Chapter 0001

•NYMERIA•

"We are sorry, Miss Kane, but we have to let you go."

My hand tightened on the phone against my ear. My knees almost buckled against each other.

This couldn't be happening.

"Why? What happened?" I asked the HR manager, wondering why he thought it would be best to let me go when I was on my way to work.

"You will get paid for the hours you've worked since the beginning of the month, but we have no need for your position in our company anymore."

I swallowed. "Oh, I— please, if you could just tell me—"

The call ended before I could finish my sentence, and my stomach sank.

Five years of early mornings, late nights, and skipped lunches. Five years of building something out of nothing, in a city that had never made it easy for me.

Gone. In a two-minute phone call.

Before I could even step back inside my apartment and process the weight of it, my cell phone rang again, and I groaned when I saw Leonard's name on the screen.

My boss.

I stared at his name for a moment before I answered the call.

"I told you I would make your life hell for rejecting me, Nameria," he sneered. "I will make sure you never find a job anywhere unless you consider my offer."

I closed my eyes.

His offer? That was what he called it. As if asking me to be his mistress was something a reasonable person proposed over a business lunch, as if I was supposed to feel flattered.

"You want my advice, Leonard?" I scoffed "Stop dreaming. Because even if you were the last man breathing on this earth, I wouldn't look twice in your direction."

"You say that now —"

“And I'll say it every time you call," I hissed. "Get my name right while you're at it. It's Nymeria. Not Nameria."

I hung up the call and walked back to my apartment. I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it.

I exhaled and felt as if I had failed myself.

I had come to Drakenfall at twenty with a secondhand suitcase and ambition.

I had clawed my way into a marketing role at a company that hadn't wanted to hire me, worked until I became someone they couldn't ignore, and spent the last year believing a promotion was finally within reach.

And then Leonard happened.

I groaned as I walked to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine.

My phone rang again before I could finish the glass. I looked at the screen and felt my stomach drop for an entirely different reason.

Sunshine Kindergarten. They never called unless something had already gone wrong. And something always went wrong.

"What did she do this time?" I answered, skipping the greeting.

"Ma'am, ouch!" she paused. "Millie, stop!"

I ran my hand through my hair. "Is she biting again?"

“She is—” she paused. “MILLIE!” She snapped, and I wished to bury my face in the sand.

"I WANT MY MOMMY!" Millie shouted from the other end of the line.

I pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose and breathed.

My daughter. My beautiful, chaotic, impossible daughter.

Five schools in the past year. Five. And each time, Millie had looked me in the eyes with all the sincerity her four-year-old face could muster and promised that she would be better.

Two months was a record.

"I'll come and get her," I answered before I hung up the call.

***

I signed the transfer papers without reading them. There was nothing in them I didn't already know.

Millie clung to my thigh the entire walk to the car, both small arms wrapped around my leg so tightly that I had to take wide, shuffling steps to move.

Getting her into her car seat took four minutes and more negotiation than I had used in my last three client presentations combined.

By the time I finally clicked the buckle into place and climbed into the driver's seat, I felt as though I had already lived an entire day and it wasn't yet noon.

"Millie," I said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. "What am I going to do with you?"

She tilted her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

I rolled my eyes and drove home.

I slowed down as we approached our building, and then I stopped.

My sofa was outside on the pavement, pushed against the gate with our bags stacked beside it, as if someone had wanted to make sure I wouldn't miss the message.

"Shit."

I sat in the car for a moment and looked at it.

I had missed two months of rent payment because Millie had to move to another kindergarten.

I had asked for more time to pay the outstanding amount, but now it seemed I wouldn't be able to make plans.

I groaned as I slid out of the car and went to grab our bags from the gate. The landlord was standing on the other side of the gate, probably trying to make sure that I didn't walk inside.

"You owe me two thousand dollars, Miss Kane," he said when he saw me. "So, you've got to find yourself another charity home."

I didn't argue. I loaded our bags into the trunk without looking at him, checked that Millie was still sleeping, and then paused with my hand on the car door.

"That sofa cost me six hundred dollars," I said, without turning around. "Consider it a down payment."

I got in the car and drove away.

I didn't have enough money for us to sleep at a guesthouse, so I had no choice but to park outside the 24/7 fuel station and hope we wouldn't be in any danger.

"Are we home yet?" Millie asked.

"Not yet, baby."

I reached into the bag on the passenger seat and pulled out a small wrapped pie I had bought that morning, before the day had become what it was. I passed it back to her without a word.

"I'm sorry, Mama," Millie muttered at the back. "I promise to be better this time. And I won't cause trouble for you anymore."

I looked back at her and felt all the anger in my chest fading away. Even though she always caused me headaches, she was my life.

Just that moment, my cell phone rang, and it was my brother, Christopher.

"Hello?"

"Your brother is getting married in a week, and I won't be able to do it without my little sister," he said after answering the call. "I've sent you two tickets to Hollowshade. I expect to see you on Friday."

"Tomorrow you mean?"

"Please tell me you'll come."

I paused for a moment. "Fine, I will call you once we've arrived."

"Alright!" He hung up the call, and my stomach dropped.

I hadn't been in Hollowshade for five years.

I had been running as far as I could, because I didn't want to lose the two people who mattered the most to me.

But now I had no choice but to go back.