Chapter 1

Tymanon

Petra and I were tossed violently from the games, as though a large and powerful hand had suddenly yanked us away. Dizzy and disoriented, I frowned as I gazed at the red clay beneath my palms. How had I gotten here? One moment I’d been inside the games, and the next I was here, wherever here was.

Nothing about the games had been normal. Petra and I were trapped inside a world-within-a-world created by the gods for their own warped amusement. A part of me wondered if maybe we’d been thrust into a new challenge without either of us knowing. And yet... I blinked and frowned. And yet there was a niggling thought within me that something had gone terribly awry.

Inhaling deeply, I washed my lungs with the scent of dirt and pine. Getting shakily to my feet, I dusted off my hindquarters and turned to look for my traveling companion. Petra was a few yards behind me, and he too was dusting himself off, wearing the same quizzical frown that I no doubt still wore. I wasn’t often at a loss to describe what was happening around me, but I was without answers right now. Shoving thick strands of hair out of my eyes, I studied our surroundings.

Just a few minutes ago, Petra and I had been discussing the next challenger we were set to face—Fiera, elemental goddess of the eternal fires. We weren’t supposed to duel until tomorrow, though. Perhaps the gods had fooled us yet again, and we were supposed to duel right now. Readying my bow, heart racing, I studied the landscape, expecting to see Fiera standing off to the side, fireball in hand.

But the goddess was nowhere to be seen. Instead there were trees, hundreds of them. We were in a grove of towering behemoths whose branches kissed the sky. I turned in a circle, doubting what I was seeing.

This was Kingdom.

We were back in Kingdom.

“How the blue blazes...” I mumbled. I walked to the first tree and laid my hand against its corrugated bark, scratching at its woodsy thickness with my nail. There was nothing unusual about it. It wasn’t sentient and it didn’t sing or talk, which meant we weren’t in Wonderland. However, the trunks were a shade of deepest brown with large swaths of colorful streaks running down them. Riffling through the catalogue in my brain, I quickly came to the conclusion that these trees—more specifically the eritque arcus lingo—were exclusively native to the western region of Kingdom.

“Bloody hell,” I murmured. We really were out of the games. Mouth gaping in shock, I shook my head. This made no sense. I had many questions, but no one to ask. So instead, I made note of the facts.

Petra and I needed to understand why we’d been thrown out. Had we failed again? True, we hadn’t fallen in love. I admired and even rather enjoyed the satyr’s company greatly, but admiration was a far cry from the rules of the games that demanded we either declare our love and leave, or lose and spend an eternity in purgatory for our hubris in defying the gods.

I looked up, studying the needles of the spindly conifers above. The western region was said to be a thriving, bustling countryside filled to bursting with big game animals to hunt, plenty of wild-sown crops to eat, and some of the rarest types of flowers in all of Kingdom. Pursing my lips, I turned in another small circle before trotting back to the country lane.

Standing in the center of a red-clay dirt trail that diverged in several directions, I paused, waiting to see some sign of life, be it animal or otherwise.

After many long minutes, nothing appeared.

Kneeling, I touched my palm to the ground and cocked my head as I waited several heartbeats in near silence. I couldn’t even feel the vibrations of another soul roaming these lands. From all I’d read, this realm was far less civilized than other parts of Kingdom, but the evidence of life should have been here. Where was the wild game? Where were the trees bursting with fruit and nuts, and thick stalks of wheat shooting up from the ground?

I felt Petra’s approach, but he said nothing, just looked at me as I continued to assess our situation. I had always appreciated my companion’s ability to recognize when I needed silence.

I glanced worriedly at the sky, realizing for the first time that it wasn’t merely blue, but many different colors. Salmon, tangerine, and violet were not unusual to see in the sky. It was the other colors that actually caught my eye. There were patches of phosphorescent blue, green, and black wavering like a desert mirage as they floated away. I knew what they were because I’d seen them before. Those were the remnants of powerful magic running its course.

Rubbing the fine hairs on my forearms that were standing electrifyingly on edge, I shivered. What in the bloody blazes had happened here? This was Kingdom, but a Kingdom I didn’t quite recognize. That thought shot like a cold thrill of adrenaline through my veins, making me feel both hot and cold. I was a creature of knowledge, of facts, and of truths. I’d spent the better part of my life learning all I could of my world and of the lands, people, flora, and fauna that filled it.

