Page 2

Way too many lives lost, and yet we were lucky not to lose more.

Leaning against the wall, I peer over the crowd toward the raised dais at the front. At the bottom, Dowager Queen Alannah Barda, Jasper and Sterling’s mother, sits shrouded in white, like a specter of sorrow among the living. The poor woman lost her husband, her daughter, and her eldest son, leaving only Sterling as her remaining immediate family. Her eyes resemble haunted pools, reflecting a pain so deep that it’s no wonder she often slips beyond the world’s grasp. After Jasper’s death, new white streaks appeared in her dark hair almost overnight. Today, they flutter loose around her drawn cheeks.

Beside her, Sterling’s grief radiates as palpably as his mother’s. The knowledge that his brother died to save him has weighed heavily on his shoulders in the days since the attack.

As the priest drones on, terrible memories once again claw through the barricades I’ve constructed to keep them at bay. I gouge my nails into my palms, using the stinging pain to ground me to the present.

The royal council members seem convinced that the king slew the drachen in an ultimate sacrifice, ensuring the kingdom’s safety. I wish I shared their confidence, but doubt coils in my gut.

I was there and witnessed the drachen flee. Not from the king’s sword strike. No, they fled the fire that heralded the dragons’ return to protect us.

Just because we succeeded in chasing them off that night doesn’t mean we quelled the threat for good. They could have merely retreated. They could be lurking in dark corners, biding their time. Preparing to attack ag?—

Unease prickles the back of my neck and spine.

I can feel someone watching me.

I straighten and scan the faces around me. Everyone seems focused on the dais, and I can’t find a single pair of eyes trained in my direction.

Rubbing my neck to alleviate the sensation, I urge my nerves to cut me some slack and resume my post against the wall. Still, I can’t stop myself from continuing a surreptitious inspection of the other mourners.

Nobles crowd the front of the room. Those who have traveled to pay their respects mingle with those who live in or near the palace. Two rows of guards separate this space from the far side, allowing the common folk to gather and pay their respects as well.

Overhead, filling half of the twelve alcoves, additional guards survey the event with sharp eyes. Hyde, the captain of the guard, is easy to pick out because his mountainous frame barely fits into the alcove.

Below them, a growing number of Sterling’s sigils dangle where Jasper’s banners once hung. A changing of the guard, stark and undisguised as every day a handful of the old king’s colors are replaced by the new.

The priest takes a breather from rhapsodizing over the fallen king. Murmurs rise as mourners speak to each other in hushed voices, and my skin starts to tingle again.

I scan the sea of faces and catch the gaze of an older man with dark hair. He vanishes into the crowd in the blink of an eye.

Before I can follow, someone taps my arm.

“Leesa.” I hug my older sister, one of the very few wingless people in attendance except for the children who haven’t matured enough to develop theirs yet.

For a moment, I bury my face in her dark golden blond curls. While we may not share blood, we were raised together and loved each other our entire lives. The recent revelation about my biological family hasn’t changed anything about our relationship.

It did explain how Leesa and my mother both share the same olive complexion, wavy hair, and brown eyes while I don’t resemble anyone in the Axton family line.

“Lark.” Bastian Drago leans closer as if to hug me when my sister pulls back but stops short, giving my shoulder an awkward pat instead.

“Bastian.” Not for the first time, his hazel eyes, pale skin, and slightly upturned nose strike me as familiar. It must be in my head, though, because I’m sure I never met my sister’s lover before I came to Tirene.

As far as I can tell, he’s a nice guy with a heart of gold. Smart too. He acts a little uncomfortable around me sometimes, but maybe that’s because he worries about making a good impression on Leesa’s sister. He obviously cares a great deal for her.

Leesa tugs on a curl. “You look like you’re chasing ghosts.”

“Maybe I am.” I try to rein in my nerves in front of Leesa since she’s always been my overprotective big sister. The one who would fight the world, and our mother, in order to help me. “I thought I saw someone I recognized. He was watching me, but then he vanished.”

Leesa loops her arm through mine, her grip both comforting and confining. “We’ve been digging through the archives, searching for any mentions of the Lost City you read about inTheChronicles of the Mother Wurm.”

Hope swells. The Lost City popped up in an entry I read after the attack. I hope it’s a potential lead that will help us learn more about the drachen, but so far, we’ve come up short. “Were you able to find anything?”

If anyone can track down the information we’ve been hunting for, it’s these two.

Although, I sometimes wonder which task they spend more time on…researching or making out.

Bastian shakes his head, dashing my hope with a grimace. “No. But we did discover several maps. We could use some help sifting through them. It’s highly doubtful that ‘Lost City’ is the actual name of the place, so we thought we could compare maps and check if a city suddenly disappears. We put them all in chronological order.”