“When darkest is the night
When lost is the fight
When blood is all in sight
Look to the rising dawn”
—Venteran folk song
Whenever Eliana dressed for one of Lord Arkelion’s parties, she thought about her father.
Ioseph Ferracora had spent most of her childhood fighting on the eastern front as the Empire wore down the last of Ventera’s resistance.
“Every night he’s gone, we’ll leave lights in the windows for him,” her mother had decided. In those golden days before the invasion, before Remy, the distant war had felt no more real to Eliana than a ghost story.
“But what will the lights do?” Eliana asked.
“They belong to the Sun Queen,” Rozen explained, “and will help bring your father safely back to us.”
So every night before bed, Eliana had lit the candle in her window and whispered the Sun Queen’s prayer: “May the Queen’s light guide him home.”
As she grew older, she came to dread her father’s visits, for they became shorter, and they would always end. But she never stopped looking forward to the summer solstice, when Ioseph would return for the annual festival—and most importantly, for the Sun Queen pageant.
Before the Fall, before the Blood Queen Rielle died and left everything in ruins, the world was full of magic. So said the stories, and as a child, Eliana had believed in them with all her heart. They said people of the Old World used shields and swords to summon wind and fire. They worshipped mighty saints who had banished the race of angels into oblivion, and they believed that a queen would someday save the world from evil. She was called the Sun Queen, for she would bring light into darkness.
Even long after the age of the Old World had ended, and it was understood that angels and magic did not exist, had never existed—that the legends of the Old World were simply that—many people still visited temples to pray to the saints, and the myth of the Sun Queen remained.
And every summer, Ioseph Ferracora returned home to his daughter, bringing with him some new ornament for her costume—a gilded hairpiece from Rinthos, a white mink pelt smuggled in from Astavar.
Together, Eliana and her parents would join the parades crowding the city. Children with gold-dusted cheeks climbed up the crumbling statues of Saint Katell the sunspinner to leave garlands of gemma flowers around her neck. Musicians beat their drums and plucked their harps. White-robed storytellers performed tales of the Sun Queen’s long-awaited coming.
The parade ended at the high turn of the river, in the easternmost hills, where the statue of Audric the Lightbringer stood. He sat on his winged horse, sword in hand and somber eyes fixed on the eastern horizon. It was Eliana’s favorite statue in the city, for the doomed king’s face looked both brave and tired. Looking at him made her heart twist with pity.
“I’m sorry, Lightbringer,” she whispered to him, that last year. She kissed his weathered stone boot, clutched her necklace bearing his ruined likeness in the other. As always, she searched for his face in the necklace’s layers of wear, but while the winged horse was clear, the person riding it had been buried beneath the darkness of time, no matter how diligently Eliana tried to clean it.
“Watch the horizon,” Rozen had whispered to her daughter, an infant Remy asleep in her arms. “Do you see her? Do you see the Sun Queen?”
“Will she come this year, Papa?” seven-year-old Eliana had asked, elated even after the long night.
“Keep looking, sweet girl,” Ioseph had answered, his arms trembling around her. “Keep watching for the light.”
He had left again for war the next day, and he had never returned.
• • •
Ten years later, Eliana sat before the mirror in her bedroom as Remy finished twisting her wavy brown hair into a low knot. Her cheeks—not so pale as Remy’s, closer to the warm olive tones of her mother—shimmered with silver powder. Dark kohl rimmed her eyes; diamonds glinted in each ear.
She finished applying a rich red dye to her lips and smiled at her reflection.
“I look good,” she declared.
Remy rolled his eyes. “You always look good.”
“Yes, but tonight it’s really something, isn’t it?”
“I’m just going to keep rolling my eyes until you stop talking.”
She grinned at him in the mirror. “So. Tell me once more.”
Remy sulked on her bed. “I’m supposed to stay with Harkan, no matter what, and do exactly as he tells me, no matter what, and not even think of asking you again about what you’ll be doing tonight. No matter what.”
Eliana stood, the wine-colored gown Lord Arkelion sent her falling in sparkling folds about her legs. “And if something happens to Harkan?”
“I wait for you at the east bridge, by the Admiral’s statue.”
“But nothing will happen to Harkan,” said the man himself, entering from the hallway. He wore tall brown boots, dark trousers, a long coat that hugged his trim torso, and a hooded cloak. He set down a small bag of supplies and ruffled Remy’s hair. “Harkan’s altogether too impressive for that.”
