CHAPTER ONE
A New Nest
The road to Silverbrook wound through golden wheat fields that swayed in the late afternoon breeze, and Orion Stargrass found himself thinking about beds.
Specifically, he was thinking about how long it had been since he'd slept in one. Three weeks of camping, of hard ground and tree roots that always seemed to find the small of his back no matter how carefully he laid out his bedroll. His spine held opinions about this. Strong ones.
"Oh! Oh, Orion, look!" A tiny voice piped up from his shirt pocket. "That cloud looks exactly like a rabbit eating a smaller rabbit! Do you see it? The ears are right there!"
Orion tilted his head skyward without breaking stride. The cloud in question looked, to his eyes, like a cloud. Vaguely lumpy. Possibly damp.
"I see it," he said.
"You're not even looking properly!" Nera's head popped out of the pocket, her iridescent wings catching the sunlight as she pulled herself up to peer at his face. At her current size—roughly that of his thumb—she had to crane her neck dramatically to meet his eyes. "You have to squint a little and tilt your head to the left. The left, Orion. Your other left."
"I only have one left."
"Then you should use it correctly!"
He dutifully tilted his head to the left. The cloud had already begun to drift apart, taking on a shape that resembled nothing so much as a slightly different cloud.
"Now it looks like a mushroom," Nera declared, apparently satisfied with this transformation. She settled back into the pocket, her tiny hands gripping the fabric edge like a child peering over a fence. "Are we almost there? You said we'd be there by afternoon and it's definitely afternoon and I want to see the city."
"Almost." Orion gestured vaguely ahead, where the road crested a gentle hill. "Should be able to see it from the top there."
"Finally!" She practically vibrated with excitement, her wings humming. "I heard they have a flower market. And a fountain shaped like a fish. And phone booths painted different colors. Can we see the phone booths first? Or the fountain? Actually, the flowers. No, wait—"
"We need to find a place to live first."
"That's boring."
"It's practical."
"Those are the same thing."
Orion let the corner of his mouth twitch upward, the closest he typically came to a smile. Three years of marriage, and Nera still hadn't grasped the appeal of a solid roof and a mattress. Then again, she could sleep curled up in a flower petal and call it luxury. Different priorities.
They crested the hill, and Silverbrook spread out before them.
* * *
The city nestled in a valley where two rivers met, its buildings climbing the gentle slopes in terraces of stone and timber. Towers rose at intervals, their architecture a hodgepodge of styles accumulated over centuries—elegant elven spires neighboring sturdy dwarven blockhouses neighboring whatever humans had felt like building that particular decade.
And everywhere, the little touches of modernity that still caught Orion off guard no matter how many cities he'd visited. A phone booth on the corner, painted cheerful yellow. Crystal lamps lining the main thoroughfare, ready to glow with captured light once darkness fell. A billboard advertising something called "Sparkle-Fresh Tooth Powder" featuring a grinning orc giving an enthusiastic thumbs up.
"It's perfect," Nera breathed.
"It's a city," Orion said.
"A perfect city." She scrambled up to sit on his shoulder, her tiny feet dangling against his collarbone. "Look at all the chimneys! Every chimney is a house and every house has people and every person has a story. That's hundreds of stories, Orion. Thousands! We could meet all of them!"
"I was hoping to meet significantly fewer of them."
"You're impossible." But she said it fondly, the way she always did, and leaned her small weight against his neck. "Come on. Let's go find your boring practical house."
* * *
The first house had rats.
The landlord, a heavyset human woman with a pipe perpetually clamped between her teeth, seemed genuinely confused by Orion's objection to this.
"They're very well-behaved rats," she said. "Practically pets. The previous tenant trained them."
"The previous tenant also apparently left in the middle of the night owing three months' rent," Orion pointed out, having noticed the eviction notice still nailed to the door.
"Unrelated circumstances."
They moved on.
The second house didn't have rats. It had a hole in the roof that the landlord described as "character" and a back door that opened directly onto a tannery. The smell hit Orion like a physical force.
From his pocket, he heard Nera make a noise like a tea kettle reaching boil.
They moved on quickly.
The third house was actually very nice. Good location, solid construction, reasonable rent. The landlord was a kindly elderly elf who served them tea while explaining the terms.
"One small thing," she said, as Orion was reaching for his coin purse. "No pixies."
There was a moment of silence.
"I'm sorry?" Orion said.
"It's nothing personal, dear." The elf smiled apologetically at the small figure now visible at Orion's collar. "It's only that my sister had a pixie infestation once. Took years to get the glitter out of the furniture. You understand."
