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PROLOGUE

T HE CHILD WAS BORN INTO silence.

Initially, the midwife believed her to be stillborn. No cry cracked the gold-tinged dusk, no almighty declaration of arrival. Dense lashes fanned her round cheeks, which appeared to have been sapped of all color and warmth. Yet there was a subtle stirring, the weak flutter of a pulse. Alive, but only just.

The child required immediate healing. But her mother, sickly and frail following that long, laborious birth, lifted a trembling hand and gestured for the midwife to approach. The child was passed into her mother’s arms. So slight, my daughter. It would be the queen’s last thought, for she took one final breath and was still.

When the king learned of his wife’s passing, he screamed, and tore the window drapes from their rods, and pleaded with the highest deities, and wept. The child was rushed to the palace physician who, despite his best efforts, failed to stabilize the flagging newborn. The blue tinge to her skin, the sporadic hitch of her chest—she would not survive the night.

The king was powerless. He did not understand why misfortune had befallen him, of all people. Was it fate? Retribution? Why should his child enter this world, only to be snatched from him on the heels of her mother?

And so, he went to Mount Syr, the holy site that stood watch over Ammara’s blistering sands. Upon summiting the bare, rocky peak, he fell to his knees before the dais, atop which rested an empty throne. It was there the king called upon the Lord of the Mountain, the mightiest of those primordial gods.

When a cloaked man materialized before him, the king prostrated himself. The Lord of the Mountain was as vast as he was broad, his face shielded by the cowl of his cloak. In the hours that followed, the king bargained for his daughter’s life. Wealth, power, even the realm itself—the king offered all that he was worth. But the Lord of the Mountain was merciful. He agreed to save the child’s life—for a price. In a rush of desperation, the king accepted the deal without question. And thus, the trap was set.

Later, after the bargain had been struck, the king entered his children’s bedroom. His sons slept soundly, unaware of their mother’s passing. He kissed their brows, then approached the crib where his newborn daughter lay. She was awake. Color had returned to brighten her brown cheeks. Her small mouth pursed as she gazed up at him with wide, dark eyes.

Believing himself to be alone, the king began to weep. He failed to notice a shade of a figure hovering over the crib alongside him. Nor did he witness the phantom’s shadowy hand press onto his daughter’s brow.

Sleep , crooned the voice.

Sleep, my beauty.