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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

She understood Ash wasn’t truly angry with her, even if his words had said as much. He was just angry—angry at his helplessness, angry that he couldn’t have saved them or have done more. She wished she’d had the wherewithal to engage the guards directly. She hadn’t known enough of her power or its limits to think to address the ones surrounding them, focused solely on the queen. Of course, Ash burned against the injustice. His rage had nowhere to go, no place to fall but on the fruitlessness of what-ifs. What if, indeed. What if she had known, somehow, that commanding the queen was in vain and that her attention had needed to pivot to the captors around her? What if Amaris had been born a brown-haired girl to a happy family and a safe village, never having heard of child mills or places called Farleigh? What if Raascot and Farehold had excellent relations between benevolent rulers and there was no curse? What if. They were the two most useless words in the common tongue.

She didn’t possess the vocabulary for everything she felt. Being trapped in this dungeon was like being kept away from market day, but with violence and bindings. Being thrust into Farehold’s cells was like being torn from Nox all over again, but with the cruelty of seeing the ones she loved just out of reach. It was rejection, confusion, and fury tangled into Moirai’s incomprehensible spiderweb.

Nothing made sense. Why would Moirai need a prince? What reason would compel her to spell for herself a perceived heir where none existed? How much power did it take for her to cast and maintain such a curse? And furthermore, what did Raascot have to do with any of it? Ash and Malik seemed to be having a conversation similar to the one brewing in her mind, but they didn’t have any yes-or-no questions they could ask of her. Her guess was as good as theirs, and no theory could be uttered through the fabric that gagged her. She wasn’t sure that she wanted their last moments to be spent arguing. She didn’t know what fruitless guesses and speculations would benefit her.

Amaris shifted from leaning her forehead against the cool bars to her cheeks, her neck. She let the questions slide away, savoring what remained of her mortal life; whether in one week or one hour, these might very well be her final sensations. What did knowledge matter if she was about to die? How would the queen do it? Was Moirai famous for any particular brands of cruelty?