Steps and miles blurred. The wind gusted. It tore at my skirts, whipped at my hair, and then a strange stillness blanketed the landscape. Only the memory of Eben’s horse and its last shuddering breaths ruffled the air, the horse’s hot gusts receding, quieter, weaker. A last gust. A last shudder. Dead. And then the eyes of a dozen soldiers ready to kill me.

When the arrows were drawn and aimed, for a moment, I had prayed a soldier would shoot. And then the others. It wasn’t pain I feared, but no longer feeling it—no longer feeling anything.

I had never killed a horse before, only seen it done. Killing is different than thinking about killing. It takes something from you, even when it’s a suffering animal. I didn’t do it only to relieve Eben of a burden. I did it for myself as much as for him. I wasn’t ready to give up every last scrap of who I used to be. I wouldn’t stand by and watch a child butcher his own horse.

I was heading into a different world now, a world where the rules were different, a world of babbling women pushed from walls, children trained as killers, and skulls dangling from belts. The peace of Terravin was a distant memory. I was no longer the carefree tavern maid Rafe had kissed in a sleepy seaside village. That girl was forever gone. That dream stolen. Now I was only a prisoner. Only a—

My steps faltered.

You’ll always be you, Lia. You can’t run from that. The voice was so clear it seemed that Walther was walking at my side, speaking his words again in greater earnest. You’re strong, Lia. You were always the strongest of us.… Rabbits make good eating, you know?

Yes. They do.

I wasn’t a carefree tavern maid. I was Princess Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.

The one named in secret.

And then I heard something.

Silence.

The loose chip inside me that I’d thought would never be still, tumbled, caught, its sharp edge finding purchase in my flesh, a hot fierce stab in my gut. The pain was welcome.

The last verses of the Song of Venda resounded in my head. From the loins of Morrighan …

How could my mother have known? I had wrestled with that question since I had read the verses, and the only answer was she didn’t know. The gift guided her. It needled into her, whispered. Jezelia. But as with me, the gift didn’t speak clearly. You were always the strongest of us. That’s what worried Mother. She didn’t know what it meant, only that it made her fear her own daughter.

Until the one comes who is mightier …

The one sprung from misery,

The one who was weak,

The one who was hunted,

The one marked with claw and vine,

I looked down at my shoulder, the torn fabric revealing the claw and the vine, now blooming in color just the way Natiya had described. We’re all part of a greater story too one that transcends wind, time … even our own tears. Greater stories will have their way.

Jezelia. It was the only name that ever felt true to who I was—and the one everyone refused to call me, except for my brothers. Maybe it was only the babblings of a madwoman from a long-ago world, but babble or not, with my last dying breath, I would make the words true.

For Walther. For Greta. For all the dreams that were gone. The stealer of dreams would steal no more, even if it meant killing the Komizar myself. My own mother may have betrayed me by suppressing my gift, but she was right about one thing. I am a soldier in my father’s army.

I glanced up at Kaden riding beside me.

Maybe now it was I who would become the assassin.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

RAFE

“What the hell…?”

It was Jeb’s watch. His remark was so slow and quiet I thought he’d seen another curiosity like the herd of golden-striped horses we encountered yesterday.

Orrin walked over to see what he was gawking at. “Well … hang me.”

They had our attention now, and Sven, Tavish, and I rushed to the rocky lookout. I went cold.

“What is it?” Tavish asked, even though we all knew what it was.

It wasn’t a ragtag patrol of barbarians. Or even a large organized platoon of them. It was a regiment riding ten wide and at least sixty deep.

Except for one.

She walked alone.

“That’s her?” Tavish asked.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. She was surrounded by an army. We weren’t just facing five barbarians. One after another, I heard them slowly exhale. These weren’t the barbarians we knew. Not the ones who had always been easily pushed back behind the Great River. There was no way we could take on that many men in a direct confrontation without all of us being killed and Lia too. I stared, watching each step she took. What was she carrying? A saddlebag? Was she limping? How long had she been walking? Sven put his hand on my shoulder, a gesture of comfort and defeat.

I whipped around. “No! It’s not over.”

“There’s nothing we can do. You have eyes. We can’t—”

“No!” I repeated. “I will not let her cross that bridge without me.” I paced over to the horses and back again, my fist grinding in my palm, searching for an answer. I shook my head. She wasn’t crossing without me. I looked at their grim faces. “We’re doing it,” I said. “Listen.” I laid out a rushed plan, because there wasn’t time to devise another one.

“It’s insanity,” Sven balked. “It will never work!”

“It has to,” I argued.

“Your father will have my neck!”

Orrin laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about the king. Rafe’s plan’s going to kill us all first.”

“We’ve done it before,” Tavish said to me with a knowing nod. “We can do it again.”

Jeb had already retrieved my horse and handed me the reins. “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Go!”

“It’s half-assed!” Sven shouted as I slid my foot into the stirrup.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m counting on you to figure out the other half.”

The Dragon will conspire,

Wearing his many faces,

Deceiving the oppressed, gathering the wicked,

Wielding might like a god, unstoppable,

Unforgiving in his judgment,

Unyielding in his rule,

A stealer of dreams,

A slayer of hope.

Until the one comes who is mightier.

—Song of Venda

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Fear was a curious thing.

I thought there was none left in me. What did I have left to fear? But as Venda came into view, I felt fear’s barbed chill at my neck. Framed between the jutting rocky hills that we passed through, a thing rose on the horizon in a hazy gray mist. I couldn’t quite call it a city. It breathed.

As we drew near, it grew and spread like an eyeless black monster rising from smoking ashes. Its haphazard turrets, scaled reptilian stone, and layers of convoluted walls spoke of something labyrinthine and twisted lurking behind them. This wasn’t just any faraway city. I felt the tremor of its pulse, the keen of its dark song. I saw Venda herself sitting high on the gray walls before me, a broken apparition singing a warning to those who listened from below.

I sensed myself slipping away already, forgetting what used to matter to me. It was a lifetime ago I left Civica with what I had thought was a simple dream, for someone to love me for who I really was. During those few short days with Rafe, I naпvely thought I had the dream in my grasp. I wasn’t that girl with a dream anymore. Now, like Walther, I only had a mounting cold desire for justice.

I looked ahead at the growing monster. Like the day I had prepared for my wedding, I knew I faced the last of the steps that would keep here from there. There would be no going back. Once I crossed into Venda, I would never see home again. I want to pull you close and never let you go. I was beyond the farthest corner now. Beyond ever seeing Rafe again. Soon I’d be dead to everyone except the mysterious Komizar who was able to exact obedience from a brutal army. Like Walther’s sword and boots, I was his prize of war now, unless he decided to finish the job that Kaden had shirked. But maybe before that happened, he’d discover I wasn’t quite the prize anyone expected me to be.