Brigette stood in the center of the chamber room of the Privy Council. She was dressed head to toe in Ellison blue and silver. Her hair was dark in a tight twist, and her tan skin glowed from whatever cosmetics had been administered to her. She looked ethereal, regal, cunning, manipulative, elegant…a queen.

“I, Brigette Ellison, Bride of the Sea, have come to reclaim my throne,” she said with a powerful lilt in her voice.

The Privy Council was assembled before her, and they all began to speak at once.

Dean felt like a pompous prick behind her in Eleysian silks and his prize captain’s sword, but he knew that Brigette wanted them to make an appearance. They’d spent the last week shoring up alliances, and this was the final test. This was her official claim to the throne.

Darmian nodded at him as the whispers grew. He’d already said that he wasn’t worried about this meeting. Brigette was the rightful ruler of Eleysia. And that was that.

Unfortunately, Dean understood politics too well to be as confident as him. Already, the Anders and Mayhews were jostling for position. Their choice brats—Cassia Anders and Teena Mayhew—stood and glared down at Brigette.

They believed Brigette an imposter with a false crown. Apparently, Dean was to blame for most of it. He had apparently found some choice girl in the street who looked like his sister and made her be queen, as if the very idea wasn’t outrageous…and treason.

“Enough,” Brigette said with the simple composure of a ruler. “We have more important things to discuss than my throne. The matter is settled. We need to consider the real threat—Byern.”

“I call for a vote of no confidence,” Cassia Anders spat.

“I second the motion,” Teena Mayhew called out.

“I…we,” Cassia amended, “do not believe you are the rightful ruler of Eleysia. Even if you are Brigette Ellison, your time is over. You allowed the destruction of our most sacred capital. We no longer wish you to be our queen.”

The Privy Council erupted in outrage. Dean watched everything they had worked for spiral out of control. They had known this was a possibility, but to actually have those words uttered to Brigette’s face…it was repulsive.

Eventually, a vote was called.

Dean held his breath. He had never heard of such a vote actually taking place against a sovereign. If she lost, she would have to fight for her throne alongside these imbeciles. Creator only knew how long that would take to achieve. By then, Byern and Kael Dremylon’s magic could destroy the world.

The vote went around the room. One by one, a man or woman raised or lowered their hand for Brigette.

And, when it was all said and done…she lost.

“The Privy Council will reconvene tomorrow morning to discuss the proceedings to choose a new queen for Eleysia,” Nobleman Aurthur Anders, head of the Privy Council, said.

His eyes were glittering with delight at the possibilities. But Brigette didn’t waver. She didn’t storm out of there in anger. She nobly inclined her head and then swept from the room. She didn’t say a word as she walked out of the Chamber Room or the whole ride to their new residence. Thankfully, they wouldn’t be living in squalor any longer now that Brigette had officially announced herself.

But, once they were back in their quarters, she buried her head in a pillow and screamed at the top of her lungs. Dean couldn’t help but laugh. Not at the situation because it was shit. There was no other word for it. But, seeing his sister act like his sister, it lightened something in him, if only briefly.

“It’ll be fine, Brigette,” Dean told her. “You’ll have the people behind you, and that will be the way to win this. You know that Cassia and Teena don’t hold a candle to you.”

Brigette looked up at him and nodded. “I know, but I didn’t want it to go this way. With Aurthur head of the Privy Council, Cassia is bound to be a favorite as well. This will be a fight for my life. And…I just wish Mother and Father were here.”

“Me, too,” he said softly.

It was the first time Brigette had said anything remotely related to grief in the time that they’d been together. She was all business. But, now that her throne was on the line, there were cracks in her armor.

“And Susann and Karin and Lissa, Lara, Livia, and Ruthe and Hether, Therese and Tifani…even Alise,” she said with a harsh laugh. “I miss them all. All our sisters.”

“I know. I miss them every second. How could there be so many of us, and now, there are only two?”

Brigette shook her head. “Unfathomable.”

They sat in silence. Both feeling the deep loss of nearly their entire family. To have once been so prosperous that the Ellisons had had eleven subsequent daughters in line…to just Brigette. It was devastating. And Dean knew that she would have to think about marrying right away to secure her throne.

“We’re going to need something more than us to win,” she muttered. “We’re going to need so much more to go up against Byern. And I honestly don’t know what it is.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Will we? Because, from where I’m sitting, I don’t see what can do it.”

Dean frowned and glanced away from her penetrating stare. He knew exactly what could turn the tide for them. What could make them the victors.

