Page 1 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

Part One

Chapter One

Sarielle

There are momentsin life when time halts and everything comes to a perfect, crystal point of clarity. Sometimes that clarity is overwhelming joy. Or a feeling of power. Or fear, making your heart race and your chest clench.

And then there are moments like this, when that sharp, blade-like clarity brings pain so stunning it feels like your heart has been shorn in two.

I stare at Zyren, my husband, my guardian, and I know that I caused this agony. It’s all my fault.

“Who are you?” he repeats, his deep voice taking on a dangerous tone since I didn’t answer him the first time.

Just moments before, I’d been filled with relief and elation. We’d escaped Avonia through the rift over the Court of Memory, and we’d survived the crash landing of my nightmare, who is stirring a few feet away, fluttering its massive black wings in the golden grass.

But Zyren doesn’t remember who I am.

AndIcaused this.

I knew the cost of his love, the curse, the madness that would claim him.

My voice sticks in my throat like the thick, dark dirt beneath my boots. “I’m yourwife, Zyren. You don’t recognize me?”

His eyes flare and he whips his gaze around, taking in Owyn, who stands a couple feet to my right, and our newfound companions, Zara and Asher, who stand farther off.

“I don’t recognize any of you,” he growls, the muscles in his jaw rolling.

With a lightning quick move, he rolls onto the balls of his feet, crouched as if ready to attack.

I take a step back and put up my hands in a placating gesture. “Zyren, it’s okay. We’re going to figure this out.”

He springs up, reaching around as if for a sword, which makes Zara and Asher go for their own. His warrior instincts are clearly still there, but he doesn’t remember that Avonia took his weapons.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Owyn asks, his voice calm and steady. He darts a glance over at the newcomers, as if a silent message for them to stay calm and not overreact. But they only met us five minutes ago, so it’s not as if we’ve earned their trust.

Zyren takes a few steps back, his pewter-colored eyes scanning over each of us. “I remember…” His eyes go distant a moment, clearly searching his memories. “I remember a white castle inthe mountains. And I remember a dark lake, and a boy in a boat…”

My eyes widen. He’s remembering his younger brother’s death, a very, very long time ago.

“Selaye,” I say, trying to distract him. “The white castle is probably Selaye. The Court of Nightmares.”

“The Court of Nightmares…” Zyren repeats, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

“Temporary memory loss is normal after head trauma,” Asher says, his voice calm and confident. “Just stay calm and you’ll start to remember.”

Zyren nods slowly and the manic craze starts to fade from his eyes. Some of the tension leaves his body. I suck in a deep lungful of air and let it out shakily.

That’s when Astherius, the nightmare standing behind him, makes a loud snuffling sound, sending a cloud of dust and grass across all of us.

Zyren’s eyes go black, his own inner nightmare clawing to the surface. He turns around slowly.

The beast is sitting up now, and she towers over us all, the size of a house. She’s covered in deep purple scales, scales the color of the night just before dawn. A mane of sharp spikes that look like black glass run down her neck and another line of them down her tail. Ice blue eyes narrow with malice, and she flares out her veiny, bat-like wings. A challenge.

I lift both hands and call on my magic, preparing to blast the creature as I had before forcing her to take us through the rift over the Court of Memory.

But Zyren beats me to it.

A pulse of shadows shoots across the meadow of golden grass. Day turns to night in the beat of a heart, midnight descending around us. And power bursts outward from Zyren’s outstretchedhands, knocking me off my feet. I slam into the earth, and everything falls away.

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