Page 79 of The Crown’s Temptation

I touched the stone again.

She was not crying. She was not broken.

She was learning.

I watched her walk through libraries with the focused attention of someone memorizing rather than reading. Talking to servants in corridors. She would listen, catalogue. She won over healers with small gestures that cost her nothing and built something she needed. She moved through the palace like water, finding every crack, every gap, every person who was afraid of something and could therefore be trusted with something else.

Everyone underestimated her.

That was the advantage she had decided to use.

Orsin did not understand the amulet. That became clear as I watched her piece it together from fragments. Overheard conversations, documents she was not meant to read, questions asked sideways through people who thought they were answering something else.

He believed it opened Morrath. He believed one of his daughters would be the key because that was what the seers had promised him. He believed only he was strong enough to wield it.

He was wrong about all of it.

The amulet had been forged by the Sarens. Only the Sirens, their royal bloodline, could wield it safely. Anyone else who attempted it would die. The stronger the person, the faster the death.

But Orsin had never believed the power was out of his reach.

Alarnan queens had long been known for their connection to ancient wards. Their blood carried a unique ability to interact with the magic that protected kingdoms, and Orsin believed that through them he could create the daughter the seers had promised him.

That was why he sought Alarnan wives.

That was why he waited.

He believed that eventually one of his children would be powerful enough to wield Toritha’s amulet for him.

Orsin had been told this by mages who later died for telling him things he did not want to hear. After that, the people around him learned to tell him only what he wanted.

Ryaran learned the truth from the few mages who had survived his anger. The amulet could not be wielded by him, and it could not be forced open. So she created a duplicate with their help and let Orsin believe he had won. The real amulet was hidden, while the false one slowly weakened him every time he attempted to use it.

The amulet was not a weapon.

It was a warning.

I did not understand what that meant until I saw my mother in the library one day and learned what she had discovered.

Orsin sat on a throne that was never meant to be his.

What was now Yorali had once been Pearsal, a Sarenal kingdom. It had been peaceful, with no army, its people focused on farming and mining. Tearsar had been poor and barren, its people lacking magic.

So they stole it.

In the middle of the night, they slaughtered Pearsal until nothing remained except scattered creature communities. Those survivors were thrown into Morrath, where Orsin believed they could no longer threaten him and where he could still maintain some control.

After taking Pearsal, Orsin sent men into the mountains searching for survivors. Anyone found was brought to the Hall of Punishment and thrown into the pit.

On the day they slaughtered the last Saren, a message was left upon his throne.

When you least expect it, we will return. You will not be powerful enough. And you will pay in blood.

That was the beginning of Orsin’s paranoia.

Others had attempted to steal Saren territories before him. Each time, days later, those lands vanished behind impossible wards, sealed without a trace.

Gone were the opportunities to steal more magic. More wealth. More power.