PROLOGUE
Running.
They had to keep running.
The night was dark, the cold so bitter that it pierced straight through to their bones, but still, they couldn’t stop. Not when death itself chased their
heels.
“Mama, where are we —”
“Quiet, sweetheart,” the woman hushed her daughter, looking over her shoulder for any sign of pursuit.
“But what about Papa?” the little boy whispered. “What about —”
“Shhh,” the woman cut him off, gripping his hand tighter and hastening his steps.
Neither the little boy nor his older sister uttered another word, both sensing their mother’s urgency, both seeing the silent tears that slid down her face, shining in the moonlight.
On they ran, none speaking of who they had left behind and everything they had lost that night.
The woman couldn’t bear to close her eyes lest she recall the image of her family’s cottage in flames, her husband and youngest daughter being dragged away by the Royal Guard, her youngest son — A sob left her mouth before she could stifle it.
Her son was dead.
He was dead.
The woman clamped down on her tongue to halt another sob, grateful that her two eldest children had heeded her command to stay hidden when she’d crept back to investigate, sparing them from the sight that would forever
haunt her nightmares.
A sword piercing his small chest.
Her husband begging for help.
Her daughter screaming, trying to reach him, desperate to save him.
But it was too late.
“Mama, you’re hurting me.”
Her son’s quiet whimper had her easing her grip and whispering an apology. It was all she could manage, too choked by what she was feeling to offer anything more.
Hours passed as they followed the twisting Aldon River, never slowing, always looking back to see if they were being followed. There was no sign of the guards, but the woman didn’t risk stopping until they were deep in the foothills of the Armine Mountains, far from any civilization. A safe house, she had been told. A place where she might find sanctuary, should the worst ever fall upon her and her loved ones.
When the invitation had come from a cloaked stranger in the marketplace, she’d laughed as if it were a joke, claiming to have no idea why her family would ever be in such danger. They were but humble servants of the people, she’d said, her husband the village healer, she herself a devoted wife and mother.
How they had tracked her down, she had no idea. For years she had remained in hiding, after a lifetime of denying whose blood ran in her veins.
Some called it the blood of traitors.
Others, the blood of kings.
Or — in her case — queens.
The woman had done everything she could to ignore the rumors of the growing rebel group searching for descendants of their long-lost monarch.
She’d taken a new name and become a new person, wanting nothing more than a quiet life with her beloved family.
Tonight, half of that family had been ripped from her.
Something vital within her had shattered as she’d watched, helpless to do anything.
She never wanted to feel that helpless again.
She would never allow herself to feel that helpless again.
And so, as she and her two remaining children approached the safe house — a thatched cottage hidden deep in the snow-dusted woods — the woman made a decision.
Three short raps of her numb fist against the wooden door was all it took before it opened, the cloaked figure from the marketplace illuminated by the luminium beacons shining from within, along with a small group of others reclining by the fireplace and peering curiously in her direction.
“This is a surprise,” the cloaked man said, his hood pulled back enough to
reveal his weathered features as he took in the woman and her two shivering children.
The woman raised her emerald eyes to his, gripping her son and daughter tighter as she said, “We’re here to join you.”
Those in the room beyond froze like statues, but the man merely angled his head and repeated, “Join us?”
“I know who you are and what you’re after,” she stated baldly. “You won’t succeed without me.”
The man arched an eyebrow as everyone behind him seemed to hold their collective breaths. “And what would you want in return?”
The woman recalled everything she had suffered through that night, still hearing the screams, still seeing the blood, and whispered one word: “Vengeance.”
A slow smile stretched across the man’s face before he sank into a deep bow. “Then please come in, Tilda Corentine,” he said, as those in the room stood and bowed in turn. “Your rebels have long been waiting for you.”
Swallowing back her doubt, the woman and what remained of her family stepped over the threshold. No longer would she be called Tilda Meridan, no longer would she or her children deny their bloodline.
The blood of traitors.
And the blood of queens.
Tilda planned to be both — to betray a lifetime of convictions to claim what was rightfully hers.
Nothing would change what had happened that night. But Tilda Corentine would be damned if she didn’t spend the rest of her life making those who were responsible pay.
One way or another, no matter what it cost, she would have her revenge.
TEN YEARS LATER
