The Illucian messenger wore rich, finely cut blues lined in gold, the material too thick for the Rhodairen summer sun. He wasn’t a soldier, but he carried a sword nonetheless and would know how to use it. He’d been allowed to keep it, since asking an Illucian to give up their weapon was akin to asking a wolf not to bite your hand while you pulled out its teeth. As a compromise, two castle guards stood within easy striking distance.

The Saints must hate me. It’d been nearly six months since the Illucian Empire destroyed my life. I’d barely left my room since. I’d hardly gotten out of bed. Even now, I wanted to burrow beneath my blankets and disappear into the darkness. Then the one day I managed to drag myself downstairs, convinced it could be a decent day, I got stuck watching an Illucian.

His gaze bore into me, and it took everything I had not to look at him. I was afraid of what I might do if I did.

A spark of fury rallied against the prison of grief and pain that had grown inside me layer by layer over the last few months. I hated that he’d been allowed into Rhodaire, allowed onto the castle grounds. Hated that we had to hear out his queen’s demands, that I didn’t have a crow to seize him by his perfectly manicured uniform and lift him high, high into the air…

“Will the queen be here soon?” he asked for the second time, his accent light.

It sounded like a crow’s talons on stone, and the back of my neck prickled with a chill despite the sun. We’d been waiting for my sister for nearly ten minutes.

“If you ask again, maybe I’ll suddenly know.” Not the diplomatic response, but politics had never been my strength.

“Will the queen be here soon?”

My eyes snapped up, locking with his. He smiled, and I gritted my teeth at giving him that small victory. Ignore him. Forcing my gaze out across the castle gardens, I exhaled slowly. I’d promised myself today would be a good day. I needed a good day. But faced with an Illucian, all I could think about was what they’d taken from us. What they still took. Terrorizing our borders, attacking our trade routes, sinking our ships.

Looking at the garden didn’t help. My eyes naturally found the spots where the flowers had started to droop, stains of brown spreading among the green. Without the earth crows’ magic, plants like the bright flowering delladon vine that climbed the latticework along the castle were a breath away from dust.

Rhodaire was dying.