Dragon's Tear: Blood of the Covenants, #3

Dragon's Tear

Book 3 of the Blood of the Covenants Series

Leah E. Welker

Lightbound Media

Copyright © 2024 by Leah E. Welker

Visit the author’s website at leahewelker.com

Published by Lightbound Media LLC, Columbia, Maryland

Book cover art and design by Rebecca Frank

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Leah E. Welker has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024943499

Print ISBN: 9781964174075

Ebook ISBN: 9781964174068

First Edition

Contents

Key Terms & Translations

The Six Realms

Prologue

1.Choice

2.Pieces

3.Betrayed

4.Fault

5.Snow

6.Agony

7.Birthright

8.Game

9.Stalemate

10.Offer

11.Path

12.Life

13.Gates

14.First

15.Home

16.Brother

17.Meeting

18.Flight

19.Blow

20.Stand

21.Crowned

22.Restored

23.Show

24.Goodbye

25.Toll

26.Time

27.Nightfall

28.Light

29.Starheart

30.Enough

31.Break

Afterword

Sneak Peek

About the Author

To my oldest friend/adopted sister, Katelan, for all those late-night readings, with all their laughs and tears. I hope you knew your turn was coming. So yes, this one is for you.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Key Terms & Translations

Races

draká (druh-KAH): the original dragons.

amá (ah-MAH): human(s); the sentient inhabitants of Earth.

dramá (druh-MAH): the race that emerged from the combination of draká and humans.

Blood Manifestations

drakón (drah-KOHN): dramá chosen to have far greater magic and gain a drakáform.

amón (ah-MOHN): dramá who are not chosen, yet still have the Blood of the Covenants and cannot accurately be called human.

Distances

Rough equivalents

ild: inch.

foot: literal translation.

erd: yard (only a couple dramá feet).

ald: 100 dramá feet.

eld: half an English Imperial mile.

elden: an English Imperial mile.

Time

dek: Roughly 1 minute, made of 56 moments.

deken: Roughly 1 hour, made of 56 dek.

day: 28 deken.

The Six Realms

Prologue

Jacob

Earth, the third planet in the solar system, the birthplace of humanity, was dying.

Jacob Lind had already known this, but the evidence was now everywhere around him as he walked across barren fields of black rock, under an even darker, starless sky. How he could still see, he didn’t know. The one thing he knew for certain was that he was dreaming, so it seemed pointless to question that aspect of his vision.

Jake never indulged pointless questions.

But here…here, all around him, was the most important of questions, and perhaps if he looked and searched hard enough, he would find the answer: how Earth would finally die. So he walked for what felt like hours over black rock—devoid even of soil.

Or any other organic material, Jake noted with a clinical eye. That was the first clue he had gleaned from his search, and he was frustrated with himself that it had taken him this long to realize it.

Then again, nothing about this utter destruction made any sense. None of the hundreds of ways Earth could have met its end fit with what he was seeing now.

Jake was not ignorant of humanity’s foolish, headlong rush toward self-annihilation. He had become an engineer out of faith in the ingenuity of his species to solve their problems. He was often surprised to find that faith was still burning, even though he had long since grown weary of trying to create solutions in the face of humanity’s equal unwillingness to use them.

Jake had always taken the long view, calculating with excruciating exactness how his actions now shaped his future and that of his family. It always aggravated him how few others did the same.

So he was saddened but unsurprised to be walking the land of humanity’s ultimate demise. Yet he was also increasingly puzzled as to what could have brought that end—and increasingly intent on knowing the answer. If he knew how, then perhaps, just perhaps…he could prevent it.

However unlikely that was. He was realistic about his odds of saving the world—one lone engineer working for a small firm and teaching night classes at an insignificant college in suburban Pennsylvania, with a wife and eight children to think of. True, his oldest had begun his own career and family, and his second could support herself if she had a mind to. His third.…

He pivoted his mind away from his third, with recent events making thoughts about her too laden with emotion for his current task. Though he had an inkling that her disappearance and this dream weren’t unrelated.

