Elana was struggling her way through breakfast. She’d managed to nibble her way through half a scone and made a valiant effort to inject some life into herself with strong black tea. When that failed, she’d escalated to coffee imported from the Southern Kingdom. Neither made it any easier to keep her eyes open.

Conversation at the de Vanquise table was always minimal, even at mealtimes, but that morning was especially silent. It was proving a challenge to stay focused despite the obvious tension in the air.

It was rare that she managed to sleep through the night. She’d barely slept at all the previous night.

Her nightmares had always been bad, but these ones? Worse. She couldn’t remember the specifics, but she was certain she’d died at least fifty different ways by daybreak. It was an exceptionally shitty feat, even by Elana’s standards.

She blamed it on two things: 1) the sudden, unexplained shift in her mother’s behavior, and 2) on Soren interrupting her and foiling any hopes she had of overhearing something meaningful—like what had come in the damn post?

Elana masked a grimace behind the rim of her teacup. Coffee was too expensive and rare a resource to waste on something as trite as recovering from a poor night’s sleep. She was back on tea—for prudence and because she couldn’t tell whether nerves or caffeine were making her heart race.

She wanted to find a surreptitious way to ask if there had been any news from the day before that she should be aware of, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. No matter how she framed it, it would be too direct. And, ever the consummate noblewoman, her mother would deflect and change the subject, as she always did when things landed too close to home.

For better or worse, her father didn’t give her time to stew in those thoughts. His deep voice broke the silence.

“Elana.”

She jerked her head up and crumpled the napkin in her lap. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her father address her directly.

“Yes, Father?”

“Your summons from the Royal Magic Academy has arrived.” He was as stone-faced and impossible to read as ever, his trademark severity in full effect. “Your attendance will be mandated this year.”

Elana froze. “This year?”

But—there were only three months left until the year’s end. How was it possible that she was just now being told?

The summons wasn’t wholly unexpected—she’d known her whole life that it was coming—but it really came with this little notice? No ceremonial reveal, no pomp and circumstance, just two perfunctory sentences in the middle of breakfast?

She hadn’t even managed to convince the captain of the knights to give her combat instruction yet! She’d even bribed him several times, or attempted to, but she’d used the wrong angle. She’d only just recently learned better.

It had taken Elana weeks of persistence and, well, stalking, to learn that his sister was gravely ill. And if she could just manage to procure the right medicine, he would have to agree to train her. The family physician had provided no assistance on that front, but she had been digging through old apothecary texts for months, and she was so close to cracking it.

Was this another nightmare in-progress? It had to be.

She pinched herself.

It wasn’t.

Her father’s eyes, the same deep ocher as her own, narrowed as he looked at her, iron-faced. Elana glanced at the duchess, who was watching her with an equally hard expression. Neither of her parents betrayed any hint of what thoughts, if any, lay beneath the mask.

Elana wiped her palms on her dress, then swallowed. “When, exactly?”

Her mother answered that question. “You’ll begin in four weeks’ time,” she said, her voice clipped.

Weeks? But that was—that was absurd. Elana stared at a fixed point on the table. Four weeks was nothing.

“You’ll be taking the placement exam in three weeks,” her mother continued in the same clinically detached voice she used for Elana’s lessons. “Do you understand?”

“Marlena,” her father interrupted. He shot a warning look in his wife’s direction before turning his gaze and attention back over to Elana.

“Elana de Vanquise. Look at me.” His knuckles were white.

She didn’t know what to make of his tension—it could have been anything from disappointment to rage at how she was responding to it all.

“Is this something you feel prepared to undertake?” he asked.

Elana didn’t need to look to know what kind of face her mother was making. She could feel the pressure of her mother’s gaze. The woman had dedicated years to preparing Elana for exactly that kind of moment—and Elana knew what she was supposed to do.

“Yes,” she lied. She met her father’s gaze, lifting her chin. “Of course I do, Your Grace.”

“You’re ready?” he asked, pushing harder this time. He was studying Elana so intently that she thought he might see right through her.

Her mother cleared her throat, but her father’s gaze didn’t waver. It stayed locked on her own, his lips pressed into a thin line of tension.

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me with confidence that you are?” he asked.

What did he want from her? Did he want a different answer—or was this maybe some sort of test?

She glanced in her mother’s direction, looking for some sort of hint or direction. There wasn’t one.

