You asked for Touraine and Luca BOTH on the cover and...well, you can never say I don't deliver.

I mean, would you look at that? Just look at it!

Give it up for Tommy Arnold and Lauren Panepinto, everybody.

The last book in a trilogy with covers as stunning as The Unbroken and The Faithless needed to go out with a bang. And as hard as it will be to follow the absolute foaming madness you guys went into when you saw Luca's manspread (tweets here and here), I think we managed to end on a banger. What do you think?

It's my great pleasure to give you one last look at Touraine and Luca on the cover of The Sovereign, and don't forget to preorder for Sept. 30 (US/UK). Keep reading for a peek at the first chapter, and then don't forget to check out the illustrated broadside of it that I commissioned a year ago from well_dipper.

Luca is the new queen of Balladaire. Her empire is already splintering in her hands. Her uncle wasn’t the only traitor in the court, and the Withering will decimate her people if she can’t unearth Balladaire’s magic. The only person who can help her wants the only thing Luca won’t give—the end of the monarchy.

Touraine is Luca’s general. She has everything she ever wanted. While Luca looks within Balladaire’s borders, Touraine looks outward—the alliance with Qazal is brittle and Balladaire’s neighbors are ready to pounce on its new weakness. When the army comes, led by none other than Touraine’s old lover, Touraine must face the truth about herself—and the empire she once called home.

A storm is coming. Touraine and Luca will stand against it together, or it will tear them apart once and for all.

Chapter One

Glass

Touraine and Sabine stood behind the queen of Balladaire as she knelt on the half-frozen earth before the Royal Oak. Her cane lay on the ground at her side. She held a small gold casket between trembling gloved hands, and poured some of the dark grains of ash directly into a hole in the earth.

Thick banks of snow were heaped against the rose hedges to clear the paths. The air felt just as thick, sound muffled so even the wind in the bare branches overhead was muted.

Touraine shivered. They had been standing there for a long time.

Luca lowered the casket with the rest of Gil’s ashes into the grave. Her breath caught and she stopped with her hand above the pile of dirt and snow that would have covered all Luca had left of the man she’d loved most. Luca didn’t move but for the jerking hitch of her shoulders.

Touraine shared a look with Sabine. The marquise’s eyes were red. Touraine scrubbed her own tears from her cheek and knelt at Luca’s side. She felt Sabine drop to Luca’s other, and together, they held her.

Their touch sapped the last wall holding Luca together. She collapsed into them, burying her face in Touraine’s coat.

Around them, the guards kept their silent vigil, ensuring no one would interrupt the queen’s mourning.

They let Luca stay there until her shudders became shivers and her teeth chattered, less grief than cold. Then they helped Luca scoop the earth down onto the little gleaming casket. The metal was cold and beautiful, etched in the curling oak leaves decorating so much of the palace. Words marked the sides, but Touraine couldn’t make them out before Luca buried it completely.

Slowly, Touraine and Sabine helped Luca to her feet.

“Thank you.” Luca dabbed at her face with the back of one gloved hand and turned toward the palace.

They followed her in silence until Touraine asked, “Are your mother and father buried there, too?”

Luca shook her head, a single sharp twist, her mouth tight. “It was thought unwise to keep the ashes of the plague dead.”

A few moments later, though, softer, she added: “He would have liked that, though. To be buried with them. I wish—” Her voice broke. “I wish he could have been. That they’d all—” Luca huffed and shook her head. She didn’t speak again.

At the door to Luca’s chambers, they stood awkwardly together.

“If you’d like, we could play a game of échecs?” Sabine ventured a wry smile, though her eyes were still red. “Trouncing me might cheer you up. Or tarot?”

Touraine smiled. For days, Sabine had been trying to get them to play a version of tarot that involved taking off their clothes. She hadn’t succeeded yet. Luca only ever nodded, said all right, and then—

“There’s too much work to be done. I have to write to the lords on the southern coast about ships, and then make sure the Beau-Sang seneschal has the estate under control until Aliez de Beau-Sang returns from Qazāl. If she ever returns. And then—”

“I understand,” Sabine cut in softly, but heavy with disappointment.

