Chapter One: Unlikely Friends

Aidan sat in the cool, damp grass with the little brass gearbox in hand, tightening the springs with a miniature screwdriver. The warm breath of the summer wind kissed his stubbly cheek but he took little notice of it, absorbed as he was in his tinkering. Tinkering always helped him think, and calmed him when even his mother’s words could not. With each click and whirr of the mechanism, though, Kyden’s words still rang loud and clear in his pointed ears, piercing his heart with the ferocity of a red-hot iron spear: "He's not my son."

Aidan clenched his jaw at the memory, then returned all his focus back to his work. It was a lie. It had to be. He always knew the old goat was hard on him, but he never doubted for a minute Kyden wasn’t his blood. Still, the conviction and hatred in the old Elfkin’s eyes was hard to ignore.

Aidan wasn’t a fool. He always knew he wasn’t like the other Higher Born. Hell, he wasn’t even like the Lower Born. He’d stopped growing at thirteen, reaching a sturdy height of five feet, four inches and three-quarters. Until his fourteenth birthday the other Higher Born teased him for being fat as well, which was hardly the truth. Who ever wanted to be a 6’6”, willowy, black-haired and alabaster-skinned airhead anyway? Not him. He honestly didn’t know what he would do with limbs that long and lanky.

The Lower Born children had always been more welcoming to him because his ruddy complexion and lighter hair matched theirs, but their parents would often run him off back to socialize with those from his own caste. And by “socialize” that usually meant he became the butt of their jokes again. Most of the time, he just ignored their teasing… until his whiskers started coming in.

In hindsight, his whiskers should have been a major clue that something was off. No Elfkin man that he had ever met, studied, or heard about – not even the legendary Haldrin Gilded-Ears – could grow whiskers… and yet here Aidan was at seventeen, regularly shaving at least once a day. Thinking back, that was when Kyden turned from indifferent toward him to downright cold: when he was forced to teach Aidan how to shave. At the time, Aidan didn’t understand his disapproval. He still thought if he practiced his craft well enough, he might earn the approval of the stuffy old watchmaker yet.

"He's not my son."

His eyes began to sting, so he scrubbed them roughly with the heel of his hand. Aidan blinked the dampness from his eyes as he pulled out a tiny flask of oil, daubing it gently between the gears. Before long, a tinny, crisp little tune wafted up from the handful of gears and springs. Aidan’s shoulders unknotted and he breathed a sigh, relieved the mechanism still worked after being thrown across the room. He had meant for it to be a gift for his mother, but Kyden had other thoughts on the matter.

“A box that sings?!” he’d said. “What utter nonsense! I’ve never heard of anything so absolutely useless!!”

Aidan flinched at the memory of the box being torn from his palm. He still had a few deep scratches left behind from Kyden’s nails as proof of the old man’s viciousness. His heart ached at the image of the box being thrown to the workshop floor and smashing to pieces. His gut twisted at the sound of gears and springs clattering against the clay tiles like coins from a cut purse. Days of hard work, gone in an instant. His mother had heard his bellow of anguish and frustration, and rushed in to investigate. When she’d seen Aidan crouched over what was left of the box, she chastised her life mate for what he had done to their son’s beautiful craftsmanship.

“He’s not my son.”

Aidan bowed his head until his scratchy chin touched his kneecaps, sobbing, and put the box to his ear. It was the oddest thing: he'd caught himself many a time humming the tune or thinking about it, but his mother claimed she’d never sung it to him before. Still, it was no less precious to him. The song itself felt ancient, powerful… almost magical. When he heard or sang it, the vibrations of the music moved through him and into the very ground beneath his feet, anchoring him to the earth like the roots of an enormous tree. If he closed his eyes, he could hear someone singing the comforting melody, but he could never quite make out their face.

As he was soothed by the music, he stared at the immense city below him in the distance, floating in the middle of the Glimmering Sea. The pure quartz towers of Greater Elysium reflected the light of the setting sun, shining like a mighty jewel on the hand of a king. Even from where he was, he could still smell the sweet perfume of incense and spices on the wind, mingling with the salty sea breezes. His keen ears picked up the distant chatter of street vendors and fisherman on the docks of Lesser Elysium. The lower portion of the city was far less grand, being on the outskirts, but the simple limestone buildings and narrow canals were no less beautiful to Aidan. He had lived in the city all his life. It was his home… but it never really felt much like “home” to him deep down.

