Chapter 1

When the storm came, my knight chose another woman.

By the time he returned, my little brother was dead.

I will never forget his first choice.

I was oiling my husband's sword when I found it.

A dried white rose petal. Pressed flat into the lining of the leather sheath.

The kind Bianca always wore in her hair.

He walked in from the training yard then, sweat on his brow, and saw what I was holding.

"Court audience yesterday," he said, not missing a beat. "Royal Choir performed afterward. She handed it to me on the steps. I didn't want to be rude."

"Mm," I said. "It's fine."

I dropped the petal into the hearth and watched it curl into ash.

Lorenzo Castellani. My husband.

Knight Commander of the Sun Kingdom. Commander of every sword and lance under King Leo's banner.

They said the Crown Prince of Tide Kingdom would take a three-day detour just to avoid crossing his path.

A man like that had no shortage of women trailing perfume through his audience hall.

But only Bianca Conti could make him sit through an entire performance with a petal hidden in his sheath.

Later, on the battlefield, I threw myself between him and death.

I nearly bled out digging a Tide arrowhead from his chest.

By the time the healers arrived, I was the one slipping away.

But he was the one who shattered.

He knelt at my bedside and swore on his Knight Commander's blade.

"I, Lorenzo Castellani, swear by my sword. Outside the duties of the crown, I will never see Bianca Conti alone again."

That was five years ago.

He saw me turn back to the medicine chest. Watched me sort dried yarrow and willow bark like nothing had happened.

Something flickered behind his green eyes. He crossed the room in three strides and caught my wrist.

"Sera." His voice was too careful. "You're not going to say anything?"

I looked up at him.

At the man I had bled for. At the man who had promised me the world on the steps of King Leo's throne room.

I twisted my wrist out of his grip.

Once, I would have torn his audience hall apart over a single white petal.

Not tonight.

I picked up the willow bark and went back to work.

Lorenzo wasn't letting it go.

He stood behind me, voice pitched low.

"Sera. It was one petal."

I kept sorting.

"Bianca's father gave his life for me at Westmark Strait. Marco Conti took five arrows meant for my chest. She is the last of his blood. As Knight Commander, watching over her is my duty."

I closed the medicine chest. Set the willow bark on the shelf. Wiped my hands on my apron and went to fetch water from the well.

He followed me.

"What is this really about? Talk to me."

I drew the bucket. Carried it in. Washed my hands at the basin.

The herb stains under my nails wouldn't come out.

They never came out.

He hated my hands.

He had told me, once, after too much wine, that Bianca's hands were like fresh-peeled pearls.

Mine were too rough.

I dried my hands. Reached into the cedar drawer where I kept my work. Pulled out the bound manuscript I'd been writing for three months.

A hundred and sixty pages. Coastal herbs. Tide-poison antidotes. Field amputation procedures.

Things my old master had taught me with his last breath. Things I'd discovered on my own pulling soldiers back from the brink.

Last week, Master Klaus — the man who ran the Royal Academy of Healing — had ridden all the way from the capital to read it.

He'd turned the last page in silence.

Then he'd told me, eyes wet, that I was his pick.

It was the highest training a healer could receive in the Sun Kingdom. The dream of every coastal apothecary.

I had been twelve years old when I first heard the name Royal Academy.

I had whispered it into my pillow like a prayer.

I handed the manuscript to Lorenzo.

He flipped through it. Barely looked.

He set it on the corner of the table, on top of yesterday's correspondence.

"I'll have it forwarded when I have a free morning."

I didn't answer.

I went to the kitchen to start supper.

He didn't speak again until I set the bread down.

Then, very lightly: "There's only one apprentice spot."

The ladle paused over the soup.

"I know."

"Sera, you're already the best healer on this coast. You'll be respected here whether you go to the Academy or not."

I looked up.

"But Bianca," he said, "is different. Her health is failing. Dancing in the Royal Choir is killing her. The Academy is her only path out."

I set the ladle down.

"Her father took five arrows for me. I owe him that life until the day I die." A pause.

"So I submitted her application alongside yours."

The blood drained out of my hands.

"Lorenzo. Master Klaus told me, with his own mouth, that the spot was mine."

"Nobody promises anything in this life. Best candidate gets it." His voice hardened.

"And Bianca's record is stronger than yours. A martyr's daughter. Lead dancer of the Royal Choir. Her file's stronger than yours. Yours started in a fishing village."

He saw my face. Tried to soften.

"Don't be small about this, Sera. My stipend can keep you in silks for ten lifetimes. If you stay at the village clinic forever, no one will think less of you."

"But Bianca can't go back to the Choir. That world will eat her alive. The Academy is her only way out."

I didn't say anything.

I set down my spoon.

I couldn't eat another bite.

In bed that night, he huged for me from behind.

I pushed him away.

He went still.

"Now what?"

"I'm tired."

"Sera Russo." His voice cooled by ten degrees. "You're becoming difficult."

He rolled onto his back and faced the wall.

I lay in the dark with my eyes open.

The wind off the harbor rattled the shutters. Somewhere in the village, a dog was barking.

I thought about the first time I'd ever seen his face.

A boy of twenty-two, half-dead on a horse blanket, blood foaming at his lips.

He'd opened his eyes when I cut the leather of his cuirass.

Green eyes. The color of the sea after a storm.

He'd looked at me and tried to smile.

"Are you," he'd whispered, "the Healer?"

A month later, in the audience chamber, on his knees before King Leo, he'd taken my scarred hand in both of his.

"This hand," he had said to the entire court, "saved the Knight Commander of the Sun Kingdom. I will spend my life trying to deserve it."

I'd believed him.

What a fool I'd been.

That girl in the white silk gown — nineteen years old, the scar on her finger still pink — she had believed every word.

That girl, I realized, had been dying for a long time.

Tonight she was finally done.