Byern couldn’t go unpunished, but if he had to face what he had seen in the Mirror to enact his justice, then so be it.

“Get some rest. I know you haven’t been sleeping. We’ll figure it out,” Dean told her before disappearing from her room.

He moved into the adjoining bedroom where Darmian was standing like a sentinel, awaiting him. His bodyguard from a young age and now best friend. Dean had always been adventurous as a child, and instead of keeping him from his mischief, his parents assigned someone to make sure he would come back in one piece. Now, Darmian was the closest thing he had to a brother.

“You are planning something foolish,” Darmian said once Dean closed the door.

Dean grinned. “How can you tell?”

“I’ve been wondering when you would admit it. You’ve had the look about you since you arrived.”

“I have to leave this place. There is something I need to do for us to win this war.”

“You wish to leave your sister now? She’s facing the entire Privy Council. She is going up in a queens war! She needs you.”

“I know,” he said guiltily, “but she will win with or without me. I am sure of it. It doesn’t change the necessity of what I must do.”

“And that is?”

Dean sighed. “I can’t tell you. Promise to take care of her?”

Darmian held out his hand, and they shook. “Promise to take care of yourself.”

They both knew that he wouldn’t.

Leaving Brigette in the position she was in without even a good-bye was heartbreaking. Dean knew that she would be upset. He knew that she needed him. He knew that she would see it as another loss. He only hoped he could prove her wrong.

Because, when he had made the grave mistake of looking into the Mirror of Truth in Aonia, he’d gotten more than he bargained for. His brain still felt addled, as if someone had shaken his insides until they were out of order.

He was a good enough actor to pretend like he was completely in his right mind, but sometimes, it would explode out of him. Witnessing the massacre of his homeland was bad enough. Seeing Kael’s and Edric’s gleeful faces as they killed thousands and left his beautiful home a wasteland was enough to make anyone crazy.

But it was more than that.

It was more than death and destruction that fueled him now.

That brought him to this moment.

That had driven him out of Rasine, past the now destroyed capital, and to the pirate hold of Ika Roa. The island was overgrown with vegetation. Palm fronds and coconuts littered the white sandy beaches. Gulls squawked overhead. No one would guess that the place had once been inhabited by a fierce warrior nation. No one would guess that anyone at all lived here.

The pirates themselves stuck to the eastern cove where treasure was rumored to be buried, but even the pirates didn’t venture into the forest. Even pirates feared what had happened to the residents and anyone who chose to claim it as its own.

Dean knew the consequences. He had seen innumerable years of history of this island. All the faces of the people who had come here and died. He followed the track branded into his mind, slicing through undergrowth and clearing his own path through to the center of the island.

The forest crowded in around him, blocking his way back, as if to say he had already sealed his fate. He belonged to the island now. Not the other way around.

Then, he reached it.

The heart of Ika Roa.

A pool of glittering water with three sea nymphs swimming, undisturbed, at its center. Each as gold as the sun shimmering overhead with glitter in their hair and stars sparkling in their eyes.

“A boy!” the first squealed.

“So long since we’ve seen a boy,” the second one said.

“I do like the looks of this one,” the third one said.

Dean bowed low with deep respect for each of these creatures. “I do not come to claim but only to pass through.”

“You can pass for a kiss,” the first said with a sly grin. “One for each of us is our price.”

“My heart belongs to another. She claimed it long ago and will claim it forever more. A kiss is a price I cannot pay.”

“Honorable,” the second said, slithering to the other side of her sister.

“How will you cross without a heart?” the third asked with a giggle.

“I will know that she holds it in safekeeping and trust that it will bring me back to her.”

“Your heart then,” the third said, holding out her hand. “If she is to keep it safe for you, then that is our price.”

Dean faltered. “And will you give it back when I return?”

“If you return,” the second said, “yes.”

“Deal.”

Dean knelt at the bank of the pond and watched in horror as the first thrust her hand into his chest and removed his beating heart. He clutched his chest, expecting to keel over and die, but nothing happened. He was still functional. He could still move. But, in truth, his heart was to be guarded while he was away.

“Only one worthy of crossing could survive this,” the first said. “Sisters.”

The girls swam to the middle of the pool, grasped hands, and then, suddenly, miraculously, a bridge materialized before him.

The bridge of legend.

The bridge, once crossed, could transform him into something more…something better…something earned.

Or it could kill him.

Only time would tell if it was worth it.

He set his feet on the edge of the bridge and slowly walked across it. When he reached the other side, his body squeezed, as if being stuffed into a small box, and then he was through and in a whole new world.