The crack appeared just before dawn.
Kaelira was standing alone on the eastern balcony, watching the first rays of sunlight creep over the mountains, when she heard it.
Crack.
A tiny sound.
So soft she almost mistook it for a bird breaking a twig.
She frowned and looked around.
Nothing.
Then she heard it again.
Crack.
This time, it came from above her.
Her hand instinctively rose to the Blood Sovereign’s crown resting on her head.
The silver metal felt strangely warm.
She slowly removed it.
A thin fracture stretched across one side of the ancient crown.
Her breath caught.
“No…”
It had survived a thousand years.
Wars.
Betrayals.
Fire.
Time itself.
Yet now…
It was breaking.
Within the hour, the palace’s greatest blacksmiths, priests, historians, and royal scholars gath
