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W hen Zion had shown up in Siraleth with an enormous contingent of soldiers from the newly established queen’s army, I was not surprised when the time it took to build the new castle was chopped in half.

Scratch that, we built it in a quarter of the time.

Nik had made good on his promise to make love to me beneath the Siraleth moon in our own bed. Many times.

Months had passed and The Stone City and its deteriorating castle were a thing of the past, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t crossed my mind from time to time. I hated to have the castle sitting empty atop the hill in Akra except for its prisoners. We needed to repurpose it in some way.

The new castle in Siraleth was called Stormspire, for obvious reasons .

I was incredibly lucky to call Stormspire my home. It was built of stone similar to The Stone Palace in Akra, but it had a tower that reached up into the sky with an iron crescent at the top. That’s where Nik and my room was.

Siraleth was coming back to life before my eyes, and I relished the growth I had seen in the realm in these last few months.

Homes were being rebuilt, merchants re-established their trade, the port city open once again.

The portal on this side of the realm was seeing more use than it ever had before.

“What are you thinking about?” Tess asked, breaking through my thoughts.

My gaze flitted to hers as I zoned back in.

We were setting up the new throne room, and I wanted to make sure it was nothing like the throne room Donika had.

I still had nightmares of that marbled, checkered tile.

Visions of the blood that had stained the dais that day we had stormed the palace to kill her.

The memories of that day might haunt me forever.

I shrugged, throwing a pillow at her. She caught it with one hand, placing it atop the cushion on the throne.

It wasn’t dark as Donika’s had been, but golden.

Streaks of lightning were gilded down the arms, the cushions a royal purple.

It still sat atop a dais, but this time there were two thrones.

I had opted for a natural stone floor that resonated with the Siraleth countryside.

There were no windows lining a long walkway, only windows behind the throne that cast rays of sunshine down onto the stone inlaid floor.

In merely a week’s time I would be having my coronation here, and I would be kneeling among these steps as I was crowned the queen of Istmere.

It was only a formality, of course, seeing as I had been ruling since the day Donika perished.

But the realm wanted to see me crowned properly, and a celebration of grand proportions would follow suit.

I was equal parts excited and nervous—it would be the first celebration at Stormspire and the thought sent a spark of excitement down to my toes.

“I know that look,” Tess mused, fluffing the pillow on the seat and chopping it in half.

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

Tess turned toward me, an eyebrow raised. She held my gaze as she plopped herself down on the throne. I burst into a laugh so deep I doubled over, holding my stomach and trying not to wheeze.

“Oh, it's funny, is it?” she asked, propping her leg up over the armrest and making a show of relaxing.

She didn’t look very comfortable. As if reading my thoughts, she flounced out of the chair with a huff.

“I don’t plan on spending that much time there,” I told her, indicating the throne before us. “I don’t think it needs to be terribly comfortable.”

“It wouldn’t hurt anyone to make it a touch more… plush. That’s all I’m saying,” she offered, eyeing it, hands on her hips. “It needs to match your crown and be equally decadent.”

I laughed, tossing her the other pillow, which hit her square in the chest, causing her to let out a grunt. She tossed it against the second throne, not bothering to fluff it .

“Nik doesn’t get the royal treatment?” I asked, my brow raised at her.

She shrugged noncommittally. “It’s not his… yet.”

I smirked at that.

It was true that it wasn’t his yet… but we all knew it would be. Soon.

Tess moved to Nik’s chair and sat in it, patting the throne beside her. “Sit.”

I did as she commanded, throwing myself down into the chair beside her. Much to my dismay, she was right. This was terribly uncomfortable.

She read my expression with a soft laugh. We sat in relaxing silence for a long moment before she spoke.

“You never did tell me.”

I turned my head towards her, hands gripping the armrests. “Tell you what?”

She gave me a knowing look and my gaze moved back towards the open doorway beyond the dais. Another moment of silence passed.

