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Dedication

To Gaston, my brightest light

Map

PROLOGUE

SHIRENE

“How many are dead?”

The healer kneeling before the king sways. “Two, Your Grace. With a dozen more in beds already. It all starts the same. A fever, then a cough that steals the breath.”

No one in the Glass Tower dares breathe, let alone move. The Tower’s high archways and polished windows that were usually let open wide are sealed shut. No one could know of this meeting, except for the ambassadors of the other kingdoms who would be briefed on it later this morning. Their fate is tied closer to ours than any of them would want to admit.

King Kharo frowns. “And how many know of it?”

“Just my team here, my king,” replies the Chief Healer, indicating toward the group of healers behind her. “And one more, keeping watch over the sick right now.”

The sky outside is dotted with stars just beginning to yield to the sun’s light. I fix my gaze on the red line of the horizon. Today will be the longest day of the year.

Here and there, a winged lion flits from one end of the city to the next, bundles of flowers clutched in their arms as the last preparations for the High Summer festival are made. I’d often imagined what it would be like to celebrate my first High Summer as a sentinel—greeting the citizens, complimenting merchants on their wares, and awarding prizes at the various competitions scheduled from dawn to dusk.

Instead, I sit with the other sentinels in my sleeping clothes, having barely had time to secure a shawl around my shoulders before making it to the emergency council meeting. A shiver snakes its way down my spine as the cool stone beneath my shoes pulls the warmth from my limbs. As Ninth Sentinel, my chair is closest to the east, giving me a view of Balmora, miles across the sea. I will be the first to see the messenger.

The king lifts his hand, indicating that the healer can rise. “I trust you will be able to continue to keep this quiet,” says the king. “I ask for total silence from you and anyone else tending to the sick. We cannot risk sending the citizens into a panic.”