CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

THE ASHEN COURT

ANIKA VALERION

The dream began in a different way from the others. It was the High Chamber.

I sat on the Sovereign’s throne, the regal gown pooled around my legs, the twin seat empty beside me. Power moved restlessly under my skin, rising and falling in waves I could not fully command.

It crackled, answering emotions I had not given permission to surface.

In the center of the chamber, my mother was on her knees.

Meridian.

Not the smiling woman from the old scroll I had found. Not the hostile figure from earlier nightmares that whispered how I shouldn’t be alive.

This version of her...