Prologue: The Year of Ash

In the histories of the Kingdom of Maeris, that year is called the Year of Ash.

On the night of the eclipse that comes once in a thousand years, Melaira, the Shadow Queen, stood in the ruins of the Temple of the Sunken Moon, her shadow spreading beneath her feet like a sea without end. Stardust was tangled in her black hair, and at her fingertips gathered a dark tide strong enough to swallow the whole of the capital. She turned and smiled at the young general behind her.

"Caeann," she said, "do you truly believe that if you burn me, fire will belong to the crown forever?"

The young general did not answer. He raised his flame.

That night, the Shadow Queen's blood soaked the temple's white stone. Her shadow did not die. It sank into the earth and became a curse and a legend that spread across a hundred years. The victors sealed magic away with her ashes and laid down an iron law:

Mortals shall not touch the shadow.

Fire was kept, and tamed, and enshrined in the blood of the royal line. Thus rose the Ashfall dynasty. And that single word—"Caeann"—stuck like a splinter in the royal bloodline, passed down for a hundred years, with no one knowing what it meant. Until, one day, a maid whose hands were black with coal dust heard her own shadow speak for the first time, by the washbasin in the palace kitchens.