Prologue—The Rebel Queen

Once my people were free. We made our own laws, living for what was good and true. Evil was far from our borders.

Then the Naxiens came, and we soon found that the freedom we had loved was hostage to a price.

****

I watch from the shadows. Every year four are selected. Every year four die.

“No!” the woman shrieks as a guard holds her back and her child, a daughter of thirteen, is ripped away from her. “You can’t do this!”

. . .