Normally Remy would have rolled his eyes and told Harkan that the only impressive thing he could do was belch like a drunk old grandfather.
But Remy sat silent and pale, his lips chapped from biting them. Since their mother’s disappearance, he had not let anyone see him cry, had even bravely tried to match Eliana’s jokes, but she knew better.
If something went wrong, if anything happened to him or Harkan because of the deal she had made with Simon…
She tucked her necklace into her dress, the pendant rough against her skin, and smoothed her features into a glittering mask.
“Remy,” Harkan said, “why don’t you go collect your things?”
“I’m not stupid,” Remy muttered. “Just tell me to leave so you can talk.”
“Fine. Leave so we can talk.”
When Remy had gone, Harkan took Eliana’s hand.
“Tell me you’re not making a terrible mistake, trusting this man,” he said quietly.
A thrill of nervousness rippled through her at the grave expression on his face. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Good. Because then I’d know you were lying.”
Despite herself, she smiled, and when Harkan finally grinned back at her, she cupped his face in her hands and brought him down gently for a kiss. With his hands warm against her bare back, Eliana could almost believe this was just another night—going to a party with Harkan, dancing and flirting and coming home with a job.
“We will find her, El.” Harkan kissed her temple and let her go, his eyes soft on her face. “But first—”
“First,” she said, trying on a smile, “I have a party to attend.”
• • •
In the Evening Ballroom of Lord Arkelion’s palace, only a handful of small candles dotted the room, and the shivering floor spun with dancers. Large windows opened into the night, letting in the river breeze.
Eliana pretended to sip her wine and scanned the room, counting the motionless figures around the perimeter—adatrox. Twenty of them.
Her mouth thinned. On a normal night, upward of five hundred adatrox patrolled the enormous palace and its sprawling grounds. But tonight there would be close to a thousand.
She continued counting. Thirty. Thirty-five. Mostly men, a few women. Dark and pale. Black cloaks and gray surcoats and blank-eyed stares that could turn murderous in an instant.
An idol to the Emperor towered in a corner of the ballroom. Eliana, glaring at it, sent a quick prayer to Saint Tameryn of the Old World, the legendary shadowcaster and the patron saint of Astavar. The Empire could raze their temples to the ground and tear down their statues, but they could not police the prayers inside her head.
Hide me, Tameryn, she prayed, lady of swiftness and illicit deeds.
If, that is, you ever actually existed.
Chiming tones floated in from the city’s central plaza—the clock tower, striking midnight.
Eliana waited five minutes before drifting across the ballroom, smiling and making excuses whenever someone asked her for a dance. She made her way through the maze of candlelit sitting rooms surrounding the ballroom, keeping one eye on the adatrox patrolling the hallways. Then she slipped into a narrow servants’ passage and followed the winding stone stairs to the palace’s lower levels—the infirmary, the servants’ quarters, the kitchens.
Any servants she passed knew her well enough to look the other way.
As she rounded the corner into a hallway stacked with crates of vegetables and sacks of flour, a tingle of nerves climbed up her spine.
If this was all some elaborate trap of Simon’s, if he betrayed her at the last minute and abandoned Remy and Harkan to certain death…well. She wouldn’t be beaten without taking him down with her.
She paused, listened to the bustle of the kitchens to make sure no one was approaching, then opened a heavy, locked door that led to a small stone supply yard.
Simon slipped inside, wearing the adatrox uniform Eliana had stolen for him. In the fitted surcoat, with the winged shield of the Empire emblazoned on his chest, he could have passed for one of the silent soldiers—except for that sharp light in his eyes and the way he moved. Sinuous and graceful, with none of the adatrox’s stiffness.
“At last,” he said dryly. “I was beginning to worry.”
“I find that unlikely.” She shut the door and swept past him, noticing with savage delight how his eyes trailed down her body. That could be useful later. “Let’s move.”
She led him through the cramped servants’ passages up to the third floor, where they emerged into the palace proper. The deep-piled carpets muffled their steps. Music drifted through windows open to the vast gardens below.
In the north wing, the walls turned red, the moldings ornate. Gas lamps burned in jeweled casings; the air smelled of perfume. They turned a corner into a portrait gallery of black-eyed generals. At one end of the corridor hung a painting of the Emperor himself.