Elana’s jaw tightened. Was she prepared? She felt a flare of irritation. What kind of question was that supposed to be? It wasn’t as if she had an alternative.

She forced herself to meet her father’s gaze with an unflinching certainty that she didn’t feel. Of the many things her mother had taught her over the years, the importance of hiding her weaknesses and presenting a strong front was the most significant.

Her past lesson echoed in Elana’s ears, “The mind is lazy, Elana. It will always interpret the absence of weakness as strength.”

“I do, Your Grace,” Elana lied again.

Her hands balled into fists beneath the table. Her nails carved neat crescents into the meat of her palms.

Had Tobias, Brienne, Marcella, Rhys, Dion, or even Antoine felt prepared? What did he expect from her if even they—

Something hit the grand dining room’s doors with a bang. By the time Elana registered where it had come from, her parents were already on their feet with half-formed spells in hand.

The air was heavy with her father’s magic, a thick, oppressive, and terrifying presence that threatened to choke all the oxygen out of the room. A maelstrom of dark energy swirled in the palm of his hand, a whirling, crackling sphere of jagged lightning and destruction.

If Elana hadn’t been so accustomed to the tangible pressure it created, the force would have been enough to send her into a cold sweat and wipe her mind blank with fear.

With a single snap of her mother’s fingers, the harmless potted plants lining the windowsills exploded into a monstrosity of thick, thorny vines. They formed an immediate barrier between the family and whoever—or whatever—was on the other side of that door.

Elana relaxed into her chair. She didn’t need to get to her feet, let alone scramble for a way to protect herself. It was as routine an event as any in the de Vanquise estate. She couldn’t begin to count how many times had their meals been interrupted by assassination attempts.

And, in all those times, she had yet to witness a threat that the duke and duchess couldn’t decimate in the blink of an eye.

Elana lifted her teacup back to her lips, taking the opportunity to compose herself.

For as jarring as the initial interruption had been, she was thankful for the momentary reprieve. If she was lucky, her father would be too distracted to resume his aggressive line of questioning after the intruder was dealt with. Based on past experience, her moment of respite would last no longer than a handful of minutes.

Loath as they were to allow her any combat training, both of her parents were skilled fighters.

Elana peered through her mother’s barrier as the grand mahogany double doors swung open with enough vigor to slam against the walls. Paintings rattled and teetered precariously. At the far side of the room, a mirror fell and shattered.

A woman that Elana had never seen before stood in the doorway. A knight’s limp body dangled from her left hand, and her teeth were bared in a vicious snarl. The deep crimson and carmine of her eyes and hair put the blood smeared across her face to shame, and there was a glint in her eyes that made her look not entirely sane.

In fact, nothing about her did.

Elana had yet to see anyone or anything capable of standing up to her parents, but there was something deeply unsettling about the intruder. A chill that only her parents had ever been able to inspire crept up her spine. Should she have taken the interruption more seriously?

The stranger’s face was as beautiful and delicate as any noblewoman’s, and it was bisected laterally and vertically with deeply etched, razor-straight scars that no court woman would ever possess. The right side of her body, visible beneath her sleeves and above her collar, was covered in a network of white burn scars.

In her right hand was a broadsword that didn’t match her physique. Those were usually reserved from the burliest of knights who, even then, needed both hands to lift them.

This stranger was average—just average—in build and stature. There was no reason that she should’ve been capable of wielding that weapon. Nor was there any indication that she should’ve been strong enough to lift a grown man’s body in one hand, let alone a knight in full armor.

“Down, Valkyrie,” someone commanded, including a strong undercurrent of exasperation.

The stranger immediately dropped the knight’s unconscious body.

“It can’t be…” her father said under his breath.

His expression darkened as he looked past the wild-eyed, blood-spattered intruder.

And yet, instead of moving into action, both of her parents stood, rooted in place. The wards designed to keep outsiders off of the premises either hadn’t reacted, or the intruders had broken through them. That shouldn’t have been possible when they’d been cast by her father. The intruder would have had to pass five layers of wards to make it that deep into the estate.

Something was off.

Elana heard the second stranger approaching long before he entered her line of sight. The sound of his boots hitting the tile floors in the hallway grew louder and louder. By the time he stepped into the dining room, Elana’s palms were slick with sweat.

At the sight of the newcomer, her mother gasped into her hands, and her thorned barrier instantly collapsed.