Aurelia smelled the smoke an hour before she saw the village.It came down the valley on a cold east wind, thick and greasy, and the lancers in front of her went quiet one by one. Captain Renn raised a fist and the column slowed. Nobody spoke. They had been riding for three days down from the Bear passes, with the parchment hidden in Aurelia's sleeve and the nights full of her own half-formed thoughts. The smoke was the first thing that had made all thirty soldiers fall silent at once."That's not a cookfire," Renn said."No."They crested the ridge together.Thornfield had been a farming village of perhaps eighty houses, strung along a creek at the bottom of the valley. Now a third of it was ash. Black skeletons of rafters stood against the sky, still smoldering. A line of wagons waited in the square, heavy with grain sacks and furniture and weeping people. And around the edges of it all, in the gold and blue of the Emperor's colors, stood a ring of soldiers with their crossbows leve

Aurelia reached Solhaven on the ninth day, braced for a summons.None came. The gates opened for her as they always had. The guards saluted. Marigold petals from the anniversary parade had long since been swept from the Avenue of Suns, and the city went about its business under a pale autumn sky as though nothing in the empire had changed.That was what frightened her. General Vale's rider must have arrived days ago.At the palace steps, the Chamberlain bowed and said only, "His Majesty is occupied until tomorrow, Highness. He asks that you rest from your journey and attend him at dawn.""At dawn," she repeated."In the throne room, Highness."Not the study, where he spoke to her as a father. The throne room, where he spoke as an Emperor.She thanked the Chamberlain, and went upstairs, and did not rest."You look dreadful," said Tavian.He was sprawled across the window seat in her chamber, boots on the cushions, a half-eaten pear in his hand. He had clearly been waiting some time. Un

The throne room was empty when Aurelia entered, except for the man on the throne.It was barely dawn. Grey light seeped through the high windows and lay in long pale bars across the marble floor. The braziers had not been lit. Her father sat motionless on the black granite seat with his hands folded, in a plain dark coat instead of his gold, and the cold light made him look older than he had at the anniversary feast. There were no guards. No clerks. No Chamberlain at the door. He had cleared the room.That was a kindness, or a trap. With him it was often both."Aurelia.""Father.""Come closer."She walked the length of the hall, her boots loud on the stone. She did not hurry. She stopped at the foot of the dais, where the petitioners stood, and looked up at him. Behind his head, the pale scars in the granite caught the light, the smooth places where something had been carved away."Vale's report was thorough," he said. "Eleven villagers spared. A gallows dismantled. The commander of

Aurelia had ridden hard on purpose.Lord Cressin had objected from the first morning. He had a delicate constitution, he said, and a lady of rank did not gallop across half a continent like a courier. But she had wanted to reach Lanternreach before he could write ahead, before anyone could arrange her arrival the way her father arranged everything. She wanted, just once, to walk into a room she hadn't been prepared for.So she arrived two days early, dust-grey and saddle-sore, with thirty lancers and one deeply offended courtier. The causeway rolled out ahead of her across the lake, a long white road under a lowering sky, and at the far end of it the Mirror City burned with a thousand unlit lanterns waiting for dusk.Captain Renn let out a low whistle. "I was here once, in the war. It looked different then.""Different how?""Smaller. Quieter. Less like a jewelry box." She shifted in her saddle. "Highness, I'd keep a hand near your dagger. That's a city full of people whose business i

Kael did not sleep after the terrace.He lay on his back in the dark chamber and watched the ceiling, which gave him back a hundred small reflections of a boy who looked as though he had seen a ghost. Sorrel's bed was empty again, but this time Kael knew where he was. The Fox had left a note on the pillow in his looping hand: Mother wants us at the second bell. Wear something that doesn't smell of lake. Don't speak until she does.Kael read it twice. Then he pulled the sleeve down over his left wrist and tried to ignore the fact that the skin there was still faintly warm.The Matriarch received them in a round hall at the top of the palace, where the black glass gave way to windows of clear crystal and the whole lake lay spread below in flat pewter light.A long table stood at the center, bare of cloth. Ysolde sat at its head in her plain grey gown. Sorrel stood behind her left shoulder, back straight, hands clasped, and for the first time Kael saw him in the place where he belonged.