Eliana’s heart pounded. She had never been in the north wing before. She couldn’t shake the childish fear that the Emperor’s painted black eyes were following her every step.
“Well,” she said, “we’re here. Now it’s your turn.”
Simon slipped past her. “Watch and learn, little Dread.”
“Call me ‘little’ again and I’ll punch you.”
A smile twitched at his mouth. “You know just how to entice me.”
“Have you forgotten? My punches hurt.”
“Forgotten? In fact, I relish the memory.”
She scowled, but then they reached a set of wooden doors marked by an engraving of a naked woman, her cascading waves of hair masking her face, and Eliana froze.
“The maidensfold?” She shot a look at Simon. Female concubines lived in this tower, their male counterparts in the south wing. “Why?”
“There’s a girl inside,” Simon explained, taking hold of Eliana’s arm. “Cover me while I retrieve her. Try not to get hurt. I won’t have you slowing me down.”
Eliana bristled. As though he stood a chance of navigating back down through the castle without her.
“Follow my lead,” said Simon, knocking on the door.
Eliana nodded, ready to grab Arabeth from the slit in her skirt.
The doors opened, revealing two adatrox. Men. One pale, one dark.
Their brows furrowed to see Simon. He shoved Eliana into the foyer. She kept her eyes obediently on the floor, her heart pounding.
“What’s this?” asked one of the adatrox.
“Special delivery,” Simon answered smoothly, before pulling his sword from his belt and gutting both of them. They dropped to the floor. Simon kicked the door shut behind him.
A girl passing by the foyer, clad in gauzy silks, ran off shouting warnings.
More adatrox rounded the corner. Simon ran at them, Eliana right on his heels. He took out one of the adatrox with a swift punch and a swipe of his blade.
Eliana leapt at the other. The adatrox lunged at her, sword in hand. She sidestepped his thrust, stabbed him in the throat. He thudded to the floor, choking. Then his clouded gaze fell on her face—and darkened. Sharpened.
A sick feeling swept over her. She staggered, unbalanced. She felt…seen. As if the shadows around her cloaked secret eyes that had come awake to stare.
The adatrox went still, his gaze blank and unseeing as he bled out on the floor. Whatever darkness had touched his eyes, it was now gone. Or maybe had never been there at all?
She turned and raced after Simon, following the sound of metal on metal down a wide hallway lined with embroidered drapes. She found him in a softly lit bathing room that smelled of jasmine and roses. Three adatrox surrounded him.
She took care of one by opening his throat, then evaded the fists of another before sweeping his feet out from under him and kicking him in the head with the heel of her beaded sandal. A girl fled past her and the bleeding adatrox, then out the door, clutching a shawl to her chest and leaving a trail of red footprints behind her.
Across the room, Simon struggled with another adatrox. A group of girls was backed into the far corner, trapped with her and Simon between them and escape. One of them let out a sharp sob.
Eliana scanned the frightened face of each girl. Which was the one Simon needed to retrieve? And why? What use was a concubine to the second-highest ranking member of Red Crown?
Eliana felt the adatrox in the doorway behind her before she saw him, barely turned in time to dodge his sword. She slipped in a pool of water on the floor and went down hard, banging her knee.
Before Eliana could regain her balance, the adatrox swung his sword in her direction once more—only to stumble back as a string of sapphires and diamonds landed around his neck. The person behind him pulled on the necklace, hard, and the adatrox dropped his sword to claw at his throat, gagging.
Eliana picked up his sword and ran it through his heart. He collapsed.
She looked up and met the gaze of a girl holding the necklace, at the end of which dangled an enormous opal. The girl’s skin was a warm brown, her hair black, her eyes a pale hazel. Though she wore nothing but a blood-spattered sheer blue slip and dark-gold maidensmarks on her wrists, she had the bearing of a queen.
“You’re welcome,” the girl said, breathless.
Simon stormed over. “Good, you’ve met.” He took the girl by the arm and moved toward the door. “This way.”
Eliana sheathed Arabeth and followed them.
“My name is Navi,” the girl said, smiling back at Eliana as Simon hurried her out of the room.
But Eliana did not reply, for when she glanced back at the open windows of the bathing room, she saw a figure drop down from the roof to land on the terrace outside.
Tall and thin, with creamy, pale skin and fair hair tied back in one long braid, dressed all in black save for a bloodred dress cloak that swept the ground:
Rahzavel.
