Prologue

T he cold, aching rip in his chest dragged Sebastian from the clutches of sleep.

The bridge that lived there—the one binding him to his queen, woven by her miraculous magic of light and life—had only just started to feel like a part of him. But now it was cracking and crumbling as if a great, ancient beast were hurling dark stones upon its brilliance.

He lurched from his bed, feet hitting the cold floor, clutching at his bare chest. He gasped for air, tears streaming down his face, the sudden pain wracking him with a ferocious intensity.

Sebastian’s entire world stood still, then tilted violently on its axis.

He threw himself toward a chair, snatching a discarded pair of trousers from the back and sliding them up his legs, hands shaking. His breathing labored as he found a rumpled cotton shirt, tugging it over his head. He grabbed his sword from the wall, belting it around his waist as he staggered into the hall.

Sebastian was unsurprised to find he was not alone.

Drystan leaned heavily against his door frame, longsword unsheathed, Feran by his side, gripping his Kreah short swords with tense, white knuckles. Quentin, wild red hair in disarray and a manic gleam in his eye rushed into the hall, baldric strapped across his chest as he palmed a throwing knife in each hand. Matheo and Trefor were close on Quentin’s heels, bows and arrows notched, and more weapons strapped to their sides.

The only one not present … was Andrian. The hair on Sebastian’s arms rose.

In a single movement, their panic threading together through the air, Mariah’s Armature turned to Mariah’s door.

Sebastian didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. He leaped into motion, rushing down the hall and slamming his body against the heavy white and gold oak door. The lock snapped, a few pieces of splintered wood skittering across the marble floor, the door crashing off the wall.

The silence that greeted him was the loudest.

He rushed into his queen’s suite, the others behind him. The balcony doors were closed, the hearths burned out. Mariah’s things were scattered around the space—a pair of discarded boots in the corner, two short swords from the palace armory on the island, blankets and sweaters strewn over the back of the plush couches.

It was perfectly normal … save for the silence.

Sebastian turned slowly to the right, to Mariah’s bedroom door.

Her open door.

Fear gripped him close and held him to its chest as he moved closer to the entrance, peering inside.

It was dark, the bed rumpled. Slept in, but …

Sebastian pushed the door open wider and flipped a lunestair switch on the wall. Drystan stepped to his side as the room blazed with illuminating, silver-gold light.

Revealing the empty bed.

Swift inhales of breath and shocked murmurs echoed behind Sebastian, but his eyes had latched onto something that filled him with more fear than even that empty room could.

Drystan cursed, low and savage, metal clanking as he rushed past Sebastian into the room. He halted beside the bed, hands clenching into fists, before half-turning to Sebastian. “She’s not here.”

Sebastian didn’t answer him. Couldn’t move, still held captive by what lay discarded on Mariah’s nightstand.

“Sebastian?” Matheo’s earnest question loosened Sebastian’s feet. With more jolting steps, he shuffled forward to that nightstand.

He picked up the object of his attention, holding it in his hands with a pained, blank expression. Turning sluggishly to face the others, his movements slowed by his fear, Sebastian watched his shock and horror slowly reflect themselves across the other’s faces.

His hands tightened around the worn leather hilt of Mariah’s dragon-winged dagger. The dagger she never went anywhere without.

The dagger she would’ve never left here … unless she truly believed she wouldn’t need it.

Or … Sebastian swallowed.

Or if she’d been forced to leave it .

Sebastian couldn’t stop his mind from snagging on one person. One person who could have made her feel that safety. One person who was also horribly, maddeningly, sickeningly missing.

“We have to find her,” Sebastian said, voice low and thick. “And Andrian. Something has happened. Search the palace— now .”

Mariah’s Armature snapped into action at Sebastian’s order. Matheo raced for Ryenne’s wing to alert Kalen and Ryenne’s Armature. The others split into two pairs: Trefor and Quentin were to sweep the palace from the north, Drystan and Feran from the south, and they would meet in the center at the throne room.

Sebastian would meet up with whoever he found first, after he roused the rest of Mariah’s court.

He stood outside an unassuming brown door in the wing neighboring Mariah’s, desperately clawing for control of his racing heart and roiling stomach. With a shaky inhale, he twisted the unlocked handle and rushed inside.

He shot past the small kitchenette and quaint table he knew overflowed with clothes and jewelry, heading straight for the bed at the back of the room. Through the dim light filtering in from the open door, Sebastian could just make out Ciana’s sleeping shape, curly blonde hair strewn about her blush-colored sheets. Lunging to her side, Sebastian gripped her shoulders, gently squeezing and shaking, ignoring her soft skin beneath his calloused palms.

“Ciana,” he croaked, voice hoarse from his panic. He cleared it, trying again. “Ciana, wake up. Something has happened.”

Ciana twitched in his grip. “Go away,” she grumbled, shifting and burying her face deeper into her pillow.

Sebastian swore softly, giving her another shake. “Ciana,” he hissed, his panic leeching into his voice. He released her, reaching for the lamp beside her bed. He flipped the switch, washing the room with light before giving her another shake. “ Wake up .”

Finally, she roused herself from sleep, brushing off his hand as she rolled onto her back. When she cracked open her eyes, meeting his stare, she shot up, nearly knocking her forehead against his.

“Sebastian? What in Enfara are you doing here?” Her voice was groggy, but her amber eyes were sharp.

Sebastian stood from her bed, backing away a step. He tried to keep his gaze locked on hers, to not let it drop to the scoop of her low-cut maroon nightdress. As if she could read his thoughts, Ciana reached for her silk sheets, pulling them up around her chin.

