“Is it the child?” Sever knelt, worry creasing his face. “I can find him another place. I only thought—it might be wiser to keep him in my charge—until I’m sure of the nobles.”

The child. My father’s latest heir. In former days, the very thought of him had repulsed me. But he was innocent of my father’s sins, just as Darios and I had been.

I looked at the young man before me with new respect. His choice spoke a kindness, wisdom, and sincerity that had not been learned from Roca. The year’s ordeal had changed us both.

“You don’t need me any longer. It’s best I go.” I’d never before had trouble concealing my true feelings, but my gaze fell before the hurt in Sever’s eyes.

“So when you said you’d help me learn to rule a kingdom, that was a lie?” His hand clenched at his side, not threateningly, but as if attempting to still its trembling, and I swallowed hard.

“Clearly you have others who can teach you.” My attempt at calm came out bitter, and a frown creased Sever’s brow. “If you needed my advice, Highness, you would have sought it long before this.”

I slipped toward the stables, thankful for the lengthening shadows. I’d need a horse if I wanted any distance, and distance was the thing I wanted most just now.

The yard was crowded with unfamiliar mounts and grooms, and I couldn’t imagine they’d been warned not to let me ride when everyone thought me still bound to my bed. I ordered my horse as though nothing had changed, then pulled up my hood and retreated to a bench to wait.

But the boots that suddenly barred my way brought no mount with them.

“Iona. Where do you think you’re going?”

My unplanned path was finally barred by a locked door atop a winding set of stairs. Thankfully, the housekeeper was more honest than my closest advisor, and one of the keys on my ring fitted the lock.

On the other side, a small room opened to a large balcony, high enough to view a wide swath of Gallonia, sweeping away toward the sea.

As I stood settling the weight once more, a rustling below caught my ear, and I watched as a familiar figure hoisted itself from a lower window into a large tree and then to the ground.

Iona.

“Sign this, Highness.” A stack of pages thumped onto the table.

“What is it?”

“New tax codes, as we discussed.”

“Who ordered them drafted?”

“I thought to spare you the trouble, Highness.”

Rot. The duke had hardly left me space to breathe in the weeks since my coronation. I rubbed my aching eyes and began to read, and the duke’s eyebrow twitched.

I found it tucked away on the seventh page, a distinction for river-bordering lands that we had not discussed but that must favor Roca or its allies.

Trust. The price paid for power.

“I’m going for a walk.”

Being a king was just like I’d always imagined. Exhausting.

I not only faced the constant stream of petitions and decisions that were part and parcel to the throne but also the burden of untangling the usurper’s policies, deciding which to keep and how to discard others without throwing the kingdom into further chaos. And I had to manage it all amid a swarm of unknown nobles whose petty alliances, prejudices, and frictions I couldn’t begin to chart.

The duke had taken permanent residence at my elbow, and I wished above all else that they would let me see Iona.

I was leaving the palace.

The conviction grew as my strength returned. I had fulfilled Darios’s dream, avenged his death, and laid his memory to rest. And whatever Sever now thought of me, he hadn’t deigned to see me since I had woken. Likely Roca had him firmly in hand, and there had never been any love lost between the duke’s bloodline and mine.

When Sònia stepped away, I paced until I could walk three full laps without faintness, then attempted various bends and stretches until they no longer brought gasps of pain.

Finally, it was time to move on.

The wound wouldn’t kill me, but the stillness might.

I couldn’t remember a time in the last few years when I was without a purpose to my days. But not only was I physically confined to bed, I also had no future plans to occupy my mind. Which meant I no longer had a distraction from the cavernous ache in my soul.

Ever since my brother’s death, I had had been consumed with the burning need for vengeance. Now it was accomplished, but the void was still not filled. And in the silence, I could no longer escape the tears.

Somehow I had missed everything. The walls breached, my father fallen, the encircling army turned back, and Sever’s claim established. It had all been accomplished without my direction, my help, or even my consciousness—I, who had conceived the rebellion, found the lost prince, and recruited his allies.

I attempted to raise my head and had to bite back a gasp of pain.

“Lie still, Highness.” Sònia pressed me against the pillow.

“Not—Highness,” I managed to hiss through the threatening darkness.

What my place would be under Sever’s reign, I didn’t know. And now I would have no say.

Somehow she had done it.

I knelt next to Iona, holding her blook-soaked dress to the streaming gash at her ribs.

I couldn’t begin to understand what she had done, but the secret door had been unlatched, and under cover of a desperate feint at the walls, our army had poured through the breach. The usurper king had fallen, and the palace was ours.

