Prologue
“His Majesty’s resilience is commendable.
” The Healer’s voice trembled despite his attempt at reassurance, hands shaking visibly at his sides.
Sweat beaded across his heavy brow as Queen Zenobia’s cold gaze cut through him.
He cleared his throat, dropping his eyes submissively.
“The illness has taken its toll, but he fights with a strength that is… truly remarkable. With continued care, there may be hope.”
The Healer clutched desperately at the hem of his robe, eyes fixed on the marble floor, as silence swallowed the room.
The king’s chambers, draped in luxurious white and cerulean—the formal colors of the island kingdom of Lenorea—had long signified peace and continuity under King Aikat Onasis’s reign. But now the room felt stifling, oppressive, a reflection of the kingdom’s fragile stability.
Princess Alethea stood hidden against the eastern wall, her heart hammering. Though dressed impeccably, with her pale golden curls braided in a halo atop her head, she felt small beneath the cerulean of the room—the same blue she carried in her own eyes.
Her father, a man whose strength had once seemed limitless, lay motionless beneath the silken duvets, his vibrant life drained by illness. Alethea looked away, shame heating her face, unable to face the truth that was plain to see.
“You are dismissed,” Zenobia snapped at the Healer, her voice dripping with disdain.
Alethea jumped slightly at the sharpness, her pulse quickening when her mother’s stern, pale blue eyes turned to her.
“Come, Alethea,” the queen commanded, grabbing her wrist in an iron grip. “Your father needs you.”
Alethea obeyed wordlessly.
She had known her father in many forms: a kind mentor, a respected king, and even a gentle protector against her mother’s harsher edges. Now, however, he appeared fragile, gaunt, his once charismatic presence dimmed to a ghostly shadow.
“Look at him,” Queen Zenobia urged sharply. “There’s so little time.”
Alethea turned helplessly to her mother. Clerics, Healers, magicians—they’d all failed.
The king was dying.
Yet Queen Zenobia stood tall as she took a deep breath and rested her hands on her daughter’s shoulders.
Alethea had always been told she favored her mother: blonde hair—Alethea’s a warm, wavy gold to her mother’s faded, pale flax—ocean-blue eyes, narrow frame, pale pink-hued skin that blushed and bruised easily.
But appearances were where their similarities ended.
Where Zenobia was strong and confident, with an unbendable will, Alethea was her exact opposite. Quiet. Timid. Soft.
“There are many things we have sheltered you from, daughter. Too many things. Truths about our family’s place on this throne.
Your father cannot die—no, he must not die.
” Her eyes burned fiercely, desperation barely masked beneath her icy demeanor.
“Our enemies lurk at every corner, waiting for weakness. If he dies, everything we’ve fought for crumbles. ”
Zenobia’s grip tightened painfully around Alethea’s wrist, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“You think I can just return to being a Great Lady if this dynasty falls? I won’t be cast out like the Hasans, penniless and begging for scraps.
It was your father’s ambition that put us here.
It was his recklessness that thrust this crown upon our heads!
He always had a plan. Without him…” Zenobia’s voice cracked, eyes wild. “Without him… we are not safe.”
The queen drew a shaky breath, while Alethea’s remained imprisoned in her own lungs.
“If he dies,” Zenobia went on, “I’ll be forced to act. I will have to do what your father never could. But you—” Her mother’s far-off look vanished as she realized where she was, and who she was with. “You can prevent all of this. You must.”
Alethea trembled at her mother’s raw panic, stomach twisting with dread. “Me? What can I do?”
Zenobia squeezed her shoulders. “You know what you must do. You were born with one useful skill, and you must now use your gift to save this family.”
Alethea’s eyes widened, arms aching from her mother’s grasp.
“Look into the future and speak his survival into being. Secure our fates.”
“But I—” Alethea faltered, eyes stinging with unshed tears. “I-I don’t know how. Father said my powers are too unpredictable. I’m not even trained—”
“And whose fault is that?” Zenobia hissed. “Your father insisted on sheltering you, on letting your powers develop on their own. He refused to push you! He was wrong. I see that now, but it’s not too late. Fix this. Command a prophecy.”
