When she had first heard the voices of the dead, she had shrunk from them, tried to ignore them. She’d been too deep in her grief, too desperate to keep hold of her tie to Matthias. Death had still been the enemy, the monster that could strike without warning and take all you held dear. She hadn’t wanted to make peace with it. She couldn’t. Until she’d laid Matthias to rest. Even now her heart rebelled at the thought that there was no loophole, no secret spell to return him to her, to give her back the love she’d lost. No, she hadn’t made peace with death, but they’d come to an understanding.

Speak. Nina reached out with her power, feeling the cold river of mortality that ran through everyone and everything, letting it carry her to the sacred burial ground that lay in the shadow of the Elderclock only a few hundred yards away. Who will speak the name of Agathe Grimjer, queen of Fjerda?

The voice that answered was loud and clear, a strong soul, recently gone. It had a great deal to say.

“Six miscarriages,” Nina said.

“What?” The word fell like a stone in the old throne room.

“You miscarried six times before you gave birth to Rasmus. Not three.”

“Who told you that?” The queen’s voice was harsh, her cool demeanor shaken.

Linor Rundholm, the queen’s best friend and lady-in-waiting, dead and buried on the White Island.

“You had given up on praying,” said Nina, letting her eyes close, swaying as if she was in a trance. “So you had a Grisha Healer brought from the dungeons to see you through your pregnancy.”

“That is a lie.”

But it wasn’t. Linor had whispered it all. The queen had resorted to what was considered witchcraft.

“You think your boy is cursed.” She opened her eyes and stared directly at the queen. “But he is not.”

Queen Agathe’s slender fingers gripped the arms of her throne like white claws. “If what you were saying were true, then I would have committed heresy. My son would have been born with the demon’s mark upon him, forsaken by Djel. There would be no hope for him, no matter how many prayers I said.”