When he was young, and frustrated with the teasing from his peers or Kyden’s criticism, Aidan thought often of running away. On a few occasions, he’d made it to the exact spot he was in right now: the hilltop overlooking the city, at the edge of the Forest of Enq. It was at this point he always lost his nerve. Kyden’s bedtime stories of the forest – particularly involving the Nighthunds and their taste for the tender flesh of children – often left Little Aidan trembling under his blankets with fright. Now, he was certain that was by design. Beyond the Forest was the notorious Realm of Men: scoundrels, brutes, savages… Elfkin slayers. Every other time Aidan had gotten this far, he’d returned home with his tail firmly tucked between his legs. This time, however, was different. Aidan felt he no longer had a home to return to now. So, here he was: unable to go back, and unwilling to keep moving forward.

The lullaby had ended, so Aidan wound the little brass crank again. While he was still winding up the music box, he saw a brief, silver sparkle darting between the tree branches out of the corner of his eye. Aidan stiffened, not sure at first if he’d actually seen the little shimmer or if he’d imagined it. He couldn’t be sure what it was because it moved so fast through the trees. His pointed ear twitched toward a light buzzing noise and what sounded like a tiny brass bell jangling.

Slowly, he pocketed his music box and tools and got to his feet. His muddy brown eyes scanned the dense, mottled green and indigo wall of foliage, looking for the source of the noise… and then, he saw it: between the leaves sparkled the tiniest pair of silver dragonfly wings, and he was almost positive an equally tiny person was attached to them. Aidan was drawn to the shiny creature as if by some instinct (there was a reason his mother often called him her “Little Crow”), and carefully parted the leaves to have a better look.

A face no bigger than his thumb stared back at him. It was pale and round like a child’s, with two enormous sparkling eyes that shifted rapidly in color from pink, to blue, to green and back. He tore his gaze from the hypnotic, lamp-like orbs to take in the rest of the creature. Their ears were almost as large as their head and pointed like his, mimicking the swept back spikes of their short, jet-black hair. The creature’s body was completely bare, but it was smooth and shapeless like a doll. If the androgynous creature minded their nakedness at all, they were far too busy studying Aidan to care about modesty. In fact, they seemed just as intrigued by Aidan as Aidan was by them. A broad smile spread across their tiny face, showing off countless needle-sharp teeth. They flittered their wings in a kind of greeting, emitting another bell-like chime.

“Hi,” Aidan murmured, smiling nervously but trying to appear friendly and non-threatening. “Wow… you’re beautiful! I’ve never seen anyone or anything like you before.”

The winged creature’s eyes turned a deep fuchsia pink, fluttering their wings and jingling bashfully at the compliment. Without warning, they hopped in a single bound from the branch they were sitting on to Aidan’s chest. The movement was so quick and unexpected that Aidan let loose a yelp of alarm, but the tiny being didn’t seem to care a bit. They pulled curiously at his shirt buttons – almost like they were trying to tear one off – and stared in confusion at the fine nest of honey-colored curls poking out over his collar. Seconds later, they bounded again like a cricket from his chest up to his face. They finally stopped with their knees resting on his chin, and just stared at him nose to nose.

Aidan’s eyes crossed trying to look at the creature so up close, while his arms stayed fully outstretched to either side in a “T” pose. He didn’t dare move a muscle or breathe; he knew what the creature was now, from a nearly-forgotten story his mother told him when he was very small. According to the tale, these creatures could be dangerous, so he thought it best to make no sudden movements until he knew what the tiny being wanted.

“You’re… a-a Treejumper,” he said, swallowing dryly to conceal the nervous tremor in his voice. “Aren’t you? I thought your kind didn’t exist anymore.”

The Treejumper’s eyes flashed a bright red and a tiny fist thumped against Aidan’s nose, making him wave the beast away and cover his face instinctually.

“Ouch!” he cried, shocked at how much the tiny blow stung. “Okay, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Haldrin’s girdle, that hurt!” Aidan looked around instinctually, as language like that usually earned him a swat from his mother, then turned his attention back to the Treejumper. They had traveled back down to his tool belt, unnoticed, and were currently trying to climb into the pouch that held the music box. “Get away from there,” Aidan snapped, shooing the creature away more gently this time. The Treejumper nipped him on the cuticle of his index finger in response, then dove headfirst into the pouch.

Aidan muttered another swear under his breath as he sucked on his stinging fingertip. He could feel the creature rummaging around in the small leather pouch on his hip, which was an odd, very unsettling sensation. A few moments later they emerged, holding aloft a copper gear in both hands. “Fine, you can have it,” Aidan grumbled. “You can have whatever you want. Just don’t bite me again!” He plunked down onto the grass again with a sigh, then wrapped his bleeding fingertip with a handkerchief from his back pocket. The Treejumper – who had been modeling the gear on their head like a crown – fluttered their wings excitedly at seeing the handkerchief, and snatched it from his hand.

