On the night she expected to be crowned, Princess Elara discovers what her devotion bought. Leon, the man she armed, funded and loved, drives a dagger into her heart and names her half-sister Lyra as his only queen; Lyra drinks the red dragon blood from the wound and leaves her dying on the floor. Elara opens her eyes on the morning of her husband-selection ceremony, with the memory of the blade still sharp. She crushes the Black Panther token and chooses the White Wolf Bone Token instead, binding herself to Valerius, the northern lord the court calls a butcher. In her first life he was the only man who died trying to reach her. Leon and Lyra scheme to shame her, the Black Panther duke plots treason, and the northern wall is blown open to bury her under an army of wights. Elara answers with dragonfire, debts and a treason letter, while Valerius swears a blood oath that puts his life in her hands. When she falls into a magma abyss, the realm believes her gone for good.