“I’m sorry I cannot entertain you.” Luca’s tart voice was ragged at the edges. She raked her hand through her hair and closed her eyes. Her lids were puffy with weeping and shadowed blue with exhaustion. She looked like Touraine felt.

Sabine flinched, then looked at Touraine for help, but Touraine didn’t know what she was meant to do. She shrugged apologetically. “Luca’s right.”

Touraine couldn’t relax either. Not with fear riding her shoulder. Since Luca had told her about the Withering two days ago, Touraine couldn’t stop herself from imagining the disease stealing through the city and into her body, sucking her strength away. The havoc it would wreak just as Luca was settling into her rule. Not to mention the questions Luca had asked her.

Will you be my general? Will you be my wife?

One question Touraine had answered. One she had not.

Pruett’s letter still burned in the back of Touraine’s mind also, unanswered.

“Then I’ll go.” Sabine dipped a curt version of her flourishing bow. “I’m sure I would only be a distraction.”

“Sabine—”

“Don’t go—”

Sabine waved her hand dismissively and clicked her tongue. “No, no. I’ll leave you to it. But the world won’t fall if you spend a single day to care for your own happiness. Good day, Your Majesty. Your Excellency.”

Luca sighed and entered her rooms. She sat at the small table where she and Touraine ate together or played échecs. Right now, it was strewn with papers. Missives, requests, accountings. She buried her head in her hands, letting her hair curtain over her face.

“She doesn’t understand.”

Touraine let her shoulders sag and her head fall back. On the ceiling, more fine swirls of oak leaves, curled in plaster along the borders of it, weaving in and out of carved vines. She pressed her palms to her eyes to stave off her headache. “Maybe she’s right.”

For the last two days, Touraine and Luca had locked themselves here, in bed or at the desk, hashing out worst-cases and best-cases for the country. They’d seen only what sun came through the window, and most of the time they kept it closed against the midwinter cold. Breakfast plates would remain on the table hours later because Luca had asked not to be disturbed. Today, though, they’d taken a respite, if only for sorrow.

On cue, Touraine’s stomach growled so loudly that Luca startled. She blinked owlishly at Touraine. The smallest hint of a smile tugged at her mouth. Then Luca’s own stomach growled even louder.

“All right.” Luca pinched the bridge of her nose. “All right. Our baser natures have spoken.”

“Shall I ask for food to be brought up?” Touraine walked to the bell pull to call the lunch service back in. Or—early dinner, more like.

It wasn’t hard to get used to someone else delivering her meals; she’d rarely cooked as a Sand. What differed was the choice. The flavor. Having it brought directly to her and served at her leisure until she was satisfied. Even with fears of poison at the back of her mind, Touraine had filled out these past months, regaining muscle and softening her sharpest edges. Luxury.

The last few days, though, she’d barely tasted it at all, if she even had an appetite.

She knew what Pruett would say, if she could see the rich food, the fine wool clothing lined in silk, the eiderdown bed stuffing and goose feather pillows.

Luca didn’t seem to be listening. She stared, unfocused, over the table.

“She is right. At least a little. I’m sorry that you’re here now. While I’m like this, I mean.” She met Touraine’s eyes. “There are so many things I’d like to show you. The art in the palace, all the sculptures, the theater— Have you ever been to a play? An opera?”

Touraine shook her head, an eyebrow raised. “You know I haven’t.”

“I wish I could take you, or even hire performers.” Luca’s face fell. “It’s just that…”

“You’re afraid.”

Luca’s face went pink.

“I understand,” Touraine said quickly. “It’s not wise.” To make themselves a target in the Queen’s Box at the Théâtre Royal, or to invite strangers into the palace. Fili Guérin, who Luca called “the Rose,” was still at large, along with the rest of the Fingers. A little fun wasn’t worth the risk, no matter what Sabine said.

Luca chewed on her bottom lip.

Touraine narrowed her eyes. “What?”

By now, she knew this expression, the moment of a conflict Luca hadn’t quite worked out—usually when she knew what she wanted, but knew it wasn’t the right answer.

