Part 1 — The Draught Before Dawn

On the night Crown Prince Cassian married another woman, I dreamed of my son.

He sat upon the blackwood throne with a crown sliding over one bright, dragon-gold eye. His small boots did not reach the floor. He kicked them cheerfully against the carved lions beneath the seat.

"The woman who bears me will wear the Regent's Crown," he announced.

Then his smile faded.

"But I will burn inside her. And when I come into the world, death will come with me."

I woke on the stone floor outside the royal bedchamber, my fingers still curled around the pole of a silver lamp.

Inside, Crown Princess Celeste screamed.

Porcelain shattered against the wall. The guards burst through the doors, and I followed because servants were expected to run toward royal disasters, never away from them.

Celeste stood barefoot in her wedding gown. At her feet lay the broken pieces of Saint Aurelia, patroness of royal mothers.

"Disgusting," she said. "I did not cross worlds to become a broodmare for a medieval dynasty."

The courtiers pretended not to hear the phrase cross worlds. They had been pretending for three years.

Cassian reached for her. "It was only a dream."

"Then prove you love me more than a child who does not exist."

She took a dark vial from her bridal chest.

I recognized the silver sediment before she pulled the stopper. My father had once catalogued every poison kept beneath the Royal Observatory. Silver hemlock destroyed a man's ability to father children, but not at once. Its poison traveled slowly. Until dawn, the final spark remained.

Celeste poured the draught into a wineglass.

"Drink it," she said. "Choose me."

The king had offered her the Ten Marches if she bore Valedorn an heir. Queen Lenora had promised her the Regent's Seal. Celeste had laughed at both offers in private, yet she wore the keys to the Marches at her waist that night.

Cassian looked at the glass for less than a heartbeat.

Then he drank.

Celeste smiled as if love were proven only when something had been destroyed for it.

Her gaze found me by the door.

Three years ago, I had been Cassian's intended bride and the daughter of Lord Gideon Veyne, Royal Astronomer. Then my father predicted that a child would rule before reaching manhood. King Edmund heard treason in the stars. My father went to the dungeons, our estates went to the Crown, and I became the lowest woman in Celeste's household.

She pressed the empty glass into my hand.

"Do you see the difference between us, Elara?" she murmured. "He would end his own bloodline before putting a child in you."

I lowered my eyes so she would not see me counting the hours until sunrise.

Near midnight, Celeste ordered Cassian out of her chamber.

"He tastes like that vile medicine," she told me. "Take him somewhere else before I am sick."

The prince was not drunk. He walked without help, and anger had made his gray eyes painfully clear.

I led him to the old map room. Before he could dismiss me, I locked the door and placed the empty vial beneath a lamp.

"Silver hemlock," I said. "Permanent by dawn."

His face hardened. "My wife told me it would prevent conception for one year."

"Your wife lied."

"Careful."

"You may threaten me after sunrise. Until then, decide whether Valedorn dies with you."

Silence swallowed the room.

Once, Cassian had promised he would never let court politics separate us. Six months after Celeste appeared, he broke our betrothal. A year later, he signed the warrant that destroyed my father.

I no longer mistook memory for loyalty.

"Why tell me?" he asked.

"Because my father is still alive in your dungeon. Because your dynasty needs an heir. And because the same stars that condemned him just offered me a way to save us both."

I set parchment before him.

"Write that you summoned me while sober. Write that you understood what tonight might create. If I conceive, my father receives a new hearing. If I do not, this page burns and we never speak of it again."

His jaw tightened. "You bargain boldly for a servant."

"You have until dawn to find a more timid mother for your last child."

For the first time that night, Cassian looked afraid.

He took up the pen.

Cassian wrote slowly, each stroke cutting through the silence. He named the hour, the room, the poison he had swallowed, and the choice he was making. When he finished, he pressed his signet into black wax.

"This page buys your father a hearing," he said. "It does not restore your place beside me."

I folded the parchment and hid it inside my bodice.

"I stopped wanting that place when I learned what it cost."

His expression changed, but whatever answer he might have offered died with the bells announcing one hour after midnight.

One month later, the Royal College of Physicians declared the poison complete.

"There will be no recovery, Your Highness," the chief physician said. "No tonic, prayer, or operation can restore what the draught destroyed."

Celeste threw her arms around Cassian before the assembled court.

"Now no one can use an unborn child to come between us."

King Edmund's expression turned to stone. Queen Lenora closed her eyes.

I stood behind Celeste's chair with a pitcher of spiced wine. The smell rose warm and sweet.

My stomach lurched.

The pitcher struck the carpet as I turned away and retched into the ashes of the hearth.

Every voice in the queen's audience chamber stopped.

Celeste released her husband.

"What," she asked softly, "is wrong with you?"

The queen moved first. "Physician. Examine her."

Celeste stepped between us. "She is performing. She cannot bear that Cassian chose me."

"Then an examination will embarrass her and satisfy you," Lenora replied.

The physician pressed two fingers to my wrist. His irritation vanished. He checked again, then called for his instruments.

Cassian watched me with growing horror.

At last, the physician knelt.

"Your Majesties, Lady Elara is with child. Approximately four weeks."

"Impossible," Cassian said.

I met his eyes. "The night you summoned me to the map room, Your Highness."

Celeste understood before anyone else. Her jeweled hand flew toward my face.

The golden brazier beside her overturned without being touched. Flame struck the carpet between us, forcing her back.

A delighted voice rang inside my mind.

"She tried to hurt you. I do not like her."

My hand closed over my still-flat stomach.

Celeste pointed at me. "Even if she is pregnant, there is no proof the child is royal."

King Edmund ordered the Dragonstone Reliquary brought from the Chapel of the First Crown.

Its crystal had remained dark for twenty-eight years, ever since Cassian's birth. I cut my thumb and let one drop of blood fall into its hollow center.

Gold exploded through the stone.

A dragon formed from living fire, circled my body three times, and bowed its great head over my womb.

The king staggered.

Queen Lenora gripped the back of a chair.

Within me, the child laughed.

"Mother," he whispered, "I found you."