“Sebastian?” she repeated, and Sebastian swallowed, trying to control the agony of what still raced through him.

“Something has happened,” he finally whispered. “To Mariah. We can’t find her.”

Ciana froze. Her hands released her sheet, the silk falling back around her hips. Her brow crinkled for a moment as if processing Sebastian’s words while shaking off the clutches of sleep.

Her eyes widened. “Last night, she told me that Andrian was going to bond with her. That he’d finally agreed to it and was planning something special. She was to meet him in one of the courtyards at the starlight hour.”

Sebastian was tired of taking these blows.

Andrian. Agreeing to take the bond. Immediately after a difficult meeting with his father and Lord Shawth. One that had sent him back to the city, leaving Mariah alone and in need of him.

The starlight hour, that last hour just before dawn, had just passed. It was the last chance to catch the moon and stars before they disappeared beneath the light of the sun. A glance out of Ciana’s window, which opened to the Bay of Nria, revealed the first rays of dawn spreading tendrils across the sky.

Sebastian truly worried, at that moment, that he might be sick. His failure coursed through him with each pounding beat of his heart, shredding him apart from the inside out.

“Get dressed,” he told Ciana. “We need to wake Delaynie. And then … we must find that courtyard.”

Ciana didn’t hesitate; she jumped out of bed and sprinted into her bathroom in search of her closet. Sebastian again did his best to avert his stare as she ran past him in that short nightdress, full thighs on display. His eyes lingered on her closed bathroom door for a long moment, savoring the blankness in his mind, when a clatter and a curse on the other side shattered his reprieve. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair, before stepping back into the hall, fingers tracing anxious patterns around the worn leather pommel of his sword.

His whole life, he’d been perfect. The perfect son, the perfect Marked trainee, the perfect soldier. The perfect Armature.

The perfect Armature … who had failed to keep track of his queen.

The perfect Armature who’d let something happen to her as he’d slept peacefully in his bed.

Crippling self-loathing and novel self-hatred reared up like a wave around him.

The door behind him opened just before it could crash down and sweep him away. Ciana stepped into the hall, glancing at him with a tempest in her amber eyes as she stormed across the hall and pounded her fist on the door.

“Delaynie!” she barked. She didn’t wait for a response before bursting through the door, the other girl’s yelp of surprise ringing into the hall.

And once again, Sebastian was left alone with his consuming, debilitating failure.

He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. No. He might’ve failed once, but letting these feelings crush him … it would only be failing again. Failing further. Something he simply couldn’t allow to happen.

They would find Mariah. There was simply no other option.

It wasn’t long before Delaynie’s door opened, and the two women strode into the hall.

Ciana’s eyes were hard and she wore a determined set to her brow. “I might know which courtyard.”

The silence in the hall was crushing and thick.

“Well?” Sebastian demanded, voice heavy with his impatience. “Which one?”

Ciana blinked. “One of the lower ones, by the stables. It has the best view of the stars. Mariah mentioned it last night, briefly. I think that’s where Andrian told her to meet.”

Sebastian’s stomach dropped. A part of him still refused to believe that Andrian—a man he’d known for most of his life, a man he truly considered a brother—had anything to do with this.

And yet …

And yet, that courtyard was closest to the stables. Closest to the palace exits. Closest to the easiest way to sneak in or out of the massive fortress.

Sebastian would know. They used to use the tunnel just below that courtyard all the time when they were young and stupid, used it to sneak away from their master-at-arms and into the market district for a night of idiotic frivolity.

Andrian used to use those tunnels, too.

Sebastian swallowed down the bile creeping up his throat. “Let’s go.”

They raced through the halls, winding down staircases and bursting through doors. They passed Quentin and Trefor on their way to the courtyard, who saw their urgent pace and fell into step behind them without a word.

The moment they emerged into the open air, with songbirds singing in the early dawn and the light of the rising sun filling the stone courtyard, all lingering hope fled Sebastian’s chest.

The courtyard was empty. Not a trace of Mariah or Andrian, or if a bonding had occurred there that night.

More footsteps rang out behind them, and Drystan and Feran hurried into the sunlight, followed closely by Matheo and Kalen. Sebastian turned to them all, chest heaving as he struggled to maintain his composure.

Struggled to fight back that rising tide of failure, mounting again around him. Inescapable, dauntless, and ruthless.

“Lock down the palace. Lock down the city. No one comes or goes through those gates without us knowing.” Sebastian met Drystan’s stare, knowing the golden-haired warrior would see it done.

A muscle twitched in Drystan’s jaw and he nodded before striding away, Feran and Matheo falling into step behind him.

Sebastian turned back to the courtyard, a dull buzzing filling his ears. He scanned the space, eyes snagging on something familiar.

There, concealed in the shadows, was that old trapdoor. With a shuddering breath, he stalked forward, knees threatening to buckle with each step. Lighter footsteps followed as Ciana moved with him, her beautiful golden features twisted and stricken.

Sebastian knelt beside the trapdoor. His fingers brushed across the floor, feeling for the expected signs of disuse—dust, dirt, rust.

That wasn’t what he found.

His fingers brushed against fresh cuts in the stone, the ground around it clean.

This door had been opened. Very recently.

The last bit of light in his chest he’d held onto so tightly slipped through his fingers, vanishing through that trapdoor and chasing after his missing queen. Betrayal took its place, sweeping up along with his failure.

After all, he’s the one who’d told her to trust Andrian, all those many weeks ago.

Sebastian turned to Ciana, meeting her wide-eyed stare with a blank one of his own.

“She’s gone,” he whispered. “Andrian, too. He—someone took her. She’s gone.”