Juliet’s gaze shifted toward the window. Her smile was quiet, almost secret.
“He will not need to fight them at all.”
Amerei’s eyes lifted to the eastern cliffs. In her mind she saw lightning split the horizon, imagined it striking at Viktor’s command.
Her voice wavered. “Will The Midnight tell him how?”
Juliet laughed softly. “Is that what you call his seer?”
Amerei only nodded, her gaze still caught by the sky.
Juliet leaned back, thoughtful.
“If they are the children of Eiliyah Aradostylan, which one was surrendered to the Elders?”
“Líri…”
The name left Amerei in a whisper as she sank to her knees beside her grandmother, shaken by the thought.
Surrendered to the Elders?
Juliet’s brow furrowed.
“No. It cannot be your betrothed—he is too old.”
Her head tilted, lips barely parting.
“Then is Viktor’s seer truly a seventeen-year-old boy?”
The truth struck Amerei harder than any blow. She gasped, the weight of it pressing into her chest.
“Mama died seventeen years ago…”
Juliet leaned forward, her hands warm against Amerei’s face, as though she had always known.
“Mama died—”
“Darling girl,” Juliet whispered, gathering her close.
Tears spilled from Amerei’s eyes, her lips quivering with each breath. All her life she had been told her mother died of fever—but she had been so young, far too young for some common illness to steal her breath.
Something had happened all those years ago.
Something had driven Eiliyah to seek the Elders.
Something had convinced Zeporah she could seize the throne.
Something had killed her mother.
“You found Viktor by no accident.”
Juliet pressed her cheek to Amerei’s hair.
“The hand of fate set him in your path—chose you to bear each other’s burdens, to be tempered in each other’s fire.”
Her fingers swept over Amerei’s face, drawing her up, her eyes fierce and unwavering.
“The moment you are wed, you will tear it all apart. You will defy the wickedness that sought to divide you before you ever met.”
