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ChapterOne

“On this fifth and final day of honoring the life and death of Jasper Barda, king of Tirene and defender of our kingdom, we invite you all to pray to the gods one last time and entreat them to greet our great ruler as he joins them in the next world.”

The priest’s voice rings through the crowd as heads bow and a respectful silence reigns. In the back of the room, my neck remains unbent as the rest of the attendees mourn.

King Jasper Barda of Tirene wasn’t exactly my favorite person.

Despite the throne room stretching long and wide enough to comfortably fit several full-grown dragons, Tirenese citizens stand shoulder to shoulder, packing themselves in to honor the traditional days of mourning for their deceased monarch.

Though raised in Aclaris after I was kidnapped as a child, I am Tirenese by blood. If I truly intend to make this land my home, I must respect their customs.

Which is one of the reasons I’m crammed inside this space with too many people and the mingled odors of their bodies. For the fifth day in a row. I’m even wearing a court gown of white linen, the traditional color of mourning.

However, considering everything Jasper put me through, I harbor some pretty complicated emotions regarding this whole spectacle.

Prior to his death, the king ordered his younger brother to pose as an instructor and alicorn trainer at Aclaris’s Flighthaven Academy, win my trust, and kidnap me. Once in Tirene, he had me tossed into an enclosure with two formidable dragons in a surprise test to prove my dragoncaller heritage. Failure to engage would have ended with both me and my sister Leesa—whom Jasper also kidnapped from Flighthaven—getting incinerated. Not a fun way to go.

Oh, but there’s more. Next, in hopes of producing a litter of royal dragoncaller heirs, Jasper coerced me into marrying him. When he suspected there was something going on between his brother and me, the king tossed me into a cold, dirty dungeon while sending Sterling on a mission to forestall any rescue attempts. To top it all off, someone poisoned my food during a cozy dinner for two with the king in my filthy cell.

So, although my heart breaks for Sterling’s sake and for his mother’s, I can’t say I find his brother’s death all that devastating. At the same time, I readily admit that I owe the man a debt of gratitude beyond words. In what might have been the most selfless act of his life, Jasper thrust his body between his younger brother and the drachen, sacrificing himself for the prince.

While I would never have wished for Jasper to suffer a gruesome death at the hands of a bloodthirsty shadow creature, if the choice is between him living or him saving the man I love? There’s no contest.

Sterling stands alone as the last soldier falls, his body rigid and his gaze fixed on the drachen hovering before him.

Dread unspools in my gut as he abandons the dwindling flames of protection and prowls closer to the darkness.

“Sterling! No!”

My heart stutters.

The dragons’ roars of challenge thunder across the heavens as I race for the prince, but he’s too far away.

A masculine scream rings out along with a flurry of motion. The king sprints toward Sterling with his sword held high.

The king charges out of his ring of guards, slamming his shoulder into his brother and knocking Sterling aside. Jasper slashes with his sword and sinks his blade into the drachen as if piercing water. The weapon swishes straight through the phantomlike creature.

In a swift, brutal motion, the creature strikes. Blood, deep and dark, spurts from Jasper’s throat, painting the ground with royal blood before he’s yanked down.

I lean on the wall and attempt to tame my rapid breathing. Such a terrible attack, yet we still understand so little about the monsters.

Let’s see. First off, they’re creepy as fuck. Shadow creatures that can flit around oozing and changing shapes while murdering indiscriminately should not exist. Second, they sometimes kill without leaving a single mark and other times drink blood.

We know that at least in Tirene, they started off killing animals…deer, alicorns, even a juvenile dragon.

Then came the attack on the palace.

The drachen enthralled scores of people, rendering them too terrified to think or flee. Fighting with physical weapons such as swords proved useless…something Sterling’s brother learned much too late. Flames from my fire magic held them at bay. Whether that was because of the light or heat, we’re still unsure.

I suppose I owe Jasper for even more than keeping Sterling safe. If not for his orders, I never would have met and fallen in love with his brother in the first place. Though our story began with me as a mere job to Prince Knox Sterling Barda—or Instructor Sterling Thorne, as I knew him back at Flighthaven—we quickly became more to each other.

After the initial shock of his lies and betrayal settled, Sterling convinced me that our love was genuine. I understand his reasons for everything he did. The kidnapping. The betrayal. His loyalty and love for Tirene. I’ve forgiven him, and we’ve moved past that.

It still doesn’t seem real that I’m in love with the crown prince of Tirene.

In addition to the king, twenty-eight other people died in the drachen attack.

A shiver whispers across my skin. Twenty-eight people. Dead, just like that. Nine palace guards, seven soldiers, five servants, four nobles, two children, and one king.