Ever self-aware, he admitted to himself that was one reason he was becoming so determined to find the answer.

Yet it eluded him. Disease would have left the buildings intact, even if they might have crumbled a bit from neglect, yet only shells or fragments remained. Besides, a disease that would have wiped out humanity should have left most other life flourishing, perhaps even more so for their absence. Yet no life lay in sight.

None.

Global warming would have disastrously upset world order, and yet there still should have been life somewhere, even if in a vast sea. Yet there was no water, either. Not a single drop in this dark, desiccated waste, not even after hours of walking.

Conventional or nuclear bombardment would have created the broken structures he occasionally passed, but why would it leave steel frames or stone pillars intact and little else? Those shells of buildings were charred black, true, but they still stood as recognizable ghosts of what they once were, like the bones of enormous beasts left on a cracked earthen waste, every scrap of flesh picked clean.

Jake wasn’t one for dramatic imagery, but that last uncharacteristic simile his mind had produced gave him pause. Perhaps his answer lay therein.

Organic matter, he repeated to himself. Or anything remotely able to support life—it’s all gone. All of it.

As if there were some unimaginable beast that had consumed everything with the potential for life and had left Earth as no more than a spit-out husk.

But what sort of monstrosity could that be?

For the first time, he felt a chilling realization that humanity might not have been the cause of its demise. At least…not directly.

He was surprised by how much that conclusion troubled him. Humanity was both bright and dark, but at least he had some idea of what that darkness was, and how to combat it. As increasingly hopeless as the efforts of the bright ones such as him were, still, he thought he knew his enemy. Yet this was something so entirely outside his knowledge, let alone his toolset to fight, that for the first time in this dream, Jake felt his blood go cold.

He had perhaps found the answer, but it gave him no comfort—only fear. Instinctual fear that he had felt the moment he woke in this dark waste and yet suppressed through the ferocity of his focus on the problem before him. Now, having concluded that this was something beyond his power to even understand, let alone fight.…

He felt true fear.

Not for himself, but for his family. His children. His beloved children. Stubborn Michael, dazzling Rachel. Steady David, charming Lizzy. Mischievous Jonah, eager Noah. Sunny little Abby.

Quiet, bright Sarah…the child most like him, yet hopefully spared his worst flaws.

He had fought the good fight, as best as he had known how, even despite ever-increasing weariness and disillusionment, to create a better world for his children. He would have given his life to see that theirs went on.

Now, to see that all that remained for them was to meet this inescapable doom.…

All the emotions he had blocked off behind the dam of his formidable mind and will broke free. Rage and grief and bone-deep fear for them finally overcame him, slowing his formerly firm steps one by one…until he came to a halt.

There, in that land of death, unable to go another step…he fell to his knees.

For the first time in his life, he truly prayed.

It wasn’t a reverent prayer. It was a cry of rage and despair.

Why show me this? Why take her, why take my Sarah, why send us her image in ice, then why show me this? What is the point, if all hope is lost for my children?

WHY?

Then, for the first time in this nightmare of darkness, Jake saw a light.

It blossomed amid the shadowy mists ahead of him, like a lighthouse shining in a storm.

Jake hesitated. He was so furious at this point that he wasn’t certain he wanted an answer. Wasn’t sure, even despite the light, that there was any meaning left to be found in this purposeless waste. Even when he reached it, it would probably only lead to more disappointment and despair.

He had never believed in a higher power before. He wasn’t particularly opposed to the idea, but neither had he been convinced of one’s existence. He had been, and thought he would always be, a firm agnostic.

Then…Sarah had disappeared, without a trace. That same day at sunset, ice had come for the first time, and had every sunset since. Now here he was, over seven days later, in this most terrible and yet tangible and visceral of nightmares.

His life had taken a dramatic turn, and he was too intelligent and aware to deny that there was something else out there, something more than he had previously imagined.

That didn’t mean he thought it was good.

And yet.…

There was something about that light. Something that felt so different from the wastes.

Something that felt like life.

It was that difference that persuaded him to move, getting to his feet before his mind made a conscious decision. Then he was moving forward again, pressing through the mists toward the light.

