With Lanthe’s every word, Thronos grew more tense. She hated that, but she wouldn’t sugarcoat the problem.

Or hide the sheer magnitude of it.

“There are other Sorceri with powers just as catastrophic,” she said. “Morgana doesn’t even have to get them to sign on—she can simply control them. That’s her sorceress power: the ability to control others’ powers.”

“If they attacked in that manner, humans would be able to detect us,” he pointed out.

“Some Loreans don’t care.”

“What do you suggest?”

“The sorceress in me is wondering how all these Vrekeners can get scarce really quickly.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, the idea of fleeing completely foreign to a warrior like him.

“Do you have an evacuation plan in effect? Everybody, even the strongest species, needs a contingency, a plan B, a rabbit hole.” A harsh reality she’d learned by running from Vrekeners. Fate is weird. “Is there some place where these people could go?”

“When the Territories reside over Canada, there’s a remote forest we visit to hunt. A permanent fog bank cloaks the tops of the trees, so some have built cabins in the mist. It’s an outpost of sorts.”

“Perfect. Maybe we could head that way? Oh, and can you and your guys devise a security alarm of sorts? Like a first-warning system that would encompass all the islands?”

“I can see.”

“Okay.” She stood, cracking her knuckles. “We’ve got shit to do. I need pen and paper.”

“Parchment and quill?”

“How did I know you were going to say that?”

FIFTY-ONE

SPLAT.

“Ugh!” Another inkblot on an official Vrekener queen document. Lanthe laid down her quill and examined her stained fingers. She looked like she’d been finger painting.

Occupational hazard, she supposed, now that she was pretty much the royal letter writer. For the last five days, her quill (because of course it was a quill) had been her sword.

Lanthe wasn’t saying she’d do murder for a Bic; but she wasn’t not saying that either.

Her first letter had been to Sabine. In it, she’d vowed to gold that things were well and that she was happy to have wed Thronos. She’d written that she was now a queen and included a plea to get Morgana to enter into talks with her.

Lanthe had known there was a risk in sounding like she adored it up here—everyone would think she’d been brainwashed—so she’d tried to sound as much like herself as possible.

She’d had that letter delivered immediately. Then she’d set about contacting all the factions who’d declared war on them.

To Carrow, she’d explained that Thronos had turned out to be a wonderful surprise.

Kind of like Malkom Slaine turned out for you, if I’m not mistaken? Do you remember how everyone in the prison cell disbelieved you’d wed him, but you refused to deny it? Though no one will believe I willingly married Thronos, I need you to. So, a couple of things, Crow: Say hi to Ruby, and please get the witches to back off.

To Bettina, she’d written:

The old Vrekener king was a vicious fiend who got what he deserved. Kudos to your new vamp husband for a well-played assassination and tournament victory.

Lanthe had also written that the new Vrekener king would like to personally make amends to Bettina with a gift of priceless dragon gold.

In her letter to Lothaire, Lanthe had reintroduced herself, then related that heaven was under new management. The Vrekeners wanted only peace with the Dacians, so could the two factions reach an accord? She hoped the missive would get to the Enemy of Old; the contact details for the newly revealed kingdom of Dacia were sketchy. But Thronos had a trusted knight who had yet to fail on a delivery.

She’d also written to Nïx:

From Nereus’s bedroom window (don’t ask), I saw Furie, trapped at the bottom of the ocean. She’s alive and doing as well as can be expected—i.e., cataclysmically bad. I assume you and the Valks are going to bring the pain to Sargasoe soon? P.S. We sure could use some foresight up here in the Skye.

With all those letters written, Lanthe had struggled with a more lengthy explanation for her sister. She’d started—then wadded up—more than a dozen of them. She hadn’t been able to decide how much to reveal of her past with Thronos.

It was one thing to tell her big sister to her face: “Well, I kind of misled you for centuries.” It was quite another to write it out.

How to explain what Thronos had come to mean to her?

Yesterday she’d decided to start from the beginning, the day she’d first met him. Now it was late afternoon, and she’d only just gotten to the—heavily edited—faux Feveris part. She’d given herself a deadline of one more day. . . .

She gazed up from her desk, scanning the sky for Thronos. He’d be home soon to take her to the bastion for dinner.

He’d been meeting with his knights, tirelessly strategizing their defenses and implementing their new evacuation plan. Yesterday they’d organized their first drill. There’d been some hiccups, so today, they planned to “calibrate” things.

His body was paining him until he could barely conceal the agony in front of others. The stress of leading a realm on the brink of war wasn’t helping anything. He was exhausted from all his duties, exhausted from his conflicted grief.

In Pandemonia, he’d told her that when he’d realized his father had killed her parents, he’d looked up at the man and seen a stranger. He felt the same way about his brother—