The day of the great feast, no one noticed the grieving girl.

Peeking out from behind a heavy window curtain, she stood alone, stubborn eyes watching like a snake. Silently, she took in the guests’ Jack-O-Lantern grins, their savage cheers, their stampeding applause. An ugly celebration. She straightened her spine, lips quivering, iron jaw set. The worst part, she thought, was not even that they felt no remorse. It was that they had no idea what they had done was wrong, or why.

Her hands curled into knotted fists.

“Juno!” A fellow serving girl, Tilda, gestured for her to join her. “Don’t just stand there idly by—there’s guests to attend to!” Juno’s expression tightened into a shaking scowl.

“Why should I attend to them?” she asked sharply.

“Because it’s your job. You want to get paid, don’t you?” Tilda shook her head firmly, gripping her by the arm and dragging her out onto the floor.

“See there?” she said, pointing to one of the several, lavish tables laid out across the banquet hall. “Go refill their drinks.”

But Juno could not move. Her gaze was fixated toward the center of the room, where his wilted head on a raised platform of polished wood. A trophy stand. As if he was a prize they could seize and put on display, worth no more than a hunted animal pelt. His dark eyes, always so full of life, were now empty holes, blank and unblinking. She hated the sight, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to look away.

How many times had she looked into those eyes and felt all her pain melt away in an instant? How many times had they laughed together by their favorite blackberry bush, told each other stories under a violet sky, flew kites in the open valleys? Sure, he was a dragon—with scarlet scales and sharp teeth—but he had never been a monster. He had been a son and a brother and a cousin. And he was the kindest friend Juno had ever known.

But these wealthy dragon hunters didn’t know any of that. They didn’t even know his name. No, they only cared about the glory, the game, the money they could make off a dragon head.

Juno squeezed her eyes shut, rage boiling in her veins, threatening to spill over. They didn’t know his name.

But she swore that one day, they would know hers.