Prologue IV
HANNE
The crown that belonged to my mother up until the day she died was given to me. It was covered in little diamonds over all the spikes, brilliant with shine and heavy upon my brow. It weighed me down with its power, and it caught my hair every time, plucking the strands from my scalp.
Vulgaris’s crown was made of gold without diamonds or adornment.
He looked so much like my father, but far more serious with that permanent frown that seemed carved into his face.
The second we were married, he became a king and not a husband, taking care of the affairs of the castle like he’d been prepared for it since the moment he was born.
I was supposed to be Queen of Baccara, the leader of the people, but my services were never needed.
Vulgaris spoke with the army and gave his orders.
He informed our allies of his new position and proclaimed himself King of Baccara.
That statement was correct, but I’d assumed his position would be secondary to mine.
We maintained our separate chambers. Our relationship was exactly as it’d been before. We didn’t take our meals together, didn’t see each other every day. Nothing had changed. I was as lonely as ever—and as worthless as ever.
I went to my father’s study, Vulgaris’s study now, and knocked before I entered.
He sat at the desk, his hand feverishly writing something with an inked quill. “Yes?” He didn’t look up to address me.
I stepped onto the rug and approached the fire near his desk. I sat in the same armchair where I used to sit when I spoke with my father, who always looked up to regard me. “Vulgaris, can we speak?”
“Give me a moment.” He finished the letter then dropped the quill into the bottle of ink.
He set it aside on a pile of books so it could dry before he rolled it up and handed it to the guard to deliver to a courier.
“What is it, Hanne?” His eyes found mine, unkind and frustrated, not gentle like they’d been during our conversation on the terrace, the last time we’d had a real conversation. “Are you ill?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You look pale.”
I felt like an idiot, sitting there like a visitor when this desk should be mine. “Vulgaris, I’m Queen of Baccara, but I don’t feel like the queen. My position hasn’t changed, and I wear this crown like a piece of jewelry rather than a recognition of my status.”
He sat with his elbows on the desk, still slightly hunched forward because he’d been invested in that last letter he’d written.
He looked somewhat like my father because of their similar ages, but the biggest difference between them was their stares.
My father’s was welcoming and warm, whereas Vulgaris’s was almost vicious sometimes.
“How would you like to be involved, Hanne?”
“I want to rule.” I’d been demoted from my position the second it was granted to me. “The reason I agreed to this marriage in the first place.”
He sat back in the armchair and watched me for a while. “You don’t know the first thing about running a kingdom.”
“And you do?”
His eyes flashed like he wanted to snap, but he managed to restrain his anger the way a carriage driver restrained his horses before they ran off a cliff.
“I served your father every day. I conferred with him in his study. You forget that I was his steward and the general, so my experience is weathered. I’m sorry that you feel ignored, but everything I’ve done thus far is everything you’re unfamiliar with. ”
“Then teach me. Otherwise, I’m just sitting in my room reading unsavory books all day.”
His eyes flicked away for a second, a quiet breath leaving his nostrils that almost sounded like a sigh. “As you wish.”
Vulgaris had cared for me since my father passed.
He wasn’t the most affectionate or verbal, but he was there, nonetheless.
I believed he felt no ill will toward me, that he didn’t have malintent in his heart.
But now, we were married, and I’d never felt more distant from him.
Perhaps it was wrong to feel this way, but I felt like a stepping-stone to something greater.
I wouldn’t dare accuse him of that, because there was no going back from such an allegation. “Thank you.”
He grabbed the missive he’d just written so he could roll it up into a scroll and seal it with the family crest.
“What are the contents of that letter, and whom is it for?”
That same breath released again, unable to hide his annoyance at my curiosity. “I wrote a letter to King Mormont and informed him of our nuptials.”
It was a late announcement, so I almost didn’t believe it, but would he really sit there and lie to my face like that? “What else are you working on?”