Even after minutes of walking, the light still seemed distant, flickering vaguely and shapelessly through the walls of dark mist. Had they been so thick before? He hadn’t thought so. There had been nothing before, nothing but rock and twisted metal, and now a light that seemed alive and a darkness that…wasn’t. For all its hunger.

The darkness pulled at him now—like a thing alive, but in a solemn mockery of life. Its fingers on his skin imparted the cold of nothingness, of the utter rejection of any order of creation Jake knew. His steps quickened. Someone less level-headed and clear-sighted might have tried to delude themselves by saying it was only mist, only darkness. But even in his despair, Jake was always taking in information and analyzing it with cool impartiality.

He had already determined that some force previously unknown to him had consumed Earth. Now he was encountering a force whose malevolence was so great, he couldn’t help but feel it in its very presence. To Jake, the logical connection was obvious. So was the next: this thing, this destroyer, must have returned for a reason, and the only reasons he could think of were to consume him…or to prevent him from reaching the light.

He saw no reason why it couldn’t be trying to do both.

He broke into a run.

The darkness surged thicker, becoming almost solid, its touch as it grabbed for him imparting agony the likes of which he had never felt before. The pain staggered Jake, making him stumble. He thought he had known fear before, but that was nothing compared with his primal terror now. Just in the moment he was about to give up all hope.…

Please, Jake gasped, making his choice.

The very next moment, the light flared brighter.

The darkness hissed like water vaporized by flame. Which was strange, because there was nothing hot about the light. In fact, it was accompanied by a wave of cool air—coolness quite unlike the darkness’s void-filled touch. It was the cold of stillness, of rest, of life in its slowest, most ponderous, most eternal state. It soothed away his pain to nothing.

That flare of light and blast of cold air drove the darkness away from him, and Jake wasn’t about to take that life-saving gift for granted. He rushed forward, now with the source of the light clear.

It was…a Tree. A Tree so vast, Its trunk must have been a hundred feet wide and perhaps hundreds tall. It towered over him like a skyscraper, Its branches forming a canopy that seemed to eclipse the sky. Its roots—most of the ones he saw were bigger than him—broke through even this barren rock and stretched in some places nearly as far as the canopy. Every surface, every line of Its bark, every crevice in Its roots shone with cold light. Especially the leaves high, high above, so bright against the starless sky he couldn’t even discern the shape of them.

Jake realized with a start that his run had petered out into a slow walk as he took it all in, but when he glanced back, he saw the mists held back, staying feet away from the roots at all points around the Tree. Now that Jake was under Its canopy, walking among Its roots, he appeared to be safe.

But…why?

Again, his curiosity burned, this time with renewed hope. Here was something that could drive back the hungering darkness. That could deny it its prey, so long as that prey remained within the Tree’s protection. If he could get his family here, before the end came in truth.…

But where was here? What was here? What was this Tree? Was it a metaphor produced by his mind, or by whomever or whatever had given him this dream?

"No, Jacob Lind, My son."

Jake spun back toward the Tree and the sound of the voice—a voice unlike he had ever heard before. He felt it in his chest almost as much as he heard it with his ears. It was mild, like the whispers of cool winds rattling through bare branches on an early spring day, but it struck to his core and set it on icy fire.

There, where nothing had been just a moment before, stood a Woman made of ice.

She was taller than him, with long hair that reached nearly to the ground, and She was either wearing a crystalline gown or was simply shaped like one from the shoulders down to the floor. With all Her being made from the same living shards of ice shining with an inner light, Jake couldn’t tell, and he didn’t much think it mattered, so he immediately dismissed the question as frivolous.

Especially when She spoke again, Her lips pulled into the smallest of smiles.

I am very much real, and I am precisely as you see Me now.

Jake tried to harden himself, but he found that difficult. The contrast between the destroying mists and this Tree and Woman of life was too stark. He knew who his true enemy—the enemy of all life—was now. He likewise knew who was its protector. But that made no sense.

A Woman of ice, connected in some way to a Tree. Just as Abby, his five-year-old, had said.