Heart racing with fear, Alethea took a seat on the bed next to her father, desperate to summon a power she barely understood.
She reached within, seeking the elusive magic that sometimes flitted through her like a sprinkling of rain on a summer’s day, whispering truths unbidden, but the seconds dragged by agonizingly with nothing to show for it.
She bit her lip and fought against the tears welling in her eyes, the fear of failure sending her spiraling.
Alethea took Aikat’s larger hand in both of her smaller ones, her stomach panging with concern when he stirred at her touch, but he didn’t speak.
All she wanted to do was sit there with her father in his final moments, to take the time to study the hand she held, to comfort him and tell him everything was going to be all right…
but the words would not come—her mother hovering over her, pressing in closer, made no difference.
Holding his hand tightly as she closed her eyes, the princess reached again for that distant power. It was like searching an unfamiliar room in the dark, and though she grappled perilously, she could not find purchase.
Minutes passed. Nothing came to her. Shame rose up from her stomach.
“I-I don’t think I can,” she choked out, bile in her throat.
Her mother’s grip tightened on her shoulder, and she gasped at the sudden sharpness.
“You must.”
Alethea closed her eyes, frantically searching inward. Please… if anyone can hear me. Please help me. She hoped her silent prayers would reach the ears of some merciful deity.
While her father was a devout follower of Nehalennia, her mother defiantly refused to worship any of the gods. Alethea had never felt any of their favor… but perhaps someone would help her now.
For several long, terrifying minutes, the only sound in the room was her father’s ragged, uneven breathing.
She reached further. Dove deeper. Her head ached as she tried to empty herself of all the distracting, intrusive thoughts.
And then the voices began.
Alethea inhaled sharply, her head flying back as if the words were a force of their own. Her eyes flashed white, words pouring forth, unstoppable and damning:
“King Aikat dies by the Crimson Moon.”
“No!”
The room spun as Zenobia seized her by the hair and wrenched her backward, sending her crashing to the polished stone floor. Alethea’s scalp screamed with the ghost of her mother’s grip. The queen’s anger filled the air around them, a palpable, suffocating force.
The Crimson Moon ended in three days.
Alethea fought the bile rising in her throat as she grabbed at her own head, fingers threading into her hair where her mother had wrenched it. She’d never seen the queen so enraged, so… untethered. She tried to back away, but Zenobia snatched her wrists and yanked her close with a punishing grip.
“Take it back! Change the prophecy! Say he will live!” The desperation in her mother’s eyes was unsettling, her grip bruising as she clutched Alethea’s arms in a viselike hold.
“I… I can’t!” she sobbed. It was cruel of her mother to even ask. Ever since she could speak, Alethea had never been able to tell a lie. A curse for her blessing of foresight. “Mother, please!”
Zenobia stopped, releasing her from her imprisoning grasp. Alethea wondered if her mother had taken pity on her and was giving her some sort of reprieve. A long moment passed.
Then the queen’s expression turned to stone, and Alethea crumbled under her withering stare.
“You cursed him. You’ve destroyed us.”
The words cut deeper than any blade ever could.
Zenobia stood to her full height, the entire force of her malice coming down on the princess. “When our enemies come for our throne, when they tear down these walls around us, when they hang our bodies from the gallows… remember, girl, you spoke this fate.”
“No,” Alethea pleaded, a pathetic puddle at her mother’s feet. She had witnessed that gaze before, heard that tone leveled at others. But her father had always stood between them. Now, with no one to shield her, she finally understood what it meant to be truly cut down by the queen.
The queen’s retreat was marked by the echo of her footsteps against the stone floor. As she neared the door, she turned with chilling deliberation, her eyes boring into Alethea’s heart, featuring a mix of disappointment, anger, and desperate expectation.
“You will fix this,” she assured her. “Or I will.”
Her words hung heavily in the air like a prophecy of her own.
The room seemed to be closing in around Alethea, and after a slam of the massive wooden door, she was utterly alone.
Sobs rose through her chest, but she would not let herself cry.
With her jaw set and her fists clenched, she sat alone in the room where her father was dying—and understood, for the first time, that no one was coming to save her.