Copyright © 2026 by Gabrielle Landi

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact landiwrites@gmail.com

  The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

  Paperback Cover by MoorBooks

  Dust Jacket by GetCovers

  Art by Katherine Macdonald

  Case Laminate Art by Jenelle Hovde

  Map by Cartographybird

  Editing by Lisa Henson

  Contents

  1. Roan

  2. Abigail

  3. Roan

  4. Abigail

  5. Roan

  6. Abigail

  7. Roan

  8. Abigail

  9. Roan

  10. Abigail

  11. Roan

  12. Abigail

  13. Roan

  14. Abigail

  15. Roan

  Epilogue

  Also by Gabrielle

  Chapter one

  Roan

  Running his father’s tavern had never been easy, but tripping over his dog every other minute certainly didn’t make it easier.

  Roan Alder clutched the ledger to his chest with one hand as he reached out to save himself from landing on his face, his fingers barely catching on the edge of his desk. He glared down at Beastie, who looked up at him with her long brown tail wagging.

  “You’re trouble, you know that?” he grumbled as he sat down at his desk.

  Almost as much trouble as these numbers.

  Roan scowled at the numbers in the ledger in front of him. He had thought that as he grew more experienced, he would find it easier to turn a profit, but things were still getting worse.

  Poring over the accounts would only make him crankier.

  He slammed the ledger shut, getting to his feet and heading out the door of his office. Beastie jumped to her feet and followed him, her long tail wagging and thumping against his thigh as she passed him in the doorway. He closed and locked his office door behind him as he made his way to the front room, where his patrons gathered, toasting each other after another long day.

  Normally, he would have enjoyed the levity, but not tonight. He’d been put off by the increasingly gloomy forecast for this year’s profit—or, should he say, lack of profit.

  The door opened to let in one of his regulars, who entered to cheers from the men who knew him. It was still light outside, though most of the curtains were drawn and the tavern lit by lanterns, because his patrons spent more of their coins when it felt later than it truly was. Even if most of them hadn’t eaten their evening meal yet—they’d be waiting for Abigail to announce that it was ready—they would be more free with their funds in a dim room.

  But thanks to the unwanted invoice, Abigail was behind the bar instead of in the kitchen. She slid a mug of ale down to Conrad, who nodded at her in gratitude before taking a swig.

  Roan liked Conrad. He was one of the few who came and enjoyed a drink but didn’t over-enjoy himself.

  Unlike two other men sitting across the room, having a grand old time, laughing raucously and toasting each other with glee.

  Roan scowled.

  Abigail should have cut them off already.

  The baker had brought his weekly bill, so Roan had stepped out to put it into the ledger. He shouldn’t have let himself get distracted by the numbers and how they didn’t add up—now those two were taking advantage of his absence.

  He had zero tolerance for men taking advantage of the fact that his barmaid was relatively new and inexperienced. He might be known across town for being rough, but Abigail was under his protection, and he took that seriously.

  He chirped for Beastie and stalked across the room, crossing his arms as he arrived at the table, Beastie by his side.

  “Gentlemen,” he said sternly, “is there a problem here?”

  Silas had the decency to look ashamed, but Gerald Montgomery didn’t care. “You can’t blame us for having a drink when the whole point of your establishment is drinking,” he said, his words beginning to slur.

  It was far too early in the night for this.

  Roan’s stomach turned. “You know I don’t tolerate drunks,” he said. “You’re done for the night, Montgomery. Both of you.”

  The man grumbled, but before he could say anything, Beastie let out a yip. Montgomery turned white and closed his mouth. He’d run afoul of Beastie one time, and there had been very little trouble with him since.

  Roan had more reasons than that to dislike Montgomery—he’d led Roan to believe that his daughter wanted Roan’s advances, when she’d wanted nothing more than to run away from him.

  If the man didn’t spend so much money at the Lucky Goat, he’d be banned.

  “Relax,” Montgomery muttered, anxiously looking toward the door. “This is my last one.”

  “Yes, it is,” Roan said curtly.

  The man drained the rest of his drink before slamming the mug down on the table.

  “Be careful,” Roan barked. “That’s my grandfather’s mug. You’d better not let me catch you abusing it again.”

  It was one of the few things he had left of his grandfather.

  “Maybe you won’t catch me coming back,” Montgomery snarled as he stumbled toward the door, Silas following a moment later.

  If only that were true.

  Roan watched them leave, a wave of heat flooding his neck as he made his way back to the bar, where Abigail looked up at him with sympathy in her blue eyes.

  He didn’t want sympathy.

  “I can take care of this,” she offered, “if you need to take the rest of the night off—”

  “I don’t need the night off,” he said roughly. “I’m fine. Next time, cut them off.”

  “Of course,” Abigail said with a cheerful smile. “I wasn’t going to give them any more,” she added, “and I’m glad you and Beastie were able to make that clear so I didn’t have to.”

