Yet Laira knew the southern coast would offer her no relief. There too Zerra would all but starve her, feeding her only scraps—fish bones, rubbery skin, sometimes the juice of berries to lick from clay bowls. No plenty for her, Laira, the daughter of a dragon. In the south too, he would allow her no tent; she would sleep outside as always in the mud, tethered and penned with the dogs, nothing but her cloak of rodent furs to shield her from the wind and rain.

So many times she had dreamed of escape! So many times she had clawed at her bonds, trying to sneak out in the night! Yet she had always stayed, fearing the wilderness—the hunger and thirst of open land, the roaming tribes that fed on human flesh, and the wild rocs and saber-toothed cats who patrolled sky and land. And so she remained, year after year, a broken thing.

She looked up at her chieftain now, and perhaps it was the filth on his feet, and perhaps the thought of southern suffering, and perhaps it was that today she was twenty—whatever the reason, today she stared into his eyes, a feat she rarely dared, and she spoke in a strained voice.

"If I'm shite, wouldn't I just make your feet dirtier?"

For a long moment, Zerra stared down at her, silent. Ten years ago, Laira had watched her mother—a beautiful white dragon—burn the chieftain. Zerra's wounds had never healed. Half his face still looked like melted tallow, a field of grooves and wrinkles, the ear gone, the eye drooping. The scars stretched down his neck and along his arm. He was missing two fingers on his left hand, gone to the dragonfire.

But his scars were not what frightened Laira. After all, her own face was ravaged now too. Zerra—still seeking vengeance—had seen to that. She had seen her reflection many times; Zerra insisted she stare into whatever clear pool they passed, forcing her to see her wretchedness.

A few years ago, he had beaten Laira so badly he had shattered her jaw. Today her chin and mouth were crooked, pushed to the side, and her teeth no longer aligned. It not only marred her appearance but left her voice slurred; she always sounded like she were chewing on cotton, and her breath often wheezed. One time she had tried to pull her jaw back into place, only for the pain to nearly knock her unconscious. And she so remained—crooked, mumbling, a pathetic little wretch Zerra kept alive for his amusement.

"You look like a mole rat," he would tell her, scoffing whenever she walked by. Often he would shove her in the mud, toss game entrails onto her, or spit in her face, then mock her ugliness. "You are a small, weak maggot."

Small and weak she was. Years of hunger had damaged her as much as his fists. The chieftain only allowed her to eat whatever bits of skin and fat remained after the hunt, and whenever anyone had tried to give her more, he had beaten them with stick and stone. The long hunger left Laira fragile, as weak as a sapling in frost. She hadn't grown much since that day ten years ago, that day her mother had died. Though a woman now, she stood barely larger than a child, her growth stunted, her frame frail. Her head often spun when she walked too much, and her arms were thin as twigs. Zerra enjoyed mocking her weakness, shoving her down and laughing when she could not rise. He claimed she was weak because of her curse, the disease he was determined—but could not prove—she carried.