“Hey,” Aidan frowned, “I need that! Give it back!”

The Treejumper ignored Aidan’s demand. They wrapped the square of fabric around themselves and gave a spin, modeling it as if it were the finest silken robe.

Aidan rolled his eyes. “Alright, you can borrow it… for now. I will need it back at some point though.”

Aidan settled back onto his elbows with a sigh, watching the mysterious little creature play with his handkerchief. He sprinkled a handful of nuts and bolts onto a bare patch of ground beside him, hoping to distract the creature away from the cloth so he could steal it back. It may seem silly to anybody else, but that handkerchief was as precious to him as the lullaby was.

His mother had sewn it for him from the last ragged scraps of his favorite baby blanket. He’d always assumed she’d purchased it from a travelling tradesman, because there was no cloth like it anywhere else in Greater or Lesser Elysium. Even after years of being dragged through the grass and dirt behind him as a child, the fabric never lost its bright golden yellow sheen and swirling pattern, although it had become quite threadbare with age. His mother had denied his request at first to make it into a handkerchief, claiming it was too rough and heavy for such a use. As always, though, she’d buckled to Aidan’s wishes in the end.

The Treejumper played with the pile of nuts and bolts right away, just like Aidan had hoped, but the handkerchief was still tied around their tiny body like a toga. Aidan didn’t want to just snatch the cloth off; doing so might hurt the little creature, or it could earn him another bite on the hand. Frankly, he wasn’t sure which would be worse. The longer he observed the tiny being, the more fascinated he became. For a potentially bloodthirsty beast, they were undeniably endearing as they organized the nuts and bolts by size and modeled the ones they seemed to like best. When the Treejumper threaded their impossibly tiny arm through the hole in one of the nuts, Aidan couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Gosh, are you tiny,” he said. “Your little arms are like twigs.”

The Treejumper’s eyes flashed bright green and they jingled excitedly, smiling and nodding up at Aidan.

Aidan frowned at them, confused. “What? What did I say? Twig?”

The Treejumper fluttered their wings and nodded again, jingling so loud and shrill that it hurt Aidan’s ears.

Suddenly, Aidan seemed to understand. “Twig,” he repeated pensively. “Is that your name? Do you want me to call you that?”

Twig nodded again. They bounced up onto Aidan’s shoulder with another chirp, and pressed the tiniest kiss he’d ever felt onto his sandpapery cheek.

“Okay,” Aidan giggled. “Enough of the mushy stuff. It’s nice to meet you, Twig. I’m Aidan.” He ran his fingertip delicately along Twig’s wing, surprised at how soft it was. “Y’know, my mom told me you guys were dangerous... but you don’t seem all that bad to me.”

While the little creature was still nuzzling his jaw and jingling in his ear for more pets, a chill, eerie wind blew the clouds across the sun. The tree line quivered for miles, moaning and hissing as the breeze rippled through their branches. Upon its back traveled the dank, foul odor of rot and decay, so pungent it made Aidan cough and cover his nose. He’d never smelled anything so awful… so evil.

Twig froze solid, their eyes changing in an instant from bright blue to lemon yellow, able to hear or sense something that Aidan couldn’t perceive. They quaked with fear, letting out short, panicked high-pitched chirps that felt like a needle stabbing his eardrum.

“What is it?” Aidan asked, wincing and covering his ear reflexively. “Twig, what’s wrong? Is something there?”

Seconds later, Twig sprang off his shoulder and darted back into the trees. They still had Aidan’s handkerchief clutched to their tiny body as they fled, which drew another swear from Aidan’s lips.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Where are you going?! Come back!!” Aidan hesitated at the forest’s edge, bouncing on his toes. He was still highly fearful of it, and of the creatures dwelling within it, but he had to get his handkerchief back. He sucked in a deep breath to steel himself, then raced into the forest after Twig full speed.

The Forest of Enq lived up to its reputation well. Within a few feet of entering it, all semblance of light was swallowed up by the dense, dark mass of foliage. There was no sound either, save his own panting breaths and the low, distant growls of unseen monsters. The sweat clinging to his skin turned at once to ice, causing deep shivers to wrack his body. Although he couldn’t see the cloud his breath was forming in front of his face, he could taste the sour, dank chill of the atmosphere on his tongue. All around him was a suffocating presence, squeezing the warmth from his bones. Every part of him screamed to go back to the safety of the light… and he almost did until he heard Twig’s jingling from somewhere ahead of him. Without thinking, he started running toward the sound.