“This winter has been the harshest one in a decade, so I reduced the tariffs from the people. Our priority is staying strong until spring. I’ve increased the annual soldier count and have also increased the compensation—”
“Why do we need more soldiers?” Our army was strong and well trained.
A beat passed, a long stare ensuing. “An army can never be too strong, Hanne.”
“Of course. But it sounds like you’re preparing for something when we’ve been at peace for years.”
“A kingdom should always be prepared for a siege. Your father has been gone for two years, and in that time, we’ve been a kingless land. Our standing among our allies and our enemies has weakened. We need to fortify our position.”
“My father banished the Mammoths—”
“This conversation continues to showcase your lack of experience and knowledge. If you really want to be the leader of our people, then you need to spend your time learning in my shadow, and then once I’m gone, you’ll be prepared to rule.”
“That could be twenty years from now, Vulgaris.”
“Or it could be tomorrow with the amount of steak I eat.”
“Even so, I don’t think it’s right for me to wait—”
He abruptly rose to his feet. “You are not fit, Hanne. A queen has never ruled the Kingdom of Baccara, and if you’d like to be the first, then you need to learn.
I’ve offered to teach you, but I can’t impart decades of wisdom and experience in just a few weeks.
Prove yourself worthy, and I will step aside. ”
“That wasn’t what we agreed to.”
“I disagree.” He remained standing, looking at me as an annoyance when I was his wife and his queen.
It was a look my father never gave me, not once.
“I have work to do, Hanne. So, if you’d excuse me…
” He lowered himself to the chair again and grabbed a new piece of parchment.
The quill remained in the vial of ink as he waited for me to leave.
“I’m not unfit. I know these lands as well as you do. I know every flower that blooms in our garden, have been journaling them and studying them for years. I can poison my enemy or bring him back to my life with the knowledge.”
“The most worthless skill set I’ve ever heard,” he snapped. “Looking at pretty flowers and sketching them in your diary is child’s play. You’re not capable of leading a kingdom or an army. You’re not capable of anything.”
I realized everything he said was true, because I had been stupid enough to fall right into his trap. He’d never intended to share the crown with me—but snatch it from my weak hands as I slept. “I will annul this union.”
“The priest will never grant it.”
“We haven’t consummated this marriage—”
“Your word against mine.”
My heart started to race, my pulse throbbing in my neck, my feet no longer on the floor as I went into free fall. “You would rather tell your people you fucked your best friend’s daughter than lose the crown?”
After he gave me a cold look, he reached for the quill and dragged the tip against the inside of the bottle, wiping the extra ink from the nib before he brought it to his parchment to write another letter. “I have a lot of work to do, Hanne.”
I wanted to run straight to my father’s best friend and tell him what had befallen me. And I nearly gasped as the horrible reality hit me in the face. The one person I had to defend me was the very person who had crossed me.
I had no one.
I stood in the cold morning air, my breath heating my face before it evaporated into nothingness. The cemetery was located in the gardens, hidden behind a stone wall so it wasn’t visible until you passed the iron gates.
I hadn’t visited since he’d been buried two years ago. Whenever I contemplated seeing his tombstone, I had to acknowledge that he was dead, and that knocked me off my feet every time.
If my mother hadn’t died, she would still be here, the reigning queen.
Unless Vulgaris had plotted against her the way he plotted against me.
“What do I do?” I folded my legs underneath me and sat at his grave, a single rose in my fingertips.
The rose was burgundy, the color of wine, the color of rust on steel, blood against the snow that covered the ground.
“I’m so stupid…” Tears burned behind my eyes before they streaked down my cheeks and sprinkled his grave.
“He was right. I’m not capable of anything.
” I spoke to the flowers in my garden because I had no one else.
Nurtured them and helped them grow because I had nothing else in my life to care for.
For the last two years, if I wasn’t in bed, I was in the garden, the only thing that could distract me from grief.