“If not for your passion to save her, Highness, we would never have tried that door.”

And if not for whatever it was she had done, the attempt would have been useless.

Live, Iona. Please live.

“You’re going nowhere.” The duke stepped in my way, his aspect dark and commanding. I attempted to brush past him, but he caught my arm in an iron grip.

Sudden fury burst through my veins. Everyone felt it their role to instruct me, but if I couldn’t follow a path that I knew was right, what kind of king would I make?

“I am your prince. Unhand me.” For the first time, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin without Iona’s prompting, and the duke stepped back, dropping my arm like he’d touched a firebrand. “Find me Bastía. Now.”

Iona.

I’d never heard her scream in my life, but somehow I knew it, and the sound terrified me.

Even more terrifying was the fact that it came from inside the palace walls.

The duke muttered something sharp and hateful between his teeth. I knew he’d believed Iona betrayed us since she first disappeared, but I refused to accept it. If Iona wanted me dead, she could have run me through when I was just a simple farm boy. Why would she foment a rebellion no one was seeking, least of all me?

And that scream...

“I’m going after her.”

I had just managed to slide the hidden bolt when Father’s voice cut the air, and a dagger pricked my back.

This was it, then. I had opened the path, and our army could easily take the castle. But no one in camp knew of the secret gate, and when I was dead, no one could show them the way.

Forgive me, Darios. Forgive me, Sever.

Father dragged me toward the stairs, likely intending to cast me from the battlements, but my foot slipped, and his dagger slashed my arm.

Pain, fear, and hopelessness crashed in together, and I screamed.

I couldn’t believe it was working.

The servants had stared, but no one had questioned when I’d marched through the kitchen door and into the palace. I could only pray that they wouldn’t discover the stone I’d placed in the kitchen bolt-hole or the missing dish of lard I’d spread over the crossbar for the main door.

Slipping into the back garden, I noted with rising hope that no one had set a guard at the entrance to the old secret tunnel. If I could only hold it open somehow, our army would conquer.

“Well, Iona. You’ve come at last.”

I had only intended to clear my head, but the closer I came to the palace, the more the walls themselves seemed to whisper in my ears, telling me that if I could somehow get inside, I could still manage to fix this.

I knew every inch of the defenses; being the stubborn sister of an inquisitive crown prince had its advantages. And if Father anticipated no threat from me, he might have given no orders to stop me.

“Open!” I knocked with the bravado of a girl to whom a besieging army was a mere inconvenience. “It’s Princess Iona.”

We were supposed to have time.

The duke had anticipated our army would have weeks for the siege. But somehow a messenger must have slipped past our watch, and on the eighth day, scouts appeared in the surrounding hills.

Iona’s spies confirmed the worst. Half the remaining nobles surrounded us, with the rest to arrive within the week.

The duke’s aspect was set and white. Our plans had all depended on taking the palace before the king could summon aid. But when I sought my most trusted advisor for any last desperate plan, her tent was empty.

Iona was gone.

Dull flecks of red still clung to the rings of my hauberk, pressing heavier on my shoulders than its unfamiliar weight. They hadn’t let me fight in the battle—not that I would have been any help—but I had insisted on joining the party that tended the wounded.

Somehow I knew those sights and smells would be harder to purge than the blood stains.

“Highness.” Iona signaled as I moved to mount my horse. “We stay in camp today.”

“Again?” My stomach clenched, and she nodded grimly.

“The castle’s less than a day’s ride. This war has just begun.”

Somehow Iona had accomplished it. The Duke of Roca had pledged to break with the king and uphold my claim to the throne, and he had added the support of his two closest allies. Both he and Iona agreed that if we could take the castle, the other nobles would not attempt to fight.

And now here they were, spread on the plain before me—an army I couldn’t command, ready to march for a throne I had never sought. At least I could sit a horse in front of them without falling off.

“For Prince Sever!”

The men roared.

When the fog of grief began to thin, I had harbored a faint hope that all might still be righted without more bloodshed. But within a month of Darios’s burial, Father had taken a wife, and before two years had passed, he had sired a new heir to the throne.

Whether I counted for nothing as a woman or as my brother’s sister mattered little. Ravaged with hatred for my father’s power lust, I had set out to restore a lost prince, and that prince’s feelings, like everything else, must bend to the ache for vengeance that consumed my soul.

It was our old nurse who had filled our heads with tales of lost princes and hidden tunnels and midnight escapes. Legends all; only after years of learning the true state of the kingdom did Darios bring her to confess that the prince who had been a babe when we were mere toddling children had indeed escaped the bloodshed in the arms of a young chambermaid.

