Saints and Monsters, page 1
Acclaim for
SAINTS AND MONSTERS
“Entirely captivating plot paired with beautiful writing, McGinty establishes herself as a must read author! One of the best releases of 2024.”
VICTORIA MCCOMBS, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ROYAL ROSE CHRONICLES
“A beautifully crafted fantasy adventure set in a unique world full of complex characters, and an imperfect heroine who grips your heart on the first page and never lets go! You will not want to put this one down!”
LORIE LANGDON, AUTHOR OF DISNEY VILLAIN’S HAPPILY NEVER AFTER SERIES
“Clever. Original. Mesmerizing. Captivating from page one, Saints and Monsters draws you into an imaginative and complex world filled with high stakes, stirring romance, and unforgettable characters that just may steal your heart.”
NOVA MCBEE, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CALCULATED SERIES
“Simply stunning! McGinty is a brilliant new voice to watch in the fantasy realm. Dazzling worlds, deadly curses, and treasonous alliances set the stage for this beautiful masterpiece. A must read for fans of fantasy!”
CANDACE KADE, AUTHOR OF THE HYBRID SERIES
“McGinty is a master of descriptive writing, pulling us deep into the heart of fantastical Japan, where dragons stir in the black of the sea. Heart pounding and nuanced, this tale of courage will inspire even the faintest of hearts to face the darkness, writing on it with light.”
LAURA FRANCIS, AUTHOR OF THE SLAVE TRILOGY
“With strong prose and a gorgeous setting that leaps from the pages, McGinty has crafted a world of Japanese lore where weakness is strength, and where love and sacrifice paint a poignant picture that will linger long after Sains and Monsters is finished.”
AJ SKELLY, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WOLVES OF ROCK FALLS SERIES
Also by Ellen McGinty
The Water Child
The Wayfinder Saga
Saints And Monsters
The Last Wayfinder (coming soon)
Saints and Monsters
Copyright ©2024 by Ellen McGinty
Published by Quill & Flame Publishing House, an imprint of Book Bash Media, LLC. www.quillandflame.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally, stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, living or dead, organizations, business establishments, and/or events is purely coincidental.
NO AI TRAINING: Without any limitation on the author or Quill & Flame's exclusive copyright rights, any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence is expressly prohibited.
ISBN: 978-1-957899-69-5 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-957899-68-8 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-957899-67-1 (digital)
Cover design by EAHCreative, www.eahcreative.com
To Patrick,
If I had two hearts they’d both be yours.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
11. Casmir
12. Meera
13. Meera
14. Dragon
15. Meera
16. Casmir
17. Meera
18. Meera
19. Casmir
20. Meera
21. Dragon
22. Meera
23. Meera
24. Dragon
25. Meera
26. Meera
27. Dragon
28. Meera
29. Dragon
30. Meera
31. Meera
32. Dragon
33. Meera
34. Meera
35. Dragon
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter
One
Morning begins with the cry of dragons. I sit up in bed, heart pounding as the first shriek pierces the air. Hunger laces the low, haunting melodies, rivaling only the wolves prowling the Winterwilds. The sea serpents’ wails return every year when the snow melts, dappling the mountains with green and a blush of fresh blossoms, when steam curls from the hot spring canyons, and when sticky-sweet chestnuts fill our kitchen . . . but this time is different.
I’m not ready to lose my sister.
“Runa,” I hiss.
My sister lies in the bed next to mine, her curved form longer, fuller than my own. Her forehead wrinkles and her lips pucker as if she’d just kissed a newt. Dreaming, again.
“Runa?”
My eyes flick to the ceiling before I swing my legs out of bed with a wince. Dull pain laces my spine, spreading to my hips. Seventeen, and I feel like an old maid with rheumatism. But pain won’t stop me.
Not today.
Runa has trained every day for the coronation on her twentieth birthday, because in Ezo, the firstborn daughter doesn’t simply inherit the crown, she earns it by facing a dragon. And I’m to be at her side, to be her courage when her heart fails. Papa always said I have enough courage for two hearts . . . though, he also said it was a shame for all that courage to be wasted on someone fragile.
A muscle twitches in my jaw as I attempt to bury those words, shoving them into a dark corner of my mind. My back brace lies open like a cracked oyster on the bedside table. I sling the form-fitting leather shell around my torso and strap it across the back. The wood-framed interior bites into my ribs, but I try not to notice it.
My fingers glide across the smooth deerskin, a brilliant white with lacquered cherry blossoms. Papa had it designed by the famed artisans in Thesia and engraved with protection charms. Not that it’d stopped me from falling down the stairs or crashing through a paper screen when my legs gave out at random.
I hobble to Runa’s bed, grateful we now share a room on the castle’s ground floor, and give her shoulder a sharp nudge. She rolls to the side, pulling the blanket to her pointed chin, and mumbles under her breath.