  Her cheerfulness was annoying.

  “See that you do,” he said, ignoring the rest of what she’d said to focus on the fact that she’d planned to cut them off. “I won’t have drunks here.”

  “I’m aware,” Abigail said with a smile. “I won’t let that happen. You have my word.”

  He eyed her sideways as he walked around the bar and reached for one of the mugs she’d been cleaning.

  She always did a perfectly fine job, so there was no need for him to inspect it, but it gave him something to do while he gathered his thoughts and pretended he knew what to do with her and the way she was never rattled by anything.

  When he glanced back in her direction, she was watching him with a slight smile playing on her lips. “I’m going to pop back into the kitchen, if that’s okay. I need to stir the stew.”

  Roan nodded, and she disappeared around the back before he could say anything else, her blonde curls bouncing as she walked.

  She even walked with pep in her step.

  This was the problem with hiring her. Roan didn’t have a problem with women; he had a problem with people who were too cheerful and wouldn’t be grumpy with him.

  He never should have hired her in the first place.

  “She had it handled,” Conrad said from his seat across the bar.

  “Sure she did,” Roan said gruffly.

  “You don’t have to be so hard on her,” Conrad pointed out.

  “I’m not hard on her,” Roan said. “I’m simply telling her what needs to be done.”

  Conrad raised his eyebrows. “You think that’s what you’re doing?” he asked. “Because from my end, it looks like you’re being hard on her.”

  “It’s not your business how I manage my employee,” Roan said sharply.

  Conrad shrugged his shoulders. He was also far too unruffled—maybe Roan didn’t like him either.

  “If that’s what you say,” Conrad said quietly, “though I still think she puts up with more from you than she ought to.”

  “I’m her employer,” Roan said again, but Conrad simply smiled, shrugged, and turned away, going back to nursing his ale.

  The door was thrown open with a bang, and Roan looked up quickly. Who was abusing his grandfather’s door like that?

  The man who stood in the doorway was unfamiliar—short, with blond hair in a terrible cut and ill-fitting clothes. His cloak was torn in the front and showed signs of being mended more than once. Roan frowned. Honest men could be down on their luck, but there was something shifty about this one.

  The heavy wooden door slammed shut, and Roan gritted his teeth. He kept the hinges well oiled; there was no need to slam the door to shut it.

  The man’s hand came around from behind the folds of his cloak, a white rose grasped in his fingers, and Roan saw red.

  That was it.

  He stalked around the corner of the bar, Beastie immediately following him.

  “Why do you have one of my grandmother’s roses?” he asked as he approached the stranger, his voice harsh and unforgiving. “No one is allowed to touch those.”

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  “Perhaps you should make a sign,” the man said, his voice haughty. “How is one to know that they shouldn’t touch your precious roses if there’s nothing to tell them that? They’re not that pretty, anyway.” He threw the flower to the ground.

  Roan’s hands curled into fists unbidden. Who was this stranger to come and cause trouble at The Lucky Goat? His grandparents had built this tavern with their blood, sweat, and tears, and this man had no respect for any of it. First, he’d thrown the door open so hard Roan had thought it might crack, and now he was insulting his grandmother’s roses.

  “You are not welcome here,” he said. Perhaps it was hasty to throw out a potential paying customer, but it didn’t seem as if he could pay anyway, and Roan wasn’t here to be a charity.

  If the man wanted charity, he should go see his brother Nathaniel, who seemed far more focused on doing good than maintaining what had been left to them by their grandparents.

  “I think you should be careful,” the man said, returning his hand to his pocket, his other hand moving to his cloak pocket.

  Roan tensed and clicked his tongue for Beastie, who waited by his side, ready for what was to come. If there was to be a knife fight, he wouldn’t want Beastie to be wounded, but the dog was often better than he was at stopping fights before they began.

  “You should leave,” Roan said, making an effort to keep his voice more measured. If the man was ready to start a fight, he needed to calm down. He needed to keep his head straight if he was going to be defending himself.

  It was his duty to protect everyone in this tavern—not to mention himself.

  “Now, now,” the man said, clicking his tongue. Roan reached down to put his hand on Beastie’s head, ready to unleash her if necessary. “I think that this is all a little hasty. After all, I was told to come visit your establishment, but I suppose that you may not be as welcoming as I was led to believe. Perhaps I should make you a little more welcoming.”

  What did that mean?

  The man continued, mumbling to himself. “Perhaps you should learn to think more of the people in front of you than the roses.”

  Roan took a step forward, Beastie staying right at his side.

  “I think you’d better leave, sir,” he said, his gaze shifting between the man’s face and his hidden pocket.

  “Yes, I think that’s it,” the man said. As he pulled his arm out of his pocket, Roan braced himself to lunge. He stopped short as he noticed it was not a knife, but merely a stick with a small brown egg on the bottom of it.

