungry, delighted, aching to snap up its prey.

The daemon was a second too late. He tried to jump back, take flight with his black wings, but he was one foot too close to me. “Andiya!” the daemon screamed, some language I didn’t know, then the fetter closed around his neck.

As soon as the fetter took the daemon, I felt him.

Fear ran up the fetter, then confusion, then desperation. The senses of a caged, trapped animal, knowing it could not escape.

I gripped the black chain, digging in my feet as the daemon bucked and pulled. He pumped his wings, trying to take off, but I held him to earth. The fetter put him at my mercy.

But I couldn’t delay. The chain was hardening, digging itself deeper into my soul. I didn’t want a daemon. If I didn’t give him to Rafiq soon, I’d have one, and the emotions I felt from that daemon would be less of a trickle, more of a flood.

“Ready anytime, Kain!” Rafiq called to me, dancing in a wary ring around the daemon. The daemon lunged for me, his terror almost blinding me in white.

I let the fetter rush through me, up my arm and across my chest, and a second black chain flew from my other hand.

As it closed around Rafiq’s wrist, I felt him too: his excitement, his barely contained panic, and something greater than the daemon’s base instinct. Something human.

For a brief moment, I experienced Rafiq through his eyes: I loved his mother, and his sister, and his lakeside house in Ardila Vos; I wanted to send money home, I wanted tell Fatimah that I loved her, but I never would, because she was married and nothing I could ever say would change that …

Then the two souls joined at my heart, and they snapped away from me.

Rafiq and the daemon left my mind.

All went still; the canyon seemed to pause, the wind falling to a gentle breeze, our group frozen as statues.

“Rafiq,” I said. “Get your daemon off of Artem.”

He didn’t need me to tell him how. Rafiq could feel the daemon as an extension of himself now, vicious and wild, bonded by the fetter.

His lanky body shaking like a dead leaf on a branch, Rafiq jerked his hand. The daemon, his face now blank and stupefied with the shock of his master’s human emotions, leaped from Artem—or rather, tripped from him.

As soon as Artem was free, he sprung up and snapped back to Yulia.

It always unsettled me, watching how bonded interacted with their masters. A daemon was a wild, sadistic thing. But a bonded was tamed, gentle. They became a part of the master they served, body and soul. People trusted the bonded, relied on them. I couldn’t feel the same way. I could not forgive.

Artem nestled Yulia against his shoulder, supporting her. Yulia’s face was pinched in pain, but she fought against it. Artem would heal in a matter of hours, as all daemons did. Until then, she’d feel his injury as a mirror.

“Everyone back on your horses,” Captain Shokarov said, breaking the unnatural silence. “The longer we stay here, the longer we give another one of those bastards to find us.” He looked directly at me, that craggy, gruff face stern. “And I’ve never seen Kain manage more than two fetters in a day. The next time we’re attacked better be our last, or we’re gonna have a hell of a time getting through to Tahir Vos.”

As my group mounted back up, and Artem helped Yulia into her saddle, I approached Rafiq. He hadn’t moved from his spot.

“You all right?” I asked, a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s so angry,” Rafiq whispered.

He trembled under my hand. It would be a week or more before Rafiq learned to separate his mind from his daemon, and far longer before his daemon’s emotions faded completely. A daemon’s anger was a terrible thing to behold. I hoped Rafiq was strong enough to fight through it.

I led Rafiq to his horse, waiting patiently as he struggled onto it, stiff like he was made of wood. As these things went, Rafiq was handling it well. Some new masters burst into tears, some gripped their hair and screamed, some fainted outright. Rafiq dealt with it the same way I’d seen many others do: complete silence.

As we rode through the pass, we all kept our eyes trained on the tops of the cliffs. One more daemon, and that was all I could manage. A third fight would be to the death.

I drew another fetter, grinding my teeth against it.

The pass widened. Deep cold had settled into my bones; the skin on my cheeks felt like it would crack from the frost burn.

Rafiq pulled off his glove and pushed up his sleeve. His fetter was gone. Instead, along his arm, in shimmering black, a tattoo had wound its way up from his palm to the elbow. For every daemon, the design was different. Perhaps it said something about their origin or their abilities, or their names. I didn’t know.

