Cruel Crown

Cruel Crown is a collection of two prequel novellas set in the world of Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen series. Both take place in the kingdom of Norta, where Silvers, people with supernatural abilities and silver-colored blood, rule over Reds, ordinary people with red blood who serve as laborers and conscripted soldiers in a century-long war against the neighboring Lakelands.

Queen Song

The first novella traces the life of Coriane Jacos through her private diary. Coriane is a 15-year-old Silver noble from the impoverished House Jacos. Her older brother, Julian, gives her a blank diary on her birthday, and she fills it with her deepest thoughts. Coriane is a singer, possessing the ability to influence others through her voice, though her skill is untrained. She secretly prefers tinkering with machines, a passion her father, Harrus, considers beneath a noble daughter. Her dearest friend, Sara Skonos, a healer, has begun a romance with Julian, deepening Coriane's isolation. An elderly cousin, Jessamine, insists Coriane must marry well to save the family's fading name.

When Coriane's uncle dies, the family inherits his lordship and relocates to the capital, Archeon. At the funeral banquet, Elara Merandus, a young noblewoman with the ability to read minds, invades Coriane's thoughts and taunts her telepathically. Fleeing into a courtyard garden, Coriane encounters Crown Prince Tiberias, drinking alone. They share wine and conversation, and the prince, amused by her candor, advises her to fight back against Elara. Over the following weeks, Coriane and the prince, whom she calls Tibe, meet regularly. Tibe introduces her to Prince Robert of House Iral, the king's paramour, who welcomes her warmly. Sara warns Coriane that the court has noticed her closeness with the prince. Coriane refuses to hope, insisting a prince bound to Queenstrial, the traditional competition in which Silver women display their abilities for the right to marry the heir, would never choose her.

Months pass with no Queenstrial announcement, and gossips speculate Coriane bewitched the prince with her singer ability. Harrus exploits his daughter's elevated status with reckless spending. Julian, Tibe, and Robert shield Coriane from the worst gossip, but her diary reveals she knows more than she lets on. Recurring nightmares plague her: of a shrinking gilded birdcage, of Elara's ice-blue eyes watching her destruction. Tibe proposes, and Coriane accepts, though she writes that she does not deserve him. As a condition of bypassing Queenstrial, all of her future children must submit to political marriages.

As queen, Coriane's world narrows with loss. King Tiberias V dies of cancer, and Prince Robert wastes away after him. She marks their deaths with entirely black diary pages, a tradition she continues for Jessamine, Harrus, and three miscarriages, each preceded by violent nightmares. Pregnant for a fourth time, she tells no one, fearing Elara is responsible. At the Parting Ball, she uses her singer ability to place Elara in a trance and interrogates her. Elara denies involvement with the nightmares, revealing she last interfered with Coriane's mind on the wedding day. Coriane is shattered: Her spiraling thoughts have been entirely her own. Alone on the balcony, she fights the urge to jump.

Coriane gives birth to a son she nicknames Cal, who becomes the center of her world. She vows he will not become a soldier-king. Despite Cal's presence, her mental state deteriorates. She stops sleeping, unable to face nightmares of Cal dying in battle. Her final entries shift from first to second person, addressing herself as a separate entity. She writes that she is "nothing" and repeats, "The only person in my head is me" (53). The next morning, a maid finds Coriane's bridal crown broken on the floor, smeared with dried silver blood. The bathwater is black with it. Coriane is dead. Only Elara finds the diary, reads its pages, and destroys the book, just as she destroys Coriane. The novella ends: "And she dreamed of nothing" (54).

Steel Scars

The second novella follows Captain Farley (code name Lamb), an officer of the Scarlet Guard, a Red underground resistance movement. After an operation in the Lakelands, Farley receives her first independent command: Operation Red Web, tasked with infiltrating Norta's smuggling networks, particularly the Whistle black market ring. Her commanding officer, the Colonel (code name Ram), receives a separate mission. The Guard's chain of command is compartmentalized, with code names and strict secrecy to prevent Silver mind readers from unraveling the network.

In Harbor Bay, Norta, Farley and her lieutenant, Tristan, meet Boss Egan, head of the Mariners, a Red smuggling operation. Farley secures Egan's agreement to run transport and introduce the Guard to the wider Whistle network. Working up the Capital River, she contacts operatives willing to move Red assets out of danger.

Near Corvium, the Nortan military fortress closest to the front, Farley meets Red army contacts: Corporal Eastree and Shade Barrow, a sharp-tongued 19-year-old officer's aide. She gathers intelligence over several weeks. When Command orders her to move on, Farley defies the order, convinced Corvium is too vital to abandon: Every Red soldier sent to die passes through its gates. She lies to her team, claiming Command approved their continued presence.

Shade smuggles Farley inside Corvium through means she cannot explain, seemingly transporting her instantaneously into tunnels beneath the fortress. In the supply city of Rocasta, the Colonel tracks Farley down and confronts her about her disobedience. Farley's narration reveals the Colonel is her father, and she resents him for the cost his life imposed on their family: Her mother and sister, Madeline, did not survive. The Colonel relents, agreeing to petition Command for a dedicated Corvium team.

When Silver hunters discover Farley's base, she orders her team to scatter. Shade grabs Farley, and they appear instantaneously in a distant streambed. When Shade vanishes and reappears across the stream, Farley draws her gun, believing he is Silver. Shade insists he is Red, and when Farley cuts his arm, his blood runs red. He cannot explain what he is: Red-blooded but possessing a Silver-like ability to teleport. Farley grasps the strategic value and asks him to oath himself to the Guard. He agrees on one condition: He wants her real name. Farley tells him it is Diana, and together they speak the Guard's creed.

Farley resumes operations, and the Archeon bombing, the Scarlet Guard's public debut, sends shockwaves through Norta. In the Stilts, a riverside village also known as Albanus, Farley meets Will, the local Whistle fence, and negotiates his help with the removal network. Shade's younger sister, Mare Barrow, arrives at Will's wagon seeking help escaping conscription. Farley names an impossible price but privately intends to help as repayment for Shade's service. When Shade radios that he has been transferred to the front lines under suspicious circumstances, Farley arranges his extraction.

In Rocasta's market, Farley and Shade watch a broken video screen showing the Queenstrial broadcast. Mare falls into the arena, is struck by lightning, and survives, revealing abilities despite her Red blood. Shade is terrified for his sister, now trapped among Silvers. Farley promises Mare will not be left alone. A final communiqué reports the launch of Operation Lightning, which plants Mare as the Guard's contact inside the royal summer palace. Shade's leverage as her brother proves instrumental, and the events of Red Queen are set in motion.