Chapter 1
Lessia
The storm hammered so hard against the window that Lessia wondered for a moment if someone was banging on it. But as she stared out the smudged glass, squinting to make out anything through the fine layer of soot that covered most of it, only heavy rainfall and a blurred empty path met her.
She shook her head at herself.
Since they arrived in Korina yesterday, she’d seen no one but Merrick, Raine, and Frelina, who were also staying in this small half-burned-down cabin with her. But even during the days before that—the ones where the soldiers of Ellow and the, albeit hesitant, Vastala Fae had joined forces to capture rebels and Oakgards’ Fae alike and decided to bring them to Korina, to neutral ground, until they knew what to do with them—people had stayed away from her.
She’d barely spoken even to her friends—Ardow, Amalise, Kerym, Soria, and Pellie—and when she had,they’d all looked at her differently after what had happened at the end of the battle.
There was a hushed, hurried tone to their words that she didn’t recognize, one that couldn’t be explained by the rush of trying to get prisoners and everyone else safely to Korina.
And even though their smiles were genuine, the feeling of relief that she was alive clear, something haunted flitted across their features every time they believed she wasn’t looking.
She’d seen Loche, as well, cast glances at her whenever they crossed paths, and although they hadn’t had time to speak—he was still regent of Ellow and their world was in turmoil, after all—she’d seen the worry, not for himself but for her, in his eyes.
The humans and Fae she didn’t know would barely look at her, walking in wide circles, even on the ships, to avoid her path. Even if she’d received a few fast, muttered thanks here and there in passing, they were often accompanied by an apprehensive glance and then rushing off to talk about her with someone else.
Casting her head back and glaring at the blackened beams lining the ceiling—the fires Korina had endured during the last war had painted them dark and murky—Lessia sighed.
She didn’t know what was worse: being shunned because she was half-Fae, ignored and cast aside, or being avoided because people were afraid of her.
Lessia didn’t even know what had happened. As soon as she’d jumped to her feet back on that ship, the thousands upon thousands of souls bowing to her had disappeared. Just evaporated as if they’d never even been there at all.
But they had. Even now, even here in this cabin, she couldfeelthem.
She didn’t know how, but there was something—something different, something old—that had been awakened within her and made her pulse thrum a little faster, her heart beat a little harder. If she was entirely truthful, it was something a little too close to the power that she’d felt race through her veins when she’d held the wyverns’ souls in her hands.
She couldn’t shake it. Day and night, that sense was there—the foreign feeling sometimes consuming her, especially when the others avoided her and she had nothing to keep herself distracted. Even her dreams were haunted by the feeling—whispered sounds of “Queen” and a sense of urgency waking her up drenched in sweat.
She’d awoken several times from exhausted sleep, and she’d asked Merrick—who refused to let her sleep anywhere but in his arms—whether it was a dream, a nightmare? Every time he’d look at her for a moment, and she knew somehow he wished he could say yes, but then he shook his head and pulled her closer.
At least people avoided him as well. She’d seen the looks he received—not just from the Fae and humans and shifters they didn’t know, but from their friends.
Merrick had risked everyone for her, and she knew she should be angry with him. Livid really. But each time those dark eyes found hers—which was most of the time, since people left them alone—she couldn’t. Because she would have done the same for him, wouldn’t she?
That darkness that had driven her uncle to his power-hungry ways wasn’t mirrored in her. Not exactly. But there was another, selfish partof her that she let whisper to her only in the night, which knew that if she’d been in Merrick’s position, she would have compelled the damned gods to get him back. After just a taste of a world without him, she knew now that for him, she would have gladly ripped to shreds the realm that she was trying to save.
Lessia glanced out the window again, watching the dark clouds swirl around the equally dark island, casting shadows over the grimy soot covering every stone, every dead tree, and every narrow path winding outside.
Merrick should be back any minute now. He’d left earlier to check on Kerym, who’d barely spoken a word to anyone since Thissian’s death, making sure he’d join the meeting happening in an hour or so.
She sighed when unease whirled in her gut.
Today was the day the Fae and humans would get together to decide what to do next.
What Havlands would become.
Who would lead each nation.
What they’d do with the rebels, with the Fae who still sided with Rioner, with the Oakgards’ Fae—the hundred or so people they’d locked into the still-standing prison on Korina.
Lessia wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Not only because she’d been asked to be part of each nation’s discussions, taking a leadership role in the cross-Ellow-and-Vastala council Loche aimed to build—as if she had any experience in what it took to lead a people—but because she disagreed with how the prisoners were being treated.
Sure, they might have all risked Havlands’ destruction…
But they’d done it out of desperation—out of beliefthat they were fighting for their own people, exactly like she and her friends were.
