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PROLOGUE

T he queen sat bolt upright in bed as a voice echoed across the sea and into her mind.

“Who did this? Who brought iron into this place?”

“Not iron. Steel.”

“No!”

“Ah!” The queen clutched a hand over her heart as it raced in terror. “My love!”

A moment later, a silhouette appeared in her doorway. The light fae prince strode toward the queen, kneeling at her bedside in the golden hall beneath the earth.

“I feel her.” He gripped his wife’s hand. “She is in Alba. I will send?—”

“Too late.” She clutched his hand with a gasp. “It’s too late!”

“You murderous hag!”

“And?”

“You’re dead.”

A slice of pain cut across the queen’s chest and she bent forward, screaming in pain. The prince gathered her into his arms, holding her as she suffered her daughter’s dying wounds.

A burning pain across her knees, then a gutting slice across her belly.

The queen clutched her abdomen, her hands pressed over the womb that had stretched with miraculous life, filled with a child that could only come from the will of the gods.

She panted as she felt her daughter’s last breath.

Felt the blade cut across her neck.

Then she felt nothing at all.

The queen’s hollow chest filled with rage, and she screamed in agony and anger.

Child of my blood.

Child of my blood.

Anu, they have killed the child of my blood.

“She’s gone!” The queen wailed over and over, rocking back and forth in her husband’s arms. “She is gone! I have nothing,” she cried out. “Our daughter is gone.”

The prince picked her up and cradled her in his arms.

She laid her head against his chest, and in her heart, she felt the burning fire of rage bloom.

He would die.

All of them would die.

The world would feel her wrath.

“It is time,” the prince whispered. “My love, it is time.”