Aidan stumbled blindly over gnarled roots, using his ears and hands to feel his way through the impenetrable darkness. After a while, strange glowing fungi and lichen appeared nestled at the bases and along the trunks of the trees, giving him at least a little light to see by. His sharp eyes found his handkerchief bouncing through the branches up ahead quickly after that, thanks to the brightness of its color. Aidan thought for a moment that the scrap of fabric seemed to be glowing, but quickly dismissed it as a trick of the light. He chased the handkerchief and the Treejumper clutching it deep into the forest, where he finally lost them both in a blackberry thicket.

Only then did Aidan realize where he was. No light from the outside world made it through the canopy, nor did it reach very far in from either side, let alone to the heart of the forest. As such, Aidan didn’t have a clue which way he had come from or which path held the way out. A deep, primal fear crept into his bones. He’d had nightmares like this when he was small: standing in an impossibly dark forest, all alone… snarling creatures with glowing eyes and glistening fangs watching him from all sides… a woman screaming bloody murder as those same monsters tore her to shreds…

Aidan began to spin in circles automatically, his eyes scanning the immense canopy above him. The dense thicket of brambles and branches on all sides of him were suffocating. His palms were sweating. He quivered from head to toe like a child, and sweat ran in rivers down the nape of his neck. His heart pounded so swiftly he thought it might burst. Only then was he aware of the half a dozen pairs of burning red eyes staring back at him from the darkness.

Aidan stood, paralyzed, as the same foul odor he’d smelled before reached him. It was stronger now than it was at the forest’s edge, overpowering to the degree that it made his eyes sting and water. He gagged and choked on the horrid stench, trying to remember how to breathe, while the shadows around the eyes began to warp and shimmer. They rearranged themselves into the shapes of massive dogs, blacker and denser than the very forest around them. Aidan drew a shuddering breath as a chorus of low, ragged snarls met his ears.

“Nighthunds,” he whispered.

The inky hounds flashed razor-sharp teeth dripping with viscous green slobber as they closed in around him. Aidan took a slow retreating step toward the blackberry thicket, stopping when he felt the thorns prick his lower back. Still, the Nighthunds pressed closer. He could feel their hot, foul breath through his clothes, waiting in agony for the moment they chose to rip him to pieces. They certainly looked hungry enough to. For some reason that Aidan couldn’t fathom, they stopped advancing roughly five feet from him and held their ground.

Out of the blackness just beyond the ring of gigantic shadow dogs, a crimson mist pooled out of the ether. Aidan watched, transfixed, as it coiled upward and broadened, taking on the shape of a man. At first glance he appeared to be Elfkin, but Aidan had met no Elfkin like him before. He was much taller and leaner than any Elfkin man Aidan knew, as if his limbs and spine had been stretched to impossible lengths. His long flowing hair was pure silver, shining like starlight in contrast to the darkness around him. His deep eggplant-hued face was cut from angles sharper than the edge of a knife, all high cheekbones with deep-set eyes and hollow jowls.

The Elfkin’s moonlike eyes glinted at Aidan with curiosity and apathy, the way one might examine something stuck to the bottom of their shoe. Frankly, his gaze was far more unsettling than the pack of Nighthunds inches away from tearing out Aidan’s throat.

“Poor little child… all alone and afraid, with nowhere to go… and Nobody to love you. So sad…”

Aidan startled and looked all around for the source of the whispery voice, because the Elfkin’s lips hadn’t moved. It sounded like dry leaves scattering across cobblestones on a winter’s morn, on a wind that heralded news of death. There was no one else there who could have spoken, but he’d never heard of a race that could speak without speaking. “Who… What are you?!” he demanded, trying to sound braver than he felt. “What do you want from me?!”

The Elfkin tilted his head on his long, spindly neck, twisting it at an angle that should’ve broken it. Along with the jittering movement was a soft series of cracks, like bone grinding against bone. “Who am I…? I am Nobody. And you are a long… long way away from home… Little Prince.”

Aidan shivered and covered his ears, grimacing at the way the voice grated against his very soul. It felt wrong in every way, shape and form, as if just hearing the voice was violating him. Again, the Elfkin’s lips remained tightly closed. Aidan squinted through the dark, trying to get a better view of them to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. Did the strange Elfkin even have a mouth? Straining his eyes, he determined that there was a mouth on the unnatural being’s withered face, but it was held shut by a half a dozen thin lines of red silk thread. He was so busy trying to figure out how the Elfkin was talking that he’d almost missed what Nobody had said.