Rafiq’s tattoo was of clouds and sunbeams, a low castle rising from a sea cliff on his wrist. Blades rained down from the sky, piercing the palace, the sun and clouds, and the silhouettes of birds in flight. He turned his hand. On his knuckles were the outlines of black claws, their tips ending just below his fingernails. Tattooed outlines of dripping blood smeared his palm.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said.

Rafiq only nodded and tugged his glove back on, looking as though he might be sick. His new daemon trailed behind him, dazed. A tattoo had formed on him as well—a black collar around his neck of ancient runes pressed between two thick lines.

My horse’s hooves crunched on dry dirt. I began to sweat in my coat. All around me, I saw my riders pulling at their scarves. One unbuttoned their coat.

Where had the cold gone?

Captain Shokarov held up his arm, and we halted.

The bonded stirred. They turned in place, eyes seeking something, scanning the upper walls of the pass and the thin cracks in the rocks that broke off to other paths. Something was following us.

After a quick whistle, we pressed onwards, this time at a faster pace. Around a corner, the pass ended.

The wide expanse of the Teeth spread out below us, miles of snow capped mountains and sharp grey stone. Just at the edge of the range, a dark spot marked where the city of Tahir Vos lay, nestled in a valley. Only two days’ ride, and in relative safety. Daemons were rare in the open mountains.

We took one of the serpentine, winding paths that led down the mountain. The cold had all but dissipated. Unusual, for mid spring, especially in Azherbal. It was not until at least a month from now that spring would come to the mountains.

My fetter purred.

My heart skipped.

“Daemon!” I screamed, but too late.

The snow melted all around us, hissing steam, as though poured over with boiling water. But where there should have been puddles, there was only dry stone, cracks opening under our feet as though the mountain was crumbling apart.

Two soldiers jumped from their horses. Wind blasted over the mountains, hot and dry and stinging. An orange glow rumbled beneath the rock, peeking through the cracks, and the heat rose to a blister.

“Hold!” shouted Captain Shokarov. “Stay together!”

I threw my arm over my eyes.

A blast of molten stone shot up from the ground, hissing through the cracks in a burning fan. Searing wind howled through me, sucking away the frenzied voices of my friends. My horse screamed and bucked. I held on, desperate, kicking its haunches.

A flash of blonde hair galloped past me. Vents of molten stone hissed open everywhere, pouring steam and impossible heat, blinding me.

“Yulia!” I screamed, but she and her daemon were nowhere to be found. My sweaty fingers slipped on the buttons of my coat. I would faint in so much clothing. How was this possible? Where had this heat—this volcano come from? What manner of magic could do this?

A dark shape stepped through a wall of lava.

My horse reared, and I fell.

I scraped my fingers on the rocks, pushing back as fast as I could, slipping on the ever-moving surface of the cracking mountain. A figure floated towards me through the orange-bright steam, a curtain of hair flowing behind her, whipping in the wind.

“Daemon,” I rasped, my throat dry with heat.

“Says you,” she spat.

The world seemed to tilt on its axis as the realization hit me. She had made this lava, and this storm, and this searing heat. Whatever this daemon was, it was no lesser creature. She was something humans had not seen in our lands in decades; something that laced our history books with blood.

But how? Why was a High Order in the Teeth?

Run. Our only option was run.

But she emerged from the steam, and I went loose.

So close, I could see the rage on her features: the crinkle to her straight nose, her furrowed, sharp brows, her bared teeth behind dark painted lips. Over my fear, a curtain of magic clouded my senses. My panic died. My breathing stilled. Somehow, the daemon was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

In a trance, I sat motionless on the ground. Her skin was a soft brown, and she dripped gold—her thighs and stomach painted with shimmering outlines of leaves and tiny blossoms, her wrists and ankles and horns and ears adorned with bands and jewellery and rubies. Thin black horns twisted upwards from her head, ending in a point. Her bare feet did not touch the ground—instead, she floated just above it. A dark red panel of diaphanous fabric hung at her waist, a simple band of embroidered silk crossed on her chest, looped around her back and neck.

My eyes lingered, caught by her hair: an impossible, dark crimson, so long it flowed to her waist in rolling waves. It was like a spell, drawing me in. I forgot where I was, what I had been.

“Where is he?” the daemon spat. “I can smell his magic on you.”

The harshness of her voice cut through the trance. I stayed silent, pulling my hand into my stomach. One shot. I only had one shot to make it out alive.

“Where is Khalid?”

