The Hemlock Queen

Book 2: The Nightshade Crown

by Hannah Whitten

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dark Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy

Synopsis

In the second installment of New York Times bestselling author Hannah Whitten’s lush romantic epic fantasy series, the glittering and dangerous world of the Sainted King’s royal court is upended when Prince Bastian seizes control and a mysterious dark force begins to take over.

The corrupt king August is dead. Prince Bastian has seized the throne and raised Lore—a necromancer and former smuggler—to his right-hand side. Together they plan to cut out the rot from the heart of the royal court and help the people of Dellaire. But not everyone is happy with the changes. The nobles are sowing dissent, the Kirythean Empire is beating down their door, and Lore’s old allies are pulling away. Even Prince Bastian has changed. No longer the hopeful, rakish, charismatic man Lore knows and loves, instead he’s become reckless, domineering, and cold.

And something has been whispering in her ear. A voice, dark and haunting, that’s telling her there’s more to the story than she knows and more to her power than she can even imagine. A truth buried deep that could change everything.

With Bastian’s coronation fast approaching and enemies whispering on all sides, Lore must figure out how to protect herself, her prince, and her country before they all come crumbling down and whatever dark power has been creeping through the catacombs is unleashed.

Release date: April 9, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 480

Sample

Everything is everything. All powers move together and come from the same source.

—A prophecy of Elan Adabbo, Kadmaran monk. Deemed unnecessary for cataloging when sent for consideration to the Priest Exalted.

There were many things Lore didn’t feel like doing today. Getting up early. Choking down breakfast. Her head felt like it was inhabited by a thousand tiny men with hammers, courtesy of the wine she’d downed before bed to make sure she didn’t dream. The combination of ache and dry, sour mouth made even the most delicate pastries taste like something from a refuse pile. Getting dressed also wasn’t high up on her list of things she wanted to do, and she’d let Juliette, her lady’s maid, stuff her into a pale-peach gown that really did nothing for her coloring just because she didn’t have the energy to fight about it. That was typical for her, these days. Not having the energy to fight about things.

But out of all that, entering the catacombs was still number one on her list of things she absolutely, positively did not want to do.

“Are you ready?” Bastian stared into the newly opened well, his dark brows slashed low over his eyes. The gleam of the rising sun made them a lighter brown, rich and whiskey-colored. A slight golden phosphorescence swirled around his fingers, light gathered from the air, faint enough that it might be imagined.

Lore knew it wasn’t.

The Presque Mort ringing the well couldn’t see the Spiritum, since they couldn’t channel it. Still, they eyed the Sainted King with a layering of trepidation and awe that didn’t mix quite right.

For all that he was the herald of their god’s return, in power if not in flesh, the Presque Mort still didn’t seem to care much for Bastian Arceneaux.

“No,” Lore answered, even though she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. No, she wasn’t ready to go back down into the dark. No, she wasn’t ready to try to lay all those corpses to rest, the victims of the Mortem that Anton had pulled out of her and sent to kill entire villages overnight.

But they were her victims. Her responsibility.

And even as she told herself that the very last thing she wanted to do was channel Mortem, her fingers still itched for it.

Bastian glanced at her as if he’d heard the thought. Both of them. But when he turned away from the well and reached up to cup her cheek, he only addressed the first. “It wasn’t your fault, Lore,” he murmured, an endless repetition he’d kept up for the three weeks since his father had died. His coronation wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, but he held himself like a King already. “It was Anton, not you.”

But Anton wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. Lore’s ability to channel the magic leaking from the body of the Buried Goddess, interred beneath the Citadel, had made all his plans possible. Power he’d waited for, watching her grow up, watching her inch closer and closer to a destiny she couldn’t escape before bringing her here and snaring Bastian, too.

Her fault. All of it.

But Lore didn’t argue. This wasn’t something that could be left undone.

He gave her a worried look, lips drawn to a line. “You don’t have to do this. I can probably figure out a way—”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. I’m here. I’m doing it.”

Bastian searched her face, his hand still on her cheek. He touched her so casually, heedless of whoever might be watching. Lore was still getting used to that. She was so accustomed to being something secret.

Finally, he nodded.

As if waiting for the signal, the Presque Mort who’d volunteered to accompany them stepped forward. Only one of them had, though this trip underground would have official Priest Exalted dispensation. The remainders of the holy order still weren’t keen on entering the catacombs.