Nera's wings went very still. Her eyes, usually warm and laughing, took on a quality that Orion had learned to recognize over three years—a depth that seemed older than her cheerful demeanor suggested. When she spoke, her voice was perfectly pleasant, but something else hummed beneath the words.
"Of course," Nera said. "We understand completely."
Orion stood, pocketing his coins. "Thank you for your time."
The elf's smile flickered, uncertain. For just a moment, she looked like someone who had heard a sound in the dark and wasn't sure if they'd imagined it.
They moved on.
"I'm fine," Nera said, before Orion could ask. She had retreated to the pocket, her voice slightly muffled by fabric. "Some people are like that. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing."
"It's nothing I haven't heard before." A pause. "She was rude, though. I definitely didn't leave any glitter on her tea set."
Orion stopped walking. "Nera."
"It'll wash off. Probably. Eventually." Her head emerged, grinning impishly. "Maybe by next spring?"
He sighed. But it was a fond sigh, and Nera knew the difference.
* * *
The fourth house sat at the edge of the residential district, where the city's neat streets began to give way to vegetable gardens and the distant treeline. It was small—two rooms, a kitchen, a washroom—with whitewashed walls and a roof that appeared to have all of its original tiles. A wooden fence enclosed a garden that had clearly been neglected but showed promise in its bones.
The landlord was a retired beastkin adventurer, a grey-furred wolfman named Garrett who walked with a permanent limp and spoke in short, direct sentences.
"Rent's due first of the month," he said. "Don't burn the place down. Don't raise the dead in the basement. Had that problem once. Wasn't pretty."
"No necromancy," Orion agreed. "Understood."
"Pixie yours?"
"My wife, actually."
Garrett's ears twitched—the beastkin equivalent of a raised eyebrow. But all he said was: "Huh. Good for you." He held out a key. "Place is yours if you want it."
Nera had already flown through the window to explore. Her voice drifted back, echoing slightly in the empty rooms: "Orion! There's a spot in the garden that gets perfect morning sun! I could plant things! We could have tomatoes! Do you like tomatoes? I think you like tomatoes."
"I tolerate tomatoes," Orion called back.
"He likes tomatoes," Nera informed someone, possibly a spider.
Orion turned back to Garrett. "We'll take it."
The old wolf nodded once, shook Orion's hand with a grip that suggested the limp hadn't slowed him down much, and left them to it.
The house was dusty and empty and made strange settling noises in the afternoon quiet. The floorboards creaked. One of the windows stuck. The kitchen had clearly been designed by someone who had never actually cooked a meal in their life.
It was, Orion thought, perfect.
* * *
The Adventurer's Guild of Silverbrook occupied a converted warehouse near the market district, a sprawling building that hummed with constant activity. Adventurers of every rank and race milled about—some studying the quest boards, others nursing drinks at the attached tavern, a few engaged in what appeared to be a very heated argument about the correct way to skin a basilisk.
The reception desk was staffed by a woman who looked like she had seen every possible variation of adventurer walk through those doors and was no longer capable of being surprised by any of them. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Her expression suggested that whatever you were about to say, she had already heard it and found it wanting.
"Name," she said flatly, as Orion approached.
"Orion Stargrass. This is my wife, Nera." He gestured to the pocket, where Nera had emerged to observe the guild with wide-eyed fascination.
The receptionist—her nameplate read MIRA COLDWELL—glanced at Nera with the practiced neutrality of someone who had long ago stopped having opinions about adventurers' companions. "Transferring registration or new enrollment?"
"Transfer. From Thornhaven."
"Rank?"
"Silver."
"Documentation?"
Orion produced the papers from his travel bag. Mira examined them with the quick efficiency of long practice, stamping and signing in the appropriate places. Her pen moved with mechanical precision.
"Everything appears to be in order." She sounded almost disappointed. "Most adventurers manage to lose at least one form during travel. Or spill ale on them. Or use them to start a campfire." She stamped the final page with unnecessary force. "It's refreshing to meet someone who understands the importance of proper documentation."
"My husband is very good at paperwork," Nera said solemnly. "It's one of the things I love about him."
Orion wasn't entirely sure she was joking.
Mira's expression flickered—not quite a smile, but something in the neighborhood of one. She reached below the counter and produced two silver badges, freshly polished. "Welcome to Silverbrook, Mister and Missus Stargrass. Quest board is to your left, tavern is to your right, don't start fights inside the building, and if you encounter any dungeon anomalies, please file form 7-B within forty-eight hours." She paused. "Before selling any loot."
"Understood," Orion said.
