Return to The Five Queendoms series with the final book in this “ambitious and engaging” (Rebecca Roanhorse) epic fantasy trilogy, in which a centuries-long peace is shattered in a matriarchal society when a decade passes without a single girl being born. While a fragile peace has begun to settle across the Five Queendoms of the known world, trouble brews beneath the smooth façade. The first gate between the Underlands, where Eresh rules over the shades of the dead, has already been opened—and the scheming shade of a dead sorcerer has evil plans he hopes to unleash on the world. In the world Above, the Scorpicae struggle to find a path forward in defeat, the embattled regent of Paxim gets more than she bargained for, and a young woman who barely survived the Sun Rites finds herself the indispensable right hand of a priest-queen whose sanity appears to be slipping away. As living women across the Queendoms take desperate action to stay alive, and dead women plot to regain what they’ve lost, the time for the next Sun Rites nears. When five queens gather in the Holy City of Sestia for the most important ritual of their lives, who will be left standing? G.R. Macallister, author of the Five Queendoms series, beginning with Scorpica , and also writes bestselling historical fiction under the name Greer Macallister. Her novels have been optioned for film and television. A regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books , she lives with her family in Washington, DC. Chapter 1: Priest CHAPTER 1 PRIEST Autumn, the All-Mother’s Year 501 The Holy City, Sestia Concordia Every twenty years, the Xaras who ruled Sestia cast lots to find their successors, looking to the Holy One to show Her hand in the casting. Five girls were chosen: one to reign, three to serve in wisdom, and one, at the right moment, to die. But like any ritual in any queendom, the system did not always proceed exactly as planned. Of the five girls chosen by lottery to serve the Holy One in the All-Mother’s Year 480, only two remained twenty-one years later: the High Xara Concordia and the Xara Veritas. Now, one held the life of the other in her hands. The High Xara Concordia remembered well the first time she’d met the future Veritas. She’d been a slip of a girl, all elbows and knees. Concordia herself had been a sturdy child, thinning as she aged, while Veritas filled out and rounded. The rule was that when girls were brought to the capital to enter service, they left their childhood names behind. But on that first day, as they mounted the steps of the Edifice, the stern-faced old Xara Victrix turned her back on the girls. When she did, the one who would become Veritas whispered her name hastily into the other girl’s ear, Norah , and too stunned to do anything else, the future Concordia traded her whispered name in return, Olivi . For a long time after, the future Concordia broke no rules. She had been a devoted rule follower before she’d been taken from her family to join the class of future Xaras, a natural choice for the role. She threw herself into learning all that the Xaras had to teach her. But as one descended more deeply into centuries of sprawling Sestian edicts, statutes, and regulations, one couldn’t help but stumble over the occasional paradox—exactly the situation in which the High Xara Concordia found herself now. While the penalty for deserting the God’s most sacred tenet was death, the law also stated clearly that killing any Xara was forbidden, no matter how grave her sins. When young Concordia irreverently pointed out to the Xara Victrix two rules in conflict and asked her which she would follow, the older woman first slapped her for speaking out of turn, then smiled. “You will learn, child,” said Victrix, “that most laws are like green saplings. They can be bent a great deal without breaking.” The Xara Victrix had been neither a good person nor a good servant to her god, thought Concordia, but she was also rarely wrong. Today Concordia would decide how to bend. In a situation much like this, a few reigns ago, the High Xara Necessitas had ordered a disobedient Xara paraded to the tombs, handed a lamp and three apples, and sealed inside. The older stories were only rumor, but Concordia knew those, too. They said one sinning Xara was buried up to her neck in the dirt at a busy crossroads. A Xara who neglected the sacred flame was forced to lie down upon the hearth and sing hymns while the fire was rebuilt atop her body, then lit. They were the most powerful women in the nation, but precise laws constrained their behavior. Veritas had broken the most important law. Consequences must follow. The only choice was what shape those consequences would take. “My queen,” came a familiar tenor voice from behind her. The High Xara turned from the window. “Xelander.” Her servant bowed his head, clasping his hands delicately in front of his narrow waist, which was cinched with a wide deco