The Priest Exalted stood behind the open well, still dressed in black Presque Mort clothes instead of the white robe of his station. The Bleeding God’s Heart pendant hung around his neck, though, winking in the afternoon light.

He met Lore’s eyes for a heartbeat, one blue, the other hidden behind black leather. Then he looked away.

Bastian ignored the Priest Exalted entirely. But when Lore’s gaze tracked from Gabe back to him, he gave her a small, sorrow-tinged smile, as if the other man’s indifference hurt him, too.

“We’ll be fine,” Bastian murmured, low enough for only the two of them to hear. “We’ll be fine.”

The Presque Mort who would be accompanying them into the catacombs was named Jerault, and Lore was fairly certain the only reason he’d volunteered was because he and Bastian used to be lovers and the monk still held a candle for him. Apparently, Gabe was one of the only monks who took that particular vow so seriously. When Bastian laughingly told her of his and Jerault’s history last night over dinner, she’d felt the mortifying sting of tears, though she’d hidden it in her wine.

Jerault was handsome, maybe a year younger than Lore, with golden hair and gray eyes that narrowed slightly with the observance of how close the King and his deathwitch stood. When Bastian turned to the well, Jerault let out something close to a longing sigh.

It was almost funny, the way everyone was so convinced she and Bastian were sleeping together.

On the other side of the well, Gabe kept his silence, his mouth a thin line beneath the shadow of his eye patch. Lore expected him to say something, or at least to force his face into an expression that wasn’t blank with the barest seasoning of disapproval. But he did nothing.

He’d raged at the idea of her going down there with Bastian, once. It’d bothered him enough to go to Anton, to betray everything, and now he acted like he didn’t care at all.

She cared, though. It’d be so much easier if she didn’t.

Bastian mounted the spiral stairs first, climbing down the side of the well, the bright white of his shirt fading the farther he went. He held no torch, but he flicked his lighter when he was halfway down, the glimmer of flame touching a cigarette in his mouth. Of course Bastian would smoke while they went to lay an army of screaming corpses to rest.

Gods, Lore hoped they didn’t scream this time. Her head couldn’t take it this morning.

She went next, and Jerault followed behind, all of them silent. When Lore was nearly to the bottom, she looked up.

Gabe had moved, finally. He leaned over the well, his tattooed hands braced against the sides, staring down at them. He was too far for her to see his expression, but maybe it had softened, a little, shown his signature Gabe-flavored worry. She’d take anything, at this point.

If it wasn’t there, she didn’t want to see. Lore finished the climb into the well without looking up again.

The catacombs pressed in from all sides, oppressive darkness, and Lore stood close to Bastian as she fashioned a torch from the supplies left on the packed-dirt floor, her hands trembling. “Why didn’t you bring one of these?”

Bastian shrugged, taking the half-finished torch from her and completing the job. “Seemed wasteful.” He handed it back. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Lore. We are the most powerful things down here.”

She snorted. “The Buried Goddess might beg to differ.”

“She’s dead, which makes me confident I could win an argument with Her.”

Lore gave him a weak smile and leaned in toward his body, just a bit, pulled into his gravity. He kissed her forehead, quick and quiet, fleeting enough to be imagined in the dark.

“Everything will be fine,” he murmured, a now-familiar repetition, his lips still close enough to brush her skin. “I promise I will keep you safe.”

The refrain had grown constant in the last few weeks. Bastian’s charge that he would keep her safe, keep her close, do whatever he had to do. And she would let him. Lore was too tired and cast adrift in this new life to do anything else.

Torch in hand, Bastian led the way into the tunnels. When Lore blinked, her internal map of the catacombs fell into place, but she didn’t think they’d need it. The night they’d come down here and found the rooms of corpses—the night Gabe betrayed them—was burned deep into both of their memories.

Jerault cleared his throat. “Is there… ah, should we be worried about…”

“There’s no one down here,” Lore said.

The Presque Mort’s relieved exhale was powerful enough to stir her hair. He was walking very close behind her, like he was afraid of being left in the dark. Lore couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed.

“And if there was someone down here, that’s what we have you for.” Bastian glanced at the monk with a flirtatious smile. “I’m confident you could protect us from just about anything, Jerault. I recall your stamina.”

Jerault made a noise like he’d swallowed a mouthful of wine the wrong way. Lore rolled her eyes. Bastian ashed his cigarette with a pleased smirk.