"Oh!" Nera suddenly flew up from the pocket, hovering at eye level with Mira. The receptionist leaned back slightly, but didn't flinch—again, the look of someone who had seen stranger things than excitable pixies. "Thank you for your help! We'll bring you flowers sometime! Do you like flowers? What's your favorite color? I'm going to bring you flowers."
"That's... not necessary."
"I know!" Nera beamed. "That's what makes it fun!"
She zipped back to Orion's shoulder, waving cheerfully as he headed toward the quest board.
Behind them, Mira Coldwell watched them go with an expression that might, in the right light, have contained a hint of bemused fondness.
"Newlyweds," muttered a grizzled dwarf at the end of the counter.
"Three years married, apparently," Mira replied, stamping someone else's form.
"Huh." The dwarf scratched his beard. "Still got that energy, though."
"She does," Mira said. "He looks exhausted."
"Don't they all."
* * *
Evening painted the sky in shades of amber and rose as Orion pushed open the door to their new home. The house smelled of dust and old wood and possibility.
He'd purchased basic supplies on the way back—bedding, a few kitchen implements, enough food to see them through the next few days. The bed frame had been left by the previous tenant, and once he'd wrestled the new mattress onto it, the bedroom actually looked like somewhere a person might sleep.
A person. Not a rock. Actual sleep.
He allowed himself a moment of profound appreciation.
"You're staring at the bed like it's a long-lost lover."
Orion turned. Nera stood in the doorway—human-sized now, or close to it, her head reaching roughly to his shoulder. She did this sometimes, when they were alone, trading her pixie form for something that let her reach the high shelves and hug him properly.
Her hair, the deep green of forest shadows, fell loose around her shoulders. Her wings were tucked away, invisible in this form. She looked, to anyone who didn't know better, like an unusually pretty woman with slightly pointed ears and an impish smile.
"I've missed beds," Orion said.
"I know." She crossed the room and sat beside him on the mattress, close enough that their shoulders touched. "You make a sound in your sleep when you're on hard ground. Like a sad dog."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do. It's tragic. I've considered composing a ballad about it."
"Please don't."
"'The Lament of Orion's Spine,' I'll call it. Very moving. There won't be a dry eye in the tavern."
He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. After a moment, Nera curled up beside him, her head finding its usual spot in the hollow of his shoulder. Her weight was warm and familiar.
"We found a good place," she said quietly.
"We did."
"And the guild seems nice. That Mira woman pretended to be grumpy but I could tell she liked us. I'm very good at reading people."
"You glittered an old woman's tea set because she was rude to you."
"Those are unrelated skills."
Orion smiled. Actually smiled, not just the twitch at the corner of his mouth, but a real one. He did that more often now than he had before—before the forest, before the blood, before he'd whispered his dying wish to the empty air and somehow, impossibly, had it answered.
"Thank you," he said.
Nera tilted her head to look at him. "For what?"
For saving me, he thought. For staying. For making every road feel like home.
"For finding the house with the good garden," he said.
She laughed—bright and warm, like sunlight through leaves. "You're welcome. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow we take our first quest, and I want you well-rested for the adventure."
"You want me well-rested so I don't complain as much."
"Those are the same thing."
She kissed his cheek, light as a butterfly landing, and was asleep within moments. She always fell asleep fast, with the easy contentment of someone who had never learned to fear the dark.
Orion lay awake a little longer, listening to her breathe, feeling the steady beat of her heart against his side. Outside, the city settled into evening—distant voices, the clatter of a cart, the first crystal lamps flickering to life.
A new city. A new home. New adventures waiting.
He closed his eyes and, for the first time in three weeks, slept without dreaming.
* * *
Far to the east, in a forest where the trees grew silver and the streams ran with starlight, a figure knelt before a pool of still water.
Commander Seraphel of the Queen's Guard pressed her palm to the water's surface, and images rippled across it—glimpses of roads and cities, faces and places, a web of information gathered from a thousand fairy scouts across the realm.
Three years. Three years since Her Majesty had vanished. Three years of searching, of following rumors and whispers, of hoping.
The latest report was interesting. Unusual magic detected weeks ago, faint but unmistakable—the signature of something powerful moving through the world, trying very hard not to be noticed.
The trail led west. Toward the human territories. Toward a city called Silverbrook.
Seraphel stood, her wings catching the moonlight. She was old, even by fairy standards—old enough to remember the Queen as a young thing, bright and curious and so very full of joy. Old enough to fear what might have happened to her.
"I'm coming, Your Majesty," she whispered to the night. "Please be safe."
The pool went dark. The forest held its breath.
And far to the west, curled against her sleeping husband in a modest house at the edge of Silverbrook, the Queen of All Fairies smiled in her dreams and did not stir.
— End of Chapter One —