Chapter 1

"Your Majesty, an urgent letter from the Duchess of Valecrest. Three days ago, as Her Grace rode for her duchy, Selovian soldiers seized her. Their king demands ransom."

Elron, the king's valet, stood pale, the parchment shaking in his hands. "It is the ninety-ninth plea she has sent. Will you not read it?"

Leon Ravelmont laughed coldly and ripped the letter in half. "Another cry for attention. Ignore it. Valecrest borders Selovia—yes—but a few wandering patrols do not make a war. Captured? She thinks me a fool."

Elron swallowed and dared to press on. "The letters came from Selovia. They do not seem false."

"Enough."

Leon flung his teacup. Porcelain shattered across the floor. "She knows nothing but jealousy. I showed kindness to a loyal servant's sister, and she struck at her for it.

"If she had truly met Selovian soldiers, she would have fled. How could she be taken? I sent her back to her lands under my finest guard. There is no chance she was captured."

By then, my head had already fallen beneath the King of Selovia's blade.

Yet my soul returned to Arnova.

I drifted above them, listening to Leon's certainty, and let out a thin, bitter laugh.

He seemed to forget one thing.

He had given Mira Stacey power equal to his own.

Before all of Arnova, he had declared, "Mira Stacey's word is my word. Any who defy her shall be executed."

With that decree in hand, she dismissed the entire escort he had assigned to me. Only my personal valet rode beside me when I crossed the border for Valecrest.

Selovian soldiers seized us before dusk.

One of them muttered, careless as a child, "This is Arnova's future queen? Why does she travel without guard? Did we receive the wrong report?"

My route had been leaked. That was the only answer.

So was it Mira?

That day, my attendants fell one by one, bodies thrown between me and enemy steel.

As we ran, my maid dragged me into a thicket. She pulled on my cloak and fled toward the border in my stead.

Arrows chased her.

They struck until her body bristled like a hedgehog.

I watched them die to the last. My heart tore in my chest. I could do nothing.

Soon after, the King of Selovia himself took me.

"Well now," he said, looking me over, cruelty bright in his eyes. "A castoff little thing. How shall you die? Filled with arrows, or kneel to the block?"

I swallowed my fear. "You cannot treat me so. I am betrothed to the King of Arnova. Kill me, and you invite war."

"Oh?" He sneered. "A king's betrothed? You look more like a woman forgotten. I will grant you one chance. Prove it. If you truly are a future queen, I may let you live."

He allowed a royal messenger to carry my letters.

But the pleas I wrote brought no rescue from Leon.

"A shameless liar," the King of Selovia spat. "You knew the cost of deceiving me."

He ordered me hanged at the city gates for three days and three nights.

Each day, I begged the royal messenger to carry another letter.

Not one brought a reply.

On the fourth morning, when the first light touched my face, he gave the command. My head was cut from my body.

They placed it in an ornate gift box and handed it to the messenger.

"Deliver this to King Leon yourself. Tell him we have dealt with the fraud who tried to deceive us."

My body was thrown into the barren borderlands.

My family's old steward, who had searched without rest, found me there at last and carried me home to Valecrest Castle.