The daemon curled near. So close, I saw her irises were the same colour as her hair, her ears slightly tapered. “I cannot feel Khalid. What have you done with Khalid?”

“I bound him,” I forced through my teeth.

The daemon appeared confused, head cocked to the side. She glanced behind her, through the steam, where somewhere my group shouted and scrambled for order. Her lips partly slightly, curling breathlessly around the word bound. Then she understood—her eyes snapped wider, a wave of devastation curling her shoulders down, tightening her hands into fists.

“Then you have killed him,” the daemon growled, and I knew that something had snapped. I scrambled away, finally struggling to my feet.

A burst of lava erupted beside me, and I dodged, crashing back to the ground.

“My friend,” the daemon screamed. “You killed my friend!”

The mountain trembled, the ground hot to the touch.

I pushed to my feet again and ran. It didn’t matter what direction. Only away.

The ground crumbled under my foot. I fell again and hit stone. My shoulder pulsed from the impact. A ring cracked the earth around me, trapping me in a burning cage.

“Did you enjoy it?” the daemon screeched. “Were you proud to damn Khalid to hell?”

The fetter threatened to jump from my palm. It seared, yearning to serve its purpose. “Yes,” I said, and as the daemon lunged for me in a fit of rage, I let the fetter go.

We had never been able to bind a High Order. That sort of power, that magic, could not be controlled. But I did not have a choice, if I wanted to live.

The fetter closed around her neck, and a bellow of anger ripped from her throat.

The daemon’s consciousness hit me. Where Khalid had been flashes, only primal instinct, the High Order was an inferno. Her consciousness reared against the fetter, lashing out with tooth and claw and indignation. My hand burned red-hot. Fire laced my veins, burning through my skin, my mind, my mouth. Heated steel stabbed at my gut, molten rock poured down my throat.

Fury. Righteous, untethered fury.

I felt certain I would die from the pain. All I could do was hold on, keep my hand clenched around the black chain between us, ride out the bond.

The daemons had taken everything from me. They would not take my life.

Images flew behind my eyes. A hall of azure tiles. A verdant forest, teeming with fireflies. A pleasure tent filled with incense, blurred figures laying on pillows. A procession of lanterns dancing in a dark sky. A garden of pink blossoms, their petals puckered like lips. A gold-painted hand resting on marble, motionless, grey smoke pouring around the fingers.

“No!” the daemon screeched, and a burning wall slammed into my mind, shoving me back. I felt it pushing forward, trying to shove my thoughts from my mind, my being out from my own skin.

My own memories came surging back. A village in chaos. My sister’s face. Blood. Kamala’s chestnut eyes, puffed from crying.

I forced her out with my own wall of iron. This daemon would not know me. She would never know Kamala.

There was no one around to pass this daemon to. No one to take the burden that I had never wanted. The fetter sank into my skin, tightening until flush. Part of me thought of cutting the hand off, of keeping that creature out of my head, my heart. But if attempting this meant that I might live, and I could continue to keep the innocent safe, I would bear it.

With one last, furious blow, the wind abated. Steam wisped away. The stone cooled, the glow fading. A cool mountain breeze washed over me.

The bond crawled up my arm, inking my skin: golden floral patterns, like those painted on the High Order’s body, spring blossoms and rose bushes sharp with thorns, red berries that glittered like the ruby around her neck, a buck’s head, a leaping tiger, vines twisted around curved daggers.

A black collar inked the daemon’s neck.

She collapsed to the ground, writhing, clawing at it. Her sharp nails left deep scratches in her skin, grey smoke spilling from the wounds.

The fetter held.

Agony hit me so fast I could not hold myself against it. A spike sank into my heart, furious and lonely, so lonely that blackness filled my vision. A pitiful wail came from the High Order.

You killed my friend, she had told me. And now I had killed her too.

The burning cage broke, but I was too weak to move, to separate which limbs were mine and which belonged to her. I wished for home. I wished for Barje Vos, the small town I had grown up in, nestled against a sparkling lake. I wished for the clean, bitter-orange smell of my mother’s room. I wished for the black bluffs of Kaelta, the salty ocean spray as winter waves licked the shore.

I bit my tongue, and the twinge of pain shoved that memory back. Her memory. Not mine. I had never been to Kaelta, that brutal country owned by the daemons.

When I could hardly remember my own name, I blacked out.