My heart beat a terrible treble inside me. Petra and I had failed at the games most miserably, but not because I wasn’t a brilliant bowman—we’d single-handedly beaten all our opponents, save for the conniving Baba Yaga—but because we’d failed to fall in love, which was the only prerequisite to getting out of the cursed realm relatively unscathed. But something strange had happened in that world created by the gods. Something I could hardly even fathom, in truth. I thought myself mad, feared for my sanity even, because Petra and I, we lost. We were cursed, flung into a time dimension outside of reality, doomed to be separated for all eternity.

I screamed his name, feeling empty and so alone, terrified of what came next. I blinked and then—this was the strange part—I’d gone back in time, to him, to our pasture, to a time before we’d reached the end of the challenges and were punished by the gods for our disobedience.

That part had been bad enough, but when I mentioned what’d happened, Petra looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. He said I hadn’t left him, that he and I were talking, and I suddenly went wide-eyed, slack-jawed and silent.

I didn’t believe him until the next day when we squared off with Galeta the Blue, a challenger I’d already faced several gauntlets back. I realized that I hadn’t merely gone back in time, but that time had altered completely, presenting me with a different present and future the previous timeline had afforded me.

Confusion weighed me down, made me anxious and nervous because I could remember with startling clarity every emotion I had felt when the goddess Calypso told us our fate. I could close my eyes and relive the terror of it all, could paint a picture in great detail of all that happened.

I’d felt the panic of being separated from him. One moment I was battling Baba Yaga for not only my life, but that of Petra’s, when one of Fiera’s little fire imps sabotaged Baba, flinging a deadly curse at her. I saw the witch crumple, saw her fall, and saw Petra taken away by deadly, terrifying beings.

I hadn’t known what to think or feel, other than I knew it happened, and I sensed I shouldn’t tell Petra about it. I didn’t want to panic him. Either I’d somehow been granted the gift of seeing the future, or some form of powerful magic had temporarily twisted our reality so that only I could remember what it had once been.

Or worse yet, I was going crazy.

Days passed after that, and I’d convinced myself that I had indeed gone temporarily insane, when it happened again.

The second time it happened, I had challenged Petra to kiss me, and he did. My lips tingled with the press of his warm skin to mine. My heart rattled the cage of my chest. I wasn’t certain I could say I liked it, and yet I wasn’t certain I could say I didn’t, either. I felt as though my bones melted, my blood boiled, and it was quite hard to breathe.

Fear gripped me too, fear of what others might think of us, fear of dating outside of my species. It was forbidden for hybrids to do so. Though there were cases of it throughout the ages, those couples were rare and often the butt of ridicule and derision. I opened my mouth, ready to tell him I didn’t like it and that we shouldn’t experiment like that anymore when my present looped again.

This time, I didn’t go as far back as the first instance. I merely returned to five minutes before I presented Petra with the challenge. And just as before, Petra had had no idea about any of it. It seemed only I could remember.

With the first time loop, there’d been a subtle change to the present path of time, but with the second, I’d only lost my challenge and Petra’s kiss.

Petra’s long sigh and stomp of goat’s hooves on the red-clay dirt brought me back to the present. Solid-green eyes stared up at me. Petra and I were so very different. A centaur and a satyr, we were not common bedfellows. And yet we found ourselves thrust into a strange new world that neither of us were fully prepared to navigate.

“Did you feel that magic, Tymanon?” he asked, shoving thick waves of dark hair out of his kind eyes. His voice was soft, not as deeply masculine as most males. If I had to classify Petra, then he was firmly a beta in every sense of the word. Not as abrasive as many of the other males in the game had been, he was gentle and introspective—traits I rather admired, if I must be honest. I had more than enough of an alpha temperament for the two of us.

I raised my brow and nodded. “Aye, I did.”

He puffed out his chest with a heavy sigh, looking around and peering deep into the forest beyond.

There were no creatures as in tune to the world around them as centaurs were. It was simply in our chemical make-up. As hybrids, we’d adapted the very best of both species. We were more intelligent than a human and far more intuitive than a horse.

But, Petra was no slouch either. In fact, he was rather surprising at times. “I sense nothing around us,” he said with a slow frown. He turned to me, giving me a small shrug of confusion, as if wondering what our next step should be.

And for once, I found myself just as befuddled. Usually, I was clever enough to work through a riddle, but I confess this one eluded me almost entirely. I still wasn’t quite certain what had caused the disruption in magic, or why we were out of the game with no word or warning from the gods who ran it.

“There is only one thing we can do, satyr. We must make camp for the night. Until we figure out what’s happened, there is no sense in wandering off into madness or, worse yet, danger. Powerful magic has been unleashed. We wait, watch, and learn.”