  He barked a laugh. The man had come to threaten him with a stick?

  “You should be less of a beast,” the man said, acid dripping from his voice as he waved the stick toward Roan. “Until you learn to care more for people, may you never wake again.”

  He looked down at the stick with a puzzled grimace, banging it on the heel of his other hand. “Already out of power?” he said, groaning. “How?”

  Roan had seen enough—the man was clearly mad.

  He stepped forward to reach for him and take him to the sheriff when the man pointed the stick again with a triumphant “ha,” and a burst of light came out of it, striking Roan squarely in the chest.

  Roan startled, but it didn’t hurt.

  It hadn’t done anything.

  The man turned and ran, and Roan chased after him, reaching out to snag his arm as the man crossed the threshold. But as his body reached the doorstep, he hit something, and his tavern faded into a sparkling rose-colored void.

  Chapter two

  Abigail

  Abigail stirred the stew as the scent of fresh bread filled the air, and she smiled in satisfaction at the three loaves she had just taken out of the oven.

  Experimenting with baking their own bread instead of buying from the baker every day had been her idea, and this new recipe smelled successful. She’d have to wait a moment if she wanted to see what they truly looked like on the inside without the crumb being damaged by her trying to slice them before they cooled…but she was far too impatient.

  She reached for a knife and used a clean towel to pick up one of the loaves. Perhaps cutting one of them wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t as if she would use all three loaves of bread tonight, anyway.

  She sliced off the heel, releasing even more of that delicious scent into the air, and her stomach grumbled. She usually ate with Roan after they closed up, and she had already eaten a meal before the evening rush began, but surely she could enjoy one slice of bread without too much chaos unfolding in the tavern.

  Reaching for the butter crock in the corner, she spread a generous portion on the bread before taking a bite. She closed her eyes and hummed in satisfaction as she chewed. It was perfect. Her father may not have taught her much, but he had certainly taught her how to make a good loaf of bread. Adapting the recipe to the amount of bread the tavern required instead of two people had been a challenge, but she’d figured it out.

  Having stirred her stew and tried her bread, Abigail took a deep breath and prepared to head back out to the bar. It had been a busy evening, and after Roan had tucked himself away with the baker’s invoice in his office, the men had gotten a little more rowdy.

  Nothing she couldn’t handle, of course, and if she had asked, Roan would probably have left Beastie with her,

  But she wanted to prove to him that she could do it, even if she felt slightly out of her element. She liked this job better than being the washerwoman at the inn she was living at, and if she was going to keep it, she needed to be able to handle herself amongst even the roughest crowds.

  She knew she could. She had grown up with worse…so she knew how to handle it, even if she’d rather not.

  Now that Roan had cut off Silas and Montgomery and they were gone, perhaps things would get easier—or at least the men would settle down a little, even if the night remained busy.

  The spicy-sweet smell of a dragon power-infused magic flooded her senses, and Abigail froze. A blast of rosy light showed through the crack in the kitchen door before everything faded to black for a moment.

  Abigail opened her eyes and the light returned, a whisper of the sparkling wind that usually accompanied a curse brushing through her hair.

  Who was using magic here, in the Lucky Goat? Magic was illegal in Galamere, and anyone who knew how to use magic would never dare to do so in public—much less inside a tavern full of men.

  Though perhaps that was why they felt safe enough to do it. Magic could easily be explained as the drunk ravings of a man who’d had too much.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath.

  No one knew she knew about magic. No one here, anyway. And if she wasn’t out there while they put to rights whatever had happened…she could pretend she didn’t know anything about it.

  Except Roan might need her help.

  She hurried to the door, opening it and surveying the room.

  There was no one there.

  Well, no one she didn’t recognize, that is—only the front door swinging closed behind a dark cloak, with Roan giving chase.

  “What happened?” Abigail asked, glancing around the room at the men sitting there. But before they could answer, their heads began nodding to the side, their eyes closing, and those sitting at the bar slumped over, their heads collapsing to the table.

  Abigail’s eyes widened in alarm, and she rushed forward to catch Conrad as he began to slip off his stool.

  “Steady,” she said, but he was too heavy for her to hold up, so she could only support him as he fell to the floor, holding his head to prevent him from cracking it.

  What sort of magic was this? She hadn’t been affected…but this was more than a standard sleeping spell for everyone in the tavern to fall asleep so quickly.

  Her stomach churned. Why was she not affected, and where had Roan gone?

  There was a yip, and Abigail turned to see Beastie standing over Roan, who was laid out flat on the floor.

  Oh. There he was.

  Was she the only one awake?

  “What happened, Beastie?” Abigail asked as she hurried over.

  If only the dog could tell her what was wrong, or what had happened since she stepped into the kitchen.

  This was clearly the work of a strong magic user—or someone who had access to a dragon egg.