SIGNED The Second Ruler: Part One - The Stars and Green Magics Book 6 (Paperback)

A BATTLE FOR POWER.
A FIGHT FOR THE HEART.

Dressa wanted to protect her wife from her monstrous past, but that past came back to haunt them both.

Imorie wanted to save the man they love, and now they're on their way into the heart of the enemy.

Iata wanted everything, but it was never his to have.

And Rhys wanted to matter, to mean something to their kingdom, but not in this way. Adeius, not in this way.

Enemies are stepping from the shadows, and the kingdom is poised on the edge. Can the Truthspoken be the change to see them all through?

NOTE: I was halfway through writing The Second Ruler when I realized it was going to be around 1000 pages or more. That's a lot of story! So to get you the story sooner, I’m breaking this story arc into three books: The Second Ruler: Part One, The Second Ruler: Part Two, and The Second Ruler: Part Three. Each book is novel-length on its own, but is a part of the greater story arc.

“A coup doesn’t have to be loud and flashy and violent to be successful. The most successful coups are the ones the public won’t ever know about.”

—Mimaraken Edar in Ten Business Principles Learned from the High Houses

The incubator hummed softly on the genetics lab counter, nearly silent, all lights green. Dressa stood over it, staring down at the smooth metal and plastic casing, the holos showing the status—the embryo was still, so far, viable.

Dressa was going to be married in less than three hours, publicly and officially. She was, already, confirmed as the ruler, Ceorre making emergency dispensation to eliminate the usual ten days for a bid to rule to be challenged. She had no challengers.

Not publicly, at least. Yroikan didn’t need to challenge her bid to rule—Yroikan had already won.

Dressa hesitated, then set the incubator to travel mode. The hum increased as a white light flashed for her to wait, then the incubator settled again, its power source stable.

Carefully, Dressa lifted it up, cradling its bulk against her. Cradling what was going to be her child, not her wife’s. Her one chance to possibly—somehow—get the kingdom out from under Yroikan’s influence. Though she didn’t yet know how. And that future seemed far too distant and vague.

But this would be her child regardless. She was going to be married in three hours, and she needed to do this now, she needed this incubator away from Prince Yroikan and any influence or pressure Yroikan could bring to bear. Because this would be Dressa’s own non-Javieri heir.

If Yroikan had already known about this future child, wouldn’t she have said something? Thrown it in Dressa’s face, used it to sabotage her fragile relationship with her wife?

Dressa couldn’t chance any of it. And she had to hope, but had to plan.

Slowly, making sure not to jostle it—even though it had nearly space-grade armor in the outer casing and motion dampeners inside—Dressa carried the incubator out through the back corridors and down beneath the courtyard of the palace to the Adeium.

She didn’t stop there. Dressa went under Ceorre’s private residence and up the narrow flight of stairs into Ceorre’s second bedroom.

And there—there, she carefully set the unit on the chest of drawers, flicked it back on to ambient energy power, and held her breath as she checked the readouts.

Fine. They were all fine.

Dressa heard movement in the hall outside the room and spun.

Ceorre stepped inside, frowning, eyeing the incubator humming on her guest chest before she looked back to Dressa. Ceorre was only partially dressed for the morning, snapping her cuffs shut for the gray undershirt to her ceremonial robes. She didn’t say Dressa should have called, though. Yroikan knew far too much for comms to be safe.

Ceorre nodded at the incubator. “This is your embryo.” She approached the incubator. Peered at the small holo displays hovering over the lid.

“Did you know?” Dressa asked.

“Yes. Iata told me.” She gave Dressa a hard look. “You’re the Ialorius. This child will be one of your heirs, whether you acknowledge them as your heir or as your heir’s bloodservant. Or if you choose to raise them apart from the capital altogether—though that might be more dangerous than keeping them close. Here, at least, you still have influence. But you can’t acknowledge them publicly as your heir if you intend to stay married to Lesander. At least, in a marriage you both want.”

Dressa’s throat tightened. She knew that. She did know that. She might lose her wife if Lesander found out about this, despite Haneri’s opinion that Lesander would understand. Would Dressa understand this monumental breach of loyalty if their positions were reversed?

She’d begun to rebuild a fragile trust with Lesander. Grown even more important as Lesander’s mother had quietly stolen the kingdom.

Dressa hadn’t, though, been able to bring herself to stop the embryo. And now she was here, protecting it in the only place left in the palace complex that might be safe.

And Iata wouldn’t be here to support her in this. Her mother wouldn’t, either, and Dressa hadn’t thought that would bother her as much as it did.

Dressa bit her lip, her eyes burning. She reached for Change to smooth the tears away—but Ceorre reached for her, pulled her into a tight, almost desperate, hug. Ceorre was as rattled by all of this as she was, unflappable Truthspeaker Ceorre.

Dressa let go a sob, just one. And then she pulled herself the fuck together, because she was about to get married in public to the woman she loved, and she had to rule this kingdom.

She had to. Whether Yroikan really pulled the strings or not, someone had to keep this crumbling kingdom together.

With Yroikan’s warnings about the Kidaa, and the reports and a letter from Rhys at the border that had come in the night before—oh Adeius, she had to hold this kingdom together.