He nodded. “In this case, I must agree. I’ll go gather some twigs to start a fire.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded, watching as he walked off, his heels thump-thumping loudly on the trampled trail.

Generally, I wasn’t much for company, preferring to be alone in most things. I didn’t even travel with a herd. I was one of very few centaurs that favored the silence of my own thoughts over the noise of another’s.

But not once had Petra irritated me. In fact, I rather looked forward to our shared evenings, to talking into the wee hours of the night. I found my companion to be stimulating in the most wonderful of ways. I enjoyed his mind, enjoyed hearing of his escapades before meeting me.

He was so very different from the satyrs I’d read about in books. Satyrs had always been depicted as sensual creatures, obsessed with seduction, the chase, and lusts of the flesh. I’d thought them all silly and simple creatures before I’d met him. But he was so contrary to what I’d read about his kind that I found myself fascinated and curious about everything—above all, why he’d been brought into the games in the first place, and why he’d been brought for me, of all people.

Sighing heavily, I shook my head. Sunlight was fading fast. I had to make camp quickly.

I might be a female, but I was powerful. Reaching into the spelled pouch I always kept belted around my waist, I created a harness with the thick rope I found within. I attached one end to the trunk of a fallen tree and tied the other end around my waist. Working quietly but efficiently, I’d soon dragged enough timber into a large clearing and set about creating a comfortable lean-to. I was just slipping the final log in place when Petra returned with an armful of dried kindling.

We worked in silence as we built the campfire. He placed the twigs just so and I gathered enough large, flat stones to safely encircle it all. Once done, I withdrew a small sliver of flint from the leather pouch and, using one of my arrowheads, created an immediate spark.

“I suppose I should gather meat for us,” I said.

Petra blinked his eyes rapidly then looked up at me as if I’d startled him. He’d been staring into the fire with a mile-long look, the same look he’d been wearing the past month back at the games. I’d often wondered at the emptiness of it, but never questioned him about it. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me.

“Yes.” He rubbed his thick palms down his doe colored trousers. “Yes, and I will gather whatever edibles I can find.”

I used to think it odd that Petra wore clothing. As a female, I wore a leather halter over my breasts, but more to assuage the fragile sensibilities of the humans I’d been surrounded by in the games. Normally, I didn’t wear clothing. Being covered was considered an act of shame by most hybrids, something vain and silly. I’d grown accustomed to Petra’s use of pants, though I did sometimes wonder what his legs might look like beneath them. I’d read that satyr’s legs were far furrier than a centaur’s.

“Good.” I nodded once then turned and headed deeper into the forest, looking for any sign of life.

Centaurs were intensely curious. We lived for solving the most impossible of riddles and puzzles. Yet, every time Petra went silent, I didn’t seem to know what to think, say, or do. He was a puzzle I hadn’t quite cracked. Not even close.

I was certainly not in love with the satyr. The likelihood that I would fall in love with anyone was slim to none. I simply wasn’t built that way. I preferred my solitude and independence over almost anything else.

And yet, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t sometimes wonder what could possibly turn a satyr, normally a convivial hybrid, into a pensive and brooding individual. It was partly why he fascinated me so. I was intensely curious about my companion.

My lips tingled and I huffed. Focus, Tymanon.

Moving gingerly through the forest, I took my bow in hand, studying the forest floor, full of rotting leaves, for any signs of fresh scat, or tracks, or anything that might lead me to a food source more robust than a bit of grain and fruit. But after an hour of searching, I realized there was none to be had. Wherever we’d landed, it was a veritable dead zone.

Slinging my bow over my shoulder, I turned and trotted back to camp, pleased to note Petra was already back and there was a large, broad leaf filled to bursting with seeds, nuts, and wild berries. At least he’d fared better than I had.

Giving him a grateful smile, I sat and reached for a handful of nuts and fruits, tossing them back with one large swallow.

I wasn’t typically the chatty type, but Petra wasn’t just anybody. Forced cohabitation had warmed me to his presence, to the point that I thought I might actually miss him if he left now. I glanced at him. He was still wearing the deep frown of someone mired in contemplation.

Dusting off my hands, I cleared my throat, more to catch his attention than anything else. Moss-green eyes latched onto mine, but the heavy wrinkle marring his normally smooth brow was still firmly in place.

“I’ve had time to think,” I said, taking time to phrase my words carefully.

“And?” A thick, dark brow rose as he awaited my response.

Scratching the side of my face, I said, “I believe the wisest course of action is to find someone who might have more answers than we currently have between us.”

