The Sunbird’s Last Lament (The Dragon Willow Duet #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Valeria

Royal Manor House, Stratus;

Kingdom of Sennalaith

Choke down the tears. Tears are a weakness, the sign of an untethered will.

Valeria pulled her hair back so tight it stretched her skin to her eyebrows. She bound the black waves into a coil and pinned them in place, then smoothed a thin layer of wax over her scalp, ensuring no rogue strands would come loose during the battle and fall into her face.

Even such a small thing could prove fatal in the darkness and chaos.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she repeated her father’s old mantra like a psalm: Tears are a weakness, the sign of an untethered will.

Valeria tried to paint the inky stain on her lips.

It looked easy when Olivette did it—but her sister's hands were always steady. Valeria's trembling fingers smeared the stain grotesquely, and she feared she looked more like a child caught stealing blackberries than a terrible witch. She’d never applied it herself. For years, Olivette had helped her line her eyes with dark pencil, color her lips, and paint her eyelids aconite purple. But tonight, the empty room shouted her sister’s absence.

Anger is exhausting, and Valeria was exhausted before her father sent her sister into exile.

As she stared at her grim reflection in the vanity mirror, Valeria thought she looked depleted, like a rose bush in a drought.

She couldn’t endure much more of this life—the war, her “untethered will,” this cold room with the nettles growing in the corners, the poisonous mushrooms sprouting beneath the armoire, and the curtains tangled in brambles.

The smell of leaf rot.

With Olivette in exile, there was no reason to stay. She had to get out of Sennalaith.

Her father’s imperious voice sounded through the door. “Come, Valeria!”

Valeria clenched her fists in her lap, smudging lip paste on her palms. “In a moment.”

Cadmus entered anyway—he wouldn’t permit Valeria to keep a lock inside her door—and studied her like a farmer appraising a new carthorse.

His caladrius bird perched on his shoulder, its little beak tucked under its snow-white wing.

Valeria often wondered if he carried the bird with him because he was afraid she would strike him with a venomous zephyr, and the bird, able to draw out dark magic, might save him.

“I want you to find Prince Evandaine on the battlefield and kill him,” her father said, as if he’d just asked her to fetch him his shoes or pass the salt at the dinner table.

“The Ashkendoric prince?” Valeria asked, surprised. “Whatever for?”

She’d never met Evandaine face to face, but she’d seen his dragon scale vest and chestnut hair shining in the firelight as he soared over the battlefield, one with his dragon, a vertebrae on its spine. She secretly admired his skill.

“I want to push Marwenna to her lowest. What better way?”

Valeria had killed many men on the battlefield. What was one more? But something in her recoiled at the thought of murdering Evandaine. Still, a favor fulfilled was a favor owed, and she wanted her father in her debt.

“I will do it,” Valeria said, “if you bring my sister home.”

Cadmus fixed her with a penetrating glare. “I will not have her casting furtive glances at my throne, as if it were a courtier she wished to seduce.”

“She’s your daughter,” Valeria blurted. “She is your heir!”

“Which is why her betrayal was so devastating. I do not appreciate your sister’s designs on my rule …”

"You are paranoid!" Valeria couldn’t believe herself. She’d never spoken to her father this way.

It was madness, but the words rattled out of her like pellets from a shotfire.

“Olivette had no designs on your throne. She was merely suggesting we stop this useless war against Ashkendor. It’s draining our resources. It’s killing all the dragons.”

“Yes, well, she wouldn’t understand, would she?

It wasn’t her mother who was murdered by the Ashekndoric queen.

It was your mother. And so you should be as upset as I am that your sister is so quick to forgive Marwenna.

Now, no more talk of your sister. I don’t want to hear her name mentioned again. ”

Valeria gripped the arms of her chair. "I've never met the prince, and it will be night. How will I know him?"

“Simple,” her father said, stroking the caladrius bird’s belly. “He’ll be the one trying to prevent me from killing King Tiernan.”

