His warriors reached for their weapons, already moving, as if one of them might still be faster than my arrow.
They couldn’t.
“Traitor,” I whispered and loosed the arrow that would shatter Solkar’s Reach and his heart.
Chapter 1
Allie
“It won’t sprout fangs and maul your throat, you know?” Dax’s words rushed through the forest and vanished between the ancient fir trees that engulfed us.
Still, I didn’t move, both entranced and unnerved.
The relief at seeing my cousin was gone, leaving behind a numbness even colder than the frozen crater caging us; only my throat throbbed with the painful memories of Orion’s fist squeezing the air out of me.
I didn’t dare run my fingers over the skin, now healed and much paler in the unreliable northern sun than it had been back on the balmy coast of Aquila.
The stronghold of the Protectorate Clan.
The home which I’d defended fiercely all my life.
The city which now considered me a traitor.
I stayed as still as Dria Vegheara’s mighty statues, Dax’s eyes sharpened on me. Out of all my cousins, he was the one who saw too much and had no qualms pointing out the tiniest details.
“Allie,” he pressed, coming closer. The crunch of the snow tensed me up–or maybe it was him holding the crown up to me, like an offering. “It’s the Protectorate crown.Yourcrown.”
Was it, though, after everything that had happened?
My father had been killed, minutes, perhaps seconds before I’d found him, and I hadn’t even been able to attend his funeral.
I’d been taken away from everything I’d ever known by the Commander of the Blood Brotherhood Clan.
My uncle Silas had stolen my throne in my absence and had busied his useless self with spreading lies about me instead of actually leading our Clan.
The Clan Council had demanded I marry my former enemy to prevent an outright war.
When I’d tried to escape back to Aquila, foolishly thinking the Protectorate would welcome me back with open arms, the man who’d taught me how to hold a bow had tried to kill me.
My cousins were all scattered over Malhaven, each facing their own Blood Brotherhood arranged marriages to keep the peace.
The bitter truth was that if my people had ever respected me, they’d only done it because of my titles.
The First Daughter.
The Huntress.
The heir to the Protectorate throne.
What was I without the power my family and its history bestowed upon me?
A memory for some.
A name to be cursed for most.
A crown on my head changed nothing, even if it had been worn by Grandpa Constantine.
Still, I stared at it. At its sharp, imposing metal peaks, forged out of a cannon's barrel right in the Ember Vale, where few dared go and even fewer returned from. Powerful symbols hid underneath that steel, only to be lit up once–and if–the crown accepted the heir.
