The Sweetest Dark

Prologue

Are your eyes truly open?

Are you one of the few who have truly seen?

Then perhaps you already know about the hidden realm tucked inside your own.

It shares the same sky as yours, the same mountains and creeks and hills. It has the same constellations slanting across the heavens, the same roads cutting across the earth. The same towns and nations. Food, drink, fashion, language: everything seemingly the same.

But it’s not.

The hidden realm presents a false front to fool you, to make you trust what you never should. Because there—right there living beside you—are monsters of ferocious beauty, ribbony creatures formed of smoke and color and claws. Monsters you’ve been taught to think are only myth.

They are not.

They stroll your streets, and dine in your restaurants, and wrap themselves in furs and silk and jewels. When they wish it, their faces resemble yours. Their lips smile as yours do; their skin gleams ebony or russet or milky white.

They use wings to slice through the stars at night. They’ll murmur your name and shake your hand and you can’t look away, because once they hold your eyes and touch your flesh, you belong to them, whether you like it or not.

They are the drákon.

And this is the story of one of the last of them.