Prologue

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The dead woman stood at the bow of the ship. The bitter sea wind and salt spray did not move her bloodstained shift and loose, dark hair. The others aboard were oblivious to her presence, but Stephen saw her, as he always did. 

She faced the Hidden Mont, its great edifice appearing from the fog as the ship sailed to its harbor. When she slowly turned, the little watered wine and bread he forced down earlier threatened to return, stifling his call. How often had he asked her what she wanted? But she wouldn’t answer him. Her king. Her husband. 

“We’ve docked, Your Majesty,” the captain said, blocking the silent sight. Stephen looked past him to the bow of the ship. Empty. He glanced up to the mont, looming high above. Surely here, in the holiest of places, she would be forced to answer him.  

Leaning on his golden cane and digging it into the ground to help his old, creaking bones, Stephen climbed the long, winding path up the mont. The great white Arc above filled over half of the sky, lighting the way. It was no comfort, though. Soon, it would blot out the sky and sun, bringing the Shadow and the bitter winter. Its cold light would be the only source until, Holies willing, it receded again. Not that he would live to see it.

Stephen and his guards trudged up the steep hill covered in monuments built by almsgivers or those hopeful of answered prayers. The most impressive of the monuments was a broken Richmont warship at the top of the winding path. But instead of a lyon’s head, the armored, arch-bleached skeleton of Stephen’s conquered enemy adorned the bow. Indestructible lyon-skin proved its only remaining shield from the elements. This old offering should have filled Stephen with pride, but he couldn’t bear to look at it. Not with her standing silently beside it. 

Gasping, he looked away and gripped the rounded head of his cane to maintain balance. Fear was an unfamiliar feeling, even when he looked at lines of enemy men across a battlefield. Never had a woman caused it. Yet his rasping breath and tense muscles told him to run. 

No. He had to know what she wanted.

“Your Majesty?” a familiar voice called, jerking his attention to the orb of light emerging from the dim fog. 

Kasanda glided down the path. For a moment, he thought a statue floated toward him. Her feet were hidden beneath her long, white robe, and she wore an arcstone diadem that glowed in the misty night. Like all witches, she had her tricks. Though middling age, his younger sister was still beautiful, likely because she’d never married. 

“Why have you come?” Her voice held no warmth or familiarity. She spoke to him as she would any stranger at her doorstep. Fifteen years had passed, but both still stored festering anger from their last words.

He had vowed to remain calm, to keep his temper in check, but the spark in her eyes ignited the kindling in him. “If I could go anywhere else for help, I would.” He would have spit out the words, but a cough rattled his lungs.

“Let me get my herb box—”

“No,” he said between coughs, angered more by her pity than her contempt. “If you can’t save a healthy woman from a babe, how could you help me?”

The diadem flashed at his words, and the fire returned to her eyes. “Why come?”

“It isn’t your healing or your mercy I seek. You’re the only one who can make her answer me.”

Kasanda’s fingers barely touched his velvet cloak before she recoiled, massaging her hand as if she had touched fire. “She brings death like a swift messenger.”

Stephen’s jaw clenched. “Is that why she comes now? I don’t need her or anyone else to tell me I’m dying.”

This time, Kasanda extended her arm. He arched a brow, but grudgingly accepted her support, shifting some weight off his right arm and cane. 

“What have you seen?” she asked, voice soft as if she spoke to a child with a skinned knee. 

With a handwave, he dismissed his guards and servants. Together, they walked alone toward the sanctuary in the center of the complex. “It started as a dream, but now she haunts me when I wake.” The cracking floodgate burst, and a torrent of words, pushed by months of anxiety, rushed forth. “She tries to speak to me, but nothing escapes her cold lips. I can’t bear to see it anymore. She… She looks as she did the day she died. The pale face, loose hair. The blood—” He stopped himself, taking a deep, wheezing breath. 

“Shades bring more than death, or the reminder of it,” Kasanda said. “They always have a message. I’ll help you learn what it is.”

He broke into a cold sweat but steadied himself, holding his sister’s strong arm. 

The mont’s sanctuary was cut into the white stone of the mountain. Every carved inch represented centuries of work by countless craftsmen, each design an individual offering and prayer. He didn’t have time to gaze at the beauty, for Kasanda helped him descend the stone steps to the mont’s heart. 

An ornate mosaic floor depicting the Mother, arms open and surrounded by the Holies, stretched before him. This was not the cold, dusty, bone-strewn stone crypt he expected. Steam rose from grates in the floor, each surrounded by more mosaics of holy figures that grew dim and disappeared into the creeping shadows. His eyes darted to movement as servants, camouflaged by dark hooded robes in the gloom, covered the ember braziers lining the aisle.

At the far end was a crescent marble bench, a pool of still water stretching before it. Kasanda took her place at the center, surrounded by the heketas. Dressed in white and gold, two women sat on either side of Kasanda’s throne. One was old, but the maiden was so perfectly formed and sat so still, he first thought her a statue of the purest marble. But he had little time to enjoy her beauty, for Kasanda spoke.

“Make an offering worthy of what you ask.”

Stephen’s knees groaned in protest as he knelt before the pool. From his belt pouch, he pulled a bag crafted from the purest cloth of gold. A warm glow shone on his face when he opened it, a tiny beam of comfort in the eerie darkness.

The pool was dark and smooth as glass until he turned the pouch over. Arcstone shattered the surface, lighting the rocky walls of the pool like torches as the pieces sank to the bottom. Light spread and mist rose from the water, seeping towards the women. 

Fear struck Stephen’s tough exterior like a rain of enemy arrows, and he raised his cloak to his mouth as a shield. The women remained still, but as the fog reached their faces, each gasped. Spines arched, heads fell back, and he shivered at their silent screams. Every movement was in unison, as if they danced to a tune only they could hear. 

Neither their silent display nor the terrors of the battlefield had gripped him like the shadow of the woman who rose from the pool’s mist. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew who she was. How long had he wished to see his wife after she died? How long had he prayed for her soul? It wasn’t fear now of seeing her, but of finally learning what she had to say. His legs and will were old and weak. He couldn’t run. As on the battlefield, retreat was not an option; he must charge forth into the deadly fray.

The women fell as still as the statues he prayed to. Though mist hung in the air, Stephen dropped his cloak. This wasn’t his wife, who took his heart with her last life breath. This was a messenger from the Holies. Recalling the strong, booming voice of his youth, he commanded, “Speak, shade! Tell me what I must know!”

When the Shade’s mouth opened, Kasanda and the other women gasped. Tendrils of fog seeped into their noses and mouths as their voices rose as one: 

 

“From passion born, your foe will rise,

In him your line will see demise.

Stone will burn and light the night,

Wall and shield fall to his strike.

No beast can stand his fiery wake, 

The crown will be his to take.

King, don’t abandon your land to man.

What he can’t do, woman can.”