But despite all precautions, the walls had ears. Cíbele was executed for killing my brother, but the curtains in the throne room were long, and the blow had come direct from my father’s hand.

Prince Sever was trying, but the fear behind his eyes was evident, even to a less shrewd negotiator than Roca.

Thankfully, that worked to our advantage.

The prince glanced toward me, but I kept my face neutral. Let the duke sense his desperation, but if he saw me as a threat, only trouble would result.

Sever’s hands shook beneath the table. The boy was exhausted and held no personal ambition to sustain him. I wished I could release him, but I had come too far to turn back.

If I meant to defeat my father, Sever was my only hope.

“Wash your face.” Iona pulled me up without ceremony, but her tone held a hint of rough kindness.

“I'm sorry, I—”

“No apologies. You are a prince. Claim it.”

If I could claim what I pleased, I would flee to the farm and forget that I held any drop of royal blood, but that wasn’t what she meant.

“What do I tell him? The duke.”

“We can offer coin, but he wants power. Tell him you’ll need advisers. Bind yourself definitely, but vaguely.”

“I’m not ready.” My hands trembled.

“We must act now. There will be no second chance.”

“Highness!” Iona’s voice was more cracked whip than respectful summons. “Come. The duke waits.”

I tried to rise, but my chest constricted until I could hardly breathe. The curtain snapped. Impatient footsteps approached—then  paused.

“Highness.” The tone softened, but I couldn’t answer. “Sever.” Iona sank next to me and stroked my back until I could fill my lungs again.

“Why me?” I whispered, and she smiled sadly.

“You’re the last prince of Gallonia and the one hope of your people. Your destiny is set, and you cannot escape it.”

“You’ve escaped yours.”

“Not truly. Not the parts that matter.”

Oncle and Tia’s shock was as deep as my own, but when Iona held her glass to my hand, we could no longer doubt. Though how anyone had inked my name and the royal seal in a space as small as a baby’s thumb still baffled me.

Iona insisted I come away at once, and Oncle agreed. Tia shed tears but offered no argument, but my heart quailed within me. Nothing had truly changed—I was still a farm boy in inclination, experience, and training. But I had been born to a doomed royal line, and that alone sealed my fate.

I still remembered the first time I’d seen Iona, standing in the market square with her dark blue cape billowing and her unbound black curls streaming in the wind. I’d felt immediately that she was there for a purpose, but never had I imagined myself part of it.

Simple farm boy that I was, I’d walked straight up to the beautiful girl and asked if she had shelter for the night, and her searching eyes had taken in every detail of my appearance, from my sand-colored hair to my sky-blue eyes to the swirling inkstain on my thumb.

“It’s you.”

“Let him off, Bastía.”

I managed not to sink to my knees as the ox of a man graced with the hopeless task of teaching me to wield a sword retreated, but Iona’s grim face forestalled the thanks I would have gasped.

“Roca’s entourage has arrived. Make yourself ready. Quickly.”

I couldn’t stifle a groan, but Iona’s gaze didn’t soften.

“Remind me again why you can’t take the throne?”

“I am not Prince Sever. Gallonia won’t follow me.”

The headache of diplomacy was hardly preferable to the anguish of training, but I surrendered and followed Iona as I always had.

I’m dead.

I stare at the open panel in horror as visions of the ghastly aftermath fill my mind.

I promised Dr. Roth I’d be careful. I promised my parents there was no danger. I promised myself it couldn’t possibly escape. Apparently I lied. To everyone.

A bloodcurdling scream rends the air, and I sink to my knees and cover my face with my hands, waiting for the end to come.

“Curtis Alexander Dalton!” Dad roars in the tones of a man whose wife has unexpectedly discovered a live ball python loose in her kitchen.

I am so dead.

“There should be a town just a couple miles from here.” I squint toward the sinking sun. “Maybe we can—”

“There’s not.” Holt’s words hold an unusually sharp edge.

“But the map says—”

“Map’s a decade old if it’s a day. Be better as kindling.”

“But there has to be something. A whole town doesn’t just up and disappear—”

“This one did.”

“But how do you know?”

I regret the question the instant Holt turns. He just stares at me, offering the clearest view I’ve ever had of the burn scars twisted across his face and neck.

“I was there.”

Zayden says when he was my age, they used to live in rooms like the ones up top. Cleo says he’s not lying, and she’s seen it in the books that she always finds a way to read before we use them to light our fires. I’m still not sure I believe it.