They walked quickly, none of them wanting to stay down here longer than was absolutely necessary. The flame of Bastian’s torch flickered on the pockmarked stone, and when they reached a fork in the path, it briefly illuminated the words carved into the wall.

Divinity is never destroyed. It is only echoed.

Lore scowled at it as they passed.

It didn’t take long to reach the vault that held the young, healthy bodies from the villages. Her sense of Mortem, simmering just beneath her consciousness, rose up like a black tide, nearly overwhelming.

She closed her eyes and imagined a forest. A small grove of uniform trees, a sacred place, keeping her safe, keeping her contained.

It helped, a little. Not as much as it used to.

“No screaming.” Bastian turned from the wall to Lore, brow arched, the flickering torchlight gilding his hair. “That’s something.”

Jerault shivered. “I thought you were exaggerating that part.”

“I exaggerate absolutely nothing ever, Jerault.”

The lock Anton had made with manipulated Mortem was gone. Lore pressed her hand against the stone, just to be sure, but all she felt was the Mortem inherent to the rock. “It’ll open easily.”

Bastian nodded, all business now, no more teasing the blushing monk. “We should come up with a plan, probably,” he said, stepping up by her side, like he didn’t want her to be the first one inside the vault.

“The plan is: I go in there and give them back some death.” Now that they were here, Lore wanted this over with. Get in, channel, get out. “Honestly, I probably could’ve done it myself. You didn’t have to come.”

“I would never let you do this by yourself.”

“Thus why I didn’t argue.” She said it fondly. She didn’t want to be down here alone; he knew that. “Seemed like a waste of time.”

“A wise woman,” Bastian replied.

Lore pushed the stone door open.

The room beyond was dark. Bastian found the fuse hanging from the ceiling, like he had before, and lit it from his torch. Light slowly traveled around the room, illuminating the chamber.

The blessedly silent corpses were on their plinths. Lore didn’t know if someone had come down here and rearranged them, or if they’d cleaned themselves up, walking away from the door after Lore closed it that night, settling back on their slabs like sleepwalkers returning to bed. Each body had their hands folded over their chests, hiding the eclipse scars on their palms, mirrors of the scar she and Bastian shared.

Her fingers closed instinctually.

Lore was prepared to hold her breath, tithe her heartbeat, do everything she was used to doing to drop into that space where life and death were tangible things to be manipulated. But this time was different. Her heart tithed its beat, still, but it was easy, a simple pause before picking back up again. It felt more like an afterthought, her body going along with a remembered ritual even though there was no real need.

That should concern her, probably. The floodgates of her power had been opened, and any dams she’d built against it were long since worn away.

One moment, she saw all the dim colors of the vault, and the next, everything had faded to black and white. Knots of Mortem hovered over the chest of every corpse, inverted stars.

She looked over her shoulder, to where Bastian stood, and nearly had to pull herself back out of channeling-space again. He was so bright he hurt to look at, every inch of his body flushed in white light.

Lore recovered quickly, turning back to the task at hand. Mortem hung a bit denser over the closest corpse—the woman she’d raised that first time, the one who’d triggered the wave of rising bodies, chanting they’ve awakened, ponderously climbing off their slabs.

Might as well start with her this time, too.

“Do you need me to leave?” Bastian asked. When Spiritum had been new in him, it had canceled out her own power. It didn’t do that anymore. Whatever had happened the night of the eclipse had changed her, made her something he couldn’t snuff out.

With a shake of her head, Lore stepped up to the corpse, not wanting that particular conversation to linger. The men followed, ringing the plinth like mourners at a funeral.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Her fingers twitched as she gathered in Mortem, enough to craft a death for every corpse in the room. She pulled it from the walls, the stone, from the dry-packed dirt where nothing could grow, and from the knot hanging in the air over the dead chest of the woman on the slab. It braided around her fingers, weaving like a cat.

It didn’t feel terrible, like it used to. It felt almost… natural, now. The side effects were the same, the sludged pulse and tingling fingers, but they didn’t hurt. Didn’t feel uncomfortable, even. They just were.

Mortem filtered through her body, turning to her will, and slowly, slowly, Lore began to push it back out—

A muffled scream. Jerault’s.