You’re the one who took my daughter, he said flatly.

"Yes," the Woman replied with perfect peace.

His fists clenched and unclenched, resisting that peace as it tried to settle into his soul. He told himself that he was being unreasonable; he reminded himself of the contrast, that this couldn’t be his enemy. Yet he was a father, and when it came to his children, his emotions weren’t as easily controlled as they were in all other cases. In no other realm did his feelings cloud his judgement and influence his behavior so readily.

Why? he demanded.

If the Woman was offended, She made no sign of it. Her voice retained its mild—yet piercing—nature. "For the same reason I do all that I do. To ensure that this…"

She gestured out into the darkness. "…does not come to pass. Inasmuch as it is in My power to do so."

What does taking my daughter from us have to do with preventing this?

"Sarah, as you know, is as precious and bright as a diamond. As such, I have chosen her as the vessel of My power, so that she may fight at the side of another to drive off the darkness you witnessed before it can consume your world."

Jake’s heart sunk. Fight?

The Woman’s eyes became sad. "The hunger cannot be bargained with nor sated. It must be driven, and that is a danger she must face, or she will perish with the rest when the end comes."

Jake took a shuddering breath. He picked through all the things he could do or say, all fits of temper, useless denials, or ultimately meaningless questions. With his usual stoicism, he forced himself to view reality as it was and accept it, then move on to what he could control.

Still, he couldn’t help one, probably unanswerable question.

Why her? he rasped. Why my daughter?

Yet She answered. "Because she has the greatest chance to succeed."

Jake slowly nodded.

He had always known Sarah was special, from the first time he had held her in his arms, walking the floor of that hospital room to soothe her cries. Jake had two children already by then, so he knew it wasn’t just the warmth of new fatherhood clouding his reasoning. He had examined the feeling long enough over the years to determine that it wasn’t fatherly bias, either. It had never been a happy knowledge; it had always been a heavy foreboding. For her sake, he had sometimes wished she were more like the others.

Because he had always sensed in her the light that would be called on to struggle against the dark.

The same light he had felt within himself, except even brighter.

In a way, he had been waiting for this moment her entire life. Not in such a drastic, world-shattering way, true, but when the Woman said Sarah was the one She needed, Jake felt the culmination of over eighteen years of impressions, each individually too subliminal to be understood, finally coalesce into the heaviest of truths.

His daughter would bear the fate of their world on her shoulders.

"Not alone," the Woman whispered, once again answering his thoughts.

The mind-reading didn’t surprise him. This was Her dream, after all, and even if that wasn’t the reason, She was unlike any being he had previously encountered, and would no doubt have abilities beyond his current understanding. He spared no thought for this aptitude other than to catalog the information away, and he refocused on what She had said.

Her words gave him the first lift of hope he had felt since he had entered the Tree’s protection.

Can I help her? Bear some of that burden for her?

Why else had he felt this light within him his whole life, the heavy calling that made him constantly struggle to solve the world’s ills?

"You may, in part. But the one who will primarily share her burden is My Sister’s chosen vessel, as Sarah is Mine."

Who? Jake asked in surprise.

"I have shown his visage to you before."

The Woman spread Her hand. A sheet of the smoothest ice appeared between them, and in it, Jake saw colors appear and form an image of a pristine quality no screen he knew of could match. This was almost exactly like the ice and images that had appeared at sunset every day since Sarah had disappeared.

This time, however, there were two distinct differences. First, the image moved, like a video rather than a photo. Second, Sarah was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the principal subject was a young man, walking down a large stone hall. The Woman was right. Jake immediately recognized him from many of the images he had seen before.

His exact age was a little hard to determine because of his short, blond beard, shoulder-length blond hair, towering height, heavily built musculature, and occasionally commanding presence. There was also sometimes a hard or weary look in his golden eyes that no one so young should have. But Jake had seen enough of him by this point to determine that he was probably not much older than Sarah. Certainly he and Sarah acted like peers and friends.

Or more than that.

