Princess Aella and her best friend become the kingdom&rsquo;s most-wanted fugitives in the much-anticipated epic romantasy sequel to <Songbird of the Sorrows<&mdash;featuring dual perspectives, ride-or-die friendships, found family, unlikely alliances, and two slow-burn romantic arcs.

<Songbird. Traitor. Runaway. Heroine.<

Aella is on the run.&nbsp;After a life of being trained to follow orders, she finally defied them when the true purpose of the Aviary&rsquo;s mission in Eretria was revealed.&nbsp;Still reeling from her lover&rsquo;s betrayal&nbsp;and&nbsp;Prince Keres&rsquo;s deadly trials&mdash;and&nbsp;now abducted by the very person she risked everything to save&mdash;Aella is branded a traitor and has no choice but to flee&nbsp;across the Emyprieos&nbsp;with only her secrets and the silver-eyed stranger by her side.&nbsp;As they evade capture,&nbsp;the two&nbsp;mustgrow to trust each other, but&nbsp;Aella soon discovers that she&rsquo;s not the only one keeping secrets, and the truth only complicates their already fragile pursuit of freedom. &nbsp;

With Aella accused of treason, her best friend,&nbsp;Nyssa, is under suspicion as an accomplice. Disguised as a servant in the Southern Kingdom&rsquo;s palace, her sole aim is to find Aella and ensure her best friend&rsquo;s safety. But between the upcoming Empyrieos Games,&nbsp;the threat of discovery,&nbsp;and a reluctant&nbsp;alliance&nbsp;with Aella&rsquo;s brother, Prince Kallias, risk waits around every corner.

As both women fight to survive against the dangerous political power of the Southern Kingdom, the Aviary, and the Prince of Eretria, the two must also claim their identities and destinies in a world that seeks to define them.

Autorentext

Braidee Otto

Klappentext

Princess Aella and her best friend, Nyssa, the most wanted fugitives in the Empyrieos, must defy all odds to survive and reunite in this exhilarating, highly anticipated sequel to Songbird of the Sorrows.

Spy. Princess. Songbird. Traitor.

Aella is on the run. After freeing a mysterious prisoner from the Aviary, the spy order she once swore loyalty to, Aella has no choice but to flee with him. The pair form an uneasy alliance: She’ll help him evade capture if he teaches her to harness her unruly magic—magic she hopes will allow her to return to Nyssa and keep them both safe. As the two traverse cities, forests, and mountains, Aella finds herself drawn to the very man whose mere survival could cost her everything—and discovers his secrets may rival her own.

Nyssa, meanwhile, is trapped. Suspected of aiding Aella’s betrayal of the Aviary, she’s forced into hiding—disguising herself as a servant in the Southern Kingdom’s palace under the care of its condescending, petulant prince. The only thing Nyssa and Prince Kallias have in common is their desperation to protect Aella, but between the upcoming Empyrieos Games, the constant threat of discovery, and the palace’s ever-watchful eyes, Nyssa has no choice but to trust him.

Both unsure if the other is still alive, Aella and Nyssa fight to survive amid a manhunt across the realm. To those in control, their capture is a crucial move in the game of power, but they underestimate the storm brewing inside Aella—and the devastation it will bring.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Nyssa

When someone vanishes in the Aviary, you don’t ask questions. You keep your head down, your mouth shut, and pretend they never existed. It’s just one of the many prices we pay as members of the Sorrows’s secret order—one of the countless rules we are bound to follow.

But this time, it’s Aella that’s missing, and they’ll have to pry her memory from my cold, dead hands.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Gods know I’ve been accused of dramatics before. But she’s late.

Two hours late.

I’ve already imagined six different ways she could have been captured—at least one involving a canal and her tragically crooked sense of direction when she’s brooding.

My hand tightens around the rectangular pendant I found on my desk when I arrived back at my room earlier this evening, the sharp corners digging into my flesh. I recognized it instantly as one from Aella’s collection, even before I saw the note beneath it.

If I’m not back soon, use these years of my life to live your own.

There was no signature, but I didn’t need one to know it was from Aella. Nor did I need to be clever to grasp her intent. When I flipped the pendant over, my breath snagged at the unmistakable markings etched into the back of the bronze.

A goiteía charm.

The charm itself isn’t rare; plenty use goiteía marks to harness the soul magic gifted to our kind by the gods, willing to trade seasons of their lives to imbue objects with power. But the realization that Aella had carved the marks herself was alarming—she’s always despised this kind of magic.

I toss the pendant on the desk, and it clatters down beside the note and the candle that has melted down to a flickering bud. A weary breath slips free as I sink onto the edge of my bed and attempt to corral my racing thoughts.

The door groans open.

My heart hammers in my throat, and I reach for the dagger beneath my pillow. The panic ebbs as a familiar figure steps into the candle’s waning glow.

Shadows shift in the hollows of Myna’s face, and my stomach knots as sharp thorns of unease prickle beneath my skin. There’s a raw scrape on her cheekbone, dark mottled bruises blooming along the edge of her jaw, and her right arm is cradled in a sling.

“Myna?” My grip eases from the dagger as the sight of her sends a jolt of shock through me. “What happened?”

“Xan took her.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head, trying to clear the fog clouding my thoughts and make sense of those three simple words. “You’re wrong. She saved him. Why would he—”

“Sparrow.” Her eyes soften with a look I can only describe as pity, and my knees threaten to give out. “A Songbird saw it happen. And the Eagle knows.”

I’m on my feet so quickly the bedframe screeches and the room seems to tilt.

If the leader of the Aviary himself, Lord Amon Malis—the Eagle—knows of Aella’s betrayal already, she’ll hardly stand a chance. She left to help Xan escape only a few hours ago. And the Eagle’s reach is everywhere. His Songbirds, spies tucked beneath every eave, whisper songs and secrets into his ear, and his punishments are delivered on swift, night-drenched wings. I’ve witnessed the consequences of defiance. I’ve heard the screams lingering long after the bodies disappear.

My throat tightens. “So what’s the plan? Wait here until he drags me to the dungeons?” As Aella’s closest confidante, I’ll be under equal suspicion now.

“You run.” Myna’s jaw is set with determination. There’s a slight tremble in her hands, but unlike me, she’s moving forward. She’s thinking. Scheming. “If you leave now, you have a chance.”

Her words only cause my thoughts to scatter further, colliding and splintering in every direction. One name emerges through the chaos, and I latch on to the clarity it brings.

Lucaz.

“I have to find my brother.” For so long, we were all each other had, until we arrived at the Aviary and met other orphaned children like us—until I found Aella. Lucaz has always been my South Star, steady when the sky won’t…