The corpse’s hand shot up, clamped around Jerault’s throat. Black-edged nails dug in, laced with creeping rot now that Mortem came close, drawing crescents of blood as the Presque Mort’s feet shuffled ineffectually on the floor. The corpse’s face was implacable, blank eyes still staring upward, like the hand acted of its own accord.

A fail-safe. Something built into that thick knot of Mortem above the body, making it act in defense if someone tried to nullify the army once awakened.

In Lore’s black-and-white vision, she saw the spark of Spiritum in Jerault begin to dim. Long strands of white light stretched like the slow-motion collapse of a star, the ends turning dark as life alchemized into death, the inherent Mortem in Jerault blooming out of his fading life.

Another blaze next to her—Bastian, rushing toward them. All the while, the corpse’s hand squeezed tighter, tighter.

Lore’s fingers stayed over the corpse, pushing out the Mortem she’d channeled in, faster now, hoping that it’d loosen the iron grip. But it was too slow; Jerault would be dead before she could lay the corpse to rest. Bastian’s hands streaked into her vision, trailing light, scrabbling at the corpse’s hand as it closed inexorably on Jerault’s neck. She heard the snap of bone, one of the corpse’s fingers broken.

With the hand not channeling Mortem, Lore seized the Spiritum spinning out of Jerault. She channeled the bright light of it through herself, running congruent to the dark of Mortem, turning both to her will. Then she thrust the Spiritum back toward Jerault.

It was difficult work, this bifurcation, channeling death and life at once. Lore fed light into Jerault, keeping it burning, and death back into the corpse. The light coalesced in Jerault’s center, churning over itself, shining in defiance of the death that wanted to take over.

“Help?” she said quietly, her black-and-white vision turning to Bastian. He’d snapped another of the corpse’s fingers, the dry skin and bone dangling down the back of its gripping hand, but the strength left in the remaining three was still enough to choke Jerault.

Bastian let go of the corpse and held out his hands. Lore released her grip on Spiritum, letting the threads of it naturally go to Bastian, drawn by his light. It channeled through him like poured water, flowing through his body before going back to Jerault, strengthened by its proximity to the Sainted King.

A wide smile turned up Bastian’s mouth.

The hovering Mortem drifted down to the dead woman’s chest, tendrils reaching to Lore and then to the body like pieces of a broken spiderweb. The knots held tight, but Lore picked them apart with twitches of her fingers as she took them in and channeled them out, she and the corpse the center of a ragged constellation.

When it was done, the woman on the slab actually looked at peace.

Lore lurched backward, breathing hard. Her body was a mess of contradictions—her blood pulling through her veins like it was half-frozen, but faster than it should be; her lungs hauling in too much air as her limbs tingled with pins and needles.

She’d channeled them both. Mortem and Spiritum, at the same time.

Gods, and she’d thought she had a headache before.

Bastian held Jerault up by the shoulders, examining his throat. Bloody marks from the corpse’s nails scored his skin, and broken blood vessels already bloomed to nasty bruises, but other than that, he wasn’t worse for wear. He looked stricken, though, and when Bastian released him with a clap on his back, the Presque Mort gazed at Lore like he was seeing a dream and a nightmare at once.

Lore didn’t know whether to smile back or scowl, so she just stared at him blankly.

Satisfied that Jerault would live, Bastian turned toward Lore. “Let me see—”

“No, I’m fine.” She whirled toward the door, hurried out of it as quickly as she could without running. “I’m fine.”

In the dark stone corridor outside, Lore leaned back against the wall, her head tipped up, her breathing labored. The discomfort of Mortem channeling was a familiar annoyance by now, but the intense dichotomy of coming down from Mortem and Spiritum together felt like every stitch that held her together was rapidly fraying.

It was almost… exhilarating.

Her heart thudded in her chest, pumping great gouts of cold blood. Her lungs held so much air, but her throat felt too dry to let it all in and out as it should.

“Fuck,” Lore muttered, rubbing at her chest.

A glimmer in the corner of her vision. Something in the shadows, deeper in the tunnel.

Lore turned.

It was too dim to see any kind of detail. Just the vague shape of a person. But that was all Lore needed.

She leaned against the stone wall, trying to make her body re-regulate after so much magic, staring at her mother.

The Night Priestess stared back. Her hand rose, just slightly, the half-reach of someone who knew whatever they strove for was impossible to grasp.

Then she turned and disappeared into the dark.

