I blinked. That was all I did. I blinked, and the space in front of the dais that had been empty no longer was. A male stood there, garbed in a hooded cloak and surrounded by pulsing, churning tendrils of deep shadows laced with luminous streaks of silver. I didn’t allow myself to think of what Tavius had said about him. I couldn’t. Instead, I tried to see through the wispy mass of smoky shadows. All I could tell was that he was unbelievably tall. Even from where I sat, I knew he would tower over me—and I wasn’t short by any means, nearly the same height as Tavius. But he was a Primal, and in the stories written about them in the histories, they were sometimes referred to as giants among mortals.

He appeared broad of shoulder—or at least that was what I thought the deeper, thick mass of darkness was that took the shape of…wings. His hooded head tilted back.

I forgot those breathing exercises in an instant. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt the intensity of his stare. His gaze pierced straight through me, and for a brief, panicked moment, I feared that he knew I hadn’t spent seventeen years preparing to become his Consort. That my tutelage went beyond that. And that the meekness, the submissiveness I’d been taught, was nothing more than another veil I wore.

For a moment, my heart stopped as I sat on the throne meant for the Consort of the Shadowlands, one of the Courts within Iliseeum. Looking up at the Primal of Death, I felt real terror for the first time in my life.

Primals couldn’t read mortals’ thoughts. In the back of my mind, where some bit of intelligence still existed, I knew this. There was no reason for him to suspect that I was anything other than I appeared to be. Even if he’d watched me grow over the years, or if spies had been sent to Lasania, my identity, my heritage and bloodline, had been kept hidden. No one even knew there was a Princess of Mierel blood. Everything I did had been carried out in highly planned secrecy—from training with Sir Holland to the time spent with the Mistresses of the Jade.

There was no way he could know that in the two hundred years it had taken for me to be born, the knowledge of how to kill a Primal had been obtained.

Love.

They had one fatal weakness that made them vulnerable enough to be killed, and that was love.

Make him fall in love, become his weakness, and end him.

That was my destiny.

Gaining control of my hammering heart, I pulled from the hours spent with my mother, learning what would be expected of me as his Consort. How to move, speak, and act in his presence. How to become whatever he desired. I was ready for this—whether or not he was covered head to toe in the scales of the winged beasts that guarded the Primals.

My fingers relaxed, my breathing slowed, and I allowed my lips to curl into a smile—a shy, innocent one. I stood in the glow of the candlelight on feet I couldn’t feel. I clasped my hands loosely across my midsection so nothing would be hidden from him, just as my mother had instructed. I started to lower to my knees as one would upon greeting a Primal.

The stir of air was the only warning I got that the Primal had moved.

Shock silenced the gasp of surprise before it reached my lips. He was suddenly in front of me. No more than a handful of inches remained between us. Swirling light rippled the air around me. He felt cold, like the winters to the north and east. Like each winter here in Lasania slowly became with each passing year.

I wasn’t sure I even breathed as I looked up into the void where his face should be. The Primal of Death shifted closer, and one of the shadow tendrils brushed across the bare skin of my arm. I gasped at the icy feel. He lowered his head, and every muscle in my body seized. I wasn’t sure if it was his presence or the innate instinct we all had that warned us not to run. Not to make any sudden movements in the presence of a predator.

“You,” he said, his voice smoke and shadow and full of everything that awaited after someone took their very last breath. “I have no need of a Consort.”

My entire body jerked, and I whispered, “What?”

The Primal pulled back, the shadows retracting around him. He shook his head. What did he mean?

I stepped forward. “What—?” I said again.

The wind whipped from behind me this time, pitching the chamber into darkness as the candles whooshed out. The rumbling was weaker than before, but I didn’t dare move, having no idea where he was. I wasn’t sure where the edge of the dais even was. The earthy scent disappeared, and the flames slowly returned to the candles, sparking weakly to life…

He no longer stood before me.

Faint wisps of eather wafted up from the now-sealed opening in the floor.

He was gone.

The Primal of Death had left. He hadn’t taken me, and in a deep, hidden part of me, relief blossomed and then crumbled. He hadn’t fulfilled the deal.

“What…what happened?” My mother’s voice reached me, and I looked up to see that she was before me. “What happened?”

“I…I don’t know.” Panic sank its claws into me as I turned to my mother, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t understand.”

Her eyes were wide and mirrored the storm brewing inside me as she whispered, “Did he speak to you?”

“He said…” I tried to swallow, but my throat tightened. The corners of my vision turned white. No amount of breathing exercises would help the alarm that took root. “I don’t understand. I did everything—”

The burning sting of my mother’s slap came as a shock. I hadn’t expected it—hadn’t even prepared myself for her to do something like that. Hand trembling, I pressed it against my cheek, standing there stunned and incapable of processing what had happened—what was happening.

Her dark eyes were even wider now, her skin a ghastly pale shade. “What did you do?” She pulled her hand back to her chest. “What did you do, Sera?”

I’d done nothing. Only what I’d been taught. But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell her anything. Words failed me as something shattered inside me, shriveling up.

“You,” my mother said. While her voice was not smoke or shadow, it was just as final. Her eyes glistened. “You’ve failed us. And now, everything—everything—is lost.”

Chapter 1

Three years later…

The Vodina Isles Lord strutted down the center of the Great Hall of Wayfair Castle, the soft, steady thud of his polished boots echoing the silent tap of my fingers against my thigh. He was handsome in a rough-hewn sort of way, skin baked by the sun and arms honed from wielding the heavy sword at his hip. The smirk on Lord Claus’s face, the arrogant tilt of his fair head, and the burlap sack he carried told me all I needed to know about how this would go—but no one in attendance moved or made a sound.

Not the Royal Guards who stood in a rigid line before the dais, adorned in their finery. They looked ridiculous. Gold fringe fell from the puffed shoulders of their plum waistcoats, matching their pantaloons. Their lapeled coats and thick pants were far too heavy for the hot Carsodonia summer and didn’t really allow for unrestricted movement like the plain tunic and breeches the lower-ranking guards and soldiers wore. Their uniform screamed privilege that hadn’t been earned with the swords sheathed in their bone and stone-encrusted scabbards.

There was no movement from the dais, where the Queen and King of Lasania sat upon their diamond-and-citrine-jeweled thrones, watching the approaching Lord. The golden crowns of leaves atop their heads shone brightly in the candlelight, and while my stepfather’s eyes held a sheen of fevered hope, my mother’s showed utterly nothing. Standing stiffly beside the King, the heir to the kingdom appeared somewhere between half-asleep and annoyed by the responsibility that required his presence. Knowing Tavius, he’d likely prefer to be at least three cups deep in ale and between some woman’s legs by this time of the evening.