“Surely there’s some other way…” My voice fell silent at the dread on my brother’s face.
My world began to splinter around me. If all this was true, life as I knew it was over. The mortals, with their well-earned distrust of the Descended and their outright hatred of the royals, would run me out of the village. Would I even survive long enough to make peace with my father? To find my missing mother?
And Henri. Oh gods, Henri.
My childhood sweetheart, the man whose marriage proposal still hung unanswered over my head—and the man who had brought me into the bloody fold of the Guardians of the Everflame, the mortal resistance. The Guardians had proven there was no line they wouldn’t cross to destroy the Descended. If they believed I was one of them—and worse, the Crown…
I started to sink under the heaviness of it all. One day ago, I was an inconsequential mortal girl living an unimportant life, and now I was… what even was I?
“Tell me this is a hallucination,” I whispered. “Tell me I’ve lost my mind and this is some awful dream.”
Teller’s arms slid around my shoulders. “Whatever happens, you won’t be alone. We’ll figure this out together.”
The rough tremble in his voice nearly broke me apart. With his elite education, he knew far more than I did about the consequences the Crown would bring. If he was this scared…
Shame swept through me and cooled the molten burn of my panic. I was the elder sibling—I was supposed to be strong for him. Promise him that everything would be fine. With his quiet, steady manner, he had already been a rock for our family since our mother’s disappearance. I couldn’t let him carry this burden, too.
I took a deep breath, crushing the fear down, down, down into a leaden ball that I could roll away into the shadows of my heart. I pulled away from Teller and placed a palm on his cheek. The light from the Crown filled his eyes with a brilliant glow, revealing the anxiety he was trying so valiantly to hide.
“Tomorrow, go to Father and Henri. Tell them I’ve left town to visit a friend, and you’re not certain when I’ll return.”
He shot a look toward our family’s cottage. “Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Father now? What if Mother told him something before she…” He trailed off.
“Not yet. I need to sort this out for myself first.”
Teller frowned, but nodded. I gave a silent prayer of thanks for the gift of a loyal brother—though whether my prayers were meant for the Descended’s Kindred or the Old Gods of the mortals, I was no longer sure.
“Where will we go tonight?” he asked.
“You’re staying here. I need you to go through your books from school for anything about the Crown, this Rite of Coronation, the Challenging—anything you can find that might help me get me out of this.”
“What about you?”
That, I had no answer for. I couldn’t risk being seen by anyone until I learned how to hide this infernal thing floating over my head.
“I can help,” Lily jumped in. “There’s a cabin on the royal hunting grounds, not far from the palace. No one would dare use it without permission from the Crown, so you won’t be disturbed. Besides, you’re the true owner.” She shrugged. “All the royal properties belong to you now.”
My heart skipped a beat at the idea that all the opulence and excess I had once despised the royals for hoarding was now mine to possess. To think of what I could do with all that wealth—the problems I could solve, the people I could help…
I shook my head to clear the thoughts away. I had no intention of keeping the throne, and certainly no desire to fight anyone to the death for it. This was all one massive, unthinkable mistake.
I just needed some time to prove it.
Chapter
Two
An hour later, I found myself alone at the royal hunting lodge, a spacious cabin nestled in a quiet patch of forest. The interior was rich with warm woods, cozy furniture, and layered hides. The main family room smelled faintly of tobacco and hickory, its walls dotted with the heads of slain beasts and oil paintings depicting the Crowns of old.
The doors were secured with bloodlocks that only opened with “royal blood, willingly given.” When I’d pricked my finger and placed it on the smooth black disc, the click of the latch felt more like a door opening in my soul than in front of my eyes.
The truth was unavoidable. Royal blood meant my blood. I was indeed the Queen—at least for now.
Lily had left, promising to return with food and dry clothes despite my protests. Her sudden keenness to serve me was disconcerting, a far cry from the casual disdain, if not outright hatred, with which most mortals viewed the Crown. Easier to respect a throne when you’re raised to believe your beloved brother will inherit it, I supposed.
I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask her how Luther might react to losing the Crown everyone had been so certain he would receive. I wondered if she thought he would kill me on the spot or wait for the Challenging to do it more formally.
Even though, lately, he hadn’t quite seemed like my enemy anymore. He’d saved my life by pulling me from the collapsing armory. And when we’d said our final goodbyes, the way he’d looked at me, the way he’d kissed me…
A shiver rolled down my spine.
I walked to the massive stone hearth and struggled to build a fire with my stiff, frostbitten fingers. With these wet clothes plastered to my skin, I couldn’t seem to get warm, no matter how high the flames climbed.
I peeled the sopping tunic over my head and laid it out by the fire, then followed suit with the rest. A snort escaped me as I saw the elegant undergarments Luther’s cousin had chosen when she’d dressed my unconscious body this morning. The wine-colored lace was woven with velvet ribbon, and a clasp between my breasts was inset with a sapphire surrounded in pearls.
How could I possibly step into a world where even the garments they hid beneath their clothing cost more than every possession I’d ever owned?
I tugged a blanket around my shoulders and threw a fresh log onto the fire, sending a cloud of sparks swirling upward. A sharp burst of panic pulled my muscles taut as my mind flashed back to the armory and the sound of the victims’ anguished screams. The towering flames seemed to point a finger in accusation: You caused this. You killed them.
My skin still prickled with the phantom sting of blistering embers raining down on me as the building collapsed. And yet—there wasn’t a single wound on my flesh. There was no sign at all of the blaze that had burned my clothes away and left me unconscious for hours. No mortal should have survived it… but if I wasn’t—
“No,” I snapped at myself, gritting my teeth. I shoved those thoughts away before they sank too deep.
The memory of the inferno had finally chased away my chill, but it left behind an unbearably heavy exhaustion. It felt as if an entire lifetime had passed in the span of one wretched day. I was hopelessly adrift, unsure where to even begin my search for answers.
“When all else fails, keep moving,” I said to the empty room, echoing the command my father had drilled into me. “If you cannot run, then walk. If you cannot walk, then crawl.”
His voice filled my stormy mind. If you are outnumbered or overwhelmed, or if all seems lost, just keep moving. Onward, until the very last breath.