“I’m with you,” Ceorre said. “We will find a way to cut out Yroikan—your father and Iata and I, we all did that before with the last tyrant who tried to take over the kingdom. You are Truthspoken, and I’m the Truthspeaker. Yroikan will not succeed.”

Dressa reabsorbed the tears back into her eyes and leaned into view of the wall mirror to make sure she hadn’t smudged any of her makeup. She hadn’t yet dressed for the wedding, but her hair and makeup were already done.

“Yroikan has already succeeded,” Dressa said, turning back to Ceorre. “Lesander’s terrified of her. I’m terrified of her. She’s so cold, everything is so calculated—Adeius, even my father cares about the people around him, and he’s—he can be such a—but Yroikan doesn’t care for anyone but Yroikan.”

If Yroikan thought right now that her needs were best served by Lesander being dead, Lesander would be dead, Dressa was sure of it. No matter that Lesander was her daughter.

Dressa shuddered at the horror of that thought, remembering Yroikan’s cold blue eyes regarding her while she was restrained to her chair in the city.

“No one is ever unbeatable,” Ceorre said softly, her eyes narrowing, a dozen subtle signs of her rage. “No one. Aduwel Shin Merna learned that. Vatrin Rhialden learned that. Yroikan will learn it, too.”

And Ceorre in a quiet rage was something to give anyone pause.

Dressa shook her head. “Iata took her biggest blackmail away from her, but it still ruined him. Yroikan will spill everything else, everything she knows, if I’m not doing what she wants. And she’ll do it in a way that she still gets what she wants, even if it comes out she trained her daughter as a Truthspoken. She’ll spin that in her favor. She’ll destroy you, Ceorre, if you try to stand against her.”

Ceorre’s stare was deadly earnest. “Do everything you can. Thwart her in subtle ways, bide your time. We’ll both pray there is time before whatever is happening with the Kidaa explodes—yes, I did get your messages relayed last night. That’s urgent, but there’s little we can do at this moment, and it will have to wait until after the wedding.”

Dressa nodded. Agreed. Rhys’s urgent plea was high in her thoughts, but she needed all of herself directed toward this wedding right now, because Yroikan would be there. Of course Yroikan would be there, right behind her daughter as they got married.

“We will weather this, Dressa,” Ceorre said. “We will. There’ve been attempted coups, a few that succeeded for a short time, but ultimately the Rhialdens have ruled for centuries in an unbroken line. That will not end now.”

%%Check this?

But had they? Dressa had been thinking on that ever since Lesander had confessed what her mother had originally wanted her to do—what her mother might still want her to do. What Lesander probably was supposed to have done when she’d been activated.

Kill the Heir. Replace her. Rule the kingdom.

It couldn’t be a new idea. There were far too many assassination attempts on every Rhialden ruler and Truthspoken across centuries for some plot not to have succeeded along the way—was she even Rhialden at all? She’d trained her features since childhood into matching up with the Rhialden signature features, but was that really her own genetics?

Her own birth genetic appearance wasn’t so far from her assumed appearance, but the problem was, anyone who’d Changed to Rhialden DNA throughout every part of their body would have a Rhialden child. And even then, anyone who’d successfully replaced a ruler would of course change the official Rhialden genetic records to match the new paradigm. No one would know. Absolutely no one would know.

She closed her eyes. Breathed. Breathed again.

“Ialorius,” Ceorre said, and Dressa almost shivered at the title. Iata had given her that title, that style of rule, and she agreed. Fluidity and change, never relying on the static, assessing and adapting in the moment. It was who she was, where she was strongest. It was what the kingdom needed.

Dressa glanced again at the incubator, touched its warm surface, one more reassurance. It was humming softly again, all lights green.

“Keep the incubator safe,” she said. “From Yroikan.”

“As safe as I’m able,” Ceorre said, a grim acknowledgement that the balance of power in the palace had drastically changed, if even the Truthspeaker’s personal residence wasn’t untouchable from her enemies.

Ceorre squeezed her shoulder. “Go to your wife. Go get ready. Lesander is volatile right now—keep her on your side. Do not let her fall back under her mother’s influence.”

Dressa didn’t think that was possible, from the twenty minutes of pure hatred she’d listened to Lesander venting when they’d awakened that morning.

But fear could make people do a lot of things.

And Dressa was lying to her wife now, having told her she had an early meeting before she’d come back and they’d dress for the public wedding.

Fear could make Dressa hide a future child from her wife and her wife’s family.

Or did she dare to call that wisdom?

Dressa smoothed out the pleats of her knee-length skirt. “I’ll have to tell the tech I moved the unit.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ceorre said. “I’ll do that now. I’ll make it a religious order. You—go make sure your rule starts on as stable a footing as you can. We are not giving up, Dressa. Not even for a moment.”

Dressa met Ceorre’s sharp gaze, intense dark eyes in her dark brown face, her steel-gray hair fraying outside her hasty bun. Ceorre still had to get ready.

And so did Dressa.

So she gathered herself. Shoulders back, head high.

Like an Ialorius should be.

Oh, Adeius.