“What did she say?” Tess asked, her voice gentle.

“Hmm?”

“Diana. What did Donika say? She whispered something to you. The moment before she passed. What was it?”

I hadn’t told anyone.

Not Nik. Not my mother. Not Tess.

Nobody .

I wasn’t sure what to do with it. What it meant. Why she told me at all. What was the point? In that moment, she knew that she was on the precipice of death, but she had chosen to spill her darkest secret, anyway.

Why did she tell me?

My gaze fell to my lap before once again landing on Tess.

“I haven’t told Nik yet,” I admitted.

Tess had always been my best friend. My go-to.

She always knew everything first. But the bond between Nik and I had strengthened increasingly over the last few months, and we were able to send words down the tether that held us together now.

He could likely sense in this moment how uneasy I was, despite me trying to shield it from him.

Despite him being in Prins on an excursion with Puck to see Alastir.

Tess smiled conspiratorially. “I get to know first?!”

“I didn’t say I was going to tell you,” I replied, mouth scrunching. But she could gauge in the tone of my voice that I had, indeed, decided to.

She scooted closer to me, grasping my hand off the armrest and capturing it in hers.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know the anticipation has been killing me. I’m not a patient person… ”

I cut her off by raising the hand not currently pressed between hers. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

She made a noise halfway between a squeal and a screech, and I had to stop myself from covering my ears.

“So… what did she say?” she asked once more, practically spilling out of her chair.

I took a deep breath, letting the air fill my lungs, then slowly releasing it. “She told me… she told me that she… ” As the words left my mouth Tess was visibly on edge, though I wasn’t sure if this would be received as good news or bad.

“She has a son.”

Tess cocked her head to the side, clearly not the answer that she had been expecting.

“A what now?” she finally replied, her eyes cast towards the throne room floor, brows knit together.

“A son. Donika has a son. And she asked me to find him.”

“Find him? What do you mean, find him ? She didn’t know where he was?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve got no clue. That’s all she said. ‘I have a son, Diana. Find him.’” My impersonation of her voice was a terrible rendition.

“And then what?” Tess asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I told her with a shrug.

“Sweet Mother… why do you do this to us?” Tess asked the empty room as she tilted her head back, falling against the chair and releasing my hand.

I stifled a laugh at her expression.

“What does this mean?” Tess asked.

I shrugged again. “I’ve got no clue. I can’t imagine when she would have had a child. How old he might be. Who the father is,” I said.

Tess shot me a glance with a brow raised.

“ Don’t ,” I told her, hand raised. “Nik confirmed they never got… that far. He is not the father of her illegitimate love child.”

“Well, thank the Mother for that. I thought we were about to be on a seriously messed up episode of Jerry Springer, the hidden realm edition. I mean… we still could be if the father was Zachariah, and Nikolai has a brother out there… ”

I fell back against the throne, letting out an exasperated sigh. I shook my head at her before meeting her gaze once more. “I’m not sure how I am supposed to find him when I know nothing about him… including his age.”

Tess let out a laugh, but there was only a little humor in it. “It never ends, does it?”

A smiled at that. “What, the responsibility of being a queen?”

“No,” she huffed, “the drama .”

That had us both reeling with laughter.

I stood from the throne, giving Tess a playful slap as she slumped into the chair. After a moment, she followed me down the steps of the dais and out of the throne room, into the foyer.

I wasn’t sure about any of the details pertaining to Donika’s child, but I knew that I did need to find him, one way or another. I didn’t think I owed it to her. That wasn’t quite the right way to put it. But something in me stirred at the thought of a nephew of mine out there in Istmere right now.

Did he even know who he was?

I was scared of the repercussions of her blood magic and dark spells. How might that have affected a child? Was there another dark Shade out there that we had no idea about?

Donika Kotova had a son.

I had a nephew .

And I wasn’t sure how that was going to affect the realm, for better or for worse. There was only one thing I was certain of.

I was going to find him.