Prologue: Taking Flight

Sunlight poured down on me through the open ceiling of the dim cave, like a stairway to heaven. The scene was so peaceful that I yawned and closed my eyes, my tail swaying happily. Lord Reineke snuggled up to me as I petted his back. Fine silver strands of his fur soared into the air, shimmering in the sun’s rays. Droplets of melting snow trickled down the cavern walls like a quiet song that heralded the coming of spring.

My name was Lune Renard. When I was eight years old, my parents abandoned me during a monster attack and I became an orphan. I hid in the temple of the great fox spirit Lord Reineke until Liam Renard found me, and his marquisate family took me in as their adoptive daughter. It had already been a year since then, and I was now nine.

In fact, in my past life, I had been executed by a mob, but Lord Reineke decided to grant me a second chance to redo my life. So great was his pity for me that he gave me divinely blessed fox ears and a tail, and reincarnated me as his spirit contractor.

“Are you sleepy, Lune?” asked a boy who was using a scrubbing brush to rub Mr. Dragon’s back. This was my older adoptive brother Liam, gazing at me with gentle eyes the color of twilight.

Liam was the heir of House Renard who would one day take over the territory. He was fourteen, five years my senior. He had made a spirit contract with the Lord of Darkness, Nott, whose very name was a taboo—though this was a secret just between me and him. It was already rare for children to make spirit contracts