The sky was beginning to darken over District Three, but no rain fell. Only a dry wind swept through the rubble and the hanging, half-broken metal planks. Amid the ruins, Xavier sat silently on the old concrete, gazing out at the remains of the world he had so nearly inherited.
Not as king.
But as a guardian of the bloodline.
He was young, twenty-five years old. But his body already carried a burden heavier than his years.
He was a nobody in the records of the current government. But if a single archive had escaped the burning ten years ago, and someone were able to open it, one name would be clearly visible.
Xavier Mavros. The son of General Elion Mavros and Lady Althea, the eldest daughter of the previous Emperor.
His mother, a dignified woman who chose to marry a soldier rather th