I understood my father was long gone, but I’d still come to his grave for an epiphany, like he would speak to me from beyond the veil and tell me what I needed to do. He would grant me his advice and guidance to undo the mess I’d made.
But all I heard was silence.
Because I was on my own. And without a single living relative who cared for me, I would be on my own until the end. So, if I didn’t solve this problem, then I would fade into the background, watching a snake rule the kingdom wearing a crown that didn’t belong to him. All I had was myself.
Was that the epiphany? Or just the cold, hard truth?
I left the cemetery and returned to the castle.
I stepped through the double doors and approached the grand staircase that sat in the center of the room, large pots of trees on either side of the banisters.
The colored stained-glass windows toward the ceiling blanketed the room in light to keep the trees healthy.
I was about to take the stairs when I heard voices down the hallway, the sound bouncing around the grand hallway with wooden floorboards. Every sound was amplified against the bare stone walls. Rugs had been added to minimize the noise, but the area was simply too spacious to mute it entirely.
It sounded like a conversation with multiple men—the Ring of Elders.
I changed my route and headed to the War Room, a room that hadn’t been used since I could remember. The doors were twenty feet high and closed, but the sound of voices was still audible, which meant the conversation had turned heated.
I crept to the door then pressed my ear against the wood, and despite its thickness, it was a great medium to transfer sound.
“I’ve reached my fifties, and with every passing year, I feel my skin grow thin and my bones brittle, the aging process bringing me closer to the grave where the old king lies. If only Calix had heeded my advice decades ago, he would still be alive, and I would still be young.”
I knew that was Vulgaris. Even if I didn’t recognize his voice, I could identify him based on his words. But the meaning behind them was a mystery to me.
“King Acana claims to be our ally, but he refuses to share his horde of dragons—which means we aren’t allies at all.
” It was my uncle again. “He keeps that power for himself, for his family, so they may live forever, while we wither and die. When the Mammoths threatened our kingdom, King Acana failed to answer our call for aid, claiming he never received the letter. I knew that was a lie, but King Baccara failed to see it. He was always the forgiving one, while I remained the realistic one. I’ve already conversed with King Mormont, and he’s in agreement.
I’ve conferred with our other allies, and come spring, we attack Warthorn and take what should be shared. ”
My heart dropped into my stomach when I finally understood.
King Acana had ruled his kingdom when my father was a boy.
Now, my father’s life had come and gone, but King Acana’s life hadn’t changed at all.
A fuse with a dragon gave you power beyond belief and granted you the gift of immortality.
My father had shared that with me years ago.
“They have the power to take our kingdoms and claim the continent for themselves. King Acana can be the one true king and turn the rest of us into slaves. Calix and I vehemently disagreed on this topic. He believed we should trust our allies since we’ve lived in peace these last hundred years, but I disagree.
It’s only a matter of time before they decide to conquer us, and I refuse to let that happen.
A true ally answers the call—and they abandoned us to our fate. ”
I continued to listen, feeling my breathing increase and then having to draw back, afraid they would hear me and spot my shadow under the door.
“I agree.” An old man spoke, probably Tomlinson. “They’ve always been secretive, never entertaining guests in their lands, not even King Calix Barclay, who insisted he and King Acana were good friends. We have no idea what lies beyond the border, how many dragons they might have.”
“We could breed them,” Vulgaris said. “Distribute them to those who are worthy. Our army would be unstoppable, and we would live forever. This continent would belong to us exclusively.”
My father had always spoken highly of King Acana and the land of Warthorn.
When I was a child, I remembered my father and Vulgaris would have intense conversations about it.
Vulgaris would always insist that we needed to attack preemptively, and my father would resist and say we needed to place our trust in good people.
Vulgaris had seemed to let it go, but he clearly had not.
I realized that my uncle’s ambitions were far greater than the Kingdom of Baccara. He wanted the entire continent to himself, wanted an army of dragons to sustain his power, and to fuse with his own dragon to live forever.