“Judging by the way you phrased that, I’d say you already have someone in mind.”

“Hm.” I nodded. “You’re correct. During the games, I was visited frequently by a harpy.”

“A harpy?” He squinted his eyes, looking perplexed.

Why Harpy had never bothered showing herself to him was her own business, but I suspected the lass had been terrified of the male gender as a whole. I nodded.

“Aye. A harpy. A woman with wings. Called herself a Messenger for the Creator.”

“Creator?” He cocked his head, still looking flummoxed.

Petra wasn’t slow. He had a quick mind and a sharp wit. Perhaps I should have shared more with him than I had, but truly, I never suspected what might happen to us, to all of Kingdom, as a result of our brief sojourn in the gods’ games.

Taking a moment to catch him up, I quickly explained about the harpy and about her true role inside the games.

“And you believed her?” he asked as he idly sketched a design into the dirt by his hooves with a large twig.

“Mm.” I nodded. “I do. She had no reason to lie, and being able to move through the gods’ world as she had, her words could only be truth.”

Popping a blackberry into his mouth, Petra chewed slowly. I liked that about him. Strange, that I should enjoy his slowness. But I knew that when Petra finally responded to me, he’d given my words the due consideration they deserved.

His Adam’s apple rolled as he swallowed. “If you believe her, Tymanon, I can do nothing else.”

I blinked. The words I’d prepared to defend my belief withered on the tip of my tongue. Petra surprised me.

Centaurs were rather a prideful lot. I abhorred admitting that about my kind, but it was true. It was also why I chose to live my life apart from them. I couldn’t handle the arrogance that went hand in hand with a superior intellect. I knew I was smart, that obviously went without saying, which, I supposed, made me as egotistical as the rest. But I’d learned throughout my life to slow down, to give a matter thought before speaking. Often, my brethren didn’t. They spoke and believed themselves to be right in all things.

I was right more than I was wrong, but I could grudgingly admit fault during the rare times I wasn’t. If I’d made this statement to my herd, a louder dissenting voice would have overridden me. As much as we loved our riddles, we loved a good fight more. Be it of the brain or brawn variety, we centaurs weren’t picky.

“Just like that?” I asked with a snap of my fingers. “I say I trust her, and you agree.”

He shrugged.

“Why?”

Jaw working from side to side, Petra looked straight into the fire, his gaze turning distant and long once again. “We’ve been together near a month now, Ty—”

I fidgeted because it had actually been over a month thanks to the time loop that he knew nothing about.

“—and I’ve learned not to discredit your instinct. You’re gut has gotten me out of a scrape or two already. If you say you trust her, then so shall I.”

He licked his front teeth, swiping at a bit of berry at the corner of his full lips. Petra was a satyr, and looked every inch of it—tall, strong, and robustly built as was typical of his kind. Though I’d yet to see the satyr bits of him, I did rather enjoy the human parts.

He was strong, but not obscenely so. He had muscle, nicely built arms, and a tight chest and stomach, but he was by no means an Adonis of a male. He had shaggy brown hair that could only be called exceedingly average in coloration. His face too was rather average. He had features that could easily be overlooked when placed amongst a sea of others. He simply blended in.

Not surprising, considering his sole purpose in life was to stealthily blend into his surroundings so as to abduct and pleasure a tree nymph all his livelong days. A satyr’s life was one of frivolity, drunkenness, and slothfulness.

But in the short month I’d known him, I couldn’t honestly call Petra any of those things. He’d never once touched the hard cider in the games, he was early to bed and early to rise, and hadn’t once tried to make any sort of lewd or sexual move on me. Though he did not seem to recall the kiss, I’d been the one to initiate it.

My female form was comely enough, but I did have a horse’s legs, which made me different than a satyr’s typical conquests. Not that I minded. I generally found men tedious and fit only to slack my occasional lusts.

If there was any prettiness to Petra at all, it was his eyes. I oftentimes found myself inventing some reason or other to speak with him simply so that I could gaze upon his eyes. To call them moss green would be an understatement. They were intensely and vividly green, like crushed emeralds glinting in sunlight, stunningly clear and hypnotic. They cut through me like daggers. I’d never been one to be envious of much, but I did sometimes wonder how many nymphs he’d bedded simply by turning those beautiful eyes upon them.

He frowned, and I realized I’d been staring at him. Coughing, I pounded my chest, and shook my head a tiny bit.

“Are you alr—”

“Fine. It was nothing.” I waved his words off. The mere thought that I could find anything even remotely attractive about a satyr had me feeling queer. Shaking my head to get my thoughts reorganized, I said, “Anyway, I think we should seek out the fairy realm.”