The art of dreamwalking is more about concentration than magic, though magic is necessary. While dreaming was thought to be under the jurisdiction of Lereal, the most important factor is that both parties—the dreamer and the dreamwalker—are able to use magic from the same source. Therefore, strong Mortem channelers are often able to achieve dreamwalking. One can only assume that right after the Godsfall, when elemental magic was still in the world, those who could channel any sort of power could also walk in each other’s dreams.

—Mortem and Non-Death Applications, page 113, by Antoinette Harleone

You saved him.”

It was the third time in an hour Bastian had said the words, in a voice of shock and awe, shaking his head with a smile on his face. The first time had been shortly after they sat down to a private dinner laid out in the solar, the second time had been over the soup course, and now he said it again as the remains of dessert—which Lore had only picked at, her stomach still unsettled—were tidied by silent servants. Each time, she’d only given him a tight smile in return and shot conspicuous looks at the people around them, hoping he would take the hint that she didn’t necessarily want this bit of news all over the Citadel.

But Bastian was oblivious, so this time, she spoke up. “He probably would’ve been fine if you’d kept breaking fingers.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Bastian scoffed. “He was being strangled, Lore, and you stopped it. You channeled Mortem and Spiritum together to stop it. That’s incredible.”

The servants had kept their faces impassive up to this point, but now their eyes slid toward one another, slightly widened. Lore slumped in her seat.

“How did you do it?” Bastian asked, pouring himself more wine. Lore pushed forward her own glass, and he refilled it nearly to the top. “Do you remember specifics? What it felt like?”

He asked like someone who wanted to re-create an experiment. If he’d had pen and paper handy, he’d probably be taking notes. Lore slid farther down in her chair and took a too-large gulp of her wine, eyeing the servants. She didn’t want to get too far into details when anything she said would be woven into rumor before the sun had fully set.

“I didn’t really do it on purpose,” she said. “I just… acted. It was instinctual.”

That seemed to please him, oddly. In the greenery-crowded windows, the sun was well on its way to setting, the light thick and golden as honey. “So it came naturally,” he said, sitting back. “You didn’t have to… to do anything special, to channel them both together. It just felt right.”

Right wasn’t exactly the way she’d put it, but Lore wasn’t interested in making this an argument. That would mean they’d have to discuss it longer. She took another un-lady-like swallow and set down her glass. “I’d really rather not talk about it anymore, Bastian.”

He set down his own, drained to the dregs. “Lore…”

“No.” She waved a negating hand. “Please choose a different topic of conversation, Your Majesty.”

Her use of his title seemed to knock him out of whatever spiral he’d found himself in. The sun finally slid behind the curve of the earth, and as the golden glow changed to soft twilight, Bastian sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “All right,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know, I just felt like I should…” He trailed off. “What would you rather discuss?”

Gabe. She wanted to discuss Gabe, wanted to ask Bastian what he’d thought of his stoicism as they climbed down into the catacombs today, if he’d managed to have any real conversations with their former friend since raising him to Priest Exalted. She knew they met together. He was a key leader of the Church, and one of Bastian’s official advisers. All of her own conversations with Gabe had been during sessions to keep up her mental forest, and he’d carefully avoided speaking of anything else. It felt like talking to a statue.

But she wouldn’t talk about Gabe, not now, when rumors were being spun out of the air by everyone within hearing distance. It was too raw a wound, still. It needed a bandage in mixed company.

Instead Lore took up her fork and picked a little more at her nearly untouched dessert—fruit and cream and some kind of flaky pastry. “Horse,” she said finally. “I know you were going to make a party of laying him to rest—”

“The florist is on standby. For Claude.”

She gave him a weak smile. “But would it be all right to leave him for a bit? He isn’t hurting anyone.” And she liked visiting him, sometimes. It was a nice reminder that she could do things that weren’t awful, that Mortem was a tool that could be turned to good occasionally.

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Bastian said. “I’m rather fond of him, repulsive as he is.” He’d finished all of his dessert, so he reached across with his fork and took some of hers. She smacked at his hand halfheartedly, smearing cream across his thumb, but he just licked it off. “Maybe we can rent him out for parties,” he continued around a strawberry. “That’d be one way to raise money for the next citizen payment. Maybe it’d make the treasurers hate me less.”

“As long as you’re making payments to commoners, they’re going to hate you.” Lore finished off the rest of the dessert before he could steal more.

“The glamorous life of a monarch.” Bastian rose from his chair. “Speaking of, I have meetings.”

