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PROLOGUE

Seven Thousand Years Ago

The Great War

They were almost out of time.

Her mate was gone—fighting, she told herself. Not lost to the darkness. Not taken by the—

No. She would not speak their name. Would not even think it. She would not take the risk.

Behind her, the sounds of battle raged. Steel on steel was the least of it. The sounds of death, the stench of it, reached her even high in the Tower of Myda. This lonely circular room, her prison and her refuge.

Her punishment.

One she deserved.

She refused to let herself listen—to the battle or the voices screaming inside her head. If she did, she’d never finish her task. She’d never do what needed to be done—what must be done, if her kingdom was to survive.

Not just her kingdom.

Every kingdom.

She reached for the book, flipping it open to a blank page. At the edges of her consciousness, the void pulled.

But she pushed it away, ignored it, willed that ember of magic inside of her to sleep. She sang it the lullaby that she’d devised, nonsensical, repeated verses that helped ease it back to rest when her mate was not near enough to tether her.

Accolon was on that battlefield.

The hollow ache in her chest roared, demanding satisfaction. But she ignored that, too. She couldn’t think of her mate, not now. He was alive, of that she was certain. It was the only thing she was certain of in that moment.

As if in reminder, in protest of the thought, her stomach jolted.

Not the only thing, then.

One hand reached for the quill, while the other drifted down to the rounded bulge below her breasts. Mate, child, kingdom. Those were the things that kept her hand moving as she began to recite the words.

She’d only heard them once, but once was enough.

“Then comes a queen,” she whispered, her fingers scratching out the words across the page.

Her stomach clenched, painful and sharp. A twin spear of pain down her spine.

It couldn’t be. It was too soon. The child was not due for another month.

She gripped the quill tighter, forcing out the next few words.

The clash of swords. The screams of death. Void, darkness…Come to us, Nimue,they whispered. But she ignored that beautiful dark she’d come to love. She’d seen the very fabric of the world, felt it shift and reform around her, known a power both beautiful and dangerous, and wholly her own.

Another stab of pain in her back.

The child was coming.

Why now? Why here? This child was supposed to be the herald of peace, of a new world reborn. Peace, prosperity, safety. Without the—

“No!” she screamed, slamming her fist down on the table. They couldn’t have her—not her mate, her kingdom, or her child.

She’d win this battle. Not from battlefield, but from the tower.