Last of His Blood (Empire of the Stars #3)
Prologue
Previously, In the Empire of the Stars...
“If I ever lay my hands on you with violence, may the stars in heaven strike me dead.”
Their marriage begins as a transaction. A royal bride given in grudging reward for an impossible war victory. And Remin Grimjaw, who has been hounded all his life by the Emperor’s assassins, knows all too well that every gift from the Empire is salted with poison.
That’s why he takes his new bride to the dangerous Andelin Valley, where even the monstrous devils that appear every night are safer for him than the capital. With his nights spent defending his fledgling city and his days laboring to raise its walls, Remin has no time for spoiled princesses.
Yet this princess is not so easily set aside.
Born in exile, Ophele Agnephus knows nothing of the world outside her prison, and is far more timid than any princess should be.
But she also proves to be clever, hardworking, and surprisingly devoted to Remin’s dream: to make a garden of the Andelin Valley, a safe place for his people.
Remin likes that.
He loves that.
And as Traitor Son closes, his clever, timid bride finds her way past even Remin Grimjaw’s defenses, to forge a marriage and a love strong enough to found a dynasty.
But what of the devils? What remains of his surviving villages?
As the autumn leaves fall, the devils retreat to their winter dens, and Remin sends his knights on a dangerous quest to rescue whoever survived the deadly summer.
Remin’s journey will be even deadlier: to follow the devils back to the mountains, discover where they come from, and destroy them forever.
When he asked Ophele to learn more about the creatures, he never expected she would do the middle bit for him. With her love of patterns pointing the way, Remin departs, leaving her to rule Tresingale in his stead.
He has no idea he is also leaving her to face a reckoning with her past. From the disappearance of her guardians to the demands of a position she was never taught to fill, Ophele’s many secrets are beginning to come to light, and the speck of stardust in her blood will not be a shield against their enemies.
Even as the surviving villagers begin to arrive in Tresingale and Remin returns with news of a terrible new devil, Ophele finally confesses the truth about a much older cataclysm: her mother was responsible for the catastrophe that shattered both their families, and those old echoes are stirring again in the distant capital.
As Stardust Child closes, a summons from the Emperor promises to drag them into those poisonous politics, where a cold war between the Emperor and his Empress has drawn the battle lines for decades.
For in the capital, the seat of power is never where it seems, and even a Divine Emperor can be made to kneel.
With a perilous season in the capital on the horizon, Remin and Ophele have only the winter to prepare…and someone in Tresingale is determined to make sure they never leave.