The Linds had seen nothing yet in the ice to explicitly indicate something more than friendship, but Rachel swore there was something going on between the two of them, and Jake had to admit there was probably something to that, if only from the fact that Sarah was with the young man more often than with anyone else. A less objective yet still undeniable data point was the tender adoration on Sarah’s face that was clear to every member of her family every time an image showed her looking at him.

Jake had never seen Sarah so infatuated with anyone, and that had troubled him a great deal. Mixing with a father’s protective instincts was all the uncertainty around Sarah’s situation. If the images could be believed to be real—and they had had no reason to assume otherwise; why would any mystic force that could take her with impunity bother deceiving them?—Sarah wasn’t currently in any danger. She seemed to be comfortable and friendly with the people around her. The images often showed her smiling, laughing, or with her neutral, thoughtful expression. They showed her doing normal things. Sleeping, eating, walking, talking. She seemed to have freedom of movement and control over her situation.

Then why was she there and not home? It was impossible to tell from just the images whether she was trying to find her way back or if that was even possible. She clearly wasn’t on Earth anymore, judging from the otherworldly places they had seen her in; the unusually tall, colorful, strangely clad people they had seen her with; and the glimpses of technology so beyond his understanding that the only adequate term he had for it was magic.

After all, weren’t the ice messages magic?

Assuming the messages could be trusted, the most logical conclusion was that Sarah was currently happy and safe in another world, and the only reason she hadn’t come back to or otherwise contacted them was because she couldn’t. But Jake didn’t know. Not for certain. So his daughter’s clear infatuation with this young man troubled him. Was it developing naturally from mutually chosen companionship after circumstances had thrown them together? Or was it Stockholm syndrome? Was he a true friend…or something more sinister?

So Jake had studied the young man in those images with almost more scrutiny than his daughter. For reasons he couldn’t name, this young man had seemed to be the key in all of this—possibly the one who had taken her in the first place. Yet Jake’s sharp eyes had caught nothing remotely sinister in him. In fact, as Jake learned his expressions, he thought the young man seemed quite fond of Sarah, perhaps even just as infatuated. His posture toward her was always friendly, warm, even protective. By this point, Jake had found it hard to keep examining him with suspicion.

Still, Jake’s instincts had been right, in a way. He was the key.

Him? Jake asked, but there wasn’t any surprise in his voice. He is this other…vessel?

That was the word the Woman had used, wasn’t it?

"He will be. He is only partially invested with My Sister’s power now, as Sarah is only partially with Mine. But soon that will change for both. Sarah will become My chosen Queen…and he will become My Sister’s chosen King."

Jake looked up at Her sharply. The parallelism of their titles hadn’t escaped him. When you said he is meant to help share her burden.…

The Woman gazed back at him solemnly. "If they are to have the power necessary to drive back the Devourer, the Queen of Ice and the King of Flame must become one."

I…see, Jake said heavily, looking back down at the ice.

Perhaps it was just as well that Sarah was infatuated with the young man. Perhaps then she could find some happiness in her fate. Jake desperately hoped so. What other hope did he have left to cling to, now that he knew he could not save her from it?

Is he good? he whispered, looking at the young man as he continued to walk down those empty stone halls.

He looked even wearier than usual, his golden hair was even untidier, and he was still dressed in the black clothing they had seen him wearing in the images that evening. Normally, he seemed to wear gold clothing and undyed leather belts and boots, without deviation, yet last night and now, everything he wore was black. Embroidered and ornamented with gold, but still the sudden change was troubling. Was he in mourning? Assuming black was a mourning color in his culture. At the least, his expressions had been unusually sober in the stills they had seen of him that evening, especially the one with Sarah and him facing each other in the middle of a dark, crowded room. Sarah, too, had been serious as she gazed up at him, even though she was resplendent in a glowing white, effervescent dress. Even her skin and eyes had seemed to glow, making her shine like a star in that darkness.

Now that scene made more sense in Jake’s mind, having heard what this Woman intended them to become. The future Queen of Ice, facing the future King of Flame. Perhaps as they realized themselves what fate lay in store for them.

"He is, or My Sister would not have chosen him."

