Page 152 of The Oracle of Dusk

“Your Majesty, where did you get this?”

Aurora grabbed his tunic, her heart a moment from shattering and her voice hollow.

“Answer the question.”

He looked from Orithyia to Aurora, his lips pursing.

“Yes, Your Majesty. These are some of Batea’s beasts.”

Her heart pounded in her ears.

“And Theron, he knows about these?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“How long?”

“Your Majesty?” the soldier asked, confused.

“How long has he known?” she asked, feeling ill.

“Since they were created, Your Majesty. Over a year now.”

Whatever else the soldier said, Aurora couldn’t hear it. She was mired in her mind, her thoughts coming slowly and too fast all at once. She’d been betrayed.

“Leave the scroll and go,” she hissed, releasing him.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” the soldier bowed and left, concern swimming in his eyes.

It was a lie.

All of it.

He’d known this whole time. From the very first, Theron had been sheltering Drakon. All his promises to slay the beast, to give her an army to see the task through… How he must have laughed at her naïveté. What an easy mark she’d been! He’d never intended to help her. All this time, his only interest had been in using her—first for her knowledge, then for her magic, and finally as a way to escape marriage to a Viridian princess. Now she was irrevocably bound to the person who had used her in the cruellest way. In this lifetime and the next. A man she’d trusted with her heart, her body, her desires—her future. And not just her future, but the fate of Trisia itself.

If he was willing to create a multitude of great serpents to keep at his disposal, there was no telling what else he was capable of. And if Drakon was his creation, which seemed more and more likely, there could be no doubt—he was an agent of chaos at worst, and a monster at best.

Aurora wept, her tears staining the paper of the scroll, muddying the ink. Myrina had been wrong. Her dreadful fate would never be balanced with goodness—all that awaited her was death and suffering. All she was meant for was tragedy. All that had been good in her life had been obliterated by Drakon—and Theron.

“Get up.” Orithyia’s whip-like command was punctuated by the crack of her cane against the ground.

Aurora gasped and looked up as disgust contorted the old woman’s features.

“This is your first lesson as queen, Aurora. Remember it well. A queen does not have the luxury of tears.Youdo not have the luxury of falling into despair. Now,get up.”

Aurora struggled to her feet, wiping her red-rimmed eyes.

“As I said, I came to you with an opportunity. As you are, you’ll become an ornamental queen. Without a noble lineage, allies, wealth or real power, your only recourse would have been to appeal to your husband’s affections. I hope I don’t have to remind you how fickle a man’s heart is,” she said, pulling another scroll from her pocket, this one sealed with the insignia of the Viridian throne. “I understand how you feel about Queen Flora, but I hope you’ll see this for what it is—your only chance to be a queen in truth.”

Aurora took the scroll from Orithyia, swallowing down bile as she tore the seal. But as many times as she read the words inscribed on the paper, her mind refused to encompass their meaning.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I amquiteserious.”

Aurora read it again. It must be a trick. Another trap. Queen Flora was offering to adopt her as a daughter, give her the status of a princess of Viridis, and send along a contingent of soldiers, servants, nobles and bureaucrats with her to Aureum to secure her position and help her destroy all of Batea’s beasts.

But nothing the queen or high priestess ever did came without some cost.

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