“She forced you,” Connall finished grimly. “Of course she did. Lady Elianora never lets her family deny her will. That’s why she took me prisoner last time. Mother tried to say no to getting married a second time.” His lips twisted. “And that’s why you were the only one I could reach with my summoning now. You struggled, so her potion didn’t take you under completely. The others trusted her, so they never had a chance.”

“But she’s family!” The words tore out of Cordelia’s mouth like a cry of pain. “We were supposed to be safe once we found her!”

“Those dukes are family, too. Hadn’t you realized?” Connall took a step back, running a trembling hand over his hair. “Your father was a first cousin to both of them. Every high family in this kingdom has mixed and tangled over the years—but all we are to any of them are pawns in the game they’ve been playing for decades, ever since the Raven Crown first cracked.”

“‘Cracked’?” Cordelia frowned up at him. “What do you mean? There are still kings and queens, so—”

“The original Raven Crown is what started this whole nightmare in the first place.” Connall groaned, turning away and rattling off the words like a lesson that he’d learned by heart long ago. “It was created with old magics at the first founding of the kingdom, and it bound the ruler and the land together for everybody’s sake. It stayed that way for centuries of peace. But thirty years ago, it cracked and fell off King Kalmen’s head because he’d broken the old contracts with the land beyond repair.

“Of course, every high family in the land said that they should be the ones to rule after Kalmen’s failure … and since then, the fighting has never stopped, because without that original crown, there’s no magical proof to seal any choice for good. Not one heir has ever managed to wear it, no matter how many sorcerers tried to mend it with their spells.

“By now, no one’s even trying to fix it anymore. They just buried the broken pieces at Raven’s Nest, high in the mountains where the oldest spirits of the land are still hiding and holding all of our deepest secrets safe. Everyone’s given up on those founding magics nowadays. The six great houses—Arden, Lune, Harcourt, Solenne, Breville, and Mordaunt—only care about the wealth and the power of the throne. They don’t mind who gets hurt along the way.”

“So we can’t even trust our own family?” Cold was seeping all through Cordelia’s body now. White mist curled at the corners of her vision, obscuring the gray stone walls. Her nose twitched as an unfamiliar smell drifted past, distracting and unsettling.