Jake took a deep breath. Will he make her happy?

"He could, if he chose. There is great sorrow ahead, no matter their choices. Yet they can have bright moments that will make the dark bearable, if they reach for them together. That is up to them to decide."

When Jake looked back at Her, She smiled as softly as Her icy lips could. "We never force or coerce Our children, Jacob Lind. We can only guide and protect them…when they will let us."

Jake waved at the ice. So this destiny you have in store for them. They could reject it? You would allow that?

"Yes, We would. But even greater tragedy will result. As I said before, she and he, together, stand the greatest chance to save our worlds…and all life therein. Yet the choice is always theirs. We only have the power to save Our children that Our children in turn give us."

Jake looked back at Her. He could sense that this dream was coming to an end. Only one more question mattered deeply enough to ask now.

Why are you telling me this?

"Because I do not need just Sarah. I need her family as well. All twelve of you."

Twelve.… Jake paused for a moment in puzzlement, then understood. You mean Laura and Tommie, too?

His daughter-in-law and grandson.

"Indeed. I cannot stop the devastation you have seen, not alone. I require Sarah most of all, but she will require all of you. She is striving now to find the way We have prepared for her to return to you."

Jake’s heart leaped. Sarah is coming back?

If, for all their sakes, her destiny indeed lay with that young man, then Jake had begun to despair that he would not see his daughter in the flesh again. He had assumed that was the reason for this dream when he had first asked his question—to show him why Sarah would never return home.

The Woman nodded. "When she does, I will have a work for you to do together. I have shown you and told you all of this to prepare you to be ready to help her. Yet that is not all."

She raised her hand. A light from the Tree above floated down to them slowly. As it did, She said, "I offer you a gift, My son. A gift I have not bestowed for nearly a thousand years. It is the greatest gift that is in My power to grant save My power itself."

The light finally rested in Her palm. It was a leaf, made from ice that glowed with a cold inner fire. She held it out so that he could see it, but not so far as to invite him to come forward immediately to take it.

What is it? Jake asked quietly.

He was wary now. He saw no reason to distrust the Woman; in fact, he felt in a way that even he couldn’t logic away that She was the epitome of trustworthiness. Yet She herself had made it clear this gift wasn’t to be taken lightly. Before he took it, he would have to be willing to bear the burden that would come with it.

"It is the gift of Sight, She said, with the softness of a whispering winter wind. Should you accept what I offer, you will be able to see what I give you of the past, the present…and of the potential future."

That was, indeed, no small gift, and the implications already staggered him, both good and bad. But one word needed clarification before he could decide.

Potential? Jake said intently.

"The future stretches before you in a thousand upon thousand branches, with each decision one of Our children makes creating another. We Eternal Ones of the First Creation can hold all the possibilities in Our minds at once. In fact, We exist outside of them, as if time were a tapestry before Us already complete, and We have only to touch one strand to see all futures that could have been and yet were not. Yet that is too much for any mortal mind to bear. To be merciful, and to respect the sanctity of choice, I will only show you possibilities, just as I have shown you the possibility of one this night. Nothing I show you beyond your present will be set in stone; they will be messages of comfort or warning only. You and your family will still be free to choose your paths."

"So you know what will happen in the end, he said dryly. Yet you would show them as possibilities, so I still have an illusion of choice."

"Knowing what you will choose does not take that choice away, My son."

Jake pondered that for a moment. I suppose…it does not. Unless I thought it did. Unless I thought what you were showing me was inevitable and acted accordingly. There is an element of illusion here still, but…it is actually in my favor.

The Woman simply smiled.

Why give this to me? Jake asked slowly. If Sarah is your chosen Queen, what am I to you?

"You have always been My servant, Jacob, the Woman said gently. Though you did not know it, because you were prevented from knowing Me. I offer this to you to change that. To prepare you. To give you the chance, as you asked, to share something of your daughter’s burden. For she will have great need of you."

In that case… Jake’s eyes fell on the leaf, and he held out his hand. …I will take it. For Sarah.

His daughter.

