A cold dread clawed up her spine, a sinister whisper in the back of her mind that told her she shouldn’t have come, and it turned her veins to ice.

“Greetings, Imperial Princess.” Even his voice was crinkly and uneven, as though it had been scrunched down and stretched wide. Held in the grip of her own horror, her breath slowly being pressed out of her, she couldn’t respond.

He cleared his throat, his face crumpling even more, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “As you know, Your Highness, our town was destroyed six years ago.” He gestured vaguely behind him and Naya’s dread clamped down on her lungs, her eyes flitting over the crowd.

So many villagers from south Saderthorne stood with him—they were the ones filling the hall.

“We were forced to relocate to the two other cities in Saderthorne and leave our village behind.” He paused and then stuttered out the next few words. “I-I’m sorry. I know you know this already.” He took a breath. “It has been… more than difficult. There wasn’t space for us, and we had nothing of worth to offer those we imposed on. It caused a lot of upset and anger for the city folk. Can’t blame them. And most of us were raw, still suffering from the heartache of losing our children, family, friends... our entire way of life.” The man’s voice faltered, and many heads bowed, grief connecting each person in the hall.

The memories descended with ruthless precision. The cloying stench of burning flesh returned to her inhale, blinding white light blazed once again into her eyes. The desperate pleas and cries and wails from those ripped apart deafened her. She could see their bodies, strewn all over the dusty ground, multiple pieces twitching, smearing the dark red, congealed puddles underneath them, yet they still screamed, their brains not yet realizing they were already dead.

And then there was Lili.

The horror clawed at her, threatening to engulf her. Naya wanted to scream and relieve the hot shame scalding every nerve, but she still couldn’t move.

After a moment, the man swallowed and continued, “We have finally settled into new homes, and are we coping. But the wasteland is still expanding, Your Highness. Dangerous magic spreads in the south and it is moving quickly.” The villager blinked, his eyes drifting to both the emperor and empress, before snapping back to Naya. “We fear for our new homes and the remainder of our families. The city folk are less fearful—they brush it off. They say if it was a problem, then you would already be there dealing with it. But with the greatest respect to you, my future queen, they haven’t experienced what we have. We are nervous.”

He stepped forward visibly trembling. “We humbly request that you return with us to consider solutions for this problem.”

Naya closed her eyes and focused inward, like her healer taught her to. Slowly she calmed her shaky and erratic breath until it was smooth and long. She opened her eyes. “I’ve already tried that.”

Her mother’s head turned toward her.

The villager shifted his weight, clearing his crinkled throat. “Uh. We know. But we have no other ideas to stop it, Your Highness. It is spreading faster now. From one of the cities, we can now see white bolts of wild magic on the horizon most nights. With your connection to magic we thought…. We would be grateful if you could try again.”

Try again? Was he insane? Naya swept her gaze over the crowd and then picked a spot on the opposite wall, over the heads of all the people, and said nothing, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

“Please,” the villager rasped, scratching through the silence.

Naya swallowed, inhaling smoothly, and remained silent. This time, the silence extended longer than she thought it would, and both of her parents’ eyes turned to her.

“Princess Naya,” Auntie Vic said, finally. “Do you have an answer for Mr. Vargis?”

Naya didn’t remove her gaze from the back wall. “I don’t.”

Auntie Vic’s voice was halting. “Will you visit Saderthorne?”

“No.”

The air seemed to drain from the room, leaving a dry, bitterness in its wake. None of the villagers dared speak, but their collective disappointment throbbed through the room. Naya could almost feel the harsh edge of Papa’s annoyance with her, but he said nothing, and neither did Mama.

“Please,” Mr. Vargis whispered, fear further faltering his hoarse tone. “You need to help or more of us will die.”

Naya kept her gaze on the back of the hall, her heart beating so rapidly, she could feel the thrum in her throat. She couldn’t answer him. He had to know what he was asking, he had been there last time.

“Nayara,” Mama finally murmured under her breath. “Say something to him. Anything.”

Naya swallowed again and dragged her eyes down to the man. “I tried,” she said, her voice soft. “I couldn’t⁠—”

“The princess will visit you shortly,” Papa interrupted, his voice resounding over the hall.

A flare of annoyance prickled at Naya, her body tightening her father’s false promise.

“She needs time to work on a solution.” He held up his palm as the villager began to speak again. “I know you feel you don’t have time to wait,” he said, speaking over him, “but this situation must be dealt with carefully, as you well know. The princess will do all she can.”

The villager glanced between Naya and her father, his brows creased and his lips twitching like he still had more to say. But he bowed low, he took a last look at Naya and then shuffled backward into the crowd.

The hall suddenly felt even quieter, like hope had been sucked out of their very bones. Naya couldn’t bear it.

She rose from her chair.

“Sit down, Nayara,” Mama half-whispered across to her. “They come here to see and hear from you more than us now. Just being present will help their disappointment.”

“Nothing I do will help their disappointment or their losses,” Naya whispered back, her annoyance bright and jangling. “Why do you keep making me do this?”

Mama frowned, leaning back to look at her in surprise.

“I cannot help them, Mama.” She stumbled to the stairs at the back of the platform and escaped, her vision blurry with tears.

CHAPTER THREE

"Naya.” Her father’s voice was at least controlled, even if not completely calm.

Naya didn’t turn to look at him. She continued to pace, her arms wrapped around each other, palms clutching elbows. Her horror and shame ebbed away, leaving her trembling with smoldering anger and defensiveness.

She had no idea when Papa entered her quarters, but she sensed him. His confusion, annoyance, and concern prickled along her back from where he stood in the door behind her. He’d found her in her office, but her private quarters were a series of connected rooms—from her bedroom to her personal library—and it felt like her father’s mood expanded to all of them.

“You have responsibilities,” he said. “You cannot just get up and leave the Great Hall in the middle of a seasonal audience.”

“Then you should have prepared me for it,” Naya bit out.

“How were we to do that? You’ve been avoiding these meetings, Naya, avoiding us. Gilly only managed to see you yesterday by chance. At some point you just have to do as you’re told and sit through them like your mother and I do. How do you expect to learn how to deal with the various problems that arise in this empire if you don’t even attend when our people bring them to us?”

Exhaling long and slow, Naya turned to her father.

His thick and bulky Alpha warrior build had always towered over both her and her mother, but the strength of force it represented was evident in the success of the Lox Empire. Papa was a serious man whose fierce attitude and determination had established him as the most powerful Alpha, not just in the Lox Empire but in the collective continents referred as the Known Lands. Even as the years had worn on, etching his features with lines, age couldn’t diminish the power that resonated around him.