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For Brittany, who knew Celdaria first

An End and a Beginning

“Sohtened in her last ry”

—The Word of the Prophet

The queen stopped screaht

Siers jammed into his ears to block out the noise For hours, he had crouched there, knees drawn to chest, head bowed

For hours, the queen’s rooms had shuddered in tandem with her screams

Now, there was silence Si after a lightning strike until the thunder rolls: Is the stor closer?

One Two Three

He reached twenty and dared to lower his hands

A baby cried out into the silence Sirinned and scrah him

The queen’s child was born—finally Now he and his father could flee this city and never look back

Siowns and stumbled out into her bedroom

“Father?” he asked, breathless

Garver Randell, Simon’s father, turned to face him, his eyes weary but his smile broad And behind him lay Queen Rielle, her wild, dark hair plastered to her pale skin, her bedsheets and white nightgown stained red She held a fussing bundle in her arms

Siht of the queen do—scrunched red face, skin slightly darker than her mother’s, wide brown eyes, a mop of wet black hair

Siht in his throat

The baby looked very much like her late father

Rielle stared at the child, then gazed up at Simon’s father in bewilderment

“I thought I would kill her,” said the queen She laughed, wiping her face with shaking fingers “I dreamed I would And yet here she is after all” She fumbled to adjust the baby in her ar babies

It was strange to see the queen like this—sirl though she enty years old This queen who had allied with the angels and helped them kill thousands of humans

This queen who had murdered her husband

“Audric would have loved her,” Rielle whispered, her face cru

Simon’s s Audric when she was the one who had killed him?

He had learned only a few things about the night the capital fell King Audric had fought Queen Rielle on the broad veranda attached to the castle’s fourth floor The king’s sword had blazed with the light of the sun, his diahter than the stars

But not even King Audric the Lightbringer, the h to defeat Queen Rielle

The queen had carved a sword out of the air, a blinding weapon forged froht blade to blade, but the fight had been brief

And when Rielle plunged her glowing hand into Audric’s chest to tear out his heart, there had been nothing but bloodlust in her eyes as she watched her husband fall to ashes at her feet

Siht that if he looked at the queen for one ht strike her

So he uttered the Sun Queen’s prayer in Audric’s honor—May the Queen’s light guide him home—and turned to his father instead

That’s when Garver Randell went rigid and whispered, “He knows,” then fell gasping to his knees

Si?”

Garver clutched his head, his body jerking “He knows, God help us, he knows,” he ray and cloudy

Simon’s heart sank to his feet He knew those eyes, and what they meant

An angel had found its way inside his father’s mind at last

And from the terror on his father’s face, Simon knew it must be Corien

“Father, listen to o We can leave now! Please, hurry!”

Si softly to herself: “This is how you hold your child This is how you hter was thick with tears

“He knohat I am,” Garver rasped

Si dread turned his body to stone

Corien knew—that his father was a el nor human, but with the blood of both inside them

Suddenly, the s hidden on Simon’s back beneath his tunic felt like flares that would alert everyone in the conquered city to where he was hiding For years, he and his father had lived secretly in Celdaria’s capital, concealing their ic They had been healers, honest and hard-working, sought out by coisters and even the royal family

And no, Corien knew

Simon shoved his father toward the door “Father, move, please!”

Garver choked out, “Get away from me! He’ll find you!” He seized Simon by the collar and shoved him away

Siainst the queen’s four-poster bed, and he sluh a little, clutch his head He watched hin words in a voice that was half his and half Coriens and then run, li, to the terrace

Then, with a strangled cry, Garver Randell threw himself off the queen’s tower

Sirabbed the bed-curtains for support, stue to be sick, he crawled across the floor to the terrace At the railing, thehis cheeks, he couldn’t bear to look down He pressed his face against the cool stone, wrapped his ar an awful choking noise

“Simon,” said a voice behind him

He realized, then, that the awful noise was co from him

He ju on Queen Rielle

“You did this,” he cried “You killed us all! You’re a monster! You’re evil!”

He tried to say dom of Celdaria, everyone in the world She was supposed to be the Sun Queen, their savior and protector And yet she had becosbane The Lady of Death rittany, who knew Celdaria first