His eyes widened. “Why there?”

Thinking back on our days inside the games, I recalled all the strange moments looking through the seeing disk into the other queen’s realms. Time and again, my thoughts had returned to Galeta the Blue. I wasn’t sure why I’d been drawn to her realm as I had, considering there’d never been anything to see. She’d lived in a dark zone, unlike the rest of the queens.

But maybe that was the point exactly.

When I peered into the disk at the others, I saw them doing everything. And by everything, I meant everything—eating, sleeping, talking, sometimes even mating. Nothing had been hidden from me. But when I had tried to see the Blue, it had all been one colossal, vexing mystery, as though the games shielded her secrets so that none could learn them.

“In the games, I saw nothing when I studied the Blue, as if she’d been hidden from me. But why?” I rolled my wrist, knowing he’d have no answer, but awaiting a response all the same.

When he gestured for me to proceed, I did.

“Then there’s the harpy. Several times, she referenced Galeta when she did no others. The fairy queen is the key to all of this somehow. We just need to figure out how.”

He nodded. “But since we’re back home, should we not check in on our friends and family, make certain that they’re alright?”

His question was valid, but time was pressing. I sensed this to be a fact. The seeing disk hadn’t been lost when we’d been tossed through the travel tunnel because I’d always kept it stored in my magicked pouch.

Slipping the glass out of the pouch, I held it out to him. “Time, I fear, is not our friend, Petra. But perhaps this seeing disk could give you your answers.”

Relief glittered in his eyes as he stared down at the hammered-silver disk. Curling his fingers tightly around it, he gave me a nod of intense appreciation. Again, I wondered what secrets my companion kept.

“Thank you, Ty.”

I dipped my head, but said no more on it. “Perhaps we should sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Aye.” And so saying, he lay down and stared into the fire, and I knew the conversation was at an end.

Feeling restless, I wanted nothing more than to start our quest posthaste. But it was dark now. Wild magic still roamed these woods. Curling my legs beneath me, I closed my eyes, entering a trance-like state of calm.

It was the only way for me to sleep. Ever. If I didn’t trance myself, my brain would remain active and wired, keeping me awake all night long, churning with thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts like waves rolling upon a shore.

I’d just gotten myself settled when I felt the faint stirrings of wind at my back. Eyes popping open immediately, I frowned. The air suddenly smelled of the rime of ice, and magic breathed against my flesh.

The fire crackled, turning from a warm, golden amber to a deep, brilliant blue.

“Petra,” I whispered.

Clearly not in a deep sleep, he sat up instantly. “What? What is it?” His hand brushed over his head, causing the ends of his hair to stick up haphazardly in all directions.

“I don’t—”

Suddenly, the fire rose higher and higher, turning into a pillar. At its center was a burning doorway. A disembodied voice whispered through the night.

“Tymanon. Petra.” Instantly I recognized the voice as belonging to Galeta the Blue. “Come to me. We have much to discuss.”

The fiery crackle and burn mingled with the icy wash of wind at my back, covering my flesh in a swath of goose pimples.

Petra’s thick eyebrows were raised high on his forehead. “Do we trust this?”

Never having set aside my bow, I stood swiftly to my hooves and trotted around the burning pillar, looking for any proof that this magic was not of the fairy’s making. But the icy cold of it was her hallmark. And the deep curls of blue were definitely familiar. By the time I returned to where I’d started, Petra had stood and was looking at me with a question in his eyes. “Do we go, or do we stay?”

Giving his question the consideration it was due, I squared my shoulders and studied the flame. There was only one way to test this for truth or deception. I would need to reach into the fire.

Tightening the laces of the bronze braces at my wrist, I took several deep, calming breaths. If I was wrong, this was going to hurt. The braces had been given to me by a wizened mage several years ago, a gift for solving an unsolvable riddle. The cuffs were charmed to ward off of injury, including that from light magic. If the magic was strong enough, I would feel pain, but the braces would absorb most of the damage.

Pursing my lips in concentration, I stepped forward, holding out one hand toward the heart of the fire. Petra sucked in a sharp breath but said nothing. I rather liked that about him. Most companions would be tempted to warn me to be cautious, but I knew what I was doing, and he understood that enough to let me be.

The rush of magic poured over my arm like sun-warmed honey, welcoming and definitely friendly. This fire would not harm us.

I nodded. “Yes, we go.”

Without looking back I stepped into the heart of the flame. Petra followed close behind mere seconds later.