Chapter one
Valeria
Royal Manor House, Stratus;
Kingdom of Sennalaith
Choke down the tears. Tears are a weakness, the sign of an untethered will.
Valeria pulled her hair back so tight it stretched her skin to her eyebrows. She bound the black waves into a coil and pinned them in place, then smoothed a thin layer of wax over her scalp, ensuring no rogue strands would come loose during the battle and fall into her face.
Even such a small thing could prove fatal in the darkness and chaos.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she repeated her father’s old mantra like a psalm:Tears are a weakness, the sign of an untethered will.
Valeria tried to paint the inky stain on her lips. It looked easy when Olivette did it—but her sister's hands were always steady. Valeria's trembling fingers smeared the stain grotesquely, and she feared she looked more like a child caught stealing blackberries than a terrible witch. She’d never applied it herself. For years, Olivette had helped her line her eyes with dark pencil, color herlips, and paint her eyelids aconite purple. But tonight, the empty room shouted her sister’s absence.
Anger is exhausting, and Valeria was exhausted before her father sent her sister into exile. As she stared at her grim reflection in the vanity mirror, Valeria thought she looked depleted, like a rose bush in a drought. She couldn’t endure much more of this life—the war, her “untethered will,” this cold room with the nettles growing in the corners, the poisonous mushrooms sprouting beneath the armoire, and the curtains tangled in brambles.
The smell of leaf rot.
With Olivette in exile, there was no reason to stay. She had to get out of Sennalaith.
Her father’s imperious voice sounded through the door. “Come, Valeria!”
Valeria clenched her fists in her lap, smudging lip paste on her palms. “In a moment.”
Cadmus entered anyway—he wouldn’t permit Valeria to keep a lock inside her door—and studied her like a farmer appraising a new carthorse. His caladrius bird perched on his shoulder, its little beak tucked under its snow-white wing. Valeria often wondered if he carried the bird with him because he was afraid she would strike him with a venomous zephyr, and the bird, able to draw out dark magic, might save him.
“I want you to find Prince Evandaine on the battlefield and kill him,” her father said, as if he’d just asked her to fetch him his shoes or pass the salt at the dinner table.
“The Ashkendoric prince?” Valeria asked, surprised. “Whatever for?”
She’d never met Evandaine face to face, but she’d seen his dragon scale vest and chestnut hair shining in the firelight as he soared over the battlefield, one with his dragon, a vertebrae on its spine. She secretly admired his skill.
“I want to push Marwenna to her lowest. What better way?”
Valeria had killed many men on the battlefield. What was one more? But something in her recoiled at the thought of murdering Evandaine. Still, a favor fulfilled was a favor owed, and she wanted her father in her debt.
“I will do it,” Valeria said, “if you bring my sister home.”
Cadmus fixed her with a penetrating glare. “I will not have her casting furtive glances at my throne, as if it were a courtier she wished to seduce.”
“She’s your daughter,” Valeria blurted. “She is your heir!”
“Which is why her betrayal was so devastating. I do not appreciate your sister’s designs on my rule …”
"You are paranoid!" Valeria couldn’t believe herself. She’d never spoken to her father this way. It was madness, but the words rattled out of her like pellets from a shotfire. “Olivette had no designs on your throne. She was merely suggesting we stop this useless war against Ashkendor. It’s draining our resources. It’s killing all the dragons.”
“Yes, well, she wouldn’t understand, would she? It wasn’t her mother who was murdered by the Ashekndoric queen. It was your mother. And so you should be as upset as I am that your sister is so quick to forgive Marwenna. Now, no more talk of your sister. I don’t want to hear her name mentioned again.”
Valeria gripped the arms of her chair. "I've never met the prince, and it will be night. How will I know him?"
“Simple,” her father said, stroking the caladrius bird’s belly. “He’ll be the one trying to prevent me from killing King Tiernan.”
Valeria stood and crossed the room, tiny amethyst stingdrops blooming in her footsteps. She debated her next move. Her father seemed to be in an amenable humor. Perhaps he would be willing to barter.“I will do it if you tell me where my sister is.”
“Kill the prince, and I will tell you.”
