I hadn’t visited since he’d been buried two years ago. Whenever I contemplated seeing his tombstone, I had to acknowledge that he was dead, and that knocked me off my feet every time.
If my mother hadn’t died, she would still be here, the reigning queen.
Unless Vulgaris had plotted against her the way he plotted against me.
“What do I do?” I folded my legs underneath me and sat at his grave, a single rose in my fingertips. The rose was burgundy, the color of wine, the color of rust on steel, blood against the snow that covered the ground. “I’m so stupid…” Tears burned behind my eyes before they streaked down my cheeks and sprinkled his grave. “He was right. I’m not capable of anything.” I spoke to the flowers in my garden because I had no one else. Nurtured them and helped them grow because I had nothing else in my life to care for. For the last two years, if I wasn’t in bed, I was in the garden, the only thing that could distract me from grief.
I understood my father was long gone, but I’d still come to his grave for an epiphany, like he would speak to me from beyond the veil and tell me what I needed to do. He would grant me his advice and guidance to undo the mess I’d made.
But all I heard was silence.
Because I was on my own. And without a single living relative who cared for me, I would be on my own until the end. So, if I didn’t solve this problem, then I would fade into the background, watching a snake rule the kingdom wearing a crown that didn’t belong to him. All I had was myself.
Was that the epiphany? Or just the cold, hard truth?
I left the cemetery and returned to the castle. I stepped through the double doors and approached the grand staircase that sat in the center of the room, large pots of trees on either side of thebanisters. The colored stained-glass windows toward the ceiling blanketed the room in light to keep the trees healthy.
I was about to take the stairs when I heard voices down the hallway, the sound bouncing around the grand hallway with wooden floorboards. Every sound was amplified against the bare stone walls. Rugs had been added to minimize the noise, but the area was simply too spacious to mute it entirely.
It sounded like a conversation with multiple men—the Ring of Elders.
I changed my route and headed to the War Room, a room that hadn’t been used since I could remember. The doors were twenty feet high and closed, but the sound of voices was still audible, which meant the conversation had turned heated.
I crept to the door then pressed my ear against the wood, and despite its thickness, it was a great medium to transfer sound.
“I’ve reached my fifties, and with every passing year, I feel my skin grow thin and my bones brittle, the aging process bringing me closer to the grave where the old king lies. If only Calix had heeded my advice decades ago, he would still be alive, and I would still be young.”
I knew that was Vulgaris. Even if I didn’t recognize his voice, I could identify him based on his words. But the meaning behind them was a mystery to me.
“King Acana claims to be our ally, but he refuses to share his horde of dragons—which means we aren’t allies at all.” It was my uncle again. “He keeps that power for himself, for his family, so they may live forever, while we wither and die. When the Mammoths threatened our kingdom, King Acana failed to answer our call for aid, claiming he never received the letter. Iknew that was a lie, but King Baccara failed to see it. He was always the forgiving one, while I remained the realistic one. I’ve already conversed with King Mormont, and he’s in agreement. I’ve conferred with our other allies, and come spring, we attack Warthorn and take what should be shared.”
My heart dropped into my stomach when I finally understood. King Acana had ruled his kingdom when my father was a boy. Now, my father’s life had come and gone, but King Acana’s life hadn’t changed at all. A fuse with a dragon gave you power beyond belief and granted you the gift of immortality. My father had shared that with me years ago.
“They have the power to take our kingdoms and claim the continent for themselves. King Acana can be the one true king and turn the rest of us into slaves. Calix and I vehemently disagreed on this topic. He believed we should trust our allies since we’ve lived in peace these last hundred years, but I disagree. It’s only a matter of time before they decide to conquer us, and I refuse to let that happen. A true ally answers the call—and they abandoned us to our fate.”
I continued to listen, feeling my breathing increase and then having to draw back, afraid they would hear me and spot my shadow under the door.
“I agree.” An old man spoke, probably Tomlinson. “They’ve always been secretive, never entertaining guests in their lands, not even King Calix Barclay, who insisted he and King Acana were good friends. We have no idea what lies beyond the border, how many dragons they might have.”
“We could breed them,” Vulgaris said. “Distribute them to those who are worthy. Our army would be unstoppable, and we would live forever. This continent would belong to us exclusively.”
My father had always spoken highly of King Acana and the land of Warthorn. When I was a child, I remembered my father and Vulgaris would have intense conversations about it. Vulgaris would always insist that we needed to attack preemptively, and my father would resist and say we needed to place our trust in good people.
Vulgaris had seemed to let it go, but he clearly had not.
I realized that my uncle’s ambitions were far greater than the Kingdom of Baccara. He wanted the entire continent to himself, wanted an army of dragons to sustain his power, and to fuse with his own dragon to live forever.
PROLOGUE V
HANNE
Vulgaris was in the study with the fire burning in the hearth, the crown at the corner of his desk like he was tired of wearing it all day. He’d only had the power for a couple of weeks, and he seemed to have already grown weary of the responsibility.
I stepped inside but didn’t knock.
He sat in the chair my father used to occupy and stared at the fire, lost in thought.
I stared at the side of his face, searched for evidence of the evil that I hadn’t noticed before. Had there ever been love there? Had he ever cared for my father? Or had he only nurtured the relationship because this coup had been decades in the making?