“We could go out anylight.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Luca seized the idea like a terrier and dug her heels in. The fervor ate up her grief. “We can. Not obviously, of course. But it’s winter. We’ll be so covered up no one will recognize us.”

“Covered up in…these?” Touraine held up the edge of her cloak on her shoulders, showing off the fine embroidery, the rabbit fur lining.

Luca ducked her head from side to side. “Adile can find us something to help us blend in.”

There was a determined light in Luca’s eyes, and Touraine wasn’t sure it was excitement alone. There was something manic about the way she began stacking all her papers together. Occasionally, she even glanced back toward the door, as if looking for Sabine. Luca wanted to prove something.

She always wanted to prove something.

Touraine sputtered a wordless protest, and Luca stopped striding around the room. She curled an arm around Touraine’s waist and slipped behind her, resting her head on Touraine’s shoulder and kissing her once on the neck.

“Come with me,” she whispered.

Touraine took a shaky breath. “This is a bad idea.”

“All the best ones are.”

“You sound like Sabine. We could stay here, instead. I’ll make it worth it.” She tightened Luca’s arm about her, dug her nails in.

She felt the minute shake of Luca’s head against her cheek. “We’ll be careful.”

There was no changing Luca’s mind now. Touraine sighed and sank into Luca’s embrace. The warmth of it. The ease. A brave person might even call it happiness.

It couldn’t last.

#

This wouldn’t last.

The warmth of Touraine’s hand in hers. The wonderment in Touraine’s eyes as she watched the street performers act out a tale from the Chevaliers des Fruits for the first time, while snowflakes caught upon her long lashes.

Even the laughter of her people as they enjoyed the show. Soon, they would know what she knew, and it would all crumble around them.

Luca shouldn’t have let Sabine’s words prick her like she did, but she was glad they had come out. She didn’t want to spend the day locked up with the ache in her heart. Still, she kept her plain scarf pulled high on her cheeks, and her coat was simple enough to belong to a merchant. Touraine stood out a little more, as a Qazāli with golden eyes, but—as Touraine tilted her head back and crinkled those eyes in laughter, Luca couldn’t quite bring herself to care. The risk was worth it.

They slipped away at the end of the show, and Luca saw Deniaud and Mareau, also in plain clothes, peel away from their posts and follow along at a discreet distance. Luca didn’t have her cane with its sword today; instead, she used a crutch. It would help to differentiate herself from the queen with her cane, but, and she hated to admit it to herself, she was relying on the aids more than she used to. The crutch was more supportive.

They stopped at a stand for piping-hot crêpes filled with preserves and cream. It wasn’t the kind of thing the palace kitchen served. Luca moaned as she ate it and caught Touraine’s mischievous look. Luca couldn’t help it: she laughed. Holding the rest of the crêpe in front of her face and trying to keep her food in her mouth, she laughed. Touraine laughed, too, and they might have been nothing more and nothing less than two women in love in the days before the world ended.

Because this would not last.

But Luca could try to make it last as long as she could. She was queen. She could do that much.

#

Touraine shivered pleasantly with cold as she and Luca left the stables. There’d been no incident while they were in the city, though her neck had prickled and she’d tried not to glance over her shoulder too often. She had her own pair of guards now, to shadow her around like Deniaud and Mareau. She trusted them well enough, but she didn’t trust anyone over her own senses and instincts.

Whenever this ended, whatever it was, she didn’t want it to be because of a knife in the back.

Still, Touraine had enjoyed the street show, and the crêpe after, and even the small cup of drinking chocolate, though it was still too sweet for her taste. It made her think of Ghadin with a sharp twist of guilt. She would visit the girl tomorrow, maybe. She had a lot to explain to her, including the upcoming marriage—

Icy wet thudded into Touraine’s back. She ducked, rolling out of position and onto her knees, reaching for the knife hidden in her boot.

Several paces behind her, Luca hiked her arm back to throw a ball of snow, while Deniaud prepared another with her usual devoted concentration.

