Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,1
who patiently filled in my gaps of understanding. My younger brother, Devorian, had been coached to take the crown while my sisters and I learned etiquette, languages, and, of course, elicromancy. As queen, I was forced to countervail my years of deficient governing studies with tireless initiative.
“I’ll sign a decree guaranteeing that I will not raise the tolls for a decade,” I said. “We’ll have a ceremony in one of your towns.”
“A bold idea, Your Majesty,” Hubert said. “But it doesn’t solve the immediate problem that many poor Volarians cannot afford food.”
A blush of embarrassment bloomed behind my cheeks. In moments like these, I missed my old life—but not sprawling in the lap of opulence and reveling in a lack of responsibilities. Instead, strangely, I longed for my time trudging through the wilderness, scared, hungry, thirsty, sore, and wounded, but driven by a singular purpose.
The quest had been arduous, but with only one goal: deliver Valory Braiosa to the Moth King’s court so that she could kill him before he destroyed Nissera.
The upheaval that necessitated the quest had happened so swiftly that I’d barely had time to second-guess my decision to join.
First, Valory had touched the Water—the ancient source of elicrin magic hidden deep in the woods—without permission from the Conclave. But unlike others who had tried before her, she did not die. Nor did she receive an elicrin stone, which would have bestowed upon her a magical gift. Instead, she had dried up the Water and gained a destructive power that looked nothing like elicromancy.
Meanwhile, my brother Devorian had come into possession of a pearl tablet inscribed with an arcane “awakening” spell written in an ancient, forgotten language. Though Devorian was an Omnilingual, the language was so strange that even he struggled to make sense of the spell. He convinced himself it would have the capacity to resurrect our parents from the dead.
Instead, it raised Emlyn Valmarys, an elicromancer tyrant from a dark age in history. He had been kept dormant for centuries when no one—not even an alliance of elicromancers, fay, and sea folk—could defeat him. His power allowed him to take other elicromancers’ gifts for his own or lend them to his servants. He was invincible until the three groups devised a way to trap him in his mountain lair and keep him dormant using a contract engraved on the tablet.
A group of mortals called the Summoners had given Devorian the tablet to decipher without telling him what it would do. They wanted to resurrect Emlyn Valmarys so that he would offer them a reward of magic and immortality. Devorian was a foolish pawn who unwittingly did their bidding by speaking the spell on the tablet.
Valory accidentally cursed Devorian with a beastly form for his recklessness, demonstrating that her power could do more than just destroy. Then she crossed paths with Mercer, a Prophet from an earlier time. Mercer told her that Valmarys, whom he called the Moth King due to the tyrant’s sigil, did not hold the power to give and take elicrin gifts on his own. Mercer’s brother, Tilmorn, had; Tilmorn was a Purveyor, and the Moth King had taken him captive long ago. Now the Moth King was using Tilmorn’s power to conquer the mountain fortress city of Darmeska and unleash havoc on the realm.
Mercer felt certain that Valory would be the one to defeat the risen tyrant at last, given her strange and unrivaled power. Thus we set out, the Moth King’s servants hunting us while we hunted him. And as we fought, the Realm Alliance unraveled. The Moth King’s servants captured and murdered many of its members, but spared Valory’s family, who had joined forces with the Summoners in order to sow political chaos and make their own magical laws. My family had fallen under Valmarys’s influence as well. Ambrosine and Uncle Mathis let the Moth King win them over with fine gifts, leading to crisis when they began overtaxing the kingdom to support the new heights of their lavish lifestyle.
Every corner of Nissera seemed to be caving in on itself. Yorth fell to plague, Volarre fell to greed, and Calgoran fell to corruption.
But we managed to deliver Valory to the Moth King’s tower in Darmeska. While we battled his servants, she faced the tyrant himself. She stole his power and freed Tilmorn. And in the midst of the fight, she realized that the Water had given her more than just a gift for destruction and transformation—it had given her itself. The