Page 1

Chapter 1

Saelyn

“ Saelyn , my Little Love , your father lives .” My mother lifted my chin as I frowned. “ And our time has come to save him.”

I stepped back on the balcony, refusing her touch. “ What do you mean my father lives?” I shook my head. My body chilled with her words in the beginning of the summer storm. “ My father is dead. He’s been dead since the night I was born seventeen years ago.”

My mother’s eyes brimmed with tears. It was rare to see them turn from the black eyes of a Baron to the brilliant green they now glinted. She swallowed in hesitation, wringing her hands in her black skirts. “ It was necessary to let you believe this. I had to?—”

“ Let me believe this? ” I spat. “ You lied!” I swept my gaze north. “ Where is my father? Why does he need to be saved?”

“ There is so much to tell you. I’ve been waiting seventeen years to tell you all of it, and?—”

“ You’ve been waiting ? Waiting for what ?” I didn’t understand. I couldn’t. My heart had been ready to soar. I had been ready to confess my love for Thevin this night of my birthday celebration, and he had stopped me. Before I could push to confess my feelings further, my mother had given me this weighted truth.

“ I made a promise to your father,” she said, reaching for me. “ He wanted you to have a childhood. To have a life without the knowledge that he was forced to be gone from it. He loved you, Saelyn . He loves you now. I can feel it.”

I bit my lips together, backing away from her again. I had lived my seventeen years in a lie. What truth did I really hold? I knew nothing. Nothing about life, about love, about my own mother and father. It wasn’t fair.

“ If you’d sit, Little Love , I will help you understand?—”

“ Is my father in immediate danger?” I interrupted.

“ No ,” she returned with a shake of her head.

“ When do we leave?”

She sighed heavily, recognizing my anger. “ Tomorrow morning. We leave for the Spire .”

I tried to keep the surprise from my face and nodded. “ Who knows my father lives?”

“ Pompeii . As well as three others.”

“ Who ? ” Anger spread through me.

“ Friends of mine. And one other. They have not seen you since you were very young.”

“ Lucky , I guess, they got to see me at all.”

“ Sae —”

“ I’m going to let Thevin know we’re leaving in the morning. That’s what you said earlier, isn’t it? He and his parents are leaving with us?”

My mother nodded, her eyes back to black, her countenance back to the hardened stone I recognized. I turned to leave.

“ I understand if you do not wish to sleep in my rooms tonight, but stay with Pah - Pah or Thevin instead. I do not want you sleeping alone anymore.”

I whipped around. “ And why is that, Mother ?”

Her jaw clenched. “ I do not trust that she has not found a way to get to you.”

“ Who ?”

“ The woman who is the reason he left. She is called the Blightress .”