Touraine shouted in outrage and scooped up her own handful. The snow trickled in her bare hands, but it was sticky and easy to press into shape. She launched it and grinned; it would hit true—then Mareau jumped in front of Luca, taking the blow in the chest.

“That’s cheating!” Touraine looked to her own guards, fanned out behind her. One of them raised a dubious eyebrow. His name was Aubrille. “Cover me.”

Aubrille’s mouth fell open as if he were going to protest, but Baudriel grinned. She was younger, and eager. “Yes, Your Excellency.”

Touraine ran for Luca and her tiny army, ducking under a wild throw from Luca, dodging a more precise one from Deniaud. Before Deniaud loosed her second volley, she was hit by one of Touraine’s guards and fell to the ground in surrender. Luca backed away, holding her empty hand in front of her, bent over with laughter.

Touraine almost skidded to a stop at the sight. The queen of Balladaire, giggling. The split grin on that usually condescending mouth, the haughty glare now flushed with exertion and the bite of the wind. It made Touraine’s chest too full to take a proper breath.

She didn’t stop, though. She crashed into Luca, scooping her up and barreling her into the pile of snow the groundskeepers had shoveled aside. Luca squealed—Queen Luca Ancier fucking squealed—while Touraine peppered kisses all over her face.

Then they sobered and the real world threatened to smother them, held off only by the thick snow and the cold. The heat between them made it easy to ignore a little longer. Luca pored over Touraine, her mouth parted with their heavy breathing, a cloud of mist. Touraine kissed her slowly, pressing her deeper into the snowbank.

Luca smiled against Touraine’s mouth. “You know, we have a bed. And a fire.”

And so they went inside the palace, to bed and fire and all the other warmth between them.

#

Luca dreamed of it ending. She dreamed of it ending often these days. She dreamed of Touraine in Le Fontinard, arrested by Luca’s own soldiers. She dreamed of burning Touraine on the plague fires, as she’d burned her parents. She dreamed of holding a knife to Touraine’s throat until a deep red line split the skin while Touraine begged her, please don’t. In the dream, Luca tried to pull back, but her arms were leaden.

Luca jerked awake. She sensed the emptiness of the bed immediately, but reached with grasping fingers regardless. The other side of the bed was still warm.

“Touraine?”

“I’m here.” Touraine’s voice came from the window, quick and soothing.

Luca rolled over in the bed to watch her. Her strong profile was shadowed against the light of the moon reflecting on the snow. Luca admired the sleek play of the Shālan robe against Touraine’s broad back and the curve of her backside, at odds with the twisting agony of her dreams. Touraine was here, alive. This was real. Her sigh of relief was loud in the silent night.

“Bad dreams?”

“Yes.” Luca went to Touraine, digging her toes into the soft rug, avoiding the bare patches of stone. The fire had died down to its coals, but the room still had enough of its heat that Luca didn’t flinch—too much—at the air on her naked body. “You?”

Touraine chuckled darkly and turned, sweeping Luca in close. Luca buried her nose in Touraine’s neck and inhaled. She smelled so good. Of sex and sweat and the last lingering of a smoky cologne.

“Aye. What this time?”

The truth caught in Luca’s throat. How did you tell the woman you were sleeping with that you dreamed of killing her? With a history like theirs, with a possible future like theirs—it was better to keep some secrets.

“Him,” Luca lied. Which him she meant, it was hard to say. Gil. Nicolas. Her father. Sky above, poor Tiro, even, or Bastien. It wasn’t much of a lie. They all haunted her nights. Just not every night. Just not tonight.

“I’m sorry,” Touraine murmured into Luca’s hair.

“Don’t apologize.” Luca squeezed Touraine’s hip. More honestly, she said, “Every morning I wake up and think, this is only the beginning. There will be more pyres soon, and it’s my job to fix it.” She felt herself winding up again and dispelled the building pressure with a sigh and a shake of her head. “What woke you?”

Touraine turned back to the window, her chest rising against Luca with each deep breath. The night outside was dark, but the spillage of light from La Chaise made the horizon glow as if it were sunrise. Luca wished she could set her life to this steady rhythm.

