And suddenly they were at the edge of the world Raisa knew, overlooking a sea of mist. Hawks wheeled and pivoted over the cliff’s edge, borne skyward by the updrafts.

“Lady of light,” she breathed. She took a step back, feeling dizzy, as if she might be swept away by the relentless movement of water. Amon gripped her arm to steady her.

The Dyrnnewater poured over the lip of a wide overhang and thundered into the valley below. The river was deep green as it furled over the edge, then exploded in foamy spray as it struck rock on the way down. Mist collected on their hair and clothing, then froze so that within minutes they resembled a collection of silver-headed elders.

This was a sacred place, full of history. During the War of the Wizard Conquest, Queen Regina, the last free queen of the old line, had been trapped with a small army of loyalists at the edge of the escarpment. She had thrown her daughters over the edge, then leaped after them to prevent their being captured. But the river had refused to swallow the queen and the princesses, had cushioned their landing and spat them out alive on the banks below. A miracle by the Maker’s hand.

After that, Regina had bowed her proud head, knowing that the line was meant to survive and that its redemption lay somewhere in the future. The queens had passed three hundred years in captivity before the Breaking freed them.

Creeping forward, Raisa peered over the edge. It was like looking down into a milky sea, its features hidden under a mantle of mist. The Shivering Fens were an ocean of grass and stubby trees, nothing tall enough to poke through the grounded clouds.

Raisa shuddered, chilled by the damp and the prospect of climbing down into that mist. The Fells claimed to rule the Shivering Fens, but Raisa had never been there, and as far as she knew, Queen Marianna had not, either. How could they claim allegiance to a place they knew so little about?

Etched into the side of the bluff, alongside the river, she saw the faint tracings of a rocky path, obviously little used. At the top of the cliff stood an abandoned garrison house, the walls in disrepair, heaved and tumbled by repeated freezes and thaws, and next to it, a small shrine to Queen Regina. A marble statue centered the shrine, stained and worn by weather—the fearless queen cradling two babies. Raisa made the sign of the Maker and knelt in the weeds before the queen’s altar.

We need to better honor the old ways, she thought. This is my blood, my inheritance, overgrown and neglected. We once ruled the Seven Realms, and now we can barely manage one.