Page 80 of The Crown’s Temptation

Then Orsin learned Queen Toritha had left behind two children when she sealed Sarenal away.

And an amulet capable of opening those wards for her son.

Years passed. Daughter after daughter failed to awaken what he needed.

The seers had been wrong. Or perhaps Orsin had misunderstood them. Either way, he became desperate. The power he had spent his life chasing was still beyond his reach, and the people he had destroyed could return at any time.

So he turned to the source.

He began searching for Saren children.

The next memory stone began with running.

My mother was pregnant, carrying two small children through terrain that wanted to kill them. They were young, terrified, and silent because someone had told them not to make a sound, and they trusted her enough to listen.

No map.

No magic left.

The King of Yorali’s Deathmages behind her.

Orsin had discovered the truth. His daughters were not the key. The amulet required Saren blood, and he had grown desperate enough to take children from beneath the surface and test it himself.

He used deathmage magic to hide them and sent one message.

Reveal your location, and I will reveal your children.

My mother did not hesitate.

She had been raised as Queen Heir of Alarna. She knew the old passages. She knew the treaties. She knew where to look.

She found them.

She carried them home through a land filled with Deathmages, pregnant and without magic, guided only by what the children remembered of their home.

When she reached the entrance to the Saren city beneath Gyarin, she was barely standing.

Queen Toritha came herself.

She looked at my mother. At the children. At the woman who had risked everything for people who were not her own.

Then she bowed.

For centuries, others had watched the Sarens suffer and done nothing.

Ryaran of Alarna had walked into the middle of it and walked back out carrying proof that someone had finally chosen them.

The vow she made was old and specific.

The Sarens would protect Ryaran’s child in times of war, strife, or revenge.

Whatever came.

Hours later, exhausted and barely alive, my mother went into labor.

I arrived not breathing.

The Saren healers worked without panic. The Queen stayed beside her.