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Chapters (64)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  6. Pronunciation Guide
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. One
  10. Two
  11. Three
  12. Four
  13. Five
  14. Six
  15. Seven
  16. Eight
  17. Nine
  18. Ten
  19. Eleven
  20. Twelve
  21. Thirteen
  22. Part Two
  23. Fourteen
  24. Fifteen
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Part Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Part Four
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. Forty-One
  53. Forty-Two
  54. Forty-Three
  55. Forty-Four
  56. Forty-Five
  57. Forty-Six
  58. Forty-Seven
  59. Epilogue
  60. Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
  61. The Night and Its Moon Playlist
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. Back Cover

Even within the recent week, her ability had been a source of both contention and shame. However, the constabulary had caught her on a bad day. The priestess at the Temple of the All Mother had said with every bit of authority that persuasion had been a gift from the goddess for humans to bow to Amaris’s will. She wasn’t sure if it had been the priestess’s words or her own fatigue, but with the nonplussed expression of a woman who was weary from the world, she exchanged a look with the men before her. With an unimpressed calm, she said, “You will now escort us to see the queen.”

The effect was instantaneous.

Amaris found herself looking to Malik to see if using the ability on the other humans triggered an emotion in him, but his face was unreadable. She sensed nerves and relief muddled into whatever amalgamation of emotion her friends were feeling as they nudged their horses onward. In immediate obedience, the marshal had simply nodded, and he, with his men, had turned their horses and led the way from the long road of Priory into the city of Aubade. As they walked their horses forward, she heard Malik say under his breath, “I guess this means we aren’t getting food.”

* * *

It had taken no small stretch of time to get through both Priory and past the walls of Aubade to the castle at its center. Priory and the royal city beyond were far larger than any of them had anticipated. The constable and his men cleared an easy path for them. “We’re escorting them to see the queen” was a perfectly reasonable answer no matter who of importance might ask and was met with no resistance.

The guards at the walled city of Aubade would have certainly stopped the reevers, though Amaris could have probably handled them just as effortlessly. Instead, they were waved forward as the Head Marshal escorted them beyond the opened, iron gates into Aubade.

Amaris had spent years in Uaimh Reev and referred to the keep many times as a castle throughout her stay. It had been hewn from the mountain’s granite—made, not built—into the side of the sheer rock. When she was little, the children of Farleigh had often thought of their stone manor as a castle, for it had been large and stately in many ways, with enough rooms and corridors and alcoves and turns that their imagination was able to conjure importance and intrigue into its walls. It wasn’t until they were within Aubade’s walls that it became clear she had truly never seen a castle.