“It’s time,” I say with a huff. “The dragons are here. Do you want to see them before the ceremony?”
Tawny eyes fly open and a hand darts out to grab mine. Runa gulps, throwing off the covers. The boys say she’s pretty no matter what, and they’re right. Chestnut hair falls over my sister’s face in tussled heaps, sleep lines crease her cheeks, and shadows cup her eyes like tea saucers, but she’s still the most beautiful girl in Ezo.
“Here?” Wide brown eyes search mine, her hand bearing down on me like a vise grip.
“Yes, if we sneak out now, we can get to the beach before Papa wakes.”
A rueful smile cuts across Runa’s pink lips. “You just want fish cakes.”
I flash a grin and adjust the leather brace where it rubs beneath my left arm. “Someone has to have their priorities in the right place.”
Runa’s eyes sparkle with mischief as she sweeps herself off the bed and throws a robe in my face. Slubbed silk pools over my bare arms as I wiggle into the soft fabric cut from a single roll of beetle-brown silk, the same worn by our kitchen staff, which we had pilfered for disguises the previous day. Runa bites down on a clothespin as she rearranges the layers of her stolen dress and the white apron with the royal crest, a plum blossom encircled by a vicious sea serpent.
“I’ve avoided looking at them every year, knowing this day would come,” she says, tracing the embroidered serpent. “I’d rather secure the kingdom with marriage instead of magic.”
“Trade you,” I say, whisking a thick scarf from the wardrobe to cover my bright blue hair, the bane of my existence. My genetic ‘disorder’ as the physicians called it came with not only a bent spine, but painful weak joints, and telltale blue hair. “At least you can choose your king after the coronation. I’m doomed to marry the Duke of Taiga.”
“Meera, you’re complaining about this?” Runa plucks a sketch from beneath my mattress, admiring it with a dreamy sigh. “He’s coming tonight, isn’t he?”
I make a show of rolling my eyes and stuff the sketch into my apron pocket, away from her prying fingers. There’s no denying the duke is handsome, and he’d been kind when we met as children, but the fact is—I wasn’t given a choice. I don’t want a loveless agreement, to be shipped off to a fierce kingdom on the other side of the sea so Papa can get a better bargain on rice.
Rice!
Anger heats my cheeks, but I lift my chin, endeavoring not to let it show. “He is. But that’s hardly a concern. Princes and dukes are predictable and boring. You, my dear sister, will face a dragon and become queen by tomorrow morning.”
I pry the window open, thanked by a fistful of damp, salt-licked wind and the sweet aroma of chestnuts roasting over a stove. A dragon cry splits the air, rattling the thin glass panes. I wince, one hand frozen on the cold glass while the other flies to block my ear.
“Saints, they’ve never been this close to shore. Not in our lifetime.” Runa rushes toward me and peers out the window. Silver-gray cherry trees dot the castle’s pristine garden, each bud restraining a shock of pink. The lawn slopes into a steep embankment that leads to a rocky harbor and the ever-changing sea beyond.
I pull my hand away from the glass, cold radiating down my palm and setting my nerves on
We climb out the window, Runa letting me use her arm as a support. Together we crouch beneath the kitchen windows, all open and breathing fresh steam like sumptuous clouds in the morning air. My side pinches from the bending motion and a sharp ache fists round my spine. A constant reminder that I’m not what the kingdom of Ezo needs, not pure and worthy like my sister—not a proper living sacrifice to the dragons.
Near the kitchen window, a stern voice barks out commands followed by a chorus of mumbling maids and the clanking of iron pots. Woven baskets hang from the windowsill to collect discarded chestnut hulls and eggshells. Carefully, Runa plucks a basket from its hook and empties it. As soon as we pass the kitchen, I take the weightless basket and strap it to my back. A dull pain throbs against my backbone, causing me to wince.
Runa’s worried eyes scan my face.
I force a half smile, leaning against the wall with one hand cupping my wooden brace, and focus on my other senses, the ones not registering pain: the scents of fresh rice, honey citrus, and roasted marron puffing from the windows.
“Good?” Runa mouths.
I nod.
Together we scurry out the castle compound, a strong gust pushing at our backs as if the wind were on our side. I grip the straps of the empty kitchen basket, hoping the disguise will be enough to grant us one last day of freedom.
With a single glance at our brown kitchen robes, the guards wave us through the imposing gates. Dozens of kitchen staff will be crossing into town to fetch supplies for the coronation banquet tonight, no questions asked. Sharing grins, we break clear of the castle walls, crossing the deep canal that serves as a moat, and turn down an alley of zelkova trees shimmering green in the early morning light.
I whistle for the nearest rickshaw and lean against Runa’s shoulder. “Anything you want to do on your last day as a free woman?”
