Prologue
Fourteen Years Ago
Shiny black crowspecked dull dead eyes in the Kavian main square, and young Elysia Parker couldn’t tear hers away from the sight.
It was a hanging today. Yesterday a beheading. The bodies accumulating like some bizarre, macabre décor that everyone wished would just be put away already.
Elysia watched the woman’s body sway gently, the tips of her bare feet brushing against the welcome sign that sat beneath the gallows.
Welcome to Kava, where the undead gods neither hear nor care, but you'd best pray to them anyway lest they curse you with their gifts.
Magic in Kava was dead. There would be no resurrections here. It was for fools and thieves—a crutch that would not be tolerated. Kavians could stand on their own two feet without false aids from the undead gods who clearly did not hear nor care.
She’d heard in stories whispered after dark that Kava was once lush with magic and wonder. Such ease for all its people. And then one day, from one breath to another, it was gone. In aworld of magic, they were left barren. Even the soil responded in kind.
Magic lived on in other lands, but much like the flowers and plants that did not bloom in Kavian soil, all it took was one foot into the sunless country and even outsiders would lose their magic until they left again. It was as if the magic had been ripped from the sprawling, thread-thin roots of Kava, leaving them a land without a heartbeat or pulse. Other lands came and slaughtered and stole until King Garrison brokered a deal, the Treaty of the Fall, preserving what was left of their kingdom.
Elysia traced her boot in the dirt.
Mandelyn.
That was the name of the woman whose dull eyes would soon be pecked by crows. Elysia stared on as stoically as any child could. Her father demanded she attend because after all, it was her fault the woman swung, just like it was her fault that a neck had snapped or a head had rolled every day this week.
“Are you watching, Elysia?”
Her back straightened at the reprimand, her foot erasing the name she had written in the dirt. “Yes, Father.” Her eyes latched onto the blue of the woman’s dress, knowing what would happen if she didn’t.
There was still flour dusting the woman’s sleeve, a powdery cloud against the sky blue. As if she’d been in the middle of baking her famous tarts for Fillie’s Café when the guards stormed in and dragged her here.
Relaclave, the capital city of Kava, would never taste a tart quite like hers again. Elysia swore she could smell the sweet scent of lemon custard even now. But that wasn’t possible. Mandelyn’s specific combination of magic and love had been extinguished today.
“And why are we here?” Jack Parker kept his voice down, making it rumble even more inside the barrel of his chest. Hetapped his hands against the charcoal formal jacket he wore bearing Kava’s insignia, waiting for her to answer.
“I must bear witness to the cost of my curse.” Anyone else listening might have thought her strange. But Elysia’s dark eyes were like the grave as she spoke. Her small mouth was serious and the lift of her chin already hinted at the severity she would hold herself to in all things as she grew.
Her father’s trim beard dipped closer to his chest as he nodded. “And how must you atone for your evil?”
The blue of Mandelyn’s dress rippled in the breeze. Her legs no longer moved easily, already becoming stiff with death. Elysia watched and recited her atonement.
“I must see the cost of my curse. I must understand the death that will befall our family if I cannot be better. And I must pay the Crown with secrets, as is only fitting.” She looked up at her father, hoping to see the intoxicating flare of pride in Jack Parker’s eyes. But her father was rarely impressed with her. His disappointment was a much more familiar drug, and so was the feeling of drowning which accompanied it.
Her father crouched, careful not to kneel in the blood and vomit covering the cobblestones of the square. Humming his agreement, he hooked his thumbs into his jacket pockets. “You endanger your family with every breath you take. You will never be able to pay this debt, child. Always remember that.”
He straightened and looked beyond her to the gallows.
Elysia flinched. How could she ever forget? Yet her steady gaze did not drop even as a familiar sense of terror threatened to become a tempest within her. She smothered the inner turmoil before it could so much as peek out of her eyes. Insides tight, she clenched her fists within the folds of her matching gray dress. She welcomed how her nails cut into her palms, chasing the ache from her voice. Bitterness was all that remained.
“There is no repayment for a crime such as mine.”
“That’s right.” His hand settled heavily on her shoulder and the weight was a boulder.
She was vile. A disease they would be better off cutting away entirely.
She would be why her family died. She just knew it. Mandelyn stared back at her lifelessly in agreement.
Elysia’s nose wrinkled. The damp smell of decay made her want to retch. You would think she would be used to it by now. The ever present pile of bodies waiting for pick up created an odor that would likely stay burned inside her brain for the rest of her days.
“King Garrison!” her father’s voice boomed, causing her to startle and focus on her surroundings once more. She forced herself to be attentive, ready to play her part—Elysia Parker, daughter of the Crown.