Valeria stood and crossed the room, tiny amethyst stingdrops blooming in her footsteps. She debated her next move. Her father seemed to be in an amenable humor. Perhaps he would be willing to barter. “I will do it if you tell me where my sister is.”

“Kill the prince, and I will tell you.”

Valeria leaned on the windowsill, a noxious breeze burning her gaunt cheeks.

Cadmus turned and swept toward the door, his golden hair shining in the lantern light.

“The king and the prince in one day,” he said, pausing with his hand on the doorknob.

“And perhaps we will take Scathmore Barrens back for Sennalaith. If we do, the dragons might just come back, and then Marwenna will be humbled.”

Below the manor house, in the camp sprawled on the edge of the marsh, a bugle blew.

Dragons mounted into the sky, their wings shaking the casement windows.

Olivette should have been among them, fearless and brash, flying into the teeth of the enemy.

Olivette should be the one to kill Evandaine, not Valeria.

She didn’t assassinate people; she just swept in on the tail of the battle and mowed down the remaining forces, tangling their feet in thorny vines and striking them with her zephyrs.

“Why tonight?” Valeria asked wearily.

“Because your mother’s spirit will be nearest tonight,” Cadmus replied. “Today marks fifteen years since her murder. The goddesses will allow her spirit to part the clouds and look down on us. You know this.”

Valeria did, but she had forgotten. Long ago, she’d stopped worshipping the goddesses and adopted the monotheistic beliefs of her mother. Old teachings, simpler, devoid of silly rituals and empty prayers.

Cadmus let out a contented sigh. “I dream of someday riding a hydra into battle—can you imagine? Marwenna’s superstitious illiterates would run weeping.”

Valeria smiled to hear her father refer to the Ashkendoric people as superstitious. His library was stacked with books of religious lore, detailing all the terrible judgments the three goddesses brought down on Sennalaiths who transgressed their innumerable rules.

“Magic is so rare, Valeria. I would sell my kingdom to have the gifts you inherited through your mother. You should enjoy them more.”

“I didn’t inherit my mother’s gifts,” Valeria said flatly. “She didn’t have my kind of magic.”

“That is very true.” There was a hint of disdain in his voice.

A question had been gnawing at Valeria since she watched her sister stripped of her uniform and sent half-naked out of the manor house to be carried into exile.

“If my sister is gone, am I the heir to the throne?”

“Goddess divine, have mercy!” her father cried with a short, scornful laugh. “You are only a half-blooded Sennalaith, and so you could never sit on the throne. I will have to appoint a cousin, now that your sister is gone. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Valeria looked down, her cheeks burning. “I just thought since my mother was a sort of queen of Talwaith …”

“Oh no.” Cadmus rubbed the white bird’s beak.

“Talwaith is no more. It’s the Scathmore Barrens now—just a blighted battlefield and a stretch of muddy beach.

You’ve seen it. You’ll see it again tonight.

Besides, Talwaith has no monarchy. Your mother was the botania, not the queen, so if I claim Scathmore, it will belong to me, and I may rule it as may your sister or your cousin, but you could never wear the crown.

Not that there is anything left to rule; the people are all gone. ”

“Then what did the botania do if not rule?”

“Did you pay any attention to that dreadfully expensive tutor I hired? She used her magic to summon spring. Lovely magic—very unlike yours.”

Valeria kept her gaze fixed on the swirling gray lines in the marble window sill. Her vision drifted out of focus, and the lines morphed into little dragons curling through smoke.

“Hurry, we must prepare for battle. And clean yourself up. You look a mess.” Cadmus left, shutting the door behind him.

Valeria gritted her teeth, crossed the room, and pounded her fist on the vanity.

Thorns snaked over the walls, clattering, glowing a venomous purple.

She made a promise to herself. That night, she would kill the prince as her father ordered, find out where Olivette was, and flee.

Then, with her sister at her side, she would return and blast their father with such a cloud of caustic enchantment, he would be burned hollow.

The crown would sparkle all the brighter on Olivette’s golden hair.

Valeria smirked in the mirror. Tonight was her last night in Sennalaith. Tomorrow would dawn blue and clear on a new era.