“At night?”

“Church meetings.”

The momentary lightness she’d felt crashed back down around her again, the subject she’d been avoiding finding them anyway.

Maybe Gabe and Bastian were both better at this than she was. Maybe they could put all the mess of a month ago behind them for the greater good.

Lore had never been very interested in the greater good.

Bastian came around the table and kissed her on the forehead. It was new for him, this sweetness. The easy intimacy that had risen between them before had never been the delicate kind, but lately, it seemed he wanted it to grow in that direction. There was almost a tentativeness to it, as if he expected to be rebuffed. But she never did. Sweetness was as foreign to her as it was to him, and she craved it.

Though she always thought of Gabe, every time.

“Don’t wait up,” he said. “I’ll be late.”

Then he was gone, and the servants came over silently to clear the rest of the dishes. Lore watched the sky through the window, honey and lavender and encroaching indigo. No moon tonight.

Lore tried not to drink herself to sleep. Most nights, she was successful. But the threat of dreams always hung around her head, knocking at her temples, and when they were loud, an extra glass or two was the only way she knew to drown them out.

Dreaming was dangerous. Dreaming had made her a weapon. And though Anton wasn’t here to manipulate her anymore, Lore still didn’t like dreaming. She wanted her head blank and her mind empty when she lay down, wanted to have no thoughts at all until she woke up in the morning.

So when she closed her eyes, she was not at all pleased to find herself here.

It was obviously a dream. Lore was in her forest, the one Gabe had taught her to grow around her mind, with its uniform trees that looked too perfect to be real. Smoke twisted through the sky, billowing into the air from some nearby fire.

One she was setting herself, apparently. Lore watched her hand, through no directive of her own, reach out with a lit torch, touch it to a tree. She stepped back, a silent passenger in her own head, and watched the trees catch, joining the blazing inferno of the others, trapping her in a ring of fire.

She lifted her face and screamed.

Then, with a wrenching feeling like tearing off a bandage, Lore woke up, sweat-sheened and gasping.

Her consciousness came back to her body slowly as she panted into the dark, twitching her fingers, her toes, small tests to ensure she was awake.

The dream felt like nonsense to her. That was good. At least, she thought it was. It certainly didn’t feel like the dreams she’d had when Anton was pulling at her power, and that was good enough.

Catacombs, her mind whispered.

Lore scowled into the dark. Some vestige of that dream must still cling to her, even though she couldn’t remember it having anything to do with the catacombs. Dream-logic, detritus caught in the current of her thoughts like trash in a storm drain.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, pulled them away only once she’d pressed so hard she saw stars.

Back in the southeast turret, her bed had no canopy, and her bed linens had been a shade of mustard-yellow that even she knew was years out of fashion. Here, in one of the many spare bedrooms in Bastian’s palatial apartment, the canopy floating above her in the breeze through the open window was the same gauzy fabric as the deep-summer gowns in her closet, ghost-white and billowing.

Even with the window open, the air in the room was stifling. Summer in Auverraine was ridiculously warm and humid, hot as boiled piss both at midnight and midday, and this year was shaping up to be worse than most.

A bottle of wine sat in a bucket of melted ice on her nightstand, half drunk already. Lore stared at it for a moment, weighing whether or not the dry mouth and pounding head in the morning would be worth the hope of dreamless sleep.

She decided it wasn’t, but still pulled the bottle out of the ice to press the cool glass against her forehead. The dream had banished any hope of a restful night, and if she went back to sleep, she’d probably dream some more. Still, she’d rather her inevitable morning headache be due to sleeplessness than alcohol. She’d been down that road before, when an indulgence flirted with becoming a dependence, and the Citadel was too treacherous a place for that.

With a sigh, Lore got out of bed. Stretched. Found the silk dressing gown she’d left wadded on the floor and shrugged into it, not bothering to tie it closed. She’d grown fairly adept at avoiding stray courtiers on these frequent night wanderings, and it was a fair bet that anyone she ran into would be more scandalously dressed than she was. While the older courtiers were drawing in on themselves, wary and angered by Bastian’s new measures, the younger set seemed to welcome the advent of a new royal paradigm. She wondered how long that would last once the tax increases started.

Her throat hurt. She should find a glass of water, probably. She could call a servant to fetch one for her, but she was loath to wake them up. Of course, this thought led to the notion that she could go ask Bastian for a