Zayden says back in those times, they could heat the big, empty spaces without fires, and the air was warm and changing enough that sometimes they didn’t even need to. But I’m a child of the always-frost, and I can’t imagine trading our cozy cellar for anything.

Coming home. It’s like starting over in a new life, especially after everything that’s happened in the last few months—things I’ll probably never be able to share.

The doctors have made it very clear that there’s no guarantee I’ll be cleared for active duty again; this last deployment took a serious toll both physically and mentally. I should be thinking ahead, weighing my options, coming up with a plan.

But instead, I sit on the couch with my sister Leah curled up next to me, like I’ll disappear again if she blinks. And instead of fighting, for once, I rest.

I wake with a smile on my face that fades to a pang in my heart as the hazy scenes replay themselves in my memory. For just a few hours, I was the happiest girl in the world, and I wish I could return to the dream.

“Leah?” Abby pokes her head in the door. “I thought you’d be downstairs before anyone. Well, anyone but Matt, obviously.”

“He’s here?” My breath catches in my throat.

“Where else would he be?” Abby looks confused, but I scramble out of bed and race down the stairs.

It wasn’t a dream. Matt’s home.

“So proud of you, Leah.”

Most of my family clusters around the display. I’m glad they’re here. But it feels so hollow without the one person who always encouraged my art.

If not for him, I wouldn’t be standing here. But I’d give it all up to have him with us. Or just to know he was safe. I really hate special ops sometimes, and Matt knows it.

“Congratulations, Leahnardo.” The voice comes from a deserted hallway, but no one’s ever called me that except—

“Matt!” I’ve nearly knocked my brother off his crutches, and I don’t care one bit.

“Goodnight, Princess.” The click of the lock echoed off the stone walls as I knelt by Halden’s side. One swollen eye cracked open to greet me, and I could scarcely make out the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

“Lind. What—” His hoarse voice cracked with fear, and I gently smoothed his hair.

“No one could prove where you’d gone. They know exactly where I am. If I don’t return tonight, Alver will beat the gate down tomorrow morning.” His eyes closed, and I gripped his hand tightly. “Hold hard, love. All that’s left is to survive the night.”

They won’t stop it, child. They’ve always been in league with us.

I hadn’t believed her, but standing in the council room under the cold gazes of the lords, the words rang in my heart with a deadly clarity.

“Peace requires sacrifice, boy.”

A cold resolve began to harden in my chest. I had come to beg help, not to lead a revolution, but it appeared our enemy had been correct.

“Peace is not bought with the torture of children.” I gripped the windowsill and pulled myself up before anyone could stop me. “If you will not act, we will.”

“You’re thinking about him again.” Trust Preston to say it out loud.

“And?”

“And it’s killing you, Savannah. He’s taking over your mind. Your life. You can’t give him that kind of power.”

“Give him?” I clenched my fists, trying hard not to punch Preston as a convenient proxy. “He chose to drive 90 in the dark on the wrong side of the road—”

“Savannah.” Pain laced Preston’s voice, and I swallowed hard. “We all have to live with the consequences. But he doesn’t control us forever.”

I began to tremble as the single unspoken word echoed around me.

Forgive.

“Choose, Highness.”

Anna stood bent with shame beneath her veil, and a sinister smile curved Lord Cyprian’s mouth.

I had known of Anna’s heritage since long before I offered my hand; so had Lord Cyprian for all his outraged posturing. But he had watched his opportunity and sprung his trap on the very day of our wedding.

Marry Lady Estelle and reward her uncle’s machinations, or marry Anna and lose the Cardonian alliance? I could give only one answer. Glancing toward my sister, stone-faced but eyes flashing like fire, I clasped Anna’s hand and stepped from the dais.

“I abdicate.”

They’ve found me.

I knew it was dangerous coming out here alone, but they’ve hurt Ian enough already. And I have to see this through.

The footsteps shuffle closer, not even trying to hide their noise, and I press myself against the ground, hoping to become just one more lump in the mist.

The figure pauses to listen, and I try to hold my breath.

“Bella?”

“How—” I surge to my feet, pulling Ian off the exposed path and into the eerie shadows. He shouldn’t even be out of bed, and he definitely looks it.

“I promised—you wouldn’t go alone.”

The valley hadn’t changed. Dathan let out the breath he’d held and stepped into the open.

The laughter in the air turned to glad cries, and the children clustered around, faces shining with joy.

Dathan lifted the littlest one, burying his face in her hair.

