Lyra’s POV
It had been two days since I last saw Nortman. Two days since, they’d dropped me into that boiling water and everything had changed. My body still felt foreign, like it had been altered in ways I couldn’t fully understand. The men who had bowed before me spoke in riddles, in that ancient language I was still struggling to comprehend. Every time I tried to ask questions, they simply responded with reverence, calling me their queen.
A queen? Me? It didn’t make sense. None of this did.
I knew one thing, though: I was still a prisoner here.
The room they had placed me in wasn’t much of a cell. There was a bed, a table, and even a small window that let in a faint breeze, but the door was always locked. I was allowed to walk in the garden during the day, escorted by guards who