“I dreamed about my soldiers. The war—the Taargen War. The rebellion.” She sounded as if it were nothing, but Luca felt the tension Touraine held between her shoulder blades.

She rubbed the spot until it relaxed. When Touraine regarded Luca, though, her dark brows were knit with worry.

“We should tell Aranen and the High Court tomorrow. I’ll send word to Qazāl. We just have to decide when.”

Luca hesitated. “It will be winter festival soon. People are always looking for omens winter will end soon—not that they would admit it aloud.”

Touraine snorted. “Uncivilized.”

“Mm. We could be that good omen. A reason to celebrate before…”

“It’s fine.” Not dismissive, quite, but unbothered.

“And the other matter?” Luca pushed.

“General of Balladaire’s armies.” Touraine’s voice was husky and low. “You want to make another Cantic out of me.”

“Not a Blood General.”

“Is there any other kind?”

The question caught Luca off guard, her mouth hanging open. She grew serious. “Everything and everyone is threatening my throne. I need you to help me keep it.” She searched Touraine’s face steadily, grave as an oathtaking.

Touraine sat with that gravity a moment, then smiled sadly. “It’s what I always wanted.”

Luca pulled back. “It’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

Instead of elaborating, Touraine swept her hands up Luca’s waist and to her breasts as she pulled her into a kiss, deep and hungry for answers. For certainty. As if she’d find it in Luca, when Luca was lost in a fog herself.

They were rulers. They couldn’t afford uncertainty.

Luca hiked Touraine’s robe up to her hips and backed her against the windowsill. Touraine gasped beneath her touch.

#

Touraine dreamed of it ending.

She’d lied to Luca.

She hadn’t dreamed of soldiers. She’d dreamed of a scaffold in Qazāl, a warm breeze across the back of her neck. Dry dust from the east swirling with the damp river air from the west. Grit beneath her boots and the raucous sound of voices cheering.

Pruett was at the lever, as she had been when Beau-Sang was executed, as she had been when they killed the rebels that first day in Qazāl. Only, it was Luca’s neck that Touraine tightened the noose around. Pruett smiled. And then, in the fucked-up way of dreams, it was Touraine’s hand on the lever, pulling it, at the same time as she watched Luca drop right in front of her, her neck snapping.

Naked and still breathless with pleasure, Touraine fought sleep. Tried to remember this feeling, right here.

Instead, she thumbed her grief rings and thought guiltily of Pruett while Luca breathed peacefully, curled into Touraine’s side.

Touraine and Pruett hadn’t always been lovers. They hadn’t even always been friends. They first time they’d fucked had been right before they marched off to fight the Taargens. Fear of the fighting to come, frustrated helplessness that they had no control over their lives, and all the pent-up sexual tension of their forced proximity, bursting like a blister.

Touraine hadn’t told Luca everything in Pruett’s letter. Pruett wanted Touraine to join her. To help her lead Masridān. A place of their own, for the Sands, where no one would look down on them.

She didn’t need to tell Luca that because she wasn’t going to leave Balladaire, not after the promises she’d made to Luca and the Qazāli.

Moonlight spilled lovingly over Luca’s skin, subtle light, blurred light. Touraine stroked the short hairs curling around Luca’s ears. Luca’s mouth, pinched and condescending, was slack. She was soft now, like this. All her rigidity gone for this one secret moment.

It was so fragile, this thing between them.

Fragile and beautiful and stained with blood.

How could it possibly last?

Preorder The Sovereign for release Sept 30, 2025 (US/UK) and add it to your Goodreads. Stay tuned for a future post going into detail about the cover process.

If you need something to keep you occupied until then, or if you are new here and need to catch up, check out my other books and my short stories. There's also the Gay Brunch AU and the NSFW We Mow Lawns AU. If you're all caught up on my work, don't worry; I'll have some new recs for you soon.

(And while you’re at it, preorder Fate’s Bane for release Sept 30, 2025 (US/UK) and add it on Goodreads, too. Make the last day of September your favorite day. 😏)

Stay sharp, my friends.

C. L.