“What did you call me?” He blinked, growing more fearful and confused by the moment. He was lucky enough to be a Higher Born, true, but he would never consider himself a prince by any standards. For one thing, the City of Elysium was an oligarchy, and had been for centuries before Aidan was even born. He shook his head, deciding he wanted nothing to do with this creepy specter or anything it had to say. “Look, I don’t want any trouble, okay? Just go away and leave me alone… and if you could call off your ‘friends’, that’d be nice, too!”

Nobody didn’t make a move to call off the Nighthunds. He just stood there, swaying like a dead tree in the wind, and blinking his large, pale eyes at Aidan.

“Nobody loves the Little Prince… Nobody knows where he belongs. Embrace the Darkness… Nobody wants you. Come… Join with Nobody.”

Aidan held his head, cowering at the sound of the hideous voice. He dropped to his knees and started weeping for reasons unknown to him, while the Nighthunds closest to him pawed at the soil restlessly. Whatever Nobody was, it was clear his control over them was minimal, and they were itching to be taken off their leashes. Still, they obediently awaited Nobody’s command, further delaying Aidan’s demise. An all-consuming sadness and hopelessness sank into the young Elfkin, crushing him from within like a cockroach under a boot. Nobody was right: he didn’t belong anywhere. He might as well give in to the darkness of Enq, and let it swallow him up for good.

As he sat there, sobbing, the lullaby from his music box reached his ears. He gasped and looked toward his tool belt, but the music wasn’t coming from there. More importantly, it couldn’t have. The thin, metallic sound of the box’s combs was different than the jingling melody he was hearing now. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear it was being played on a microscopic set of hand bells. He looked up into the blackberry thicket behind him, and his eyes widened when he saw his handkerchief dangling overhead. Twig was clinging to the branches just above him, singing the tune for him. As it had in the past, the soft melody filled him with warmth and comfort. Following Twig’s example, he added his own shaky tenor voice to it in harmony.

The Nighthunds backed away, whining and snarling at the tune. They shook their heads, and some raked their paws over their ears. The lullaby seemed to be causing them actual pain. Was the lullaby really magic? At this point, Aidan didn’t care if it was or not. The Nighthunds didn’t like it one bit, and the tune bolstered his strength and courage with every note. He stood up again, planting his feet, and hummed louder. Aidan felt grounded by the melody, rooted and immovable as a stone fortress.

Nobody didn’t seem to care for the melody either. His long, bony spine arched backward and he covered his ears, hissing in a language that was beyond Aidan’s ability to comprehend. It didn’t even sound like words, just a muddled series of shrieks and garbled wheezing. Aidan felt he had Nobody on the ropes, when Nobody launched himself at the young Elfkin in a fit of fury.

Aidan’s instinct was to run, but before he could move a fraction of an inch the ground beneath him gave way. He uttered a shrill, embarrassingly girlish shriek as he fell through the forest floor, deeper and deeper through the dark. Somewhere above him he heard warped, faint howls and scratching paws, which eventually moved off and faded into silence. When his brief disorientation wore off a little, he realized his back was sliding along some kind of chute.

The polished wood scraped and bumped against his skin as he fell down it at a dizzying speed. He grunted with every thump, bump, and curve of it, apparently getting faster with every passing second. It was too dark to see, but it felt like the chute was just barely big enough to accommodate his broad, stocky frame, which probably accounted for the rough ride he was enduring. Countless grunts and "oofs" left him as his body banged and jostled along the shute like a marble in a tin can. He felt the chute take a few more sharp loops and curves so swiftly that he almost lost his lunch, then the bottom of the slide abruptly dropped out. He cried out again as he tumbled out of the tube and landed face first onto rocky, hard-packed earth.

A wheezy groan trickled out of his throat as he pushed himself up onto all fours. He sucked in a ragged breath and coughed, spitting to clear the taste of iron and dirt from his mouth. Nothing seemed broken, which was good, but he was sure he'd be a walking bruise for at least a week. When his vision cleared and his brains stopped rattling in his skull, the faces of thousands of Treejumpers were peering at him. They didn’t look half as friendly as Twig, gathered around him in a semicircle with shrill, menacing jangles and needle-like teeth bared. More distressingly, they were armed with bent, rusty nails, jeweled brooch pins, and little sticks that had been whittled into deadly spikes. Aidan gulped at the sight, regretting that he didn't turn back when he had the chance.