Chapters (70)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Map
- Epigraph
- BEGINNINGS
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- PART II
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- TRICKSTER
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Also by Susan Dennard
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
It was an open sore inside Stix’s chest. Always oozing, always pained. Worse, she couldn’t stop poking at it. When she had been at the Sightwitch Sister Convent with Ryber, she’d poked. When they had been on the road, traveling with dreary slowness through the Sirmayans and then the Contested Lands, she’d poked. And now here in Saldonica as she and Ryber tried every day to get into the Ring, she poked.
Vivia had to wonder where Stix was, vanished for a month. Stix might have sent Cam to deliver a message about magic doors and raiders, but she had no way of knowing if the boy had ever made it through. No way of knowing if Vivia had even believed him.
By the Hagfishes, Stix wished she’d never left Nubrevna. Hye, remaining would have led her into a different sort of nightmare, with voices screaming at her and memories surfacing. Her mind understood all that had happened. Her heart, though …
Oozing, pained, a scab she couldn’t stop poking.
It was with Vivia on her mind that Stix dozed off—specifically of Vivia’s crown. Stix had only seen it once, tucked away in a tiny, forgotten playroom that was so obscure, no one would ever find it. Vivia had held the golden crown with a strange sort of terror while Stix had eyed it with a strange sort of awe.
That crown belonged on Vivia. It was hers and always had been.
Stix stands surrounded on all sides by thick forest and white-capped peaks. Snow falls, and nearby, a river churns, its dark waters moving beneath a stone bridge.
A man in black furs strides her way. In his hand gleams a silver sword. On his head shines a silver crown, and for the first time, it occurs to Stix that he is a king. That, although she and the others were never meant to rule, he has taken power like an Exalted One.
He points beside Stix, and she realizes with a start that she isn’t alone in this grove at the heart of a mountain range. She cannot turn her head though, she can only slide her eyes sideways to where a woman lies on her back, a blade thrust through her belly. Silver pools around her, glowing with power. Magic entwined in her very blood, and where the raw magic moves, fissures gouge into the rock.
Two paces away, on his knees and crying, is a man with scars down half his face. He looks at Stix. “I am sorry.”
It is all right, Stix wants to say, for she loves that man, Bastien. Yet no words come; she cannot part her lips to speak.
Bastien doesn’t turn when the Rook King arrives. He doesn’t turn when the Rook King calls out, “Is your fury quenched? Is your wrath complete?” Nor does he turn when the Rook King unsheathes a saber at his hip.