Leigha appeared behind them, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Come rest, love. How long can you stay?” She slid the baby from his arms; she must have caught his wince.

This was what the world had lost. And this would give him the strength to save it.

Grandma’s house was haunted by the leavings of childhoods past—scuffs on the molding, dents in the plaster, the dull ghosts of marker streaks on the walls.

But the toys strewn across the playroom floor? Those weren’t left by my generation.

So Abby had a kid. Had we fallen that far out of touch? The house was crawling with reminders of the childhood we’d spent together, but I hadn’t even known she had a family. And she’d left this mess but no suitcases?

Abbs, I wish you’d told me just what kind of trouble you’re in. Let me find you. Please.

Let’s all pretend it’s just a normal birthday. Like aggressive tumors and experimental treatments and 10% survival rates don’t exist for one night.

Maybe nobody had to say it. Maybe it’s human nature to default to normality. Optimism. Hope.

But after an hour of well-wishes and the cake I’m not supposed to eat and somebody turning up the dance music, I can’t take it anymore.

Kris finds me on the balcony, wraps her arms around me, and just lets me cry. For the normal I’ve lost. For the future I’d dreamed of. For the birthdays I might never see again.

Not this. Not here. Not with him.

Jaiden Willis—the man who laughed when a powdered donut exploded on my suit on the day of my big presentation. Who left a fake sympathy card after he startled me into spilling coffee all over my computer. Who smirked when he caught me with red eyes outside the bathroom on the day my cat was put down.

And now we’re trapped in a broken elevator, and the walls are closing in.

“Aurora?” His voice can’t be softening; it must be the rushing in my ears. “Are you okay?”

Not here. Not with you.

Andi screams, and Dale bobbles the phone, the picture blurring in swirls of white ceiling tile. Mom chokes on a wheezing cough, and my throat constricts as she almost doesn’t breathe in again.

It means so much to both of them. Please.

Then suddenly, a tiny cry pierces the air, and a red, wrinkly face fills the tablet, and Andi’s voice wavers through happy, exhausted tears.

“S-see her, Grandm-ma?”

Mom hasn’t spoken a word in hours, but suddenly she murmurs something that sounds like “pretty.” Her lips curve, her eyes close, and the monitor blares.

“She saw, baby. She saw.”

David used to tell me I was strong for a girl. But then, he also said he’d be better in the morning.

Liar.

“Holland! Get those crates moving!”

I never imagined David’s work could be this hard, but it’s an hour in, and my arms are as limp as wet noodles. I don’t know how I’ll survive the day, let alone tomorrow.

But David was too sick to even notice I was leaving. He needs a medic. And without this job, we’ll end up on the streets, like he promised never again.

Liar.

My shaking arms reach for another crate.

I woke in the dark, cold and aching. My head hurt, and my bed was too hard. I whimpered, but Nurse didn’t come.

Pushing onto my knees, I crawled on the splintery boards until I fell out of a barrel and into the moonlight.

Tall trees scraped the sky all around, and I laid down on the ground, feeling dizzy.

I had fallen asleep in bed—had Mama’s voice woken me, or had I dreamed it? I only remembered a few words: “away,” “make sure,” “no other choice.” Then something sweet covering my nose—and then nothing until I woke up here.

Aiofe should have returned by now.

I squinted at the streak of sun on the floor and wiped my hands on my apron before slipping outside.

Accustomed as I was to the silence, it took me too long to notice the stillness, and only when I reached the blacksmith shop without meeting a soul did an alarm rise in my spirit.

Cillian’s forge sat empty and cooling, yet I still felt the thud of the hammer beneath my feet. I turned just as the horde crested the hill, soundless cries distorting their lips, and my limbs chilled to ice.

Raiders.

“You want me...up there?” I squeaked, my head swimming as I tried to focus on the wire twenty feet above us.

“I thought you wanted to be one of us, darling,” the sequined woman purred. The danger in her eyes had drawn me at first, but now it swept over me with an ominous chill.

“But you said—you’d train me.” My sweating hands slipped on the rung of the ladder, and I trembled, remembering my confession of just how alone I was in the world.

“This is your training, darling.” She offered me a wolfish smile. “Welcome to the circus.”

“But I’m not a hero.” I shrank back, shaking my head desperately. “You don’t understand. I was born into the Jackson gang. I’ve been stealing horses since I could walk. You know I’m only alive today because the rope slipped.”

“No, Sadie.” The man whose name I’d never been given—my would-be executioner, protector from the mob, and now prospective employer—took a step closer, something knowing shining in his eyes. “You’re alive because I cut the rope.”