He would have given his life to save her. What good father wouldn’t? And he would have given his life to spare her this kind of burden. But he couldn’t. So he would live, and he would share it with her, no matter the heavy cost of that gift.

That seemed a small enough price to pay.

Chapter one

Choice

Koriben

It was nearly dawn before Kor could finally lead me to Sarah’s gate.

Kor’s elaborate plan to debut Sarah during the Moonfair pageant was, in everyone else’s mind, a resounding success. Her guileless yet breathtaking performance and symbolic participation as the Moondaughter won over every Starkissed who had been in attendance and captured the hearts and imaginations of everyone else, and word spread almost instantaneously through Olsdak and then through the Six Realms.

The aftermath required hours of Kor and I explaining to the people across the Realms who had a right to know as much as they had a right to know about Sarah and what her presence meant for them, and deflecting questions and giving vague answers to the people who didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, Kor had already laid some of the groundwork by informing the Lady Starkissed and Olsdak elder in advance both of Sarah’s presence in Olsdak and the Crown’s intentions for the pageant revelation. The Crown, meaning Avva, his wings and their people, and both of my wings and theirs. All of them had been in readiness that night: the rightwings and their elites for handling anything from a full-scale Devourer assault to attempted assassination to simple crowd control; the leftwings and their people had been in readiness for the flood of questions and careful handling of the narrative, which they sprang into action to manage as soon as the lights came on.

In fact, every member of the entity we called the Crown was to some extent informed and prepared for every scenario of that night…except me. Because, of course, I was the only key stakeholder not informed. Even Sarah had been given the choice to reveal herself or not—even if she’d been tricked into attending the pageant as a participant.

No one told me that last part. Kor glazed over it as if Sarah had been aware of the entire plan. But I knew her too well for that, and I had seen the look of terror on her face when the Moonstar had stopped in front of her, choosing her to be my counterpart in that blasted pageant’s finale. She may have been given the choice to reveal her Moontouched identity…but other than that, she had been left in the dark just as much or even more than I had been.

The moment I first saw her in the back of that dark crowd, the pieces fell into place—but not in time to save her. She hadn’t deserved to be dragged into this charade with me. She didn’t deserve to feel all those expectations descend on her and all those stares follow her every movement as she stumbled to obey them. She shouldn’t have had to kiss me, and in front of all of them, just to avoid ruining the production. She shouldn’t have had to do any of it.

Yet they had given her no choice.

At first, in the moment, all I had felt was numb horror, only overcome with wonder and longing. Sarah could not have known how she looked to all of us, glowing brighter and more beautiful than a star in that darkness, even so stiff with fear. Perhaps even more so, with her noble chin lifted in such self-sacrificing courage. Never had she embodied her name more, in both its senses of Heir in her own tongue and valiant in mine. But in every moment since she’d surged from me to the safety and privacy of her hold, my horror for her heated to an ever-increasing rage.

That was why no one had told me.

I was the only one left completely in the dark because everyone just assumed that I either would throw a fit and refuse to put Sarah through that torture or that risk, or I would be incapable of acting out my role if ordered to do so. And…torch it, they were right. That didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to strangle Kor as he was hurriedly explaining things to me, but fortunately for him, there wasn’t time to murder him, and I needed him now more than ever to handle the aftermath of what he had done.

What made me want to scream was that no one thought we had done the wrong thing except me. Everyone was full of triumph and relief at how incredibly well everything had gone, how clever Kor and Eskala had been for being the masterminds of all of this and remarking at the fruit it had already borne. Even Yvera’s brusque assessment was Seems like Kor didn’t mess up this time. Aside from Kor’s barest of hurried apologies to me, no one stopped to think how even I felt about being used in such a way, let alone what Sarah felt.

Even though Sarah was the beloved name on everyone’s lips, once they had it. All anyone outside the Crown wanted to know was where Sarah was, why I was answering their questions about her for her, and why the Crown was still holding her back from them. They always seemed flabbergasted when I would explain to them time after time (losing patience with each repetition) that she hadn’t yet been invested, that it wasn’t yet time for her to take her place as Queen of Ice, that she might yet decide