Runa takes my hand as we climb into the two-wheeled cart. “You’ll see.” She grins and calls to the runner. “To the port, Yamashi Park.”
A crowd bustles against the steep port wall of Silverwood Bay, children atop their parents’ shoulders, old men leaning on crooked canes, a twitter of young ladies fighting the playful breeze that tugs on their broad hats and billowing skirts. All of them stare down at the sea or walk the long cobbled path lined with colorful vendor carts—all come for the queen’s coronation and the dragons.
I check my scarf before exiting the rickshaw, careful lest anyone see through our disguise. My fingers curl around the port fence, a wooden rail separating the smiling onlookers from the scaled beasts below, as I pull myself higher for a better view.
What does everyone see in the wingless death?
Up and down the sea serpents writhe in the jade sea, a coil of metallic scales and fins. Rows of razor-sharp teeth tear into a giant elk sacrificed on their behalf before plunging it beneath the dark, churning waves.
I blanch, a chill snaking down my back, curving with my too-bent spine. It’s one thing to read about the sacred dragons in the holy testaments of the saints, quite another to see them this close in the wild.
A bone-white dragon turns. Its black eyes flecked in gold snap to mine. I match them with a steady gaze, a hard lump in my throat, and reach out for Runa. My sister’s knuckles turn deathly pale on the rails. “They’re so cold.”
“Aren’t all serpents?”
“Do you think they’re lonely?” Runa turns to me, the question in her eyes sincere. “We humans have only one heart and suffer a great many things. How much pain must they feel with two?”
“None,” I say, pulling my sister to the park fountain. In the center, a gray-green stone in the shape of a wingless dragon towers over us with antler-like horns and the claws of a lion, its color faded by time. “The dual hearts pump more blood into their elongated bodies,” I explain. “Simple physiology. They may be immortal beasts, but they only deal with us to stave off war and bloodshed.”
“And to honor their promise to the first queen. She was only a little girl when the dragons fell from the sky during the Ashfall.” Runa reaches out to touch the pedestal, her fingers lingering on the engraved poem beneath the dragon’s claws. An ancient script carves deep into the stone:
By scale and blade, the dragons’ oath is bound
A gift of the gods for a human queen
If worthy she is found
A heart for a heart to keep the peace
A life given in servitude for bloodshed to cease
Nothing but empty words etched in stone. Mother had survived the ritual, offering her life in service to the dragons, to be a good queen to both man and beast, but it hadn’t been worth the cost. Sure, her borrowed dragon magic had enriched the land, enlarged crops, and even sweetened water like golden honey. But like the queens of decades past, death came too young, too sudden. It was as if the dragon had stolen a piece of her. And magic has faded from the earth with every year since her passing until poverty now sinks its teeth into our kingdom.
The white dragon plunges its head into the waves, circling another beast to create a whirlpool of scales in shimmering gray, tide pool green, and palest bone. The festive crowd presses in, hugging the fence along the deadly precipice, eyes alit with wonder at the majestic, twisting serpents.
I trace the colorful ribbons of death weaving into the sea and my mouth goes dry like cotton and sticky spiderwebs. I could go everywhere with my sister, but not after today. The dragons that would grant her a piece of their heart magic would never find me worthy, not even to stand in their presence. Everyone knows what happened to the last cerulean princess with a crooked back . . .
Suddenly, two hands grip my sides and hoist me into the air. I’m tilted toward the sea, feet kicking and side smarting beneath the brace.
“Put me down!”
The hands relent immediately, and a dark-haired boy slips his elbow over the rail, a smile dashing across his lips. “Not feeling reckless today, princess?”
“Bastian!” My lips pinch into a firm line, though I’m sure my eyes betray me with a smile. My older brother leans against the rail with a carefree air, his long white shirt unbuttoned at the top and a rough seafaring coat loose over his shoulders.
He tosses a leather bag and catches it in his palm, zeni jingling inside. “Did you miss me?”
“Glad you could join us.” Runa’s eyes glimmer with pride at the well-kept secret. “I see you got my message?”
Bastian smiles, wide and ridiculously dimpled, wind-tousled hair sweeping across his eyes. “Couldn’t miss my little sister’s big day. Are you nervous?”
“Please, I’ve still an afternoon to think about my blessing or my execution, Bastian.” Runa smiles as if it were a joke, crossing her arms over the cliffside rail to hide the tremor in her hands. “I didn’t invite my siblings here to talk about that.”
“Saints, Runa, this tradition has been going on smoothly for decades. The dragons will accept you. Nothing is going to go wrong.” Bastian jostles her elbow.
Runa sighs, tearing her gaze away from the dragons as they thread silver into the ocean waves. “Tomorrow morning I’ll be facing a dragon, claiming a life-bond with it to prove that I’m the rightful ruler of Ezo. If I succeed—”
“You will,” I say, squeezing my sister’s hand. “I have no doubt.”
