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Merrow Kingdom had been making and stockpiling weapons and had beenplotting to try to take over part or all of the Dragonfly territories—until Aron caused the iron shortage.
    A well-known inventor and explorer, King Aron had set up factories all over the Dragonfly territories in the last five years, with the sole purpose of building a fleet of airships and ocean steamers to explore the uncharted lands of Solace. The world’s future lay in exploration and expansion, he claimed. But for the longest time, that expansion had been halted by a range of impassable mountains to the north and west, and by oceans to the south and east. Expeditions that tried to cross the mountains were stopped by avalanches and peaks so high and cold that they froze the blood in a person’s veins. And the wooden sailing ships that set out to find new lands across the sea were battered by storms and vicious currents. They returned in failure—if they returned at all.
    King Aron intended to change all that, with steamships that would weather any ocean storm, and airships that would pass over the highest mountains in safety and comfort. But to accomplish his goal, he needed iron—lots of iron. Lucky for him, most of the iron mines in Solace were located in his kingdom, but to ensure he had a large enough supply, and at the same time to prevent the Merrow Kingdom from building mass quantities of weapons to attack his country, Aron had stopped trading iron to the Merrow Kingdom. Instead, he funneled it all into his factories. Ending this trade had left the Merrow Kingdom with a shortage that put thousandsout of work and soured relations between the two kingdoms to the point that many feared a war would erupt anyway. But King Aron continued with his shipbuilding, claiming that finding new lands and resources was the key to lasting peace. He built the largest factory of all in Noveen, his capital city—the place where Piper’s father had gone to work, and died.
    The dragonfly tattoos were only given to two groups of people: Aron’s advisory council, of which there were four members, and those who were under the king’s protection. This usually included the rich and powerful, although no one knew exactly how many bore the mark. The symbol itself had originated with Aron’s family. One of his oldest family crests was a pair of sabers crossed to look like the wings of a dragonfly, which had started the tradition of the people referring to the reigning monarch as the Dragonfly. Over the years, the symbol had changed as technology evolved, but Aron was still called the Dragonfly. Done in a mixture of rare inks, the tattoos were almost impossible for outsiders to duplicate. Piper could tell by the swirling metallic colors—emeralds and coppers so vivid they sparkled like jewels—that the mark was genuine. Whoever this girl was, she must be under Aron’s protection, so she was obviously very important. Her king was one of the most powerful men in Solace.
    And Piper’s father’s murderer.
    Not directly, of course. But King Aron had built the factory in Noveen, the monster that had swallowed Piper’s father up and made him breathe poisonous black smoke until his lungs couldn’t take it anymore. After her father died, Piper had spent many sleepless nights imagining her journey to the capital, how she would burn Aron’s precious factory to the ground.
    And now look at her, still living in the scrap town, tending and comforting a spoiled capital girl. Yet the girl couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve years old, and in the grip of the nightmare, she’d seemed much younger, terrified half out of her mind.
    Carefully, Piper adjusted the girl’s sleeve to cover the tattoo. What was a girl under Aron’s protection—one so young!—doing on a caravan in the harvesting fields during a meteor storm? Who else might have been on the caravan with her? Was she with her family? Had any of them escaped? Piper sucked in a breath—surely not Aron himself? No,